“Just then Monsieur Bru, the grocer of Poissy, who is fond of gudgeon

fishing, passed in a boat and called out to me: 'So somebody has taken

your usual place, Monsieur Renard?' And I replied: 'Yes, Monsieur Bru,

there are some people in this world who do not know the rules of common

politeness.'

“The little man in linen pretended not to hear, nor his fat lump of a

wife, either.”

Here the president interrupted him a second time: “Take care, you are

insulting the widow, Madame Flameche, who is present.”

Renard made his excuses: “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon; my anger

carried me away. Well, not a quarter of an hour had passed when the

little man caught another chub, and another almost immediately, and

another five minutes later.

“Tears were in my eyes, and I knew that Madame Renard was boiling with

rage, for she kept on nagging at me: 'Oh, how horrid! Don't you see that

he is robbing you of your fish? Do you think that you will catch

anything? Not even a frog, nothing whatever. Why, my hands are tingling,

just to think of it.'

“But I said to myself: 'Let us wait until twelve o'clock. Then this

poacher will go to lunch and I shall get my place again. As for me,

Monsieur le President, I lunch on that spot every Sunday. We bring our

provisions in Delila. But there! At noon the wretch produced a chicken

in a newspaper, and while he was eating, he actually caught another

chub!

“Melie and I had a morsel also, just a bite, a mere nothing, for our

heart was not in it.

“Then I took up my newspaper to aid my digestion. Every Sunday I read

the Gil Blas in the shade by the side of the water. It is Columbine's

day, you know; Columbine, who writes the articles in the Gil Blas. I

generally put Madame Renard into a rage by pretending to know this

Columbine. It is not true, for I do not know her and have never seen

her, but that does not matter. She writes very well, and then she says

things that are pretty plain for a woman. She suits me and there are not

many of her sort.

“Well, I began to tease my wife, but she got angry immediately, and very

angry, so I held my tongue. At that moment our two witnesses who are

present here, Monsieur Ladureau and Monsieur Durdent, appeared on the

other side of the river. We knew each other by sight. The little man

began to fish again and he caught so many that I trembled with vexation

and his wife said: 'It is an uncommonly good spot, and we will come here

always, Desire.' As for me, a cold shiver ran down my back, and Madame

Renard kept repeating: 'You are not a man; you have the blood of a

chicken in your veins'; and suddenly I said to her: 'Look here, I would

rather go away or I shall be doing something foolish.'

“And she whispered to me, as if she had put a red-hot iron under my

nose: 'You are not a man. Now you are going to run away and surrender

your place! Go, then, Bazaine!'

“I felt hurt, but yet I did not move, while the other fellow pulled out

a bream: Oh, I never saw such a large one before, never! And then my

wife began to talk aloud, as if she were thinking, and you can see her

tricks. She said: 'That is what one might call stolen fish, seeing that

we set the bait ourselves. At any rate, they ought to give us back the

money we have spent on bait.'

“Then the fat woman in the cotton dress said in her turn: 'Do you mean

to call us thieves, madame?' Explanations followed and compliments began

to fly. Oh, Lord! those creatures know some good ones. They shouted so

loud that our two witnesses, who were on the other bank, began to call

out by way of a joke: 'Less noise over there; you will interfere with

your husbands' fishing.'

“The fact is that neither the little man nor I moved any more than if we

had been two tree stumps. We remained there, with our eyes fixed on the

water, as if we had heard nothing; but, by Jove! we heard all the same.

'You are a thief! You are nothing better than a tramp! You are a regular

jade!' and so on and so on. A sailor could not have said more.

“Suddenly I heard a noise behind me and turned round. It was the other

one, the fat woman, who had attacked my wife with her parasol. Whack,

whack! Melie got two of them. But she was furious, and she hits hard

when she is in a rage. She caught the fat woman by the hair and then

thump! thump! slaps in the face rained down like ripe plums. I should

have let them fight it out: women together, men together. It does not do

to mix the blows. But the little man in the linen jacket jumped up like

a devil and was going to rush at my wife. Ah! no, no, not that, my

friend! I caught the gentleman with the end of my fist, and crash!

crash! One on the nose, the other in the stomach. He threw up his arms

and legs and fell on his back into the river, just into the hole.

“I should have fished him out most certainly, Monsieur le President, if

I had had time. But, to make matters worse, the fat woman had the upper

hand and was pounding Melie for all she was worth. I know I ought not to

have interfered while the man was in the water, but I never thought that

he would drown and said to myself: 'Bah, it will cool him.'

“I therefore ran up to the women to separate them and all I received was

scratches and bites. Good Lord, what creatures! Well, it took me five

minutes, and perhaps ten, to separate those two viragos. When I turned

round there was nothing to be seen.

“The water was as smooth as a lake and the others yonder kept shouting:

'Fish him out! fish him out!' It was all very well to say that, but I

cannot swim and still less dive.

“At last the man from the dam came and two gentlemen with boathooks, but

over a quarter of an hour had passed. He was found at the bottom of the

hole, in eight feet of water, as I have said. There he was, the poor

little man, in his linen suit! Those are the facts such as I have sworn

to. I am innocent, on my honor.”

The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused was

acquitted.

THE SPASM

The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.

The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers a

chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second

time. The old bathers, the habitues, whose season was almost over,

glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new faces

might appear.

This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look

forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new arrivals,

to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think. We always

have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make agreeable

acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In this life of

elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme importance. Curiosity is

aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself, and sociability is the

order of the day.

We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see

people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of

acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly, after

an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in the park

where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and astonishing

merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten these new

friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.

Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere

else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very

quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and

unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the

dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the memory

of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of those

first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and secret

thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of that

first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation of

opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in return.

And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are all

alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.

Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the appearance

of strange faces.

Only two appeared, but they were very remarkable, a man and a woman

—father and daughter. They immediately reminded me of some of Edgar

Poe's characters; and yet there was about them a charm, the charm

associated with misfortune. I looked upon them as the victims of fate.

The man was very tall and thin, rather stooped, with perfectly white

hair, too white for his comparatively youthful physiognomy; and there

was in his bearing and in his person that austerity peculiar to

Protestants. The daughter, who was probably twenty-four or twenty-five,

was small in stature, and was also very thin, very pale, and she had the

air of one who was worn out with utter lassitude. We meet people like

this from time to time, who seem too weak for the tasks and the needs of

daily life, too weak to move about, to walk, to do all that we do every

day. She was rather pretty; with a transparent, spiritual beauty. And

she ate with extreme slowness, as if she were almost incapable of moving

her arms.

It must have been she, assuredly, who had come to take the waters.

They sat facing me, on the opposite side of the table; and I at once

noticed that the father had a very singular, nervous twitching.

Every time he wanted to reach an object, his hand described a sort of

zigzag before it succeeded in reaching what it was in search of, and

after a little while this movement annoyed me so that I turned aside my

head in order not to see it.

I noticed, too, that the young girl, during meals, wore a glove on her

left hand.

After dinner I went for a stroll in the park of the bathing

establishment. This led toward the little Auvergnese station of Chatel-

Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high mountain, from which

flowed so many boiling springs, arising from the deep bed of extinct

volcanoes. Over yonder, above our heads, the domes of extinct craters

lifted their ragged peaks above the rest in the long mountain chain. For

Chatel-Guyon is situated at the entrance to the land of mountain domes.

Beyond it stretches out the region of peaks, and, farther on again the

region of precipitous summits.

The “Puy de Dome” is the highest of the domes, the Peak of Sancy is the

loftiest of the peaks, and Cantal is the most precipitous of these

mountain heights.

It was a very warm evening, and I was walking up and down a shady path,

listening to the opening, strains of the Casino band, which was playing

on an elevation overlooking the park.

And I saw the father and the daughter advancing slowly in my direction.

I bowed as one bows to one's hotel companions at a watering place; and

the man, coming to a sudden halt, said to me:

“Could you not, monsieur, tell us of a nice walk to take, short, pretty,

and not steep; and pardon my troubling you?”

I offered to show them the way toward the valley through which the

little river flowed, a deep valley forming a gorge between two tall,

craggy, wooded slopes.

They gladly accepted my offer.

And we talked, naturally, about the virtue of the waters.

“Oh,” he said, “my daughter has a strange malady, the seat of which is

unknown. She suffers from incomprehensible nervous attacks. At one time

the doctors think she has an attack of heart disease, at another time

they imagine it is some affection of the liver, and at another they

declare it to be a disease of the spine. To-day this protean malady,

that assumes a thousand forms and a thousand modes of attack, is

attributed to the stomach, which is the great caldron and regulator of

the body. This is why we have come here. For my part, I am rather

inclined to think it is the nerves. In any case it is very sad.”

Immediately the remembrance of the violent spasmodic movement of his

hand came back to my mind, and I asked him:

“But is this not the result of heredity? Are not your own nerves

somewhat affected?”

He replied calmly:

“Mine? Oh, no-my nerves have always been very steady.”

Then, suddenly, after a pause, he went on:

“Ah! You were alluding to the jerking movement of my hand every time I

try to reach for anything? This arises from a terrible experience which

I had. Just imagine, this daughter of mine was actually buried alive!”

I could only utter, “Ah!” so great were my astonishment and emotion.

He continued:

“Here is the story. It is simple. Juliette had been subject for some

time to serious attacks of the heart. We believed that she had disease

of that organ, and were prepared for the worst.

“One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had

fallen down unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life

was extinct. I watched by her side for a day and two nights. I laid her

with my own hands in the coffin, which I accompanied to the cemetery,

where she was deposited in the family vault. It is situated in the very

heart of Lorraine.

“I wished to have her interred with her jewels, bracelets, necklaces,

rings, all presents which she had received from me, and wearing her

first ball dress.

“You may easily imagine my state of mind when I re-entered our home. She

was the only one I had, for my wife had been dead for many years. I

found my way to my own apartment in a half-distracted condition, utterly

exhausted, and sank into my easy-chair, without the capacity to think or

the strength to move. I was nothing better now than a suffering,

vibrating machine, a human being who had, as it were, been flayed alive;

my soul was like an open wound.

“My old valet, Prosper, who had assisted me in placing Juliette in her

coffin, and aided me in preparing her for her last sleep, entered the

room noiselessly, and asked:

“'Does monsieur want anything?'

“I merely shook my head in reply.

“'Monsieur is wrong,' he urged. 'He will injure his health. Would

monsieur like me to put him to bed?'

“I answered: 'No, let me alone!'

“And he left the room.

“I know not how many hours slipped away. Oh, what a night, what a night!

It was cold. My fire had died out in the huge grate; and the wind, the

winter wind, an icy wind, a winter hurricane, blew with a regular,

sinister noise against the windows.

“How many hours slipped away? There I was without sleeping, powerless,

crushed, my eyes wide open, my legs stretched out, my body limp,

inanimate, and my mind torpid with despair. Suddenly the great doorbell,

the great bell of the vestibule, rang out.

“I started so that my chair cracked under me. The solemn, ponderous

sound vibrated through the empty country house as through a vault. I

turned round to see what the hour was by the clock. It was just two in

the morning. Who could be coming at such an hour?

“And, abruptly, the bell again rang twice. The servants, without doubt,

were afraid to get up. I took a wax candle and descended the stairs. I

was on the point of asking: 'Who is there?'

“Then I felt ashamed of my weakness, and I slowly drew back the heavy

bolts. My heart was throbbing wildly. I was frightened. I opened the

door brusquely, and in the darkness I distinguished a white figure,

standing erect, something that resembled an apparition.

“I recoiled petrified with horror, faltering:

“'Who-who-who are you?'

“A voice replied:

“'It is I, father.'

“It was my daughter.

“I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before this

advancing spectre. I kept moving away, making a sign with my hand,' as

if to drive the phantom away, that gesture which you have noticed—that

gesture which has remained with me ever since.

“'Do not be afraid, papa,' said the apparition. 'I was not dead.

Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut one of my fingers; the blood

began to flow, and that restored me to life.'

“And, in fact, I could see that her hand was covered with blood.

“I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and with a rattling in my throat.

“Then, when I had somewhat collected my thoughts, though I was still so

bewildered that I scarcely realized the awesome happiness that had

befallen me, I made her go up to my room and sit dawn in my easy-chair;

then I rang excitedly for Prosper to get him to rekindle the fire and to

bring some wine, and to summon assistance.

“The man entered, stared at my daughter, opened his mouth with a gasp of

alarm and stupefaction, and then fell back dead.

“It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then

abandoned my daughter; for he could not efface the traces of the theft.

He had not even taken the trouble to put back the coffin into its place,

feeling sure, besides, that he would not be suspected by me, as I

trusted him absolutely.

“You see, monsieur, that we are very unfortunate people.”

He was silent.

The night had fallen, casting its shadows over the desolate, mournful

vale, and a sort of mysterious fear possessed me at finding myself by

the side of those strange beings, of this young girl who had come back

from the tomb, and this father with his uncanny spasm.

I found it impossible to make any comment on this dreadful story. I only

murmured:

“What a horrible thing!”

Then, after a minute's silence, I added:

“Let us go indoors. I think it is growing cool.”

And we made our way back to the hotel.

IN THE WOOD

As the mayor was about to sit down to breakfast, word was brought to him

that the rural policeman, with two prisoners, was awaiting him at the

Hotel de Ville. He went there at once and found old Hochedur standing

guard before a middle-class couple whom he was regarding with a severe

expression on his face.

The man, a fat old fellow with a red nose and white hair, seemed utterly

dejected; while the woman, a little roundabout individual with shining

cheeks, looked at the official who had arrested them, with defiant eyes.

“What is it? What is it, Hochedur?”

The rural policeman made his deposition: He had gone out that morning at

his usual time, in order to patrol his beat from the forest of Champioux

as far as the boundaries of Argenteuil. He had not noticed anything

unusual in the country except that it was a fine day, and that the wheat

was doing well, when the son of old Bredel, who was going over his

vines, called out to him: “Here, Daddy Hochedur, go and have a look at

the outskirts of the wood. In the first thicket you will find a pair of

pigeons who must be a hundred and thirty years old between them!”

He went in the direction indicated, entered the thicket, and there he

heard words which made him suspect a flagrant breach of morality.

Advancing, therefore, on his hands and knees as if to surprise a

poacher, he had arrested the couple whom he found there.

The mayor looked at the culprits in astonishment, for the man was

certainly sixty, and the woman fifty-five at least, and he began to

question them, beginning with the man, who replied in such a weak voice

that he could scarcely be heard.

“What is your name?”

“Nicholas Beaurain.”

“Your occupation?”

“Haberdasher, in the Rue des Martyrs, in Paris.”

“What were you doing in the wood?”

The haberdasher remained silent, with his eyes on his fat paunch, and

his hands hanging at his sides, and the mayor continued:

“Do you deny what the officer of the municipal authorities states?”

“No, monsieur.”

“So you confess it?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“What have you to say in your defence?”

“Nothing, monsieur.”

“Where did you meet the partner in your misdemeanor?”

“She is my wife, monsieur.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“Then—then—you do not live together-in Paris?”

“I beg your pardon, monsieur, but we are living together!”

“But in that case—you must be mad, altogether mad, my dear sir, to get

caught playing lovers in the country at ten o'clock in the morning.”

The haberdasher seemed ready to cry with shame, and he muttered: “It was

she who enticed me! I told her it was very stupid, but when a woman once

gets a thing into her head—you know—you cannot get it out.”

The mayor, who liked a joke, smiled and replied: “In your case, the

contrary ought to have happened. You would not be here, if she had had

the idea only in her head.”

Then Monsieur Beauain was seized with rage and turning to his wife, he

said: “Do you see to what you have brought us with your poetry? And now

we shall have to go before the courts at our age, for a breach of

morals! And we shall have to shut up the shop, sell our good will, and

go to some other neighborhood! That's what it has come to.”

Madame Beaurain got up, and without looking at her husband, she

explained herself without embarrassment, without useless modesty, and

almost without hesitation.

“Of course, monsieur, I know that we have made ourselves ridiculous.

Will you allow me to plead my cause like an advocate, or rather like a

poor woman? And I hope that you will be kind enough to send us home, and

to spare us the disgrace of a prosecution.

“Years ago, when I was young, I made Monsieur Beaurain's acquaintance

one Sunday in this neighborhood. He was employed in a draper's shop, and

I was a saleswoman in a ready-made clothing establishment. I remember it

as if it were yesterday. I used to come and spend Sundays here

occasionally with a friend of mine, Rose Leveque, with whom I lived in

the Rue Pigalle, and Rose had a sweetheart, while I had none. He used to

bring us here, and one Saturday he told me laughing that he should bring

a friend with him the next day. I quite understood what he meant, but I

replied that it would be no good; for I was virtuous, monsieur.

“The next day we met Monsieur Beaurain at the railway station, and in

those days he was good-looking, but I had made up my mind not to

encourage him, and I did not. Well, we arrived at Bezons. It was a

lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. When it is fine

even now, just as it used to be formerly, I grow quite foolish, and when

I am in the country I utterly lose my head. The green grass, the

swallows flying so swiftly, the smell of the grass, the scarlet poppies,

the daisies, all that makes me crazy. It is like champagne when one is

not accustomed to it!

“Well, it was lovely weather, warm and bright, and it seemed to

penetrate your body through your eyes when you looked and through your

mouth when you breathed. Rose and Simon hugged and kissed each other

every minute, and that gave me a queer feeling! Monsieur Beaurain and I

walked behind them, without speaking much, for when people do not know

each other, they do not find anything to talk about. He looked timid,

and I liked to see his embarrassment. At last we got to the little wood;

it was as cool as in a bath there, and we four sat down. Rose and her

lover teased me because I looked rather stern, but you will understand

that I could not be otherwise. And then they began to kiss and hug

again, without putting any more restraint upon themselves than if we had

not been there; and then they whispered together, and got up and went

off among the trees, without saying a word. You may fancy what I looked

like, alone with this young fellow whom I saw for the first time. I felt

so confused at seeing them go that it gave me courage, and I began to

talk. I asked him what his business was, and he said he was a linen

draper's assistant, as I told you just now. We talked for a few minutes,

and that made him bold, and he wanted to take liberties with me, but I

told him sharply to keep his place. Is not that true, Monsieur

Beaurain?”

Monsieur Beaurain, who was looking at his feet in confusion, did not

reply, and she continued: “Then he saw that I was virtuous, and he began

to make love to me nicely, like an honorable man, and from that time he

came every Sunday, for he was very much in love with me. I was very fond

of him also, very fond of him! He was a good-looking fellow, formerly,

and in short he married me the next September, and we started in

business in the Rue des Martyrs.

“It was a hard struggle for some years, monsieur. Business did not

prosper, and we could not afford many country excursions, and, besides,

we had got out of the way of them. One has other things in one's head,

and thinks more of the cash box than of pretty speeches, when one is in

business. We were growing old by degrees without perceiving it, like

quiet people who do not think much about love. One does not regret

anything as long as one does not notice what one has lost.

“And then, monsieur, business became better, and we were tranquil as to

the future! Then, you see, I do not exactly know what went on in my

mind, no, I really do not know, but I began to dream like a little

boarding-school girl. The sight of the little carts full of flowers

which are drawn about the streets made me cry; the smell of violets

sought me out in my easy-chair, behind my cash box, and made my heart

beat! Then I would get up and go out on the doorstep to look at the blue

sky between the roofs. When one looks up at the sky from the street, it

looks like a river which is descending on Paris, winding as it flows,

and the swallows pass to and fro in it like fish. These ideas are very

stupid at my age! But how can one help it, monsieur, when one has worked

all one's life? A moment comes in which one perceives that one could

have done something else, and that one regrets, oh! yes, one feels

intense regret! Just think, for twenty years I might have gone and had

kisses in the woods, like other women. I used to think how delightful it

would be to lie under the trees and be in love with some one! And I

thought of it every day and every night! I dreamed of the moonlight on

the water, until I felt inclined to drown myself.

“I did not venture to speak to Monsieur Beaurain about this at first. I

knew that he would make fun of me, and send me back to sell my needles

and cotton! And then, to speak the truth, Monsieur Beaurain never said

much to me, but when I looked in the glass, I also understood quite well

that I no longer appealed to any one!

“Well, I made up my mind, and I proposed to him an excursion into the

country, to the place where we had first become acquainted. He agreed

without mistrusting anything, and we arrived here this morning, about

nine o'clock.

“I felt quite young again when I got among the wheat, for a woman's

heart never grows old! And really, I no longer saw my husband as he is

at present, but just as he was formerly! That I will swear to you,

monsieur. As true as I am standing here I was crazy. I began to kiss

him, and he was more surprised than if I had tried to murder him. He

kept saying to me: 'Why, you must be mad! You are mad this morning! What

is the matter with you?' I did not listen to him, I only listened to my

own heart, and I made him come into the wood with me. That is all. I

have spoken the truth, Monsieur le Maire, the whole truth.”

The mayor was a sensible man. He rose from his chair, smiled, and said:

“Go in peace, madame, and when you again visit our forests, be more

discreet.”

MARTINE

It came to him one Sunday after mass. He was walking home from church

along the by-road that led to his house when he saw ahead of him

Martine, who was also going home.

Her father walked beside his daughter with the important gait of a rich

farmer. Discarding the smock, he wore a short coat of gray cloth and on

his head a round-topped hat with wide brim.

She, laced up in a corset which she wore only once a week, walked along

erect, with her squeezed-in waist, her broad shoulders and prominent

hips, swinging herself a little. She wore a hat trimmed with flowers,

made by a milliner at Yvetot, and displayed the back of her full, round,

supple neck, reddened by the sun and air, on which fluttered little

stray locks of hair.

Benoist saw only her back; but he knew well the face he loved, without,

however, having ever noticed it more closely than he did now.

Suddenly he said: “Nom d'un nom, she is a fine girl, all the same, that

Martine.” He watched her as she walked, admiring her hastily, feeling a

desire taking possession of him. He did not long to see her face again,

no. He kept gazing at her figure, repeating to himself: “Nom d'un nom,

she is a fine girl.”

Martine turned to the right to enter “La Martiniere,” the farm of her

father, Jean Martin, and she cast a glance behind her as she turned

round. She saw Benoist, who looked to her very comical. She called out:

“Good-morning, Benoist.” He replied: “Good-morning, Martine; good-

morning, mait Martin,” and went on his way.

When he reached home the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite his

mother beside the farm hand and the hired man, while the maid servant

went to draw some cider.

He ate a few spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate. His mother said:

“Don't you feel well?”

“No. I feel as if I had some pap in my stomach and that takes away my

appetite.”

He watched the others eating, as he cut himself a piece of bread from

time to time and carried it lazily to his mouth, masticating it slowly.

He thought of Martine. “She is a fine girl, all the same.” And to think

that he had not noticed it before, and that it came to him, just like

that, all at once, and with such force that he could not eat.

He did not touch the stew. His mother said:

“Come, Benoist, try and eat a little; it is loin of mutton, it will do

you good. When one has no appetite, they should force themselves to

eat.”

He swallowed a few morsels, then, pushing away his plate, said:

“No. I can't go that, positively.”

When they rose from table he walked round the farm, telling the farm

hand he might go home and that he would drive up the animals as he

passed by them.

The country was deserted, as it was the day of rest. Here and there in a

field of clover cows were moving along heavily, with full bellies,

chewing their cud under a blazing sun. Unharnessed plows were standing

at the end of a furrow; and the upturned earth ready for the seed showed

broad brown patches of stubble of wheat and oats that had lately been

harvested.

A rather dry autumn wind blew across the plain, promising a cool evening

after the sun had set. Benoist sat down on a ditch, placed his hat on

his knees as if he needed to cool off his head, and said aloud in the

stillness of the country: “If you want a fine girl, she is a fine girl.”

He thought of it again at night, in his bed, and in the morning when he

awoke.

He was not sad, he was not discontented, he could not have told what

ailed him. It was something that had hold of him, something fastened in

his mind, an idea that would not leave him and that produced a sort of

tickling sensation in his heart.

Sometimes a big fly is shut up in a room. You hear it flying about,

buzzing, and the noise haunts you, irritates you. Suddenly it stops; you

forget it; but all at once it begins again, obliging you to look up. You

cannot catch it, nor drive it away, nor kill it, nor make it keep still.

As soon as it settles for a second, it starts off buzzing again.

The recollection of Martine disturbed Benoist's mind like an imprisoned

fly.

Then he longed to see her again and walked past the Martiniere several

times. He saw her, at last, hanging out some clothes on a line stretched

between two apple trees.

It was a warm day. She had on only a short skirt and her chemise,

showing the curves of her figure as she hung up the towels. He remained

there, concealed by the hedge, for more than an hour, even after she had

left. He returned home more obsessed with her image than ever.

For a month his mind was full of her, he trembled when her name was

mentioned in his presence. He could not eat, he had night sweats that

kept him from sleeping.

On Sunday, at mass, he never took his eyes off her. She noticed it and

smiled at him, flattered at his appreciation.

One evening, he suddenly met her in the road. She stopped short when she

saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with fear and

emotion, but determined to speak to her. He began falteringly:

“See here, Martine, this cannot go on like this any longer.”

She replied as if she wanted to tease him:

“What cannot go on any longer, Benoist?”

“My thinking of you as many hours as there are in the day,” he answered.

She put her hands on her hips.

“I do not oblige you to do so.”

“Yes, it is you,” he stammered; “I cannot sleep, nor rest, nor eat, nor

anything.”

“What do you need to cure you of all that?” she asked.

He stood there in dismay, his arms swinging, his eyes staring, his mouth

agape.

She hit him a punch in the stomach and ran off.

From that day they met each other along the roadside, in by-roads or

else at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with his

horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.

He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his

heart and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat

her, make her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence,

impatience, rage, to think she did not belong to him entirely, as if

they were one being.

People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were

engaged. He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she

had answered “Yes.”

They, were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about it.

But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He

did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only catch

a glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the sermon,

the priest actually published the banns of marriage between Victoire-

Adelaide Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.

Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained

off. He had a buzzing in the ears; and could hear nothing; and presently

he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.

For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.

But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the

roads that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees in

the yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and

evening.

She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.

Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from

childhood.

One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she was

enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he experienced,

on the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now, all over. They

were more separated by that than by her marriage. He really preferred

that it should be so.

Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,

going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as she

saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned out of

his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.

He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to face,

and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now, after all

he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed her hair

beside her cheeks? He often thought of those meetings along the

roadside. She had acted horridly after all her promises.

By degrees his grief diminished, leaving only sadness behind. And one

day he took the old road that led past the farm where she now lived. He

looked at the roof from a distance. It was there, in there, that she

lived with another! The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks crowed on

the dung hill. The whole dwelling seemed empty, the farm hands had gone

to the fields to their spring toil. He stopped near the gate and looked

into the yard. The dog was asleep outside his kennel, three calves were

walking slowly, one behind the other, towards the pond. A big turkey was

strutting before the door, parading before the turkey hens like a singer

at the opera.

Benoist leaned against the gate post and was suddenly seized with a

desire to weep. But suddenly, he heard a cry, a loud cry for help coming

from the house. He was struck with dismay, his hands grasping the wooden

bars of the gate, and listened attentively. Another cry, a prolonged,

heartrending cry, reached his ears, his soul, his flesh. It was she who

was crying like that! He darted inside, crossed the grass patch, pushed

open the door, and saw her lying on the floor, her body drawn up, her

face livid, her eyes haggard, in the throes of childbirth.

He stood there, trembling and paler than she was, and stammered:

“Here I am, here I am, Martine!”

She replied in gasps:

“Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me, Benoist!”

He looked at her, not knowing what to say, what to do. She began to cry

out again:

“Oh, oh, it is killing me. Oh, Benoist!”

She writhed frightfully.

Benoist was suddenly seized with a frantic longing to help her, to quiet

her, to remove her pain. He leaned over, lifted her up and laid her on

her bed; and while she kept on moaning he began to take off her clothes,

her jacket, her skirt and her petticoat. She bit her fists to keep from

crying out. Then he did as he was accustomed to doing for cows, ewes,

and mares: he assisted in delivering her and found in his hands a large

infant who was moaning.

He wiped it off and wrapped it up in a towel that was drying in front of

the fire, and laid it on a bundle of clothes ready for ironing that was

on the table. Then he went back to the mother.

He took her up and placed her on the floor again, then he changed the

bedclothes and put her back into bed. She faltered:

“Thank you, Benoist, you have a noble heart.” And then she wept a little

as if she felt regretful.

He did not love her any longer, not the least bit. It was all over. Why?

How? He could not have said. What had happened had cured him better than

ten years of absence.

She asked, exhausted and trembling:

“What is it?”

He replied calmly:

“It is a very fine girl.”

Then they were silent again. At the end of a few moments, the mother, in

a weak voice, said:

“Show her to me, Benoist.”

He took up the little one and was showing it to her as if he were

holding the consecrated wafer, when the door opened, and Isidore Vallin

appeared.

He did not understand at first, then all at once he guessed.

Benoist, in consternation, stammered out:

“I was passing, I was just passing by when I heard her crying out, and I

came—there is your child, Vallin!”

Then the husband, his eyes full of tears, stepped forward, took the

little mite of humanity that he held out to him, kissed it, unable to

speak from emotion for a few seconds; then placing the child on the bed,

he held out both hands to Benoist, saying:

“Your hand upon it, Benoist. From now on we understand each other. If

you are willing, we will be a pair of friends, a pair of friends!” And

Benoist replied: “Indeed I will, certainly, indeed I will.”

ALL OVER

Compte de Lormerin had just finished dressing. He cast a parting glance

at the large mirror which occupied an entire panel in his dressing-room

and smiled.

He was really a fine-looking man still, although quite gray. Tall,

slight, elegant, with no sign of a paunch, with a small mustache of

doubtful shade, which might be called fair, he had a walk, a nobility, a

“chic,” in short, that indescribable something which establishes a

greater difference between two men than would millions of money. He

murmured:

“Lormerin is still alive!”

And he went into the drawing-room where his correspondence awaited him.

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

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

newspapers of different opinions. With a single touch he spread out all

these letters, like a gambler giving the choice of a card; and he

scanned the handwriting, a thing he did each morning before opening the

envelopes.

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

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

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

with a rapid sweep of the eye, recognizing the writing, selecting them,

making two or three lots, according to what he expected from them. Here,

friends; there, persons to whom he was indifferent; further on,

strangers. The last kind always gave him a little uneasiness. What did

they want from him? What hand had traced those curious characters full

of thoughts, promises, or threats?

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

nevertheless, without seeming to reveal anything; but he looked at it

uneasily, with a sort of chill at his heart. He thought: “From whom can

it be? I certainly know this writing, and yet I can't identify it.”

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

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

mind to open it.

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

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

suddenly felt unnerved. “Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me,

very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. But

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

from? Pooh! it's only somebody asking for money.”

And he tore open the letter. Then he read:

MY DEAR FRIEND: You have, without doubt, forgotten me, for it is now

twenty-five years since we saw each other. I was young; I am old. When I

bade you farewell, I left Paris in order to follow into the provinces my

husband, my old husband, whom you used to call “my hospital.” Do you

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

get my daughter married, for I have a daughter, a beautiful girl of

eighteen, whom you have never seen. I informed you of her birth, but you

certainly did not pay much attention to so trifling an event.

You are still the handsome Lormerin; so I have been told. Well, if you

still recollect little Lise, whom you used to call Lison, come and dine

with her this evening, with the elderly Baronne de Vance your ever

faithful friend, who, with some emotion, although happy, reaches out to

you a devoted hand, which you must clasp, but no longer kiss, my poor

Jaquelet. LISE DE VANCE.

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

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

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

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

Lise de Vance, whom he called “Ashflower,” on account of the strange

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

pretty, charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that

gouty, pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces,

shut her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the

handsome Lormerin.

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

loved. She familiarly gave him, the name of Jaquelet, and would

pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.

A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far, off and sweet and

melancholy now. One evening she had called on him on her way home from a

ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in evening

dress, he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime; the weather was

beautiful. The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm air-the odor

of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her skin. What a

divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon's rays fell across

the branches into the water, she began to weep. A little surprised, he

asked her why.

“I don't know. The moon and the water have affected me. Every time I see

poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to cry.”

He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion charming

—the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman, whom every sensation

overwhelms. And he embraced her passionately, stammering:

“My little Lise, you are exquisite.”

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

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

brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one

see her afterward.

Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months. One

woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a bachelor! No

matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart, for he had

loved her alone! He assured himself now that this was so.

He rose, and said aloud: “Certainly, I will go and dine with her this

evening!”

And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from

head to foot. He reflected: “She must look very old, older than I look.”

And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her still

handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling her with

emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far distant!

He turned his attention to the other letters. They were of no

importance.

The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days. What was she

like now? How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five

years! But would he recognize her?

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

which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the

hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for he

had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his

eagerness to see her.

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

was his own portrait, an old faded photograph, dating from the days when

he was a beau, hanging on the wall in an antique silk frame.

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

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

both hands toward him.

He seized them, kissed them one after the other several times; then,

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

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

while she smiled, seemed ready to weep.

He could not abstain from murmuring:

“Is it you, Lise?”

She replied:

“Yes, it is I; it is I, indeed. You would not have known me, would you?

I have had so much sorrow—so much sorrow. Sorrow has consumed my life.

Look at me now—or, rather, don't look at me! But how handsome you have

kept—and young! If I had by chance met you in the street I would have

exclaimed: 'Jaquelet!'. Now, sit down and let us, first of all, have a

chat. And then I will call my daughter, my grown-up daughter. You'll see

how she resembles me—or, rather, how I resembled her—no, it is not quite

that; she is just like the 'me' of former days—you shall see! But I

wanted to be alone with you first. I feared that there would be some

emotion on my side, at the first moment. Now it is all over; it is past.

Pray be seated, my friend.”

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

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

her before. Why had he come to this house? What could he talk about? Of

the long ago? What was there in common between him and her? He could no

longer recall anything in presence of this grandmotherly face. He could

no longer recall all the nice, tender things, so sweet, so bitter, that

had come to his mind that morning when he thought of the other, of

little Lise, of the dainty Ashflower. What, then, had become of her, the

former one, the one he had loved? That woman of far-off dreams, the

blonde with gray eyes, the young girl who used to call him “Jaquelet” so

prettily?

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

profoundly ill at ease.

As they talked only commonplaces, awkwardly and spasmodically and

slowly, she rose and pressed the button of the bell.

“I am going to call Renee,” she said.

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

voice exclaimed:

“Here I am, mamma!”

Lormerin remained bewildered as at the sight of an apparition.

He stammered:

“Good-day, mademoiselle”

Then, turning toward the mother:

“Oh! it is you!”

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

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

five years before. This one was even younger, fresher, more childlike.

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

murmuring in her ear:

“Good-morning, Lison!”

A man-servant announced:

“Dinner is ready, madame.”

And they proceeded toward the dining-room.

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

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

which border on insanity. He gazed at the two women with a fixed idea in

his mind, a morbid, self-contradictory idea:

“Which is the real one?”

The mother smiled again repeating over and over:

“Do you remember?” And it was in the bright eyes of the young girl that

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

mouth to say to her: “Do you remember, Lison?” forgetting this white-

haired lady who was looking at him tenderly.

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

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

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

her glances, in her entire being, something which he did not find again.

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

again what had escaped from her, what this resuscitated one did not

possess.

The baronne said:

“You have lost your old vivacity, my poor friend.”

He murmured:

“There are many other things that I have lost!”

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

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

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

intonation, some expression of her mother's, a certain style of speaking

and thinking, that resemblance of mind and manner which people acquire

by living together, shook Lormerin from head to foot. All these things

penetrated him, making the reopened wound of his passion bleed anew.

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

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

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

the old one come back out of the past, and he loved her as he had loved

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

of twenty-five years.

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

what he should do.

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

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

before he started, he saw reflected there an elderly, gray-haired man;

and suddenly he recollected what he had been in olden days, in the days

of little Lise. He saw himself charming and handsome, as he had been

when he was loved! Then, drawing the light nearer, he looked at himself

more closely, as one inspects a strange thing with a magnifying glass,

tracing the wrinkles, discovering those frightful ravages, which he had

not perceived till now.

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

lamentable image, murmuring:

“All over, Lormerin!”

THE PARROT I

Everybody in Fecamp knew Mother Patin's story. She had certainly been

unfortunate with her husband, for in his lifetime he used to beat her,

just as wheat is threshed in the barn.

He was master of a fishing bark and had married her, formerly, because

she was pretty, although poor.

Patin was a good sailor, but brutal. He used to frequent Father Auban's

inn, where he would usually drink four or five glasses of brandy, on

lucky days eight or ten glasses and even more, according to his mood.

The brandy was served to the customers by Father Auban's daughter, a

pleasing brunette, who attracted people to the house only by her pretty

face, for nothing had ever been gossiped about her.

Patin, when he entered the inn, would be satisfied to look at her and to

compliment her politely and respectfully. After he had had his first

glass of brandy he would already find her much nicer; at the second he

would wink; at the third he would say. “If you were only willing,

Mam'zelle Desiree——” without ever finishing his sentence; at the fourth

he would try to hold her back by her skirt in order to kiss her; and

when he went as high as ten it was Father Auban who brought him the

remaining drinks.

The old innkeeper, who knew all the tricks of the trade, made Desiree

walk about between the tables in order to increase the consumption of

drinks; and Desiree, who was a worthy daughter of Father Auban, flitted

around among the benches and joked with them, her lips smiling and her

eyes sparkling.

Patin got so well accustomed to Desiree's face that he thought of it

even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms, on

moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the tiller in

the stern of his boat, while his four companions were slumbering with

their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling, pouring out the

yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and then exclaiming as

she turned away: “There, now; are you satisfied?”

He saw her so much in his mind's eye that he was overcome by an

irresistible desire to marry her, and, not being able to hold out any

longer, he asked for her hand.

He was rich, owned his own vessel, his nets and a little house at the

foot of the hill on the Retenue, whereas Father Auban had nothing. The

marriage was therefore eagerly agreed upon and the wedding took place as

soon as possible, as both parties were desirous for the affair to be

concluded as early as convenient.

Three days after the wedding Patin could no longer understand how he had

ever imagined Desiree to be different from other women. What a fool he

had been to encumber himself with a penniless creature, who had

undoubtedly inveigled him with some drug which she had put in his

brandy!

He would curse all day lung, break his pipe with his teeth and maul his

crew. After he had sworn by every known term at everything that came his

way he would rid himself of his remaining anger on the fish and

lobsters, which he pulled from the nets and threw into the baskets amid

oaths and foul language. When he returned home he would find his wife,

Father Auban's daughter, within reach of his mouth and hand, and it was

not long before he treated her like the lowest creature in the world. As

she listened calmly, accustomed to paternal violence, he grew

exasperated at her quiet, and one evening he beat her. Then life at his

home became unbearable.

For ten years the principal topic of conversation on the Retenue was

about the beatings that Patin gave his wife and his manner of cursing at

her for the least thing. He could, indeed, curse with a richness of

vocabulary in a roundness of tone unequalled by any other man in Fecamp.

As soon as his ship was sighted at the entrance of the harbor, returning

from the fishing expedition, every one awaited the first volley he would

hurl from the bridge as soon as he perceived his wife's white cap.

Standing at the stern he would steer, his eye fixed on the bows and on

the sail, and, notwithstanding the difficulty of the narrow passage and

the height of the turbulent waves, he would search among the watching

women and try to recognize his wife, Father Auban's daughter, the

wretch!

Then, as soon as he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and

waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that

every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he arrived

at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the fish, in such

an expressive manner that he attracted around him all the loafers of the

neighborhood. The words left his mouth sometimes like shots from a

cannon, short and terrible, sometimes like peals of thunder, which roll

and rumble for five minutes, such a hurricane of oaths that he seemed to

have in his lungs one of the storms of the Eternal Father.

When he left his ship and found himself face to face with her,

surrounded by all the gossips of the neighborhood, he would bring up a

new cargo of insults and bring her back to their dwelling, she in front,

he behind, she weeping, he yelling at her.

At last, when alone with her behind closed doors, he would thrash her on

the slightest pretext. The least thing was sufficient to make him raise

his hand, and when he had once begun he did not stop, but he would throw

into her face the true motive for his anger. At each blow he would roar:

“There, you beggar! There, you wretch! There, you pauper! What a bright

thing I did when I rinsed my mouth with your rascal of a father's

apology for brandy.”

The poor woman lived in continual fear, in a ceaseless trembling of body

and soul, in everlasting expectation of outrageous thrashings.

This lasted ten years. She was so timorous that she would grow pale

whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the blows

with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more yellow and

drier than a smoked fish.

II

One night, when her husband was at sea, she was suddenly awakened by the

wild roaring of the wind!

She sat up in her bed, trembling, but, as she hear nothing more, she lay

down again; almost immediately there was a roar in the chimney which

shook the entire house; it seemed to cross the heavens like a pack of

furious animals snorting and roaring.

Then she arose and rushed to the harbor. Other women were arriving from

all sides, carrying lanterns. The men also were gathering, and all were

watching the foaming crests of the breaking wave.

The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors never returned; Patin was

among them.

In the neighborhood of Dieppe the wreck of his bark, the Jeune-Amelie,

was found. The bodies of his sailors were found near Saint-Valery, but

his body was never recovered. As his vessel seemed to have been cut in

two, his wife expected and feared his return for a long time, for if

there had been a collision he alone might have been picked up and

carried afar off.

Little by little she grew accustomed to the thought that she was rid of

him, although she would start every time that a neighbor, a beggar or a

peddler would enter suddenly.

One afternoon, about four years after the disappearance of her husband,

while she was walking along the Rue aux Juifs, she stopped before the

house of an old sea captain who had recently died and whose furniture

was for sale. Just at that moment a parrot was at auction. He had green

feathers and a blue head and was watching everybody with a displeased

look. “Three francs!” cried the auctioneer. “A bird that can talk like a

lawyer, three francs!”

A friend of the Patin woman nudged her and said:

“You ought to buy that, you who are rich. It would be good company for

you. That bird is worth more than thirty francs. Anyhow, you can always

sell it for twenty or twenty-five!”

Patin's widow added fifty centimes, and the bird was given her in a

little cage, which she carried away. She took it home, and, as she was

opening the wire door in order to give it something to drink, he bit her

finger and drew blood.

“Oh, how naughty he is!” she said.

Nevertheless she gave it some hemp-seed and corn and watched it pruning

its feathers as it glanced warily at its new home and its new mistress.

On the following morning, just as day was breaking, the Patin woman

distinctly heard a loud, deep, roaring voice calling: “Are you going to

get up, carrion?”

Her fear was so great that she hid her head under the sheets, for when

Patin was with her as soon as he would open his eyes he would shout

those well-known words into her ears.

Trembling, rolled into a ball, her back prepared for the thrashing which

she already expected, her face buried in the pillows, she murmured:

“Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he is here! Good Lord! he has come

back!”

Minutes passed; no noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling, she

stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching, ready

to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window, she saw

nothing, and she said to her self: “He must be hidden.”

She waited a long time and then, gaining courage, she said to herself:

“I must have dreamed it, seeing there is nobody here.”

A little reassured, she closed her eyes, when from quite near a furious

voice, the thunderous voice of the drowned man, could be heard crying:

“Say! when in the name of all that's holy are you going to get up, you

b——?”

She jumped out of bed, moved by obedience, by the passive obedience of a

woman accustomed to blows and who still remembers and always will

remember that voice! She said: “Here I am, Patin; what do you want?”

Put Patin did not answer. Then, at a complete loss, she looked around

her, then in the chimney and under the bed and finally sank into a

chair, wild with anxiety, convinced that Patin's soul alone was there,

near her, and that he had returned in order to torture her.

Suddenly she remembered the loft, in order to reach which one had to

take a ladder. Surely he must have hidden there in order to surprise

her. He must have been held by savages on some distant shore, unable to

escape until now, and he had returned, worse that ever. There was no

doubting the quality of that voice. She raised her head and asked: “Are

you up there, Patin?”

Patin did not answer. Then, with a terrible fear which made her heart

tremble, she climbed the ladder, opened the skylight, looked, saw

nothing, entered, looked about and found nothing. Sitting on some straw,

she began to cry, but while she was weeping, overcome by a poignant and

supernatural terror, she heard Patin talking in the room below.

He seemed less angry and he was saying: “Nasty weather! Fierce wind!

Nasty weather! I haven't eaten, damn it!”

She cried through the ceiling: “Here I am, Patin; I am getting your meal

ready. Don't get angry.”

She ran down again. There was no one in the room. She felt herself

growing weak, as if death were touching her, and she tried to run and

get help from the neighbors, when a voice near her cried out: “I haven't

had my breakfast, by G—!”

And the parrot in his cage watched her with his round, knowing, wicked

eye. She, too, looked at him wildly, murmuring: “Ah! so it's you!”

He shook his head and continued: “Just you wait! I'll teach you how to

loaf.”

What happened within her? She felt, she understood that it was he, the

dead man, who had come back, who had disguised himself in the feathers

of this bird in order to continue to torment her; that he would curse,

as formerly, all day long, and bite her, and swear at her, in order to

attract the neighbors and make them laugh. Then she rushed for the cage

and seized the bird, which scratched and tore her flesh with its claws

and beak. But she held it with all her strength between her hands. She

threw it on the ground and rolled over it with the frenzy of one

possessed. She crushed it and finally made of it nothing but a little

green, flabby lump which no longer moved or spoke. Then she wrapped it

in a cloth, as in a shroud, and she went out in her nightgown, barefoot;

she crossed the dock, against which the choppy waves of the sea were

beating, and she shook the cloth and let drop this little, dead thing,

which looked like so much grass. Then she returned, threw herself on her

knees before the empty cage, and, overcome by what she had done, kneeled

and prayed for forgiveness, as if she had committed some heinous crime.

THE PIECE OF STRING

It was market-day, and from all the country round Goderville the

peasants and their wives were coming toward the town. The men walked

slowly, throwing the whole body forward at every step of their long,

crooked legs. They were deformed from pushing the plough which makes the

left-shoulder higher, and bends their figures side-ways; from reaping

the grain, when they have to spread their legs so as to keep on their

feet. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as though varnished,

ornamented at collar and cuffs with a little embroidered design and

blown out around their bony bodies, looked very much like balloons about

to soar, whence issued two arms and two feet.

Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end of a rope. And

just behind the animal followed their wives beating it over the back

with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, and carrying large

baskets out of which protruded the heads of chickens or ducks. These

women walked more quickly and energetically than the men, with their

erect, dried-up figures, adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over

their flat bosoms, and their heads wrapped round with a white cloth,

enclosing the hair and surmounted by a cap.

Now a char-a-banc passed by, jogging along behind a nag and shaking up

strangely the two men on the seat, and the woman at the bottom of the

cart who held fast to its sides to lessen the hard jolting.

In the market-place at Goderville was a great crowd, a mingled multitude

of men and beasts. The horns of cattle, the high, long-napped hats of

wealthy peasants, the head-dresses of the women came to the surface of

that sea. And the sharp, shrill, barking voices made a continuous, wild

din, while above it occasionally rose a huge burst of laughter from the

sturdy lungs of a merry peasant or a prolonged bellow from a cow tied

fast to the wall of a house.

It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay and of perspiration,

giving off that half-human, half-animal odor which is peculiar to

country folks.

Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, had just arrived at Goderville and was

making his way toward the square when he perceived on the ground a

little piece of string. Maitre Hauchecorne, economical as are all true

Normans, reflected that everything was worth picking up which could be

of any use, and he stooped down, but painfully, because he suffered from

rheumatism. He took the bit of thin string from the ground and was

carefully preparing to roll it up when he saw Maitre Malandain, the

harness maker, on his doorstep staring at him. They had once had a

quarrel about a halter, and they had borne each other malice ever since.

Maitre Hauchecorne was overcome with a sort of shame at being seen by

his enemy picking up a bit of string in the road. He quickly hid it

beneath his blouse and then slipped it into his breeches, pocket, then

pretended to be still looking for something on the ground which he did

not discover and finally went off toward the market-place, his head bent

forward and his body almost doubled in two by rheumatic pains.

He was at once lost in the crowd, which kept moving about slowly and

noisily as it chaffered and bargained. The peasants examined the cows,

went off, came back, always in doubt for fear of being cheated, never

quite daring to decide, looking the seller square in the eye in the

effort to discover the tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.

The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken

out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, their legs tied together,

with terrified eyes and scarlet combs.

They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices in a decided

manner with an impassive face or perhaps deciding to accept the smaller

price offered, suddenly calling out to the customer who was starting to

go away:

“All right, I'll let you have them, Mait' Anthime.”

Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus

struck midday those who lived at a distance poured into the inns.

At Jourdain's the great room was filled with eaters, just as the vast

court was filled with vehicles of every sort—wagons, gigs, chars-a-

bancs, tilburies, innumerable vehicles which have no name, yellow with

mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to heaven like two

arms, or it may be with their nose on the ground and their rear in the

air.

Just opposite to where the diners were at table the huge fireplace, with

its bright flame, gave out a burning heat on the backs of those who sat

at the right. Three spits were turning, loaded with chickens, with

pigeons and with joints of mutton, and a delectable odor of roast meat

and of gravy flowing over crisp brown skin arose from the hearth,

kindled merriment, caused mouths to water.

All the aristocracy of the plough were eating there at Mait' Jourdain's,

the innkeeper's, a dealer in horses also and a sharp fellow who had made

a great deal of money in his day.

The dishes were passed round, were emptied, as were the jugs of yellow

cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and his sales.

They exchanged news about the crops. The weather was good for greens,

but too wet for grain.

Suddenly the drum began to beat in the courtyard before the house. Every

one, except some of the most indifferent, was on their feet at once and

ran to the door, to the windows, their mouths full and napkins in their

hand.

When the public crier had finished his tattoo he called forth in a jerky

voice, pausing in the wrong places:

“Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to all

persons present at the market that there has been lost this morning on

the Beuzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather

pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are

requested to return it to the mayor's office at once or to Maitre

Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward.”

Then the man went away. They heard once more at a distance the dull

beating of the drum and the faint voice of the crier. Then they all

began to talk of this incident, reckoning up the chances which Maitre

Houlbreque had of finding or of not finding his pocketbook again.

The meal went on. They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of

gendarmes appeared on the threshold.

He asked:

“Is Maitre Hauchecorne, of Breaute, here?”

Maitre Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table answered:

“Here I am, here I am.”

And he followed the corporal.

The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an armchair. He was the notary

of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.

“Maitre Hauchecorne,” said he, “this morning on the Beuzeville road, you

were seen to pick up the pocketbook lost by Maitre Houlbreque, of

Manneville.”

The countryman looked at the mayor in amazement frightened already at

this suspicion which rested on him, he knew not why.

“I—I picked up that pocketbook?”

“Yes, YOU.”

“I swear I don't even know anything about it.”

“You were seen.”

“I was seen—I? Who saw me?”

“M. Malandain, the harness-maker.”

Then the old man remembered, understood, and, reddening with anger,

said:

“Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me picking up this string

here, M'sieu le Maire.”

And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of it the little

end of string.

But the mayor incredulously shook his head:

“You will not make me believe, Maitre Hauchecorne, that M. Malandain,

who is a man whose word can be relied on, has mistaken this string for a

pocketbook.”

The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spat on the ground beside him

as if to attest his good faith, repeating:

“For all that, it is God's truth, M'sieu le Maire. There! On my soul's

salvation, I repeat it.”

The mayor continued:

“After you picked up the object in question, you even looked about for

some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not dropped out of

it.”

The good man was choking with indignation and fear.

“How can they tell—how can they tell such lies as that to slander an

honest man! How can they?”

His protestations were in vain; he was not believed.

He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and sustained his

testimony. They railed at one another for an hour. At his own request

Maitre Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing was found on him.

At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he

would inform the public prosecutor and ask for orders.

The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office the old man was

surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was serious or mocking,

as the case might be, but into which no indignation entered. And he

began to tell the story of the string. They did not believe him. They

laughed.

He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his

acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his

protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he

had nothing in them.

They said to him:

“You old rogue!”

He grew more and more angry, feverish, in despair at not being believed,

and kept on telling his story.

The night came. It was time to go home. He left with three of his

neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the

string, and all the way he talked of his adventure.

That evening he made the round of the village of Breaute for the purpose

of telling every one. He met only unbelievers.

He brooded over it all night long.

The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm hand

of Maitre Breton, the market gardener at Ymauville, returned the

pocketbook and its contents to Maitre Holbreque, of Manneville.

This man said, indeed, that he had found it on the road, but not knowing

how to read, he had carried it home and given it to his master.

The news spread to the environs. Maitre Hauchecorne was informed. He

started off at once and began to relate his story with the denoument. He

was triumphant.

“What grieved me,” said he, “was not the thing itself, do you

understand, but it was being accused of lying. Nothing does you so much

harm as being in disgrace for lying.”

All day he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the

people who passed, at the cabaret to the people who drank and next

Sunday when they came out of church. He even stopped strangers to tell

them about it. He was easy now, and yet something worried him without

his knowing exactly what it was. People had a joking manner while they

listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their remarks

behind his back.

On Tuesday of the following week he went to market at Goderville,

prompted solely by the need of telling his story.

Malandain, standing on his doorstep, began to laugh as he saw him pass.

Why?

He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and

giving him a punch in the pit of the stomach cried in his face: “Oh, you

great rogue!” Then he turned his heel upon him.

Maitre Hauchecorne remained speechless and grew more and more uneasy.

Why had they called him “great rogue”?

When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to explain the

whole affair.

A horse dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:

“Get out, get out, you old scamp! I know all about your old string.”

Hauchecorne stammered:

“But since they found it again, the pocketbook!”

But the other continued:

“Hold your tongue, daddy; there's one who finds it and there's another

who returns it. And no one the wiser.”

The farmer was speechless. He understood at last. They accused him of

having had the pocketbook brought back by an accomplice, by a

confederate.

He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.

He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus of jeers.

He went home indignant, choking with rage, with confusion, the more cast

down since with his Norman craftiness he was, perhaps, capable of having

done what they accused him of and even of boasting of it as a good

trick. He was dimly conscious that it was impossible to prove his

innocence, his craftiness being so well known. He felt himself struck to

the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.

He began anew to tell his tale, lengthening his recital every day, each

day adding new proofs, more energetic declarations and more sacred

oaths, which he thought of, which he prepared in his hours of solitude,

for his mind was entirely occupied with the story of the string. The

more he denied it, the more artful his arguments, the less he was

believed.

“Those are liars proofs,” they said behind his back.

He felt this. It preyed upon him and he exhausted himself in useless

efforts.

He was visibly wasting away.

Jokers would make him tell the story of “the piece of string” to amuse

them, just as you make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell his

story of the battle. His mind kept growing weaker and about the end of

December he took to his bed.

He passed away early in January, and, in the ravings of death agony, he

protested his innocence, repeating:

“A little bit of string—a little bit of string. See, here it is, M'sieu

le Maire.”

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, Vol. 9.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES Translated by ALBERT M. C.

McMASTER, B.A. A. E. HENDERSON, B.A. MME. QUESADA and Others

VOLUME IX.

TOINE

He was known for thirty miles round was father Toine—fat Toine, Toine-

my-extra, Antoine Macheble, nicknamed Burnt-Brandy—the innkeeper of

Tournevent.

It was he who had made famous this hamlet buried in a niche in the

valley that led down to the sea, a poor little peasants' hamlet

consisting of ten Norman cottages surrounded by ditches and trees.

The houses were hidden behind a curve which had given the place the name

of Tournevent. It seemed to have sought shelter in this ravine overgrown

with grass and rushes, from the keen, salt sea wind—the ocean wind that

devours and burns like fire, that drys up and withers like the sharpest

frost of winter, just as birds seek shelter in the furrows of the fields

in time of storm.

But the whole hamlet seemed to be the property of Antoine Macheble,

nicknamed Burnt-Brandy, who was called also Toine, or Toine-My-Extra-

Special, the latter in consequence of a phrase current in his mouth:

“My Extra-Special is the best in France:”

His “Extra-Special” was, of course, his cognac.

For the last twenty years he had served the whole countryside with his

Extra-Special and his “Burnt-Brandy,” for whenever he was asked: “What

shall I drink, Toine?” he invariably answered: “A burnt-brandy, my son-

in-law; that warms the inside and clears the head—there's nothing better

for your body.”

He called everyone his son-in-law, though he had no daughter, either

married or to be married.

Well known indeed was Toine Burnt-Brandy, the stoutest man in all

Normandy. His little house seemed ridiculously small, far too small and

too low to hold him; and when people saw him standing at his door, as he

did all day long, they asked one another how he could possibly get

through the door. But he went in whenever a customer appeared, for it

was only right that Toine should be invited to take his thimbleful of

whatever was drunk in his wine shop.

His inn bore the sign: “The Friends' Meeting-Place”—and old Toine was,

indeed, the friend of all. His customers came from Fecamp and

Montvilliers, just for the fun of seeing him and hearing him talk; for

fat Toine would have made a tombstone laugh. He had a way of chaffing

people without offending them, or of winking to express what he didn't

say, of slapping his thighs when he was merry in such a way as to make

you hold your sides, laughing. And then, merely to see him drink was a

curiosity. He drank everything that was offered him, his roguish eyes

twinkling, both with the enjoyment of drinking and at the thought of the

money he was taking in. His was a double pleasure: first, that of

drinking; and second, that of piling up the cash.

You should have heard him quarrelling with his wife! It was worth paying

for to see them together. They had wrangled all the thirty years they

had been married; but Toine was good-humored, while his better-half grew

angry. She was a tall peasant woman, who walked with long steps like a

stork, and had a head resembling that of an angry screech-owl. She spent

her time rearing chickens in a little poultry-yard behind the inn, and

she was noted for her success in fattening them for the table.

Whenever the gentry of Fecamp gave a dinner they always had at least one

of Madame Toine's chickens to be in the fashion.

But she was born ill-tempered, and she went through life in a mood of

perpetual discontent. Annoyed at everyone, she seemed to be particularly

annoyed at her husband. She disliked his gaiety, his reputation, his

rude health, his embonpoint. She treated him as a good-for-nothing

creature because he earned his money without working, and as a glutton

because he ate and drank as much as ten ordinary men; and not a day went

by without her declaring spitefully:

“You'd be better in the stye along with the pigs! You're so fat it makes

me sick to look at you!”

And she would shout in his face:

“Wait! Wait a bit! We'll see! You'll burst one of these fine days like a

sack of corn-you old bloat, you!”

Toine would laugh heartily, patting his corpulent person, and replying:

“Well, well, old hen, why don't you fatten up your chickens like that?

just try!”

And, rolling his sleeves back from his enormous arm, he said:

“That would make a fine wing now, wouldn't it?”

And the customers, doubled up with laughter, would thump the table with

their fists and stamp their feet on the floor.

The old woman, mad with rage, would repeat:

“Wait a bit! Wait a bit! You'll see what'll happen. He'll burst like a

sack of grain!”

And off she would go, amid the jeers and laughter of the drinkers.

Toine was, in fact, an astonishing sight, he was so fat, so heavy, so

red. He was one of those enormous beings with whom Death seems to be

amusing himself—playing perfidious tricks and pranks, investing with an

irresistibly comic air his slow work of destruction. Instead of

manifesting his approach, as with others, in white hairs, in emaciation,

in wrinkles, in the gradual collapse which makes the onlookers say:

“Gad! how he has changed!” he took a malicious pleasure in fattening

Toine, in making him monstrous and absurd, in tingeing his face with a

deep crimson, in giving him the appearance of superhuman health, and the

changes he inflicts on all were in the case of Toine laughable, comic,

amusing, instead of being painful and distressing to witness.

“Wait a bit! Wait a bit!” said his wife. “You'll see.”

At last Toine had an apoplectic fit, and was paralyzed in consequence.

The giant was put to bed in the little room behind the partition of the

drinking-room that he might hear what was said and talk to his friends,

for his head was quite clear although his enormous body was helplessly

inert. It was hoped at first that his immense legs would regain some

degree of power; but this hope soon disappeared, and Toine spent his

days and nights in the bed, which was only made up once a week, with the

help of four neighbors who lifted the innkeeper, each holding a limb,

while his mattress was turned.

He kept his spirits, nevertheless; but his gaiety was of a different

kind—more timid, more humble; and he lived in a constant, childlike fear

of his wife, who grumbled from morning till night:

“Look at him there—the great glutton! the good-for-nothing creature, the

old boozer! Serve him right, serve him right!”

He no longer answered her. He contented himself with winking behind the

old woman's back, and turning over on his other side—the only movement

of which he was now capable. He called this exercise a “tack to the

north” or a “tack to the south.”

His great distraction nowadays was to listen to the conversations in the

bar, and to shout through the wall when he recognized a friend's voice:

“Hallo, my son-in-law! Is that you, Celestin?”

And Celestin Maloisel answered:

“Yes, it's me, Toine. Are you getting about again yet, old fellow?”

“Not exactly getting about,” answered Toine. “But I haven't grown thin;

my carcass is still good.”

Soon he got into the way of asking his intimates into his room to keep

him company, although it grieved him to see that they had to drink

without him. It pained him to the quick that his customers should be

drinking without him.

“That's what hurts worst of all,” he would say: “that I cannot drink my

Extra-Special any more. I can put up with everything else, but going

without drink is the very deuce.”

Then his wife's screech-owl face would appear at the window, and she

would break in with the words:

“Look at him! Look at him now, the good-for-nothing wretch! I've got to

feed him and wash him just as if he were a pig!”

And when the old woman had gone, a cock with red feathers would

sometimes fly up to the window sill and looking into the room with his

round inquisitive eye, would begin to crow loudly. Occasionally, too, a

few hens would flutter as far as the foot of the bed, seeking crumbs on

the floor. Toine's friends soon deserted the drinking room to come and

chat every afternoon beside the invalid's bed. Helpless though he was,

the jovial Toine still provided them with amusement. He would have made

the devil himself laugh. Three men were regular in their attendance at

the bedside: Celestin Maloisel, a tall, thin fellow, somewhat gnarled,

like the trunk of an apple-tree; Prosper Horslaville, a withered little

man with a ferret nose, cunning as a fox; and Cesaire Paumelle, who

never spoke, but who enjoyed Toine's society all the same.

They brought a plank from the yard, propped it upon the edge of the bed,

and played dominoes from two till six.

But Toine's wife soon became insufferable. She could not endure that her

fat, lazy husband should amuse himself at games while lying in his bed;

and whenever she caught him beginning a game she pounced furiously on

the dominoes, overturned the plank, and carried all away into the bar,

declaring that it was quite enough to have to feed that fat, lazy pig

without seeing him amusing himself, as if to annoy poor people who had

to work hard all day long.

Celestin Maloisel and Cesaire Paumelle bent their heads to the storm,

but Prosper Horslaville egged on the old woman, and was only amused at

her wrath.

One day, when she was more angry than usual, he said:

“Do you know what I'd do if I were you?”

She fixed her owl's eyes on him, and waited for his next words.

Prosper went on:

“Your man is as hot as an oven, and he never leaves his bed—well, I'd

make him hatch some eggs.”

She was struck dumb at the suggestion, thinking that Prosper could not

possibly be in earnest. But he continued:

“I'd put five under one arm, and five under the other, the same day that

I set a hen. They'd all come out at the same time; then I'd take your

husband's chickens to the hen to bring up with her own. You'd rear a

fine lot that way.”

“Could it be done?” asked the astonished old woman.

“Could it be done?” echoed the man. “Why not? Since eggs can be hatched

in a warm box why shouldn't they be hatched in a warm bed?”

She was struck by this reasoning, and went away soothed and reflective.

A week later she entered Toine's room with her apron full of eggs, and

said:

“I've just put the yellow hen on ten eggs. Here are ten for you; try not

to break them.”

“What do you want?” asked the amazed Toine.

“I want you to hatch them, you lazy creature!” she answered.

He laughed at first; then, finding she was serious, he got angry, and

refused absolutely to have the eggs put under his great arms, that the

warmth of his body might hatch them.

But the old woman declared wrathfully:

“You'll get no dinner as long as you won't have them. You'll see what'll

happen.”

Tome was uneasy, but answered nothing.

When twelve o'clock struck, he called out:

“Hullo, mother, is the soup ready?”

“There's no soup for you, lazy-bones,” cried the old woman from her

kitchen.

He thought she must be joking, and waited a while. Then he begged,

implored, swore, “tacked to the north” and “tacked to the south,” and

beat on the wall with his fists, but had to consent at last to five eggs

being placed against his left side; after which he had his soup.

When his friends arrived that afternoon they thought he must be ill, he

seemed so constrained and queer.

They started the daily game of dominoes. But Tome appeared to take no

pleasure in it, and reached forth his hand very slowly, and with great

precaution.

“What's wrong with your arm?” asked Horslaville.

“I have a sort of stiffness in the shoulder,” answered Toine.

Suddenly they heard people come into the inn. The players were silent.

It was the mayor with the deputy. They ordered two glasses of Extra-

Special, and began to discuss local affairs. As they were talking in

somewhat low tones Toine wanted to put his ear to the wall, and,

forgetting all about his eggs, he made a sudden “tack to the north,”

which had the effect of plunging him into the midst of an omelette.

At the loud oath he swore his wife came hurrying into the room, and,

guessing what had happened, stripped the bedclothes from him with

lightning rapidity. She stood at first without moving or uttering a

syllable, speechless with indignation at sight of the yellow poultice

sticking to her husband's side.

Then, trembling with fury, she threw herself on the paralytic, showering

on him blows such as those with which she cleaned her linen on the

seashore. Tome's three friends were choking with laughter, coughing,

spluttering and shouting, and the fat innkeeper himself warded his

wife's attacks with all the prudence of which he was capable, that he

might not also break the five eggs at his other side.

Tome was conquered. He had to hatch eggs, he had to give up his games of

dominoes and renounce movement of any sort, for the old woman angrily

deprived him of food whenever he broke an egg.

He lay on his back, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, motionless, his arms

raised like wings, warming against his body the rudimentary chickens

enclosed in their white shells.

He spoke now only in hushed tones; as if he feared a noise as much as

motion, and he took a feverish interest in the yellow hen who was

accomplishing in the poultry-yard the same task as he.

“Has the yellow hen eaten her food all right?” he would ask his wife.

And the old woman went from her fowls to her husband and from her

husband to her fowls, devoured by anxiety as to the welfare of the

little chickens who were maturing in the bed and in the nest.

The country people who knew the story came, agog with curiosity, to ask

news of Toine. They entered his room on tiptoe, as one enters a sick-

chamber, and asked:

“Well! how goes it?”

“All right,” said Toine; “only it keeps me fearfully hot.”

One morning his wife entered in a state of great excitement, and

declared:

“The yellow hen has seven chickens! Three of the eggs were addled.”

Toine's heart beat painfully. How many would he have?

“Will it soon be over?” he asked, with the anguish of a woman who is

about to become a mother.

“It's to be hoped so!” answered the old woman crossly, haunted by fear

of failure.

They waited. Friends of Toine who had got wind that his time was drawing

near arrived, and filled the little room.

Nothing else was talked about in the neighboring cottages. Inquirers

asked one another for news as they stood at their doors.

About three o'clock Toine fell asleep. He slumbered half his time

nowadays. He was suddenly awakened by an unaccustomed tickling under his

right arm. He put his left hand on the spot, and seized a little

creature covered with yellow down, which fluttered in his hand.

His emotion was so great that he cried out, and let go his hold of the

chicken, which ran over his chest. The bar was full of people at the

time. The customers rushed to Toine's room, and made a circle round him

as they would round a travelling showman; while Madame Toine picked up

the chicken, which had taken refuge under her husband's beard.

No one spoke, so great was the tension. It was a warm April day. Outside

the window the yellow hen could be heard calling to her newly-fledged

brood.

Toine, who was perspiring with emotion and anxiety, murmured:

“I have another now—under the left arm.”

His' wife plunged her great bony hand into the bed, and pulled out a

second chicken with all the care of a midwife.

The neighbors wanted to see it. It was passed from one to another, and

examined as if it were a phenomenon.

For twenty minutes no more hatched out, then four emerged at the same

moment from their shells.

There was a great commotion among the lookers-on. And Toine smiled with

satisfaction, beginning to take pride in this unusual sort of paternity.

There were not many like him! Truly, he was a remarkable specimen of

humanity!

“That makes six!” he declared. “Great heavens, what a christening we'll

have!”

And a loud laugh rose from all present. Newcomers filled the bar. They

asked one another:

“How many are there?”

“Six.”

Toine's wife took this new family to the hen, who clucked loudly,

bristled her feathers, and spread her wings wide to shelter her growing

brood of little ones.

“There's one more!” cried Toine.

He was mistaken. There were three! It was an unalloyed triumph! The last

chicken broke through its shell at seven o'clock in the evening. All the

eggs were good! And Toine, beside himself with joy, his brood hatched

out, exultant, kissed the tiny creature on the back, almost suffocating

it. He wanted to keep it in his bed until morning, moved by a mother's

tenderness toward the tiny being which he had brought to life, but the

old woman carried it away like the others, turning a deaf ear to her

husband's entreaties.

The delighted spectators went off to spread the news of the event, and

Horslaville, who was the last to go, asked:

“You'll invite me when the first is cooked, won't you, Toine?”

At this idea a smile overspread the fat man's face, and he answered:

“Certainly I'll invite you, my son-in-law.”

MADAME HUSSON'S “ROSIER”

We had just left Gisors, where I was awakened to hearing the name of the

town called out by the guards, and I was dozing off again when a

terrific shock threw me forward on top of a large lady who sat opposite

me.

One of the wheels of the engine had broken, and the engine itself lay

across the track. The tender and the baggage car were also derailed, and

lay beside this mutilated engine, which rattled, groaned, hissed,

puffed, sputtered, and resembled those horses that fall in the street

with their flanks heaving, their breast palpitating, their nostrils

steaming and their whole body trembling, but incapable of the slightest

effort to rise and start off again.

There were no dead or wounded; only a few with bruises, for the train

was not going at full speed. And we looked with sorrow at the great

crippled iron creature that could not draw us along any more, and that

blocked the track, perhaps for some time, for no doubt they would have

to send to Paris for a special train to come to our aid.

It was then ten o'clock in the morning, and I at once decided to go back

to Gisors for breakfast.

As I was walking along I said to myself:

“Gisors, Gisors—why, I know someone there!

“Who is it? Gisors? Let me see, I have a friend in this town.” A name

suddenly came to my mind, “Albert Marambot.” He was an old school friend

whom I had not seen for at least twelve years, and who was practicing

medicine in Gisors. He had often written, inviting me to come and see

him, and I had always promised to do so, without keeping my word. But at

last I would take advantage of this opportunity.

I asked the first passer-by:

“Do you know where Dr. Marambot lives?”

He replied, without hesitation, and with the drawling accent of the

Normans:

“Rue Dauphine.”

I presently saw, on the door of the house he pointed out, a large brass

plate on which was engraved the name of my old chum. I rang the bell,

but the servant, a yellow-haired girl who moved slowly, said with a

Stupid air:

“He isn't here, he isn't here.”

I heard a sound of forks and of glasses and I cried:

“Hallo, Marambot!”

A door opened and a large man, with whiskers and a cross look on his

face, appeared, carrying a dinner napkin in his hand.

I certainly should not have recognized him. One would have said he was

forty-five at least, and, in a second, all the provincial life which

makes one grow heavy, dull and old came before me. In a single flash of

thought, quicker than the act of extending my hand to him, I could see

his life, his manner of existence, his line of thought and his theories

of things in general. I guessed at the prolonged meals that had rounded

out his stomach, his after-dinner naps from the torpor of a slow

indigestion aided by cognac, and his vague glances cast on the patient

while he thought of the chicken that was roasting before the fire. His

conversations about cooking, about cider, brandy and wine, the way of

preparing certain dishes and of blending certain sauces were revealed to

me at sight of his puffy red cheeks, his heavy lips and his lustreless

eyes.

“You do not recognize me. I am Raoul Aubertin,” I said.

He opened his arms and gave me such a hug that I thought he would choke

me.

“You have not breakfasted, have you?”

“No.”

“How fortunate! I was just sitting down to table and I have an excellent

trout.”

Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him at breakfast. I said:

“Are you a bachelor?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And do you like it here?”

“Time does not hang heavy; I am busy. I have patients and friends. I eat

well, have good health, enjoy laughing and shooting. I get along.”

“Is not life very monotonous in this little town?”

“No, my dear boy, not when one knows how to fill in the time. A little

town, in fact, is like a large one. The incidents and amusements are

less varied, but one makes more of them; one has fewer acquaintances,

but one meets them more frequently. When you know all the windows in a

street, each one of them interests you and puzzles you more than a whole

street in Paris.

“A little town is very amusing, you know, very amusing, very amusing.

Why, take Gisors. I know it at the tips of my fingers, from its

beginning up to the present time. You have no idea what queer history it

has.”

“Do you belong to Gisors?”

“I? No. I come from Gournay, its neighbor and rival. Gournay is to

Gisors what Lucullus was to Cicero. Here, everything is for glory; they

say 'the proud people of Gisors.' At Gournay, everything is for the

stomach; they say 'the chewers of Gournay.' Gisors despises Gournay, but

Gournay laughs at Gisors. It is a very comical country, this.”

I perceived that I was eating something very delicious, hard-boiled eggs

wrapped in a covering of meat jelly flavored with herbs and put on ice

for a few moments. I said as I smacked my lips to compliment Marambot:

“That is good.”

He smiled.

“Two things are necessary, good jelly, which is hard to get, and good

eggs. Oh, how rare good eggs are, with the yolks slightly reddish, and

with a good flavor! I have two poultry yards, one for eggs and the other

for chickens. I feed my laying hens in a special manner. I have my own

ideas on the subject. In an egg, as in the meat of a chicken, in beef,

or in mutton, in milk, in everything, one perceives, and ought to taste,

the juice, the quintessence of all the food on which the animal has fed.

How much better food we could have if more attention were paid to this!”

I laughed as I said:

“You are a gourmand?”

“Parbleu. It is only imbeciles who are not. One is a gourmand as one is

an artist, as one is learned, as one is a poet. The sense of taste, my

friend, is very delicate, capable of perfection, and quite as worthy of

respect as the eye and the ear. A person who lacks this sense is

deprived of an exquisite faculty, the faculty of discerning the quality

of food, just as one may lack the faculty of discerning the beauties of

a book or of a work of art; it means to be deprived of an essential

organ, of something that belongs to higher humanity; it means to belong

to one of those innumerable classes of the infirm, the unfortunate, and

the fools of which our race is composed; it means to have the mouth of

an animal, in a word, just like the mind of an animal. A man who cannot

distinguish one kind of lobster from another; a herring—that admirable

fish that has all the flavors, all the odors of the sea—from a mackerel

or a whiting; and a Cresane from a Duchess pear, may be compared to a

man who should mistake Balzac for Eugene Sue; a symphony of Beethoven

for a military march composed by the bandmaster of a regiment; and the

Apollo Belvidere for the statue of General de Blaumont.

“Who is General de Blaumont?”

“Oh, that's true, you do not know. It is easy to tell that you do not

belong to Gisors. I told you just now, my dear boy, that they called the

inhabitants of this town 'the proud people of Gisors,' and never was an

epithet better deserved. But let us finish breakfast first, and then I

will tell you about our town and take you to see it.”

He stopped talking every now and then while he slowly drank a glass of

wine which he gazed at affectionately as he replaced the glass on the

table.

It was amusing to see him, with a napkin tied around his neck, his

cheeks flushed, his eyes eager, and his whiskers spreading round his

mouth as it kept working.

He made me eat until I was almost choking. Then, as I was about to

return to the railway station, he seized me by the arm and took me

through the streets. The town, of a pretty, provincial type, commanded

by its citadel, the most curious monument of military architecture of

the seventh century to be found in France, overlooks, in its turn, a

long, green valley, where the large Norman cows graze and ruminate in

the pastures.

The doctor quoted:

“'Gisors, a town of 4,000 inhabitants in the department of Eure,

mentioned in Caesar's Commentaries: Caesaris ostium, then Caesartium,

Caesortium, Gisortium, Gisors.' I shall not take you to visit the old

Roman encampment, the remains of which are still in existence.”

I laughed and replied:

“My dear friend, it seems to me that you are affected with a special

malady that, as a doctor, you ought to study; it is called the spirit of

provincialism.”

He stopped abruptly.

“The spirit of provincialism, my friend, is nothing but natural

patriotism,” he said. “I love my house, my town and my province because

I discover in them the customs of my own village; but if I love my

country, if I become angry when a neighbor sets foot in it, it is

because I feel that my home is in danger, because the frontier that I do

not know is the high road to my province. For instance, I am a Norman, a

true Norman; well, in spite of my hatred of the German and my desire for

revenge, I do not detest them, I do not hate them by instinct as I hate

the English, the real, hereditary natural enemy of the Normans; for the

English traversed this soil inhabited by my ancestors, plundered and

ravaged it twenty times, and my aversion to this perfidious people was

transmitted to me at birth by my father. See, here is the statue of the

general.”

“What general?”

“General Blaumont! We had to have a statue. We are not 'the proud people

of Gisors' for nothing! So we discovered General de Blaumont. Look in

this bookseller's window.”

He drew me towards the bookstore, where about fifteen red, yellow and

blue volumes attracted the eye. As I read the titles, I began to laugh

idiotically. They read:

Gisors, its origin, its future, by M. X. . . ., member of several

learned societies; History of Gisors, by the Abbe A . . .; Gisors from

the time of Caesar to the present day, by M. B. . . ., Landowner; Gisors

and its environs, by Doctor C. D. . . .; The Glories of Gisors, by a

Discoverer.

“My friend,” resumed Marambot, “not a year, not a single year, you

understand, passes without a fresh history of Gisors being published

here; we now have twenty-three.”

“And the glories of Gisors?” I asked.

“Oh, I will not mention them all, only the principal ones. We had first

General de Blaumont, then Baron Davillier, the celebrated ceramist who

explored Spain and the Balearic Isles, and brought to the notice of

collectors the wonderful Hispano-Arabic china. In literature we have a

very clever journalist, now dead, Charles Brainne, and among those who

are living, the very eminent editor of the Nouvelliste de Rouen, Charles

Lapierre . . . and many others, many others.”

We were traversing along street with a gentle incline, with a June sun

beating down on it and driving the residents into their houses.

Suddenly there appeared at the farther end of the street a drunken man

who was staggering along, with his head forward his arms and legs limp.

He would walk forward rapidly three, six, or ten steps and then stop.

When these energetic movements landed him in the middle of the road he

stopped short and swayed on his feet, hesitating between falling and a

fresh start. Then he would dart off in any direction, sometimes falling

against the wall of a house, against which he seemed to be fastened, as

though he were trying to get in through the wall. Then he would suddenly

turn round and look ahead of him, his mouth open and his eyes blinking

in the sunlight, and getting away from the wall by a movement of the

hips, he started off once more.

A little yellow dog, a half-starved cur, followed him, barking; stopping

when he stopped, and starting off when he started.

“Hallo,” said Marambot, “there is Madame Husson's 'Rosier'.

“Madame Husson's 'Rosier',” I exclaimed in astonishment. “What do you

mean?”

The doctor began to laugh.

“Oh, that is what we call drunkards round here. The name comes from an

old story which has now become a legend, although it is true in all

respects.”

“Is it an amusing story?”

“Very amusing.”

“Well, then, tell it to me.”

“I will.”

There lived formerly in this town a very upright old lady who was a

great guardian of morals and was called Mme. Husson. You know, I am

telling you the real names and not imaginary ones. Mme. Husson took a

special interest in good works, in helping the poor and encouraging the

deserving. She was a little woman with a quick walk and wore a black

wig. She was ceremonious, polite, on very good terms with the Almighty

in the person of Abby Malon, and had a profound horror, an inborn horror

of vice, and, in particular, of the vice the Church calls

lasciviousness. Any irregularity before marriage made her furious,

exasperated her till she was beside herself.

Now, this was the period when they presented a prize as a reward of

virtue to any girl in the environs of Paris who was found to be chaste.

She was called a Rosiere, and Mme. Husson got the idea that she would

institute a similar ceremony at Gisors. She spoke about it to Abbe

Malon, who at once made out a list of candidates.

However, Mme. Husson had a servant, an old woman called Francoise, as

upright as her mistress. As soon as the priest had left, madame called

the servant and said:

“Here, Francoise, here are the girls whose names M. le cure has

submitted to me for the prize of virtue; try and find out what

reputation they bear in the district.”

And Francoise set out. She collected all the scandal, all the stories,

all the tattle, all the suspicions. That she might omit nothing, she

wrote it all down together with her memoranda in her housekeeping book,

and handed it each morning to Mme. Husson, who, after adjusting her

spectacles on her thin nose, read as follows:

Bread...........................four sous

Milk............................two sous Butter

.........................eight sous Malvina Levesque got into trouble

last year with Mathurin Poilu. Leg of mutton...................twenty-

five sous Salt............................one sou Rosalie Vatinel was

seen in the Riboudet woods with Cesaire Pienoir, by Mme. Onesime, the

ironer, on July the 20th about dusk. Radishes........................one

sou Vinegar.........................two sous Oxalic

acid.....................two sous

Josephine Durdent, who is not believed to have committed a fault,

although she corresponds with young Oportun, who is in service in Rouen,

and who sent her a present of a cap by diligence.

Not one came out unscathed in this rigorous inquisition. Francoise

inquired of everyone, neighbors, drapers, the principal, the teaching

sisters at school, and gathered the slightest details.

As there is not a girl in the world about whom gossips have not found

something to say, there was not found in all the countryside one young

girl whose name was free from some scandal.

But Mme. Husson desired that the “Rosiere” of Gisors, like Caesar's

wife, should be above suspicion, and she was horrified, saddened and in

despair at the record in her servant's housekeeping account-book.

They then extended their circle of inquiries to the neighboring

villages; but with no satisfaction.

They consulted the mayor. His candidates failed. Those of Dr. Barbesol

were equally unlucky, in spite of the exactness of his scientific

vouchers.

But one morning Francoise, on returning from one of her expeditions,

said to her mistress:

“You see, madame, that if you wish to give a prize to anyone, there is

only Isidore in all the country round.”

Mme. Husson remained thoughtful. She knew him well, this Isidore, the

son of Virginie the greengrocer. His proverbial virtue had been the

delight of Gisors for several years, and served as an entertaining theme

of conversation in the town, and of amusement to the young girls who

loved to tease him. He was past twenty-one, was tall, awkward, slow and

timid; helped his mother in the business, and spent his days picking

over fruit and vegetables, seated on a chair outside the door.

He had an abnormal dread of a petticoat and cast down his eyes whenever

a female customer looked at him smilingly, and this well-known timidity

made him the butt of all the wags in the country.

Bold words, coarse expressions, indecent allusions, brought the color to

his cheeks so quickly that Dr. Barbesol had nicknamed him “the

thermometer of modesty.” Was he as innocent as he looked? ill-natured

people asked themselves. Was it the mere presentiment of unknown and

shameful mysteries or else indignation at the relations ordained as the

concomitant of love that so strongly affected the son of Virginie the

greengrocer? The urchins of the neighborhood as they ran past the shop

would fling disgusting remarks at him just to see him cast down his

eyes. The girls amused themselves by walking up and down before him,

cracking jokes that made him go into the store. The boldest among them

teased him to his face just to have a laugh, to amuse themselves, made

appointments with him and proposed all sorts of things.

So Madame Husson had become thoughtful.

Certainly, Isidore was an exceptional case of notorious, unassailable

virtue. No one, among the most sceptical, most incredulous, would have

been able, would have dared, to suspect Isidore of the slightest

infraction of any law of morality. He had never been seen in a cafe,

never been seen at night on the street. He went to bed at eight o'clock

and rose at four. He was a perfection, a pearl.

But Mme. Husson still hesitated. The idea of substituting a boy for a

girl, a “rosier” for a “rosiere,” troubled her, worried her a little,

and she resolved to consult Abbe Malon.

The abbe responded:

“What do you desire to reward, madame? It is virtue, is it not, and

nothing but virtue? What does it matter to you, therefore, if it is

masculine or feminine? Virtue is eternal; it has neither sex nor

country; it is 'Virtue.'”

Thus encouraged, Mme. Husson went to see the mayor.

He approved heartily.

“We will have a fine ceremony,” he said. “And another year if we can

find a girl as worthy as Isidore we will give the reward to her. It will

even be a good example that we shall set to Nanterre. Let us not be

exclusive; let us welcome all merit.”

Isidore, who had been told about this, blushed deeply and seemed happy.

The ceremony was fixed for the 15th of August, the festival of the

Virgin Mary and of the Emperor Napoleon. The municipality had decided to

make an imposing ceremony and had built the platform on the couronneaux,

a delightful extension of the ramparts of the old citadel where I will

take you presently.

With the natural revulsion of public feeling, the virtue of Isidore,

ridiculed hitherto, had suddenly become respected and envied, as it

would bring him in five hundred francs besides a savings bank book, a

mountain of consideration, and glory enough and to spare. The girls now

regretted their frivolity, their ridicule, their bold manners; and

Isidore, although still modest and timid, had now a little contented air

that bespoke his internal satisfaction.

The evening before the 15th of August the entire Rue Dauphine was

decorated with flags. Oh, I forgot to tell you why this street had been

called Rue Dauphine.

It seems that the wife or mother of the dauphin, I do not remember which

one, while visiting Gisors had been feted so much by the authorities

that during a triumphal procession through the town she stopped before

one of the houses in this street, halting the procession, and exclaimed:

“Oh, the pretty house! How I should like to go through it! To whom does

it belong?”

They told her the name of the owner, who was sent for and brought, proud

and embarrassed, before the princess. She alighted from her carriage,

went into the house, wishing to go over it from top to bottom, and even

shut herself in one of the rooms alone for a few seconds.

When she came out, the people, flattered at this honor paid to a citizen

of Gisors, shouted “Long live the dauphine!” But a rhymester wrote some

words to a refrain, and the street retained the title of her royal

highness, for

“The princess, in a hurry, Without bell, priest, or beadle, But with

some water only, Had baptized it.”

But to come back to Isidore.

They had scattered flowers all along the road as they do for processions

at the Fete-Dieu, and the National Guard was present, acting on the

orders of their chief, Commandant Desbarres, an old soldier of the Grand

Army, who pointed with pride to the beard of a Cossack cut with a single

sword stroke from the chin of its owner by the commandant during the

retreat in Russia, and which hung beside the frame containing the cross

of the Legion of Honor presented to him by the emperor himself.

The regiment that he commanded was, besides, a picked regiment

celebrated all through the province, and the company of grenadiers of

Gisors was called on to attend all important ceremonies for a distance

of fifteen to twenty leagues. The story goes that Louis Philippe, while

reviewing the militia of Eure, stopped in astonishment before the

company from Gisors, exclaiming:

“Oh, who are those splendid grenadiers?”

“The grenadiers of Gisors,” replied the general.

“I might have known it,” murmured the king.

So Commandant Desbarres came at the head of his men, preceded by the

band, to get Isidore in his mother's store.

After a little air had been played by the band beneath the windows, the

“Rosier” himself appeared—on the threshold. He was dressed in white duck

from head to foot and wore a straw hat with a little bunch of orange

blossoms as a cockade.

The question of his clothes had bothered Mme. Husson a good deal, and

she hesitated some time between the black coat of those who make their

first communion and an entire white suit. But Francoise, her counsellor,

induced her to decide on the white suit, pointing out that the Rosier

would look like a swan.

Behind him came his guardian, his godmother, Mme. Husson, in triumph.

She took his arm to go out of the store, and the mayor placed himself on

the other side of the Rosier. The drums beat. Commandant Desbarres gave

the order “Present arms!” The procession resumed its march towards the

church amid an immense crowd of people who has gathered from the

neighboring districts.

After a short mass and an affecting discourse by Abbe Malon, they

continued on their way to the couronneaux, where the banquet was served

in a tent.

Before taking their seats at table, the mayor gave an address. This is

it, word for word. I learned it by heart:

“Young man, a woman of means, beloved by the poor and respected by the

rich, Mme. Husson, whom the whole country is thanking here, through me,

had the idea, the happy and benevolent idea, of founding in this town a

prize for virtue, which should serve as a valuable encouragement to the

inhabitants of this beautiful country.

“You, young man, are the first to be rewarded in this dynasty of

goodness and chastity. Your name will remain at the head of this list of

the most deserving, and your life, understand me, your whole life, must

correspond to this happy commencement. To-day, in presence of this noble

woman, of these soldier-citizens who have taken up their arms in your

honor, in presence of this populace, affected, assembled to applaud you,

or, rather, to applaud virtue, in your person, you make a solemn

contract with the town, with all of us, to continue until your death the

excellent example of your youth.

“Do not forget, young man, that you are the first seed cast into this

field of hope; give us the fruits that we expect of you.”

The mayor advanced three steps, opened his arms and pressed Isidore to

his heart.

The “Rosier” was sobbing without knowing why, from a confused emotion,

from pride and a vague and happy feeling of tenderness.

Then the mayor placed in one hand a silk purse in which gold tingled

—five hundred francs in gold!—and in his other hand a savings bank book.

And he said in a solemn tone:

“Homage, glory and riches to virtue.”

Commandant Desbarres shouted “Bravo!” the grenadiers vociferated, and

the crowd applauded.

Mme. Husson wiped her eyes, in her turn. Then they all sat down at the

table where the banquet was served.

The repast was magnificent and seemed interminable. One course followed

another; yellow cider and red wine in fraternal contact blended in the

stomach of the guests. The rattle of plates, the sound of voices, and of

music softly played, made an incessant deep hum, and was dispersed

abroad in the clear sky where the swallows were flying. Mme. Husson

occasionally readjusted her black wig, which would slip over on one

side, and chatted with Abbe Malon. The mayor, who was excited, talked

politics with Commandant Desbarres, and Isidore ate, drank, as if he had

never eaten or drunk before. He helped himself repeatedly to all the

dishes, becoming aware for the first time of the pleasure of having

one's belly full of good things which tickle the palate in the first

place. He had let out a reef in his belt and, without speaking, and

although he was a little uneasy at a wine stain on his white waistcoat,

he ceased eating in order to take up his glass and hold it to his mouth

as long as possible, to enjoy the taste slowly.

It was time for the toasts. They were many and loudly applauded. Evening

was approaching and they had been at the table since noon. Fine, milky

vapors were already floating in the air in the valley, the light night-

robe of streams and meadows; the sun neared the horizon; the cows were

lowing in the distance amid the mists of the pasture. The feast was

over. They returned to Gisors. The procession, now disbanded, walked in

detachments. Mme. Husson had taken Isidore's arm and was giving him a

quantity of urgent, excellent advice.

They stopped at the door of the fruit store, and the “Rosier” was left

at his mother's house. She had not come home yet. Having been invited by

her family to celebrate her son's triumph, she had taken luncheon with

her sister after having followed the procession as far as the banqueting

tent.

So Isidore remained alone in the store, which was growing dark. He sat

down on a chair, excited by the wine and by pride, and looked about him.

Carrots, cabbages, and onions gave out their strong odor of vegetables

in the closed room, that coarse smell of the garden blended with the

sweet, penetrating odor of strawberries and the delicate, slight,

evanescent fragrance of a basket of peaches.

The “Rosier” took one of these and ate it, although he was as full as an

egg. Then, all at once, wild with joy, he began to dance about the

store, and something rattled in his waistcoat.