The jeweler remarked, jokingly:

“There was a person who invested all her savings in precious stones.”

Monsieur Lantin replied, seriously:

“It is only another way of investing one's money.”

That day he lunched at Voisin's, and drank wine worth twenty francs a

bottle. Then he hired a carriage and made a tour of the Bois. He gazed

at the various turnouts with a kind of disdain, and could hardly refrain

from crying out to the occupants:

“I, too, am rich!—I am worth two hundred thousand francs.”

Suddenly he thought of his employer. He drove up to the bureau, and

entered gaily, saying:

“Sir, I have come to resign my position. I have just inherited three

hundred thousand francs.”

He shook hands with his former colleagues, and confided to them some of

his projects for the future; he then went off to dine at the Cafe

Anglais.

He seated himself beside a gentleman of aristocratic bearing; and,

during the meal, informed the latter confidentially that he had just

inherited a fortune of four hundred thousand francs.

For the first time in his life, he was not bored at the theatre, and

spent the remainder of the night in a gay frolic.

Six months afterward, he married again. His second wife was a very

virtuous woman; but had a violent temper. She caused him much sorrow.

FASCINATION

I can tell you neither the name of the country, nor the name of the man.

It was a long, long way from here on a fertile and burning shore. We had

been walking since the morning along the coast, with the blue sea bathed

in sunlight on one side of us, and the shore covered with crops on the

other. Flowers were growing quite close to the waves, those light,

gentle, lulling waves. It was very warm, a soft warmth permeated with

the odor of the rich, damp, fertile soil. One fancied one was inhaling

germs.

I had been told, that evening, that I should meet with hospitality at

the house of a Frenchman who lived in an orange grove at the end of a

promontory. Who was he? I did not know. He had come there one morning

ten years before, and had bought land which he planted with vines and

sowed with grain. He had worked, this man, with passionate energy, with

fury. Then as he went on from month to month, year to year, enlarging

his boundaries, cultivating incessantly the strong virgin soil, he

accumulated a fortune by his indefatigable labor.

But he kept on working, they said. Rising at daybreak, he would remain

in the fields till evening, superintending everything without ceasing,

tormented by one fixed idea, the insatiable desire for money, which

nothing can quiet, nothing satisfy. He now appeared to be very rich. The

sun was setting as I reached his house. It was situated as described, at

the end of a promontory in the midst of a grove of orange trees. It was

a large square house, quite plain, and overlooked the sea. As I

approached, a man wearing a long beard appeared in the doorway. Having

greeted him, I asked if he would give me shelter for the night. He held

out his hand and said, smiling:

“Come in, monsieur, consider yourself at home.”

He led me into a room, and put a man servant at my disposal with the

perfect ease and familiar graciousness of a man-of-the-world. Then he

left me saying:

“We will dine as soon as you are ready to come downstairs.”

We took dinner, sitting opposite each other, on a terrace facing the

sea. I began to talk about this rich, distant, unknown land. He smiled,

as he replied carelessly:

“Yes, this country is beautiful. But no country satisfies one when they

are far from the one they love.”

“You regret France?”

“I regret Paris.”

“Why do you not go back?”

“Oh, I will return there.”

And gradually we began to talk of French society, of the boulevards, and

things Parisian. He asked me questions that showed he knew all about

these things, mentioned names, all the familiar names in vaudeville

known on the sidewalks.

“Whom does one see at Tortoni's now?

“Always the same crowd, except those who died.” I looked at him

attentively, haunted by a vague recollection. I certainly had seen that

head somewhere. But where? And when? He seemed tired, although he was

vigorous; and sad, although he was determined. His long, fair beard fell

on his chest. He was somewhat bald and had heavy eyebrows and a thick

mustache.

The sun was sinking into the sea, turning the vapor from the earth into

a fiery mist. The orange blossoms exhaled their powerful, delicious

fragrance. He seemed to see nothing besides me, and gazing steadfastly

he appeared to discover in the depths of my mind the far-away, beloved

and well-known image of the wide, shady pavement leading from the

Madeleine to the Rue Drouot.

“Do you know Boutrelle?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Has he changed much?”

“Yes, his hair is quite white.”

“And La Ridamie?”

“The same as ever.”

“And the women? Tell me about the women. Let's see. Do you know Suzanne

Verner?”

“Yes, very much. But that is over.”

“Ah! And Sophie Astier?”

“Dead.”

“Poor girl. Did you—did you know—”

But he ceased abruptly: And then, in a changed voice, his face suddenly

turning pale, he continued:

“No, it is best that I should not speak of that any more, it breaks my

heart.”

Then, as if to change the current of his thoughts he rose.

“Would you like to go in?” he said.

“Yes, I think so.”

And he preceded me into the house. The downstairs rooms were enormous,

bare and mournful, and had a deserted look. Plates and glasses were

scattered on the tables, left there by the dark-skinned servants who

wandered incessantly about this spacious dwelling.

Two rifles were banging from two nails, on the wall; and in the corners

of the rooms were spades, fishing poles, dried palm leaves, every

imaginable thing set down at random when people came home in the evening

and ready to hand when they went out at any time, or went to work.

My host smiled as he said:

“This is the dwelling, or rather the kennel, of an exile, but my own

room is cleaner. Let us go there.”

As I entered I thought I was in a second-hand store, it was so full of

things of all descriptions, strange things of various kinds that one

felt must be souvenirs. On the walls were two pretty paintings by well-

known artists, draperies, weapons, swords and pistols, and exactly in

the middle, on the principal panel, a square of white satin in a gold

frame.

Somewhat surprised, I approached to look at it, and perceived a hairpin

fastened in the centre of the glossy satin. My host placed his hand on

my shoulder.

“That,” said he, “is the only thing that I look at here, and the only

thing that I have seen for ten years. M. Prudhomme said: 'This sword is

the most memorable day of my life.' I can say: 'This hairpin is all my

life.'”

I sought for some commonplace remark, and ended by saying:

“You have suffered on account of some woman?”

He replied abruptly:

“Say, rather, that I am suffering like a wretch.”

“But come out on my balcony. A name rose to my lips just now which I

dared not utter; for if you had said 'Dead' as you did of Sophie Astier,

I should have fired a bullet into my brain, this very day.”

We had gone out on the wide balcony from whence we could see two gulfs,

one to the right and the other to the left, enclosed by high gray

mountains. It was just twilight and the reflection of the sunset still

lingered in the sky.

He continued:

“Is Jeanne de Limours still alive?”

His eyes were fastened on mine and were full of a trembling anxiety. I

smiled.

“Parbleu—she is prettier than ever.”

“Do you know her?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated and then said:

“Very well?”

“No.”

He took my hand.

“Tell me about her,” he said.

“Why, I have nothing to tell. She is one of the most charming women, or,

rather, girls, and the most admired in Paris. She leads a delightful

existence and lives like a princess, that is all.”

“I love her,” he murmured in a tone in which he might have said “I am

going to die.” Then suddenly he continued:

“Ah! For three years we lived in a state of terror and delight. I almost

killed her five or six times. She tried to pierce my eyes with that

hairpin that you saw just now. Look, do you see that little white spot

beneath my left eye? We loved each other. How can I explain that

infatuation? You would not understand it.”

“There must be a simple form of love, the result of the mutual impulse

of two hearts and two souls. But there is also assuredly an atrocious

form, that tortures one cruelly, the result of the occult blending of

two unlike personalities who detest each other at the same time that

they adore one another.”

“In three years this woman had ruined me. I had four million francs

which she squandered in her calm manner, quietly, eat them up with a

gentle smile that seemed to fall from her eyes on to her lips.”

“You know her? There is something irresistible about her. What is it? I

do not know. Is it those gray eyes whose glance penetrates you like a

gimlet and remains there like the point of an arrow? It is more likely

the gentle, indifferent and fascinating smile that she wears like a

mask. Her slow grace pervades you little by little; exhales from her

like a perfume, from her slim figure that scarcely sways as she passes

you, for she seems to glide rather than walk; from her pretty voice with

its slight drawl that would seem to be the music of her smile; from her

gestures, also, which are never exaggerated, but always appropriate, and

intoxicate your vision with their harmony. For three years she was the

only being that existed for me on the earth! How I suffered; for she

deceived me as she deceived everyone! Why? For no reason; just for the

pleasure of deceiving. And when I found it out, when I treated her as a

common girl and a beggar, she said quietly: 'Are we married?'

“Since I have been here I have thought so much about her that at last I

understand her. She is Manon Lescaut come back to life. It is Marion,

who could not love without deceiving; Marion for whom love, amusement,

money, are all one.”

He was silent. After a few minutes he resumed:

“When I had spent my last sou on her she said simply:

“'You understand, my dear boy, that I cannot live on air and weather. I

love you very much, better than anyone, but I must live. Poverty and I

could not keep house together.”

“And if I should tell you what a horrible life I led with her! When I

looked at her I would just as soon have killed her as kissed her. When I

looked at her . . . I felt a furious desire to open my arms to embrace

and strangle her. She had, back of her eyes, something false and

intangible that made me execrate her; and that was, perhaps, the reason

I loved her so well. The eternal feminine, the odious and seductive

feminine, was stronger in her than in any other woman. She was full of

it, overcharged, as with a venomous and intoxicating fluid. She was a

woman to a greater extent than any one has ever been.”

“And when I went out with her she would look at all men in such a manner

that she seemed to offer herself to each in a single glance. This

exasperated me, and still it attached me to her all the more. This

creature in just walking along the street belonged to everyone, in spite

of me, in spite of herself, by the very fact of her nature, although she

had a modest, gentle carriage. Do you understand?

“And what torture! At the theatre, at the restaurant she seemed to

belong to others under my very eyes. And as soon as I left her she did

belong to others.

“It is now ten years since I saw her and I love her better than ever.”

Night spread over the earth. A strong perfume of orange blossoms

pervaded the air. I said:

“Will you see her again?”

“Parbleu! I now have here, in land and money, seven to eight thousand

francs. When I reach a million I shall sell out and go away. I shall

have enough to live on with her for a year—one whole year. And then,

good-bye, my life will be finished.”

“But after that?” I asked.

“After that, I do not know. That will be all, I may possibly ask her to

take me as a valet de chambre.”

YVETTE SAMORIS “The Comtesse Samoris.”

“That lady in black over there?”

“The very one. She's wearing mourning for her daughter, whom she

killed.”

“You don't mean that seriously? How did she die?”

“Oh! it is a very simple story, without any crime in it, any violence.”

“Then what really happened?”

“Almost nothing. Many courtesans are born to be virtuous women, they

say; and many women called virtuous are born to be courtesans—is that

not so? Now, Madame Samoris, who was born a courtesan, had a daughter

born a virtuous woman, that's all.”

“I don't quite understand you.”

“I'll—explain what I mean. The comtesse is nothing but a common,

ordinary parvenue originating no one knows where. A Hungarian or

Wallachian countess or I know not what. She appeared one winter in

apartments she had taken in the Champs Elysees, that quarter for

adventurers and adventuresses, and opened her drawing-room to the first

comer or to any one that turned up.

“I went there. Why? you will say. I really can't tell you. I went there,

as every one goes to such places because the women are facile and the

men are dishonest. You know that set composed of filibusters with varied

decorations, all noble, all titled, all unknown at the embassies, with

the exception of those who are spies. All talk of their honor without

the slightest occasion for doing so, boast of their ancestors, tell you

about their lives, braggarts, liars, sharpers, as dangerous as the false

cards they have up their sleeves, as delusive as their names—in short,

the aristocracy of the bagnio.

“I adore these people. They are interesting to study, interesting to

know, amusing to understand, often clever, never commonplace like public

functionaries. Their wives are always pretty, with a slight flavor of

foreign roguery, with the mystery of their existence, half of it perhaps

spent in a house of correction. They have, as a rule, magnificent eyes

and incredible hair. I adore them also.

“Madame Samoris is the type of these adventuresses, elegant, mature and

still beautiful. Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are

vicious to the marrow of their bones. You find them very amusing when

you visit them; they give card parties; they have dances and suppers; in

short, they offer you all the pleasures of social life.

“And she had a daughter—a tall, fine-looking girl, always ready for

amusement, always full of laughter and reckless gaiety—a true

adventuress' daughter—but, at the same time, an innocent,

unsophisticated, artless girl, who saw nothing, knew nothing, understood

nothing of all the things that happened in her father's house.

“The girl was simply a puzzle to me. She was a mystery. She lived amid

those infamous surroundings with a quiet, tranquil ease that was either

terribly criminal or else the result of innocence. She sprang from the

filth of that class like a beautiful flower fed on corruption.”

“How do you know about them?”

“How do I know? That's the funniest part of the business! One morning

there was a ring at my door, and my valet came up to tell me that M.

Joseph Bonenthal wanted to speak to me. I said directly:

“'And who is this gentleman?' My valet replied: 'I don't know, monsieur;

perhaps 'tis some one that wants employment.' And so it was. The man

wanted me to take him as a servant. I asked him where he had been last.

He answered: 'With the Comtesse Samoris.' 'Ah!' said I, 'but my house is

not a bit like hers.' 'I know that well, monsieur,' he said, 'and that's

the very reason I want to take service with monsieur. I've had enough of

these people: a man may stay a little while with them, but he won't

remain long with them.' I required an additional man servant at the time

and so I took him.

“A month later Mademoiselle Yvette Samoris died mysteriously, and here

are all the details of her death I could gather from Joseph, who got

them from his sweetheart, the comtesse's chambermaid.

“It was a ball night, and two newly arrived guests were chatting behind

a door. Mademoiselle Yvette, who had just been dancing, leaned against

this door to get a little air.

“They did not see her approaching, but she heard what they were saying.

And this was what they said:

“'But who is the father of the girl?'

“'A Russian, it appears; Count Rouvaloff. He never comes near the mother

now.'

“'And who is the reigning prince to-day?'

“'That English prince standing near the window; Madame Samoris adores

him. But her adoration of any one never lasts longer than a month or six

weeks. Nevertheless, as you see, she has a large circle of admirers. All

are called—and nearly all are chosen. That kind of thing costs a good

deal, but—hang it, what can you expect?'

“'And where did she get this name of Samoris?'

“'From the only man perhaps that she ever loved—a Jewish banker from

Berlin who goes by the name of Samuel Morris.'

“'Good. Thanks. Now that I know what kind of woman she is and have seen

her, I'm off!'

“What a shock this was to the mind of a young girl endowed with all the

instincts of a virtuous woman! What despair overwhelmed that simple

soul! What mental tortures quenched her unbounded gaiety, her delightful

laughter, her exultant satisfaction with life! What a conflict took

place in that youthful heart up to the moment when the last guest had

left! Those were things that Joseph could not tell me. But, the same

night, Yvette abruptly entered her mother's room just as the comtesse

was getting into bed, sent out the lady's maid, who was close to the

door, and, standing erect and pale and with great staring eyes, she

said:

“'Mamma, listen to what I heard a little while ago during the ball.'

“And she repeated word for word the conversation just as I told it to

you.

“The comtesse was so stunned that she did not know what to say in reply

at first. When she recovered her self-possession she denied everything

and called God to witness that there was no truth in the story.

“The young girl went away, distracted but not convinced. And she began

to watch her mother.

“I remember distinctly the strange alteration that then took place in

her. She became grave and melancholy. She would fix on us her great

earnest eyes as if she wanted to read what was at the bottom of our

hearts. We did not know what to think of her and used to imagine that

she was looking out for a husband.

“One evening she overheard her mother talking to her admirer and later

saw them together, and her doubts were confirmed. She was heartbroken,

and after telling her mother what she had seen, she said coldly, like a

man of business laying down the terms of an agreement:

“'Here is what I have determined to do, mamma: We will both go away to

some little town, or rather into the country. We will live there quietly

as well as we can. Your jewelry alone may be called a fortune. If you

wish to marry some honest man, so much the better; still better will it

be if I can find one. If you don't consent to do this, I will kill

myself.'

“This time the comtesse ordered her daughter to go to bed and never to

speak again in this manner, so unbecoming in the mouth of a child toward

her mother.

“Yvette's answer to this was: 'I give you a month to reflect. If, at the

end of that month, we have not changed our way of living, I will kill

myself, since there is no other honorable issue left to my life.'

“And she left the room.

“At the end of a month the Comtesse Samoris had resumed her usual

entertainments, as though nothing had occurred. One day, under the

pretext that she had a bad toothache, Yvette purchased a few drops of

chloroform from a neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more,

and every time she went out she managed to procure small doses of the

narcotic. She filled a bottle with it.

“One morning she was found in bed, lifeless and already quite cold, with

a cotton mask soaked in chloroform over her face.

“Her coffin was covered with flowers, the church was hung in white.

There was a large crowd at the funeral ceremony.

“Ah! well, if I had known—but you never can know—I would have married

that girl, for she was infernally pretty.”

“And what became of the mother?”

“Oh! she shed a lot of tears over it. She has only begun to receive

visits again for the past week.”

“And what explanation is given of the girl's death?”

“Oh! they pretended that it was an accident caused by a new stove, the

mechanism of which got out of order. As a good many such accidents have

occurred, the thing seemed probable enough.”

A VENDETTA

The widow of Paolo Saverini lived alone with her son in a poor little

house on the outskirts of Bonifacio. The town, built on an outjutting

part of the mountain, in places even overhanging the sea, looks across

the straits, full of sandbanks, towards the southernmost coast of

Sardinia. Beneath it, on the other side and almost surrounding it, is a

cleft in the cliff like an immense corridor which serves as a harbor,

and along it the little Italian and Sardinian fishing boats come by a

circuitous route between precipitous cliffs as far as the first houses,

and every two weeks the old, wheezy steamer which makes the trip to

Ajaccio.

On the white mountain the houses, massed together, makes an even whiter

spot. They look like the nests of wild birds, clinging to this peak,

overlooking this terrible passage, where vessels rarely venture. The

wind, which blows uninterruptedly, has swept bare the forbidding coast;

it drives through the narrow straits and lays waste both sides. The pale

streaks of foam, clinging to the black rocks, whose countless peaks rise

up out of the water, look like bits of rag floating and drifting on the

surface of the sea.

The house of widow Saverini, clinging to the very edge of the precipice,

looks out, through its three windows, over this wild and desolate

picture.

She lived there alone, with her son Antonia and their dog “Semillante,”

a big, thin beast, with a long rough coat, of the sheep-dog breed. The

young man took her with him when out hunting.

One night, after some kind of a quarrel, Antoine Saverini was

treacherously stabbed by Nicolas Ravolati, who escaped the same evening

to Sardinia.

When the old mother received the body of her child, which the neighbors

had brought back to her, she did not cry, but she stayed there for a

long time motionless, watching him. Then, stretching her wrinkled hand

over the body, she promised him a vendetta. She did not wish anybody

near her, and she shut herself up beside the body with the dog, which

howled continuously, standing at the foot of the bed, her head stretched

towards her master and her tail between her legs. She did not move any

more than did the mother, who, now leaning over the body with a blank

stare, was weeping silently and watching it.

The young man, lying on his back, dressed in his jacket of coarse cloth,

torn at the chest, seemed to be asleep. But he had blood all over him;

on his shirt, which had been torn off in order to administer the first

aid; on his vest, on his trousers, on his face, on his hands. Clots of

blood had hardened in his beard and in his hair.

His old mother began to talk to him. At the sound of this voice the dog

quieted down.

“Never fear, my boy, my little baby, you shall be avenged. Sleep, sleep;

you shall be avenged. Do you hear? It's your mother's promise! And she

always keeps her word, your mother does, you know she does.”

Slowly she leaned over him, pressing her cold lips to his dead ones.

Then Semillante began to howl again with a long, monotonous,

penetrating, horrible howl.

The two of them, the woman and the dog, remained there until morning.

Antoine Saverini was buried the next day and soon his name ceased to be

mentioned in Bonifacio.

He had neither brothers nor cousins. No man was there to carry on the

vendetta. His mother, the old woman, alone pondered over it.

On the other side of the straits she saw, from morning until night, a

little white speck on the coast. It was the little Sardinian village

Longosardo, where Corsican criminals take refuge when they are too

closely pursued. They compose almost the entire population of this

hamlet, opposite their native island, awaiting the time to return, to go

back to the “maquis.” She knew that Nicolas Ravolati had sought refuge

in this village.

All alone, all day long, seated at her window, she was looking over

there and thinking of revenge. How could she do anything without

help—she, an invalid and so near death? But she had promised, she had

sworn on the body. She could not forget, she could not wait. What could

she do? She no longer slept at night; she had neither rest nor peace of

mind; she thought persistently. The dog, dozing at her feet, would

sometimes lift her head and howl. Since her master's death she often

howled thus, as though she were calling him, as though her beast's soul,

inconsolable too, had also retained a recollection that nothing could

wipe out.

One night, as Semillante began to howl, the mother suddenly got hold of

an idea, a savage, vindictive, fierce idea. She thought it over until

morning. Then, having arisen at daybreak she went to church. She prayed,

prostrate on the floor, begging the Lord to help her, to support her, to

give to her poor, broken-down body the strength which she needed in

order to avenge her son.

She returned home. In her yard she had an old barrel, which acted as a

cistern. She turned it over, emptied it, made it fast to the ground with

sticks and stones. Then she chained Semillante to this improvised kennel

and went into the house.

She walked ceaselessly now, her eyes always fixed on the distant coast

of Sardinia. He was over there, the murderer.

All day and all night the dog howled. In the morning the old woman

brought her some water in a bowl, but nothing more; no soup, no bread.

Another day went by. Semillante, exhausted, was sleeping. The following

day her eyes were shining, her hair on end and she was pulling wildly at

her chain.

All this day the old woman gave her nothing to eat. The beast, furious,

was barking hoarsely. Another night went by.

Then, at daybreak, Mother Saverini asked a neighbor for some straw. She

took the old rags which had formerly been worn by her husband and

stuffed them so as to make them look like a human body.

Having planted a stick in the ground, in front of Semillante's kennel,

she tied to it this dummy, which seemed to be standing up. Then she made

a head out of some old rags.

The dog, surprised, was watching this straw man, and was quiet, although

famished. Then the old woman went to the store and bought a piece of

black sausage. When she got home she started a fire in the yard, near

the kennel, and cooked the sausage. Semillante, frantic, was jumping

about, frothing at the mouth, her eyes fixed on the food, the odor of

which went right to her stomach.

Then the mother made of the smoking sausage a necktie for the dummy. She

tied it very tight around the neck with string, and when she had

finished she untied the dog.

With one leap the beast jumped at the dummy's throat, and with her paws

on its shoulders she began to tear at it. She would fall back with a

piece of food in her mouth, then would jump again, sinking her fangs

into the string, and snatching few pieces of meat she would fall back

again and once more spring forward. She was tearing up the face with her

teeth and the whole neck was in tatters.

The old woman, motionless and silent, was watching eagerly. Then she

chained the beast up again, made her fast for two more days and began

this strange performance again.

For three months she accustomed her to this battle, to this meal

conquered by a fight. She no longer chained her up, but just pointed to

the dummy.

She had taught her to tear him up and to devour him without even leaving

any traces in her throat.

Then, as a reward, she would give her a piece of sausage.

As soon as she saw the man, Semillante would begin to tremble. Then she

would look up to her mistress, who, lifting her finger, would cry, “Go!”

in a shrill tone.

When she thought that the proper time had come, the widow went to

confession and, one Sunday morning she partook of communion with an

ecstatic fervor. Then, putting on men's clothes and looking like an old

tramp, she struck a bargain with a Sardinian fisherman who carried her

and her dog to the other side of the straits.

In a bag she had a large piece of sausage. Semillante had had nothing to

eat for two days. The old woman kept letting her smell the food and

whetting her appetite.

They got to Longosardo. The Corsican woman walked with a limp. She went

to a baker's shop and asked for Nicolas Ravolati. He had taken up his

old trade, that of carpenter. He was working alone at the back of his

store.

The old woman opened the door and called:

“Hallo, Nicolas!”

He turned around. Then releasing her dog, she cried:

“Go, go! Eat him up! eat him up!”

The maddened animal sprang for his throat. The man stretched out his

arms, clasped the dog and rolled to the ground. For a few seconds he

squirmed, beating the ground with his feet. Then he stopped moving,

while Semillante dug her fangs into his throat and tore it to ribbons.

Two neighbors, seated before their door, remembered perfectly having

seen an old beggar come out with a thin, black dog which was eating

something that its master was giving him.

At nightfall the old woman was at home again. She slept well that night.

MY TWENTY-FIVE DAYS

I had just taken possession of my room in the hotel, a narrow den

between two papered partitions, through which I could hear every sound

made by my neighbors; and I was beginning to arrange my clothes and

linen in the wardrobe with a long mirror, when I opened the drawer which

is in this piece of furniture. I immediately noticed a roll of paper.

Having opened it, I spread it out before me, and read this title:

My Twenty-five Days.

It was the diary of a guest at the watering place, of the last occupant

of my room, and had been forgotten at the moment of departure.

These notes may be of some interest to sensible and healthy persons who

never leave their own homes. It is for their benefit that I transcribe

them without altering a letter.

“CHATEL-GUYON, July 15th.

“At the first glance it is not lively, this country. However, I am going

to spend twenty-five days here, to have my liver and stomach treated,

and to get thin. The twenty-five days of any one taking the baths are

very like the twenty-eight days of the reserves; they are all devoted to

fatigue duty, severe fatigue duty. To-day I have done nothing as yet; I

have been getting settled. I have made the acquaintance of the locality

and of the doctor. Chatel-Guyon consists of a stream in which flows

yellow water, in the midst of several hillocks on which are a casino,

some houses, and some stone crosses. On the bank of the stream, at the

end of the valley, may be seen a square building surrounded by a little

garden; this is the bathing establishment. Sad people wander around this

building—the invalids. A great silence reigns in the walks shaded by

trees, for this is not a pleasure resort, but a true health resort; one

takes care of one's health as a business, and one gets well, so it

seems.

“Those who know affirm, even, that the mineral springs perform true

miracles here. However, no votive offering is hung around the cashier's

office.

“From time to time a gentleman or a lady comes over to a kiosk with a

slate roof, which shelters a woman of smiling and gentle aspect, and a

spring boiling in a basin of cement: Not a word is exchanged between the

invalid and the female custodian of the healing water. She hands the

newcomer a little glass in which air bubbles sparkle in the transparent

liquid. The guest drinks and goes off with a grave step to resume his

interrupted walk beneath the trees.

“No noise in the little park, no breath of air in the leaves; no voice

passes through this silence. One ought to write at the entrance to this

district: 'No one laughs here; they take care of their health.'

“The people who chat resemble mutes who merely open their mouths to

simulate sounds, so afraid are they that their voices might escape.

“In the hotel, the same silence. It is a big hotel, where you dine

solemnly with people of good position, who have nothing to say to each

other. Their manners bespeak good breeding, and their faces reflect the

conviction of a superiority of which it might be difficult for some to

give actual proofs.

“At two o'clock I made my way up to the Casino, a little wooden hut

perched on a hillock, which one reaches by a goat path. But the view

from that height is admirable. Chatel-Guyon is situated in a very narrow

valley, exactly between the plain and the mountain. I perceive, at the

left, the first great billows of the mountains of Auvergne, covered with

woods, and here and there big gray patches, hard masses of lava, for we

are at the foot of the extinct volcanoes. At the right, through the

narrow cut of the valley, I discover a plain, infinite as the sea,

steeped in a bluish fog which lets one only dimly discern the villages,

the towns, the yellow fields of ripe grain, and the green squares of

meadowland shaded with apple trees. It is the Limagne, an immense level,

always enveloped in a light veil of vapor.

“The night has come. And now, after having dined alone, I write these

lines beside my open window. I hear, over there, in front of me, the

little orchestra of the Casino, which plays airs just as a foolish bird

might sing all alone in the desert.

“A dog barks at intervals. This great calm does one good. Goodnight.

“July 16th.—Nothing new. I have taken a bath and then a shower bath. I

have swallowed three glasses of water, and I have walked along the paths

in the park, a quarter of an hour between each glass, then half an hour

after the last. I have begun my twenty-five days.

“July 17th.—Remarked two mysterious, pretty women who are taking their

baths and their meals after every one else has finished.

“July 18th.—Nothing new.

“July 19th.—Saw the two pretty women again. They have style and a little

indescribable air which I like very much.

“July 20th.—Long walk in a charming wooded valley, as far as the

Hermitage of Sans-Souci. This country is delightful, although sad; but

so calm; so sweet, so green. One meets along the mountain roads long

wagons loaded with hay, drawn by two cows at a slow pace or held back by

them in going down the slopes with a great effort of their heads, which

are yoked together. A man with a big black hat on his head is driving

them with a slender stick, tipping them on the side or on the forehead;

and often with a simple gesture, an energetic and serious gesture, he

suddenly halts them when the excessive load precipitates their journey

down the too rugged descents.

“The air is good to inhale in these valleys. And, if it is very warm,

the dust bears with it a light odor of vanilla and of the stable, for so

many cows pass over these routes that they leave reminders everywhere.

And this odor is a perfume, when it would be a stench if it came from

other animals.

“July 21st.—Excursion to the valley of the Enval. It is a narrow gorge

inclosed by superb rocks at the very foot of the mountain. A stream

flows amid the heaped-up boulders.

“As I reached the bottom of this ravine I heard women's voices, and I

soon perceived the two mysterious ladies of my hotel, who were chatting,

seated on a stone.

“The occasion appeared to me a good one, and I introduced myself without

hesitation. My overtures were received without embarrassment. We walked

back together to the hotel. And we talked about Paris. They knew, it

seemed, many people whom I knew, too. Who can they be?

“I shall see them to-morrow. There is nothing more amusing than such

meetings as this.

“July 22d.—Day passed almost entirely with the two unknown ladies. They

are very pretty, by Jove!—one a brunette and the other a blonde. They

say they are widows. H'm?

“I offered to accompany them to Royat tomorrow, and they accepted my

offer.

“Chatel-Guyon is less sad than I thought on my arrival.

“July 23d.—Day spent at Royat. Royat is a little patch of hotels at the

bottom of a valley, at the gate of Clermont-Ferrand. A great many people

there. A large park full of life. Superb view of the Puyde-Dome, seen at

the end of a perspective of valleys.

“My fair companions are very popular, which is flattering to me. The man

who escorts a pretty woman always believes himself crowned with an

aureole; with much more reason, the man who is accompanied by one on

each side of him. Nothing is so pleasant as to dine in a fashionable

restaurant with a female companion at whom everybody stares, and there

is nothing better calculated to exalt a man in the estimation of his

neighbors.

“To go to the Bois, in a trap drawn by a sorry nag, or to go out into

the boulevard escorted by a plain woman, are the two most humiliating

things that could happen to a sensitive heart that values the opinion of

others. Of all luxuries, woman is the rarest and the most distinguished;

she is the one that costs most and which we desire most; she is,

therefore the one that we should seek by preference to exhibit to the

jealous eyes of the world.

“To exhibit to the world a pretty woman leaning on your arm is to

excite, all at once, every kind of jealousy. It is as much as to say:

'Look here! I am rich, since I possess this rare and costly object; I

have taste, since I have known how to discover this pearl; perhaps,

even, I am loved by her, unless I am deceived by her, which would still

prove that others also consider her charming.

“But, what a disgrace it is to walk about town with an ugly woman!

“And how many humiliating things this gives people to understand!

“In the first place, they assume she must be your wife, for how could it

be supposed that you would have an unattractive sweetheart? A true woman

may be ungraceful; but then, her ugliness implies a thousand

disagreeable things for you. One supposes you must be a notary or a

magistrate, as these two professions have a monopoly of grotesque and

well-dowered spouses. Now, is this not distressing to a man? And then,

it seems to proclaim to the public that you have the odious courage, and

are even under a legal obligation, to caress that ridiculous face and

that ill-shaped body, and that you will, without doubt, be shameless

enough to make a mother of this by no means desirable being—which is the

very height of the ridiculous.

“July 24th.—I never leave the side of the two unknown widows, whom I am

beginning to know quite well. This country is delightful and our hotel

is excellent. Good season. The treatment is doing me an immense amount

of good.

“July 25th.—Drive in a landau to the lake of Tazenat. An exquisite and

unexpected jaunt decided on at luncheon. We started immediately on

rising from table. After a long journey through the mountains we

suddenly perceived an admirable little lake, quite round, very blue,

clear as glass, and situated at the bottom of an extinct crater. One

side of this immense basin is barren, the other is wooded. In the midst

of the trees is a small house where sleeps a good-natured, intellectual

man, a sage who passes his days in this Virgilian region. He opens his

dwelling for us. An idea comes into my head. I exclaim:

“'Supposing we bathe?'

“'Yes,' they said, 'but costumes.'

“'Bah! we are in the wilderness.'

“And we did bathe!

“If I were a poet, how I would describe this unforgettable vision of

those lissome young forms in the transparency of the water! The high,

sloping sides shut in the lake, motionless, gleaming and round, as a

silver coin; the sun pours into it a flood of warm light; and along the

rocks the fair forms move in the almost invisible water in which the

swimmers seemed suspended. On the sand at the bottom of the lake one

could see their shadows as they moved along.

“July 26th.—Some persons seem to look with shocked and disapproving eyes

at my rapid intimacy with the two fair widows. There are some people,

then, who imagine that life consists in being bored. Everything that

appears to be amusing becomes immediately a breach of good breeding or

morality. For them duty has inflexible and mortally tedious rules.

“I would draw their attention, with all respect, to the fact that duty

is not the same for Mormons, Arabs Zulus, Turks, Englishmen, and

Frenchmen, and that there are very virtuous people among all these

nations.

“I will cite a single example. As regards women, duty begins in England

at nine years of age; in France at fifteen. As for me, I take a little

of each people's notion of duty, and of the whole I make a result

comparable to the morality of good King Solomon.

“July 27th.—Good news. I have lost 620 grams in weight. Excellent, this

water of Chatel-Guyon! I am taking the widows to dine at Riom. A sad

town whose anagram constitutes it an objectionable neighbor to healing

springs: Riom, Mori.

“July 28th.—Hello, how's this! My two widows have been visited by two

gentlemen who came to look for them. Two widowers, without doubt. They

are leaving this evening. They have written to me on fancy notepaper.

“July 29th.—Alone! Long excursion on foot to the extinct crater of

Nachere. Splendid view.

“July 30th.—Nothing. I am taking the treatment.

“July 31st.—Ditto. Ditto. This pretty country is full of polluted

streams. I am drawing the notice of the municipality to the abominable

sewer which poisons the road in front of the hotel. All the kitchen

refuse of the establishment is thrown into it. This is a good way to

breed cholera.

“August 1st.—Nothing. The treatment.

“August 2d.—Admirable walk to Chateauneuf, a place of sojourn for

rheumatic patients, where everybody is lame. Nothing can be queerer than

this population of cripples!

“August 3d.—Nothing. The treatment.

“August 4th.—Ditto. Ditto.

“August 5th.—Ditto. Ditto.

“August 6th.—Despair! I have just weighed myself. I have gained 310

grams. But then?

“August 7th.—Drove sixty-six kilometres in a carriage on the mountain. I

will not mention the name of the country through respect for its women.

“This excursion had been pointed out to me as a beautiful one, and one

that was rarely made. After four hours on the road, I arrived at a

rather pretty village on the banks of a river in the midst of an

admirable wood of walnut trees. I had not yet seen a forest of walnut

trees of such dimensions in Auvergne. It constitutes, moreover, all the

wealth of the district, for it is planted on the village common. This

common was formerly only a hillside covered with brushwood. The

authorities had tried in vain to get it cultivated. There was scarcely

enough pasture on it to feed a few sheep.

“To-day it is a superb wood, thanks to the women, and it has a curious

name: it is called the Sins of the Cure.

“Now I must say that the women of the mountain districts have the

reputation of being light, lighter than in the plain. A bachelor who

meets them owes them at least a kiss; and if he does not take more he is

only a blockhead. If we consider this fairly, this way of looking at the

matter is the only one that is logical and reasonable. As woman, whether

she be of the town or the country, has her natural mission to please

man, man should always show her that she pleases him. If he abstains

from every sort of demonstration, this means that he considers her ugly;

it is almost an insult to her. If I were a woman, I would not receive, a

second time, a man who failed to show me respect at our first meeting,

for I would consider that he had failed in appreciation of my beauty, my

charm, and my feminine qualities.

“So the bachelors of the village X often proved to the women of the

district that they found them to their taste, and, as the cure was

unable to prevent these demonstrations, as gallant as they were natural,

he resolved to utilize them for the benefit of the general prosperity.

So he imposed as a penance on every woman who had gone wrong that she

should plant a walnut tree on the common. And every night lanterns were

seen moving about like will-o'-the-wisps on the hillock, for the erring

ones scarcely like to perform their penance in broad daylight.

“In two years there was no longer any room on the lands belonging to the

village, and to-day they calculate that there are more than three

thousand trees around the belfry which rings out the services amid their

foliage. These are the Sins of the Cure.

“Since we have been seeking for so many ways of rewooding France, the

Administration of Forests might surely enter into some arrangement with

the clergy to employ a method so simple as that employed by this humble

cure.

“August 7th.—Treatment.

“August 8th.—I am packing up my trunks and saying good-by to the

charming little district so calm and silent, to the green mountain, to

the quiet valleys, to the deserted Casino, from which you can see,

almost veiled by its light, bluish mist, the immense plain of the

Limagne.

“I shall leave to-morrow.”

Here the manuscript stopped. I will add nothing to it, my impressions of

the country not having been exactly the same as those of my predecessor.

For I did not find the two widows!

“THE TERROR”

You say you cannot possibly understand it, and I believe you. You think

I am losing my mind? Perhaps I am, but for other reasons than those you

imagine, my dear friend.

Yes, I am going to be married, and will tell you what has led me to take

that step.

I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my

wife to-morrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that

there is nothing unpleasing about her, and that is enough for my

purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so, of course, the day after to-

morrow I shall ardently wish for a tall, dark, thin woman.

She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such

as you may find by the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without any

apparent faults, and with no particularly striking qualities. People say

of her:

“Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl,” and tomorrow they will say: “What a

very nice woman Madame Raymon is.” She belongs, in a word, to that

immense number of girls whom one is glad to have for one's wife, till

the moment comes when one discovers that one happens to prefer all other

women to that particular woman whom one has married.

“Well,” you will say to me, “what on earth did you get married for?”

I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason

that urged me on to this senseless act; the fact, however, is that I am

afraid of being alone.

I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state

of mind is so wretched that you will pity me and despise me.

I do not want to be alone any longer at night. I want to feel that there

is some one close to me, touching me, a being who can speak and say

something, no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able

to ask some sudden question, a stupid question even, if I feel inclined,

so that I may hear a human voice, and feel that there is some waking

soul close to me, some one whose reason is at work; so that when I

hastily light the candle I may see some human face by my

side—because—because —I am ashamed to confess it—because I am afraid of

being alone.

Oh, you don't understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room, I

should kill him without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I

believe in the supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I

believe in the total annihilation of every being that disappears from

the face of this earth.

Well—yes, well, it must be told: I am afraid of myself, afraid of that

horrible sensation of incomprehensible fear.

You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible, and I cannot get over it. I

am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects; which

are animated, as far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above

all, I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems

as if it were about to leave me, driven away by a mysterious and

invisible agony.

At first I feel a vague uneasiness in my mind, which causes a cold

shiver to run all over me. I look round, and of course nothing is to be

seen, and I wish that there were something there, no matter what, as

long as it were something tangible. I am frightened merely because I

cannot understand my own terror.

If I speak, I am afraid of my own voice. If I walk, I am afraid of I

know not what, behind the door, behind the curtains, in the cupboard, or

under my bed, and yet all the time I know there is nothing anywhere, and

I turn round suddenly because I am afraid of what is behind me, although

there is nothing there, and I know it.

I become agitated. I feel that my fear increases, and so I shut myself

up in my own room, get into bed, and hide under the clothes; and there,

cowering down, rolled into a ball, I close my eyes in despair, and

remain thus for an indefinite time, remembering that my candle is alight

on the table by my bedside, and that I ought to put it out, and yet—I

dare not do it.

It is very terrible, is it not, to be like that?

Formerly I felt nothing of all that. I came home quite calm, and went up

and down my apartment without anything disturbing my peace of mind. Had

any one told me that I should be attacked by a malady—for I can call it

nothing else—of most improbable fear, such a stupid and terrible malady

as it is, I should have laughed outright. I was certainly never afraid

of opening the door in the dark. I went to bed slowly, without locking

it, and never got up in the middle of the night to make sure that

everything was firmly closed.

It began last year in a very strange manner on a damp autumn evening.

When my servant had left the room, after I had dined, I asked myself

what I was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some time,

feeling tired without any reason for it, unable to work, and even

without energy to read. A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a

prey to one of those fits of despondency, without any apparent cause,

which make us feel inclined to cry, or to talk, no matter to whom, so as

to shake off our depressing thoughts.

I felt that I was alone, and my rooms seemed to me to be more empty than

they had ever been before. I was in the midst of infinite and

overwhelming solitude. What was I to do? I sat down, but a kind of

nervous impatience seemed to affect my legs, so I got up and began to

walk about again. I was, perhaps, rather feverish, for my hands, which I

had clasped behind me, as one often does when walking slowly, almost

seemed to burn one another. Then suddenly a cold shiver ran down my

back, and I thought the damp air might have penetrated into my rooms, so

I lit the fire for the first time that year, and sat down again and

looked at the flames. But soon I felt that I could not possibly remain

quiet, and so I got up again and determined to go out, to pull myself

together, and to find a friend to bear me company.

I could not find anyone, so I walked to the boulevard to try and meet

some acquaintance or other there.

It was wretched everywhere, and the wet pavement glistened in the

gaslight, while the oppressive warmth of the almost impalpable rain lay

heavily over the streets and seemed to obscure the light of the lamps.

I went on slowly, saying to myself: “I shall not find a soul to talk

to.”

I glanced into several cafes, from the Madeleine as far as the Faubourg

Poissoniere, and saw many unhappy-looking individuals sitting at the

tables who did not seem even to have enough energy left to finish the

refreshments they had ordered.

For a long time I wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I

started for home. I was very calm and very tired. My janitor opened the

door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that

another lodger had probably just come in.

When I go out I always double-lock the door of my room, and I found it

merely closed, which surprised me; but I supposed that some letters had

been brought up for me in the course of the evening.

I went in, and found my fire still burning so that it lighted up the

room a little, and, while in the act of taking up a candle, I noticed

somebody sitting in my armchair by the fire, warming his feet, with his

back toward me.

I was not in the slightest degree frightened. I thought, very naturally,

that some friend or other had come to see me. No doubt the porter, to

whom I had said I was going out, had lent him his own key. In a moment I

remembered all the circumstances of my return, how the street door had

been opened immediately, and that my own door was only latched and not

locked.

I could see nothing of my friend but his head, and he had evidently gone

to sleep while waiting for me, so I went up to him to rouse him. I saw

him quite distinctly; his right arm was hanging down and his legs were

crossed; the position of his head, which was somewhat inclined to the

left of the armchair, seemed to indicate that he was asleep. “Who can it

be?” I asked myself. I could not see clearly, as the room was rather

dark, so I put out my hand to touch him on the shoulder, and it came in

contact with the back of the chair. There was nobody there; the seat was

empty.

I fairly jumped with fright. For a moment I drew back as if confronted

by some terrible danger; then I turned round again, impelled by an

imperious standing upright, panting with fear, so upset that I could not

collect my thoughts, and ready to faint.

But I am a cool man, and soon recovered myself. I thought: “It is a mere

hallucination, that is all,” and I immediately began to reflect on this

phenomenon. Thoughts fly quickly at such moments.

I had been suffering from an hallucination, that was an incontestable

fact. My mind had been perfectly lucid and had acted regularly and

logically, so there was nothing the matter with the brain. It was only

my eyes that had been deceived; they had had a vision, one of those

visions which lead simple folk to believe in miracles. It was a nervous

seizure of the optical apparatus, nothing more; the eyes were rather

congested, perhaps.

I lit my candle, and when I stooped down to the fire in doing so I

noticed that I was trembling, and I raised myself up with a jump, as if

somebody had touched me from behind.

I was certainly not by any means calm.

I walked up and down a little, and hummed a tune or two. Then I double-

locked the door and felt rather reassured; now, at any rate, nobody

could come in.

I sat down again and thought over my adventure for a long time; then I

went to bed and blew out my light.

For some minutes all went well; I lay quietly on my back, but presently

an irresistible desire seized me to look round the room, and I turned

over on my side.

My fire was nearly out, and the few glowing embers threw a faint light

on the floor by the chair, where I fancied I saw the man sitting again.

I quickly struck a match, but I had been mistaken; there was nothing

there. I got up, however, and hid the chair behind my bed, and tried to

get to sleep, as the room was now dark; but I had not forgotten myself

for more than five minutes, when in my dream I saw all the scene which I

had previously witnessed as clearly as if it were reality. I woke up

with a start, and having lit the candle, sat up in bed, without

venturing even to try to go to sleep again.

Twice, however, sleep overcame me for a few moments in spite of myself,

and twice I saw the same thing again, till I fancied I was going mad.

When day broke, however, I thought that I was cured, and slept

peacefully till noon.

It was all past and over. I had been feverish, had had the nightmare. I

know not what. I had been ill, in fact, but yet thought I was a great

fool.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly that evening. I dined at a restaurant and

afterward went to the theatre, and then started for home. But as I got

near the house I was once more seized by a strange feeling of

uneasiness. I was afraid of seeing him again. I was not afraid of him,

not afraid of his presence, in which I did not believe; but I was afraid

of being deceived again. I was afraid of some fresh hallucination,

afraid lest fear should take possession of me.

For more than an hour I wandered up and down the pavement; then, feeling

that I was really too foolish, I returned home. I breathed so hard that

I could hardly get upstairs, and remained standing outside my door for

more than ten minutes; then suddenly I had a courageous impulse and my

will asserted itself. I inserted my key into the lock, and went into the

apartment with a candle in my hand. I kicked open my bedroom door, which

was partly open, and cast a frightened glance toward the fireplace.

There was nothing there. A-h! What a relief and what a delight! What a

deliverance! I walked up and down briskly and boldly, but I was not

altogether reassured, and kept turning round with a jump; the very

shadows in the corners disquieted me.

I slept badly, and was constantly disturbed by imaginary noises, but did

not see him; no, that was all over.

Since that time I have been afraid of being alone at night. I feel that

the spectre is there, close to me, around me; but it has not appeared to

me again.

And supposing it did, what would it matter, since I do not believe in

it, and know that it is nothing?

However, it still worries me, because I am constantly thinking of it.

His right arm hanging down and his head inclined to the left like a man

who was asleep—I don't want to think about it!

Why, however, am I so persistently possessed with this idea? His feet

were close to the fire!

He haunts me; it is very stupid, but who and what is he? I know that he

does not exist except in my cowardly imagination, in my fears, and in my

agony. There—enough of that!

Yes, it is all very well for me to reason with myself, to stiffen my

backbone, so to say; but I cannot remain at home because I know he is

there. I know I shall not see him again; he will not show himself again;

that is all over. But he is there, all the same, in my thoughts. He

remains invisible, but that does not prevent his being there. He is

behind the doors, in the closed cupboard, in the wardrobe, under the

bed, in every dark corner. If I open the door or the cupboard, if I take

the candle to look under the bed and throw a light on the dark places he

is there no longer, but I feel that he is behind me. I turn round,

certain that I shall not see him, that I shall never see him again; but

for all that, he is behind me.

It is very stupid, it is dreadful; but what am I to do? I cannot help

it.

But if there were two of us in the place I feel certain that he would

not be there any longer, for he is there just because I am alone, simply

and solely because I am alone!

LEGEND OF MONT ST. MICHEL

I had first seen it from Cancale, this fairy castle in the sea. I got an

indistinct impression of it as of a gray shadow outlined against the

misty sky. I saw it again from Avranches at sunset. The immense stretch

of sand was red, the horizon was red, the whole boundless bay was red.

The rocky castle rising out there in the distance like a weird,

seignorial residence, like a dream palace, strange and beautiful-this

alone remained black in the crimson light of the dying day.

The following morning at dawn I went toward it across the sands, my eyes

fastened on this, gigantic jewel, as big as a mountain, cut like a

cameo, and as dainty as lace. The nearer I approached the greater my

admiration grew, for nothing in the world could be more wonderful or

more perfect.

As surprised as if I had discovered the habitation of a god, I wandered

through those halls supported by frail or massive columns, raising my

eyes in wonder to those spires which looked like rockets starting for

the sky, and to that marvellous assemblage of towers, of gargoyles, of

slender and charming ornaments, a regular fireworks of stone, granite

lace, a masterpiece of colossal and delicate architecture.

As I was looking up in ecstasy a Lower Normandy peasant came up to me

and told me the story of the great quarrel between Saint Michael and the

devil.

A sceptical genius has said: “God made man in his image and man has

returned the compliment.”

This saying is an eternal truth, and it would be very curious to write

the history of the local divinity of every continent as well as the

history of the patron saints in each one of our provinces. The negro has

his ferocious man-eating idols; the polygamous Mahometan fills his

paradise with women; the Greeks, like a practical people, deified all

the passions.

Every village in France is under the influence of some protecting saint,

modelled according to the characteristics of the inhabitants.

Saint Michael watches over Lower Normandy, Saint Michael, the radiant

and victorious angel, the sword-carrier, the hero of Heaven, the

victorious, the conqueror of Satan.

But this is how the Lower Normandy peasant, cunning, deceitful and

tricky, understands and tells of the struggle between the great saint

and the devil.

To escape from the malice of his neighbor, the devil, Saint Michael

built himself, in the open ocean, this habitation worthy of an

archangel; and only such a saint could build a residence of such

magnificence.

But as he still feared the approaches of the wicked one, he surrounded

his domains by quicksands, more treacherous even than the sea.

The devil lived in a humble cottage on the hill, but he owned all the

salt marshes, the rich lands where grow the finest crops, the wooded

valleys and all the fertile hills of the country, while the saint ruled

only over the sands. Therefore Satan was rich, whereas Saint Michael was

as poor as a church mouse.

After a few years of fasting the saint grew tired of this state of

affairs and began to think of some compromise with the devil, but the

matter was by no means easy, as Satan kept a good hold on his crops.

He thought the thing over for about six months; then one morning he

walked across to the shore. The demon was eating his soup in front of

his door when he saw the saint. He immediately rushed toward him, kissed

the hem of his sleeve, invited him in and offered him refreshments.

Saint Michael drank a bowl of milk and then began: “I have come here to

propose to you a good bargain.”

The devil, candid and trustful, answered: “That will suit me.”

“Here it is. Give me all your lands.”

Satan, growing alarmed, wished to speak “But—”

The saint continued: “Listen first. Give me all your lands. I will take

care of all the work, the ploughing, the sowing, the fertilizing,

everything, and we will share the crops equally. How does that suit

you?”

The devil, who was naturally lazy, accepted. He only demanded in

addition a few of those delicious gray mullet which are caught around

the solitary mount. Saint Michael promised the fish.

They grasped hands and spat on the ground to show that it was a bargain,

and the saint continued: “See here, so that you will have nothing to

complain of, choose that part of the crops which you prefer: the part

that grows above ground or the part that stays in the ground.” Satan

cried out: “I will take all that will be above ground.”

“It's a bargain!” said the saint. And he went away.

Six months later, all over the immense domain of the devil, one could

see nothing but carrots, turnips, onions, salsify, all the plants whose

juicy roots are good and savory and whose useless leaves are good for

nothing but for feeding animals.

Satan wished to break the contract, calling Saint Michael a swindler.

But the saint, who had developed quite a taste for agriculture, went

back to see the devil and said:

“Really, I hadn't thought of that at all; it was just an accident, no

fault of mine. And to make things fair with you, this year I'll let you

take everything that is under the ground.”

“Very well,” answered Satan.

The following spring all the evil spirit's lands were covered with

golden wheat, oats as big as beans, flax, magnificent colza, red clover,

peas, cabbage, artichokes, everything that develops into grains or fruit

in the sunlight.

Once more Satan received nothing, and this time he completely lost his

temper. He took back his fields and remained deaf to all the fresh

propositions of his neighbor.

A whole year rolled by. From the top of his lonely manor Saint Michael

looked at the distant and fertile lands and watched the devil direct the

work, take in his crops and thresh the wheat. And he grew angry,

exasperated at his powerlessness.

As he was no longer able to deceive Satan, he decided to wreak vengeance

on him, and he went out to invite him to dinner for the following

Monday.

“You have been very unfortunate in your dealings with me,” he said; “I

know it, but I don't want any ill feeling between us, and I expect you

to dine with me. I'll give you some good things to eat.”

Satan, who was as greedy as he was lazy, accepted eagerly. On the day

appointed he donned his finest clothes and set out for the castle.

Saint Michael sat him down to a magnificent meal. First there was a

'vol-au-vent', full of cocks' crests and kidneys, with meat-balls, then

two big gray mullet with cream sauce, a turkey stuffed with chestnuts

soaked in wine, some salt-marsh lamb as tender as cake, vegetables which

melted in the mouth and nice hot pancake which was brought on smoking

and spreading a delicious odor of butter.

They drank new, sweet, sparkling cider and heady red wine, and after

each course they whetted their appetites with some old apple brandy.

The devil drank and ate to his heart's content; in fact he took so much

that he was very uncomfortable, and began to retch.

Then Saint Michael arose in anger and cried in a voice like thunder:

“What! before me, rascal! You dare—before me—”

Satan, terrified, ran away, and the saint, seizing a stick, pursued him.

They ran through the halls, turning round the pillars, running up the

staircases, galloping along the cornices, jumping from gargoyle to

gargoyle. The poor devil, who was woefully ill, was running about madly

and trying hard to escape. At last he found himself at the top of the

last terrace, right at the top, from which could be seen the immense

bay, with its distant towns, sands and pastures. He could no longer

escape, and the saint came up behind him and gave him a furious kick,

which shot him through space like a cannonball.

He shot through the air like a javelin and fell heavily before the town

of Mortain. His horns and claws stuck deep into the rock, which keeps

through eternity the traces of this fall of Satan.

He stood up again, limping, crippled until the end of time, and as he

looked at this fatal castle in the distance, standing out against the

setting sun, he understood well that he would always be vanquished in

this unequal struggle, and he went away limping, heading for distant

countries, leaving to his enemy his fields, his hills, his valleys and

his marshes.

And this is how Saint Michael, the patron saint of Normandy, vanquished

the devil.

Another people would have dreamed of this battle in an entirely

different manner.

A NEW YEAR'S GIFT

Jacques de Randal, having dined at home alone, told his valet he might

go out, and he sat down at his table to write some letters.

He ended every year in this manner, writing and dreaming. He reviewed

the events of his life since last New Year's Day, things that were now

all over and dead; and, in proportion as the faces of his friends rose

up before his eyes, he wrote them a few lines, a cordial New Year's

greeting on the first of January.

So he sat down, opened a drawer, took out of it a woman's photograph,

gazed at it a few moments, and kissed it. Then, having laid it beside a

sheet of notepaper, he began:

“MY DEAR IRENE: You must by this time have received the little souvenir

I sent you addressed to the maid. I have shut myself up this evening in

order to tell you——”

The pen here ceased to move. Jacques rose up and began walking up and

down the room.

For the last ten months he had had a sweetheart, not like the others, a

woman with whom one engages in a passing intrigue, of the theatrical

world or the demi-monde, but a woman whom he loved and won. He was no

longer a young man, although he was still comparatively young for a man,

and he looked on life seriously in a positive and practical spirit.

Accordingly, he drew up the balance sheet of his passion, as he drew up

every year the balance sheet of friendships that were ended or freshly

contracted, of circumstances and persons that had entered into his life.

His first ardor of love having grown calmer, he asked himself with the

precision of a merchant making a calculation what was the state of his

heart with regard to her, and he tried to form an idea of what it would

be in the future.

He found there a great and deep affection; made up of tenderness,

gratitude and the thousand subtleties which give birth to long and

powerful attachments.

A ring at the bell made him start. He hesitated. Should he open the

door? But he said to himself that one must always open the door on New

Year's night, to admit the unknown who is passing by and knocks, no

matter who it may be.

So he took a wax candle, passed through the antechamber, drew back the

bolts, turned the key, pulled the door back, and saw his sweetheart

standing pale as a corpse, leaning against the wall.

He stammered:

“What is the matter with you?”

She replied:

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Without servants?”

“Yes.”

“You are not going out?”

“No.”

She entered with the air of a woman who knew the house. As soon as she

was in the drawing-room, she sank down on the sofa, and, covering her

face with her hands, began to weep bitterly.

He knelt down at her feet, and tried to remove her hands from her eyes,

so that he might look at them, and exclaimed:

“Irene, Irene, what is the matter with you? I implore you to tell me

what is the matter with you?”

Then, amid her sobs, she murmured:

“I can no longer live like this.”

“Live like this? What do you mean?”

“Yes. I can no longer live like this. I have endured so much. He struck

me this afternoon.”

“Who? Your husband?”

“Yes, my husband.”

“Ah!”

He was astonished, having never suspected that her husband could be

brutal. He was a man of the world, of the better class, a clubman, a

lover of horses, a theatergoer and an expert swordsman; he was known,

talked about, appreciated everywhere, having very courteous manners, a

very mediocre intellect, an absence of education and of the real culture

needed in order to think like all well-bred people, and finally a

respect for conventionalities.

He appeared to devote himself to his wife, as a man ought to do in the

case of wealthy and well-bred people. He displayed enough of anxiety

about her wishes, her health, her dresses, and, beyond that, left her

perfectly free.

Randal, having become Irene's friend, had a right to the affectionate

hand-clasp which every husband endowed with good manners owes to his

wife's intimate acquaintance. Then, when Jacques, after having been for

some time the friend, became the lover, his relations with the husband

were more cordial, as is fitting.

Jacques had never dreamed that there were storms in this household, and

he was bewildered at this unexpected revelation.

He asked:

“How did it happen? Tell me.”

Thereupon she related a long story, the entire history of her life since

the day of her marriage, the first disagreement arising out of a mere

nothing, then becoming accentuated at every new difference of opinion

between two dissimilar dispositions.

Then came quarrels, a complete separation, not apparent, but real; next,

her husband showed himself aggressive, suspicious, violent. Now, he was

jealous, jealous of Jacques, and that very day, after a scene, he had

struck her.

She added with decision: “I will not go back to him. Do with me what you

like.”

Jacques sat down opposite to her, their knees touching. He took her

hands:

“My dear love, you are going to commit a gross, an irreparable folly. If

you want to leave your husband, put him in the wrong, so that your

position as a woman of the world may be saved.”

She asked, as she looked at him uneasily:

“Then, what do you advise me?”

“To go back home and to put up with your life there till the day when

you can obtain either a separation or a divorce, with the honors of

war.”

“Is not this thing which you advise me to do a little cowardly?”

“No; it is wise and sensible. You have a high position, a reputation to

protect, friends to preserve and relations to deal with. You must not

lose all these through a mere caprice.”

She rose up, and said with violence:

“Well, no! I cannot stand it any longer! It is at an end! it is at an

end!”

Then, placing her two hands on her lover's shoulders, and looking him

straight in the face, she asked:

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Really and truly?”

“Yes.”

“Then take care of me.”

He exclaimed:

“Take care of you? In my own house? Here? Why, you are mad. It would

mean losing you forever; losing you beyond hope of recall! You are mad!”

She replied, slowly and seriously, like a woman who feels the weight of

her words:

“Listen, Jacques. He has forbidden me to see you again, and I will not

play this comedy of coming secretly to your house. You must either lose

me or take me.”

“My dear Irene, in that case, obtain your divorce, and I will marry

you.”

“Yes, you will marry me in—two years at the soonest. Yours is a patient

love.”

“Look here! Reflect! If you remain here he'll come to-morrow to take you

away, seeing that he is your husband, seeing that he has right and law

on his side.”

“I did not ask you to keep me in your own house, Jacques, but to take me

anywhere you like. I thought you loved me enough to do that. I have made

a mistake. Good-by!”

She turned round and went toward the door so quickly that he was only

able to catch hold of her when she was outside the room:

“Listen, Irene.”

She struggled, and would not listen to him. Her eyes were full of tears,

and she stammered:

“Let me alone! let me alone! let me alone!”

He made her sit down by force, and once more falling on his knees at her

feet, he now brought forward a number of arguments and counsels to make

her understand the folly and terrible risk of her project. He omitted

nothing which he deemed necessary to convince her, finding even in his

very affection for her incentives to persuasion.

As she remained silent and cold as ice, he begged of her, implored of

her to listen to him, to trust him, to follow his advice.

When he had finished speaking, she only replied:

“Are you disposed to let me go away now? Take away your hands, so that I

may rise to my feet.”

“Look here, Irene.”

“Will you let me go?”

“Irene—is your resolution irrevocable?”

“Will you let me go.”

“Tell me only whether this resolution, this mad resolution of yours,

which you will bitterly regret, is irrevocable?”

“Yes—let me go!”

“Then stay. You know well that you are at home here. We shall go away

to-morrow morning.”

She rose to her feet in spite of him, and said in a hard tone:

“No. It is too late. I do not want sacrifice; I do not want devotion.”

“Stay! I have done what I ought to do; I have said what I ought to say.

I have no further responsibility on your behalf. My conscience is at

peace. Tell me what you want me to do, and I will obey.”'

She resumed her seat, looked at him for a long time, and then asked, in

a very calm voice:

“Well, then, explain.”

“Explain what? What do you wish me to explain?”

“Everything—everything that you thought about before changing your mind.

Then I will see what I ought to do.”

“But I thought about nothing at all. I had to warn you that you were

going to commit an act of folly. You persist; then I ask to share in

this act of folly, and I even insist on it.”

“It is not natural to change one's mind so quickly.”

“Listen, my dear love. It is not a question here of sacrifice or

devotion. On the day when I realized that I loved you, I said to myself

what every lover ought to say to himself in the same case: 'The man who

loves a woman, who makes an effort to win her, who gets her, and who

takes her, enters into a sacred contract with himself and with her. That

is, of course, in dealing with a woman like you, not a woman with a

fickle heart and easily impressed.'

“Marriage which has a great social value, a great legal value, possesses

in my eyes only a very slight moral value, taking into account the

conditions under which it generally takes place.

“Therefore, when a woman, united by this lawful bond, but having no

attachment to her husband, whom she cannot love, a woman whose heart is

free, meets a man whom she cares for, and gives herself to him, when a

man who has no other tie, takes a woman in this way, I say that they

pledge themselves toward each other by this mutual and free agreement

much more than by the 'Yes' uttered in the presence of the mayor.

“I say that, if they are both honorable persons, their union must be

more intimate, more real, more wholesome, than if all the sacraments had

consecrated it.

“This woman risks everything. And it is exactly because she knows it,

because she gives everything, her heart, her body, her soul, her honor,

her life, because she has foreseen all miseries, all dangers all

catastrophes, because she dares to do a bold act, an intrepid act,

because she is prepared, determined to brave everything—her husband, who

might kill her, and society, which may cast her out. This is why she is

worthy of respect in the midst of her conjugal infidelity; this is why

her lover, in taking her, should also foresee everything, and prefer her

to every one else whatever may happen. I have nothing more to say. I

spoke in the beginning like a sensible man whose duty it was to warn

you; and now I am only a man—a man who loves you—Command, and I obey.”

Radiant, she closed his mouth with a kiss, and said in a low tone:

“It is not true, darling! There is nothing the matter! My husband does

not suspect anything. But I wanted to see, I wanted to know, what you

would do. I wished for a New Year's gift—the gift of your heart—another

gift besides the necklace you sent me. You have given it to me. Thanks!

thanks! God be thanked for the happiness you have given me!”

FRIEND PATIENCE What became of Leremy?”

“He is captain in the Sixth Dragoons.”

“And Pinson?”

“He's a subprefect.”

“And Racollet?”

“Dead.”

We were searching for other names which would remind us of the youthful

faces of our younger days. Once in a while we had met some of these old

comrades, bearded, bald, married, fathers of several children, and the

realization of these changes had given us an unpleasant shudder,

reminding us how short life is, how everything passes away, how

everything changes. My friend asked me:

“And Patience, fat Patience?”

I almost, howled:

“Oh! as for him, just listen to this. Four or five years ago I was in

Limoges, on a tour of inspection, and I was waiting for dinner time. I

was seated before the big cafe in the Place du Theatre, just bored to

death. The tradespeople were coming by twos, threes or fours, to take

their absinthe or vermouth, talking all the time of their own or other

people's business, laughing loudly, or lowering their voices in order to

impart some important or delicate piece of news.

“I was saying to myself: 'What shall I do after dinner?' And I thought

of the long evening in this provincial town, of the slow, dreary walk

through unknown streets, of the impression of deadly gloom which these

provincial people produce on the lonely traveller, and of the whole

oppressive atmosphere of the place.

“I was thinking of all these things as I watched the little jets of gas

flare up, feeling my loneliness increase with the falling shadows.

“A big, fat man sat down at the next table and called in a stentorian

voice:

“'Waiter, my bitters!'

“The 'my' came out like the report of a cannon. I immediately understood

that everything was his in life, and not another's; that he had his

nature, by Jove, his appetite, his trousers, his everything, his, more

absolutely and more completely than anyone else's. Then he looked round

him with a satisfied air. His bitters were brought, and he ordered:

“'My newspaper!'

“I wondered: 'Which newspaper can his be?' The title would certainly

reveal to me his opinions, his theories, his principles, his hobbies,

his weaknesses.

“The waiter brought the Temps. I was surprised. Why the Temps, a

serious, sombre, doctrinaire, impartial sheet? I thought:

“'He must be a serious man with settled and regular habits; in short, a

good bourgeois.'

“He put on his gold-rimmed spectacles, leaned back before beginning to

read, and once more glanced about him. He noticed me, and immediately

began to stare at me in an annoying manner. I was even going to ask the

reason for this attention, when he exclaimed from his seat:

“'Well, by all that's holy, if this isn't Gontran Lardois.'

“I answered:

“'Yes, monsieur, you are not mistaken.'

“Then he quickly rose and came toward me with hands outstretched:

“'Well, old man, how are you?'

“As I did not recognize him at all I was greatly embarrassed. I

stammered:

“'Why-very well-and-you?'

“He began to laugh “'I bet you don't recognize me.'

“'No, not exactly. It seems—however—'

“He slapped me on the back:

“'Come on, no joking! I am Patience, Robert Patience, your friend, your

chum.'

“I recognized him. Yes, Robert Patience, my old college chum. It was he.

I took his outstretched hand:

“'And how are you?'

“'Fine!'

“His smile was like a paean of victory.

“He asked:

“'What are you doing here?'

“I explained that I was government inspector of taxes.

“He continued, pointing to my red ribbon:

“'Then you have-been a success?'

“I answered:

“'Fairly so. And you?'

“'I am doing well!'

“'What are you doing?'

“'I'm in business.'

“'Making money?'

“'Heaps. I'm very rich. But come around to lunch, to-morrow noon, 17 Rue

du Coq-qui-Chante; you will see my place.'

“He seemed to hesitate a second, then continued:

“'Are you still the good sport that you used to be?'

“'I—I hope so.'

“'Not married?'

“'No.'

“'Good. And do you still love a good time and potatoes?'

“I was beginning to find him hopelessly vulgar. Nevertheless, I answered

“'Yes.'

“'And pretty girls?'

“'Most assuredly.'

“He began to laugh good-humoredly.

“'Good, good! Do you remember our first escapade, in Bordeaux, after

that dinner at Routie's? What a spree!'

“I did, indeed, remember that spree; and the recollection of it cheered

me up. This called to mind other pranks. He would say:

“'Say, do you remember the time when we locked the proctor up in old man

Latoque's cellar?'

“And he laughed and banged the table with his fist, and then he

continued:

“'Yes-yes-yes-and do you remember the face of the geography teacher, M.

Marin, the day we set off a firecracker in the globe, just as he was

haranguing about the principal volcanoes of the earth?'

“Then suddenly I asked him:

“'And you, are you married?'

“He exclaimed:

“'Ten years, my boy, and I have four children, remarkable youngsters;

but you'll see them and their mother.'

“We were talking rather loud; the people around us looked at us in

surprise.

“Suddenly my friend looked at his watch, a chronometer the size of a

pumpkin, and he cried:

“'Thunder! I'm sorry, but I'll have to leave you; I am never free at

night.'

“He rose, took both my hands, shook them as though he were trying to

wrench my arms from their sockets, and exclaimed:

“'So long, then; till to-morrow noon!'

“'So long!'

“I spent the morning working in the office of the collector-general of

the Department. The chief wished me to stay to luncheon, but I told him

that I had an engagement with a friend. As he had to go out, he

accompanied me.

“I asked him:

“'Can you tell me how I can find the Rue du Coq-qui-Chante?'

“He answered:

“'Yes, it's only five minutes' walk from here. As I have nothing special

to do, I will take you there.'

“We started out and soon found ourselves there. It was a wide, fine-

looking street, on the outskirts of the town. I looked at the houses and

I noticed No. 17. It was a large house with a garden behind it. The

facade, decorated with frescoes, in the Italian style, appeared to me as

being in bad taste. There were goddesses holding vases, others swathed

in clouds. Two stone cupids supported the number of the house.

“I said to the treasurer:

“'Here is where I am going.'

“I held my hand out to him. He made a quick, strange gesture, said

nothing and shook my hand.

“I rang. A maid appeared. I asked:

“'Monsieur Patience, if you please?'

“She answered:

“'Right here, sir. Is it to monsieur that you wish to speak?'

“'Yes.'

“The hall was decorated with paintings from the brush of some local

artist. Pauls and Virginias were kissing each other under palm trees

bathed in a pink light. A hideous Oriental lantern was ranging from the

ceiling. Several doors were concealed by bright hangings.

“But what struck me especially was the odor. It was a sickening and

perfumed odor, reminding one of rice powder and the mouldy smell of a

cellar. An indefinable odor in a heavy atmosphere as oppressive as that

of public baths. I followed the maid up a marble stairway, covered with

a green, Oriental carpet, and was ushered into a sumptubus parlor.

“Left alone, I looked about me.

“The room was richly furnished, but in the pretentious taste of a

parvenu. Rather fine engravings of the last century represented women

with powdered hair dressed high surprised by gentlemen in interesting

positions. Another lady, lying in a large bed, was teasing with her foot

a little dog, lost in the sheets. One drawing showed four feet, bodies

concealed behind a curtain. The large room, surrounded by soft couches,

was entirely impregnated with that enervating and insipid odor which I

had already noticed. There seemed to be something suspicious about the

walls, the hangings, the exaggerated luxury, everything.

“I approached the window to look into the garden. It was very big,

shady, beautiful. A wide path wound round a grass plot in the midst of

which was a fountain, entered a shrubbery and came out farther away.

And, suddenly, yonder, in the distance, between two clumps of bushes,

three women appeared. They were walking slowly, arm in arm, clad in

long, white tea-gowns covered with lace. Two were blondes and the other

was dark-haired. Almost immediately they disappeared again behind the

trees. I stood there entranced, delighted with this short and charming

apparition, which brought to my mind a whole world of poetry. They had

scarcely allowed themselves to be seen, in just the proper light, in

that frame of foliage, in the midst of that mysterious, delightful park.

It seemed to me that I had suddenly seen before me the great ladies of

the last century, who were depicted in the engravings on the wall. And I

began to think of the happy, joyous, witty and amorous times when

manners were so graceful and lips so approachable.

“A deep voice made me jump. Patience had come in, beaming, and held out

his hands to me.

“He looked into my eyes with the sly look which one takes when divulging

secrets of love, and, with a Napoleonic gesture, he showed me his

sumptuous parlor, his park, the three women, who had reappeared in the

back of it, then, in a triumphant voice, where the note of pride was

prominent, he said:

“'And to think that I began with nothing—my wife and my sister-in-law!'”

ABANDONED

“I really think you must be mad, my dear, to go for a country walk in

such weather as this. You have had some very strange notions for the

last two months. You drag me to the seaside in spite of myself, when you

have never once had such a whim during all the forty-four years that we

have been married. You chose Fecamp, which is a very dull town, without

consulting me in the matter, and now you are seized with such a rage for

walking, you who hardly ever stir out on foot, that you want to take a

country walk on the hottest day of the year. Ask d'Apreval to go with

you, as he is ready to gratify all your whims. As for me, I am going

back to have a nap.”

Madame de Cadour turned to her old friend and said:

“Will you come with me, Monsieur d'Apreval?”

He bowed with a smile, and with all the gallantry of former years:

“I will go wherever you go,” he replied.

“Very well, then, go and get a sunstroke,” Monsieur de Cadour said; and

he went back to the Hotel des Bains to lie down for an hour or two.

As soon as they were alone, the old lady and her old companion set off,

and she said to him in a low voice, squeezing his hand:

“At last! at last!”

“You are mad,” he said in a whisper. “I assure you that you are mad.

Think of the risk you are running. If that man—”

She started.

“Oh! Henri, do not say that man, when you are speaking of him.”

“Very well,” he said abruptly, “if our son guesses anything, if he has

any suspicions, he will have you, he will have us both in his power. You

have got on without seeing him for the last forty years. What is the

matter with you to-day?”

They had been going up the long street that leads from the sea to the

town, and now they turned to the right, to go to Etretat. The white road

stretched in front of him, then under a blaze of brilliant sunshine, so

they went on slowly in the burning heat. She had taken her old friend's

arm, and was looking straight in front of her, with a fixed and haunted

gaze, and at last she said:

“And so you have not seen him again, either?”

“No, never.”

“Is it possible?”

“My dear friend, do not let us begin that discussion again. I have a

wife and children and you have a husband, so we both of us have much to

fear from other people's opinion.”

She did not reply; she was thinking of her long past youth and of many

sad things that had occurred. How well she recalled all the details of

their early friendship, his smiles, the way he used to linger, in order

to watch her until she was indoors. What happy days they were, the only

really delicious days she had ever enjoyed, and how quickly they were

over!

And then—her discovery—of the penalty she paid! What anguish!

Of that journey to the South, that long journey, her sufferings, her

constant terror, that secluded life in the small, solitary house on the

shores of the Mediterranean, at the bottom of a garden, which she did

not venture to leave. How well she remembered those long days which she

spent lying under an orange tree, looking up at the round, red fruit,

amid the green leaves. How she used to long to go out, as far as the

sea, whose fresh breezes came to her over the wall, and whose small

waves she could hear lapping on the beach. She dreamed of its immense

blue expanse sparkling under the sun, with the white sails of the small

vessels, and a mountain on the horizon. But she did not dare to go

outside the gate. Suppose anybody had recognized her!

And those days of waiting, those last days of misery and expectation!

The impending suffering, and then that terrible night! What misery she

had endured, and what a night it was! How she had groaned and screamed!

She could still see the pale face of her lover, who kissed her hand

every moment, and the clean-shaven face of the doctor and the nurse's

white cap.

And what she felt when she heard the child's feeble cries, that wail,

that first effort of a human's voice!

And the next day! the next day! the only day of her life on which she

had seen and kissed her son; for, from that time, she had never even

caught a glimpse of him.

And what a long, void existence hers had been since then, with the

thought of that child always, always floating before her. She had never

seen her son, that little creature that had been part of herself, even

once since then; they had taken him from her, carried him away, and had

hidden him. All she knew was that he had been brought up by some

peasants in Normandy, that he had become a peasant himself, had married

well, and that his father, whose name he did not know, had settled a

handsome sum of money on him.

How often during the last forty years had she wished to go and see him

and to embrace him! She could not imagine to herself that he had grown!

She always thought of that small human atom which she had held in her

arms and pressed to her bosom for a day.

How often she had said to M. d'Apreval: “I cannot bear it any longer; I

must go and see him.”

But he had always stopped her and kept her from going. She would be

unable to restrain and to master herself; their son would guess it and

take advantage of her, blackmail her; she would be lost.

“What is he like?” she said.

“I do not know. I have not seen him again, either.”

“Is it possible? To have a son and not to know him; to be afraid of him

and to reject him as if he were a disgrace! It is horrible.”

They went along the dusty road, overcome by the scorching sun, and

continually ascending that interminable hill.

“One might take it for a punishment,” she continued; “I have never had

another child, and I could no longer resist the longing to see him,

which has possessed me for forty years. You men cannot understand that.

You must remember that I shall not live much longer, and suppose I

should never see him, never have seen him! . . . Is it possible? How

could I wait so long? I have thought about him every day since, and what

a terrible existence mine has been! I have never awakened, never, do you

understand, without my first thoughts being of him, of my child. How is

he? Oh, how guilty I feel toward him! Ought one to fear what the world

may say in a case like this? I ought to have left everything to go after

him, to bring him up and to show my love for him. I should certainly

have been much happier, but I did not dare, I was a coward. How I have

suffered! Oh, how those poor, abandoned children must hate their

mothers!”

She stopped suddenly, for she was choked by her sobs. The whole valley

was deserted and silent in the dazzling light and the overwhelming heat,

and only the grasshoppers uttered their shrill, continuous chirp among

the sparse yellow grass on both sides of the road.

“Sit down a little,” he said.

She allowed herself to be led to the side of the ditch and sank down

with her face in her hands. Her white hair, which hung in curls on both

sides of her face, had become tangled. She wept, overcome by profound

grief, while he stood facing her, uneasy and not knowing what to say,

and he merely murmured: “Come, take courage.”

She got up.

“I will,” she said, and wiping her eyes, she began to walk again with

the uncertain step of an elderly woman.

A little farther on the road passed beneath a clump of trees, which hid

a few houses, and they could distinguish the vibrating and regular blows

of a blacksmith's hammer on the anvil; and presently they saw a wagon

standing on the right side of the road in front of a low cottage, and

two men shoeing a horse under a shed.

Monsieur d'Apreval went up to them.

“Where is Pierre Benedict's farm?” he asked.

“Take the road to the left, close to the inn, and then go straight on;

it is the third house past Poret's. There is a small spruce fir close to

the gate; you cannot make a mistake.”

They turned to the left. She was walking very slowly now, her legs

threatened to give way, and her heart was beating so violently that she

felt as if she should suffocate, while at every step she murmured, as if

in prayer:

“Oh! Heaven! Heaven!”

Monsieur d'Apreval, who was also nervous and rather pale, said to her

somewhat gruffly:

“If you cannot manage to control your feelings, you will betray yourself

at once. Do try and restrain yourself.”

“How can I?” she replied. “My child! When I think that I am going to see

my child.”

They were going along one of those narrow country lanes between

farmyards, that are concealed beneath a double row of beech trees at

either side of the ditches, and suddenly they found themselves in front

of a gate, beside which there was a young spruce fir.

“This is it,” he said.

She stopped suddenly and looked about her. The courtyard, which was

planted with apple trees, was large and extended as far as the small

thatched dwelling house. On the opposite side were the stable, the barn,

the cow house and the poultry house, while the gig, the wagon and the

manure cart were under a slated outhouse. Four calves were grazing under

the shade of the trees and black hens were wandering all about the

enclosure.

All was perfectly still; the house door was open, but nobody was to be

seen, and so they went in, when immediately a large black dog came out

of a barrel that was standing under a pear tree, and began to bark

furiously.

There were four bee-hives on boards against the wall of the house.

Monsieur d'Apreval stood outside and called out:

“Is anybody at home?”

Then a child appeared, a little girl of about ten, dressed in a chemise

and a linen, petticoat, with dirty, bare legs and a timid and cunning

look. She remained standing in the doorway, as if to prevent any one

going in.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Is your father in?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“I don't know.”

“And your mother?”

“Gone after the cows.”

“Will she be back soon?”

“I don't know.”

Then suddenly the lady, as if she feared that her companion might force

her to return, said quickly:

“I shall not go without having seen him.”

“We will wait for him, my dear friend.”

As they turned away, they saw a peasant woman coming toward the house,

carrying two tin pails, which appeared to be heavy and which glistened

brightly in the sunlight.

She limped with her right leg, and in her brown knitted jacket, that was

faded by the sun and washed out by the rain, she looked like a poor,

wretched, dirty servant.

“Here is mamma,” the child said.

When she got close to the house, she looked at the strangers angrily and

suspiciously, and then she went in, as if she had not seen them. She

looked old and had a hard, yellow, wrinkled face, one of those wooden

faces that country people so often have.

Monsieur d'Apreval called her back.

“I beg your pardon, madame, but we came in to know whether you could

sell us two glasses of milk.”

She was grumbling when she reappeared in the door, after putting down

her pails.

“I don't sell milk,” she replied.

“We are very thirsty,” he said, “and madame is very tired. Can we not

get something to drink?”

The peasant woman gave them an uneasy and cunning glance and then she

made up her mind.

“As you are here, I will give you some,” she said, going into the house,

and almost immediately the child came out and brought two chairs, which

she placed under an apple tree, and then the mother, in turn, brought

out two bowls of foaming milk, which she gave to the visitors. She did

not return to the house, however, but remained standing near them, as if

to watch them and to find out for what purpose they had come there.

“You have come from Fecamp?” she said.

“Yes,” Monsieur d'Apreval replied, “we are staying at Fecamp for the

summer.”

And then, after a short silence, he continued:

“Have you any fowls you could sell us every week?”

The woman hesitated for a moment and then replied:

“Yes, I think I have. I suppose you want young ones?”

“Yes, of course.”

“'What do you pay for them in the market?”

D'Apreval, who had not the least idea, turned to his companion:

“What are you paying for poultry in Fecamp, my dear lady?”

“Four francs and four francs fifty centimes,” she said, her eyes full of

tears, while the farmer's wife, who was looking at her askance, asked in

much surprise:

“Is the lady ill, as she is crying?”

He did not know what to say, and replied with some hesitation:

“No—no—but she lost her watch as we came along, a very handsome watch,

and that troubles her. If anybody should find it, please let us know.”

Mother Benedict did not reply, as she thought it a very equivocal sort

of answer, but suddenly she exclaimed:

“Oh, here is my husband!”

She was the only one who had seen him, as she was facing the gate.

D'Apreval started and Madame de Cadour nearly fell as she turned round

suddenly on her chair.

A man bent nearly double, and out of breath, stood there, ten-yards from

them, dragging a cow at the end of a rope. Without taking any notice of

the visitors, he said:

“Confound it! What a brute!”

And he went past them and disappeared in the cow house.

Her tears had dried quickly as she sat there startled, without a word

and with the one thought in her mind, that this was her son, and

D'Apreval, whom the same thought had struck very unpleasantly, said in

an agitated voice:

“Is this Monsieur Benedict?”

“Who told you his name?” the wife asked, still rather suspiciously.

“The blacksmith at the corner of the highroad,” he replied, and then

they were all silent, with their eyes fixed on the door of the cow

house, which formed a sort of black hole in the wall of the building.

Nothing could be seen inside, but they heard a vague noise, movements

and footsteps and the sound of hoofs, which were deadened by the straw

on the floor, and soon the man reappeared in the door, wiping his

forehead, and came toward the house with long, slow strides. He passed

the strangers without seeming to notice them and said to his wife:

“Go and draw me a jug of cider; I am very thirsty.”

Then he went back into the house, while his wife went into the cellar

and left the two Parisians alone.

“Let us go, let us go, Henri,” Madame de Cadour said, nearly distracted

with grief, and so d'Apreval took her by the arm, helped her to rise,

and sustaining her with all his strength, for he felt that she was

nearly fainting, he led her out, after throwing five francs on one of

the chairs.

As soon as they were outside the gate, she began to sob and said,

shaking with grief:

“Oh! oh! is that what you have made of him?”

He was very pale and replied coldly:

“I did what I could. His farm is worth eighty thousand francs, and that

is more than most of the sons of the middle classes have.”

They returned slowly, without speaking a word. She was still crying; the

tears ran down her cheeks continually for a time, but by degrees they

stopped, and they went back to Fecamp, where they found Monsieur de

Cadour waiting dinner for them. As soon as he saw them, he began to

laugh and exclaimed:

“So my wife has had a sunstroke, and I am very glad of it. I really

think she has lost her head for some time past!”

Neither of them replied, and when the husband asked them, rubbing his

hands:

“Well, I hope that, at least, you have had a pleasant walk?”

Monsieur d'Apreval replied:

“A delightful walk, I assure you; perfectly delightful.”

THE MAISON TELLIER

They went there every evening about eleven o'clock, just as they would

go to the club. Six or eight of them; always the same set, not fast men,

but respectable tradesmen, and young men in government or some other

employ, and they would drink their Chartreuse, and laugh with the girls,

or else talk seriously with Madame Tellier, whom everybody respected,

and then they would go home at twelve o'clock! The younger men would

sometimes stay later.

It was a small, comfortable house painted yellow, at the corner of a

street behind Saint Etienne's Church, and from the windows one could see

the docks full of ships being unloaded, the big salt marsh, and, rising

beyond it, the Virgin's Hill with its old gray chapel.

Madame Tellier, who came of a respectable family of peasant proprietors

in the Department of the Eure, had taken up her profession, just as she

would have become a milliner or dressmaker. The prejudice which is so

violent and deeply rooted in large towns, does not exist in the country

places in Normandy. The peasant says:

“It is a paying-business,” and he sends his daughter to keep an

establishment of this character just as he would send her to keep a

girls' school.

She had inherited the house from an old uncle, to whom it had belonged.

Monsieur and Madame Tellier, who had formerly been innkeepers near

Yvetot, had immediately sold their house, as they thought that the

business at Fecamp was more profitable, and they arrived one fine

morning to assume the direction of the enterprise, which was declining

on account of the absence of the proprietors. They were good people

enough in their way, and soon made themselves liked by their staff and

their neighbors.

Monsieur died of apoplexy two years later, for as the new place kept him

in idleness and without any exercise, he had grown excessively stout,

and his health had suffered. Since she had been a widow, all the

frequenters of the establishment made much of her; but people said that,

personally, she was quite virtuous, and even the girls in the house

could not discover anything against her. She was tall, stout and

affable, and her complexion, which had become pale in the dimness of her

house, the shutters of which were scarcely ever opened, shone as if it

had been varnished. She had a fringe of curly false hair, which gave her

a juvenile look, that contrasted strongly with the ripeness of her

figure. She was always smiling and cheerful, and was fond of a joke, but

there was a shade of reserve about her, which her occupation had not

quite made her lose. Coarse words always shocked her, and when any young

fellow who had been badly brought up called her establishment a hard

name, she was angry and disgusted.

In a word, she had a refined mind, and although she treated her women as

friends, yet she very frequently used to say that “she and they were not

made of the same stuff.”

Sometimes during the week she would hire a carriage and take some of her

girls into the country, where they used to enjoy themselves on the grass

by the side of the little river. They were like a lot of girls let out

from school, and would run races and play childish games. They had a

cold dinner on the grass, and drank cider, and went home at night with a

delicious feeling of fatigue, and in the carriage they kissed Madame'

Tellier as their kind mother, who was full of goodness and complaisance.

The house had two entrances. At the corner there was a sort of tap-room,

which sailors and the lower orders frequented at night, and she had two

girls whose special duty it was to wait on them with the assistance of

Frederic, a short, light-haired, beardless fellow, as strong as a horse.

They set the half bottles of wine and the jugs of beer on the shaky

marble tables before the customers, and then urged the men to drink.

The three other girls—there were only five of them—formed a kind of

aristocracy, and they remained with the company on the first floor,

unless they were wanted downstairs and there was nobody on the first

floor. The salon de Jupiter, where the tradesmen used to meet, was

papered in blue, and embellished with a large drawing representing Leda

and the swan. The room was reached by a winding staircase, through a

narrow door opening on the street, and above this door a lantern

inclosed in wire, such as one still sees in some towns, at the foot of

the shrine of some saint, burned all night long.

The house, which was old and damp, smelled slightly of mildew. At times

there was an odor of eau de Cologne in the passages, or sometimes from a

half-open door downstairs the noisy mirth of the common men sitting and

drinking rose to the first floor, much to the disgust of the gentlemen

who were there. Madame Tellier, who was on friendly terms with her

customers, did not leave the room, and took much interest in what was

going on in the town, and they regularly told her all the news. Her

serious conversation was a change from the ceaseless chatter of the

three women; it was a rest from the obscene jokes of those stout

individuals who every evening indulged in the commonplace debauchery of

drinking a glass of liqueur in company with common women.

The names of the girls on the first floor were Fernande, Raphaele, and

Rosa, the Jade. As the staff was limited, madame had endeavored that

each member of it should be a pattern, an epitome of the feminine type,

so that every customer might find as nearly as possible the realization

of his ideal. Fernande represented the handsome blonde; she was very

tall, rather fat, and lazy; a country girl, who could not get rid of her

freckles, and whose short, light, almost colorless, tow-like hair, like

combed-out hemp, barely covered her head.

Raphaele, who came from Marseilles, played the indispensable part of the

handsome Jewess, and was thin, with high cheekbones, which were covered

with rouge, and black hair covered with pomatum, which curled on her

forehead. Her eyes would have been handsome, if the right one had not

had a speck in it. Her Roman nose came down over a square jaw, where two

false upper teeth contrasted strangely with the bad color of the rest.

Rosa was a little roll of fat, nearly all body, with very short legs,

and from morning till night she sang songs, which were alternately

risque or sentimental, in a harsh voice; told silly, interminable tales,

and only stopped talking in order to eat, and left off eating in order

to talk; she was never still, and was active as a squirrel, in spite of

her embonpoint and her short legs; her laugh, which was a torrent of

shrill cries, resounded here and there, ceaselessly, in a bedroom, in

the loft, in the cafe, everywhere, and all about nothing.

The two women on the ground floor, Lodise, who was nicknamed La Cocotte,

and Flora, whom they called Balancoise, because she limped a little, the

former always dressed as the Goddess of Liberty, with a tri-colored

sash, and the other as a Spanish woman, with a string of copper coins in

her carroty hair, which jingled at every uneven step, looked like cooks

dressed up for the carnival. They were like all other women of the lower

orders, neither uglier nor better looking than they usually are.

They looked just like servants at an inn, and were generally called “the

two pumps.”

A jealous peace, which was, however, very rarely disturbed, reigned

among these five women, thanks to Madame Tellier's conciliatory wisdom,

and to her constant good humor, and the establishment, which was the

only one of the kind in the little town, was very much frequented.

Madame Tellier had succeeded in giving it such a respectable appearance,

she was so amiable and obliging to everybody, her good heart was so well

known, that she was treated with a certain amount of consideration. The

regular customers spent money on her, and were delighted when she was

especially friendly toward them, and when they met during the day, they

would say: “Until this evening, you know where,” just as men say: “At

the club, after dinner.” In a word, Madame Tellier's house was somewhere

to go to, and they very rarely missed their daily meetings there.

One evening toward the end of May, the first arrival, Monsieur Poulin,

who was a timber merchant, and had been mayor, found the door shut. The

lantern behind the grating was not alight; there was not a sound in the

house; everything seemed dead. He knocked, gently at first, but then

more loudly, but nobody answered the door. Then he went slowly up the

street, and when he got to the market place he met Monsieur Duvert, the

gunmaker, who was going to the same place, so they went back together,

but did not meet with any better success. But suddenly they heard a loud

noise, close to them, and on going round the house, they saw a number of

English and French sailors, who were hammering at the closed shutters of

the taproom with their fists.

The two tradesmen immediately made their escape, but a low “Pst!”

stopped them; it was Monsieur Tournevau, the fish curer, who had

recognized them, and was trying to attract their attention. They told

him what had happened, and he was all the more annoyed, as he was a

married man and father of a family, and only went on Saturdays. That was

his regular evening, and now he should be deprived of this dissipation

for the whole week.

The three men went as far as the quay together, and on the way they met

young Monsieur Philippe, the banker's son, who frequented the place

regularly, and Monsieur Pinipesse, the collector, and they all returned

to the Rue aux Juifs together, to make a last attempt. But the

exasperated sailors were besieging the house, throwing stones at the

shutters, and shouting, and the five first-floor customers went away as

quickly as possible, and walked aimlessly about the streets.

Presently they met Monsieur Dupuis, the insurance agent, and then

Monsieur Vasse, the Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, and they took a

long walk, going to the pier first of all, where they sat down in a row

on the granite parapet and watched the rising tide, and when the

promenaders had sat there for some time, Monsieur Tournevau said:

“This is not very amusing!”

“Decidedly not,” Monsieur Pinipesse replied, and they started off to

walk again.

After going through the street alongside the hill, they returned over

the wooden bridge which crosses the Retenue, passed close to the

railway, and came out again on the market place, when, suddenly, a

quarrel arose between Monsieur Pinipesse, the collector, and Monsieur

Tournevau about an edible mushroom which one of them declared he had

found in the neighborhood.

As they were out of temper already from having nothing to do, they would

very probably have come to blows, if the others had not interfered.

Monsieur Pinipesse went off furious, and soon another altercation arose

between the ex-mayor, Monsieur Poulin, and Monsieur Dupuis, the

insurance agent, on the subject of the tax collector's salary and the

profits which he might make. Insulting remarks were freely passing

between them, when a torrent of formidable cries was heard, and the body

of sailors, who were tired of waiting so long outside a closed house,

came into the square. They were walking arm in arm, two and two, and

formed a long procession, and were shouting furiously. The townsmen hid

themselves in a doorway, and the yelling crew disappeared in the

direction of the abbey. For a long time they still heard the noise,

which diminished like a storm in the distance, and then silence was

restored. Monsieur Poulin and Monsieur Dupuis, who were angry with each

other, went in different directions, without wishing each other good-by.

The other four set off again, and instinctively went in the direction of

Madame Tellier's establishment, which was still closed, silent,

impenetrable. A quiet, but obstinate drunken man was knocking at the

door of the lower room, antd then stopped and called Frederic, in a low

voice, but finding that he got no answer, he sat down on the doorstep,

and waited the course of events.

The others were just going to retire, when the noisy band of sailors

reappeared at the end of the street. The French sailors were shouting

the “Marseillaise,” and the Englishmen “Rule Britannia.” There was a

general lurching against the wall, and then the drunken fellows went on

their way toward the quay, where a fight broke out between the two

nations, in the course of which an Englishman had his arm broken and a

Frenchman his nose split.

The drunken man who had waited outside the door, was crying by that

time, as drunken men and children cry when they are vexed, and the

others went away. By degrees, calm was restored in the noisy town; here

and there, at moments, the distant sound of voices could be heard, and

then died away in the distance.