He murmured, "As you wish," and we remained there without moving.

At the end of about half-an-hour, as nothing broke the oppressive

stillness of this bright autumn night, I said, in a low tone:

"Are you quite sure he is passing this way?"

Herve winced as if I had bitten him, and with his mouth close to my

ear, he said:

"Make no mistake about it. I am quite sure."

And once more there was silence.

I believe I was beginning to get drowsy when my husband pressed my

arm, and his voice, changed to a hiss, said:

"Do you see him over there under the trees?"

I looked in vain; I could distinguish nothing. And slowly Herve now

cocked his gun, all the time fixing his eyes on my face.

I was myself making ready to fire, and suddenly, thirty paces in front

of us, appeared in the full light of the moon a man who was hurrying

forward with rapid movements, his body bent, as if he were trying to

escape.

I was so stupefied that I uttered a loud cry; but, before I could turn

round, there was a flash before my eyes; I heard a deafening report,

and I saw the man rolling on the ground, like a wolf hit by a bullet.

I burst into dreadful shrieks, terrified, almost going mad; then a

furious hand--it was Herve's--seized me by the throat. I was flung

down on the ground, then carried off by his strong arms. He ran,

holding me up, till we reached the body lying on the grass, and he

threw me on top of it violently, as if he wanted to break my head.

I thought I was lost; he was going to kill me; and he had just raised

his heel up to my forehead when, in his turn, he was gripped, knocked

down before I could yet realize what had happened.

I rose up abruptly, and I saw kneeling on top of him Porquita, my

maid, clinging like a wild cat to him with desperate energy, tearing

off his beard, his moustache, and the skin of his face.

Then, as if another idea had suddenly taken hold of her mind, she rose

up, and, flinging herself on the corpse, she threw her arms around the

dead man, kissing his eyes and his mouth, opening the dead lips with

her own lips, trying to find in them a breath and a long, long kiss of

lovers.

My husband, picking himself up, gazed at me. He understood, and

falling at my feet, said:

"Oh! forgive me, my darling, I suspected you, and I killed this girl's

lover. It was my keeper that deceived me."

But I was watching the strange kisses of that dead man and that living

woman, and her sobs and her writhings of sorrowing love--

And at that moment I understood that I might be unfaithful to my

husband.

RELICS OF THE PAST

My dear Colette,--I do not know whether you remember a verse of M.

Sainte-Beuve which we have read together, and which has remained fixed

in my memory; for me this verse speaks eloquently; and it has very

often reassured my poor heart, especially for some time past. Here it

is:

"To be born, to live, and die in the same house."

I am now all alone in this house where I was born, where I have lived,

and where I hope to die. It is not gay every day, but it is pleasant;

for there I have souvenirs all around me.

My son Henri is a barrister; he comes to see me twice a year. Jeanne

is living with her husband at the other end of France, and it is I who

go to see her each autumn. So here I am, all, all alone, but

surrounded by familiar objects which incessantly speak to me about my

own people, the dead, and the living separated from me by distance.

I no longer read much; I am too old for that; but I am constantly

thinking, or rather dreaming. I do not dream as I used to do long ago.

You may recall to mind any wild fancies, the adventures our brains

concocted when we were twenty, and all the horizons of happiness that

dawned upon us!

Nothing out of all our dreaming has been realized, or rather it is

quite a different thing that has happened, less charming, less poetic,

but sufficient for those who know how to accept their lot in this

world bravely.

Do you know why we women are so often unhappy? It is because we are

taught in our youth to believe too much in happiness! We are never

brought up with the idea of fighting, of striving, of suffering. And,

at the first shock, our hearts are broken; we look forward, with blind

faith, to cascades of fortunate events. What does happen is at best

but a partial happiness, and thereupon we burst out sobbing.

Happiness, the real happiness that we dream of, I have come to know

what that is. It does not consist in the arrival of great bliss, for

any great bliss that falls to our share is to be found in the infinite

expectation of a succession of joys to which we never attain.

Happiness is happy expectation; it is the horizon of hope; it is,

therefore, endless illusion; and, old as I am, I create illusions for

myself still, in fact, every day I live; only their object is changed,

my desires being no longer the same. I have told you that I spend my

brightest hours in dreaming. What else should I do?

I have two ways of doing this. I am going to tell you what they are;

they may perhaps prove useful to you.

Oh! the first is very simple; it consists in sitting down before my

fire in a low armchair made soft for my old bones, and looking back at

the things that have been put aside.

One life is so short, especially a life entirely spent in the same

spot:

"To be born, to live, and die in the same house."

The things that bring back the past to our recollection are heaped,

pressed together; and, we are old, it sometimes seems no more than ten

days since we were young. Yes; everything slips away from us, as if

life itself were but a single day: morning, evening, and then comes

night--a night without a dawn!

When I gaze into the fire, for hours and hours, the past rises up

before me as though it were but yesterday. I no longer think of my

present existence; reverie carries me away; once more I pass through

all the changes of my life.

And I often am possessed by the illusion that I am a young girl, so

many breaths of bygone days are wafted back to me, so many youthful

sensations and even impulses, so many throbbings of my young

heart--all the passionate ardor of eighteen; and I have clear, as

fresh realities, visions of forgotten things. Oh! how vividly, above

all, do the memories of my walks as a young girl come back to me!

There, in the armchair of mine, before the fire, I saw once more, a

few nights since, a sunset on Mont Saint-Michel, and immediately

afterwards I was riding on horseback through the forest of Uville with

the odors of the damp sand and of the flowers steeped in dew, and the

evening star sending its burning reflection through the water and

bathing my face in its rays as I galloped through the copse. And all I

thought of then, my poetic enthusiasm at the sight of the boundless

sea, my keen delight at the rustling of the branches as I passed, my

most trivial impressions, every fragment of thought, desire, or

feeling, all, all came back to me as if I were there still, as if

fifty years had not glided by since then, to chill my blood and

moderate my hopes. But my other way of reviving the long ago is much

better.

You know, or you do not know, my dear Colette, that we destroy nothing

in the house. We have upstairs, under the roof, a large room for

cast-off things which we call "the lumber-room." Everything which is

no longer used is thrown there. I often go up there, and gaze around

me. Then I find once more a heap of nothings that I had ceased to

think about, and that recalled a heap of things to my mind. They are

not those beloved articles of furniture which we have known since our

childhood and to which are attached recollections of events of joys or

sorrows, dates in our history, which, from the fact of being

intermingled with our lives, have assumed a kind of personality, a

physiognomy, which are the companions of our pleasant or gloomy house,

the only companions, alas! that we are sure not to lose, the only ones

that will not die, like the others--those whose features, whose loving

eyes, whose lips, whose voices, have vanished for ever. But I find

instead among the medley of worn-out gewgaws those little old

insignificant objects which have hung on by our side for forty years

without ever having been noticed by us, and which, when we suddenly

lay eyes on them again, have somehow the importance, the significance

of relics of the past. They produce on my mind the effect of those

people--whom we have known for a very long time without ever having

seen them as they really are, and who, all of a sudden, some evening,

quite unexpectedly, break out into a stream of interminable talk, and

tell us all about themselves down to their most hidden secrets, of

which we had never even suspected the existence.

And I move about from one object to the other with a little thrill in

my heart every time something fixes my attention. I say to myself:

"See there! I broke that the night Paul started for Lyons;" or else,

"Ah! there is mamma's little lantern, which she used to carry with

her going to her evening devotions on dark winter nights." There are

even things in this room which have no story to tell me, which have

come down from my grandparents, things therefore, whose history and

adventures are utterly unknown to those who are living to-day, and

whose very owners nobody knows now. Nobody has seen the hands that

used to touch them or the eyes that used to gaze at them. These are

the things that make me have long, long dreams. They represent to my

mind desolate people whose last remaining friend is dead. You, my dear

Colette, can scarcely comprehend all this, and you will smile at my

simplicity, my childish, sentimental whims. You are a Parisian, and

you Parisians do not understand this interior life, those eternal

echoes of one's own heart. You live in the outer world, with all your

thoughts in the open. Living alone as I do, I can only speak about

myself. When you are answering this letter, tell me a little about

yourself, that I may also be able to put myself in your place, as you

will be able to put yourself in mine to-morrow.

But you will never completely understand M. de Sainte Beuve's verse:

"To be born, to live, and to die in one house."

A thousand kisses, my old friend,

ADELAIDE.

THE PEDDLER

How many trifling occurrences, things which have left only a passing

impression on our minds, humble dramas of which we have got a mere

glimpse so that we have to guess at or suspect their real nature, are,

while we are still young and inexperienced, threads, so to speak,

guiding us, step by step, towards a knowledge of the painful truth!

Every moment, when I am retracing my steps during the long wandering

reveries which distract my thoughts along the path through which I

saunter at random, my soul takes wing, and suddenly I recall little

incidents of a gay or sinister character which, emerging from the

shades of the past, flit before my memory as the birds flit through

the bushes before my eyes.

This summer, I wandered along a road in Savoy which commands a view of

the right bank of the Lake of Bourget, and, while my glance floated

over that mass of water, mirror-like and blue, with a unique blue,

pale, tinted with glittering beams by the setting sun, I felt my heart

stirred by that attachment which I have had since my childhood for the

surface of lakes, for rivers, and for the sea. On the opposite bank of

the vast liquid plate, so wide that you did not see the ends of it,

one vanishing in the Rhone, and the other in the Bourget, rose the

high mountain, jagged like a crest up to the topmast peak of the

"Cats's Tooth." On either side of the road, vines, trailing from tree

to tree, choked under their leaves their slender supporting branches,

and they extended in garlands through the fields, green, yellow, and

red garlands, festooning from one trunk to the other, and spotted with

clusters of dark grapes.

The road was deserted, white, and dusty. All of a sudden, a man

emerged out of the thicket of large trees which shuts in the village

of Saint-Innocent, and, bending under a load, he came towards me,

leaning on a stick.

When he had come closer to me, I discovered that he was a peddler, one

of those itinerant dealers who go about the country from door to door,

selling paltry objects cheaply, and thereupon a reminiscence of long

ago arose up in my mind, a mere nothing almost, the recollection

simply of an accidental meeting I had one night between Argenteuil and

Paris when I was twenty-one.

All the happiness of my life, at this period, was derived from

boating. I had taken a room in an obscure inn at Argenteuil, and,

every evening, I took the Government clerks' train, that long slow

train which, in its course, sets down at different stations a crowd of

men with little parcels, fat and heavy, for they scarcely walk at all,

so that their trousers are always baggy owing to their constant

occupation of the office-stool. This train, in which it seemed to me I

could even sniff the odor of the writing-desk, of official documents

and boxes, deposited me at Argenteuil. My boat was waiting for me,

ready to glide over the water. And I rapidly plied my oar so that I

might get out and dine at Bezons or Chatou or Epinay or Saint-Ouen.

Then I came back, put up my boat, and made my way back on foot to

Paris with the moon shining down on me.

Well, one night on the white road I perceived just in front of me a

man walking. Oh! I was constantly meeting those night travelers of the

Parisian suburbs so much dreaded by belated citizens. This man went on

slowly before me with a heavy load on his shoulders.

I came right up to him by quickening my pace so much that my footsteps

rang on the road. He stopped and turned round; then, as I kept

approaching nearer and nearer, he crossed to the opposite side of the

road.

As I rapidly passed him, he called out to me:

"Hallo! good evening, monsieur."

I responded:

"Good evening, mate."

He went on:

"Are you going far?"

"I am going to Paris."

"You won't be long getting there; you're going at a good pace. As for

me, I have too big a load on my shoulders to walk so quickly."

I slackened my pace. Why had this man spoken to me? What was he

carrying in this big pack? Vague suspicions of crime sprang up in my

mind, and rendered me curious. The columns of the newspapers every

morning contain so many accounts of crimes committed in this place,

the peninsula of Gennevilliers, that some of them must be true. Such

things are not invented merely to amuse readers--all this catalogue of

arrests and varied misdeeds with which the reports of the law courts

are filled.

However, this man's voice seemed rather timid than bold, and up to the

present his manner had been more discreet than aggressive.

In my turn I began to question him:

"And you--are you going far?"

"Not farther than Asnieres."

"Is Asnieres your place of abode?"

"Yes, monsieur, I am a peddler by occupation, and I live at Asnieres."

He had quitted the sidewalk, where pedestrians move along in the

daytime under the shadows of the trees, and he was soon in the middle

of the road. I followed his example. We kept staring at each other

suspiciously, each of us holding his stick in his hand. When I was

sufficiently close to him, I felt less distrustful. He evidently was

disposed to assume the same attitude towards me, for he asked:

"Would you mind going a little more slowly?"

"Why do you say this?"

"Because I don't care for this road by night. I have goods on my back,

and two are always better than one. When two men are together, people

don't attack them."

I felt that he was speaking truly, and that he was afraid. So I

yielded to his wishes, and the pair of us walked on, side by side,

this stranger and I, at one o'clock in the morning, along the road

leading from Argenteuil to Asnieres.

"Why are you going home so late when it is so dangerous?" I asked my

companion.

He told me his history. He had not intended to return home this

evening, as he had brought with him that very morning a stock of goods

to last him three or four days. But he had been so fortunate in

disposing of them that he found it necessary to get back to his abode

without delay in order to deliver next day a number of things which

had been bought on credit.

He explained to me with genuine satisfaction that he had managed the

business very well, having a tendency to talk confidentially, and

that the knick-knacks he displayed were useful to him in getting rid,

while gossiping, of other things which he could not easily sell.

He added:

"I have a shop in Asnieres. 'Tis my wife keeps it."

"Ah! So you're married?"

"Yes, m'sieur, for the last fifteen months. I have got a very nice

wife. She'll get a surprise when she sees me coming home to-night."

He then gave me an account of his marriage. He had been after this

young girl for two years, but she had taken time to make up her mind.

She had, since her childhood, kept a little shop at the corner of a

street, where she sold all sorts of things--ribbons, flowers in

summer, and principally pretty little shoe-buckles, and many other

gewgaws, in which, owing to the favor of a manufacturer, she enjoyed a

speciality. She was well-known in Asnieres as "La Bluette." This name

was given to her because she often dressed in blue. And she made

money, as she was very skillful in everything she did. His impression

was that she was not very well at the present moment; he believed she

was in the family way, but he was not quite sure. Their business was

prospering; and he traveled about exhibiting samples to all the small

traders in the adjoining districts. He had become a sort of traveling

commission-agent for some of the manufacturers, working at the same

time for them and for himself.

"And you--what are you," he said.

I answered him with an air of embarrassment. I explained that I had a

sailing-boat and two yawls in Argenteuil, that I came for a row every

evening, and that, as I was fond of exercise, I sometimes walked back

to Paris, where I had a profession, which--I led him to infer--was a

lucrative one.

He remarked:

"Faith, if I had spondulics like you, I wouldn't amuse myself by

trudging that way along the roads at night--'Tisn't safe along here."

He gave me a sidelong glance, and I asked myself whether he might not

all the same, be a criminal of the sneaking type who did not want to

run any fruitless risk.

Then he restored my confidence when he murmured:

"A little less quickly, if you please. This pack of mine is heavy."

The sight of a group of houses showed that we had reached Asnieres.

"I am nearly at home," he said. "We don't sleep in the shop; it is

watched at night by a dog, but a dog who is worth four men. And then

it costs too much to live in the center of the town. But listen to me,

monsieur! You have rendered me a precious service, for I don't feel my

mind at ease when I'm traveling with my pack along the roads. Well,

now you must come in with me, and drink a glass of mulled wine with my

wife if she hasn't gone to bed, for she is a sound sleeper, and

doesn't like to be waked up. Besides, I'm not a bit afraid without my

pack, and so I'll see you to the gates of the city with a cudgel in my

hand."

I declined the invitation; he insisted on my coming in; I still held

back; he pressed me with so much eagerness, with such an air of real

disappointment, such expressions of deep regret--for he had the art of

expressing himself very forcibly--asking me in the tone of one who

felt wounded "whether I objected to have a drink with a man like

him," that I finally gave way and followed him up a lonely road

towards one of those big dilapidated houses which are to be found on

the outskirts of suburbs.

In front of this dwelling I hesitated. This high barrack of plaster

looked like a den for vagabonds, a hiding-place for suburban brigands.

But he pushed forward a door which had not been locked, and made me go

in before him. He led me forward by the shoulders, through profound

darkness, towards a staircase where I had to feel my way with my hands

and feet, with a well-grounded apprehension of tumbling into some

gaping cellar.

When I had reached the first landing, he said to me: "Go on up! 'Tis

the sixth story."

I searched my pockets, and, finding there a box of vestas, I lighted

the way up the ascent. He followed me, puffing under his pack,

repeating:

"Tis high! 'tis high!"

When we were at the top of the house, he drew forth from one of his

inside pockets a key attached to a thread, and unlocking his door he

made me enter.

It was a little whitewashed room, with a table in the center, six

chairs, and a kitchen-cupboard close to the wall.

"I am going to wake up my wife," he said; "then I am going down to the

cellar to fetch some wine; it doesn't keep here."

He approached one of the two doors which opened out of this apartment,

and exclaimed:

"Bluette! Bluette!" Bluette did not reply. He called out in a louder

tone: "Bluette! Bluette!"

Then knocking at the partition with his fist, he growled: "Will you

wake up in God's name?"

He waited, glued his ear to the key-hole, and muttered, in a calmer

tone: "Pooh! if she is asleep, she must be let sleep! I'll go and get

the wine: wait a couple of minutes for me."

He disappeared. I sat down and made the best of it.

What had I come to this place for? All of a sudden, I gave a start,

for I heard people talking in low tones, and moving about quietly,

almost noiselessly, in the room where the wife slept.

Deuce take it! Had I fallen into some cursed trap? Why had this

woman--this Bluette--not been awakened by the loud knocking of her

husband at the doorway leading into her room; could it have been

merely a signal conveying to accomplices: "There's a mouse in the

trap! I'm going to look out to prevent him escaping. 'Tis for you to

do the rest!"

Certainly, there was more stir than before now in the inner room; I

heard the door opening from within. My heart throbbed. I retreated

towards the further end of the apartment, saying to myself: "I must

make a fight of it!" and, catching hold of the back of a chair with

both hands, I prepared for a desperate struggle.

The door was half opened, a hand appeared which kept it ajar; then a

head, a man's head covered with a billycock hat, slipped through the

folding-doors, and I saw two eyes staring hard at me. Then so quickly

that I had not time to make a single movement by way of defense, the

individual, the supposed criminal, a tall young fellow in his bare

feet with his shoes in his hands, a good looking chap, I must

admit--half a gentleman, in fact, made a dash for the outer door, and

rushed down the stairs.

I resumed my seat. The adventure was assuming a humorous aspect. And I

waited for the husband, who took a long time fetching the wine. At

last I heard him coming up the stairs, and the sound of his footsteps

made me laugh, with one of those solitary laughs which it is hard to

restrain.

He entered with two bottles in his hands. Then he asked me:

"Is my wife still asleep? You didn't hear her stirring--did you?"

I knew instinctively that there was an ear pasted against the other

side of the partition-door, and I said: "No, not at all."

And now he again called out:

"Pauline!"

She made no reply, and did not even move.

He came back to me, and explained:

"You see, she doesn't like me to come home at night, and take a drop

with a friend."

"So then you believe she was not asleep?"

He wore an air of dissatisfaction.

"Well, at any rate," he said, "let us have a drink together."

And immediately he showed a disposition to empty the two bottles one

after the other without more ado.

This time I did display some energy. When I had swallowed one glass I

rose up to leave. He no longer spoke of accompanying me, and with a

sullen scowl, the scowl of a common man in an angry mood, the scowl of

a brute whose violence is only slumbering, in the direction of his

wife's sleeping apartment, he muttered:

"She'll have to open that door when you've gone."

I stared at this poltroon, who had worked himself into a fit of rage

without knowing why, perhaps, owing to an obscure presentiment, the

instinct of the deceived male who does not like closed doors. He had

talked about her to me in a tender strain; now assuredly he was going

to beat her.

He exclaimed, as he shook the lock once more:

"Pauline!"

A voice like that of a woman waking out of her sleep, replied from

behind the partition:

"Eh! what?"

"Didn't you hear me coming in?"

"No, I was asleep! Let me rest."

"Open the door!"

"Yes, when you're alone. I don't like you to be bringing home fellows

at night to drink with you."

Then I took myself off, stumbling down the stairs, as the other man,

of whom I had been the accomplice had done. And, as I resumed my

journey toward Paris, I realized that I had just witnessed in that

wretched abode a scene of the eternal drama which is being acted every

day, under every form, and among every class.

THE AVENGER

When M. Antoine Leuillet married the Widow Mathilde Souris, he had

been in love with her for nearly ten years.

M. Souris had been his friend, his old college chum. Leuillet was very

fond of him, but found him rather a muff. He often used to say: "That

poor Souris will never set the Seine on fire."

When Souris married Mdlle. Mathilde Duval, Leuillet was surprised and

somewhat vexed, for he had a slight weakness for her. She was the

daughter of a neighbor of his, a retired haberdasher with a good bit

of money. She was pretty, well-mannered, and intelligent. She accepted

Souris on account of his money.

Then Leuillet cherished hopes of another sort. He began paying

attentions to his friend's wife. He was a handsome man, not at all

stupid, and also well off. He was confident that he would succeed; he

failed. Then he fell really in love with her, and he was the sort of

lover who is rendered timid, prudent, and embarrassed by intimacy with

the husband. Mme. Souris fancied that he no longer meant anything

serious by his attentions to her, and she became simply his friend.

This state of affairs lasted nine years.

Now, one morning, Leuillet received a startling communication from the

poor woman. Souris had died suddenly of aneurism of the heart.

He got a terrible shock, for they were of the same age; but the very

next moment, a sensation of profound joy, of infinite relief of

deliverance, penetrated his body and soul. Mme. Souris was free.

He had the tact, however, to make such a display of grief as the

occasion required; he waited for the proper time to elapse, and

attended to all the conventional usages. At the end of fifteen months

he married the widow.

His conduct was regarded as not only natural but generous. He had

acted like a good friend and an honest man. In short he was happy,

quite happy.

They lived on terms of the closest confidence, having from the first

understood and appreciated each other. One kept nothing secret from

the other, and they told each other their inmost thoughts. Leuillet

now loved his wife with a calm trustful affection; he loved her as a

tender, devoted partner, who is an equal and a confidante. But there

still lingered in his soul a singular and unaccountable grudge against

the deceased Souris, who had been the first to possess this woman, who

had had the flower of her youth and of her soul, and who had even

robbed her of her poetic attributes. The memory of the dead husband

spoiled the happiness of the living husband; and this posthumous

jealousy now began to torment Leuillet's heart day and night.

The result was that he was incessantly talking about Souris, asking a

thousand minute and intimate questions about him, and seeking for

information as to all his habits and personal characteristics. And he

pursued him with railleries even into the depths of the tomb,

recalling with self-satisfaction his oddities, emphasizing his

absurdities, and pointing out his defects.

Every minute he kept calling out to his wife from one end to the other

of the house:

"Hallo, Mathilde!"

"Here am I, dear."

"Come and let us have a chat."

She always came over to him, smiling, well aware that Souris was to be

the subject of the chat, and anxious to gratify her second husband's

harmless fad.

"I say! do you remember how Souris wanted, one day, to prove to me

that small men are always better loved than big men?"

And he launched out into reflections unfavorable to the defunct

husband, who was small, and discreetly complimentary to himself, as he

happened to be tall.

And Mme. Leuillet let him think that he was quite right; and she

laughed very heartily, turned the first husband into ridicule in a

playful fashion for the amusement of his successor, who always ended

by remarking:

"Never mind! Souris was a muff!"

They were happy, quite happy. And Leuillet never ceased to testify his

unabated attachment to his wife by all the usual manifestations.

Now, one night when they happened to be both kept awake by the renewal

of youthful ardor, Leuillet, who held his wife clasped tightly in his

arms, and had his lips glued to hers, said:

"Tell me this, darling."

"What?"

"Souris--'tisn't easy to put the question--was he very--very amorous?"

She gave him a warm kiss, as she murmured:

"Not so much as you, my duck."

His male vanity was flattered, and he went on:

"He must have been--rather a flat--eh?"

She did not answer. There was merely a sly little laugh on her face,

which she pressed close to her husband's neck.

He persisted in his questions:

"Come now! Don't deny that he was a flat--well, I mean, rather an

awkward sort of fellow?"

She nodded slightly.

"Well, yes, rather awkward."

He went on:

"I'm sure he used to weary you many a night--isn't that so?"

This time, she had an access of frankness, and she replied:

"Oh! yes."

He embraced her once more when she made this acknowledgment, and

murmured:

"What an ass he was! You were not happy with him?"

She answered:

"No. He was not always jolly."

Leuillet felt quite delighted, making a comparison in his own mind

between his wife's former situation and her present one.

He remained silent for some time: then, with a fresh outburst of

merit, he said:

"Tell me this!"

"What?"

"Will you be quite candid--quite candid with me?"

"Certainly, dear."

"Well, look here! Have you never been tempted to--to deceive this

imbecile, Souris?"

Mme. Leuillet uttered a little "Oh!" in a shamefaced way, and again

cuddled her face closer to her husband's chest. But he could see that

she was laughing.

He persisted:

"Come now, confess it! He had a head just suited for a cuckold, this

blockhead! It would be so funny! This good Souris! Oh! I say, darling,

you might tell it to me--only to me!"

He emphasized the words "to me," feeling certain that if she wanted to

show any taste when she deceived her husband, he, Leuillet, would have

been the man; and he quivered with joy at the expectation of this

avowal, sure that if she had not been the virtuous woman she was he

could have had her then.

But she did not reply, laughing incessantly as if at the recollection

of something infinitely comic.

Leuillet, in his turn, burst out laughing at the notion that he might

have made a cuckold of Souris. What a good joke! What a capital bit of

fun, to be sure!

He exclaimed in a voice broken by convulsions of laughter.

"Oh! poor Souris! poor Souris! Ah! yes, he had that sort of head--oh,

certainly he had!"

And Mme. Leuillet now twisted herself under the sheets, laughing till

the tears almost came into her eyes.

And Leuillet repeated: "Come, confess it! confess it! Be candid. You

must know that it cannot be unpleasant to me to hear such a thing."

Then she stammered, still choking with laughter.

"Yes, yes."

Her husband pressed her for an answer.

"Yes, what? Look here! tell me everything."

She was now laughing in a more subdued fashion, and, raising her mouth

up to Leuillet's ear, which was held towards her in anticipation of

some pleasant piece of confidence, she whispered--"Yes, I did deceive

him!"

He felt a cold shiver down his back, and utterly dumbfounded, he

gasped.

"You--you--did--really--deceive him?"

She was still under the impression that he thought the thing

infinitely pleasant, and replied.

"Yes--really--really."

He was obliged to sit up in bed so great was the shock he received,

holding his breath, just as overwhelmed as if he had just been told

that he was a cuckold himself. At first, he was unable to articulate

properly; then after the lapse of a minute or so, he merely

ejaculated.

"Ah!"

She, too, had stopped laughing now, realizing her mistake too late.

Leuillet, at length asked.

"And with whom?"

She kept silent, cudgeling her brain to find some excuse.

He repeated his question.

"With whom?"

At last, she said.

"With a young man."

He turned towards her abruptly, and in a dry tone, said.

"Well, I suppose it wasn't with some kitchen wench. I ask you who was

the young man--do you understand?"

She did not answer. He tore away the sheet which she had drawn over

her head, and pushed her into the middle of the bed, repeating.

"I want to know with what young man--do you understand?"

Then, she replied with some difficulty in uttering the words.

"I only wanted to laugh." But he fairly shook with rage: "What? How is

that? You only wanted to laugh? So then you were making game of me?

I'm not going to be satisfied with these evasions, let me tell you! I

ask you what was the young man's name?"

She did not reply, but lay motionless on her back.

He caught hold of her arm and pressed it tightly.

"Do you hear me, I say? I want you to give me an answer when I speak

to you."

Then, she said, in nervous tones.

"I think you must be going mad! Let me alone!"

He trembled with fury, so exasperated that he scarcely knew what he

was saying, and, shaking her with all his strength, he repeated.

"Do you hear me? do you hear me?"

She wrenched herself out of his grasp with a sudden movement, and with

the tips of her fingers slapped her husband on the nose. He entirely

lost his temper, feeling that he had been struck, and angrily pounced

down on her.

He now held her under him, boxing her ears in a most violent manner,

and exclaiming:

"Take that--and that--and that--there you are, you trollop!"

Then, when he was out of breath, exhausted from beating her, he got

up, and went over to the chest of drawers to get himself a glass of

sugared orange-water for he was almost ready to faint after his

exertion.

And she lay huddled up in bed, crying and heaving great sobs, feeling

that there was an end of her happiness, and that it was all her own

fault.

Then, in the midst of her tears, she faltered:

"Listen, Antoine, come here! I told you a lie--listen! I'll explain it

to you."

And now, prepared to defend herself, armed with excuses and

subterfuges, she slightly raised her head all tangled under her

crumpled nightcap.

And he, turning towards her, drew close to her, ashamed at having

whacked her, but feeling intensely still in his heart's core as a

husband an inexhaustible hatred against that woman who had deceived

his predecessor, Souris.

ALL OVER

The Comte de Lormerin had just finished dressing himself. He cast a

parting glance at the large glass, which occupied an entire panel of

his dressing-room, and smiled.

He was really a fine-looking man still, though he was quite gray.

Tall, slight, elegant, with no projecting paunch, with a scanty

moustache of doubtful shade in his thin face, which seemed fair rather

than white, he had presence, that "chic" in short, that indescribable

something which establishes between two men more difference than

millions.

He murmured, "Lormerin is still alive!"

And he made his way into the drawing-room where his correspondence

awaited him.

On his table, where everything had its place, the work-table of the

gentleman who never works, there were a dozen letters lying beside

three newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch of the

finger he exposed to view all these letters, like a gambler giving the

choice of a card; and he scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each

morning before tearing open the envelopes.

It was for him a moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and vague

anxiety. What did these sealed mysterious papers bring him? What did

they contain of pleasure, of happiness, or of grief? He surveyed them

with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing in each case the hand that

wrote them, selecting them, making two or three lots, according to

what he expected from them. Here, friends; there, persons to whom he

was indifferent; further on, strangers. The last kind always gave him

a little uneasiness. What did they want from him? What hand had traced

those curious characters full of thoughts, promises, or threats?

This day one letter in particular caught his eye. It was simple

nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he regarded it

with disquietude, with a sort of internal shiver.

He thought: "From whom can it be? I certainly know this writing, and

yet I can't identify it."

He raised it to a level with his face, holding it delicately between

two fingers, striving to read through the envelope without making up

his mind to open it.

Then he smelled it, and snatched up from the table a little magnifying

glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He

suddenly felt unnerved. "Who is it from? This hand is familiar to me,

very familiar. I must have often read its prosings, yes, very often.

But this must have been a long, long time ago. Who the deuce can it be

from? Pooh! 'tis only from somebody asking for money."

And he tore open the letter. Then he read.

"My dear Friend,--You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for

it is now twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was

young; I am old. When I bade you farewell, I quitted Paris

in order to follow into the provinces my husband, my old

husband, whom you used to call 'my hospital.' Do you

remember him? He died five years ago, and now, I am

returning to Paris to get my daughter married, for I have a

daughter, a beautiful girl of eighteen, whom you have never

seen. I informed you about her entrance into the world, but

you certainly did not pay much attention to so trifling an

event.

"You, you are always the handsome Lormerin; so I have been

told. Well, if you still recollect little Lise, whom you

used to call Lison, come and dine this evening with her,

with the elderly Baronne de Vance, your ever faithful

friend, who, with some emotion, stretches out to you,

without complaining of her lot, a devoted hand, which you

must clasp, but no longer kiss, my poor Jaquelet.

"Lise de Vance."

Lormerin's heart began to throb. He remained sunk in his armchair,

with the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by

poignant feelings that made the tears mount up to his eyes!

If he had ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise,

Lise de Vance, whom he called "Cinder-Flower" on account of the

strange color of her hair, and the pale gray of her eyes. Oh! what a

fine, pretty, charming creature she was, this frail Baronne, the wife

of that, gouty, pimply Baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the

provinces, shut her up, kept her apart through jealousy, through

jealousy of the handsome Lormerin.

Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he, too, had been truly

loved. She familiarly gave him the name of Jaquelet, and she used to

pronounce that word in an exquisite fashion.

A thousand memories that had been effaced came back to him, far off

and sweet and melancholy now. One evening, she called on him on her

way home from a ball, and they went out for a stroll in the Bois de

Boulogne, she in evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was

springtime; the weather was beautiful. The odor of her bodice embalmed

the warm air--the odor of her bodice, and also a little, the odor of

her skin. What a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the

moon's rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to

weep. A little surprised, he asked her why.

She replied:

"I don't know. 'Tis the moon and the water that have affected me.

Every time I see poetic things, they seize hold of my heart, and I

have to cry."

He smiled, moved himself, considering her feminine emotion

charming--the emotion of a poor little woman whom every sensation

overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:

"My little Lise, you are exquisite."

What a charming love affair short-lived and dainty it had been, and

all over too so quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this

old brute of a Baron, who had carried off his wife, and never shown

her afterwards to anyone!

Lormerin had forgotten, in good sooth, at the end of two or three

months. One woman drives out the other so quickly in Paris when one is

a bachelor! No matter he had kept a little chapel for her in his

heart, for he had loved her alone! He assured himself now that this

was so.

He rose up, and said: "Certainly, I will go and dine with her this

evening!"

And instinctively he turned round towards the glass in order to

inspect himself from head to foot. He reflected: "She must have grown

old unpleasantly, more than I have!" And he felt gratified at the

thought of showing himself to her still handsome, still fresh, of

astonishing her, perhaps of filling her with emotion, and making her

regret those bygone days so far, far distant!

He turned his attention to the other letters. They were not of

importance.

The whole day, he kept thinking of this phantom. What was she like

now? How funny it was to meet in this way after twenty-five years!

Would he alone recognize her?

He made his toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat,

which suited him better with the coat, sent for the hairdresser to

give him a finishing touch with the curling-iron, for he had preserved

his hair, and started very early in order to show his eagerness to see

her.

The first thing he saw on entering a pretty drawing-room freshly

furnished, was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from

the days of his good-fortune, hanging on the wall in an antique silk

frame.

He sat down and waited. A door opened behind him. He rose up abruptly,

and, turning round, beheld an old woman with white hair who extended

both hands towards him.

He seized them, kissed them one after the other with long, long

kisses, then, lifting up his head, he gazed at the woman he had loved.

Yes, it was an old lady, an old lady whom he did not recognize, and

who, while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.

He could not abstain from murmuring:

"It is you, Lise?"

She replied:

"Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, isn't

that so? I have had so much sorrow--so much sorrow. Sorrow has

consumed my life. Look at me now--or rather don't look at me! But how

handsome you have kept--and young! If I had by chance met you in the

street, I would have cried, 'Jaquelet!' Now sit down and let us, first

of all, have a chat. And then I'll show you my daughter, my grown-up

daughter. You'll see how she resembles me--or rather how I resemble

her--no, it is not quite that: she is just like the 'me' of former

days--you shall see! But I wanted to be alone with you first. I feared

that there would be some emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now

it is all over; it is past. Pray be seated, my friend."

He sat down beside her, holding her hand; but he did not know what to

say; he did not know this woman--it seemed to him that he had never

seen her before. What had he come to do in this house? Of what could

he speak? Of the long-ago? What was there in common between him and

her? He could no longer recall anything to mind in the presence of

this grandmotherly face. He could no longer recall to mind all the

nice, tender things so sweet, so bitter, that had assailed his heart,

some time since, when he thought of the other, of little Lise, of the

dainty Cinder-Flower. What then had become of her, the former one, the

one he had loved? that woman of far-off dreams, the blonde with gray

eyes, the young one who used to call him "Jaquelet" so prettily?

They remained side by side, motionless, both constrained, troubled,

profoundly ill at ease.

As they only talked in commonplace phrases, broken and slow, she rose

up, and pressed the button of the bell.

"I am going to call Renee," she said.

There was a tap at the door, then the rustle of a dress; next, a young

voice exclaimed:

"Here I am, mamma!"

Lormerin remained scared, as if at the sight of an apparition.

He stammered:

"Good-day, Mademoiselle."

Then, turning towards the mother:

"Oh! it is you!..."

In fact, it was she, she whom he had known in bygone days, the Lise

who had vanished and come back! In her he found the woman he had won

twenty-five years before. This one was even younger still, fresher,

more childlike.

He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her to his heart

again, murmuring in her ear:

"Good-day, Lison!"

A man-servant announced:

"Dinner is ready, Madame."

And they proceeded towards the dining-room.

What passed at this dinner? What did they say to him, and what could

he say in reply? He found himself plunged in one of those strange

dreams which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a

fixed idea in his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:

"Which is the real one?"

The mother smiled, repeating over and over again:

"Do you remember?" And it was in the bright eye of the young girl that

he found again his memories of the past. Twenty times he opened his

mouth to say to her: "Do you remember, Lison?--" forgetting this

white-haired lady who was regarding him with looks of tenderness.

And yet there were moments when he no longer felt sure, when he lost

his head. He could see that the woman of to-day was not exactly the

woman of long ago. The other one, the former one, had in her voice, in

her glance, in her entire being, something which he did not find

again. And he made prodigious efforts of mind to recall his lady love,

to seize again what had escaped from her to him, what this

resuscitated one did not possess.

The Baronne said:

"You have lost your old sprightliness, my poor friend."

He murmured:

"There are many other things that I have lost!"

But in his heart touched with emotion, he felt his old love springing

to life once more, like an awakened wild beast ready to bite him.

The young girl went on chattering, and every now and then some

familiar phrase of her mother which she had borrowed, a certain style

of speaking and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which

people acquire by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot.

All these things penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his

passion bleed anew.

He got away early, and took a turn along the boulevard. But the image

of this young girl pursued him, haunted him, quickened his heart,

inflamed his blood. Apart from the two women, he now saw only one, a

young one, the one of former days returned, and he loved her as he had

loved her in bygone years. He loved her with greater ardor, after an

interval of twenty-five years.

He went home to reflect on this strange and terrible thing, and to

think on what he should do.

But, as he was passing, with a wax candle in his hand, before the

glass, the large glass in which he had contemplated himself and

admired himself before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly,

gray-haired man; and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden

days, in the days of little Lise. He saw himself charming and

handsome, as he had been when he was loved! Then, drawing the light

nearer, he looked at himself more closely, as one inspects a strange

thing with a magnifying glass, tracing the wrinkles, discovering those

frightful ravages, which he had not perceived till now.

And he sat down, crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his

lamentable image, murmuring:

"All over, Lormerin!"

LETTER FOUND ON A DROWNED MAN

You ask me, madame, whether I am laughing at you? You cannot believe

that a man has never been smitten with love. Well, no, I have never

loved, never!

What is the cause of this? I really cannot tell. Never have I been

under the influence of that sort of intoxication of the heart which we

call love! Never have I lived in that dream, in that exaltation, in

that state of madness into which the image of a woman casts us. I have

never been pursued, haunted, roused to fever-heat, lifted up to

Paradise by the thought of meeting, or by the possession of, a being

who had suddenly become for me more desirable than any good fortune,

more beautiful than any other creature, more important than the whole

world! I have never wept, I have never suffered, on account of any of

you. I have not passed my nights thinking of one woman without closing

my eyes. I have no experience of waking up with the thought and the

memory of her shedding their illumination on me. I have never known

the wild desperation of hope when she was about to come, or the divine

sadness of regret when she parted with me, leaving behind her in the

room a delicate odor of violet powder and flesh.

I have never been in love.

I, too, have often asked myself why is this. And truly I can scarcely

tell. Nevertheless, I have found some reasons for it; but they are of

a metaphysical character, and perhaps you will not be able to

appreciate them.

I suppose I sit too much in judgment on women to submit much to their

fascination. I ask you to forgive me for this remark. I am going to

explain what I mean. In every creature there is a moral being and a

physical being. In order to love, it would be necessary for me to find

a harmony between these two beings which I have never found. One has

always too great a predominance over the other, sometimes the moral,

sometimes the physical.

The intellect which we have a right to require in a woman, in order to

love her, is not the same as virile intellect. It is more and it is

less. A woman must have a mind open, delicate, sensitive, refined,

impressionable. She has no need of either power or initiative in

thought, but she must have kindness, elegance, tenderness, coquetry,

and that faculty of assimilation which, in a little while, raises her

to an equality with him who shared her life. Her greatest quality must

be tact, that subtle sense which is to the mind what touch is to the

body. It reveals to her a thousand little things, contours, angles,

and forms in the intellectual order.

Very frequently pretty women have not intellect to correspond with

their personal charms. Now the slightest lack of harmony strikes me

and pains me at the first glance. In friendship, this is not of

importance. Friendship is a compact in which one fairly divides

defects and merits. We may judge of friends, whether man or woman,

take into account the good they possess, neglect the evil that is in

them, and appreciate their value exactly, while giving ourselves up to

an intimate sympathy of a deep and fascinating character.

In order to love, one must be blind, surrender oneself absolutely, see

nothing, reason on nothing, understand nothing. One must adorn the

weakness as well as the beauty of the beloved object, renounce all

judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity.

I am incapable of such blindness, and rebel against a seductiveness

not founded on reason. This is not all. I have such a high and subtle

idea of harmony, that nothing can ever realize my ideal. But you will

call me a madman. Listen to me. A woman, in my opinion, may have an

exquisite soul and a charming body, without that body and that soul

being in perfect accord with one another. I mean that persons who have

noses made in a certain shape are not to be expected to think in a

certain fashion. The fat have no right to make use of the same words

and phrases as the thin. You, who have blue eyes, madame, cannot look

at life, and judge of things and events as if you had black eyes. The

shades of your eyes should correspond, by a sort of fatality, with the

shades of your thought. In perceiving these things I have the scent of

a bloodhound. Laugh if you like, but it is so.

And yet I imagined that I was in love for an hour, for a day. I had

foolishly yielded to the influence of surrounding circumstances. I

allowed myself to be beguiled by the mirage of an aurora. Would you

like me to relate for you this short history?

* * * * *

I met, one evening, a pretty enthusiastic woman who wanted, for the

purpose of humoring a poetic fancy, to spend a night with me in a boat

on a river. I would have preferred a room and a bed; however, I

consented to take instead the river and the boat.

It was in the month of June. My fair companion chose a moonlight night

in order to excite her imagination all the better.

We had dined at a riverside inn, and then we set out in the boat about

ten o'clock. I thought it a rather foolish kind of adventure; but as

my companion pleased me I did not bother myself too much about this. I

sat down on the seat facing her; I seized the oars, and off we

started.

I could not deny that the scene was picturesque. We glided past a

wooded isle full of nightingales, and the current carried us rapidly

over the river covered with silvery ripples. The toads uttered their

shrill, monotonous cry; the frogs croaked in the grass by the river's

bank, and the lapping of the water as it flowed on made around us a

kind of confused murmur almost imperceptible, disquieting, and gave us

a vague sensation of mysterious fear.

The sweet charm of warm nights and of streams glittering in the

moonlight penetrated us. It seemed bliss to live and to float thus,

and to dream and to feel by one's side a young woman sympathetic and

beautiful.

I was somewhat affected, somewhat agitated, somewhat intoxicated by

the pale brightness of the night and the consciousness of my proximity

to a lovely woman.

"Come and sit beside me," she said.

I obeyed.

She went on:

"Recite some verses for me."

This appeared to be rather too much. I declined; she persisted. She

certainly wanted to have the utmost pleasure, the whole orchestra of

sentiment, from the moon to the rhymes of poets. In the end, I had to

yield, and, as if in mockery, I recited for her a charming little poem

by Louis Bouilbet, of which the following are a few strophes:

"I hate the poet who with tearful eye

Murmurs some name while gazing tow'rds a star,

Who sees no magic in the earth or sky,

Unless Lizette or Ninon be not far.

"The bard who in all Nature nothing sees

Divine, unless a petticoat he ties

Amorously to the branches of the trees

Or nightcap to the grass, is scarcely wise.

"He has not heard the eternal's thunder tone,

The voice of Nature in her various moods,

Who cannot tread the dim ravines alone,

And of no woman dream 'mid whispering woods."

I expected some reproaches. Nothing of the sort. She murmured:

"How true it is!"

I remained stupefied. Had she understood?

Our boat was gradually drawing nearer to the bank, and got entangled

under a willow which impeded its progress. I drew my arm around my

companion's waist, and very gently moved my lips towards her neck. But

she repulsed me with an abrupt, angry movement:

"Have done, pray! You are rude!"

I tried to draw her towards me. She resisted, caught hold of the tree,

and was near flinging us both into the water. I deemed it the prudent

course to cease my importunities.

She said:

"I would rather have you capsized. I feel so happy. I want to

dream--that is so nice." Then, in a slightly malicious tone, she

added:

"Have you, then, already forgotten the verses you recited for me just

now?"

She was right. I became silent.

She went on:

"Come! row!"

And I plied the oars once more.

I began to find the night long and to see the absurdity of my conduct.

My companion said to me:

"Will you make me a promise?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"To remain quiet, well-behaved, and discreet, if I permit you--"

"What? Say what you mean!"

"Here is what I mean! I want to lie down on my back at the bottom of

the boat with you by my side. But I forbid you to touch me, to embrace

me--in short to--to caress me."

I promised. She warned me:

"If you move, I'll capsize the boat."

And then we lay down side by side, our eyes turned towards the sky,

while the boat glided slowly through the water. We were rocked by the

gentle movements of the shallop. The light sounds of the night came to

us more distinctly in the bottom of the boat, sometimes causing us to

start. And I felt springing up within me a strange, poignant emotion,

an infinite tenderness, something like an irresistible impulse to open

my arms in order to embrace, to open my heart in order to love, to

give myself, to give my thoughts, my body, my life, my entire being to

someone.

My companion murmured, like one in a dream:

"Where are we? Where are we going? It seems to me that I am quitting

the earth. How sweet it is! Ah! if you loved me--a little!!!"

My heart began to throb. I had no answer to give. It seemed to me that

I loved her. I had no longer any violent desire. I felt happy there by

her side, and that was enough for me.

And thus we remained for a long, long time without stirring. We caught

each other's hands; some delightful force rendered us motionless, an

unknown force stronger than ourselves, an alliance, chaste, intimate,

absolute of our persons lying there side by side which belonged to

each other without touching. What was this? How do I know. Love,

perhaps?

Little by little, the dawn appeared. It was three o'clock in the

morning. Slowly, a great brightness spread over the sky. The boat

knocked against something. I rose up. We had come close to a tiny

islet.

But I remained ravished, in a state of ecstasy. In front of us

stretched the shining firmament, red, rosy, violet, spotted with fiery

clouds resembling golden vapors. The river was glowing with purple,

and three houses on one side of it seemed to be burning.

I bent towards my companion. I was going to say: "Oh! look!" But I

held my tongue, quite dazed, and I could no longer see anything except

her. She, too, was rosy, with the rosy flesh tints with which must

have mingled a little the hue of the sky. Her tresses were rosy; her

eyes were rosy; her teeth were rosy; here dress, her laces, her

smile, all were rosy. And in truth I believed, so overpowering was the

illusion, that the aurora was there before me.

She rose softly to her feet, holding out her lips to me; and I moved

towards her, trembling, delirious, feeling indeed that I was going to

kiss Heaven, to kiss happiness, to kiss a dream which had become a

woman, to kiss the ideal which had descended into human flesh.

She said to me: "You have a caterpillar in your hair." And suddenly I

felt myself becoming as sad as if I had lost all hope in life.

That is all, madame. It is puerile, silly, stupid. But I am sure that

since that day it would be impossible for me to love. And yet--who can

tell?

[The young man upon whom this letter was found was yesterday taken out

of the Seine between Bougival and Marly. An obliging bargeman, who had

searched the pockets in order to ascertain the name of the deceased,

brought this paper to the author.]

MOTHER AND SON!!!

We were chatting in the smoking-room after a dinner at which only men

were present. We talked about unexpected legacies, strange

inheritances. Then M. le Brument, who was sometimes called "the

illustrious master" and at other times the "illustrious advocate,"

came and stood with his back to the fire.

"I have," he said, "just now to search for an heir who disappeared

under peculiarly terrible circumstances. It is one of those simple and

ferocious dramas of ordinary life, a thing which possibly happens

every day, and which is nevertheless one of the most dreadful things I

know. Here are the facts:

"Nearly six months ago I got a message to come to the side of a dying

woman. She said to me:

"'Monsieur, I want to entrust to you the most delicate, the most

difficult, and the most wearisome mission that can be conceived. Be

good enough to take cognizance of my will, which is there on the

table. A sum of five thousand francs is left to you as a fee if you do

not succeed, and of a hundred thousand francs if you do succeed. I

want to have my son found after my death.'

"She asked me to assist her to sit up in the bed, in order that she

might be able to speak with greater ease, for her voice, broken and

gasping, was gurgling in her throat.

"I saw that I was in the house of a very rich person. The luxurious

apartment, with a certain simplicity in its luxury, was upholstered

with materials solid as the walls, and their soft surface imparted a

caressing sensation, so that every word uttered seemed to penetrate

their silent depths and to disappear and die there.

"The dying woman went on:

"'You are the first to hear my horrible story. I will try to have

strength enough to go on to the end of it. You must know everything so

that you, whom I know to be a kind-hearted man as well as a man of the

world, should have a sincere desire to aid me with all your power.

"'Listen to me.

"'Before my marriage, I loved a young man, whose suit was rejected by

my family because he was not rich enough. Not long afterwards, I

married a man of great wealth. I married him through ignorance,

through obedience, through indifference, as young girls do marry.

"'I had a child, a boy. My husband died in the course of a few years.

"'He whom I had loved had got married, in his turn. When he saw that I

was a widow, he was crushed by horrible grief at knowing he was not

free. He came to see me; he wept and sobbed so bitterly before my eyes

that it was enough to break my heart. He at first came to see me as a

friend. Perhaps I ought not to have seen him. What would you have? I

was alone, so sad, so solitary, so hopeless! And I loved him still.

What sufferings we women have sometimes to endure!

"'I had only him in the world, my parents also being dead. He came

frequently; he spent whole evenings with me. I should not have let him

come so often, seeing that he was married. But I had not enough of

will-power to prevent him from coming.

"'How am I to tell you what next happened?... He became my lover. How

did this come about? Can I explain it? Can anyone explain such things?

Do you think it could be otherwise when two human beings are drawn

towards each other by the irresistible force of a passion by which

each of them is possessed? Do you believe, monsieur, that it is always

in our power to resist, that we can keep up the struggle for ever, and

refuse to yield to the prayers, the supplications, the tears, the

frenzied words, the appeals on bended knees, the transports of

passion, with which we are pursued by the man we adore, whom we want

to gratify even in his slightest wishes, whom we desire to crown with

every possible happiness, and whom, if we are to be guided by a

worldly code of honor, we must drive to despair. What strength would

it not require? What a renunciation of happiness? what self-denial?

and even what virtuous selfishness?

"'In short, monsieur, I was his mistress; and I was happy. I

became--and this was my greatest weakness and my greatest piece of

cowardice--I became his wife's friend.

"'We brought up my son together; we made a man of him, a thorough man,

intelligent, full of sense and resolution, of large and generous

ideas. The boy reached the age of seventeen.

"'He, the young man, was fond of my--my lover, almost as fond of him

as I was myself, for he had been equally cherished and cared for by

both of us. He used to call him his "dear friend," and respected him

immensely, having never received from him anything but wise counsels,

and a good example of rectitude, honor, and probity. He looked upon

him as an old, loyal and devoted comrade of his mother, as a sort of

moral father, tutor, protector--how am I to describe it?

"'Perhaps the reason why he never asked any questions was that he had

been accustomed from his earliest years to see this man in the house,

by his side, and by my side, always concerned about us both.

"'One evening the three of us were to dine together (these were my

principal festive occasions), and I waited for the two of them, asking

myself which of them would be the first to arrive. The door opened; it

was my old friend. I went towards him, with outstretched arms; and he

drew his lips towards mine in a long, delicious kiss.

"'All of a sudden, a sound, a rustling which was barely audible, that

mysterious sensation which indicates the presence of another person,

made us start and turn round with a quick movement. Jean, my son,

stood there, livid, staring at us.

"'There was a moment of atrocious confusion. I drew back, holding out

my hand towards my son as if in supplication; but I could see him no

longer. He had gone.

"'We remained facing each other--my lover and I--crushed, unable to

utter a word. I sank down on an armchair, and I felt a desire, a

vague, powerful desire to fly, to go out into the night, and to

disappear for ever. Then, convulsive sobs rose up in my throat, and I

wept, shaken with spasms, with my heart torn asunder, all my nerves

writhing with the horrible sensation of an irremediable misfortune,

and with that dreadful sense of shame which, in such moments as this,

falls on a mother's heart.

"'He looked at me in a scared fashion, not venturing to approach me or

to speak to me or to touch me, for fear of the boy's return. At last

he said:

"'"I am going to follow him--to talk to him--to explain matters to

him. In short, I must see him and let him know--"

"'And he hurried away.

"'I waited--I waited in a distracted frame of mind, trembling at the

least sound, convulsed with terror, and filled with some unutterably

strange and intolerable emotion by every slight crackling of the fire

in the grate.

"'I waited for an hour, for two hours, feeling my heart swell with a

dread I had never before experienced, such an anguish that I would not

wish the greatest of criminals to have ten minutes of such misery.

Where was my son? What was he doing?

"'About midnight, a messenger brought me a note from my lover. I still

know its contents by heart:

"'"Has your son returned? I did not find him. I am down here. I do not

want to go up at this hour."

"'I wrote in pencil on the same slip of paper:

"'"Jean has not returned. You must go and find him."

"'And I remained all night in the armchair, waiting for him.

"'I felt as if I were going mad. I longed to have to run wildly about,

to roll myself on the ground. And yet I did not even stir, but kept

waiting hour after hour. What was going to happen? I tried to imagine,

to guess. But I could form no conception, in spite of my efforts, in

spite of the tortures of my soul!

"'And now my apprehension was lest they might meet. What would they do

in that case? What would my son do? My mind was lacerated by fearful

doubts, by terrible suppositions.

"'You understand what I mean, do you not, monsieur?

"'My chambermaid, who knew nothing, who understood nothing, was coming

in every moment, believing, naturally, that I had lost my reason. I

sent her away with a word or a movement of the hand. She went for the

doctor, who found me in the throes of a nervous fit.

"'I was put to bed. I got an attack of brain-fever.

"'When I regained consciousness, after a long illness, I saw beside my

bed my--lover--alone.

"'I exclaimed:

"'"My son? Where is my son?"

"'He replied:

"'"No, no, I assure you every effort has been made by me to find him,

but I have failed!"

"'Then, becoming suddenly exasperated and even indignant--for women

are subject to such outbursts of unaccountable and unreasoning

anger--I said:

"'"I forbid you to come near me or to see me again unless you find

him. Go away!"

"'He did go away.

"'I have never seen one or the other of them since, monsieur, and thus

I have lived for the last twenty years.

"'Can you imagine what all this meant to me? Can you understand this

monstrous punishment, this slow perpetual laceration of a mother's

heart, this abominable, endless waiting? Endless, did I say? No: it is

about to end, for I am dying. I am dying without ever again seeing

either of them--either one or the other!

"'He--the man I loved--has written to me every day for the last twenty

years; and I--I have never consented to see him, even for one second;

for I had a strange feeling that, if he came back here, it would be at

that very moment my son would again make his appearance! Ah! my son!

my son! Is he dead? Is he living? Where is he hiding? Over there,

perhaps, at the other side of the ocean, in some country so far away

that even its very name is unknown to me! Does he ever think of me?

Ah! if he only knew! How cruel children are! Did he understand to what

frightful suffering he condemned me, into what depths of despair, into

what tortures, he cast me while I was still in the prime of life,

leaving me to suffer like this even to this moment, when I am going to

die--me, his mother, who loved him with all the violence of a mother's

love! Oh! isn't it cruel, cruel?

"'You will tell him all this, monsieur--will you not? You will repeat

for him my last words:

"'My child, my dear, dear child, be less harsh towards poor women!

Life is already brutal and savage enough in its dealings with them. My

dear son, think of what the existence of your poor mother has been

ever since the day when you left her. My dear child, forgive her, and

love her, now that she is dead, for she has had to endure the most

frightful penance ever inflicted on a woman.'

"She gasped for breath, shuddering, as if she had addressed the last

words to her son and as if he stood by her bedside.

"Then she added:

"'You will tell him also, monsieur, that I never again saw--the

other.'

"Once more she ceased speaking, then, in a broken voice she said:

"'Leave me now, I beg of you. I want to die all alone, since they are

not with me.'"

Maitre Le Brument added:

"And I left the house, messieurs, crying like a fool, so vehemently,

indeed, that my coachman turned round to stare at me.

"And to think that, every day, heaps of dramas like this are being

enacted all around us!

"I have not found the son--that son--well, say what you like about

him, but I call him that criminal son!"

THE SPASM

The hotel-guests slowly entered the dining-room, and sat down in their

places. The waiters began to attend on them in a leisurely fashion so

as to enable those who were late to arrive, and so as to avoid

bringing back the dishes; and the old bathers, the _habitués_, those

whose season was advancing, gazed with interest towards the door,

whenever it opened, with a desire to see new faces appearing.

This is the principal distraction of health-resorts. People look

forward to the dinner-hour in order to inspect each day's new

arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.

A vague longing springs up in the mind, a longing for agreeable

meetings, for pleasant acquaintances, perhaps for love-adventures. In

this life of elbowings, not only those with whom we have come into

daily contact, but strangers, assume an extreme importance. Curiosity

is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself, and sociability is

the order of the day.

We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see

other people with different eyes when we view them through the medium

of the acquaintanceship that is brought about at health-resorts. We

discover in men suddenly, after an hour's chat, in the evening after

dinner, under the trees in the park where the generous spring bubbles

up, a high intelligence and astonishing merits, and a month

afterwards, we have completely forgotten these new friends, so

fascinating when we first met them.

There also are formed lasting and serious ties more quickly than

anywhere else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted

very quickly; and with the affection thus originated is mingled

something of the sweetness and self-abandonment of long-standing

intimacies. We cherish in after years the dear and tender memories of

those first hours of friendship, the memory of those first

conversations through which we have been able to unveil a soul, of

those first glances which interrogate and respond to the questions and

secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of

that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation

of opening our hearts to those who are willing to open theirs to us.

And the melancholy of health-resorts, the monotony of days that are

all alike, help from hour to hour in this rapid development of

affection.

* * * * *

Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the

appearance of strange faces.

Only two appeared, but very remarkable-looking, a man and a

woman--father and daughter. They immediately produced the same effect

on my mind as some of Edgar Poe's characters; and yet there was about

them a charm, the charm associated with misfortune. I looked upon them

as the victims of fatality. The man was very tall and thin, rather

stooping, with hair perfectly white, too white for his comparatively

youthful physiognomy; and there was in his bearing, and in his person

that austerity peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, who was

probably twenty-four or twenty-five, was small in stature, and was

also very thin, very pale, and she had the air of one who was worn out

with utter lassitude. We meet people like this from time to time who

seem too weak for the tasks and the needs of daily life, too weak to

move about, to walk, to do all that we do every day. This young girl

was very pretty, with the diaphanous beauty of a phantom; and she ate

with extreme slowness, as if she were almost incapable of moving her

arms.

It must have been she assuredly who had come to take the waters.

They found themselves facing me at the opposite side of the table; and

I at once noticed that the father had a very singular nervous spasm.

Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand made a hook-like

movement, a sort of irregular zigzig, before it succeeded in touching

what it was in search of; and, after a little while, this action was

so wearisome to me that I turned aside my head in order not to see it.

I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her

left hand.

After dinner, I went for a stroll in the park of the thermal

establishment. This led towards the little Auvergnese station of

Chatel Guyot, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, of

that mountain from which flow so many boiling springs, arising from

the deep bed of extinct volcanoes. Over there, above us, the domes,

which had once been craters, raised their mutilated heads on the

summit of the long chain. For Chatel Guyot is situated at the spot

where the region of domes begins.

Beyond it, stretches out the region of peaks, and further on again the

region of precipices.

The "Puy de Dome" is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is

the loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these

mountain-heights.

This evening it was very warm. I walked up and down a shady path, on

the side of the mountain overlooking the park, listening to the

opening strains of the Casino band.

And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my

direction. I saluted them, as we are accustomed to salute our

hotel-companions at health resorts; and the man, coming to a sudden

halt, said to me,

"Could you not, monsieur, point out to us a short walk, nice and easy,

if that is possible? and excuse my intrusion on you."

I offered to show them the way towards the valley through which the

little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall

craggy, wooded slopes.

They gladly accepted my offer.

And we talked naturally about the virtues of the waters.

"Oh!" he said, "My daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is

unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous disorders. At one

time, the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another

time, they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another

time they declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day, her

condition is attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and

regulator of the body, that Protean source of diseases with a thousand

forms and a thousand susceptibilities to attack. This is why we have

come here. For my part, I am rather inclined to think it is the

nerves. In any case it is very sad."

Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his

hand came back to my mind, and I asked him.

"But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves

somewhat affected?"

He replied calmly:

"Mine? Oh! no--my nerves have always been very steady."

Then suddenly, after a pause, he went on:

"Ah! You were alluding to the spasm in my hand every time I want to

reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which I

had. Just imagine! this daughter of mine was actually buried alive?"

I could only give utterance to the word "Ah!" so great were my

astonishment and emotion.

* * * * *

He continued:

"Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some

time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease

of that organ, and we were prepared for the worst.

"One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had

fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life

was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid

her with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the

cemetery, where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated

in the very heart of Lorraine.

"I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,

rings, all presents which she had got from me, and with her first

ball-dress on.

"You may easily imagine the state of mind in which I was when I

returned home. She was the only one I had, for my wife has been dead

for many years. I found my way to my own apartment in a half

distracted condition, utterly exhausted, and I sank into my

easy-chair, without the capacity to think or the strength to move. I

was nothing better now than a suffering, vibrating machine, a human

being who had, as it were, been flayed alive; my soul was like a

living wound.

"My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her

coffin, and preparing her for her last sleep, entered the room

noiselessly, and asked:

"'Does monsieur want anything?'

"I merely shook my head, by way of answering 'No.'

"He urged, 'Monsieur is wrong. He will bring some illness on himself.

Would monsieur like me to put him to bed?'

"I answered, 'No! let me alone!'

"And he left the room.

"I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh! what a night, what a

night! It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the

wind, the winter wind, an icy wind, a hurricane accompanied by frost

and snow, kept blowing against the window with a sinister and regular

noise.

"How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,

crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,

inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly, the great bell

of the entrance gate, the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.

"I got such a shock that my chair cracked under me. The solemn,

ponderous sound vibrated through the empty chateau as if through a

vault. I turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was

just two in the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour!

"And abruptly the bell again rang twice. The servants, without doubt,

were afraid to get up. I took a wax-candle and descended the stairs. I

was on the point of asking, 'Who is there?'

"Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly opened the huge

door. My heart was throbbing wildly; I was frightened; I hurriedly

drew back the door, and in the darkness I distinguished a white

figure, standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.

"I recoiled, petrified with horror, faltering:

"'Who--who--who are you?'

"A voice replied:

"'It is I, father.'

"It was my daughter.

"I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backwards before this

advancing specter. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand, as

if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have

noticed--that gesture of which since then I have never got rid.

"'Do not be afraid, papa; I was not dead. Somebody tried to steal my

rings, and cut one of my fingers, the blood began to flow, and this

reanimated me.'

"And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.

"I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my

throat.

"Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still

so much dismayed that I scarcely realized the gruesome good-fortune

that had fallen to my lot, I made her go up to my room, and sit down

in my easy-chair; then I ran excitedly for Prosper to get him to light

up the fire again and to get her some wine and summon the rest of the

servants to her assistance.

"The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp

of alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back insensible.

"It was he who had opened the vault, and who had mutilated, and then

abandoned, my daughter, for he could not efface the traces of the

theft. He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into

its place, feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by

me, as I completely trusted him.

"You see, Monsieur, that we are very unhappy people."

* * * * *

He stopped.

The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful

vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by

the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back

from the tomb and this father with his uncanny spasm.

I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I

only murmured:

"What a horrible thing!"

Then, after a minute's silence, I added:

"Suppose we go back. I think it is getting cold."

And we made our way back to the hotel.

A DUEL

The war was over. The Germans occupied France. The country was panting

like a wrestler lying under the knee of his successful opponent.

The first trains from Paris, after the city's long agony of famine and

despair, were making their way to the new frontiers, slowly passing

through the country districts and the villages. The passengers gazed

through the windows at the ravaged fields and burnt hamlets. Prussian

soldiers, in their black helmets with brass spikes, were smoking their

pipes on horseback or sitting on chairs in front of the houses which

were still left standing. Others were working or talking just as if

they were members of the families. As you passed through the different

towns you saw entire regiments drilling in the squares, and, in spite

of the rumble of the carriage-wheels, you could every moment hear the

hoarse words of command.

M. Dubuis, who during the entire siege, had served as one of the

National Guard in Paris, was going to join his wife and daughter, whom

he had prudently sent away to Switzerland before the invasion.

Famine and hardship had not diminished his big paunch so

characteristic of the rich, peace-loving merchant. He had gone through

the terrible events of the past year with sorrowful resignation and

bitter complaints at the savagery of men. Now that he was journeying

to the frontier at the close of the war, he saw the Prussians for the

first time, although he had done his duty at the ramparts, and

staunchly mounted guard on cold nights.

He stared with mingled fear and anger at those bearded, armed men,

installed all over French soil as if in their own homes, and he felt

in his soul a kind of fever of impotent patriotism even while he

yielded to that other instinct of discretion and self-preservation

which never leaves us. In the same compartment, two Englishmen, who

had come to the country as sight-seers, were gazing around with looks

of stolid curiosity. They were both also stout, and kept chattering in

their own language, sometimes referring to their guide-book, and

reading in loud tones the names of the places indicated.

Suddenly, the train stopped at a little village station, and a

Prussian officer jumped up with a great clatter of his saber on the

double footboard of the railway-carriage. He was tall, wore a

tight-fitting uniform, and his face had a very shaggy aspect. His red

hair seemed to be on fire, and his long moustache, of a paler color,

was stuck out on both sides of his face, which it seemed to cut in

two.

The Englishmen at once began staring at him with smiles of

newly-awakened interest, while M. Dubuis made a show of reading a

newspaper. He sat crouched in a corner, like a thief in the presence

of a gendarme.

The train started again. The Englishmen went on chatting, and looking

out for the exact scene of different battles, and, all of a sudden, as

one of them stretched out his arm towards the horizon to indicate a

village, the Prussian officer remarked in French, extending his long

legs and lolling backwards:

"We killed a dozen Frenchmen in that village, and took more than a

hundred prisoners."

The Englishman, quite interested, immediately asked:

"Ha! and what is the name of this village?"

The Prussian replied:

"Pharsbourg."

He added: "We caught these French blackguards by the ears."

And he glanced towards M. Dubuis, laughing into his moustache in an

insulting fashion.

The train rolled on, always passing through hamlets occupied by the

victorious army. German soldiers could be seen along the roads, on the

edges of fields, standing in front of gates, or chatting outside

_cafés_. They covered the soil like African locusts.

The officer said, with a wave of his hand:

"If I were in command, I'd take Paris, burn everything, kill

everybody. No more France!"

The Englishman, through politeness, replied simply:

"Ah! yes."

He went on:

"In twenty years, all Europe, all of it, will belong to us. Prussia is

more than a match for all of them."

The Englishmen, getting uneasy, said nothing in answer to this. Their

faces, which had become impassive, seemed made of wax behind their

long whiskers. Then, the Prussian officer began to laugh. And still,

lolling back, he began to sneer. He sneered at the downfall of France,

insulted the prostrate enemy; he sneered at Austria which had been

recently conquered; he sneered at the furious but fruitless defense of

the departments; he sneered at the Garde Mobile and at the useless

artillery. He announced that Bismarck was going to build a city of

iron with the captured cannon. And suddenly he pushed his boots

against the thigh of M. Dubuis, who turned his eyes round, reddening

to the roots of his hair.

The Englishmen seemed to have assumed an air of complete indifference,

as if they had found themselves all at once shut up in their own

island, far from the din of the world.

The officer took out his pipe, and looking fixedly at the Frenchman,

said:

"You haven't any tobacco--have you?"

M. Dubuis replied:

"No, monsieur."

The German said:

"You might go and buy some for me when the train stops next."

And he began laughing afresh, as he added:

"I'll let you have the price of a drink."

The train whistled, and slackened its pace. They had reached the

station which had been burnt down; and here there was a regular stop.

The German opened the carriage-door, and, catching M. Dubuis by the

arm, said:

"Go and do what I told you--quick, quick!"

A Prussian detachment occupied the station. Other soldiers were

looking on from behind wooden gratings. The engine was already getting

up steam in order to start off again. Then M. Dubuis hurriedly jumped

on the platform, and, in spite of the warnings of the station master,

dashed into the adjoining compartment.

* * * * *

He was alone! He tore open his waistcoat, so rapidly did his heart

beat, and, panting for breath, he wiped the perspiration off his

forehead.

The train drew up at another station. And suddenly the officer

appeared at the carriage-door, and jumped in, followed close behind by

the two Englishmen, who were impelled by curiosity. The German sat

facing the Frenchman, and, laughing still, said:

"You did not want to do what I asked you?"

M. Dubuis replied:

"No, monsieur."

The train had just left the station.

The officer said:

"I'll cut off your moustache to fill my pipe with."

And he put out his hand towards the Frenchman's face.

The Englishmen kept staring in the same impassive fashion with fixed

glances.

Already the German had caught hold of the moustache and was tugging at

it, when M. Dubuis, with a back stroke of his hand, threw back the

officer's arm, and, seizing him by the collar, flung him down on the

seat. Then, excited to a pitch of fury, with his temples swollen and

his eyes glaring, he kept throttling the officer with one hand, while

with the other clenched, he began to strike him violent blows in the

face. The Prussian struggled, tried to draw his saber, and to get a

grip, while lying back, of his adversary. But M. Dubuis crushed him

with the enormous weight of his stomach, and kept hitting him without

taking breath or knowing where his blows fell. Blood flowed down the

face of the German, who, choking and with a rattling in his throat,

spat forth his broken teeth, and vainly strove to shake off this

infuriated man who was killing him.

The Englishmen had got on their feet and came closer in order to see

better. They remained standing, full of mirth and curiosity, ready to

bet for or against each of the combatants.

And suddenly M. Dubuis, exhausted by his violent efforts, went and

resumed his seat without uttering a word.

The Prussian did not attack him, for the savage assault had scared and

terrified the officer. When he was able to breathe freely, he said:

"Unless you give me satisfaction with pistols, I will kill you."

M. Dubuis replied:

"Whenever you like. I'm quite ready."

The German said:

"Here is the town of Strasbourg. I'll get two officers to be my

seconds, and there will be time before the train leaves the station."

M. Dubuis, who was puffing as much as the engine, said to the

Englishmen:

"Will you be my seconds?" They both answered together:

"Ah! yes."

And the train stopped.

In a minute, the Prussian had found two comrades who carried pistols,

and they made their way towards the ramparts.

The Englishmen were continually looking at their watches, shuffling

their feet, and hurrying on with the preparations, uneasy lest they

should be too late for the train.

M. Dubuis had never fired a pistol in his life.

They made him stand twenty paces away from his enemy. He was asked:

"Are you ready?"

While he was answering: "Yes, monsieur," he noticed that one of the

Englishmen had opened his umbrella in order to keep off the rays of

the sun.

A voice gave the word of command:

"Fire!"

M. Dubuis fired at random without minding what he was doing, and he

was amazed to see the Prussian staggering in front of him, lifting up

his arms, and immediately afterwards, falling straight on his face. He

had killed the officer.

One of the Englishmen ejaculated: "Ah!" quivering with delight,

satisfied curiosity, and joyous impatience. The other, who still kept

the watch in his hand, seized M. Dubuis's arm, and hurried him in

double-quick time towards the station, his fellow-countryman counting

their steps, with his arms pressed close to his sides--"One! two! one!

two!"

And all three marching abreast they rapidly made their way to the

station like three grotesque figures in a comic newspaper.

The train was on the point of starting. They sprang into their

carriage. Then, the Englishmen, taking off their traveling-caps, waved

them three times over their heads, exclaiming:

"Hip! hip! hip! hurrah!"

Then gravely, one after the other, they stretched out the right hand

to M. Dubuis, and they went back and sat in their own corner.

THE LOVE OF LONG AGO

The old-fashioned chateau was built on a wooded height. Tall trees

surrounded it with dark greenery; and the vast park extended its

vistas here over a deep forest and there over an open plain. Some

little distance from the front of the mansion stood a huge stone basin

in which marble nymphs were bathing. Other basins arranged in order

succeeded each other down as far as the foot of the slope, and a

hidden fountain sent cascades dancing from one to the other.

From the manor-house which preserved the grace of a superannuated

coquette down to the grottos encrusted with shell-work, where

slumbered the loves of a bygone age, everything in this antique

demesne had retained the physiognomy of former days. Everything seemed

to speak still of ancient customs, of the manners of long ago, of

faded gallantries, and of the elegant trivialities so dear to our

grandmothers.

In a parlor in the style of Louis XV, whose walls were covered with

shepherds paying court to shepherdesses, beautiful ladies in

hoop-petticoats, and gallant gentlemen in wigs, a very old woman who

seemed dead as soon as she ceased to move was almost lying down in a

large easy-chair, while her thin, mummy-like hands hung down, one at

each side of her.

Her eyes were gazing languidly towards the distant horizon as if they

sought to follow through the park visions of her youth. Through the

open window every now and then came a breath of air laden with the

scent of grass and the perfume of flowers. It made her white locks

flutter around her wrinkled forehead and old memories, through her

brain.

Beside her on a tapestried stool, a young girl with long, fair hair

hanging in plaits over her neck, was embroidering an altar-cloth.

There was a pensive expression in her eyes, and it was easy to see

that, while her agile fingers worked, her brain was busy with

thoughts.

But the old lady suddenly turned round her head.

"Berthe," she said, "read something out of the newspapers for me, so

that I may still know sometimes what is happening in the world."

The young girl took up a newspaper, and cast a rapid glance over it.

"There is a great deal about politics, grandmamma; am I to pass it

by?"

"Yes, yes, darling. Are there no accounts of love affairs? Is

gallantry, then, dead in France, that they no longer talk about

abductions or adventures as they did formerly?"

The girl made a long search through the columns of the newspaper.

"Here is one," she said. "It is entitled: 'A Love-Drama!'"

The old woman smiled through her wrinkles. "Read that for me," she

said.

And Berthe commenced. It was a case of vitriol-throwing. A wife, in

order to avenge herself on her husband's mistress, had burned her face

and eyes. She had left the Assize Court acquitted, declared to be

innocent, amid the applause of the crowd.

The grandmother moved about excitedly in her chair, and exclaimed:

"This is horrible--why, it is perfectly horrible! See whether you can

find anything else to read for me, darling."

Berthe again made a search; and further down in the reports of

criminal cases at which her attention was still directed. She read:

"'Gloomy Drama.--A shop girl, no longer young, allowed herself to

yield to the embraces of a young man. Then, to avenge herself on her

lover, whose heart proved fickle, she shot him with a revolver. The

unhappy man is maimed for life. The Jury, consisting of men of moral

character, took the part of the murderess--regarding her as the victim

of illicit love, and honorably acquitted her.'"

This time the old grandmother appeared quite shocked, and, in a

trembling voice, she said.

"Why, you are mad, then, nowadays. You are mad! The good God has given

you love, the only allurement in life. Man has added to this

gallantry, the only distraction of our dull hours, and here are you

mixing up with it vitriol and revolvers, as if one were to put mud

into a flagon of Spanish wine."

Berthe did not seem to understand her grandmother's indignation.

"But grandmamma, this woman avenged herself. Remember she was married,

and her husband deceived her."

The grandmother gave a start.

"What ideas have they been filling your head with, you young girls of

to-day?"

Berthe replied:

"But marriage is sacred, grandmamma."

The grandmother's heart, which had its birth in the great age of

gallantry, gave a sudden leap.

"It is love that is sacred," she said, "Listen, child, to an old woman

who has seen three generations, and who has had a long, long

experience of men and women. Marriage and love have nothing in common.

We marry to found a family, and we form families in order to

constitute society. Society cannot dispense with marriage. If society

is a chain, each family is a link in that chain. In order to weld

those links, we always seek for metals of the same kind. When we

marry, we must bring together suitable conditions; we must combine

fortunes, unite similar races, and aim at the common interest, which

is riches and children. We marry only once, my child, because the

world requires us to do so, but we may love twenty times in one

lifetime because nature has made us like this. Marriage, you see, is

law, and love is an instinct, which impels us sometimes along a

straight and sometimes along a crooked path. The world has made laws

to combat our instincts--it was necessary to make them; but our

instincts are always stronger, and we ought not to resist them too

much, because they come from God, while the laws only come from men.

If we did not perfume life with love, as much love as possible,

darling, as we put sugar into drugs for children, nobody would care to

take it just as it is."

Berthe opened her eyes widely in astonishment. She murmured:

"Oh! grandmamma, we can only love once."

The grandmother raised her trembling hands towards Heaven, as if

again to invoke the defunct God of gallantries. She exclaimed

indignantly:

"You have become a race of serfs, a race of common people. Since the

Revolution, it is impossible any longer to recognize society. You have

attached big words to every action, and wearisome duties to every

corner of existence; you believe in equality and eternal passion.

People have written verses telling you that people have died of love.

In my time verses were written to teach men to love every woman. And

we! when we liked a gentleman, my child, we sent him a page. And when

a fresh caprice came into our hearts, we were not slow in getting rid

of the last lover--unless we kept both of them."

The old woman smiled with a keen smile, and a gleam of roguery

twinkled in her gray eye, the sprightly, skeptical roguery of those

people who did not believe that they were made of the same clay as the

others, and who lived as masters for whom common beliefs were not

made.

The young girl, turning very pale, faltered out:

"So then women have no honor?"