He hesitated for a few minutes; then, with the vague look and voice
which accompany great mental tension, he said: “Oh, I remember
perfectly. I met you twelve years ago, before the war, at the Poincels!”
“Yes, monsieur. Ah! Ah! You are Lieutenant Revaliere?”
“Yes. I was Captain Revaliere even up to the time when I lost my feet
--both of them together from one cannon ball.”
Now that we knew each other's identity we looked at each other again. I
remembered perfectly the handsome, slender youth who led the cotillons
with such frenzied agility and gracefulness that he had been nicknamed
“the fury.” Going back into the dim, distant past, I recalled a story
which I had heard and forgotten, one of those stories to which one
listens but forgets, and which leave but a faint impression upon the
memory.
There was something about love in it. Little by little the shadows
cleared up, and the face of a young girl appeared before my eyes. Then
her name struck me with the force of an explosion: Mademoiselle de
Mandel. I remembered everything now. It was indeed a love story, but
quite commonplace. The young girl loved this young man, and when I had
met them there was already talk of the approaching wedding. The youth
seemed to be very much in love, very happy.
I raised my eye to the net, where all the packages which had been
brought in by the servant were trembling from the motion of the train,
and the voice of the servant came back to me, as if he had just finished
speaking. He had said: “There, monsieur, that is all. There are five
of them: the candy, the doll, the drum, the gun, and the pate de foies
gras.”
Then, in a second, a whole romance unfolded itself in my head. It was
like all those which I had already read, where the young lady married
notwithstanding the catastrophe, whether physical or financial;
therefore, this officer who had been maimed in the war had returned,
after the campaign, to the young girl who had given him her promise, and
she had kept her word.
I considered that very beautiful, but simple, just as one, considers
simple all devotions and climaxes in books or in plays. It always seems,
when one reads or listens to these stories of magnanimity, that one
could sacrifice one's self with enthusiastic pleasure and overwhelming
joy. But the following day, when an unfortunate friend comes to borrow
some money, there is a strange revulsion of feeling.
But, suddenly, another supposition, less poetic and more realistic,
replaced the first one. Perhaps he had married before the war, before
this frightful accident, and she, in despair and resignation, had been
forced to receive, care for, cheer, and support this husband, who had
departed, a handsome man, and had returned without his feet, a frightful
wreck, forced into immobility, powerless anger, and fatal obesity.
Was he happy or in torture? I was seized with an irresistible desire to
know his story, or, at least, the principal points, which would permit
me to guess that which he could not or would not tell me. Still
thinking the matter over, I began talking to him. We had exchanged a
few commonplace words; and I raised my eyes to the net, and thought: “He
must have three children: the bonbons are for his wife, the doll for his
little girl, the drum and the gun for his sons, and this pate de foies
gras for himself.”
Suddenly I asked him: “Are you a father, monsieur?”
He answered: “No, monsieur.”
I suddenly felt confused, as if I had been guilty of some breach of
etiquette, and I continued: “I beg your pardon. I had thought that you
were when I heard your servant speaking about the toys. One listens and
draws conclusions unconsciously.”
He smiled and then murmured: “No, I am not even married. I am still at
the preliminary stage.”