At the age of fifteen both his legs had been crushed by a carriage on the Varville highway. From that time forth2 he begged, dragging himself along the roads and through the farmyards, supported by crutches4 which forced his shoulders up to his ears. His head looked as if it were squeezed in between two mountains.
A foundling, picked up out of a ditch by the priest of Les Billettes on the eve of All Saints' Day and baptized, for that reason, Nicholas Toussaint, reared by charity, utterly5 without education, crippled in consequence of having drunk several glasses of brandy given him by the baker6 (such a funny story!) and a vagabond all his life afterward—the only thing he knew how to do was to hold out his hand for alms.
At one time the Baroness7 d'Avary allowed him to sleep in a kind of recess8 spread with straw, close to the poultry9 yard in the farm adjoining the chateau10, and if he was in great need he was sure of getting a glass of cider and a crust of bread in the kitchen. Moreover, the old lady often threw him a few pennies from her window. But she was dead now.
In the villages people gave him scarcely anything—he was too well known. Everybody had grown tired of seeing him, day after day for forty years, dragging his deformed11 and tattered12 person from door to door on his wooden crutches. But he could not make up his mind to go elsewhere, because he knew no place on earth but this particular corner of the country, these three or four villages where he had spent the whole of his miserable13 existence. He had limited his begging operations and would not for worlds have passed his accustomed bounds.
He did not even know whether the world extended for any distance beyond the trees which had always bounded his vision. He did not ask himself the question. And when the peasants, tired of constantly meeting him in their fields or along their lanes, exclaimed: “Why don't you go to other villages instead of always limping about here?” he did not answer, but slunk away, possessed14 with a vague dread15 of the unknown—the dread of a poor wretch16 who fears confusedly a thousand things—new faces, taunts17, insults, the suspicious glances of people who do not know him and the policemen walking in couples on the roads. These last he always instinctively18 avoided, taking refuge in the bushes or behind heaps of stones when he saw them coming.
When he perceived them in the distance, 'With uniforms gleaming in the sun, he was suddenly possessed with unwonted agility19—the agility of a wild animal seeking its lair20. He threw aside his crutches, fell to the ground like a limp rag, made himself as small as possible and crouched21 like a are under cover, his tattered vestments blending in hue22 with the earth on which he cowered23.
He had never had any trouble with the police, but the instinct to avoid them was in his blood. He seemed to have inherited it from the parents he had never known.
He had no refuge, no roof for his head, no shelter of any kind. In summer he slept out of doors and in winter he showed remarkable24 skill in slipping unperceived into barns and stables. He always decamped before his presence could be discovered. He knew all the holes through which one could creep into farm buildings, and the handling of his crutches having made his arms surprisingly muscular he often hauled himself up through sheer strength of wrist into hay-lofts, where he sometimes remained for four or five days at a time, provided he had collected a sufficient store of food beforehand.
He lived like the beasts of the field. He was in the midst of men, yet knew no one, loved no one, exciting in the breasts of the peasants only a sort of careless contempt and smoldering25 hostility26. They nicknamed him “Bell,” because he hung between his two crutches like a church bell between its supports.
For two days he had eaten nothing. No one gave him anything now. Every one's patience was exhausted27. Women shouted to him from their doorsteps when they saw him coming:
“Be off with you, you good-for-nothing vagabond! Why, I gave you a piece of bread only three days ago!”
And he turned on his crutches to the next house, where he was received in the same fashion.
The women declared to one another as they stood at their doors:
And yet the “lazy brute” needed food every day.
He had exhausted Saint-Hilaire, Varville and Les Billettes without getting a single copper29 or so much as a dry crust. His only hope was in Tournolles, but to reach this place he would have to walk five miles along the highroad, and he felt so weary that he could hardly drag himself another yard. His stomach and his pocket were equally empty, but he started on his way.
It was December and a cold wind blew over the fields and whistled through the bare branches of the trees; the clouds careered madly across the black, threatening sky. The cripple dragged himself slowly along, raising one crutch3 after the other with a painful effort, propping30 himself on the one distorted leg which remained to him.
Now and then he sat down beside a ditch for a few moments' rest. Hunger was gnawing31 his vitals, and in his confused, slow-working mind he had only one idea-to eat-but how this was to be accomplished32 he did not know. For three hours he continued his painful journey. Then at last the sight of the trees of the village inspired him with new energy.
The first peasant he met, and of whom he asked alms, replied:
“So it's you again, is it, you old scamp? Shall I never be rid of you?”
And “Bell” went on his way. At every door he got nothing but hard words. He made the round of the whole village, but received not a halfpenny for his pains.
Then he visited the neighboring farms, toiling33 through the muddy land, so exhausted that he could hardly raise his crutches from the ground. He met with the same reception everywhere. It was one of those cold, bleak34 days, when the heart is frozen and the temper irritable35, and hands do not open either to give money or food.
When he had visited all the houses he knew, “Bell” sank down in the corner of a ditch running across Chiquet's farmyard. Letting his crutches slip to the ground, he remained motionless, tortured by hunger, but hardly intelligent enough to realize to the full his unutterable misery.
He awaited he knew not what, possessed with that vague hope which persists in the human heart in spite of everything. He awaited in the corner of the farmyard in the biting December wind, some mysterious aid from Heaven or from men, without the least idea whence it was to arrive. A number of black hens ran hither and thither36, seeking their food in the earth which supports all living things. Ever now and then they snapped up in their beaks37 a grain of corn or a tiny insect; then they continued their slow, sure search for nutriment.
“Bell” watched them at first without thinking of anything. Then a thought occurred rather to his stomach than to his mind—the thought that one of those fowls38 would be good to eat if it were cooked over a fire of dead wood.
He did not reflect that he was going to commit a theft. He took up a stone which lay within reach, and, being of skillful aim, killed at the first shot the fowl39 nearest to him. The bird fell on its side, flapping its wings. The others fled wildly hither and thither, and “Bell,” picking up his crutches, limped across to where his victim lay.
Just as he reached the little black body with its crimsoned40 head he received a violent blow in his back which made him let go his hold of his crutches and sent him flying ten paces distant. And Farmer Chiquet, beside himself with rage, cuffed41 and kicked the marauder with all the fury of a plundered42 peasant as “Bell” lay defenceless before him.
The farm hands came up also and joined their master in cuffing43 the lame44 beggar. Then when they were tired of beating him they carried him off and shut him up in the woodshed, while they went to fetch the police.
“Bell,” half dead, bleeding and perishing with hunger, lay on the floor. Evening came—then night—then dawn. And still he had not eaten.
About midday the police arrived. They opened the door of the woodshed with the utmost precaution, fearing resistance on the beggar's part, for Farmer Chiquet asserted that he had been attacked by him and had had great, difficulty in defending himself.
“Come, get up!”
But “Bell” could not move. He did his best to raise himself on his crutches, but without success. The police, thinking his weakness feigned46, pulled him up by main force and set him between the crutches.
Fear seized him—his native fear of a uniform, the fear of the game in presence of the sportsman, the fear of a mouse for a cat-and by the exercise of almost superhuman effort he succeeded in remaining upright.
“Forward!” said the sergeant. He walked. All the inmates47 of the farm watched his departure. The women shook their fists at him the men scoffed48 at and insulted him. He was taken at last! Good riddance! He went off between his two guards. He mustered49 sufficient energy—the energy of despair—to drag himself along until the evening, too dazed to know what was happening to him, too frightened to understand.
People whom he met on the road stopped to watch him go by and peasants muttered:
“It's some thief or other.”
Toward evening he reached the country town. He had never been so far before. He did not realize in the least what he was there for or what was to become of him. All the terrible and unexpected events of the last two days, all these unfamiliar50 faces and houses struck dismay into his heart.
He said not a word, having nothing to say because he understood nothing. Besides, he had spoken to no one for so many years past that he had almost lost the use of his tongue, and his thoughts were too indeterminate to be put into words.
He was shut up in the town jail. It did not occur to the police that he might need food, and he was left alone until the following day. But when in the early morning they came to examine him he was found dead on the floor. Such an astonishing thing!
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1
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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crutch
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| n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱 | |
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crutches
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| n.拐杖, 支柱 v.支撑 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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baroness
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| n.男爵夫人，女男爵 | |
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8
recess
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| n.短期休息，壁凹（墙上装架子，柜子等凹处） | |
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poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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17
taunts
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| 嘲弄的言语，嘲笑，奚落( taunt的名词复数 ) | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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agility
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| n.敏捷，活泼 | |
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lair
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| n.野兽的巢穴；躲藏处 | |
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21
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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22
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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23
cowered
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| v.畏缩，抖缩( cower的过去式 ) | |
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24
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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smoldering
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| v.用文火焖烧，熏烧，慢燃( smolder的现在分词 ) | |
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26
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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29
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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30
propping
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| 支撑 | |
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31
gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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32
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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33
toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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34
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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35
irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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36
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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37
beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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38
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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39
fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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40
crimsoned
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| 变为深红色（crimson的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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41
cuffed
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| v.掌打，拳打( cuff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
plundered
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| 掠夺，抢劫( plunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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43
cuffing
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| v.掌打，拳打( cuff的现在分词 )；袖口状白血球聚集 | |
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44
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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45
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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46
feigned
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| a.假装的，不真诚的 | |
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47
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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48
scoffed
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
mustered
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的过去式和过去分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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50
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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