Romain Rolland

“ There is no pleasure like the accurate hand, the clever big fingers which can turn out the most fragile works of art, no pleasure like the thought which rules over the forces of the world, and writes the ordered caprices of its rich imagination on wood, iron, and stone. I am king of a magic realm; my field yields me its flesh, my vine its blood, and to serve my art the elves of the sap push out the fair limbs of the trees, lengthen and fatten them until they are polished fit for my caresses. ”

“ Own up now, you would not have known me if you had met me in the street?"
"I would have known you anywhere out of all the women in the world, with my eyes shut."
"Perhaps so, but if they were open? I have lost teeth, my cheeks have fallen in, I have red eyes, and a sharp nose; while as for my throat and all the rest of it, I am nothing but an old meal sack, and that's the truth!"
"In my eyes you are always young."
"You must be blind, then."
"No, Belette, my sight at least is as keen as ever. Do you remember? ”

“ Then there was silence for a few moments.—Each had his own special way of drinking, Paillard smacked his lips, looked at his glass inside and out, held it up to the light, tasted the wine and swallowed it down little by little, taking it in through his nose and his eyes as much as by his palate. Chamaille threw the wine into his big throat at one gulp. “Ha!” he would say as he felt it going down, rolling up his eyes to Heaven. As for me, I enjoyed both drink and drinkers; the more I looked at them the happier I felt. What can be more delightful than to taste two pleasures at once? ”

“ If I have faith in sorcery, I like also to think of this earth hanging in the clouds, and I should love to have my fingers on all the springs that move the world.—What joy to listen to the bright-eyed planets, and watch the man in the moon.—'Silly talk!' say you, who are all for rule and order, but let me tell you, these things are to be had at a price only, and a high one. To be orderly means not to follow one's own will, but that of others; it means to cut down the tall trees that the highroad may run straight;—convenient if you will, but ugly as the devil. ”

“ It was many a long day since I had set eyes on Céline, or "Belette" as they called her, and the chances were that her saucy face would be changed out of knowledge. Ah! Belette, I am not afraid of you now! Those little teeth of yours can no longer hurt this poor old dried-up heart! Perhaps the teeth are gone too? I can see them now, and hear your charming laughter! What a fool she did make of you, Breugnon; you were a mere toy in those hands of hers; but, after all, why not? if she could get some fun out of such a country blockhead as I was then. ”

“ What is the use of sulking because everything does not come your way? The more you sulk, the less you get. I do not suppose that the Duke, the King, or even God Himself, has all the desire of his heart; ought I to groan and struggle, because I cannot exceed the limits set for me? Should I even be better off if I could get outside of them? No, no, I have nothing to complain of in this world, and I mean to stay here as long as I possibly can. Suppose that I had never been born? I really cannot bear to think of a world without Breugnon, or what is perhaps even worse, Breugnon without the world! ”

“ We need the world, or the world needs us, I was never quite sure which; but at all events we always hold on till the last gasp, draining every drop of the cup, and when it is empty, we can fill it up again from our bounteous hillsides. No native of Burgundy is in a hurry to die; but when it comes to suffering, we can bear it as well as the best.
Well, for as much as six months, I was deucedly unhappy; but time flows along, and sweeps our sorrows away with it. Now that it is all over, I can find consolation, but oh, my Belette! ”

“ If I had been just then the simple Breugnon of everyday life, I should have tried to save the poor screaming wretches, but when a man is in authority, he must think of nothing outside of his duty; compassion at that crisis would have been sheer weakness. I knew that the safety of the city hung on the defeat of these brigands, for if they had escaped they would have outnumbered our small forces, and with the fear of the gallows before their eyes, would have fought to desperation. No, there was now nothing for it but to smoke the wasps out of their nest. ”

“ Let them fight, then, if it likes them, I am out of the game;—that is if they will let me alone, but that is just what the rascals will not do. If I will not be the enemy of one of them they will both set on me, so between two fires I must be hit. Here goes then! I will get to fighting myself, for I would rather on the whole be first anvil and then hammer, than anvil all the time. I wish some one would tell me why such brutes came into the world? marauders, politicians, great nobles, who bleed our France while they blow her trumpet and stick their fingers in her pocket. ”

“ Among all the new friends in Plutarch, I could see in my mind's eye this old one, as good as any of the rest of them, dividing his long cloak with his sword, as his legend tells us."How could I forget St. Martin?" cried I.
"I don't know indeed," said Martine, "except that these days you don't seem to remember anything in earth or Heaven but that stupid book of yours."
This made me laugh, for I had often noticed that she cast a malevolent eye on old Plutarch when she came in the morning and found him in my bed; women seldom have a real love for books; they see in them either lovers or rivals. ”

“ It is pleasant enough to dream, but still better to pin one’s dreams down to paper! However, I am no visionary, but wide-awake, full of fun and clear-sighted, with no idle fancies in my head. I only tell what I have seen, done, and said; and for whom do I write? Certainly not for fame; for I am no fool, and know what I amount to, the Lord be praised!
I write for my grandchildren? Little will be left of all my scribblings in ten years, as the old woman is jealous of them, and burns whatever she can lay hands on. ”

“ The robin, the linnet, and my special favorite, the thrush, sang as if to bursting. — I like Master Thrush because he does not care for any weather, is the first to begin singing, and the last to stop, and like me, is always in a good humor. — They had all passed safely through the dangers of the night, which darkens their little lives every twenty-four hours, but as soon as the curtain begins to rise, and the first ray of dawn puts fresh color into life — Twee-ee, twee, twee, twee, tweet! with what sweet cries and transports of joy they greet the new day. ”

“ Let the wheat ripen or die, it does not matter, for my eyes are fixed, not on the past, but on the future, and when the day comes, as it will, when none are left to me of all my members, when the sight of my eyes is dimmed, and my hands have lost their cunning, then when that time comes, Colas, you will have ceased to be. Is it possible to imagine a Breugnon, who cannot work or feel, who does not laugh or spring from the ground with both feet at once? ”

“ All this naturally was extremely consoling to me, — as if it was not bad enough to be in my miserable condition, without being told that I was a fool into the bargain. Martine and her husband, and all my friends and neighbors seemed to have agreed among themselves to harp on the same string whenever they came to see me, while I had to lie and listen to it all, like a helpless wild creature caught in a trap; until I lost all patience one day, when even my little Glodie began to sing the same tune: "You were a naughty Grandad to climb up ladders!" ”

“ I am not one of those old men who are always grumbling and complaining of the present day, and predicting disaster; I know that the world will outlast my time, and that the young know their own business as well as ever their fathers did. Yes, but the old have a hard part to play where all around them is change and renewal; they must alter too or there is no room for them, and that is precisely what I do not want to do. I prefer to sit here in my chair just as I am; the only thing I am willing to change is my mind, and only that when it is absolutely necessary. ”

“ Now that you are dead, great Cyrus and Alexander, how near you both seem to me; do I dream? or are they really there? I pinch myself to find out if I am awake, yes, there on the table by my side are two coins which I dug up in my vineyard last year, with the profiles of bearded Commodus dressed as Hercules, and Crispina Augusta, with her heavy chin and her shrewish nose. — "This is no dream," say I; "for here is Rome between my thumb and forefinger."
My greatest pleasure was to lose myself in reflections on moral issues; to raise once more, questions long settled by force ”

“ They say all is known beforehand, and I can well believe it, but I must confess that I have never had much luck in predicting the future until after the event. Dear old Paillard fairly shone with joy when he saw me, and the house shook with our peals of laughter. I love the very sight of him. He is a little man, inclined to stoutness; his broad face is pockmarked, his nose red, and his little eyes dance with cunning. He is always growling and complaining of everything and everybody, but at bottom good-natured and full of fun, and more of a joker really than I am myself. ”

“ Chamaille was standing at his garden gate purple with rage, and he too was screaming and shaking his fist in the faces of his parishioners. All this was perfectly unintelligible to us, for we could only catch a word here and there in the midst of the tumult of voices. “Caterpillars,—locusts,—field-mice,—cum Spiritu tuo!” Here Chamaille’s voice struck in. “No! nothing shall induce me to go!” Retort from the crowd, “Devil take it, are you our vicar or not? You know that you are, and it is your duty to work for us.” ”

“ What pride, what joy to be a Clamecyan! and I believe it, by Heavens! so I sat there furtively drawing Delavau's nose, and the curate's long arms which he flaps about when he speaks, and we talked about our good town;—a place where I was born must have merit,—besides, all human plants flourish here, they are not thorny and spiteful, even if their tongues are somewhat long and sharp at the end. No one is the worse for a little gossip, particularly if you get as good as you send; at bottom you love your neighbor as yourself, and would not hurt a hair of his head. ”

“ What does all this matter, Breugnon? What to you are the glories of Rome, and the crimes and follies of these old rascals? You have your own faults and troubles to think of, why go out of your way to worry over those of people who have been dead and gone for eighteen hundred years? To a sober middle-class citizen of Clamecy, Cæsar, Antony, and their light-o’-love, Cleopatra, these Persian princes who murdered their sons and married their daughters, were extremely depraved people; the most virtuous thing they ever did was to die ”