Yes, I wanted to laugh. And, nevertheless, there was an emotion singing
in my heart, something--what shall I call it?--something maternal. And,
besides, it would have been amusing, because of Madame. We shall see,
later.
Monsieur did not go away all day. He straightened his dahlias, and
during the afternoon he did not leave the wood-house, where he
split wood furiously for more than four hours. From the linen-room I
listened, with a sort of pride, to the blows of the axe.
Yesterday Monsieur and Madame spent the entire afternoon at Louviers.
Monsieur had an appointment with his lawyer, Madame with her
dressmaker. Her dressmaker!
I took advantage of this moment of rest to pay a visit to Rose, whom I
had not seen since that famous Sunday. And I was not averse to making
the acquaintance of Captain Mauger.
A true type of an old sea-dog, this man, and such as you seldom see,
I assure you. Fancy a carp's head, with a moustache and a long gray
tuft of beard. Very dry, very nervous, very restless, he cannot stay
in one place for any length of time, and is always at work, either in
his garden, or in a little room where he does carpentering, humming
military airs or imitating the bugle of the regiment.
The garden is very pretty,--an old garden divided into square beds in
which old-fashioned flowers are cultivated,--those very old flowers
that are found now only in very old fields and in the gardens of very
old priests.
When I arrived, Rose, comfortably seated in the shade of an acacia,
beside a rustic table, on which lay her work-basket, was mending
stockings, and the captain, squatting on the grass, and wearing an old
foraging-cap on his head, was stopping the leaks in a garden-hose which
had burst the night before.
They welcomed me enthusiastically, and Rose ordered the little servant,
who was weeding a bed of marguerites, to go for the bottle of peach
brandy and some glasses.
The first courtesies exchanged, the captain asked:
"Well, he has not yet croaked, then, your Lanlaire? Oh! you can boast
of serving in a famous den! I really pity you, my dear young woman."
He explained to me that formerly Monsieur and he had lived as good
neighbors, as inseparable friends. A discussion apropos of Rose had
brought on a deadly quarrel. Monsieur, it seems, reproached the captain
with not maintaining his dignity with his servant,--with admitting her
to his table.
Interrupting his story, the captain forced my testimony:
"To my table! Well, have I not the right? Is it any of his business?"
"Certainly not, captain."
Rose, in a modest voice, sighed:
"A man living all alone; it is very natural isn't it?"
Since this famous discussion, which had come near ending in blows, the
two old friends had passed their time in lawsuits and tricks. They
hated each other savagely.
"As for me," declared the captain, "when I find any stones in my
garden, I throw them over the hedge into Lanlaire's. So much the worse
if they fall on his bell-glasses and on his garden-frames! Or, rather,
so much the better! Oh! the pig! Wait now, let me show you."
Having noticed a stone in the path, he rushed to pick it up, approached
the hedge cautiously, creeping like a trapper, and threw the stone into
our garden with all his might. We heard a noise of breaking glass.
Then, returning to us triumphantly, shaking, stifled, twisted with
laughter, he exclaimed:
"Another square broken! The glazier will have to come again."
Rose looked at him with a sort of maternal admiration, and said:
"Is he not droll? What a child! And how young, for his age!"
After we had sipped a little glass of brandy, Captain Mauger desired to
do me the honors of the garden. Rose excused herself for her inability
to accompany us, because of her asthma, and counselled us not to stay
too long.
"Besides," said she, jokingly, "I am watching you."
The captain took me through the paths, among the beds bordered with box
and filled with flowers. He told me the names of the prettiest ones,
remarking each time that there were no such to be seen in the garden
of that pig of a Lanlaire. Suddenly he plucked a little orange-colored
flower, odd and charming, twirled the stem gently in his fingers, and
asked me:
"Did you ever eat any of these?"
I was so surprised by this preposterous question that I stood with
mouth closed. The captain declared:
"Well, I have eaten them. They are perfect to the taste. I have eaten
all the flowers that are here. Some are good; some are not so good; and
some don't amount to much. But, as for me, I eat everything."
He winked, clacked his tongue, tapped his belly, and repeated in a
louder voice, in which an accent of defiance was uppermost:
"I eat everything, I do."
The way in which the captain had just proclaimed this strange
confession of faith revealed to me that his vanity in life was to eat
everything. I amused myself in humoring his mania.
"And you are right, Captain."
"Surely," he answered, not without pride. "And it is not only plants
that I eat; I eat animals also,--animals that nobody else has
eaten,--animals that are not known. I eat everything, I do."
We continued our walk among the flower-beds, through the narrow paths
where pretty corollas, blue, yellow, and red, were swaying in the
breeze. And, as he looked at the flowers, it seemed to me that the
captain's belly gave little starts of joy. His tongue passed over his
chapped lips with a slight smack.
He said to me further:
"And I am going to confess to you. There are no insects, no birds, no
earth-worms that I have not eaten. I have eaten skunks and snakes,
rats and crickets and caterpillars. I have eaten everything. It is
well known in the neighborhood. When they find a beast, dead or alive,
a beast unknown to anybody, they say to themselves: 'I must take it
to Captain Mauger.' They bring it to me, and I eat it. In winter
especially, when it is very cold, unknown birds pass this way, coming
from America, or from a greater distance perhaps. They bring them to
me, and I eat them. I will bet that there is not a man in the world who
has eaten as many things as I have. I eat everything."
The walk over, we returned to sit down under the acacia. And I was
getting ready to leave, when the captain cried:
"Oh! I must show you something curious,--something that you have never
seen, I am sure."
And he called in a loud voice:
"Kléber! Kléber!"
Between two calls he explained to me:
"Kléber is my ferret. A phenomenon!"
And he called again:
"Kléber! Kléber!"
Then, on a branch above us, between green and golden leaves, there
appeared a pink snout and two little black, sharp, bright eyes.
"Oh! I knew well that he was not far away. Come, come here, Kléber!
Psstt!"
The animal crept along the branch, ventured upon the trunk, and
descended carefully, burying its claws in the bark. His body, covered
with white fur and marked with pale yellow spots, had the supple
movements, the graceful undulations, of a serpent. He touched ground,
and in two bounds was on the knees of the captain, who began to caress
him joyfully.
"Oh! the good Kléber! Oh! the charming little Kléber!"
He turned to me:
"Did you ever see a ferret as tame as that? He follows me about the
garden everywhere, like a little dog. I have only to call him, and he
is there directly, his tail frisking, his head lifted. He eats with us,
sleeps with us. Indeed, I love the little beast as if he were a person.
Why, Mademoiselle Célestine, I have refused three hundred francs for
him. I would not sell him for a thousand francs,--no, not for two
thousand francs. Here, Kléber."
The animal lifted its head toward its master; then it climbed upon
him, mounted his shoulders, and, after a thousand caresses and a
thousand pretty tricks, rolled itself around the captain's neck, like a
handkerchief. Rose said nothing. She seemed vexed.
Then an infernal idea flashed into my mind.
"I will bet you," I said, suddenly,--"I will bet you, Captain, that you
would not eat your ferret."
The captain looked at me with profound astonishment, and then with
infinite sadness. His eyes became round, his lips quivered.
"Kléber?" he stammered; "eat Kléber?"
Evidently this question had never occurred to him, who had eaten
everything. A sort of new world, strangely comestible, appeared before
him.
"I will bet," I repeated, ferociously, "that you would not eat your
ferret."
Bewildered, distressed, moved by a mysterious and invincible shock, the
old captain had risen from his bench. He was extraordinarily agitated.
"Just say that again, and see!" he stammered.
For the third time, violently, separating each word, I said:
"I will bet that you would not eat your ferret."
"I would not eat my ferret? What's that you say? You say that I would
not eat it? Yes, you say that? Well, you shall see. I tell you that I
eat everything."
He seized the ferret. As one breaks a loaf of bread, he broke the
little beast's back with a snap, and threw it, dead without a shock,
without a spasm, on the sandy path, shouting to Rose:
"Make me a stew out of that for dinner!"
And, madly gesticulating, he ran to shut himself up in the house.
For some minutes I felt a real and unspeakable horror. Still completely
dazed by the abominable action that I had just committed, I rose to go.
I was very pale. Rose accompanied me. With a smile she confided to me:
"I am not sorry for what has just happened. He was too fond of his
ferret. I do not wish him to love anything. He loves his flowers
already too much to suit me."
After a short silence, she added:
"But he will never forgive you for that. He is not a man to be defied.
An old soldier, you know!"
Then, a few steps farther on:
"Pay attention, my little one. They are beginning to gossip about you
in the neighborhood. It seems that you were seen the other day, in the
garden, with Monsieur Lanlaire. It is very imprudent, believe me. He
will get you into trouble, if he hasn't already done so. You want to
look out for yourself."
And, as she closed the gate behind me:
"Well, _au revoir!_ Now I must go to make my stew."
All day long I saw before my eyes the body of the poor little ferret,
lying there on the sandy path.
This evening, at dinner, when dessert was being served, Madame said to
me, very severely:
"If you like prunes, you have only to ask me for them; I will see if I
can give you any; but I forbid you to take them."