FOLLE-FARINE.
By OUIDA,
AUTHOR OF "STRATHMORE," "CHANDOS," "IDALIA," "TRICOTRIN," "PUCK,""GRANVILLE DE VIGNE," "UNDER TWO FLAGS," ETC.
Dit au pauvre qu'il a noyé dans les ténèbres:
Où donc l'aperçois-tu ce Créateur du Beau?
Ce Rédresseur que tu célèbres!"
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1871.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
À
LA MÉMOIRE
D'INGRES,
PEINTRE-POËTE.
FOLLE-FARINE.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Not the wheat itself; not even so much as the chaff; only the dust fromthe corn. The dust which no one needs or notices; the mock farina whichflies out from under the two revolving circles of the grindstones; theimpalpable cloud which goes forth to gleam golden in the sun a moment,and then is scattered—on the wind, into the water, up in the sunlight,down in the mud. What matters? who cares?
Only the dust: a mote in the air; a speck in the light; a black spot inthe living daytime; a colorless atom in the immensity of the atmosphere,borne up one instant to gleam against the sky, dropped down the next tolie in a fetid ditch.
Only the dust: the dust that flows out from between the grindstones,grinding exceeding hard and small, as the religion which calls itselfLove avers that its God does grind the world.
"It is a nothing, less than nothing. The stones turn; the dust is born;it has a puff of life; it dies. Who cares? No one. Not the good God; notany man; not even the devil. It is a thing even devil-deserted. Ah, itis very like you," said the old miller, watching the millstones.
Folle-Farine heard—she had heard a hundred times,—and held her peace.
Folle-Farine: the dust; only the dust.
As good a name as any other for a nameless creature. Thedust,—sharp-winnowed and rejected of all, as less worthy than even theshred husks and the shattered stalks.
Folle-Farine,—she watched the dust fly in and out all day long frombetween the grindstones. She only wondered why, if she and the dust werethus kindred and namesakes, the wind flew away with the dust somercifully, and yet never would fly away with her.
The dust was carried away by the breeze, and wandered wherever itlisted. The dust had a sweet, short, summer-day life of its own ere itdied. If it were worthless, it at least was free. It could lie in thecurl of a green leaf, or on the white breast of a flower. It couldmingle with the golden dust in a lily, and almost seem to be one withit. It could fly with the thistle-down, and with the feathers of thedandelion, on every roving wind that blew.
In a vague dreamy fashion, the child wondered why the dust was so muchbetter dealt with than she was.
"Folle-Farine! Folle—Folle—Folle—Farine!" the other children hootedafter her, echoing the name by which the grim humor of herbitter-tongued taskmaster had called her. She had got used to it, andanswered to it as others to their birthnames.
It meant that she was a thing utterly useless, absolutely worthless; thevery refuse of the winnowi