But
That Is Neither Here Nor There; The Story Is As Follows, And The Moral
Is That The Commercial Mind Is Illogical.
When we had gone some way, clattering through the dust, and were well
on on the Commercy road, there
Was a short halt, and during this halt
there passed us the largest Tun or Barrel that ever went on wheels.
You talk of the Great Tun of Heidelburg, or of those monstrous Vats
that stand in cool sheds in the Napa Valley, or of the vast barrels in
the Catacombs of Rheims; but all these are built _in situ_ and meant
to remain steady, and there is no limit to the size of a Barrel that
has not to travel. The point about this enormous Receptacle of Bacchus
and cavernous huge Prison of Laughter, was that it could move, though
cumbrously, and it was drawn very slowly by stupid, patient oxen, who
would not be hurried. On the top of it sat a strong peasant, with a
face of determination, as though he were at war with his kind, and he
kept on calling to his oxen, 'Han', and 'Hu', in the tones of a sullen
challenge, as he went creaking past. Then the soldiers began calling
out to him singly, 'Where are you off to, Father, with that battery?'
and 'Why carry cold water to Commercy? They have only too much as it
is;' and 'What have you got in the little barrelkin, the barrellet,
the cantiniere's brandy-flask, the gourd, the firkin?' He stopped his
oxen fiercely and turned round to us and said: 'I will tell you what I
have here. I have so many hectolitres of Brule wine which I made
myself, and which I know to be the best wine there is, and I am taking
it about to see if I cannot tame and break these proud fellows who are
for ever beating down prices and mocking me. It is worth eight
'scutcheons the hectolitre, that is, eight sols the litre; what do I
say? it is worth a Louis a cup: but I will sell it at the price I
name, and not a penny less. But whenever I come to a village the
innkeeper begins bargaining and chaffering and offering six sols and
seven sols, and I answer, "Eight sols, take it or leave it", and when
he seems for haggling again I get up and drive away. I know the worth
of my wine, and I will not be beaten down though I have to go out of
Lorraine into the Barrois to sell it.'
So when we caught him up again, as we did shortly after on the road, a
sergeant cried as we passed, 'I will give you seven, seven and a
quarter, seven and a half', and we went on laughing and forgot all
about him.
For many days we marched from this place to that place, and fired and
played a confused game in the hot sun till the train of sick horses
was a mile long, and till the recruits were all as deaf as so many
posts; and at last, one evening, we came to a place called Heiltz le
Maurupt, which was like heaven after the hot plain and the dust, and
whose inhabitants are as good and hospitable as Angels; it is just
where the Champagne begins. When we had groomed and watered our
horses, and the stable guard had been set, and we had all an hour or
so's leisure to stroll about in the cool darkness before sleeping in
the barns, we had a sudden lesson in the smallness of the world, for
what should come up the village street but that monstrous Barrel, and
we could see by its movements that it was still quite full.
We gathered round the peasant, and told him how grieved we were at his
ill fortune, and agreed with him that all the people of the Barrois
were thieves or madmen not to buy such wine for such a song. He took
his oxen and his barrel to a very high shed that stood by, and there
he told us all his pilgrimage and the many assaults his firmness
suffered, and how he had resisted them all. There was much more anger
than sorrow in his accent, and I could see that he was of the wood
from which tyrants and martyrs are carved. Then suddenly he changed
and became eloquent:
'Oh, the good wine! If only it were known and tasted! ... Here, give
me a cup, and I will ask some of you to taste it, then at least I
shall have it praised as it deserves. And this is the wine I have
carried more than a hundred miles, and everywhere it has been
refused!'
There was one guttering candle on a little stool. The roof of the shed
was lost up in the great height of darkness; behind, in the darkness,
the oxen champed away steadily in the manger. The light from the
candle flame lit his face strongly from beneath and marked it with
dark shadows. It flickered on the circle of our faces as we pressed
round, and it came slantwise and waned and disappeared in the immense
length of the Barrel. He stood near the tap with his brows knit as
upon some very important task, and all we, gunners and drivers of the
battery, began unhooking our mugs and passing them to him.
There were nearly a hundred, and he filled them all; not in jollity,
but like a man offering up a solemn sacrifice. We also, entering into
his mood, passed our mugs continually, thanking him in a low tone and
keeping in the main silent. A few linesmen lounged at the door; he
asked for their cups and filled them. He bade them fetch as many of
their comrades as cared to come; and very soon there was a circulating
crowd of men all getting wine of Brule and murmuring their
congratulations, and he was willing enough to go on giving, but we
stopped when we saw fit and the scene ended.
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