V—IN FRANCE Jean Guettard

Who knows the name of Jean Guettard to-day? I wrestled with oblivion all night long. At times a curtain on a lighted stage Would lift a moment, and fall back again. Once, in the dark, a sunlit row of vines Gleamed through grey mists on his invisible hill. The mists rolled down. Then, like a miser, Night Caught the brief glory in her blind cloak anew. At dawn I heard the voice of Shadow-of-a-Leaf Breathing a quiet song. It seemed remote And yet was near, as when the listener’s heart Fills a cold shell with its remembered waves. “When I was young,” said Jean Guettard, “My comrades and myself would hide Beneath a tall and shadowy Rock In summer, on the mountain-side. The wind and rain had sculptured it— Such tricks the rain and wind will play,— To likeness of a Mother and Child; But wind and rain,” said Jean Guettard, “Have worn the rocks for many a day.” “The peasants in that quiet valley, Among their vineyards bending there, Called it the Rock of the Good Virgin, And breathed it many an evening prayer. When I grew up I left my home For dark Auvergne, to seek and know How all this wondrous world was made; And I have learned,” said Jean Guettard, “How rains can beat, and winds can blow.” “When I came home,” said Jean Guettard, “Not fifty years had fleeted by. I looked to see the Form I loved With arms outstretched against the sky. Flesh and blood as a wraith might go. This, at least, was enduring stone. I lifted heart and eyes aglow, Over the vines,” said Jean Guettard.... “The rain had beaten, the wind had blown, The hill was bare as the sky that day. Mother and Child from the height had gone. The wind and rain,” said Jean Guettard, “Had crumbled even the Rock away.” “Shadow-of-a-Leaf,” I whispered, for I saw The crosier of a fern against the grey; And, as the voice died, he stood dark before me. “You sang as though you loved him. Let the mists Unfold.” He smiled. “See, first, that Rock,” he said, “Dividing them.” At once, through drifting wreaths I saw a hill emerging, a green hill Clothed with the dying rainbow of those tears The mist had left there. From the rugged crest Slowly the last thin veils dissolved away. I saw the Rock upstanding on the height So closely, and so near me, that I knew Its kinship with the rocks of Fontainebleau; The sandstone whose red grains for many an age Had been laid down, under a vanished sea; A Rock, upthrust from darkness into light, By buried powers, as power upthrust it now In the strong soul, with those remembering hills, Till, graven by frost and beaten by wind and rain, It slowly assumed the semblance of that Form Of Love, the Mother, holding in her arms The Child of Earth and Heaven; a shape of stone; An image; but it was not made by hands. Footsteps drew near. I heard an eager voice Naming a flower in Latin. Up they came— Each with a bunch of wild flowers in his hand,— A lean old man, with snowy wind-blown hair, Panting a little; and, lightly at his side, Offering a strong young arm, a sun-burnt boy, Of eighteen years, with darkly shining eyes. It was those eyes, deep, scornful, tender, gay, Dark fires at which all falsehood must consume, That told me who they were—the young Guettard, And his old grandsire. Under the Rock they stood. “Good-bye. I’ll leave you here,” the old man said. “We’ve had good luck. These are fine specimens. The last, perhaps, that we shall find together; For when you leave your home to-morrow, Jean, I think you are going on a longer journey Even than you know. Perhaps, when you are famous, You will not be so proud as I should be, Were I still living, to recall the days When even I, the old apothecary, Could teach you something.” Jean caught a wrinkled hand, Held it between his own, and laughed away That shadow, but old Descurain looked at him, Proudly and sadly. “It will not rest with you, Or your affection, Jean. The world will see to it. The world that knows as much of you and me, As you and I of how that creeper grew Around your bedroom window.” As he spoke, Along the lower slopes the mists began To blow away like smoke. The patch of vines Crept out again; and, far below I saw, Sparkling with sun, the valley of the Juine, The shining river, and the small clear town Étampes, the grey old church, the clustering roofs, The cobbled square, the gardens, wet and bright With blots of colour. “I have lived my life Out of the world, down there,” Descurain said, “Compounding simples out of herbs and flowers; Reading my Virgil in the quiet evenings, Alone, for all those years; and, then, with you. O fortunatos—Do we ever know Our happiness till we lose it? You’ll remember Those Georgics—the great praise of Science, Jean! And that immortal picture of the bees! No doubt you have chosen rightly. For myself, I know, at least, where healing dittany grows, And where earth’s beauty hides in its dark heart An anodyne, at last, for all our pain. And one thing more I have learned, and see with awe On every side, more clearly, that on earth There’s not one stone, one leaf, one creeping thing, No; nor one act or thought, but plays its part In the universal drama. You’ll look back One day on this lost bee-like life of mine; And find, perhaps, in its obscurest hour And lowliest task, the moment when a light Began to dawn upon a child’s dark mind. The old pestle and mortar, and the shining jars, The smell of the grey bunches of dried herbs, The little bedroom over the market-square, The thrifty little house where you were born, The life that all earth’s great ones would despise— All these, perhaps, were needed, as the hand That led you, first, in childhood to the hills. You’ll see strange links, threads of effect and cause, In complicated patterns, growing clear And binding all these memories, each to each, And all in one; how one thing led to another, My simples to your love of plants and flowers, And this to your new interest in the haunts That please them best—the kinds of earth, the rocks, And minerals that determine where they grow, Foster them, or reject them. You’ll discover That all these indirections are not ruled By chance, but by dark predetermined laws. You’ll grope to find what Power, what Thought, what Will, Determined them; till, after many a year, At one swift clue, one new-found link, one touch, They are flooded with a new transfiguring light, Deep as the light our kneeling peasants know When, dumbly, at the ringing of a bell They adore the sacred elements; a light That shows all Nature, of which your life is part, Bound to that harmony which alone sets free; And every grain of dust upon its way As punctual to its purpose as a star. This Rock has played its part in many a life. We know it, for we see it every day. No angelus ever rang, but some one’s eyes Were lifted to it; and, returning home, The wanderer strains to see it from the road. What is it, then? It plays no greater part Than any grain of dust beneath our feet, Could we discern it. A dumb block of stone, A shadow in the mind, a thought of God, A little fragment of the eternal order, That postulates the whole. If we could see The universal Temple in which it stands We, too, should bow our heads; for if this Form Were shaped by Chance, it was the selfsame Chance That gave us love and death. In this the fool Descries a reason for denying all To which our peasants kneel. The years to come (And you will speed them, Jean) will rather make This dust the floor of heaven.” The old man laid His bunch of herbs and flowers below the Rock, Smiled, nodded, and went his way. “Was it by chance,” Thought Jean Guettard, “that grandad laid them so; Or by design; or by some vaster art Transcending, yet including, all our thoughts, And memories, with those flowers and that dumb stone, As chords in its world-music? Why should flowers Laid thus”—he laid his own at the feet of the Rock— “Transfigure it with such beauty that it stood Blessing him, from its arch of soft blue sky Above him, like a Figure in a shrine?” He touched its glistening grains. “I think that Ray Was right,” he murmured. “This was surely made Under the sea; sifted and drifted down From vanished hills and spread in level beds, Under deep waters; compressed by the sea’s weight; Upheaved again by fire; and now, once more, Wears down by way of the rain and brook and river, Back to the sea; but all by roads of law.” Then, looking round him furtively, to make sure No one was near, he dropped upon his knees. The mist closed over him. Rock and hill were lost In greyness once again.

Moments were years, Till, at the quiet whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf, Those veils withdrew, and showed another scene. I saw two dusty travellers, blithely walking With staffs and knapsacks, on a straight white road Lined with tall sentinel poplars as to await A king’s return; but scarce a bird took heed Of those two travel-stained wanderers—Jean Guettard And Malesherbes, his old school-friend. Larks might see Two wingless dots that crept along the road. The Duke rode by and saw two vagabonds With keenly searching eyes, as they jogged on To Moulins. Birds and Duke and horse could see, Against the sky, that old square prison-tower, The tall cathedral, the dark gabled roofs, Thronging together behind its moated wall; But not one eye in all that wide green land Saw what those two could see; and not one soul Espied the pilgrim thought upon its way To change the world for man. The pilgrim thought! Say rather the swift hunter, tracking down More subtly than an Indian the dark spoor Of his gigantic prey. I saw them halt Where, at the white road’s edge, a milestone rose Out of the long grass, like a strange black gnome, A gnome that had been dragged from his dark cave Under the mountains, and now stood there dumb, Striving to speak. But what? “There! There! Again!” Cried Jean Guettard. They stood and stared at it, But not to read as other travellers use How far themselves must journey. They knelt down And looked at it, and felt it with their hands. A farmer passed, and wondered were they mad. For, when they hailed him, and his tongue prepared To talk of that short cut across the fields Beside the mill-stream, they desired to know Whence the black milestone came. It was the fourth That they had passed since noon. He grinned at them. “Black stones?” he said, “you’ll find them all the way To Volvic now!” “To Volvic,” cried Guettard, “Volcani vicus!” They seized their staffs again; Halted at Moulins, only to break a crust Of bread and cheese, and drink one bottle of wine, Then hastened on, following the giant trail, Milestone by milestone, till the scent grew hot; For now they saw, in the wayside cottages, The black stone under the jasmine’s clustering stars; And children, at the half-doors, wondered why Those two strange travellers pushed the leaves away And tapped upon their walls. At last they saw, Black as a thundercloud anchored to its hill, Above the golden orchards of Limagne, The town of Riom. All its walls were black. Its turreted heights with leering gargoyles crawled Above them, like that fortress of old Night To which Childe Roland came. No slughorn’s note Challenged it, and they set no lance in rest, But dusty and lame, with strangely burning eyes, Those footpads, quietly as the ancient Word, Stole into that dark lair and sought their prey. Surely, they thought, the secret must be known To some that live, eat, sleep, in this grim den. Have they not guessed what monster lurks behind This blackness? In the chattering streets they saw The throng around the fruit-stalls, and the priest Entering the Sainte Chapelle. With eyes of stone The statue of that lover of liberty The chancellor, L’Hôpital, from his great dark throne Gazed, and saw less than the indifferent sparrow That perched upon his hand. Barefooted boys Ran shouting round the fountain in the square. It was no dream. Along the cobbled street, Clattering like ponies in their wooden shoes, Three girls went by with baskets full of apples. The princely butcher, standing at his door, Rosily breathing sawdust and fresh blood, Sleeked his moustache and rolled an amorous eye. It was no dream. They lived their light-winged lives In this prodigious fabric of black stone, Slept between walls of lava, drank their wine In taverns whose black walls had risen in fire; Prayed on the slag of the furnace; roofed their tombs With slabs of that slaked wrath; and saw no more Than any flock of birds that nightly roost On the still quivering Etna. It was late, Ere the two travellers found a wise old host Who knew the quarries where that stone was hewn; Too far for them that night. His inn could lodge them. A young roast fowl? Also he had a wine, The Duc de Berry, once.... Enough! they supped And talked. Gods, how they talked and questioned him,— The strangest guests his inn had ever seen. They wished to know the shape of all the hills Around those quarries. “There were many,” he said, “Shaped at the top like this.” He lifted up An old round-bellied wine-cup. At the word He wellnigh lost his guests. They leapt to their feet. They wished to pay their quittance and press on To see those hills. But, while they raved, the fowl Was laid before them, luscious, fragrant, brown. He pointed, speechless, to the gathering dusk, And poured their wine, and conquered. “The Bon Dieu Who made the sensual part of man be praised,” He said to his wife; “for if He had made a world Of pure philosophers, every tavern in France Might close its shutters, and take down its sign.” So Jean Guettard and Malesherbes stayed and supped; And, ere they slept, being restless, they went out And rambled through the sombre streets again. They passed that haunted palace of Auvergne, Brooding on its wild memories and grim birth; And from the Sainte Chapelle, uplifting all That monstrous darkness in one lean black spire To heaven, they heard an organ muttering low As though the stones once more were stirred to life By the deep soul within. Then, arched and tall, In the sheer blackness of that lava, shone One rich stained window, where the Mother stood, In gold and blue and crimson, with the Child. They looked at it as men who see the life And light of heaven through the Plutonian walls Of this material universe. They heard The young-voiced choir, in silver-throated peals, Filling the night with ecstasy. They stood Bareheaded in the dark deserted street, Outcasts from all that innocence within, And silent; till the last celestial cry, Like one great flight of angels, ebbed away.

At daybreak they pressed on. Strange hills arose Clustering before them, hills whose fragrant turf, Softer than velvet, hid what savage hearts! At noon they saw, beside the road, a gash Rending the sunlit skin of that green peace; An old abandoned quarry, half overgrown With ferns, and masked by boughs. They left the road And looked at it. Volcanic rock! A flood Of frozen lava! They marked its glossy blackness, the rough cords And wrinkles where, as the fiery waves congealed, It had crept on a little; and strangely there New beauty, like the smile on truth’s hard face, Gleamed on them. Never did bracken and hart’s tongue ferns Whisper a tale like those whose dauntless roots Were creviced in that grim rock. They tracked it up Through heather and thyme. They saw what human eyes Had seen for ages, yet had never seen,— The tall green hill, a great truncated cone, Robed in wild summer and haunted by the bee, But shaped like grey engravings that they knew Of Etna and Vesuvius. Near its crest They saw the sunlight on a shepherd’s crook, Bright as a star. A flock of nibbling sheep Flowed round it like a cloud, a rambling cloud With drifting edges that broke and formed again Before one small black barking speck that flew Swift as a bird about a cloud in heaven. Thyme underfoot, wild honey in the thyme; But, under the thyme and honey, if eyes could see, In every runnel and crevice and slip and patch, A powdery rubble of pumice, black and red, Flakes of cooled lava and stones congealed from fire. It was no dream. A butterfly spread its fans White, veined with green, on a rock of sunlit slag, Slag of the seething furnaces below. They reached the summit; and, under them, beheld The hollow cup, the crater, whence that flood Out of the dreadful molten heart of the earth Poured in red fury to create Auvergne. But now, instead of smoke and fire, they saw Red of the heather in that deep grassy hollow, And heard, instead of the hissing of the abyss, The small grey locust, stridulent in the sun. They came to Clermont. All its dark old streets Were built of lava. By the Place de Jaude, O, strangely in their own swift race for truth, They met the phantom of an earlier fire! They found the house where Pascal first beheld The sunlight, through a window in lava-stone; And many a time had passed, a brooding child, With all his deep celestial thoughts to come, Through that volcanic porch, but never saw The wonder of the walls wherein he slept. They saw, through mists, as I through mists discerned Their own strange drama, that scene within the scene. They climbed the very hill that Pascal made A beacon-height of truth—the Puy de Dôme, Where Florin Périer, at his bidding, took His tubes of soft quicksilver; and, at the base, And, at the summit, tested, proved, and weighed The pressure of that lovely body of light, Our globe-engirdling air. On one swift hint, One flash of truth that Torricelli caught From Galileo, and Pascal caught in turn, He weighed that glory. Ever the drama grew. The vital fire, in yet more intricate ways (As life itself, enkindling point by point In the dark formless embryo, grows to power), Coursed on, from mind to mind, each working out Its separate purpose, yet all linked in one. For those two pilgrims, on the cone-shaped hill That Pascal knew, and yet had never known, Met his great spirit among the scoriac flakes, And found themselves, in vision, on that pure height Where all the paths to truth shall one day meet. They met his brooding spirit as they climbed. They passed the dead man’s words from mouth to mouth, With new significance, deeper and more strange Even than they knew. “We are on fire to explore The universe, and build our tower of truth Into the Infinite. Then the firm earth laughs, Opens, under its cracked walls, an abyss.”— Lavoisier! Malesherbes! Friends of Jean Guettard. Was it only the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf that showed me Gleams of the Terror approaching, a wild storm Of fiercer, hell-hot lava, and that far sound Of tumbrils.... The Republic has no need Of savants! This dream went by, with the dead man’s words. They reached the highest crest. Before their eyes The hill-scape opened like a mighty vision That, quietly, has come true. They stood there, dumb, To see what they foresaw, the invisible thought Grown firm as granite; for, as a man might die In faith, yet wake amazed in his new world, They saw those chains of dead volcanoes rise, Cone behind cone, with green truncated crowns, And smokeless craters, on the dazzling blue. There, in the very sunlit heart of France, They saw what human eyes had daily seen Yet never seen till now. They stood and gazed, More lonely in that loneliness of thought Than wingèd men, alighting on the moon. Old as the moon’s own craters were those hills; And all their wrath had cooled so long ago That as the explorers on their downward path Passed by a cup-shaped crater, smooth and green, Three hundred feet in depth and breadth, they saw, Within it, an old shepherd and his flock Quietly wandering over its gentle slopes Of short sweet grass, through clumps of saffron broom. They asked him by what name that hill was known. He answered, The Hen’s Nest! “Hen’s Nest,” cried Jean Guettard, “the good God grant This fowl be not a phœnix and renew Its feathers in Auvergne.” They chuckled aloud, And left the shepherd wondering, many a day, What secret knowledge in the stranger’s eye Cast that uncanny light upon the hill, A moment, and no more; and yet enough To make him feel, even when the north wind blew, Less at his ease in that green windless cup; And, once or twice, although he knew not why, He turned, and drove his flock another way.

“Few know the name of Jean Guettard to-day,” Said Shadow-of-a-Leaf; for now the mists concealed All that clear vision. “I often visited him, Between the lights, in after years. He lived Alone at Paris then, in two lean rooms, A sad old prisoner, at the Palais Royal; And many a time, beside a dying fire, We talked together. I was only a shadow, A creature flickering on the fire-lit wall; But, while he bowed his head upon his hands And gazed into the flame with misted eyes, I could steal nearer and whisper time away. And sometimes he would breathe his thoughts aloud; And when at night his faithful servant, Claire, Stole into the room to lay his frugal meal, She’d glance at him with big brown troubled eyes To find him talking to himself alone. And sometimes when the masters of the hour Won easy victories in the light world’s fashion, With fables, easily spun in light quick minds, He’d leave the Academy thundering its applause, And there, in his bare room, with none to see But Shadow-of-a-Leaf, he would unfold again —Smiling a little grimly to himself— Those curious beautiful tinted maps he drew, The very first that any man had made To show, beneath the kingdoms made by man, The truth, that hidden structure, ribbed with rock, And track the vanished ages by the lives And deaths imprinted there. They had made him rich In nothing but the truth. He had mapped the rocks. “The time is not yet come,” he used to say, “When we can clothe them with a radiant Spring Of happy meanings. I have never made A theory. That’s for happier men to come; It will be time to answer the great riddle When we have read the question. Here and there Already, I note, they use this work of mine And shuffle the old forerunner out of sight. No matter. Let the truth live. I shall watch Its progress, proudly, from the outer dark; More happily, I believe, thus free from self, Than if my soul went whoring after fame. One thing alone I’ll claim. It is not good To let all lies go dancing by on flowers. This—what’s his name?—who claims to be the first To find a dead volcano in Auvergne, And sees, in that, only an easy road To glory for himself, shall find, ere long, One live volcano in old Jean Guettard. The fool has forced me to it; for he thinks That I’ll claim nothing. I prefer my peace; But truth compels me here. I’ll set my heel On him, at least. Malesherbes will bear me out. As for the rest—no theory of the earth Can live without these rock-ribbed facts of mine, The facts that I first mapped, I claim no more. These rocks, these bones, these fossil ferns and shells, Of which the grinning moon-calf makes a jest, A byword for all dotage and decay, Shall yet be touched with beauty, and reveal The secrets of the book of earth to man.” “He made no theory,” whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, “And yet, I think, he looked on all these things Devoutly; on a sea-shell turned to stone As on a sacred relic, at whose touch Time opened like a gate, and let him pass Out of this mocking and ephemeral world Through the eternal ages, home to God. And so I watched him, growing old and grey, In seeking truth; a man with enemies, Ten enemies for every truth he told; And friends that still, despite his caustic tongue, Loved him for his true heart. Yet even these Never quite reached it; never quite discerned That even his gruffest words were but the pledge Of his own passionate truth; the harsh pained cry For truth, for truth, of one who saw the throng Bewildered and astray, the ways of love Grown tortuous, and the path to heaven grown dim Through man’s unheed for truth. I saw him greet Condorcet, at the Academy. “We have lost Two members. I condole with you, my friend. It is their last éloges you’ll speak to-day! How will you bury their false theories? In irony, or in academic robes? No matter. There’ll be only one or two Who really know; and I shall not be there To vex you, from my corner, with one smile. Lord, what a pack of lies you’ll have to tell! It is the custom. When my turn arrives— ’Twill not be long,—remember, please, I want Truth, the whole truth, or nothing.” I saw one night A member walking home with him—to thank him For his support that morning. Jean Guettard Turned on his threshold, growling like a bear. “You owe me nothing. I believed my vote Was right, or else you never should have had it. Pray do not think I liked you.” A grim door Opened and closed like iron in the face Of his late friend and now indignant foe; To whom no less, if he had needed it, Guettard would still have given his own last sou. He came into his lonely room that night, And sat and stared into the fluttering fire. I, Shadow-of-a-Leaf, was there; and I could see More in his eyes than even Condorcet saw, Condorcet, who of all his friends remained Most faithful to the end. But, at the hour When Claire would lay his supper, a light hand tapped Timidly on his door. He sat upright And turned with startled eyes. “Enter,” he called. A wide-eyed, pale-faced child came creeping in. “What! Little Claire!” he cried. “Your mother is not better!” She stood before him, The fire-light faintly colouring her thin face,— “M’sieur, she is very ill. You are a doctor. Come, quickly.” Through the narrow, ill-lighted streets Old Jean Guettard went hobbling, a small hand Clutching his own, and two small wooden shoes Clattering beside him, till the child began To droop. He lifted her gently in his arms And hobbled on. The thin, white, tear-stained face, Pressing against his old grey-bristled cheek, Directed him, now to left and now to right. “O, quick, M’sieur!” Then, into an alley, dark As pitch, they plunged. The third door on the right! Into the small sad house they went, and saw By the faint guttering candle-light—the mother, Shivering and burning on her tattered bed. Two smaller children knelt on either side Worn out with fear and weeping. All that night Guettard, of all true kings of science then, Obscure, yet first in France and all the world, Watched, laboured, bathed the brow and raised the head, Moistened the thirsting lips, and knew it vain; Knew, as I knew, that in a hundred years Knowledge might conquer this; but he must fight A losing battle, and fight it in the dark No better armed than Galen. He closed her eyes At dawn. He took the children to his house; Prayed with them; dried their tears; and, while they slept, Shed tears himself, remembering—a green hill, A Rock against the sky. He cared for them, as though they were his own. Guettard, the founder of two worlds of thought, Taught them their letters. “None can tell,” he said, “What harvests are enfolded for the world In one small grain of this immortal wheat. But I, who owe so much to little things In childhood; and have seen, among the rocks, What vast results may wait upon the path Of one blind life, under a vanished sea, Bow down in awe before this human life.”

Ever, as he grew older, life became More sacred to him. “In a thousand years Man will look back with horror on this world Where men could babble about the Lamb of God, Then turn and kill for food one living thing That looks through two great eyes, so like their own. I have had living creatures killed for me; But I will have no more.” “Though Nature laughed His mood to scorn,” said Shadow-of-a-Leaf, “the day Will come (I have seen it come a myriad times) When, through one mood like this, Nature will climb Out of its nature, and make all things new. Who prophesied cities, when the first blind life Crawled from the sea, to breathe that strange bright air, And conquer its own past?”— “I have no theory of this wild strange world,” Said Jean Guettard, “But, if the God that made it dies with us Into immortal life....” “There, there’s the meaning,” whispered Shadow-of-a-Leaf, “Could we but grasp it. There’s the harmony Of life, and death, and all our mortal pain.” I heard that old man whispering in the dark, “O, little human life, so lost to sight Among the eternal ages, I, at least, Find in this very darkness the one Fact That bows my soul before you.” Once again The mists began to roll away like smoke. I saw a patch of vines upon the hill Above Étampes; and through the mists I saw Old Jean Guettard, with snowy wind-blown hair, Nearing the shrouded summit. As he climbed, Slowly the last thin veils dissolved away. He lifted up his eyes to see the Rock. The hill was bare. His facts were well confirmed. Sun, wind, and rain, and the sharp chisels of frost Had broken it down. The Rock was on its way In brook and river, with all the drifting hills, And all his life, to the remembering sea. He looked around him, furtively. None was near. Down, on his knees, Among the weather-worn shards of his lost youth, Dropt Jean Guettard. The mist closed over him. The world dissolved away. The vision died, Leaving me only a voice within the heart, Far off, yet near, the whisper of Shadow-of-a-Leaf. The rain had beaten. The wind had blown. The hill was bare as the sky that day. Mother and Child from the height had gone. The wind and rain, said Jean Guettard, Had crumbled even the Rock away.