This Sunday was the day of the village festival, the annual festival in
honor of the patron saint, which in Normandy is called the assembly.
For the last eight days quaint looking vehicles, in which lay the
wandering families of fancy fair owners, lottery managers, keepers of
shooting galleries, and other forms of amusement or exhibitors of
curiosities, which the peasants call "monster-makers," could be seen
coming along the roads drawn slowly by gray or chestnut horses.
The dirty caravans with their floating curtains accompanied by a
melancholy-looking dog, who trotted, with his head down, between the
wheels, drew up one after the other, in the green fronting the Mayor's
office. Then a tent was erected in front of each traveling abode, and
inside this tent could be seen through the holes in the canvas glittering
things, which excited the envy or the curiosity of the village brats.
As soon as the morning of the fête arrived, all the booths were opened,
displaying their splendors of glass or porcelain; and the peasants on
their way to mass, regarded already with looks of satisfaction, these
modest shops, which, nevertheless, they saw again each succeeding year.
From the early part of the afternoon, there was a crowd on the green.
From every neighboring village, the farmers arrived, shaken along with
their wives and children in the two-wheeled open cars, which made a
rattling sound as they oscillated like cradles. They unyoked at their
friends' houses, and the farm-yards were filled with strange looking
traps, gray, high, lean, crooked, like long clawed creatures from the
depths of the sea. And each family, with the youngsters in front, and the
grown up ones behind, came to the assembly with tranquil steps, smiling
countenances, and open hands, big hands, red and bony, accustomed to work
and apparently tired of their temporary rest.
A tumbler played on a trumpet. The barrel-organ accompanying the wooden
horses sent through the air its shrill jerky notes. The lottery-wheel
made a whirring sound like that of cloth being torn, and every moment the
crack of the rifle could be heard. And the slowly moving throng passed on
quietly in front of the booths after the fashion of paste in a fluid
condition, with the motions of a flock of sheep and the awkwardness of
heavy animals rushing along at haphazard.
The girls, holding one another's arms, in groups of six or eight, kept
bawling out songs; the young men followed them making jokes, with their
caps over their ears, and their blouses stiffened with starch, swollen
out like blue balloons.
The whole country-side was there--masters, laboring men, and
women-servants.
Old Amable himself, wearing his old-fashioned green frock-coat, had
wished to see the assembly, for he never failed to attend on such an
occasion.
He looked at the lotteries, stopped in front of the shooting galleries to
criticise the shots, and interested himself specially in a very simple
game, which consisted in throwing a big wooden ball into the open mouth
of a mannikin carved and painted on a board.
Suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Daddy Malivoire, who
exclaimed:
"Ha, daddy! Come and have a glass of spirits."
And they sat down before the table of a rustic inn placed in the open
air.
They drank one glass of spirits, then two, then three; and old Amable
once more wandered through the assembly. His thoughts became slightly
confused, he smiled without knowing why, he smiled in front of the
lotteries, in front of the wooden horses, and especially in front of the
killing game. He remained there a long time, filled with delight when he
saw a holidaymaker knocking down the gendarme or the curé, two
authorities which he instinctively distrusted. Then he went back to the
inn, and drank a glass of cider to cool himself. It was late, night came
on. A neighbor came to warn him:
"You'll get back home late for the stew, daddy."
Then he set out on his way to the farm house. A soft shadow, the warm
shadow of a spring night, was slowly descending on the earth.
When he reached the front door, he thought he saw through the window
which was lighted up, two persons in the house. He stopped, much
surprised, then he went in, and he saw Victor Lecoq seated at the table,
with a plate filled with potatoes before him, taking his supper in the
very same place where his son had sat.
And, all of a sudden, he turned round, as if he wanted to go away. The
night was very dark now. Céleste started up, and shouted at him:
"Come quick, daddy! Here's some good stew to finish off the assembly
with."
Thereupon he complied through inertia, and sat down watching in turn
the man, the woman and the child. Then, he began to eat quietly as on
ordinary days.
Victor Lecoq seemed quite at home, talked from time to time to Céleste,
took up the child in his lap, and kissed him. And Céleste again served
him with food, poured out drink for him, and appeared content while
speaking to him. Old Amable followed them with a fixed look without
hearing what they were saying.
When he had finished supper (and he had scarcely eaten anything, so much
did he feel his heart wrung) he rose up, and in place of ascending to his
loft as he did every night he opened the yard door, and went out into the
open air.
When he had gone, Céleste, a little uneasy, asked:
"What is he going to do?"
Victor replied in an indifferent tone:
"Don't bother yourself. He'll come back when he's tired."
Then, she saw after the house, washed the plates and wiped the table,
while the man quietly took off his clothes. Then he slipped into the dark
and hollow bed in which she had slept with Césaire.
The yard door reopened, old Amable again presented himself. As soon as he
had come in, he looked round on every side with the air of an old dog on
the scent. He was in search of Victor Lecoq. As he did not see him, he
took the candle off the table, and approached the dark niche in which his
son had died. In the interior of it he perceived the man lying under the
bed clothes and already asleep. Then the deaf man noiselessly turned
round, put back the candle, and went out into the yard.
Céleste had finished her work. She put her son into his bed, arranged
everything, and waited her father-in-law's return before lying down
herself beside Victor.
She remained sitting on a chair, without moving her hands, and with her
eyes fixed on vacancy.
As he did not come back she murmured in a tone of impatience and
annoyance:
"This good-for-nothing old man will burn four sous' worth of candle on
us."
Victor answered her from under the bed clothes.
"'Tis over an hour since he went out. We'd want to see whether he fell
asleep on the bench before the door."
She declared:
"I'm going there."
She rose up, took the light, and went out, making a shade of her hand in
order to see through the darkness.
She saw nothing in front of the door, nothing on the bench, nothing on
the dung pit, where the old man used sometimes to sit in hot weather.
But, just as she was on the point of going in again, she chanced to raise
her eyes towards the big apple tree, which sheltered the entrance to the
farm house, and suddenly she saw two feet belonging to a man who was
hanging at the height of her face.
She uttered terrible cries:
"Victor! Victor! Victor!"
He ran out in his shirt. She could not utter another word, and turning
round her head, so as not to see, she pointed towards the tree with her
outstretched arm.
Not understanding what she meant, he took the candle in order to find
out, and in the midst of the foliage lit up from below, he saw old Amable
hanged high up by the neck with a stable-halter.
A ladder was fixed at the trunk of the apple tree.
Victor rushed to look for a bill-hook, climbed up the tree, and cut the
halter. But the old man was already cold, and he put out his tongue
horribly with a frightful grimace.
MAGNETISM
It was at the close of a dinner-party of men, at the hour of endless
cigars and incessant sips of brandy, amidst the smoke and the torpid
warmth of digestion and the slight confusion of heads generated by such
a quantity of eatables and by the absorption of so many different
liquors.
Those present were talking about magnetism, about Donato's tricks, and
about Doctor Charcot's experiences. All of a sudden, those men, so
skeptical, so happy-go-lucky, so indifferent to religion of every sort,
began telling stories about strange occurrences, incredible things which
nevertheless had really happened, they contended, falling back into
superstitions, beliefs, clinging to these last remnants of the marvelous,
becoming devotees of this mystery of magnetism, defending it in the name
of science. There was only one person who smiled, a vigorous young
fellow, a great pursuer of girls in the town, and a hunter also of frisky
matrons, in whose mind there was so much incredulity about everything
that he would not even enter upon a discussion of such matters.
He repeated with a sneer:
"Humbug! humbug! humbug! We need not discuss Donato, who is merely a very
smart juggler. As for M. Charcot, who is said to be a remarkable man of
science, he produces on me the effect of those story-tellers of the
school of Edgar Poe, who end by going mad through constantly reflecting
on queer cases of insanity. He has set forth some nervous phenomena,
which are unexplained and inexplicable; he makes his way into that
unknown region which men explore every day, and not being able to
comprehend what he sees, he remembers perhaps too well the explanations
of certain mysteries given by speaking on these subjects, that would be
quite a different thing from your repetition of what he says."
The words of the unbeliever were listened to with a kind of pity, as if
he had blasphemed in the midst of an assembly of monks.
One of these gentlemen exclaimed:
"And yet miracles were performed in former days."
But the other replied: "I deny it. Why cannot they be performed any
longer?"
Thereupon, each man referred to some fact, or some fantastic
presentiment, or some instance of souls communicating with each other
across space, or some case of secret influences produced by one being or
another. And they asserted, they maintained that these things had
actually occurred, while the skeptic went on repeating energetically:
"Humbug! humbug! humbug!"
At last he rose up, threw away his cigar, and with his hands in his
pockets, said: "Well, I, too, am going to relate to you two stories, and
then I will explain them to you. Here they are:
"In the little village of Etretat, the men, who are all seafaring folk,
go every year to Newfoundland to fish for cod. Now, one night the little
son of one of these fishermen woke up with a start, crying out that his
father was dead. The child was quieted, and again he woke up exclaiming
that his father was drowned. A month later the news came that his father
had, in fact, been swept off the deck of his smack by a billow. The widow
then remembered how her son had wakened up and spoken of his father's
death. Everyone said it was a miracle, and the affair caused a great
sensation. The dates were compared, and it was found that the accident
and the dream had very nearly coincided, whence they drew the conclusion
that they had happened on the same night and at the same hour. And
there is the mystery of magnetism."
The story-teller stopped suddenly.
Thereupon, one of those who had heard him, much affected by the
narrative, asked:
"And can you explain this?"
"Perfectly monsieur. I have discovered the secret. The circumstance
surprised me and even embarrassed me very much; but, I, you see, do not
believe on principle. Just as others begin by believing, I begin by
doubting; and when I don't at all understand, I continue to deny that
there can be any telegraphic communication between souls, certain that my
own sagacity will be enough to explain it. Well, I have gone on inquiring
into the matter, and I have ended, by dint of questioning all the wives
of the absent seamen, in convincing myself that not a week passed without
one of themselves or their children dreaming and declaring when they woke
up that the father was drowned. The horrible and continual fear of this
accident makes them always talk about it. Now, if one of these frequent
predictions coincides, by a very simple chance, with the death of the
person referred to, people at once declare it to be a miracle; for they
suddenly lose sight of all the other predictions of misfortune that have
remained unconfirmed. I have myself known fifty cases where the persons
who made the prediction forgot all about it in a week afterwards. But,
if in fact the man was dead, then the recollection of the thing is
immediately revived, and people will be ready to believe in the
intervention of God, according to some, and magnetism, according to
others."
One of the smokers remarked:
"What you say is right enough; but what about your second story?"
"Oh! my second story is a very delicate matter to relate. It is to myself
it happened, and so I don't place any great value on my own view of the
matter. One is never a good judge in a case where he is one of the
parties concerned. At any rate, here it is:
"Among my acquaintances in society there was a young woman on whom I had
never bestowed a thought, whom I had never even looked at attentively,
never taken any notice of, as the saying is.
"I classed her among the women of no importance, though she was not quite
bad-looking; in fact, she appeared to me to possess eyes, a nose, a
mouth, some sort of hair--just a colorless type of countenance. She was
one of those beings on whom one only thinks by accident, without taking
any particular interest in the individual, and who never excites desire.
"Well, one night, as I was writing some letters by my own fireside before
going to bed, I was conscious, in the midst of that train of sensual
images that sometimes float before one's brain in moments of idle
reverie, while I held the pen in my hand, of a kind of light breath
passing into my soul, a little shudder of the heart, and immediately,
without reason, without any logical connection of thought, I saw
distinctly, saw as If I touched her, saw from head to foot, uncovered,
this young woman for whom I had never cared save in the most superficial
manner when her name happened to recur to my mind. And all of a sudden I
discovered in her a heap of qualities which I had never before observed,
a sweet charm, a fascination that made me languish; she awakened in me
that sort of amorous uneasiness which sends me in pursuit of a woman. But
I did not remain thinking of her long. I went to bed and was soon asleep.
And I dreamed.
"You have all had these strange dreams which render you masters of the
impossible, which open to you doors that cannot be passed through,
unexpected joys, impenetrable arms?
"Which of us in these agitated, exciting, palpitating slumbers, has not
held, clasped, embraced, possessed with an extraordinary acuteness of
sensation, the woman with whom our minds were occupied? And have you ever
noticed what superhuman delight these good fortunes of dreams bestow upon
us? Into what mad intoxication they cast you! with what passionate spasms
they shake you! and with what infinite, caressing, penetrating tenderness
they fill your heart for her whom you hold fainting and hot in that
adorable and bestial illusion which seems so like reality!
"All this I felt with unforgettable violence. This woman was mine, so
much mine that the pleasant warmth of her skin remained between my
fingers, the odor of her skin remained in my brain, the taste of her
kisses remained on my lips, the sound of her voice lingered in my ears,
the touch of her clasp still clung to my side, and the burning charm of
her tenderness still gratified my senses long after my exquisite but
disappointing awakening.
"And three times the same night I had a renewal of my dream.
"When the day dawned she beset me, possessed me, haunted my brain and my
flesh to such an extent that I no longer remained one second without
thinking of her.
"At last, not knowing what to do, I dressed myself and went to see her.
As I went up the stairs to her apartment, I was so much overcome by
emotion that I trembled, and my heart panted; I was seized with
vehement desire from head to foot.
"I entered the apartment. She rose up the moment she heard my name
pronounced; and suddenly our eyes met in a fixed look of astonishment.
"I sat down.
"I uttered in a faltering tone some commonplaces which she seemed not
to hear. I did not know what to say or to do. Then, abruptly, I flung
myself upon her; seizing her with both arms; and my entire dream was
accomplished so quickly, so easily, so madly, that I suddenly began to
doubt whether I was really awake. She was, after this, my mistress for
two years."
"What conclusion do you draw from it?" said a voice.
The story-teller seemed to hesitate.
"The conclusion I draw from it--well, by Jove, the conclusion is that it
was just a coincidence! And, in the next place, who can tell? Perhaps it
was some glance of hers which I had not noticed and which came back that
night to me--one of those mysterious and unconscious evocations of memory
which often bring before us things ignored by our own consciousness,
unperceived by our minds!"
"Let that be just as you wish it," said one of his table companions, when
the story was finished, "but if you don't believe in magnetism after
that, you are an ungrateful fellow, my dear boy!"