’Lor qu’au lai saison qu’ai
jaule
Au monde Jesu-chri vin
L’ane et le beu l’echaufin
De le leu sofle dans l’etaule.
Que d’ane et de beu je sai
Dans ce royaume de Gaule,
Que d’ane et de beu je sai
Qui n’en a rien pas tan fai.’”
The surgeon, his wife and the vicar sang together:
“Que d’ane et de beu je sai
Dans ce royaume de Gaule,
Que d’ane et de beu je sai
Qui n’en a rien pas tan fai.”
And my good master replied in a weaker voice:
“Mais le pu beo de l’histoire
Ce fut que l’ane et le beu
Ainsin passire to deu
La nuit sans manger ni boire
Que d’ane et de beu je sai
Couver de pane et de moire
Que d’ane et de beu je sai
Que n’en a rien pas tan fai!”
Then he let his head fall on the pillow and sang no
more.
“There is good in this Christian,” said
the vicar, “much good, and a while ago he really
edified me with his beautiful sentences. But I
am not without a certain apprehension, as everything
depends on the end, and nobody knows what’s
hidden at the bottom of the basket God in His kindness
wills that one single moment brings us salvation,
but this moment must be the last one, so that everything
depends on a single minute, in comparison with which
the whole life does not count. That’s what
makes me tremble for the patient, over whom angels
and devils are furiously quarrelling. But one
must never despair of divine mercy.”
Death of M. Jerome Coignard
Two days passed in cruel alternations. After
that my good master became extremely weak.
“There is no more hope,” M. Coquebert
told me. “Look how his head lies on the
pillow, how thin his nose is.”
As a fact, my good master’s nose, formerly big
and red, was nothing now but a bent blade, livid like
lead.
“Tournebroche, my son,” he said to me
in a voice still full and strong but of a sound quite
strange to me, “I feel that I have but a short
time to live. Go and fetch that good priest, that
he may listen to my confession.”
The vicar was in his vineyard. There I went.
“The vintage is finished,” he said, “and
more abundant than I had hoped for; now let’s
go and help that poor fellow.”
I conducted him to my master’s bedside and we
left him alone with the dying.
An hour later he came out again and said:
“I can assure you that M. Jerome Coignard dies
in admirable sentiments of piety and humility.
At his request, and in consideration of his fervour,
I’ll give him the viaticum. During the
time necessary for putting on my holy garments, you,
Madame Coquebert, will do me the favour to send to
the vestry the boy who serves me at mass every morning
and make the room ready for the reception of God.”
Madame Coquebert swept the room, put a white coverlet
on the bed, placed a little table at the bedside,
and covered it with a cloth; she put two candlesticks
on the table and lit the candles, and an earthenware
bowl wherein a sprig of box swam in the holy water.
