THE UNKNOWN LAND

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 303, 20 December 1922, Page 11

THE UNKNOWN LAND

By Anatole France i ■ ' * ■■ ••■■■■>• ■■-■■■■■

Elyery; morning - after v breakfast Melanie, dressed herself carefully in her, little attic room, drawing on her -shining/ flat-soled ..boots, tying, itie strings of (her, country bonnet before the'. Slass and pinning round her sliQuldera Itep; little black shawl.. She performed ', these' rites with all the 'pain's thiat-ma'rk; ; the respect , of the artist for his trork. She considered- it. right that the human person should he* 'rendered decent, respectable and worthy of its divine origin, and She did not leave anything to chance. It was not until she was satisfied that all the proprieties of her age, her sex and her station were duly observed that she would take mc by the hand and, locking the door behind her, lead mc downstairs tq ; the hall, where she. invariably turned ..with an exclamation, and hurried up again for her bag which she had once more forgotten. She never dreamed of going ■" out of doors without this red velvet bag, which held her everlasting knitting, her scissors, .her needle and cotton, r.nd had even been known on occasion to furnish a rag to tie yip my cut finger. In ibis bag, too, sire kept a sou witli a hole in it, one of my milk teeth and , her address written on a piece of paper in case she should die suddenly in the street. . . .

If we turned to the. left when we got down to the quay, we- said good morning to Madame Pettitt, who sold spectacles and sat or-tside her shop window bolt upright en:her wooden chair, her face tanned by sun t\id wind, looking very stern, ''~,,-■ .

The two women exchanges a remarks or two which hardly ever varied,, probably because they were drawn from deep and urnnrtable sources. They talked of children who had whoopingcoughor croup, of the mysterious ailments of the-::: female friends, of the, daily accidents of the street, of how dear things were getting, and how. people scorned io be growing wickeder and more -dishonest every day. I found later wheft I came to read Hesiod that the dame who sold spectacles by the quayside thought and spoke exactly like- the platitudinous old poots of Greece.

All this wisdom did not interest mc, .however, and I kept pulling at my old nurse's .skirts to come avray.

But if, on the other hand, Aye turned to the right, I used to want to stop before the pictures which Madame Leiro-d had spread out in front of the hoarding thai; surrounded -a , piece of building iand. The.se engravings filled mc- with admiration, and even the passacv , . of. years lias not altogether obliterated the .se'ii.sation.s which ''The Creation of Eve," "The Death of Virginia." or "The Mountain Like a Man's Head , ' caused mc. But old Melanie would! not wait, either because she did not think mc old enough to look at them, or because, more probably, she

saw nothing in them to look at. Anyhow, she took no move notice of them than did our little dog.-

"We would go perhaps to the Tuilerics. perhaps to the Luxembourg; but the beat days "were (hose vvheii sun took mc to play in the garden oi' a largv empty house in the'•■ Rue .Saint Domioie to which"we Mere allowed access by its' absent, owner.. To this screen', deserted place, planted with groat tree.*, I would bring my -wood.hi spade avid, digging around the roots hi the rajli-softened earth, would form the ravines and precipices proper to .my games, bridging them with the smooth, bark:.obligingly shed for my use bythe plane trees, planting forests and avetuiespf fallen branches or tall weeds along.their slopes and building bark houses-and .'.churches In - their valleys. And my work would seemto mc very good. ■ -. These excursions in the streets, and suburbs sometimes bored and sometimes * amused mc. We seemed to cover vast distances, passing, from country to country. Some of these, lands were empty and wearisome enough; some gay and populous with shops full of caktes and sweets and kitef| and tin whistles, with horses in carriages and horses that turned round and round with theatres whore prodigious actors fought witty the devil. But; there was one. counjti'y which I longed to.Aisir more than! all the others, and though sometimcß I was just oh the point, of steppins across its borders, I could never quite re'aeh ir.. I knew nothing about this- country except that. L should certainly.: know it when.l. got there.;.; I-did not injagine It, to J)ettej.;,.or niore,beauUful th.an , the...other .'countries, .but' eojupet.ajy- i-na, I vyante ; d it more \ than 'ail the .;;est. ; kr t c» ardently. hoped to discover it. ' '■ ' This world that I fen to be ao near yet iiiacecssible was not' the•- HappyLaud of'Svhicli'l had fceon told by my mother, I never fcl; a moment confused the spiritual world with the sensible and earthly one. To mc there was nothing mysterious about that world? I knew all about God and Jesus ; and his Blessed Mother and the

thfedevils .aixd: the lost sottli-s. I exactly what tl;?y all loo&eifl like, [i^Hit^Wt^-i fi£*g'es ■ of the» :feyery.where. ,Ko, tiic worl.d that aWoffto in -nie-ise. Kee^i''a; : <itino.siJ:yi.. i the w<M?l"d -of which I' dreanigd. ißcessantlyfiwas an 3,a,/i,isl;;-aecret, silent*ttdfsofiibre; a land m \vhicti I had orily-'fo think 1 ; to' be} tilii^Q -a But short fa carry mc there libti tlibi:i:h I. J

at .her'"'slnrtsj yb&ixld : ..niy old MCiariie ever, be persuaded to take mc far-enough. Still;T neVpi' gave rip hope: I ; believed that I^inyk'i?iie-/day- vreach the 1 and of : my desire ; .arffl 01 my dread. At certain' moments, iii' , certain places -I felt that It was/.onlylk fewsteps away, and when .th£ •7,'Htehed Melanie would turn to go bacli just a moment too soon I used to pv.il her. fiercely towards the mysterious frontiers till her skirts nearly gare way under the strain and she -ivas at her wits' end to know whether Haughtiness or mental deficiency yras ; the explanation of my unaccountable behaviour. For I could nevermalke her understand what I' wanted, I never found words to cry to her,' ;, One step more and we shall enter the imlviioAvn land." The esperience has'been common enoirgh since then,: however; often enough have 1 had.j'to suppress the clespairinrg cry of my soul for its unattainable desires. ■ .

Although I had'in my mind- no map of this unknown land, I .seemed to recognise certain-spots at-w-hic-h-'its "■confines seemed to touch ours. Not so far from home, either, wera those imaginary marches; how I recognised them I don't know, unless by- their strangeness, their disquieting eliarm. ■By the curiosity mixed-with that they, inspired in nae. On* of those points that I , could- never pass was marked by two-houses different from the others round them. . Twx? stone houses behind an iron gate, dark" and unhappy-looking with a frieze running across their fronts between chipped escutcheons. And it was. hi reality, if not the- barrier of the sensible world, at. least one of the barriers of Paris-—the Place d'Enfer. ' In' the Tuileries, again, there is under a terrace by a fountain, a certain cava in which lies a white figure, a sleeping lady with a serpent, twined round her arm.. I suspected that this cave communicated with the. unknown world, but in order to get in one had to lift a heavy stone. In ihe cellar at home, too, there was a door that moved mc strangely; it was just like other celj lar ddoi'fv the. lock was rusty and the-re -were little creeping creatures on the threshold and in the cracks of its mouldering wood but, unlike other doors, it. never opened. That is always the way. with the floors.of- mystery; they riev.er open. Even In the room where I slept there'was something strange, something that took on ■a form—not, not a form, a shadow-— no, not even a. shadow,; an influence that held nre prostrate and trembling, which could only'come from the iand that was so close at hand but which one never reached: Perhaps I hardly make myself clears for. the moment I am speaking to myself alone, find for once, I listen with interest and emotion. ...

Sometimes in despair of'ever finding my way to the unknown land I would try tor learn someihinii , of it by hoarsay, ©ire tiay 'wtieii Melanie was knitting on a bench in the Luxembourg I asked; it: she-km^y , ; what was in thb ciive'■where the white lady with the serpent -lay, or boliind , the door that nobody ever opened. She tlidn't stem to know what I meant —"And the two houses'with the stone ladies' on .-'the wall, what is it ■like when you have past them , ?" But I could gevno answer: so I tried another, line. -"■• "Melanie, tell-me a story about the unknown laird.''••■". : \ : "But dear in». Master Peter." said Melaiiie, smilingly, "how-- , could I know a story about. ;ah unknown land?" And when r I-jM;cai.ne..-j.mnoa'tunatv rfio -took Hie: on-lipr lap •and.told mc to lie a good bqy and sh« would '.sing a 30ns to mc. .; . . ' Ah, w'-ell, life has served -mc -very, much-'as Melanie did! •jl am still the child -asking' his nurse/, what 'she nan:-, not tell. I drag my lengthening chain of yeaa-s^behind.mo without.giving up my search tor , the unknovv;n;. -In.all"my jouriieyhigs I seek it 'still. But my seareliis- in yairi, ono,..cau,;never .i>,D.d more Ulan is in cne .sjelf, i./The , warid* for oft "us.is contaiaied in ourselves.- iAs"i'or the.-unjvhprwn land that I sought, I was riAht .when I. was little toithink thiit it was just.beside mc.The unknown does, indeed; surronnd us for 1 it is., all. that is outside of, us. ,4]P.):l -si.uce.. w.e.foan never get outside ' ours el yes : ,; we ?ha 11 never,;, a'e ver reach it.',.. ■"•'»' : :':'..'l, .>';;■■ J w"-,r : ■