There were seven of us on a drag, four women and three men; one of the
latter sat on the box seat beside the coachman. We were ascending, at a
snail's pace, the winding road up the steep cliff along the coast.
Setting out from Etretat at break of day in order to visit the ruins of
Tancarville, we were still half asleep, benumbed by the fresh air of the
morning. The women especially, who were little accustomed to these early
excursions, half opened and closed their eyes every moment, nodding
their heads or yawning, quite insensible to the beauties of the dawn.
It was autumn. On both sides of the road stretched the bare fields,
yellowed by the stubble of wheat and oats which covered the soil like a
beard that had been badly shaved. The moist earth seemed to steam. Larks
were singing high up in the air, while other birds piped in the bushes.
The sun rose at length in front of us, bright red on the plane of the
horizon, and in proportion as it ascended, growing clearer from minute
to minute, the country seemed to awake, to smile, to shake itself like
a young girl leaving her bed in her white robe of vapor. The Comte
d'Etraille, who was seated on the box, cried:
“Look! look! a hare!” and he extended his arm toward the left, pointing
to a patch of clover. The animal scurried along, almost hidden by the
clover, only its large ears showing. Then it swerved across a furrow,
stopped, started off again at full speed, changed its course, stopped
anew, uneasy, spying out every danger, uncertain what route to take,
when suddenly it began to run with great bounds, disappearing finally in
a large patch of beet-root. All the men had waked up to watch the course
of the animal.
Rene Lamanoir exclaimed:
“We are not at all gallant this morning,” and; regarding his neighbor,
the little Baroness de Serennes, who struggled against sleep, he said to
her in a low tone: “You are thinking of your husband, baroness. Reassure
yourself; he will not return before Saturday, so you have still four
days.”
She answered with a sleepy smile:
“How stupid you are!” Then, shaking off her torpor, she added: “Now, let
somebody say something to make us laugh. You, Monsieur Chenal, who
have the reputation of having had more love affairs than the Due
de Richelieu, tell us a love story in which you have played a part;
anything you like.”
Leon Chenal, an old painter, who had once been very handsome, very
strong, very proud of his physique and very popular with women, took
his long white beard in his hand and smiled. Then, after a few moments'
reflection, he suddenly became serious.
“Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale, for I am going to relate to you
the saddest love affair of my life, and I sincerely hope that none of my
friends may ever pass through a similar experience.
“I was twenty-five years of age and was pillaging along the coast of
Normandy. I call 'pillaging' wandering about, with a knapsack on one's
back, from inn to inn, under the pretext of making studies and sketching
landscapes. I knew nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky
wandering life, in which one is perfectly free, without shackles of any
kind, without care, without preoccupation, without thinking even of the
morrow. One goes in any direction one pleases, without any guide save
his fancy, without any counsellor save his eyes. One stops because a
running brook attracts one, because the smell of potatoes frying tickles
one's olfactories on passing an inn. Sometimes it is the perfume of
clematis which decides one in his choice or the roguish glance of the
servant at an inn. Do not despise me for my affection for these rustics.
These girls have a soul as well as senses, not to mention firm cheeks
and fresh lips; while their hearty and willing kisses have the flavor of
wild fruit. Love is always love, come whence it may. A heart that beats
at your approach, an eye that weeps when you go away are things so rare,
so sweet, so precious that they must never be despised.
“I have had rendezvous in ditches full of primroses, behind the cow
stable and in barns among the straw, still warm from the heat of the
day. I have recollections of coarse gray cloth covering supple peasant
skin and regrets for simple, frank kisses, more delicate in
their unaffected sincerity than the subtle favors of charming and
distinguished women.
“But what one loves most amid all these varied adventures is the
country, the woods, the rising of the sun, the twilight, the moonlight.
These are, for the painter, honeymoon trips with Nature. One is alone
with her in that long and quiet association. You go to sleep in the
fields, amid marguerites and poppies, and when you open your eyes in the
full glare of the sunlight you descry in the distance the little village
with its pointed clock tower which sounds the hour of noon.
“You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out at the foot of an
oak, amid a growth of tall, slender weeds, glistening with life. You
go down on your knees, bend forward and drink that cold, pellucid
water which wets your mustache and nose; you drink it with a physical
pleasure, as though you kissed the spring, lip to lip. Sometimes, when
you find a deep hole along the course of these tiny brooks, you plunge
in quite naked, and you feel on your skin, from head to foot, as it
were, an icy and delicious caress, the light and gentle quivering of the
stream.
“You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the edge of ponds, inspired
when the sun is setting in an ocean of blood-red clouds and casts red
reflections or the river. And at night, under the moon, which passes
across the vault of heaven, you think of a thousand strange things which
would never have occurred to your mind under the brilliant light of day.
“So, in wandering through the same country where we, are this year, I
came to the little village of Benouville, on the cliff between Yport
and Etretat. I came from Fecamp, following the coast, a high coast
as straight as a wall, with its projecting chalk cliffs descending
perpendicularly into the sea. I had walked since early morning on the
short grass, smooth and yielding as a carpet, that grows on the edge
of the cliff. And, singing lustily, I walked with long strides, looking
sometimes at the slow circling flight of a gull with its white curved
wings outlined on the blue sky, sometimes at the brown sails of a
fishing bark on the green sea. In short, I had passed a happy day, a day
of liberty and of freedom from care.
“A little farmhouse where travellers were lodged was pointed out to me,
a kind of inn, kept by a peasant woman, which stood in the centre of a
Norman courtyard surrounded by a double row of beeches.
“Leaving the coast, I reached the hamlet, which was hemmed in by great
trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.
“She was an old, wrinkled and stern peasant woman, who seemed always to
receive customers under protest, with a kind of defiance.
“It was the month of May. The spreading apple trees covered the court
with a shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon people and
upon the grass.
“I said: 'Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?'
“Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:
“'That depends; everything is let, but all the same I can find out.”
“In five minutes we had come to an agreement, and I deposited my bag
upon the earthen floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two
chairs, a table and a washbowl. The room looked into the large, smoky
kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm
and the landlady, who was a widow.
“I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was making a
chicken fricassee for dinner in the large fireplace in which hung the
iron pot, black with smoke.
“'You have travellers, then, at the present time?' said I to her.
“She answered in an offended tone of voice:
“'I have a lady, an English lady, who has reached years of maturity. She
occupies the other room.'
“I obtained, by means of an extra five sous a day, the privilege of
dining alone out in the yard when the weather was fine.
“My place was set outside the door, and I was beginning to gnaw the lean
limbs of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider and to munch the
hunk of white bread, which was four days old but excellent.
“Suddenly the wooden gate which gave on the highway was opened, and a
strange lady directed her steps toward the house. She was very thin,
very tall, so tightly enveloped in a red Scotch plaid shawl that one
might have supposed she had no arms, if one had not seen a long hand
appear just above the hips, holding a white tourist umbrella. Her face
was like that of a mummy, surrounded with curls of gray hair, which
tossed about at every step she took and made me think, I know not why,
of a pickled herring in curl papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed
quickly in front of me and entered the house.
“That singular apparition cheered me. She undoubtedly was my neighbor,
the English lady of mature age of whom our hostess had spoken.
“I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had settled
myself to commence painting at the end of that beautiful valley which
you know and which extends as far as Etretat, I perceived, on lifting
my eyes suddenly, something singular standing on the crest of the cliff,
one might have said a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing
me, she suddenly disappeared. I reentered the house at midday for lunch
and took my seat at the general table, so as to make the acquaintance of
this odd character. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was
insensible even to my little attentions. I poured out water for her
persistently, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight,
almost imperceptible, movement of the head and an English word, murmured
so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.
“I ceased occupying myself with her, although she had disturbed my
thoughts.
“At the end of three days I knew as much about her as did Madame
Lecacheur herself.
“She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which
to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Benouville some six months
before and did not seem disposed to leave it. She never spoke at table,
ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of the Protestant
propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The cure himself had
received no less than four copies, conveyed by an urchin to whom she had
paid two sous commission. She said sometimes to our hostess abruptly,
without preparing her in the least for the declaration:
“'I love the Saviour more than all. I admire him in all creation; I
adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.'
“And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her tracts
which were destined to convert the universe.
“In, the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster having
pronounced her an atheist, a kind of stigma attached to her. The cure,
who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:
“'She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I
believe her to be a person of pure morals.'
“These words, 'atheist,' 'heretic,' words which no one can precisely
define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however,
that this English woman was rich and that she had passed her life in
travelling through every country in the world because her family had
cast her off. Why had her family cast her off? Because of her impiety,
of course!
“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of
those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of
those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d'hote of
every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the
charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere
their fantastic manias their manners of petrified vestals, their
indescribable toilets and a certain odor of india-rubber which makes one
believe that at night they are slipped into a rubber casing.
“Whenever I caught sight of one of these individuals in a hotel I fled
like the birds who see a scarecrow in a field.
“This woman, however, appeared so very singular that she did not
displease me.
“Madame Lecacheur, hostile by instinct to everything that was not
rustic, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic
declarations of the old maid. She had found a phrase by which to
describe her, a term of contempt that rose to her lips, called forth by
I know not what confused and mysterious mental ratiocination. She said:
'That woman is a demoniac.' This epithet, applied to that austere and
sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly droll. I myself never
called her anything now but 'the demoniac,' experiencing a singular
pleasure in pronouncing aloud this word on perceiving her.
“One day I asked Mother Lecacheur: 'Well, what is our demoniac about
to-day?'
“To which my rustic friend replied with a shocked air:
“'What do you think, sir? She picked up a toad which had had its paw
crushed and carried it to her room and has put it in her washbasin and
bandaged it as if it were a man. If that is not profanation I should
like to know what is!'
“On another occasion, when walking along the shore she bought a large
fish which had just been caught, simply to throw it back into the sea
again. The sailor from whom she had bought it, although she paid him
handsomely, now began to swear, more exasperated, indeed, than if she
had put her hand into his pocket and taken his money. For more than a
month he could not speak of the circumstance without becoming furious
and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh, yes! She was indeed a demoniac,
this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an inspiration in
thus christening her.
“The stable boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa
in his youth, entertained other opinions. He said with a roguish air:
'She is an old hag who has seen life.'
“If the poor woman had but known!
“The little kind-hearted Celeste did not wait upon her willingly, but I
was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she
was a stranger, of another race; of a different tongue and of another
religion. She was, in fact, a demoniac!
“She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and seeking
God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of
bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed
aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused
at having been found thus, fixing on me terrified eyes like those of an
owl surprised in open day.
“Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly descry
her on the edge of the cliff like a lighthouse signal. She would be
gazing in rapture at the vast sea glittering in the sunlight and the
boundless sky with its golden tints. Sometimes I would distinguish her
at the end of the valley, walking quickly with her elastic English step,
and I would go toward her, attracted by I know not what, simply to see
her illuminated visage, her dried-up, ineffable features, which seemed
to glow with inward and profound happiness.
“I would often encounter her also in the corner of a field, sitting on
the grass under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little religious
booklet lying open on her knee while she gazed out at the distance.
“I could not tear myself away from that quiet country neighborhood,
to which I was attached by a thousand links of love for its wide and
peaceful landscape. I was happy in this sequestered farm, far removed
from everything, but in touch with the earth, the good, beautiful, green
earth. And--must I avow it?--there was, besides, a little curiosity
which retained me at the residence of Mother Lecacheur. I wished to
become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet and to know
what transpires in the solitary souls of those wandering old English
women.
“We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished
a study which appeared to me to be worth something, and so it was, as
it sold for ten thousand francs fifteen years later. It was as simple,
however, as two and two make four and was not according to academic
rules. The whole right side of my canvas represented a rock, an enormous
rock, covered with sea-wrack, brown, yellow and red, across which the
sun poured like a stream of oil. The light fell upon the rock as though
it were aflame without the sun, which was at my back, being visible.
That was all. A first bewildering study of blazing, gorgeous light.
“On the left was the sea, not the blue sea, the slate-colored sea, but a
sea of jade, greenish, milky and solid beneath the deep-colored sky.
“I was so pleased with my work that I danced from sheer delight as I
carried it back to the inn. I would have liked the whole world to see it
at once. I can remember that I showed it to a cow that was browsing by
the wayside, exclaiming as I did so: 'Look at that, my old beauty; you
will not often see its like again.'
“When I had reached the house I immediately called out to Mother
Lecacheur, shouting with all my might:
“'Hullo, there! Mrs. Landlady, come here and look at this.'
“The rustic approached and looked at my work with her stupid eyes
which distinguished nothing and could not even tell whether the picture
represented an ox or a house.
“Miss Harriet just then came home, and she passed behind me just as
I was holding out my canvas at arm's length, exhibiting it to our
landlady. The demoniac could not help but see it, for I took care to
exhibit the thing in such a way that it could not escape her notice. She
stopped abruptly and stood motionless, astonished. It was her rock
which was depicted, the one which she climbed to dream away her time
undisturbed.
“She uttered a British 'Aoh,' which was at once so accentuated and so
flattering that I turned round to her, smiling, and said:
“'This is my latest study, mademoiselle.'
“She murmured rapturously, comically and tenderly:
“'Oh! monsieur, you understand nature as a living thing.'
“I colored and was more touched by that compliment than if it had
come from a queen. I was captured, conquered, vanquished. I could have
embraced her, upon my honor.
“I took my seat at table beside her as usual. For the first time she
spoke, thinking aloud:
“'Oh! I do love nature.'
“I passed her some bread, some water, some wine. She now accepted these
with a little smile of a mummy. I then began to talk about the scenery.
“After the meal we rose from the table together and walked leisurely
across the courtyard; then, attracted doubtless by the fiery glow which
the setting sun cast over the surface of the sea, I opened the gate
which led to the cliff, and we walked along side by side, as contented
as two persons might be who have just learned to understand and
penetrate each other's motives and feelings.
“It was one of those warm, soft evenings which impart a sense of ease to
flesh and spirit alike. All is enjoyment, everything charms. The balmy
air, laden with the perfume of grasses and the smell of seaweed, soothes
the olfactory sense with its wild fragrance, soothes the palate with its
sea savor, soothes the mind with its pervading sweetness.
“We were now walking along the edge of the cliff, high above the
boundless sea which rolled its little waves below us at a distance of a
hundred metres. And we drank in with open mouth and expanded chest that
fresh breeze, briny from kissing the waves, that came from the ocean and
passed across our faces.
“Wrapped in her plaid shawl, with a look of inspiration as she faced
the breeze, the English woman gazed fixedly at the great sun ball as it
descended toward the horizon. Far off in the distance a three-master in
full sail was outlined on the blood-red sky and a steamship, somewhat
nearer, passed along, leaving behind it a trail of smoke on the horizon.
The red sun globe sank slowly lower and lower and presently touched
the water just behind the motionless vessel, which, in its dazzling
effulgence, looked as though framed in a flame of fire. We saw it
plunge, grow smaller and disappear, swallowed up by the ocean.
“Miss Harriet gazed in rapture at the last gleams of the dying day. She
seemed longing to embrace the sky, the sea, the whole landscape.
“She murmured: 'Aoh! I love--I love' I saw a tear in her eye. She
continued: 'I wish I were a little bird, so that I could mount up into
the firmament.'
“She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on
the cliff, her face as red as her shawl. I should have liked to have
sketched her in my album. It would have been a caricature of ecstasy.
“I turned away so as not to laugh.
“I then spoke to her of painting as I would have done to a fellow
artist, using the technical terms common among the devotees of the
profession. She listened attentively, eagerly seeking to divine the
meaning of the terms, so as to understand my thoughts. From time to time
she would exclaim:
“'Oh! I understand, I understand. It is very interesting.'
“We returned home.
“The next day, on seeing me, she approached me, cordially holding out
her hand; and we at once became firm friends.
“She was a good creature who had a kind of soul on springs, which became
enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium like all women who are
spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be preserved in a pickle
of innocence, but her heart still retained something very youthful and
inflammable. She loved both nature and animals with a fervor, a love
like old wine fermented through age, with a sensuous love that she had
never bestowed on men.
“One thing is certain, that the sight of a bitch nursing her puppies, a
mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird's nest full of
young ones, screaming, with their open mouths and their enormous heads,
affected her perceptibly.
“Poor, solitary, sad, wandering beings! I love you ever since I became
acquainted with Miss Harriet.
“I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me, but
dare not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in the
morning with my knapsack on my back, she would accompany me in silence
as far as the end of the village, evidently struggling to find words
with which to begin a conversation. Then she would leave me abruptly and
walk away quickly with her springy step.
“One day, however, she plucked up courage:
“I would like to see how you paint pictures. Are you willing? I have
been very curious.'
“And she blushed as if she had said something very audacious.
“I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had begun a
large picture.
“She remained standing behind me, following all my gestures with
concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing perhaps that she was
disturbing me, she said: 'Thank you,' and walked away.
“But she soon became more friendly, and accompanied me every day, her
countenance exhibiting visible pleasure. She carried her camp stool
under her arm, not permitting me to carry it. She would remain there for
hours, silent and motionless, following with her eyes the point of my
brush, in its every movement. When I obtained unexpectedly just the
effect I wanted by a dash of color put on with the palette knife,
she involuntarily uttered a little 'Ah!' of astonishment, of joy, of
admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost
religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature's work
divine. My studies appeared to her a kind of religious pictures, and
sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting me.
“Oh, he was a queer, good-natured being, this God of hers! He was a sort
of village philosopher without any great resources and without great
power, for she always figured him to herself as inconsolable over
injustices committed under his eyes, as though he were powerless to
prevent them.
“She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be the
confidante of his secrets and of his troubles. She would say:
“'God wills' or 'God does not will,' just like a sergeant announcing to
a recruit: 'The colonel has commanded.'
“At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions
of the Eternal, which she endeavored to impart to me.
“Almost every day I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from
the ground, in my paintbox, in my polished shoes, standing in front of
my door in the morning, those little pious tracts which she no doubt,
received directly from Paradise.
“I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality.
But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner,
though, for a while, I paid little attention to it.
“When I was painting, whether in my valley or in some country lane, I
would see her suddenly appear with her rapid, springy walk. She would
then sit down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running
or were overcome by some profound emotion. Her face would be red, that
English red which is denied to the people of all other countries; then,
without any reason, she would turn ashy pale and seem about to faint
away. Gradually, however, her natural color would return and she would
begin to speak.
“Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a sentence,
spring up from her seat and walk away so rapidly and so strangely that I
was at my wits' ends to discover whether I had done or said anything to
displease or wound her.
“I finally came to the conclusion that those were her normal manners,
somewhat modified no doubt in my honor during the first days of our
acquaintance.
“When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the windy
coast, her long curls often hung straight down, as if their springs had
been broken. This had hitherto seldom given her any concern, and she
would come to dinner without embarrassment all dishevelled by her
sister, the breeze.
“But now she would go to her room and arrange the untidy locks, and when
I would say, with familiar gallantry, which, however, always offended
her:
“'You are as beautiful as a star to-day, Miss Harriet,' a blush would
immediately rise to her cheeks, the blush of a young girl, of a girl of
fifteen.
“Then she would suddenly become quite reserved and cease coming to watch
me paint. I thought, 'This is only a fit of temper; it will blow over.'
But it did not always blow over, and when I spoke to her she would
answer me either with affected indifference or with sullen annoyance.
“She became by turns rude, impatient and nervous. I never saw her now
except at meals, and we spoke but little. I concluded at length that I
must have offended her in some way, and, accordingly, I said to her one
evening:
“'Miss Harriet, why is it that you do not act toward me as formerly?
What have I done to displease you? You are causing me much pain!'
“She replied in a most comical tone of anger:
“'I am just the same with you as formerly. It is not true, not true,'
and she ran upstairs and shut herself up in her room.
“Occasionally she would look at me in a peculiar manner. I have often
said to myself since then that those who are condemned to death must
look thus when they are informed that their last day has come. In her
eye there lurked a species of insanity, an insanity at once mystical and
violent; and even more, a fever, an aggravated longing, impatient and
impotent, for the unattained and unattainable.
“Nay, it seemed to me there was also going on within her a struggle
in which her heart wrestled with an unknown force that she sought to
master, and even, perhaps, something else. But what do I know? What do I
know?
“It was indeed a singular revelation.
“For some time I had commenced to work, as soon as daylight appeared, on
a picture the subject of which was as follows:
“A deep ravine, enclosed, surmounted by two thickets of trees and vines,
extended into the distance and was lost, submerged in that milky vapor,
in that cloud like cotton down that sometimes floats over valleys at
daybreak. And at the extreme end of that heavy, transparent fog one saw,
or, rather, surmised, that a couple of human beings were approaching,
a human couple, a youth and a maiden, their arms interlaced, embracing
each other, their heads inclined toward each other, their lips meeting.
“A first ray of the sun, glistening through the branches, pierced that
fog of the dawn, illuminated it with a rosy reflection just behind the
rustic lovers, framing their vague shadows in a silvery background. It
was well done; yes, indeed, well done.
“I was working on the declivity which led to the Valley of Etretat. On
this particular morning I had, by chance, the sort of floating vapor
which I needed. Suddenly something rose up in front of me like a
phantom; it was Miss Harriet. On seeing me she was about to flee. But I
called after her, saying: 'Come here, come here, mademoiselle. I have a
nice little picture for you.'
“She came forward, though with seeming reluctance. I handed her my
sketch. She said nothing, but stood for a long time, motionless, looking
at it, and suddenly she burst into tears. She wept spasmodically, like
men who have striven hard to restrain their tears, but who can do so no
longer and abandon themselves to grief, though still resisting. I sprang
to my feet, moved at the sight of a sorrow I did not comprehend, and I
took her by the hand with an impulse of brusque affection, a true French
impulse which acts before it reflects.
“She let her hands rest in mine for a few seconds, and I felt them
quiver as if all her nerves were being wrenched. Then she withdrew her
hands abruptly, or, rather, snatched them away.
“I recognized that tremor, for I had felt it, and I could not be
deceived. Ah! the love tremor of a woman, whether she be fifteen or
fifty years of age, whether she be of the people or of society, goes so
straight to my heart that I never have any hesitation in understanding
it!
“Her whole frail being had trembled, vibrated, been overcome. I knew it.
She walked away before I had time to say a word, leaving me as surprised
as if I had witnessed a miracle and as troubled as if I had committed a
crime.
“I did not go in to breakfast. I went to take a turn on the edge of the
cliff, feeling that I would just as lief weep as laugh, looking on the
adventure as both comic and deplorable and my position as ridiculous,
believing her unhappy enough to go insane.
“I asked myself what I ought to do. It seemed best for me to leave the
place, and I immediately resolved to do so.
“Somewhat sad and perplexed, I wandered about until dinner time and
entered the farmhouse just when the soup had been served up.
“I sat down at the table as usual. Miss Harriet was there, eating away
solemnly, without speaking to any one, without even lifting her eyes.
Her manner and expression were, however, the same as usual.
“I waited patiently till the meal had been finished, when, turning
toward the landlady, I said: 'Well, Madame Lecacheur, it will not be
long now before I shall have to take my leave of you.'
“The good woman, at once surprised and troubled, replied in her drawling
voice: 'My dear sir, what is it you say? You are going to leave us after
I have become so accustomed to you?'
“I glanced at Miss Harriet out of the corner of my eye. Her countenance
did not change in the least. But Celeste, the little servant, looked up
at me. She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy, fresh,
as strong as a horse, and possessing the rare attribute of cleanliness.
I had kissed her at odd times in out-of-the-way corners, after the
manner of travellers--nothing more.
“The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the
apple trees, walking up and down from one end of the enclosure to the
other. All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange
discovery of the morning, that passionate and grotesque attachment for
me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up,
recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps also that
look which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my
departure--all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a
reckless humor, gave me a tickling sensation of kisses on the lips and
in my veins a something which urged me on to commit some folly.
“Night was coming on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, when
I descried Celeste, who had gone to fasten up the poultry yard at the
other end of the enclosure. I darted toward her, running so noiselessly
that she heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small
trapdoor by which the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms
and rained on her coarse, fat face a shower of kisses. She
struggled, laughing all the time, as she was accustomed to do in such
circumstances. Why did I suddenly loose my grip of her? Why did I at
once experience a shock? What was it that I heard behind me?
“It was Miss Harriet, who had come upon us, who had seen us and who
stood in front of us motionless as a spectre. Then she disappeared in
the darkness.
“I was ashamed, embarrassed, more desperate at having been thus
surprised by her than if she had caught me committing some criminal act.
“I slept badly that night. I was completely unnerved and haunted by
sad thoughts. I seemed to hear loud weeping, but in this I was no
doubt deceived. Moreover, I thought several times that I heard some one
walking up and down in the house and opening the hall door.
“Toward morning I was overcome by fatigue and fell asleep. I got up late
and did not go downstairs until the late breakfast, being still in a
bewildered state, not knowing what kind of expression to put on.
“No one had seen Miss Harriet. We waited for her at table, but she did
not appear. At length Mother Lecacheur went to her room. The English
woman had gone out. She must have set out at break of day, as she was
wont to do, in order to see the sun rise.
“Nobody seemed surprised at this, and we began to eat in silence.
“The weather was hot, very hot, one of those broiling, heavy days when
not a leaf stirs. The table had been placed out of doors, under an apple
tree, and from time to time Sapeur had gone to the cellar to draw a jug
of cider, everybody was so thirsty. Celeste brought the dishes from the
kitchen, a ragout of mutton with potatoes, a cold rabbit and a salad.
Afterward she placed before us a dish of strawberries, the first of the
season.
“As I wished to wash and freshen these, I begged the servant to go and
draw me a pitcher of cold water.
“In about five minutes she returned, declaring that the well was dry.
She had lowered the pitcher to the full extent of the cord and had
touched the bottom, but on drawing the pitcher up again it was empty.
Mother Lecacheur, anxious to examine the thing for herself, went and
looked down the hole. She returned, announcing that one could see
clearly something in the well, something altogether unusual. But this no
doubt was bundles of straw, which a neighbor had thrown in out of spite.
“I wished to look down the well also, hoping I might be able to clear
up the mystery, and I perched myself close to the brink. I perceived
indistinctly a white object. What could it be? I then conceived the idea
of lowering a lantern at the end of a cord. When I did so the yellow
flame danced on the layers of stone and gradually became clearer. All
four of us were leaning over the opening, Sapeur and Celeste having
now joined us. The lantern rested on a black-and-white indistinct mass,
singular, incomprehensible. Sapeur exclaimed:
“'It is a horse. I see the hoofs. It must have got out of the meadow
during the night and fallen in headlong.'
“But suddenly a cold shiver froze me to the marrow. I first recognized
a foot, then a leg sticking up; the whole body and the other leg were
completely under water.
“I stammered out in a loud voice, trembling so violently that the
lantern danced hither and thither over the slipper:
“'It is a woman! Who-who-can it be? It is Miss Harriet!'
“Sapeur alone did not manifest horror. He had witnessed many such scenes
in Africa.
“Mother Lecacheur and Celeste began to utter piercing screams and ran
away.
“But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead woman. I
attached the young man securely by the waist to the end of the pulley
rope and lowered him very slowly, watching him disappear in the
darkness. In one hand he held the lantern and a rope in the other. Soon
I recognized his voice, which seemed to come from the centre of the
earth, saying:
“'Stop!'
“I then saw him fish something out of the water. It was the other leg.
He then bound the two feet together and shouted anew:
“'Haul up!'
“I began to wind up, but I felt my arms crack, my muscles twitch, and
I was in terror lest I should let the man fall to the bottom. When his
head appeared at the brink I asked:
“'Well?' as if I expected he had a message from the drowned woman.
“We both got on the stone slab at the edge of the well and from opposite
sides we began to haul up the body.
“Mother Lecacheur and Celeste watched us from a distance, concealed from
view behind the wall of the house. When they saw issuing from the
hole the black slippers and white stockings of the drowned person they
disappeared.
“Sapeur seized the ankles, and we drew up the body of the poor woman.
The head was shocking to look at, being bruised and lacerated, and
the long gray hair, out of curl forevermore, hanging down tangled and
disordered.
“'In the name of all that is holy! how lean she is,' exclaimed Sapeur in
a contemptuous tone.
“We carried her into the room, and as the women did not put in an
appearance I, with the assistance of the stable lad, dressed the corpse
for burial.
“I washed her disfigured face. Under the touch of my finger an eye was
slightly opened and regarded me with that pale, cold look, that terrible
look of a corpse which seems to come from the beyond. I braided as well
as I could her dishevelled hair and with my clumsy hands arranged on
her head a novel and singular coiffure. Then I took off her dripping wet
garments, baring, not without a feeling of shame, as though I had been
guilty of some profanation, her shoulders and her chest and her long
arms, as slim as the twigs of a tree.
“I next went to fetch some flowers, poppies, bluets, marguerites and
fresh, sweet-smelling grass with which to strew her funeral couch.
“I then had to go through the usual formalities, as I was alone to
attend to everything. A letter found in her pocket, written at the last
moment, requested that her body be buried in the village in which she
had passed the last days of her life. A sad suspicion weighed on my
heart. Was it not on my account that she wished to be laid to rest in
this place?
“Toward evening all the female gossips of the locality came to view the
remains of the defunct, but I would not allow a single person to enter.
I wanted to be alone, and I watched beside her all night.
“I looked at the corpse by the flickering light of the candles, at this
unhappy woman, unknown to us all, who had died in such a lamentable
manner and so far away from home. Had she left no friends, no relations
behind her? What had her infancy been? What had been her life? Whence
had she come thither alone, a wanderer, lost like a dog driven from
home? What secrets of sufferings and of despair were sealed up in that
unprepossessing body, in that poor body whose outward appearance had
driven from her all affection, all love?
“How many unhappy beings there are! I felt that there weighed upon that
human creature the eternal injustice of implacable nature! It was all
over with her, without her ever having experienced, perhaps, that which
sustains the greatest outcasts to wit, the hope of being loved once!
Otherwise why should she thus have concealed herself, fled from the face
of others? Why did she love everything so tenderly and so passionately,
everything living that was not a man?
“I recognized the fact that she believed in a God, and that she hoped
to receive compensation from the latter for all the miseries she had
endured. She would now disintegrate and become, in turn, a plant. She
would blossom in the sun, the cattle would browse on her leaves, the
birds would bear away the seeds, and through these changes she would
become again human flesh. But that which is called the soul had been
extinguished at the bottom of the dark well. She suffered no longer. She
had given her life for that of others yet to come.
“Hours passed away in this silent and sinister communion with the dead.
A pale light at length announced the dawn of a new day; then a red ray
streamed in on the bed, making a bar of light across the coverlet and
across her hands. This was the hour she had so much loved. The awakened
birds began to sing in the trees.
“I opened the window to its fullest extent and drew back the curtains
that the whole heavens might look in upon us, and, bending over the icy
corpse, I took in my hands the mutilated head and slowly, without terror
or disgust, I imprinted a kiss, a long kiss, upon those lips which had
never before been kissed.”
Leon Chenal remained silent. The women wept. We heard on the box seat
the Count d'Atraille blowing his nose from time to time. The coachman
alone had gone to sleep. The horses, who no longer felt the sting of the
whip, had slackened their pace and moved along slowly. The drag, hardly
advancing at all, seemed suddenly torpid, as if it had been freighted
with sorrow.
[Miss Harriet appeared in Le Gaulois, July 9, 1883, under the title
of Miss Hastings. The story was later revised, enlarged; and partly
reconstructed. This is what De Maupassant wrote to Editor Havard
March 15, 1884, in an unedited letter, in regard to the title of the
story that was to give its name to the volume:
“I do not believe that Hastings is a bad name, inasmuch as it is
known all over the world, and recalls the greatest facts in English
history. Besides, Hastings is as much a name as Duval is with us.
“The name Cherbuliez selected, Miss Revel, is no more like an
English name than like a Turkish name. But here is another name as
English as Hastings, and more euphonious; it is Miss Harriet.
I will ask you therefore to substitute Harriet for Hastings.”
It was in regard to this very tittle that De Maupassant had a
disagreement with Audran and Boucheron director of the Bouffes
Parisiens in October, 1890 They had given this title to an operetta
about to be played at the Bouffes. It ended however, by their
ceding to De Maupassant, and the title of the operetta was changed
to Miss Helyett.]