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Updated: June 22, 2025
I shall not wait. I go away. I skirt the forge of the ignoble Brisbille. It is the last house in that chain of low hills which is the street. Out of the deep dark the smithy window flames with vivid orange behind its black tracery. In the middle of that square-ruled page of light I see transparently outlined the smith's eccentric silhouette, now black and sharp, now softly huge.
Termite the poacher! Why it's a long time since they haven't seen him. Disappeared, it seems. S'pose he's killed." Then he talks to me of this place. Brisbille, for instance, always the same, a Socialist and a scandal. "There's him," says Crillon, "and that dangerous chap Eudo as well, with his notorient civilities.
The blinds are drawn, so she cannot be seen, but every one salutes the carriage. "All slaves!" mumbles Brisbille. "Look at yourselves now, just look! All the lot of you, as soon as a rich old woman goes by, there you are, poking your noses into the ground, showing your bald heads, and growing humpbacked." "She does good," protests one of the gathering. "Good?
Pointing where Brisbille has just plunged floundering into the night, he says, "That's what Socialists are, the conquering people what can't stand up on their legs! I may be a botcher in life, but I'm for peace and order. Good-night, good-night. Is she well, Aunt Josephine? I'm for tranquillity and liberty and order. That's why I've always kept clear of their crowd.
More miserable than ever, worn and pared and patched up, more and more parched and shriveled by hopelessly long labor he blots out the shiny places on his overcoat with his pen Mielvaque points to Brisbille gagged by the band, he writhes with laughter and shouts in my ear, "He might be trying to sing!"
How is it ever going to heal all those who do not know! I grieve that I am weak and ineffective, that I am only I. On earth, alas, truth is dumb, and the heart is only a stifled cry! I look for support, for some one who does not leave me alone. I am too much alone, and I look eagerly. But there is only Brisbille! There is only that tipsy automaton; that parody of a man. There he is.
When we got back to our street, it was deserted, as of yore. The faraway flutterings of the Marseillaise were dying. We heard Brisbille, drunk, hammering with all his might on his anvil. The same old shadows and the same lights were taking their places in the houses.
Purpling as his agitation rises, nailed to his imprisoning corner, alone of his kind, a rebel against all the immensity of things, the man forges. The church bell rang, and we left him there. When I was leaving I heard Brisbille growl. No doubt I got my quietus as well. But what can he have imagined against me? We meet again, all mixed together in the Place de l'Eglise.
Some young men seize him, hustle him and throw him down. His head strikes the ground and he is at last immobile. Father Piot raises his arms to heaven and kneels over the vanquished madman. There are tears in the old man's eyes. When we have made a few steps away I cannot help saying to Marie, with a sort of courage, that Brisbille is not wrong in all that he says.
The most important thing of all, in war, is the return to religious ideas. Hem!" The monstrous calm of the saying makes me start, and communicates final agitation to Brisbille. Throwing himself upright, the blacksmith flourishes his trembling fist, tries to hold it under the old priest's chin, and bawls, "You? Shall I tell you how you make me feel, eh? Why "
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