Tales of To-day and Other Days. Various Authors
are papers of importance," he answered, bridling up. "I am on my way to Brussels and I have a piece of intelligence for the celebrated banker . . . that will send the price of rentes down one franc and seventy-eight centimes."
"Great Heavens!" I cried, "what a delightful life yours ought to be, and Brussels, I am sure, must be an extremely interesting city to visit. Can't you take me with you? Perhaps I am a carrier-pigeon, since I am not a blackbird."
"If you had been a carrier-pigeon," he rejoined, "you would have paid me back for the clip of the beak that I gave you a while ago."
"Well! sir, I will pay you; we won't quarrel over a little thing like that. See! the day is breaking and the storm is passing away. Let me go with you, I beseech you! I am undone, I have not a penny in the world—if you refuse me there is nothing left for me to do but drown myself in this gutter."
"Very well! en route! follow me, if you can."
I cast a parting glance upon the garden where my mother was slumbering. A tear fell from my eye! it was swept away by the wind and rain. I spread my wings and started forth.
III
As I have said, my wings were not very strong as yet. While my guide pursued his flight with the speed of the wind I was puffing and panting at his side; I held out for some time, but soon was seized with such an attack of dizziness that I thought I should faint.
"Have we far to go yet?" I asked in a weak voice.
"No," he replied," "we are at Bourget; we have but sixty leagues to go."
I tried to muster up courage, for I did not wish to show the white feather, and flew along for a quarter of an hour longer, but it was of no use, I was quite knocked up.
"Monsieur," I again stammered, "might we not stop for a moment? I am tormented by a horrible thirst, and if we were just to perch upon a tree——"
"Go to the devil! you are nothing but a blackbird!" the pigeon responded in a rage and, without so much as turning his head, he continued his mad flight. As for me, everything grew dark before my sight and I fell, senseless, into a field of wheat.
How long my unconsciousness lasted I know not. When I came to, my first recollection was the carrier-pigeon's parting remark: "You are nothing but a blackbird," he had said to me. "Oh! my dear parents," I said to myself, "then you are mistaken, after all! I will return to you! you will recognize me as your true and lawful son and will let me have my place again in that dear little bed of leaves down beneath my mother's porringer."
I made an effort to rise, but the fatigue of the journey and the pain resulting from my fall paralyzed my every limb. Scarcely had I got upon my feet when my strength failed me again and I fell over on my side.
Hideous thoughts of death were now beginning to arise before my mind, when I beheld two charming creatures advancing toward me on tip-toe through the poppies and cornflowers. One was a little magpie, very stylishly speckled and of extremely coquettish appearance, and the other was a turtle-dove of a rosy complexion. The turtle-dove stopped when she had approached within a few feet of me, with a great display of modesty and compassion for my misfortune, but the pie came skipping up with the most pleasing manner in the world.
"Eh! Bon Dieu! my poor child, what are you doing there?" she inquired in a merry, silvery voice.
"Alas! Madame la Marquise," I replied (for I thought that she must be a marquise at the very least), "I am a poor devil of a traveler whom his postilion has abandoned here at the roadside, and I am ready to die of hunger."
"Holy Virgin! what is that you tell me?" said she. And forthwith she began to flit about among the surrounding bushes, hopping from one to another and bringing me a great provision of berries and small fruits, which she deposited in a little pile at my side, continuing her fire of questions meanwhile.
"But who are you? Where do you come from? The story of your adventure sounds incredible! And where were you going? To think of your traveling alone, at your age; why, you are only just over your first moulting! What is your parents' business? Where do they belong? How can they let you go about in the condition that you are in? Why, it is enough to make one's feathers stand on end!"
I had raised myself a little upon my side while she was speaking and was eating with a ravenous appetite. The turtle-dove had not stirred from her position and continued to eye me with a look of pity; she remarked, however, that I would turn my head every now and then in a feeble sort of way, and saw that I was thirsty. Upon a leaf of chickweed there remained a drop of the rain that had fallen during the night; she took it in her beak and timidly brought it and offered it to me; it was deliciously cool and refreshing. Had I not been as ill as I was, a person of her modesty would certainly not have ventured thus to transgress the rules of propriety.
As yet I knew not what it was to love, but my heart was beating violently; I was divided between two conflicting emotions and an inexpressible charm pervaded my being. My clerk of the kitchen was so lively, and my butler showed such gentleness and feeling, that I would gladly have protracted my breakfast to all eternity, but everything has an end, unfortunately, even the appetite of a convalescent. When the meal was ended and my strength had in a measure returned to me I appeased the little pie's curiosity, and related the story of my woes with the same candor that I had displayed the day before in telling them to the pigeon. The pie listened with a deeper interest than the recital seemed to call for, and the turtle-dove evinced a degree of sensibility that was most charming. When, however, I came to touch upon the final cause of all my sufferings, that is to say, my ignorance as to my own identity:
"Are you joking?" screamed the pie. "What you, a blackbird! a pigeon, you! Nonsense! you are a pie, my dear child, if pie there ever was, and a very pretty pie, too," she added, giving me a little tap with her wing, as if it had been a fan.
"But, Madame la Marquise," I replied, "it seems to me, respectfully begging your pardon, that I am not of the right color for a pie."
"A Russian pie, my dear, you are a Russian pie! Don't you know that they are white? Poor child, how innocent you are!"
"But how could I be a Russian pie, madame," I rejoined, "when I was born down in the Marais in an old broken porringer?"
"Ah! the simple child! Your folks came here with the invasion, my dear; do you suppose that there are not others in the same case as you? Confide in me and don't allow yourself to worry! I mean to carry you off with me right away and show you the finest things in the world."
"And where to, dear madame, may it please you?"
"To my green palace, pretty one; and you shall see the kind of life we lead there. When you shall once have been a pie for a quarter of an hour you will never want to hear tell of anything else. There are about a hundred of us there, not those great, common, village pies who make a business of begging on the highways, but all noble and of good family, spry and slender and no larger than one's fist. There isn't one of us that has either more or less than seven black and five white spots; the rule is unalterable, and we look with contempt on all the rest of the world. It is true that you have not the black spots, but you will have no difficulty in gaining admission on account of your Russian descent. Our time is spent in two occupations: cackling and prinking ourselves. From morning until midday we prink, and from noon till night we cackle. Each of us selects a tree to perch upon, the tallest and oldest that he can find. In the midst of the forest is a great oak that is uninhabited now, alas! It was tile dwelling of the late king Pie X, and we make pilgrimages to it, heaving many a deep sigh; but, apart from this transitory grief, our life is as pleasant as we could wish. Our women are not prudes nor are our husbands jealous, but our pleasures are pure and honest, because our hearts are as noble as our tongues are merry and unrestrained. Our pride is unbounded, and if a jay or any such common trash happens to intrude his company upon us we pluck him without mercy. For all that, however, we are the most