The Beggar

He had seen better days,

despite his present misery
and infirmities.
At the age of fifteen both his
legs had been crushed by a
carriage on the Varville
highway. From that time forth
he begged, dragging himself
along the roads and through
the farmyards, supported by
crutches which forced his
shoulders up to his ears. His
head looked as if it were
squeezed in between two
mountains.
A foundling, picked up out of a
ditch by the priest of Les
Billettes on the eve of All
Saints' Day and baptized, for
that reason, Nicholas
Toussaint, reared by charity,
utterly without education,
crippled in consequence of
having drunk several glasses
of brandy given him by the
baker (such a funny story!)
and a vagabond all his life
afterward--the only thing he
knew how to do was to hold
out his hand for alms.
At one time the Baroness
d'Avary allowed him to sleep
in a kind of recess spread
with straw, close to the
poultry yard in the farm
adjoining the chateau, and if
he was in great need he was
sure of getting a glass of
cider and a crust of bread in
the kitchen. Moreover, the old
lady often threw him a few
pennies from her window. But
she was dead now.
In the villages people gave
him scarcely anything--he was
too well known. Everybody
had grown tired of seeing him,
day after day for forty years,
dragging his deformed and
tattered person from door to
door on his wooden crutches.
But he could not make up his
mind to go elsewhere,
because he knew no place on
earth but this particular
corner of the country, these
three or four villages where
he had spent the whole of his
miserable existence. He had
limited his begging operations
and would not for worlds have
passed his accustomed
bounds.
He did not even know whether
the world extended for any
distance beyond the trees
which had always bounded
his vision. He did not ask
himself the question. And
when the peasants, tired of
constantly meeting him in
their fields or along their
lanes, exclaimed: "Why don't
you go to other villages
instead of always limping
about here?" he did not
answer, but slunk away,
possessed with a vague dread
of the unknown--the dread of
a poor wretch who fears
confusedly a thousand
things--new faces, taunts,
insults, the suspicious
glances of people who do not
know him and the policemen
walking in couples on the
roads. These last he always
instinctively avoided, taking
refuge in the bushes or behind
heaps of stones when he saw
them coming.
When he perceived them in
the distance, 'With uniforms
gleaming in the sun, he was
suddenly possessed with
unwonted agility--the agility of
a wild animal seeking its lair.
He threw aside his crutches,
fell to the ground like a limp
rag, made himself as small as
possible and crouched like a
bare under cover, his tattered
vestments blending in hue
with the earth on which he
cowered.
He had never had any trouble
with the police, but the
instinct to avoid them was in
his blood. He seemed to have
inherited it from the parents
he had never known.
He had no refuge, no roof for
his head, no shelter of any
kind. In summer he slept out
of doors and in winter he
showed remarkable skill in
slipping unperceived into
barns and stables. He always
decamped before his
presence could be
discovered. He knew all the
holes through which one
could creep into farm
buildings, and the handling of
his crutches having made his
arms surprisingly muscular he
often hauled himself up
through sheer strength of
wrist into hay-lofts, where he
sometimes remained for four
or five days at a time,
provided he had collected a
sufficient store of food
beforehand.
He lived like the beasts of the
field. He was in the midst of
men, yet knew no one, loved
no one, exciting in the breasts
of the peasants only a sort of
careless contempt and
smoldering hostility. They
nicknamed him "Bell,"
because he hung between his
two crutches like a church
bell between its supports.
For two days he had eaten
nothing. No one gave him
anything now. Every one's
patience was exhausted.
Women shouted to him from
their doorsteps when they
saw him coming:
"Be off with you, you good-for-
nothing vagabond! Why, I gave
you a piece of bread only
three days ago!
And he turned on his crutches
to the next house, where he
was received in the same
fashion.
The women declared to one
another as they stood at their
doors:
"We can't feed that lazy brute
all the year round!"
And yet the "lazy brute"
needed food every day.
He had exhausted Saint-
Hilaire, Varville and Les
Billettes without getting a
single copper or so much as a
dry crust. His only hope was
in Tournolles, but to reach
this place he would have to
walk five miles along the
highroad, and he felt so weary
that he could hardly drag
himself another yard. His
stomach and his pocket were
equally empty, but he started
on his way.
It was December and a cold
wind blew over the fields and
whistled through the bare
branches of the trees; the
clouds careered madly across
the black, threatening sky.
The cripple dragged himself
slowly along, raising one
crutch after the other with a
painful effort, propping
himself on the one distorted
leg which remained to him.
Now and then he sat down
beside a ditch for a few
moments' rest. Hunger was
gnawing his vitals, and in his
confused, slow-working mind
he had only one idea-to eat-
but how this was to be
accomplished he did not
know. For three hours he
continued his painful journey.
Then at last the sight of the
trees of the village inspired
him with new energy.
The first peasant he met, and
of whom he asked alms,
replied:
"So it's you again, is it, you
old scamp? Shall I never be
rid of you?"
And "Bell" went on his way. At
every door he got nothing but
hard words. He made the
round of the whole village, but
received not a halfpenny for
his pains.
Then he visited the
neighboring farms, toiling
through the muddy land, so
exhausted that he could
hardly raise his crutches from
the ground. He met with the
same reception everywhere.
It was one of those cold,
bleak days, when the heart is
frozen and the temper
irritable, and hands do not
open either to give money or
food.
When he had visited all the
houses he knew, "Bell" sank
down in the corner of a ditch
running across Chiquet's
farmyard. Letting his crutches
slip to the ground, he
remained motionless, tortured
by hunger, but hardly
intelligent enough to realize
to the full his unutterable
misery.
He awaited he knew not what,
possessed with that vague
hope which persists in the
human heart in spite of
everything. He awaited in the
corner of the farmyard in the
biting December wind, some
mysterious aid from Heaven
or from men, without the least
idea whence it was to arrive.
A number of black hens ran
hither and thither, seeking
their food in the earth which
supports all living things. Ever
now and then they snapped
up in their beaks a grain of
corn or a tiny insect; then
they continued their slow,
sure search for nutriment.
"Bell" watched them at first
without thinking of anything.
Then a thought occurred
rather to his stomach than to
his mind--the thought that one
of those fowls would be good
to eat if it were cooked over a
fire of dead wood.
He did not reflect that he was
going to commit a theft. He
took up a stone which lay
within reach, and, being of
skillful aim, killed at the first
shot the fowl nearest to him.
The bird fell on its side,
flapping its wings. The others
fled wildly hither and thither,
and "Bell," picking up his
crutches, limped across to
where his victim lay.
Just as he reached the little
black body with its crimsoned
head he received a violent
blow in his back which made
him let go his hold of his
crutches and sent him flying
ten paces distant. And Farmer
Chiquet, beside himself with
rage, cuffed and kicked the
marauder with all the fury of a
plundered peasant as "Bell"
lay defenceless before him.
The farm hands came up also
and joined their master in
cuffing the lame beggar. Then
when they were tired of
beating him they carried him
off and shut him up in the
woodshed, while they went to
fetch the police.
"Bell," half dead, bleeding and
perishing with hunger, lay on
the floor. Evening came--then
night--then dawn. And still he
had not eaten.
About midday the police
arrived. They opened the door
of the woodshed with the
utmost precaution, fearing
resistance on the beggar's
part, for Farmer Chiquet
asserted that he had been
attacked by him and had had
great, difficulty in defending
himself.
The sergeant cried:
"Come, get up!"
But "Bell" could not move. He
did his best to raise himself
on his crutches, but without
success. The police, thinking
his weakness feigned, pulled
him up by main force and set
him between the crutches.
Fear seized him--his native
fear of a uniform, the fear of
the game in presence of the
sportsman, the fear of a
mouse for a cat-and by the
exercise of almost
superhuman effort he
succeeded in remaining
upright.
"Forward!" said the sergeant.
He walked. All the inmates of
the farm watched his
departure. The women shook
their fists at him the men
scoffed at and insulted him.
He was taken at last! Good
riddance! He went off
between his two guards. He
mustered sufficient energy--
the energy of despair--to drag
himself along until the
evening, too dazed to know
what was happening to him,
too frightened to understand.
People whom he met on the
road stopped to watch him go
by and peasants muttered:
"It's some thief or other."
Toward evening he reached
the country town. He had
never been so far before. He
did not realize in the least
what he was there for or what
was to become of him. All the
terrible and unexpected
events of the last two days,
all these unfamiliar faces and
houses struck dismay into his
heart.
He said not a word, having
nothing to say because he
understood nothing. Besides,
he had spoken to no one for
so many years past that he
had almost lost the use of his
tongue, and his thoughts were
too indeterminate to be put
into words.
He was shut up in the town
jail. It did not occur to the
police that he might need
food, and he was left alone
until the following day. But
when in the early morning
they came to examine him he
was found dead on the floor.
Such an astonishing thing!