The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1890-11-05
THE BEAUTIFUL CLAUDINE,

I'LL ULhu Ill UL ULHUUlllLI
Along the dusty highway, still
brilliant with the setting sun, the eve
ming mail man passed in a jolting rum
BILE of wheels from his ancient carriole,
and ringing of hoofs from his meagre
mare. Then it was that Claudine, the
beautiful Claudine," as the villagers
called her, showed herself at the sill of
the little white cottage, her hand above
her eyes, her elbow elevated. She
stood there silent and motionless, like
picture in lighter tints against the
darker back ground of the chamber,
but with a joyous expectancy dawning
in her eyes.
Far away over the peaks, the sun
was sinking to rest, its last rays climb
ing slowly from horn to horn of the
wooded hills, lighting up the sombre
verdure of the oaks with points of
brilliancy, quivering like flame against
the blue horizon and enveloping, as
with parting caress. the rounded
summit of naked hill, whose long
slopes ended at the turning of the road
that stretched into the shadow, a strip
of dull greyness, soft as ribbon.
From among this chain of hills, ex-
tending as far us the eye could reach
in the gathering evening light, rose the
deep and sonorous cry of the carriers,
urging on their beasts, engaged in haul
ing the stone from the quarries which
gnawed out the heart of these same
peaks, still touched at the crest by the
dying sun. 1t was here that Claudine's S
thoughts were rowing in search of her
man.
In her mind she saw him plainly,
this toiling quarryman, young and
handsome as herself, perched aloft on
a frail scaffolding and working at the
quarry's roof in the tremulous light of
lanterns like twinkling stars, the
clink, clink of the ham,
mers repeated by the drip, drip of the
subterranean waters, But now, since
the evening postman had gone by,
Claudine knew that the days work
was ended, her man descending with
others and arranging his tools-quick-
ly, too, thinking of her and impatient
for her kisses.
In fact, some of the men, in gaudy
belts and with coats thrown over their
had begun to appear,
briskly the steep white road,
their voices mounting higher and
higher, like the waves of sunlight, and
rough and rude as the country. All at
once, even whilst she searched with her
gaze the fast crowding pathway a
cloud of dirt and debris leaped high in
the air, followed instantly through the
valley by crash like thunder. The
quarry had blown up. And Claudine
lay senseless on the ground.
Under the Quilted earth, covered
with crumbled houses, cracked and
crushed as by monstrous hammer,
depths of the buried galleries, fifty or
more of the quarrymen were buried
also, despairing, hopeless of rescue.
dying perhaps, if not already dead.
At the point where the engineers
worked with heart and soul to pierce
an entombed gallery, Claudine knelt
beside them, eager, heart-sick. refusing
70 stir step and still awaiting her
nan.
For eight days she had remained
here, unable to believe in the disaster,
unable to be consoled, her burning
eyes stubbornly riveted upon the open
ng, little by little growing larger.
But these efforts provoked new crumb-
Iings-the waters flooded the passages,
the work had to be stopped. Then and
not till then did she climb the hill to
the place where the men who had es-
caped the disaster strained at the
pumps.
But soon the pumps, too, gave out,
choked, doubtless, with the rubbish
that refused to flow. The rescuers,
white, haggard, helpless, sorrowfully
and turned away. Claud-
inc remained alone by the ravaged
earth, the abortive, abandoned work,
crushed, inert, feeling in her anguished
soul but single desire-to be herself
at rest.
.tCIaudiner' murmured a voice at
her ear.
She raised her eyes. 1t was aquarry-
man by the name of Pierre. whom she
had noticed toiling with the others.
She saw his blistered hands, the soil on
his clothes, and suddenly, without a
word, before the plying sorrow OF his
gaze burst into a storm of tears.
As for Pierre, he, too, found no word
to say, but sitting beside her allowed
her to cry on, stroking her hand ten
derly at every sob, an answering grief
dimminp his own ewes. Gradually as
she grew calmer Claudine knew that
Pierre was talked to her of things
whose sense still escaped her, but
whose soft, soothing monotone quleted
her to the docility of child.
She listlessly permitted him to draw
her with him, scarcely conscious OF
what he did, whilst he with a gentle,
solicitous care that one shows to a
sick mind and fancy coaxed and per-
suaded her homeward, as from time to
time she stopped with long sighs and
renewed tears.
The long days passed; the imprisoned
men were lost, unfindable, dead, they
declared, crushed by the falling rocks
or thrown out by the enormous force
of the air from the crumbled caverns.
To hear this was a relief to Claud-
ines strained nerves and senses; they
were not tortured, and in the long un'
occupied hours when they talked and
speculated thus she listened sadly and
in silence, but finding a certain
pleasure in this development of neigh
borly pity.
She seemed to herself to be awaken
ing from a long sleep, to be returning
from distant journey; at the same
time, though unconscious of it at first
the exigencies of the present and OF the
coming life began to present them,
selves to her mind. She had her life
to take up again and, perhaps-with
progressive growing of slow fear-tt
take it up with want and solitude
added.
She began to feel more interest il
the things about her; in the success
above all, of the subscriptions to b'
raised to alleviate the disaster, anC
she felt great peace, almost a JOY, tn,
day when Pierre returned from the ad
iacent city to tell her that the widow
were truly to be cared for-that sh
was down for six hundred francs.
Then without occupation and in tn
patient waiting for the relief to com
She every day returned to the quarry
Frequently Pierre accompanied her
always with his gentle courtesy, an
there they talked together in loWere