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Page 42
"But," I interrupted, "how does it happen that the fellow is still on
the Floran plantation?"
"Wait a moment!... When the military got control of the mob, search
was made everywhere for the murderer of M. Floran; but he could not
be found. He was lying out in the cane,--in M. Floran's cane!--like a
field-rat, like a snake. One morning, while the gendarmes were still
looking for him, he rushed into the house, and threw himself down in
front of Madame, weeping and screaming, '_A�e-ya�e-ya�e-ya�e!--moin
t� tchou� y! moin t� tchou� y!--a�e-ya�e-ya�e!_' Those were his very
words:--'I killed him! I killed him!' And he begged for mercy. When
he was asked why he killed M. Floran, he cried out that it was the
devil--_diabe-�_--that had made him do it!... Well, Madame forgave
him!"
"But how could she?" I queried.
"Oh, she had always been very religious," my friend
responded,--"sincerely religious. She only said, 'May God pardon me
as I now pardon you!' She made her servants hide the creature and feed
him; and they kept him hidden until the excitement was over. Then she
sent him back to work; and he has been working for her ever since. Of
course he is now too old to be of any use in the field;--he only takes
care of the chickens."
"But how," I persisted, "could the relatives allow Madame to forgive
him?"
"Well, Madame insisted that he was not mentally responsible,--that he
was only a poor fool who had killed without knowing what he was doing;
and she argued that if _she_ could forgive him, others could more
easily do the same. There was a consultation; and the relatives
decided so to arrange matters that Madame could have her own way."
"But why?"
"Because they knew that she found a sort of religious consolation--a
kind of religious comfort--in forgiving the wretch. She imagined
that it was her duty as a Christian, not only to forgive him, but to
take care of him. We thought that she was mistaken,--but we could
understand.... Well, there is an example of what religion can do."...
* * * * *
The surprise of a new fact, or the sudden perception of something
never before imagined, may cause an involuntary smile. Unconsciously
I smiled, while my friend was yet speaking; and the good notary's brow
darkened.
"Ah, you laugh!" he exclaimed,--"you laugh! That is wrong!--that is a
mistake!... But you do not believe: you do not know what it is,--the
true religion,--the real Christianity!"
Earnestly I made answer:--
"Pardon me! I do believe every word of what you have told me. If I
laughed unthinkingly, it was only because I could not help wondering"
...
"At what?" he questioned gravely.
"At the marvelous instinct of that negro."
"Ah, yes!" he returned approvingly. "Yes, the cunning of the animal
it was,--the instinct of the brute!... She was the only person in the
world who could have saved him."
"And he knew it," I ventured to add.
"No--no--no!" my friend emphatically dissented,--"he never could have
known it! He only _felt_ it!... Find me an instinct like that, and I
will show you a brain incapable of any knowledge, any thinking, any
understanding: not the mind of a man, but the brain of a beast!"
A LETTER FROM JAPAN
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