The devil lived in a humble cottage on the hill, but he owned all the salt marshes, the rich lands where grow the finest crops, the wooded valleys and all the fertile hills of the country, while the saint a ruled only over the sands. Therefore Satan was rich, whereas Saint Michael was as poor as a church mouse.
After a few years of fasting the saint grew tired of this state of affairs and began to think of some compromise with the devil, but the matter was by no means easy, as Satan kept a good hold on his crops.
He thought the thing over for about six months; then one morning he walked across to the sh.o.r.e. The demon was eating his soup in front of his door when he saw the saint. He immediately rushed toward him, kissed the hem of his sleeve, invited him in and offered him refreshments.
Saint Michael drank a bowl of milk and then began: "I have come here to propose to you a good bargain."
The devil, candid and trustful, answered: "That will suit me."
"Here it is. Give me all your lands."
Satan, growing alarmed, wished to speak "But-"
She saint continued: "Listen first. Give me all your lands. I will take care of all the work, the ploughing, the sowing, the fertilizing, everything, and we will share the crops equally. How does that suit you?"
The devil, who was naturally lazy, accepted. He only demanded in addition a few of those delicious gray mullet which are caught around the solitary mount. Saint Michael promised the fish.
They grasped hands and spat on the ground to show that it was a bargain, and the saint continued: "See here, so that you will have nothing to complain of, choose that part of the crops which you prefer: the part that grows above ground or the part that stays in the ground." Satan cried out: "I will take all that will be above ground."
"It"s a bargain!" said the saint. And he went away.
Six months later, all over the immense domain of the devil, one could see nothing but carrots, turnips, onions, salsify, all the plants whose juicy roots are good and savory and whose useless leaves are good for nothing but for feeding animals.
Satan wished to break the contract, calling Saint Michael a swindler.
But the saint, who had developed quite a taste for agriculture, went back to see the devil and said:
"Really, I hadn"t thought of that at all; it was just an accident, no fault of mine. And to make things fair with you, this year I"ll let you take everything that is under the ground."
"Very well," answered Satan.
The following spring all the evil spirit"s lands were covered with golden wheat, oats as big as beans, flax, magnificent colza, red clover, peas, cabbage, artichokes, everything that develops into grains or fruit in the sunlight.
Once more Satan received nothing, and this time he completely lost his temper. He took back his fields and remained deaf to all the fresh propositions of his neighbor.
A whole year rolled by. From the top of his lonely manor Saint Michael looked at the distant and fertile lands and watched the devil direct the work, take in his crops and thresh the wheat. And he grew angry, exasperated at his powerlessness.
As he was no longer able to deceive Satan, he decided to wreak vengeance on him, and he went out to invite him to dinner for the following Monday.
"You have been very unfortunate in your dealings with me," he said; "I know it, but I don"t want any ill feeling between us, and I expect you to dine with me. I"ll give you some good things to eat."
Satan, who was as greedy as he was lazy, accepted eagerly. On the day appointed he donned his finest clothes and set out for the castle.
Saint Michael sat him down to a magnificent meal. First there was a "vol-au-vent", full of c.o.c.ks" crests and kidneys, with meat-b.a.l.l.s, then two big gray mullet with cream sauce, a turkey stuffed with chestnuts soaked in wine, some salt-marsh lamb as tender as cake, vegetables which melted in the mouth and nice hot pancake which was brought on smoking and spreading a delicious odor of b.u.t.ter.
They drank new, sweet, sparkling cider and heady red wine, and after each course they whetted their appet.i.tes with some old apple brandy.
The devil drank and ate to his heart"s content; in fact he took so much that he was very uncomfortable, and began to retch.
Then Saint Michael arose in anger and cried in a voice like thunder: "What! before me, rascal! You dare-before me-"
Satan, terrified, ran away, and the saint, seizing a stick, pursued him. They ran through the halls, turning round the pillars, running up the staircases, galloping along the cornices, jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle. The poor devil, who was woefully ill, was running about madly and trying hard to escape. At last he found himself at the top of the last terrace, right at the top, from which could be seen the immense bay, with its distant towns, sands and pastures. He could no longer escape, and the saint came up behind him and gave him a furious kick, which shot him through s.p.a.ce like a cannonball.
He shot through the air like a javelin and fell heavily before the town of Mortain. His horns and claws stuck deep into the rock, which keeps through eternity the traces of this fall of Satan.
He stood up again, limping, crippled until the end of time, and as he looked at this fatal castle in the distance, standing out against the setting sun, he understood well that he would always be vanquished in this unequal struggle, and he went away limping, heading for distant countries, leaving to his enemy his fields, his hills, his valleys and his marshes.
And this is how Saint Michael, the patron saint of Normandy, vanquished the devil.
Another people would have dreamed of this battle in an entirely different manner.
A NEW YEAR"S GIFT
Jacques de Randal, having dined at home alone, told his valet he might go out, and he sat down at his table to write some letters.
He ended every year in this manner, writing and dreaming. He reviewed the events of his life since last New Year"s Day, things that were now all over and dead; and, in proportion as the faces of his friends rose up before his eyes, he wrote them a few lines, a cordial New Year"s greeting on the first of January.
So he sat down, opened a drawer, took out of it a woman"s photograph, gazed at it a few moments, and kissed it. Then, having laid it beside a sheet of notepaper, he began:
"MY DEAR IRENE: You must by this time have received the little souvenir I sent, you addressed to the maid. I have shut myself up this evening in order to tell you--"
The pen here ceased to move. Jacques rose up and began walking up and down the room.
For the last ten months he had had a sweetheart, not like the others, a woman with whom one engages in a pa.s.sing intrigue, of the theatrical world or the demi-monde, but a woman whom he loved and won. He was no longer a young man, although he was still comparatively young for a man, and he looked on life seriously in a positive and practical spirit.
Accordingly, he drew up the balance sheet of his pa.s.sion, as he drew up every year the balance sheet of friendships that were ended or freshly contracted, of circ.u.mstances and persons that had entered into his life.
His first ardor of love having grown calmer, he asked himself with the precision of a merchant making a calculation what was the state of his heart with regard to her, and he tried to form an idea of what it would be in the future.
He found there a great and deep affection; made up of tenderness, grat.i.tude and the thousand subtleties which give birth to long and powerful attachments.
A ring at the bell made him start. He hesitated. Should he open the door? But he said to himself that one must always open the door on New Year"s night, to admit the unknown who is pa.s.sing by and knocks, no matter who it may be.
So he took a wax candle, pa.s.sed through the antechamber, drew back the bolts, turned the key, pulled the door back, and saw his sweetheart standing pale as a corpse, leaning against the wall.
He stammered:
"What is the matter with you?"
She replied:
"Are you alone?"
"Yes."
"Without servants?"