ponedjeljak, 22. lipnja 2026.
A blue lake is deeply set in mountains capped with eternal snow. A dark network of gardens descends in gorgeous folds to the water. White houses that look like lumps of sugar peer down from the bank into the lake; and everything around is as quiet and peaceful as the sleep of a child. It is morning. A perfume of flowers is wafted gently from the mountains. The sun is new risen and the dew still glistens on the leaves of trees and the petals of flowers. A road like a grey ribbon thrusts into the quiet mountain gorge—a stone-paved road which yet looks as soft as velvet, so that one almost has a desire to stroke it. Near a pile of stones sits a workman, like some dark coloured beetle; on his breast is a medal; his face is serious, bold, but kindly. Placing his sunburnt hands on his knees and looking up into the face of a passer-by who has stopped in the shade of a chestnut-tree, he says: "This is the Simplon, signor, and this is a medal for working in the Simplon tunnel," And lowering his eyes to his breast he smiles fondly at the bright piece of metal. "Oh, every kind of work is hard for a time, until you get used to it, and then it grows upon you and becomes easy. Ay, but it was hard work though!"
He shook his head a little, smiling at the sun; then suddenly he checked and waved his hand; his black eyes glistened.
"I was afraid at times. The earth must have some feeling, don't you think? When we had burrowed to a great depth, when we had made this wound in the mountain, she received us rudely enough. She breathed a hot breath on us that made the heart stop beating, made the head dizzy and the bones to ache. Many experienced this. Then the mother earth showered stones upon her children, poured hot water over us; ay, there was fear in it, signor! Sometimes, in the torchlight, the water became red and my father told me that we had wounded the earth and that she would drown us, would burn us all up with her blood—'you will live to see it!' It was all fancy, like enough, but when one hears such words deep in the bowels of the earth—in the damp and suffocating darkness, amid the plaintive splashing of water and the grinding of iron against stone—one forgets for the moment how much is fantasy. For everything was fantastic there, dear signor: we men were so puny, while the mountain, into whose belly we were boring, reached up to the sky. One must see in order to understand it. It is necessary to see the black gaping mouth cut by us, tiny people, who entered it at sunset—and how sadly the sun looks after those who desert him and go into the bowels of the earth! It is necessary to see our machines and the grim face of the mountain, and to hear the dark rumblings in it and the blasts, like the wild laughter of a madman."
He looked at his hands, set right the medal on his blue blouse and sighed.
"Man knows how to work!" he continued, with manifest pride. "Oh, signor, a puny man, when he wills to work, is an invincible force! And, believe me: in the end, the little man will do everything he wants to do. My father did not believe it at first.
"'To cut through a mountain from country to country,' he said, 'is contrary to the will of God, who separated countries by mountain walls; you will see that the Madonna will not be with us!' He was wrong, the old man; the Madonna is on the side of everyone who loves her. Afterwards my father began to think as I now think and avow to you, because he felt that he was greater and stronger than the mountain; but there was a time when, on holidays, sitting at a table before a bottle of wine, he would declare to me and others:
"'Children of God'—that was his favourite saying, for he was a kind and good man—'children of God, you must not struggle with the earth like that; she will be revenged on you for her wounds, and will remain unconquerable! You will see: when we bore into the mountain as far as the heart, when we touch the heart, it will burn us up, it will hurl fire upon us, because the earth's heart is fiery—everybody knows that! To cultivate the soil means to help it to give birth—we are bidden to do that; but now we are spoiling its physiognomy, its form. Behold! The farther we dig into the mountain the hotter the air becomes and the harder it is to breathe.'"
The man laughed quietly and curled the ends of his moustache with both hands.
"Not he alone thought like that, and he was right; the farther we went in the tunnel, the hotter it became, and men fell prostrate and were overcome. Water gushed forth faster from the hot springs, whole seams fell down, and two of our fellows from Lugano went mad. At night in the barracks many of us talked in delirium, groaned and jumped up from our beds in terror.
"'Am I not right?' said my father, with fear in his eyes and coughing more and more, and more and more huskily—he did, signor. 'Am I not right?' he said. 'She is unconquerable, the earth.'
"At last the old man lay down for the last time. He was very strong, my old one; for more than three weeks he struggled bravely with death, as a man who knows his worth, and never complained.
"'My work is finished, Paolo,' he said to me once in the night. 'Take care of yourself and return home; let the Madonna guide you!'
"Then he was silent for a long time; he covered up his face, and was nigh to choking."
The man stood up, looked at the mountains and stretched himself with such force that his sinews cracked.
"He took me by the hand, drew me to himself and said—it's the solemn truth, signor—
"'Do you know, Paolo, my son, in spite of all, I think it will be done: we and those who advance from the other side will meet in the mountain, we shall meet—do you believe that?'
"I did believe it, signor.
"'Well, my son, so you must: everything must be done with a firm belief in a happy ending and in God who helps good people by the prayers of the Madonna. I beg you, my son, if it does happen, if the men meet, come to my grave and say: "Father, it is done," so that I may know!'
"It was all right, dear signor, I promised him. He died five days after my words were spoken, and two days before his death he asked me to bury him at the spot where he had last worked in the tunnel. He prayed, but I think it was in delirium.
"We and the others who came from the opposite side met in the mountain thirteen weeks after my father's death—it was a mad day, signor! Oh, when we heard there, under the earth, in the darkness, the noise of other workmen, the noise of those who came to meet us under the earth—you understand, signor, under the tremendous weight of the earth which might have crushed us, puny little things, all at once had it but known how!
"For many days we heard these rumbling sounds, every day they became louder and louder, clearer and clearer, and we became possessed by the joyful madness of conquerors—we worked like demons, like persons without bodies, not feeling fatigue, not requiring direction—it was as good as a dance on a sunny day, upon my word of honour! We all became as good and kind to one another as children are. Oh, if you only knew how strong, how intensely passionate is one's desire to meet a human being in the dark, under the earth into which one has burrowed like a mole for many long months!"
His face flushed, he walked up close to the listener and, looking into the latter's face with deep kindling eyes, went on quietly and joyously:
"And when the last wall finally crumbled away, and in the opening appeared the red light of a torch and somebody's dark face covered with tears of joy, and then another face, and more torches and more faces—shouts of victory resounded, shouts of joy.... Oh, it was the best day of my life, and when I think of it I feel that I have not lived in vain! There was work, my work, holy work, signor, I tell you, yes!.... Yes, we kissed the conquered mountain, kissed the earth—that day the earth was specially near and dear to me, signor, and I fell in love with it as if it had been a woman!
"Of course I went to my father! Of course—although I don't know that the dead can hear—but I went: we must respect the wishes of those who toiled for us and who suffered no less than we do—must we not, signor?
"Yes, yes, I went to his grave, knocked with my foot against the ground and said, as he wished:
"'Father—it is done!' I said. 'The people have conquered. It is done, father!'".
nedjelja, 21. lipnja 2026.
"Women?" "Well, what do you say about women?" "Well, there are no conjurors more subtle in taking us in at every available opportunity with or without reason, often for the sole pleasure of playing tricks on us. And they play these tricks with incredible simplicity, astonishing audacity, unparalleled ingenuity. They play tricks from morning till night, and they all do it—the most virtuous, the most upright, the most sensible of them. You may add that sometimes they are to some extent driven to do these things. Man has always idiotic fits of obstinacy and tyrannical desires. A husband is continually giving ridiculous orders in his own house. He is full of caprices; his wife plays on them even while she makes use of them for the purpose of deception. She persuades him that a thing costs so much because he would kick up a row if its price were higher. And she always extricates herself from the difficulty cunningly by a means so simple and so sly that we gape with amazement when by chance we discover them. We say to ourselves in a stupefied state of mind 'How is it we did not see this till now?'" The man who uttered the words was an ex-Minister of the Empire, the Comte de L——, a thorough profligate, it was said, and a very accomplished gentleman. A group of young men were listening to him.
He went on:
"I was outwitted by an ordinary uneducated woman in a comic and thorough-going fashion. I will tell you about it for your instruction.
"I was at the time Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I was in the habit of taking a long walk every morning in the Champs Elysees. It was the month of May; I walked along, sniffing in eagerly that sweet odor of budding leaves.
"Ere long, I noticed, that I used to meet every day a charming little woman, one of those marvelous, graceful creatures, who bear the trade-mark of Paris. Pretty? Well, yes and no. Well-made? No, better than that: her waist was too slight, her shoulders too narrow, her breast too full, no doubt; but I prefer those exquisite human dolls to that great statuesque corpse, the Venus of Milo.
"And then this sort of woman trots along in an incomparable fashion, and the very rustle of her skirt fills the marrow of your bones with desire. She seemed to give me a side-glance as she passed me. But these women give you all sorts of looks—you never can tell....
"One morning, I saw her sitting on a bench with an open book between her hands. I came across, and sat down beside her. Five minutes later, we were friends. Then, each day, after the smiling salutation 'Good day, Madame,' 'Good day, Monsieur,' we began to chat. She told me that she was the wife of a Government clerk, that her life was a sad one, that in it pleasures were few and cares numerous, and a thousand other things.
"I told her who I was, partly through thoughtless[Pg 371]ness, and partly perhaps through vanity. She pretended to be much astonished.
"Next day, she called at the Ministry to see me; and she came again there so often that the ushers, having their attention drawn to her appearance, used to whisper to one another, as soon as they saw her, the name with which they had christened her 'Madame Leon' that is my Christian name.
"For three months I saw her every morning without growing tired of her for a second, so well was she able incessantly to give variety and piquancy to her physical attractiveness. But one day I saw that her eyes were bloodshot and glowing with suppressed tears, that she could scarcely speak, so much was she preoccupied with secret troubles.
"I begged of her, I implored of her, to tell me what was the cause of her agitation.
"She faltered out at length with a shudder: 'I am—I am pregnant!'
"And she burst out sobbing. Oh! I made a dreadful grimace, and I have no doubt I turned pale, as men generally do at hearing such a piece of news. You cannot conceive what an unpleasant stab you feel in your breast at the announcement of an unexpected paternity of this kind. But you are sure to know it sooner or later. So, in my turn, I gasped: 'But—but—you are married, are you not?'
"She answered: 'Yes, but my husband has been away in Italy for the last two months, and he will not be back for some time.'
"I was determined at any cost to get out of my responsibility.
"I said: 'You must go and join him immediately.'[Pg 372]
"She reddened to her very temples, and with downcast eyes, murmured: 'Yes—but—' She either dared not or would not finish the sentence.
"I understood, and I prudently enclosed her in an envelope the expenses of the journey.
"Eight days later, she sent me a letter from Genoa. The following week, I received one from Florence. Then letters reached me from Leghorn, Rome, and Naples.
"She said to me: 'I am in good health, my dear love, but I am looking frightful. I would not care to have you see me till it is all over; you would not love me. My husband suspects nothing. As his business in this country will require him to stay there much longer, I will not return to France till after my confinement.'
"And, at the end of about eight months, I received from Venice these few words: 'It is a boy.'
"Some time after, she suddenly entered my study one morning, fresher and prettier than ever, and flung herself into my arms.
"And our former connection was renewed.
"I left the Ministry, and she came to live in my house in the Rue de Grenelle. She often spoke to me about the child, but I scarcely listened to what she said about it; it did not concern me. Now and then I placed a rather large sum of money in her hand, saying: 'Put that by for him.'
"Two more years glided by; and she was more eager to tell me some news about the youngster—'about Leon.'[Pg 373]
"Sometimes she would say in the midst of tears: 'You don't care about him; you don't even wish to see him. If you know what grief you cause me!'
"At last I was so much harassed by her that I promised, one day, to go, next morning, to the Champs Elysees, when she took the child there for an airing.
"But at the moment when I was leaving the house, I was stopped by a sudden apprehension. Man is weak and foolish. What if I were to get fond of this tiny being of whom I was the father—my son?
"I had my hat on my head, my gloves in my hands. I flung down the gloves on my desk, and my hat on a chair:
"No. Decidedly I will not go; it is wiser not to go.'
"My door flew open. My brother entered the room. He handed me an anonymous letter he had received that morning:
"'Warn the Comte de L——, your brother, that the little woman of the Rue Casette is impudently laughing at him. Let him make some inquiries about her.'
"I had never told anybody about this intrigue, and I now told my brother the history of it from the beginning to the end. I added:
"For my part, I don't want to trouble myself any further about the matter; but will you, like a good fellow, go and find out what you can about her?
"When my brother had left me, I said to myself: 'In what way can she have deceived me? She has other lovers? What does it matter to me? She is young, fresh, and pretty; I ask nothing more from her.[Pg 374] She seems to love me, and as a matter of fact, she does not cost me much. Really, I don't understand this business.'
"My brother speedily returned. He had learned from the police all that was to be known about her husband: 'A clerk in the Home Department, of regular habits and good repute, and, moreover, a thinking man, but married to a very pretty woman, whose expenses seemed somewhat extravagant for her modest position.' That was all.
"Now, my brother having sought for her at her residence, and finding that she was gone out, succeeded, with the assistance of a little gold, in making the doorkeeper chatter: 'Madame D——, a very worthy woman, and her husband a very worthy man, not proud, not rich, but generous.'
"My brother asked for the sake of saying something:
"'How old is her little boy now?'
"'Why, she has not got any little boy, monsieur.'
"'What? Little Leon?'
"'No, monsieur, you are making a mistake.'
"'I mean the child she had while she was in Italy, two years ago?'
"'She has never been in Italy, monsieur; she has not quitted the house she is living in for the last five years.'
"My brother, in astonishment, questioned the doorkeeper anew, and then he pushed his investigation of the matter further. No child, no journey.
"I was prodigiously astonished, but without clearly understanding the final meaning of this comedy.
"'I want,' said I to him, 'to have my mind perfectly clear about the affair. I will ask her to come here to-morrow. You shall receive her instead of me.[Pg 375] If she has deceived me, you will hand her these ten thousand francs, and I will never see her again. In fact, I am beginning to find I have had enough of her.'
"Would you believe it? I had been grieved the night before because I had a child by this woman; and I was now irritated, ashamed, wounded at having no more of her. I found myself free, released from all responsibility, from all anxiety, and yet I felt myself raging at the position in which I was placed.
"Next morning my brother awaited her in my study. She came in as quickly as usual, rushing towards him with outstretched arms, but when she saw who it was she at once drew back.
"He bowed, and excused himself.
"'I beg your pardon, madame, for being here instead of my brother, but he has authorized me to ask you for some explanations which he would find it painful to seek from you himself.'
"Then, fixing on her face a searching glance, he said abruptly:
"'We know you have not a child by him.'
"After the first moment of stupor, she regained her composure, took a seat, and gazed with a smile at this man who was sitting in judgment on her.
"She answered simply:
"'No; I have no child.'
"'We know also that you have never been in Italy.'
"This time she burst out laughing in earnest.
"'No, I have never been in Italy.'
"My brother, quite stunned, went on:
"'The Comte has requested me to give you this money, and tell you that it is all broken off.'[Pg 376]
"She became serious again, calmly putting the money into her pocket, and, in an ingenuous tone asked:
"'And I am not, then, to see the Comte any more?'
"'No, madame.'
"She appeared to be annoyed, and in a passionless voice she said:
"'So much the worse; I was very fond of him.'
"Seeing that she had made up her mind on the subject so resolutely, my brother, smiling in his turn, said to her:
"'Look here, now, tell me why you invented all this tricky yarn, complicating it by bringing in the sham journey to Italy and the child?'"
She gazed at my brother in amazement, as if he had asked her a stupid question, and replied:
"'I say! How spiteful you are! Do you believe a poor little woman of the people such as I am—nothing at all—could have for three years kept on my hands the Comte de L——, Minister, a great personage, a man of fashion, wealthy and seductive, if she had not taken a little trouble about it? Now it is all over. So much the worse. It couldn't last for ever. None the less I succeeded in doing it for three years. You will say many things to him on my behalf.'
"She rose up. My brother continued questioning her:
"'But—the child? You had one to show him?'
"'Certainly—my sister's child. She lent it to me. I'd bet it was she gave you the information.'
"'Good! And all those letters from Italy?'
"She sat down again so as to laugh at her ease.
"'Oh! those letters—well, they were a bit of poetry. The Comte was not a Minister of Foreign Affairs for nothing.'
"'But—another thing?'
"Oh! the other thing is my secret. I don't want to compromise anyone.'
"And bowing to him with a rather mocking smile, she left the room without any emotion, an actress who had played her part to the end."
And the Comte de L—— added by way of moral:
"So take care about putting your trust in that sort of turtle dove!"
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