"Come now, be frank. You have been the victim of some great sorrow;
despair in love, no doubt! It is easy to see that you are a man whom
misfortune has hit hard. What age are you?"
"I am thirty years of age, but I look to be forty-five at least."
I looked him straight in the face. His shrunken figure, badly cared
for, gave one the impression that he was an old man. On the summit of
his cranium, a few long hairs shot straight up from a skin of doubtful
cleanness. He had enormous eyelashes, a large mustache, and a thick
beard. Suddenly I had a kind of vision, I know not why--the vision of a
basin filled with noisome water, the water which should have been
applied to that poll. I said to him:
"Verily, you look to be more than that age. Of a certainty you must
have experienced some great disappointment."
He replied:
"I tell you that I have not. I am old because I never take air. There
is nothing that vitiates the life of a man more than the atmosphere of
a cafe." I could not believe him.
"You must surely have been married as well? One could not get as
baldheaded as you are without having been much in love."
He shook his head, sending down his back little hairs from the scalp:
"No, I have always been virtuous."
And raising his eyes toward the luster, which beat down on our heads,
he said:
"If I am baldheaded, it is the fault of the gas. It is the enemy of
hair. Waiter, a 'bock.' You must be thirsty also?"
"No, thank you. But you certainly interest me. When did you have your
first discouragement? Your life is not normal, is not natural. There is
something under it all."
"Yes, and it dates from my infancy. I received a heavy blow when I was
very young. It turned my life into darkness, which will last to the
end."
"How did it come about?"
"You wish to know about it? Well, then, listen. You recall, of course,
the castle in which I was brought up, seeing that you used to visit it
for five or six months during the vacations? You remember that large,
gray building in the middle of a great park, and the long avenues of
oaks, which opened toward the four cardinal points! You remember my
father and my mother, both of whom were ceremonious, solemn, and severe.
"I worshiped my mother; I was suspicious of my father; but I respected
both, accustomed always as I was to see everyone bow before them. In
the country, they were Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse; and
our neighbors, the Tannemares, the Ravelets, the Brennevilles, showed
the utmost consideration for them.
"I was then thirteen years old, happy, satisfied with everything, as
one is at that age, and full of joy and vivacity.
"Now toward the end of September, a few days before entering the Lycee,
while I was enjoying myself in the mazes of the park, climbing the
trees and swinging on the branches, I saw crossing an avenue my father
and mother, who were walking together.
"I recall the thing as though it were yesterday. It was a very windy
day. The whole line of trees bent under the pressure of the wind,
moaned and seemed to utter cries--cries dull, yet deep--so that the
whole forest groaned under the gale.
"Evening had come on, and it was dark in the thickets. The agitation of
the wind and the branches excited me, made me skip about like an idiot,
and howl in imitation of the wolves.
"As soon as I perceived my parents, I crept furtively toward them,
under the branches, in order to surprise them, as though I had been a
veritable wolf. But suddenly seized with fear, I stopped a few paces
from them. My father, a prey to the most violent passion, cried:
"'Your mother is a fool; moreover, it is not your mother that is the
question, it is you. I tell you that I want money, and I will make you
sign this.'
"My mother responded in a firm voice:
"'I will not sign it. It is Jean's fortune, I shall guard it for him
and I will not allow you to devour it with strange women, as you have
your own heritage.'
"Then my father, full of rage, wheeled round and seized his wife by the
throat, and began to slap her full in the face with the disengaged hand.
"My mother's hat fell off, her hair became disheveled and fell down her
back: she essayed to parry the blows, but could not escape from them.
And my father, like a madman, banged and banged at her. My mother
rolled over on the ground, covering her face in both her hands. Then he
turned her over on her back in order to batter her still more, pulling
away the hands which were covering her face.
"As for me, my friend, it seemed as though the world had come to an
end, that the eternal laws had changed. I experienced the overwhelming
dread that one has in presence of things supernatural, in presence of
irreparable disaster. My boyish head whirled round and soared. I began
to cry with all my might, without knowing why, a prey to terror, to
grief, to a dreadful bewilderment. My father heard me, turned round,
and, on seeing me, made as though he would rush at me. I believed that
he wanted to kill me, and I fled like a hunted animal, running straight
in front of me through the woods.
"I ran perhaps for an hour, perhaps for two, I know not. Darkness had
set in, I tumbled over some thick herbs, exhausted, and I lay there
lost, devoured by terror, eaten up by a sorrow capable of breaking
forever the heart of a child. I became cold, I became hungry. At length
day broke. I dared neither get up, walk, return home, nor save myself,
fearing to encounter my father whom I did not wish to see again.
"I should probably have died of misery and of hunger at the foot of a
tree if the guard had not discovered me and led me away by force.
"I found my parents wearing their ordinary aspect. My mother alone
spoke to me:
"'How you have frightened me, you naughty boy; I have been the whole
night sleepless.'
"I did not answer, but began to weep. My father did not utter a single
word.
"Eight days later I entered the Lycee.
"Well, my friend, it was all over with me. I had witnessed the other
side of things, the bad side; I have not been able to perceive the good
side since that day. What things have passed in my mind, what strange
phenomena have warped my ideas, I do not know. But I no longer have a
taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire
for anything whatever, no ambition, no hope. And I can always see my
poor mother lying on the ground, in the avenue, while my father was
maltreating her. My mother died a few years after; my father lives
still. I have not seen him since. Waiter, a 'bock.'"
A waiter brought him his "bock," which he swallowed at a gulp. But, in
taking up his pipe again, trembling as he was, he broke it. Then he
made a violent gesture:
"Zounds! This is indeed a grief, a real grief. I have had it for a
month, and it was coloring so beautifully!"
Then he went off through the vast saloon, which was now full of smoke
and of people drinking, calling out:
"Waiter, a 'bock'--and a new pipe."