Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician by Alexandre Dumas
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE OLD BOTANIST.
On the trunk of a tree overthrown by a storm in Meudon Woods a man wasseated.
Under his grizzled wig he showed a mild and shrewd visage. His browncoat was of good cloth, as were his breeches; and his gray waistcoatwas worked on the flaps. His gray cotton stockings imprisoned well-madeand muscular legs; his buckled shoes, though dusty in patches, had beenwashed at the top by the morning dews.
Near him, on the trunk, was a green box, open and stuffed with freshlygathered plants. Between his legs he held a cane with a crutch handle,ending in a sort of pick.
He was eating a piece of bread, and tossing crumbs to the wild birds,which flew down on the pieces and took them off to their nooks withjoyful peeps.
Suddenly he heard hurried steps, and seeing on looking up, a young manwith disquieting aspect, he rose. He buttoned up his coat and closedhis overcoat above it.
His air was so calming that the intruder on his peace came to a stopand doffed his hat.
It was Gilbert. Gilbert, much the worse for his roaming the woodsthrough the night since he had fled from Luciennes in order not to losehis freedom.
Remarking this sudden timidity, the old man appeared to be put at easeby it.
"Do you want to speak to me, my friend?" he asked, smiling, and layingthe piece of bread on the tree.
"Yes, for I see that you are throwing away bread on the birds as thoughit were not written that the Lord provides for the sparrows."
"The Lord provides," returned the old gentleman, "no doubt, young man;but the hand of man is one of the means. You are wrong if you saidthat as a reproach, for never is cast-away bread--in the desert or onthe crowded street--lost to living creatures. Here, the birds get it;there, the beggars."
"Though this be the wilds, I know of a man who wants to dispute thatbread with the birds," said Gilbert, though struck by the soft andpenetrating voice of the stranger.
"Are you the man--and are you hungered?"
"Sharply so, and if you would allow----"
With eager compassion the gentleman took up the crust, but, suddenlyreflecting, he scrutinized Gilbert with a quick yet profound glance.
Gilbert was not so like a starving man that the meditation waswarranted. His dress was decent, though earth-stained in places. Hislinen was white, for he had at Versailles, on the previous evening,changed his shirt out of his parcel; but from its dampness, it wasvisible that he had slept in the woods. In all this and his white andtaper hands, the man of vague reverie was revealed rather than the hardworker.
Not wanting for tact, Gilbert understood the distrust and hesitation ofthe stranger in respect to him, and hastened to annul conjectures whichmight be unfavorable.
"After twelve hours, hunger begins, and I have eaten nothing forfour-and-twenty," he observed.
The truth of the words was supported by his emotion, the quaver of hisvoice and the pallor of his face. The old gentleman therefore ceasedto waver, or rather to fear. He held out not only the bread, but ahandkerchief in which he was carrying cherries.
"I thank you," said Gilbert, repulsing the fruit gently; "only thebread, which is ample."
Breaking the crust in two, he took one portion and pushed back theother. Then he sat on the grass, a yard or two away from the oldgentlemen, who viewed him with increasing wonder. The meal did not lastlong, as the bread was scant and Gilbert hungry. With no words did theobserver trouble him, but continued his mute and furtive examinationwhile apparently only attending to his plants and flowers in the box.
But seeing that Gilbert was going to drink at a pool, he quickly calledout:
"Do not drink that water, young man. It is infected by the detritusof the plants dead last year and by the frog-spawn swimming on thesurface. You had better take some cherries, as they will quench thirstbetter than water. I invite you to partake as I see you are not animportunate guest."
"It is true, sir; importunity is the opposite of my nature. I fearnothing so much as being importunate, as I have just been proving atVersailles."
"Oh! so you come from Versailles?" queried the stranger, looking hardat him. "A rich place, where only the proud or the poor die of want."
"I am both, sir."
"Have you quarreled with your master?"
"I have no master."
"That is a very lofty answer," said the other, putting away the plantsin the box, while regarding the young man.
"Still it is exact."
"No, young man, for everybody has a master here, as we all sufferthe domination of a higher power. Some are ruled by men, some byprinciples: and the sternest masters are not always those who order orstrike with the human voice or hand."
"I confess I am ruled by principles," replied Gilbert. "They are theonly masters which the mind may acknowledge without shame."
"Oh, those are your principles, are they? You seem very young to haveany settled principles."
"I am young but I have studied, or rather read a little in such worksas 'On the Inequality of Classes,' and 'The Social Contract;' out ofthem comes all my knowledge, and perhaps all my dreams."
These words kindled a flame in the hearer's eyes; he so started that hebroke a flower rebellious to being packed away.
"These may not be your principles, but they are Rousseau's."
"Dry stuff for a youth," said the other; "sad matter for contemplationat twenty years of age; a dry and scentless flower for imagination inthe springtide of life."
"Misfortune ripens a man unseasonably, sir."
"As you study the philosopher of Geneva, do you make a personalallusion there?"
"I do not know anything about him," rejoined Gilbert, candidly.
"Know, young man, that he is an unhappy creature." With a sigh he saidit.
"Impossible! Jean Jacques Rousseau unhappy? Is there no justice abovemore than on earth? The man unhappy who has consecrated his life to thewelfare of the race."
"I plainly see that you do not know him; so let us rather speak ofyourself. Whither are you going?"
"To Paris. Do you belong there?"
"So far as I am living there, but I was not born in it. Why thequestion?"
"It is attached to the subject we were talking of; if you live inParis, you may have seen the Philosopher Rousseau."
"Oh, yes, I have seen him."
"He is looked at as he passes along--they point to him as thebenefactor of humanity?"
"No; the children follow him, and, encouraged by their parents, throwstones at him."
"Gracious! still he has the consolation of being rich," said Gilbert,with painful stupefaction.
"Like yourself, he often wonders where the next meal is coming from."
"But, though poor, he is powerful, respected and well considered?"
"He does not know of a night, in lying down, that he will not wake inthe Bastille."
"How he must hate men!"
"He neither loves not hates them: they fill him with disgust, that isall."
"I do not understand how he can not hate those who ill use him,"exclaimed Gilbert.
"Rousseau has always been free, and strong enough to rely on himself.Strength and liberty make men meek and good; it is only weakness andslavery which create the wicked."
"I guessed this as you explain it; and that is why I wished to befree." I see that we agree on one point, our liking for Rousseau.
"Speak for yourself, young man: youth is the season for illusions."
"Nay; one may be deceived upon things, but not on men."
"Alas, you will learn by and by, that it is men particularly about whomdeception is easiest. Perhaps Rousseau is a little fairer than othermen; but he has his faults, and great ones."
Gilbert shook his head, but the stranger continued to treat him withthe same favor, though he was so uncivil.
"You said you had no master?"
"None, though it dwelt with me to have a most illustrious one; but Irefused on the condition that I should make the amusement of nob
"This was right," said the stranger gravely; "but have you determinedon a career?"
"I should like to be a physician."
"A grand and noble career, where one may decide between true science,modest and martyr-like, and quackery, impudent, rich and bloated. Ifyou love truth, young man, be a doctor. If you love popular applause,be a doctor."
"I am afraid it will cost a lot of money to study, although Rousseaulearned for nothing."
"Nothing? oh, young man," said the plant-collector, with amournful smile, "do you call nothing the most precious of heavenlyblessings--candor, health and sleep? That was the price the Genevianseeker of wisdom paid for the little he knows."
"Little! when he is a great musical composer!"
"Pooh, because the king sings 'I have lost my servant,' that does notprove 'The Village Sorcerer' to be a good opera."
"He is a noted botanist!"
"An herb-gatherer, very humble and ignorant amid the marvels known asplants and flowers."
"He is a Latin scholar, for I read that he had translated Tacitus."
"Bah, because in his conceit he wanted to be master of all crafts. ButTacitus, who is a rough antagonist to wrestle with, tired him. No,no, my good young man, in spite of your admiration, there are no moreAdmirable Crichtons, and what man gains in breadth he loses in depth.Rousseau is a superficial man whose surface is a trifle wider than mostmen's, that is all."
"Many would like to attain his mark," said the youth.
"Do you slur at me?" asked the stranger with a good nature disarmingGilbert.
"God forbid, for it is too much pleasure to chat for me to disobligeyou. You draw me out and I am amazed at the language I am using, forI only picked it out of books, which I did not clearly follow. I haveread too much, but I will read again with care. But I forget that whileyour talk is valuable to me, mine only wastes your time, for you areherb-gathering."
"No," said the botanist, fixing his gray eyes on the youth, who madea move to go but wanted to be detained. "My box is clearly full and Ionly want certain mosses; I heard that capillary grows round here."
"Stay, I saw some yonder."
"How do you know capillarys?"
"I was born on the woodland; the daughter of the nobleman on whoseestate I was reared, liked botany; she had a collection and the objectshad their names on labels attached. I noticed that what she calledcapillary was called by us rustics maidenhair fern."
"So you took a taste for botany?"
"It was this way. I sometimes heard Nicole--she is the maid toMademoiselle Andrea de Taverney--say that her mistress wanted such andsuch a plant for her herbarium, so I asked her to get a sketch of them,and I searched in the woods till I raked them up. Then I transplantedthem where she must find them, and used to hear the lady, in taking herwalk, cry out: 'How odd! here is the very thing I was looking for!'"
The old gentleman looked with more heed and it made Gilbert lower hiseyes blushing, for the interest had tenderness in it.
"Continue to study botany, which leads as a flowery path to medicine.Paris has free schools, and I suppose your folks will supply yourmaintenance."
"I have no relations, but I can earn my living at some trade."
"Yes, Rousseau says in his 'Emile,' that every one should learn a tradeeven though he were a prince's son."
"I have not read that book, but I have heard Baron Taverney mock at themaxim, and pretend grief at not having made his son a joiner. Instead,he made him a soldier, so that he will dismember instead of joining."
"Yes, these nobles bring their sons up to kill and not to nourish. Whenrevolution comes, they will be forced to beg their bread abroad or selltheir sword to the foreigners, which is more shameful. But you are notnoble, and you have a craft?"
"No, I have a horror for rough toil; but give me a study and see how Iwill wear out night and day in my tasks."
"You have been to school, if not to college?"
"I know but to read and write," said Gilbert, shaking his head. "Mymother taught me to read, for seeing me slight in physique, she said,'You will never be a good workman, but must try to be priest orscholar. Learn to read, Gilbert, and you will not have to split wood,guide the plow or hew stone.' Unhappily my mother died before I couldmore than read, so I taught myself writing. First I traced letters onsand with a sharp stick till I found that the letters used in writingwere not those of print, which I was copying. Hence I hope to meet someone who will need my pen, a blind man who will need my eyes, or a dumbywho needs my tongue."
"You appear to have willingness and courage; but do you know what itwill cost you to live in town?--at least three times what it did in thecountry."
"Well, suppose I have shelter and for rest after toil, I can shift onsix cents a day."
"That is the right talk. I like this kind of man," said the plantcollector. "Come with me to Paris and I will find you an independentprofession by which you may live."
"Oh, my friend," exclaimed Gilbert, intoxicated with delight. "I acceptyour offer and I am grateful. But what will I have to do in yourcompany?"
"Nothing but toil. But you will mete out the amount of your work. Youwill exercise your right of youth, freedom, happiness and even ofidleness after you earn the right to be at leisure," added the unnamedbenefactor, smiling as though in spite of his will.
Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he ejaculated: "Oh, youth, vigor andliberty!" with an inexpressibly poetical melancholy spreading over hisfine, pure lineaments.
"Now, lead me to the spot where the maidenhair is to be found," he said.
Gilbert stepped out before the old gentleman and the pair disappearedin the underwood.