The other towns of the federation also suffered from disturbances and
outbreaks, and then order was restored. Reforms were introduced into
institutions and great changes took place in habits and customs, but the
country never recovered the loss of its capital, and never regained its former
prosperity. Commerce and industry dwindled away, and civilization abandoned
those countries which for so long it bad preferred to all others. They became
insalubrious and sterile; the territory that had supported so many millions of
men became nothing more than a desert. On the hill of Fort St. Michel wild
horses cropped the coarse grass.
Days flowed by like water from the fountains, and the centuries passed like
drops falling from the ends of stalactites. Hunters came to chase the bears
upon the hills that covered the forgotten city; shepherds led their flocks
upon them; labourers turned up the soil with their ploughs; gardeners
cultivated their lettuces and grafted their pear trees. They were not rich,
and they had no arts. The walls of their cabins were covered with old vines
and roses, A goat-skin clothed their tanned limbs, while their wives dressed
themselves with the wool that they themselves had spun. The goat-herds moulded
little figures of men and animals out of clay, or sang songs about the young
girl who follows her lover through woods or among the browsing goats while the
pine trees whisper together and the water utters its murmuring sound. The
master of the house grew angry with the beetles who devoured his figs; he
planned snares to protect his fowls from the velvet-tailed fox, and he poured
out wine for his neighbours saying:
"Drink! The flies have not spoilt my vintage; the vines were dry before they
came."
Then in the course of ages the wealth of the villages and the corn that filled
the fields were pillaged by barbarian invaders. The country changed its
masters several times. The conquerors built castles upon the hills;
cultivation increased; mills, forges) tanneries, and looms were established;
roads were opened through the woods and over the marshes; the river was
covered with boats. The hamlets became large villages and joining together
formed a town which protected itself by deep trenches and lofty walls. Later,
becoming the capital of a great State, it found itself straitened within its
now useless ramparts and it converted them into grass-covered walks.
It grew very rich and large beyond measure. The houses were never high enough
to satisfy the people; they kept on making them still higher and built them of
thirty or forty storeys, with offices, shops, banks, societies one above
another; they dug cellars and tunnels ever deeper downwards. Fifteen millions
of men laboured in the giant town.
THE END.
Penguin Island, a novel by Anatole France.
Read previous: BOOK VIII - FUTURE TIMES#CHAPTER S3
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