Chapter 233 The Adventures of Father Sanma Baifu

Marius no longer visited anyone, but he sometimes met Father Mabeuf. At this moment Marius was walking slowly down a kind of gloomy staircase.These steps, which we may call cellar stairs, lead people to places where they can't see the sun and hear only the happy crowd walking above their heads. When Marius walked slowly down in this way, Ma Bai Mr. Huo also walked down on his side at the same time. The "Illustrated Notes on the Plants Near Kortretz" has never been sold.Trials of indigo were also unsuccessful due to the lack of sunlight in the small garden in Austerlitz.Mr. Mabeuf can only grow some rare plants that like shade and humidity there.But he is not discouraged.He obtained a corner of the land with good sunlight and ventilation in the botanical garden, and used it to try growing indigo "at his own expense".For this experiment, he pawned the copper plate of "Illustration of Plants".He cut down his daily breakfast to two eggs, one of which was reserved for his elderly maid, whom he had not paid for fifteen months.His breakfast is often the only meal of the day.He lost that childish laugh, he became sullen, and he stopped taking friends.Fortunately, Marius did not want to see him either.Sometimes, when Mr. Mabeuf went to the botanical garden, the old man and the young man would pass by each other on the hospital road.They didn't talk to each other, they just nodded to each other sadly.Sad that poverty can make people forget the past!We were friends in the past, but now we are strangers.

Royol, the bookstore owner, is dead.Mr. Mabeuf now knows only his own books, his garden, and his indigo, the three images in which his happiness, interests, and hopes appear.It was enough for him to live.He used to say to himself, "By the time I've made that blue dumpling, I'll be rich, and I'll redeem my copperplates from the pawnshop, and I'll sell my "Plant Illustrated Book" with great fanfare." , and the drum beats, and the papers advertise, and I can buy a copy of Pierre de Medin's The Art of Navigation. I know where to get it, 1559 edition With woodcut illustrations." At present, he goes to cultivate his indigo field every day, and returns home at night to water his garden and read his books.M. Mabeuf was now nearly eighty years old.

One evening, he encountered a strange thing. That day, in broad daylight, he returned home.Plutarch's mother, whose strength was declining day by day, was lying ill in bed.At supper he gnawed a bone which had a little flesh left, and ate a piece of bread which he found on the kitchen table, and went out to sit on an overturned boundary-stone which he used as a bench in the garden. of. Next to this bench, according to the layout of an old-fashioned orchard, stands a tall round-top cabinet. Its wooden strips and boards are very incomplete. The lower floor is a rabbit nest, and the upper floor is a fruit shelf.There are no rabbits in the rabbit nest, but there are still a few apples on the fruit stand.Here's leftover winter food.

Mr. Mabeuf is wearing glasses, holding two favorite books in his hands, flipping through them, these two books are not only his favorite, but for a person of his age, those two books are more serious Often makes him uneasy.His cowardly nature had led him to some degree of superstition.One of those two books was the well-known work of Abbot de Runkel, The Variety of the Devil, and the other was the quarto of Mittor de Laroubottierre, On the Ghost of Voville. and Pief's Genie.His garden had formerly been haunted by elves, and that latter book interested him all the more.The afterglow of twilight was beginning to whiten what was above and black what was below.While reading, Mr. Ma Baifu looked at his flowers and trees from the book in his hand. The one that gave him the greatest comfort was a gorgeous and eye-catching azalea. The four days of drought had just passed, the hot wind, the scorching sun, Not a single drop of rain was seen, the branches were drooping, the flower buds were withered, the leaves had fallen, and everything needed to be irrigated. The azalea in particular looked haggard and sad.Like some people, Mr. Ma Baifu believed that plants had souls.The old man was exhausted from working all day in his indigo field, but he still stood up, put his two books on the bench, bent over, staggered, and walked to the well, But he grasped at the chain and tried to lift it up a little so that it would come off the nail, but in vain.He had to turn back, miserable, and looked up at the starry sky.

Twilight has such a quiet aspect that it can overwhelm human suffering under a kind of unspeakable desolation and eternal joy.This night, it seems that it will be as dry as the day again. "Stars everywhere!" thought the old man, "not a cloud! Not a drop of water!" His head, raised for a while, fell to his chest again. He raised his head again, looked at the sky and muttered: "Sprinkle some dew! Have mercy on all living beings!" He tried again, to remove the chain from the well, but his strength failed him. Just then, he heard a voice say: "Mr. Ma Baifu, do you want me to water your garden?"

At the same time, there was a sound in the fence, as if some wild animal had passed through, and he saw a tall, slender girl coming out of the weeds, standing in front of him, looking boldly at him.This thing is not so much like a person as it is an image that has just emerged from the twilight. Mr. Mabeuf was easily frightened, and, as we said, easily frightened. Before he could answer a word, the elusive creature had unchained in the dark, hung the bucket down, and lifted it up again. , filled the watering can, and the old man saw that the shadow was barefoot, wearing a ragged skirt, running back and forth in the flower bed, spreading life around her.The water sprayed from the shower head sprinkled on the leaves, making Ma Baifu's heart full of joy.He seemed to feel that the mountain azalea felt happy now.

When the first bucket was finished, the girl took the second bucket, and then the third bucket.She watered the whole garden. Her all-black silhouette was walking up and down the path like this, with a tattered shawl floating on her two long bony arms. Looking at it, she really couldn't tell that she smelled like a bat. When she finished pouring water, Father Ma Bai walked up to her with tears in his eyes, put his hand on her forehead and said: "God bless you, you are an angel, you can love flowers like this." "No," she replied, "I'm a ghost, and I don't care if I'm a ghost."

The old man didn't wait for her answer, and didn't hear her answer, so he said loudly: "It's a pity that I'm too bad, too poor, to be of any help to you!" "You can help me," she said. "How?" "Give me the address of M. Marius." The old man didn't understand at all. "Which Monsieur Marius?" He rolled up a pair of white eyes, as if searching for something from the past that had disappeared. "A young man who used to come here often in the early days." Only then did M. Mabeuf recall. "Ah! yes..." he exclaimed, "I understand you. Wait! Monsieur Marius... Baron Marius Pontmercy, no! He lives...he no longer lives... Too bad, I don't know."

As he spoke, he bent down to touch the branches of the lingering azalea, and then said: "Yes, I remember now. He often walks on that road, towards the ice cellar. Luoxu Street. Bailing Field. You can look for it in that area. It is not difficult to meet him." When Mr. Mabeuf straightened up, no one was there, and the girl was gone. He was a little scared. "To tell the truth," he thought, "if my garden hadn't been watered, I should really have thought I had encountered a ghost." An hour later, as he lay in bed, the thought came back to him, and he was about to fall asleep, that is to say, the thought, like the fabled bird that turns into a fish to cross the sea, gradually dissolves into Dreamland, entering the vague sleep, at this time, in the twilight, he said to himself:

"Indeed, it is very like the elf of which La Roubertiere spoke. Is it really an elf?"