The Green Mare
One
Once upon a time there was born in the village of Claque-bue a green mare, not of that rancid green which accompanies decrepitude in white-coated horseflesh but of a pretty jade green. Upon seeing it Jules Haudouin believed neither his own eyes nor those of his wife.
“It’s not possible,” he said. “I could never be so lucky.”
A farmer and horse-coper, Haudouin had never reaped the rewards due to cunning, lies and avarice. His cows died two at a time, his pigs by the half-dozen, and his corn sprouted in the sack. He was scarcely more fortunate with his children, having had to beget six in order to keep three. But children were less important. He wept copiously at the funeral, and when he got home wrung out his handkerchief and hung it on the line, being assured that in the natural course of events he would not be long in getting his wife with another. That is what is so convenient about children, and in this matter Haudouin did not greatly complain. He had three robust living sons and three daughters in the cemetery, which was pretty much what suited him.
A green mare was something entirely without precedent, and the fact that it should have been born in Claquebue was the more remarkable since Claquebue was a place where nothing ever happened. Even the village gossip was tedious. It was said, for example, that Maloret deflowered his own daughters; but since the tale had been current for a hundred years, and it was generally understood that this was the way the Malorets always treated their daughters, the matter was no longer one of interest. And then again the
Republicans, of whom there were not more than half a dozen all told, would sometimes take advantage of a moonless night to sing La Carmagnole under the cure's windows, and to bellow, “Down with the Empire!” But in fact nothing happened. So everyone was bored. And since time did not pass the old men did not die. There were twenty-eight centenarians in the commune, to say nothing of the old men between seventy and a hundred who comprised half the population. From time to time one of these would be quietly knocked on the head or otherwise disposed of, but since it would have been ill-mannered to inquire into such domestic adjustments, no notice could be taken, and the village, half-comatose, paralysed, benumbed, remained as dismal as a Sunday in Heaven.
The news of the Green Mare sped out of the stable, reechoed between the river and the woods, encircled Claquebue three times and span round and round the Place de la Mairie. Everyone set out at once for Jules Haudouin’s house, some trotting or running, others limping or hobbling on crutches. There was fierce competition to be the first to arrive, and the old men, scarcely more rational than the women, mingled their whinnyings with the clamour that spread over the countryside.
“Something has happened! Something has happened!”
The tumult reached its height in Haudouin’s farmyard, where the people of Claquebue recovered all the vigorous malice of former days. While the oldest of them besought the cure to exorcise the green mare, the six Republicans shouted “Down with the Empire!” in his very face. A riof started and the Mayor received a kick in the rump which caused a speech to rise instantly to his lips. The younger women complained of being pinched, the older ones of not being pinched, and the children bawded beneath repeated cuffs. At length Jules Haudouin appeared in the doorway of the stable. Laughing, his hands covered with blood, he confirmed:
“She’s as green as an apple!”
A great gust of laughter swept over his audience, and then an old man was seen to beat the air with his hands and fall dead in his hundred-and-eighth year. At this the mirth became prodigious, so that men gasped, holding their sides.
Helped by a few well-placed kicks the centenarians began to die like flies.
“There goes another! It’s old Rousselier! And look at that one over there!”
In less than half an hour seven centenarians, three nonagenarians and one octogenarian had passed away, and a good many others were feeling indisposed. Still standing in the doorway of the stable Haudouin thought of his aged father, who ate enough for two, and he remarked to his wife that the ones to be pitied were not those who were taken but those who were left behind.
The cure was having his work cut out to minister to the dying. Being exhausted, he finally climbed onto a barrel to make himself heard above the merriment and said that they had had enough fun for one day and it was time for everyone to go home. The fortunate owner displayed his green mare both full face and in profile and the audience withdrew, deeply content to think that at last something had happened. His passage eased by the last rites, Hau-douin’s father died towards the end of the evening and was interred two days later in company with fifteen fellow-citizens no less venerable. The funeral was an impressive one, and the cure profited by the occasion to remind his congregation that all flesh is as grass.
Meanwhile the renown of the Green Mare was spreading. From as far off as Saint-Margelon, the chief town of the region, people bestirred themselves to come and marvel. Sundays saw an unbroken procession pass through the stables. Haudouin became a celebrity, his horse-trading business greatly improved, and to be on the safe side he took to going regularly to Mass. Claquebue preened itself in the possession of an exhibit which brought so many visitors, and its two cafes experienced a sudden rise in prosperity. As a result of this Haudouin decided to become a candidate at the municipal elections, and upon his threatening to sell his Green Mare the two cafe proprietors thought it judicious to accord him a support which just turned the scale.
Not long after this a teacher at the Imperial College of Saint-Margelon, who was also a correspondent of the Academie des Sciences, came to see the Green Mare. He was dumbfounded and wrote a report to the Academie which caused one of its most illustrious members, his chest blazoned with decorations, to declare that the thing must be a fraud. “I am seventy-six years old,” he said, “and 1 have never read of the existence of a green mare: therefore a green mare cannot exist.” Another savant, scarcely less illustrious, replied that green mares had undoubtedly existed in the past, and that his learned colleague might find references to them in many of the most respected authors of antiquity if he would merely take the trouble to read between the lines. The dispute was a resounding one. Its echoes reached as far as the Court, causing the Emperor himself to inquire into the matter.
“A green mare?” he said. “That must be as unusual as an honest minister!”
This was a joke. The ladies of the Court slapped their thighs and everyone praised the Sovereign’s wit. The bon mot was repeated all over Paris, and when the Emperor paid a visit to the region of Saint-Margelon a newspaper referred in a sub-title to “The Land of the Green Mare.”
The Emperor arrived at Saint-Margelon during the morning and by three o’clock had listened to fourteen speeches. Being somewhat drowsy by the time the official banquet was ended, he signed to the Prefect to join him in the conveniences and there proposed:
“How would it be if we went to have a look at this green mare? I should like, while I am here, to see how the harvest promises.”
Accordingly they bustled through the inauguration of a monument to a certain Captain Pont, who had lost his head at Sebastopol, and the Imperial coach set out upon the road to Claquebue. A fine warm spring lay over the countrvside, which had a reviving effect upon the Emperor. He was much taken with the mistress of the house, who had a pastoral charm and a period bosom. The people of Claquebue, massed along the village street, murmured in ecstasy that things never stopped happening. Another half-dozen of the old men died and were hidden in the ditch for the sake of appearances.