The Tramp
For forty days he had been walking, seeking everywhere for work. He had left his own hometown, Ville-Avaray, in the Manche, because there was no work to be got there. A carpenter’s mate, twenty-seven years old, a respectable, sturdy fellow, he had lived for two months on his family, he, the eldest son, with nothing to do but sit with his strong arms folded, amid the general unemployment. Bread became scarce in the home; the two sisters did day-work, but made little money, and he, Jacques Raudel, the strongest, did nothing because there was nothing to do, and ate the bread of others.
Then he had sought information at the Town Hall, and the clerk had told him that there was work to be got in the Midlands.
So he had set off, fortified with papers and certificates, with seven francs in his pocket; on his shoulder, in a blue handkerchief tied to the end of his stick, he carried a spare pair of shoes, a pair of trousers and a shirt.
And he walked without rest, day and night, along the interminable roads, under sun and rain, and never reaching that mysterious land where workmen find work.
At first he clung firmly to the idea that, being a carpenter, he must never work at anything but carpentry. But, in all the workshops where he offered himself, he was told that they had just dismissed men for lack of orders, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he resolved to do any work he might meet with on his way.
Thus he became by turns navvy, stable-boy, and stonecutter; he split wood, trimmed timber, dug a well, mixed mortar, tied faggots, and herded goats on a mountain, and all for a few pence, for he could only manage to get an occasional two or three days’ work by offering himself at a very low price, to tempt the avarice of employers and peasants.
And for a week now he had failed to find a job of any kind; he had nothing left, and lived on a few crusts of bread that he owed to the charity of the women from whom he begged on their doorsteps, as he passed along the roads.
Night was falling, and Jacques Raudel, worn out, with weary legs and an empty stomach, despondent in spirit, plodded barefoot in the grass at the roadside, for he was saving up his last pair of shoes, and the other pair had gone long before. It was a Saturday, towards the end of autumn. Grey clouds, swift and heavy, were chased across the sky by the gusts of wind that whistled in the trees. There was a feeling of approaching rain in the air. The countryside was deserted, now, at dusk on the eve of a Sunday. Here and there, in the fields, there rose, like monstrous yellow mushrooms, ricks of threshed straw; and the land, already sown for the coming year, seemed naked.
Raudel was hungry, hungry like a hungry beast, with the savage hunger that drives wolves to attack men. Exhausted, he lengthened his stride so that he would have fewer steps to take, and, with heavy head, the blood surging in his temples, red eyes, and a dry mouth, he gripped his stick with a vague desire to strike the first passerby he chanced to meet returning home to eat his broth.
He gazed at the roadside with a picture in his mind of potatoes lying unburied on the upturned soil. If he had found some, he would have collected dead wood, made a little fire in a ditch and supped royally on the hot, round roots, after first holding them, burning hot, in his cold hands.
But it was too late in the year, and, as on the previous evening, he had to gnaw a raw beetroot that he pulled from its furrow.
For the past two days he had been talking aloud, as he quickened his stride, goaded by his obsessing thoughts. He had scarcely thought at all, before this, applying all his mind, all his simple faculties, to the tasks he had been trained to do. But now, fatigue, his frantic pursuit of work that was not to be found, refusals, insults, nights spent on the grass, fasting, the scorn he felt all the stay-at-homes had for the tramp, their daily repeated question: “Why don’t you stay in your own place?” his grief at not being able to use the valiant arms whose strength he could feel, the remembrance of his parents left at home, also almost penniless—all these were filling him little by little with a slow anger, increasing every day, every hour, every minute, and escaping from his mouth in brief, involuntary phrases of plaintive discontent.
Stumbling over the stones that rolled from under his bare feet, he grumbled: “Misery … misery me … lot of swine … not four sous … not four sous … and now it’s raining … lot of swine. …”
He was indignant at the injustice of his lot, and blamed man, all men, because nature, the great blind mother, is unjust, cruel, and treacherous.
“Lot of swine,” he repeated through clenched teeth, watching the thin grey wisps of smoke going up from the roof at this, the dinner hour. And without reflecting on that injustice, that human injustice, called violence and theft, he longed to enter one of these houses, knock down the inhabitants, and sit down at the table in their stead.
“I haven’t the right to live, now …” he said, “seeing they let me die of hunger … and yet I only ask for work … lot of swine!” And the pain in his limbs, the pain in his stomach, and the pain in his heart went to his head like the madness born of drink, and gave birth in his brain to this simple thought: “I have a right to live, because I breathe, because the air belongs to everyone. So no one has a right to leave me without bread.”
The rain was falling, fine, fast, and freezing. He stopped, and muttered: “Oh, misery me … another month on the road before I get home. …” For he was returning homewards now, realising that it would be easier for him to find something to do—if he were willing to take any work that came to hand—in his native town, where he was known, than out on the high road where all men were suspicious of him.
Since carpentry was in a bad way, he would become a day labourer, a hodman, a navvy, or a stone-breaker. And if he only made twenty sous a day, it would still be enough to live on.
He knotted round his neck the remains of his last handkerchief, so as to prevent the cold water from trickling on to his back and chest. But soon he felt that it was already coming through the thin fabric of his clothes, and he threw an agonised glance around him, the gaze of a lost creature that knows not where to hide its body or rest its head, and has no refuge in the world.
Night came, covering the fields with darkness. In the distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark blotch on the ground, a cow. He strode over the ditch at the roadside and turned towards the animal, with no very clear idea of what he was doing.
As he drew near, the animal raised her big head, and he thought: “If only I had a can, I could drink a little milk.”
He stared at the cow, and the cow stared at him; then, suddenly, he gave her a great kick in the side, and said: “Get up!”
The animal rose slowly, and her heavy udder hung down; then the man lay flat on his back, between the animal’s legs, and had a long drink, pressing with both hands the warm, swollen teat smelling of the cowshed. He drank all the milk left in this living spring.
But the icy rain fell faster, and the whole plain was naked, offering him no glimpse of shelter. He was cold, and he gazed at a light that shone through the trees, from the window of a house.
The cow had lain down again, heavily. He sat down beside her, stroking her head, grateful for the food she had given him. The animal’s thick, rank breath, issuing from her nostrils like two jets of steam in the evening air, blew across the workman’s face. “Well, you’re not cold in there,” he said.
Next he ran his hands over the cow’s breast and legs, trying to warm them there. Then the idea came to him to lie down and spend the night huddled against this big warm belly. He sought a comfortable position, and laid his forehead against the heavy udder he had just emptied. Then, quite worn out with fatigue, he promptly went to sleep.
But several times he awoke, with back or chest frozen, according to which of the two was pressed against the animal’s side; then he would turn over to warm and dry that part of his body which had been exposed to the night air, and fell back at once into the same heavy slumber.
A cock crowing roused him to his legs. Dawn was coming; it was no longer raining; the sky was clear.
The cow was resting her muzzle on the ground; he bent down, supporting himself on his hands, to kiss the broad nose of moist flesh. “Goodbye, my beauty,” he said, “… till next time. … You’re a nice beast. … Goodbye.”
Then he put on his shoes and went on his way.
For two hours he walked straight on, always along the same road; then such utter weariness fell on him that he sat down on the grass.
It was broad daylight; the church bells were ringing, and men in blue smocks, and women in white bonnets, walking or driving in dogcarts, began to pass along the roads, on their way to neighbouring villages to celebrate Sunday with friends or relations.
A fat peasant came in sight, driving some twenty restless, bleating sheep, kept in order by a quick-footed dog.
Raudel rose and greeted him. “You haven’t a job for a workman dying of hunger?” he said.
“I’ve no work for men I meet on the roads,” replied the fellow, with an ugly glance at the vagabond.
And the carpenter sat down again by the roadside.
He waited for a long time, watching the country folk go by, searching for a good, kind, compassionate face that he might make another request.
He chose a superior-looking person in a frock-coat, with a gold chain across his stomach.
“I’ve been looking for work for two months,” he said; “I can’t find any; and I’ve not a sou left in my pocket.”
The prosperous fellow replied: “You ought to have read the notice posted up at the boundaries of this district: ‘Begging is forbidden in the territory of this commune.’ I’m the mayor, I tell you, and if you don’t clear off pretty quick, I’ll have you taken up.”
Raudel’s anger was getting the better of him.
“Have me taken up if you like,” he murmured; “I’d rather you did; at least I shouldn’t die of hunger.”
And he sat down again at the roadside.
A quarter of an hour later two policemen came in sight on the road. They were walking slowly, side by side, in full view, gleaming in the sun, with their shiny leather hats, their yellow facings, and their metal buttons, as though to frighten malefactors and put them to flight from a very long way off.
The carpenter realised that they were coming for him, but he did not move, seized with an abrupt sullen desire to defy them, to get them to arrest him, and have his revenge later on.
They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking in their military fashion, with a clumsy and rolling gait, like geese. Then suddenly, as they passed him, they appeared to discover him, stopped, and began to stare at him with threatening, angry eyes.
The sergeant stepped forward, asking:
“What are you doing here?”
“Resting,” the man calmly replied.
“Where have you come from?”
“If I had to tell you all the places I’ve been through, it would take me a good hour.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Ville-Avaray.”
“And where might that be?”
“In the Manche.”
“Is that your home place?”
“Yes, that’s my home place.”
“Why did you leave it?”
“To look for work.”
The sergeant turned to his constable and exclaimed, in the furious tone of a man driven to exasperation by a perpetual recurrence of the same lie:
“The swine all say that. But I know their little games.”
Then he continued:
“Have you any papers?”
“Yes.”
“Give me them.”
Raudel took his papers from his pocket, his certificates, poor, dirty, worn-out papers falling to pieces, and offered them to the official.
The latter spelt them out, humming and hawing, and, eventually declaring them to be in order, gave them back with the irritated air of a man who has been tricked by a fellow more cunning than himself.
After a few moments of reflection, he resumed his inquiries:
“Have you any money about you?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Not as much as a sou?”
“Not as much as a sou.”
“Then what are you living on?”
“On what I’m given.”
“You’re begging, then?”
“Yes, when I can,” replied Raudel firmly.
But the policeman declared:
“I have taken you in the act of vagrancy and begging, being without lodging or visible means of support, on the road, and I command you to follow me.”
The carpenter rose.
“Anywhere you like,” he said, and, placing himself between the two officials before even getting the order to do so, he added:
“Go on, shut me up. It’ll give me a roof overhead when it rains.”
And they set off towards the village, whose roofs peered through the leaf-stripped trees, a quarter of a league distant.
It was the hour of Mass as they went through the town. The square was full of people, and two ranks promptly formed up to see the malefactor go by, followed by a troop of excited children. Peasants, men and women, stared at the prisoner between the two policemen, with a sudden gleam of hate in their eyes; they wanted to throw stones at him, scratch his skin with their nails, and trample him underfoot. They wondered if he were a thief, or a murderer. The butcher, a veteran Spahi, declared: “He’s a deserter.” The tobacconist fancied he recognised him as the man who had given him a bad fifty-centime piece that very morning, and the ironmonger was sure he knew him for the undiscoverable murderer of the widow Malet for whom the police had been searching for six months.
In the municipal council room, whither the policemen led him, Raudel found the mayor, sitting at the council table and flanked by the schoolmaster.
“Ah ha!” exclaimed the magistrate, “here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I’d have you locked up. Well, sergeant, what is it?”
“A tramp, your Worship,” replied the sergeant, “without lodging or visible means of support, according to his own statement, arrested in the act of begging and vagrancy, possessing good certificates and papers in good order.”
“Show me the papers,” said the mayor. He took them, read them, reread them, gave them back, and ordered: “Search him.” Raudel was searched; nothing was found.
The mayor seemed perplexed.
“What were you doing, this morning, on the road?” he asked the workman.
“I was looking for work.”
“For work? … On the high road?”
“How do you expect me to find any if I hid in the woods?”
They stared at one another with the hatred of beasts that belong to two antagonistic species. The magistrate replied: “I am going to set you at liberty, but don’t let me catch you again!”
“I’d rather you kept me,” answered the carpenter; “I’ve had quite enough of running about the roads.”
“Silence!” said the mayor, with a severe look.
Then he gave orders to the policemen:
“You will conduct this man two hundred metres from the village, and you will allow him to go on his way.”
“At least have them give me something to eat,” said the workman.
The mayor was furious:
“Feed you? That would be the last straw. Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s a bit too thick!”
But Raudel continued firmly:
“If you let me go on dying of hunger, you’ll force me to crime, and that’ll be the worse for you great fat fellows.”
The mayor had risen, and repeated his order.
“Take him away quick; I shall end by losing my temper.”
The two policemen took the carpenter’s arms and led him off. He offered no resistance, went back through the village, and found himself back on the high road; the men took him two hundred metres from the kilometre stone, and there the sergeant declared:
“Now be off with you, and don’t let me see you in these parts again, or you’ll hear from me.”
And Raudel set off without an answer, and without knowing where he was going. He walked straight on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so dazed that he could not think at all.
But suddenly, as he was passing a small house whose window was half open, the savoury smell of stew took him by the throat and brought him up short before this dwelling.
And suddenly, hunger, savage, devouring, maddening hunger, caught him up and almost flung him like a wild creature against the walls of the house.
“God, they must give me something this time,” he said aloud in a plaintive voice, and hammered on the door with his stick. No one answered. He knocked, more loudly, shouting: “Hi! Hi! You folk in there! Hi! Open the door!”
Nothing stirred; going to the window, he pushed it with his hand, and the imprisoned air of the kitchen, warm air full of the savour of hot soup, cooked meat and cabbages, escaped into the cold outer air.
With a bound the carpenter was in the room. Two places were laid on the table. The owners, doubtless away at Mass, had left their dinner on the fire, good Sunday stew, with thick vegetable broth.
A new loaf awaited them on the hearth, standing between two bottles that seemed full.
Raudel first attacked the loaf, tearing it with as much violence as though he were throttling a man; then he began to eat it ravenously, gulping it rapidly down in great mouthfuls. But almost at once the smell of the meat drew him to the hearth and, taking off the lid of the pot, he thrust in a fork and brought out a big piece of beef, tied up with string. Then he took cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, putting it on the table, he sat down, cut the meat into four portions, and dined as though he were in his own home. When he had eaten almost the whole piece, in addition to a quantity of vegetables, he realised that he was thirsty, and went to fetch one of the bottles standing by the hearth.
As soon as he saw the liquor in his glass he knew it for brandy. So much the worse for it; it was hot, and would put fire into his veins; that would be good, after having been so cold; and he drank.
He found it good indeed, for he had long been unused to it; he poured out another full glass, and swallowed it in two gulps. He began to feel happy at once, heartened by the alcohol, as though a vast content had poured through his body.
He continued to eat, less hastily now, chewing slowly and soaking his bread in the broth. The whole skin of his body had become burning hot, especially his forehead, where the blood was thudding. But suddenly a distant bell rang. It was the Mass ending; and instinct rather than fear, the instinctive prudence that guides and forewarns every creature in danger, jerked the carpenter to his feet. He put the remains of the loaf in one pocket, and the bottle of brandy in the other, and with furtive steps went to the window and looked out at the road.
It was still quite empty. He leapt out and went on his way; but instead of following the high road, he fled across the fields towards a wood he noticed.
He felt alert, strong, and lighthearted, content with what he had done, and so supple that he cleared the fences between the fields at one bound, feet together.
As soon as he was under the trees, he took the bottle from his pocket and started drinking again in long draughts, while he walked. Then his thoughts became confused, his eyes misty, and his legs as elastic as springs.
He sang the old folksong:
“Ah! qu’il fait donc bon,
Qu’il fait donc bon,
Cueillir la fraise.”27
He was walking now on thick moss, damp and cool, and this pleasant carpet underfoot filled him with a wild desire to turn somersaults like a child. He took a run, went head over heels, leapt up, and began again. And between each caper, he went on singing:
“Ah! qu’il fait donc bon,
Qu’il fait donc bon,
Cueillir la fraise.”
Suddenly he found himself beside a sunken lane, and saw therein a servant girl returning to the village, carrying in her hands two pails of milk; a barrel hoop from a cask kept them from knocking against her.
He watched her, leaning forward, his eyes lighting up like those of a dog sighting a quail.
She caught sight of him, raised her head, burst out laughing, and shouted to him:
“Was it you singing like that?”
He made no answer and jumped into the gully, although the bank was a good six feet high.
“Lord, you did scare me!” she said, seeing him suddenly standing in front of her.
But he did not hear her; he was drunk, he was mad, in the grip of a passion more devastating than hunger, maddened by alcohol and the overmastering passion of a man who for two months had been deprived of everything; who is drunk, and young, and ardent, on fire with all the appetites that nature has sown in a man’s vigorous body.
The girl recoiled, frightened by his face, his eyes, his half-open mouth, and his outstretched hands.
He grasped her by the shoulders and, without saying a word, flung her down on the road. She let go of her pails; they rolled along noisily, spilling all the milk; then she screamed; then, realising that it was no use shouting in that deserted spot, and well aware now that he was not determined on her death, she yielded without making too much to-do about it, nor much resenting it, for the fellow was strong but not too rough really.
When she rose, the thought of her overturned pails filled her with sudden wrath, and, taking off one of her wooden shoes, she rushed in her turn on the man, determined to break his head if he did not pay for her milk.
But he, mistaking her violent attack, a little sobered now, and desperately frightened at what he had done, made off with all the haste his legs would let him, while she threw stones, of which some hit him in the back.
He ran for a long time; then felt wearier than ever before in his life. His legs were too slack to carry him; his brain was reeling, he had forgotten everything that had happened, and could no longer think at all.
He sat down at the foot of a tree.
At the end of five minutes he was asleep.
He woke with a terrible start, and, opening his eyes, perceived two shiny leather cocked hats bending over him, and the two policemen of the morning holding and binding his arms.
“I knew we’d catch you again,” jeered the sergeant.
Raudel rose without a word of reply. The men shook him, prepared to treat him roughly if he made a protest, for he was their prey now, fair game, prison game captured by these hunters of criminals who would not let him go again.
“Off we go!” commanded the sergeant.
They set off. Evening was at hand, spreading an autumnal twilight, heavy and sinister, over the landscape.
In half an hour they reached the village.
All the doors were open, for everyone knew what had happened. Men and women, beside themselves with anger, as though each man had been robbed and each woman raped, were eager to see the wretch brought back, so that they might hurl insults at him.
The uproar began at the first house and ended at the Town Hall, where the mayor was waiting also, avenged on this vagabond.
As soon as he saw him, he shouted from the distance:
“Ah! ha! my fine fellow! Here we are!”
And he rubbed his hands, happy as he seldom was.
“I said so, I said so,” he continued, “merely by seeing him on the road,” and added, with redoubled joy:
“You’ll get your twenty years all right, you dirty scoundrel!”