BOOKS.
TALES OFLA GRUYERE.*
TEE translator of these tales, following a hint given in a review -of Scioberet contained in these columns on April 12th, 1884, has selected three of his tales, and given them in a version of great freedom and charm. No one who cares for that curious mixture -of free fancy and of iron habit which gives to the lives of a people like the Swiss their air at once of imaginative passion and of melancholy fatalism, will fail to find in this volume one of the freshest of the literary fruits of the present year. All three tales make us regret heartily that M. SciobSret devoted the latter .part of his life to the study and practice of the law, rather than to the production of these delightful idyls. They are not, indeed, in any proper sense novels. They have none of the com- plexity of structure and the continuity of style necessary to a novel. But they reflect delicately the sense of wonder and the shadow of destiny which serve to keep the rural life of Switzer- land at once fresh and sad, and there are passages of simple poetry in them which it must have cost Mies Congreve no little trouble to render into this pure and charming English. What, for example, can be more delightful than the one idyllic day- dream which lights up the melancholy tale of coarse prejudice and brutal passion which constitutes the burden of " Martin the Sawyer?" The sawyer is looking carefully at the stream which turns his mill:— " The latter ran clear in its channel, murmuring blithesome songs. At first it pretended not to see its master, and uttered an exclamation of surprise when he put his hand into its ripples.—' Well, my brook, how are you ?'—' Pretty well, master ; only I must tell you I made a hole in my bank during the last fall of rain!—Martin noticed that the water was actually escaping in several places.—' We must put in a patch,' said he.—' I would rather have anew bank,' hazarded -the brook. ' A patch might last some time, bat if a rush of water came, I doubt whether my bank could resist it ; besides, a patch is
not elegant'—' Vain creature Vain ! Why not ? Is it not my duty to do honour to you ? And then, there are tome personal con- siderations—'—` Well, let me hear them.'—' My dear master, learn that between us brooks and you men, there are, spite of some resem- blance, essential differences. In love, for instance, you pursue the pretty ones, whilst, on the contrary, they run after us. Now, as I am a very clear pretty brook, it so happens that a great many come to me ; and you know well that when there is only the difficulty of making a choice, that choice is no difficulty at all. I have chosen those I like, and I make many happy ; but I only allow well.behaved areatures to come near me, such as daisies, forget-me-note, &o. Some parasites, however, might take the opportunity of my bank being in holes, to get a footing near me, and I wish to avoid this at all cost. I am sere you will understand the propriety of my remarks, for, since you are in love yourself—'—The brook stopped, seeing Martin start.—' I in love !' exclaimed Martin, affecting a calmness he did not feel; you have made a bad guess.'—' Oh, I know all about it,' continued the brook ; 'do you remember the morning when you chanced to be just in time to pick up the girl whose cow had thrown her down ? I did not see anything, bat I heard of it. A forget-me- not which was in love with me could see everything, and told me faithfully all that passed, for I paid her for each sentence with a kiss. If I was not afraid of boring you, I would tell you something more.' —'Speak, then, I command you.'—' Will you give me a new bank ?' —` The deuce take you You would be very sorry if he did. Bat do not be angry. I will tell yea. It was the day before yesterday at sunset. Antoinette was coming silently along the path which winds beside me, when she suddenly stopped and sat down on the grass. In a few minutes I saw two pretty little feet, followed by still prettier ankles, dip into my ripples. I would have given my finest daisy if you could have witnessed the scene. She put her feet timidly towards me, as if afraid to treat them to me; but I soon saw her smile as I kissed them with loving gurgling.. Then she appeared to yield herself to a pleasant reverie, which she interrupted by gathering one of the daisies which enamelled the turf around her. She stripped it slowly, murmuring yes or no as each petal fell. The daisy declared in the affirmative, and -the girl betrayed her pleasure by a deep blush. "He will come!" she cried, and ran skipping along the path.'—At any other time Martin would have laughed at the brook'scoofidenees, but they tallied too mach with his secret desires for him to receive them unfavour- ably. So it was in a half.friendly, half-severe tone that he replied,
• You doubtless dreamed what you have jest told me,; and you per- haps think that, as a reward for your chatter, I shall let you off your -work this morning.'—' 06, you are wrong, my dear master. Pat me to the proof.'—' To work, then—it is late—and try to make up for -last time,' said Martin as he went away.—' Do not forget my new • Tales of Country Life in As (imam. From the French of Pierre Boiobdret. By L. Dora Congrere. Edinburgh and London W. Blackwood and Sons.
bank,' cried the brook, resuming its coarse. A minute later the machinery was in motion, and the little building trembled, so active was the happy brook."
Here is a true pastoral, and yet the story in which it occurs is the most melancholy in the volume, though the sufferers are not exactly painted as having no much depth of character as to make the reader feel the full weight of their burden of calamity. Here, again, is a sentence, from the same tale, which suggests how melancholy is often the experience of the hidebound lives which are so frequently lived under these beautiful but monotonous lights and shades :—
" How time flies ! You see, when you are young, you think you will always remain so. You sip life as though it were water, without trying to enjoy it, and it is only when it becomes saddened and bitter that you remember how pure it used to be."
In every one of the tales, the most potent of the passions seems to be revenge, of which a Saturday Reviewer said,—not, we suspect, very accurately,—some twenty years ago, that it had ceased to be a passion of our modern world. Assuredly in communities where life is lived in the old traditional way, and under the shadow of ancestral customs, revenge seems to be one of the strongest of the passions ; while the reticence, the self- restraint, and the cunning which are requisite for the grati- fication of revenge, are among the commonest of the endow- ments. The tragedy in the first tale is brought about by a very brutal and ignorant kind of revenge ; the whole tale turns on revenge in " Colin the Herdsman ;" while in the third story also," Marie the Straw-Plaiter," it is the master-passion, though it takes effect through that undiscriminating disposition to visit the supposed sins of the fathers on the children which in the ancient world was thought a form of religious duty, until first the Jewish prophets, and then the Christian apostles, made war upon it. In La Gruyere, the Christian teachers seem to have lost all control of this passion for regarding the offspring as tainted with every sin which their ancestors had committed ; and it is this fanatical belief in the transmission of bad qualities by descent, which gives its deepest interest to the closing tale of this volume :— " Never did a fresher face appear at the window of a Gruyere house, and pretty faces are by no means rare in that district ! Marie was jest eighteen, the May-time of life, the age for day-dreams. In- dustrious as a bee, pure as the mountain snow, petulant and naive as a fawn, she has nevertheless paid her tribute to suffering, and her dark eyes are often filled with tears. Her mother, the only guide of her youth, is the best of mothers to her ; poverty has never entered their dwelling nor love her heart ; why, then, should she weep ? One day, fifteen years previously, a gendarme knocked at their door, till then untouched by the hand of the law, and arrested Joseph, her father, upon a charge of theft. He accused of theft! He kissed his wife and child with tears in his eyes, but firm and confident in Ida innocence. Nevertheless, the trial went against him. Search being made, the tokens of guilt were found in his house, and he was con- victed in spite of his protestations. He had not sufficient courage to survive the stain cast upon his spotless name, but destroyed himself, after writing a heartrending farewell to his family. The lepers and Jews of the middle ages were fortunate in comparison with this wife and child branded by society. Perhaps nowhere is popular prejudice in this matter an cruel as in La Gruyere. Disgrace io a family is perpetuated with the name from generation to generation ; and even when actual relationship has long ceased to exist, responsibility for a crime is maintained in fall vigour."
It is curious, too, to note that not only is the doctrine of inherit- ance applied especially to the inheritance of bad qualities rather than of good, but that in countries like La Gruyere, any descent from ancestors who are not locally known is regarded as a kind of disgrace. Instead of looking on immigrants as likely to give breadth and variety to the society and life of the place, they look upon them as pure evils. The avigneros, or strangers (a patois word, as the translator tolls us, derived from the late-Latin word advenarius), are treated by the old inhabitants as a " wicked race of good-for-nothings." That prejudice, at any rate, cannot
plead any scientific justification.
We cannot do justice to these tales by any extract that would sever from its context a part of the narrative. But all of them are delightful in their local freshness and flavour, while the tale of "Colin the Herdsman" is perhaps the fullest of the characteristic pastoral life. Miss Congreve has done her work so simply and tersely, that we can predict with some confidence for this volume a large popularity.
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