“When he had finished telling about his adventure he would walk round

the room and smoke cigarettes, and he was so handsome, with his mustache

and curly hair, that I would think: 'It's true, just the same, what he

is telling. Since I myself am crazy about that man, why should not

others be the same?' Then I would feel like crying, shrieking, running

away and jumping out of the window while I was clearing the table and he

was smoking. He would yawn in order to show how tired he was, and he

would say two or three times before going to bed: 'Ah! how well I shall

sleep this evening!'

“I bear him no ill will, because he did not know how he was hurting me.

No, he could not know! He loved to boast about the women just as a

peacock loves to show his feathers. He got to the point where he thought

that all of them looked at him and desired him.

“It was hard when he grew old. Oh, monsieur, when I saw his first white

hair I felt a terrible shock and then a great joy—a wicked joy—but so

great, so great! I said to myself: 'It's the end-it's the end.' It

seemed as if I were about to be released from prison. At last I could

have him to myself, all to myself, when the others would no longer want

him.

“It was one morning in bed. He was still sleeping and I leaned over him

to wake him up with a kiss, when I noticed in his curls, over his

temple, a little thread which shone like silver. What a surprise! I

should not have thought it possible! At first I thought of tearing it

out so that he would not see it, but as I looked carefully I noticed

another farther up. White hair! He was going to have white hair! My

heart began to thump and perspiration stood out all over me, but away

down at the bottom I was happy.

“It was mean to feel thus, but I did my housework with a light heart

that morning, without waking him up, and, as soon as he opened his eyes

of his own accord, I said to him: 'Do you know what I discovered while

you were asleep?'

“'No.'

“'I found white hairs.'

“He started up as if I had tickled him and said angrily: 'It's not

true!'

“'Yes, it is. There are four of them over your left temple.'

“He jumped out of bed and ran over to the mirror. He could not find

them. Then I showed him the first one, the lowest, the little curly one,

and I said: 'It's no wonder, after the life that you have been leading.

In two years all will be over for you.'

“Well, monsieur, I had spoken true; two years later one could not

recognize him. How quickly a man changes! He was still handsome, but he

had lost his freshness, and the women no longer ran after him. Ah! what

a life I led at that time! How he treated me! Nothing suited him. He

left his trade to go into the hat business, in which he ate up all his

money. Then he unsuccessfully tried to be an actor, and finally he began

to frequent public balls. Fortunately, he had had common sense enough to

save a little something on which we now live. It is sufficient, but it

is not enormous. And to think that at one time he had almost a fortune.

“Now you see what he does. This habit holds him like a frenzy. He has to

be young; he has to dance with women who smell of perfume and cosmetics.

You poor old darling!”

She was looking at her old snoring husband fondly, ready to cry. Then,

gently tiptoeing up to him, she kissed his hair. The physician had risen

and was getting ready to leave, finding nothing to say to this strange

couple. Just as he was leaving she asked:

“Would you mind giving me your address? If he should grow worse, I could

go and get you.”

THE PENGUINS' ROCK This is the season for penguins.

From April to the end of May, before the Parisian visitors arrive, one

sees, all at once, on the little beach at Etretat several old gentlemen,

booted and belted in shooting costume. They spend four or five days at

the Hotel Hauville, disappear, and return again three weeks later. Then,

after a fresh sojourn, they go away altogether.

One sees them again the following spring.

These are the last penguin hunters, what remain of the old set. There

were about twenty enthusiasts thirty or forty years ago; now there are

only a few of the enthusiastic sportsmen.

The penguin is a very rare bird of passage, with peculiar habits. It

lives the greater part of the year in the latitude of Newfoundland and

the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. But in the breeding season a

flight of emigrants crosses the ocean and comes every year to the same

spot to lay their eggs, to the Penguins' Rock near Etretat. They are

found nowhere else, only there. They have always come there, have always

been chased away, but return again, and will always return. As soon as

the young birds are grown they all fly away, and disappear for a year.

Why do they not go elsewhere? Why not choose some other spot on the long

white, unending cliff that extends from the Pas-de-Calais to Havre? What

force, what invincible instinct, what custom of centuries impels these

birds to come back to this place? What first migration, what tempest,

possibly, once cast their ancestors on this rock? And why do the

children, the grandchildren, all the descendants of the first parents

always return here?

There are not many of them, a hundred at most, as if one single family,

maintaining the tradition, made this annual pilgrimage.

And each spring, as soon as the little wandering tribe has taken up its

abode an the rock, the same sportsmen also reappear in the village. One

knew them formerly when they were young; now they are old, but constant

to the regular appointment which they have kept for thirty or forty

years. They would not miss it for anything in the world.

It was an April evening in one of the later years. Three of the old

sportsmen had arrived; one was missing—M. d'Arnelles.

He had written to no one, given no account of himself. But he was not

dead, like so many of the rest; they would have heard of it. At length,

tired of waiting for him, the other three sat down to table. Dinner was

almost over when a carriage drove into the yard of the hotel, and the

late comer presently entered the dining room.

He sat down, in a good humor, rubbing his hands, and ate with zest. When

one of his comrades remarked with surprise at his being in a frock-coat,

he replied quietly:

“Yes, I had no time to change my clothes.”

They retired on leaving the table, for they had to set out before

daybreak in order to take the birds unawares.

There is nothing so pretty as this sport, this early morning expedition.

At three o'clock in the morning the sailors awoke the sportsmen by

throwing sand against the windows. They were ready in a few minutes and

went down to the beach. Although it was still dark, the stars had paled

a little. The sea ground the shingle on the beach. There was such a

fresh breeze that it made one shiver slightly in spite of one's heavy

clothing.

Presently two boats were pushed down the beach, by the sailors, with a

sound as of tearing cloth, and were floated on the nearest waves. The

brown sail was hoisted, swelled a little, fluttered, hesitated and

swelling out again as round as a paunch, carried the boats towards the

large arched entrance that could be faintly distinguished in the

darkness.

The sky became clearer, the shadows seemed to melt away. The coast still

seemed veiled, the great white coast, perpendicular as a wall.

They passed through the Manne-Porte, an enormous arch beneath which a

ship could sail; they doubled the promontory of La Courtine, passed the

little valley of Antifer and the cape of the same name; and suddenly

caught sight of a beach on which some hundreds of seagulls were perched.

That was the Penguins' Rock. It was just a little protuberance of the

cliff, and on the narrow ledges of rock the birds' heads might be seen

watching the boats.

They remained there, motionless, not venturing to fly off as yet. Some

of them perched on the edges, seated upright, looked almost like

bottles, for their little legs are so short that when they walk they

glide along as if they were on rollers. When they start to fly they

cannot make a spring and let themselves fall like stones almost down to

the very men who are watching them.

They know their limitation and the danger to which it subjects them, and

cannot make up their minds to fly away.

But the boatmen begin to shout, beating the sides of the boat with the

wooden boat pins, and the birds, in affright, fly one by one into space

until they reach the level of the waves. Then, moving their wings

rapidly, they scud, scud along until they reach the open sea; if a

shower of lead does not knock them into the water.

For an hour the firing is kept up, obliging them to give up, one after

another. Sometimes the mother birds will not leave their nests, and are

riddled with shot, causing drops of blood to spurt out on the white

cliff, and the animal dies without having deserted her eggs.

The first day M. d'Arnelles fired at the birds with his habitual zeal;

but when the party returned toward ten o'clock, beneath a brilliant sun,

which cast great triangles of light on the white cliffs along the coast

he appeared a little worried, and absentminded, contrary to his

accustomed manner.

As soon as they got on shore a kind of servant dressed in black came up

to him and said something in a low tone. He seemed to reflect, hesitate,

and then replied:

“No, to-morrow.”

The following day they set out again. This time M, d'Arnelles frequently

missed his aim, although the birds were close by. His friends teased

him, asked him if he were in love, if some secret sorrow was troubling

his mind and heart. At length he confessed.

“Yes, indeed, I have to leave soon, and that annoys me.”

“What, you must leave? And why?”

“Oh, I have some business that calls me back. I cannot stay any longer.”

They then talked of other matters.

As soon as breakfast was over the valet in black appeared. M. d'Arnelles

ordered his carriage, and the man was leaving the room when the three

sportsmen interfered, insisting, begging, and praying their friend to

stay. One of them at last said:

“Come now, this cannot be a matter of such importance, for you have

already waited two days.”

M. d'Arnelles, altogether perplexed, began to think, evidently baffled,

divided between pleasure and duty, unhappy and disturbed.

After reflecting for some time he stammered:

“The fact is—the fact is—I am not alone here. I have my son-in-law.”

There were exclamations and shouts of “Your son-in-law! Where is he?”

He suddenly appeared confused and his face grew red.

“What! do you not know? Why—why—he is in the coach house. He is dead.”

They were all silent in amazement.

M. d'Arnelles continued, more and more disturbed:

“I had the misfortune to lose him; and as I was taking the body to my

house, in Briseville, I came round this way so as not to miss our

appointment. But you can see that I cannot wait any longer.”

Then one of the sportsmen, bolder than the rest said:

“Well, but—since he is dead—it seems to me that he can wait a day

longer.”

The others chimed in:

“That cannot be denied.”

M. d'Arnelles appeared to be relieved of a great weight, but a little

uneasy, nevertheless, he asked:

“But, frankly—do you think—”

The three others, as one man, replied:

“Parbleu! my dear boy, two days more or less can make no difference in

his present condition.”

And, perfectly calmly, the father-in-law turned to the undertaker's

assistant, and said:

“Well, then, my friend, it will be the day after tomorrow.”

A FAMILY

I was to see my old friend, Simon Radevin, of whom I had lost sight for

fifteen years. At one time he was my most intimate friend, the friend

who knows one's thoughts, with whom one passes long, quiet, happy

evenings, to whom one tells one's secret love affairs, and who seems to

draw out those rare, ingenious, delicate thoughts born of that sympathy

that gives a sense of repose.

For years we had scarcely been separated; we had lived, travelled,

thought and dreamed together; had liked the same things, had admired the

same books, understood the same authors, trembled with the same

sensations, and very often laughed at the same individuals, whom we

understood completely by merely exchanging a glance.

Then he married. He married, quite suddenly, a little girl from the

provinces, who had come to Paris in search of a husband. How in the

world could that little thin, insipidly fair girl, with her weak hands,

her light, vacant eyes, and her clear, silly voice, who was exactly like

a hundred thousand marriageable dolls, have picked up that intelligent,

clever young fellow? Can any one understand these things? No doubt he

had hoped for happiness, simple, quiet and long-enduring happiness, in

the arms of a good, tender and faithful woman; he had seen all that in

the transparent looks of that schoolgirl with light hair.

He had not dreamed of the fact that an active, living and vibrating man

grows weary of everything as soon as he understands the stupid reality,

unless, indeed, he becomes so brutalized that he understands nothing

whatever.

What would he be like when I met him again? Still lively, witty, light-

hearted and enthusiastic, or in a state of mental torpor induced by

provincial life? A man may change greatly in the course of fifteen

years!

The train stopped at a small station, and as I got out of the carriage,

a stout, a very stout man with red cheeks and a big stomach rushed up to

me with open arms, exclaiming: “George!” I embraced him, but I had not

recognized him, and then I said, in astonishment: “By Jove! You have not

grown thin!” And he replied with a laugh:

“What did you expect? Good living, a good table and good nights! Eating

and sleeping, that is my existence!”

I looked at him closely, trying to discover in that broad face the

features I held so dear. His eyes alone had not changed, but I no longer

saw the same expression in them, and I said to myself: “If the

expression be the reflection of the mind, the thoughts in that head are

not what they used to be formerly; those thoughts which I knew so well.”

Yet his eyes were bright, full of happiness and friendship, but they had

not that clear, intelligent expression which shows as much as words the

brightness of the intellect. Suddenly he said:

“Here are my two eldest children.” A girl of fourteen, who was almost a

woman, and a boy of thirteen, in the dress of a boy from a Lycee, came

forward in a hesitating and awkward manner, and I said in a low voice:

“Are they yours?” “Of course they are,” he replied, laughing. “How many

have you?” “Five! There are three more at home.”

He said this in a proud, self-satisfied, almost triumphant manner, and I

felt profound pity, mingled with a feeling of vague contempt, for this

vainglorious and simple reproducer of his species.

I got into a carriage which he drove himself, and we set off through the

town, a dull, sleepy, gloomy town where nothing was moving in the

streets except a few dogs and two or three maidservants. Here and there

a shopkeeper, standing at his door, took off his hat, and Simon returned

his salute and told me the man's name; no doubt to show me that he knew

all the inhabitants personally, and the thought struck me that he was

thinking of becoming a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, that dream

of all those who bury themselves in the provinces.

We were soon out of the town, and the carriage turned into a garden that

was an imitation of a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house,

which tried to look like a chateau.

“That is my den,” said Simon, so that I might compliment him on it. “It

is charming,” I replied.

A lady appeared on the steps, dressed for company, and with company

phrases all ready prepared. She was no longer the light-haired, insipid

girl I had seen in church fifteen years previously, but a stout lady in

curls and flounces, one of those ladies of uncertain age, without

intellect, without any of those things that go to make a woman. In

short, she was a mother, a stout, commonplace mother, a human breeding

machine which procreates without any other preoccupation but her

children and her cook-book.

She welcomed me, and I went into the hall, where three children, ranged

according to their height, seemed set out for review, like firemen

before a mayor, and I said: “Ah! ah! so there are the others?” Simon,

radiant with pleasure, introduced them: “Jean, Sophie and Gontran.”

The door of the drawing-room was open. I went in, and in the depths of

an easy-chair, I saw something trembling, a man, an old, paralyzed man.

Madame Radevin came forward and said: “This is my grandfather, monsieur;

he is eighty-seven.” And then she shouted into the shaking old man's

ears: “This is a friend of Simon's, papa.” The old gentleman tried to

say “good-day” to me, and he muttered: “Oua, oua, oua,” and waved his

hand, and I took a seat saying: “You are very kind, monsieur.”

Simon had just come in, and he said with a laugh: “So! You have made

grandpapa's acquaintance. He is a treasure, that old man; he is the

delight of the children. But he is so greedy that he almost kills

himself at every meal; you have no idea what he would eat if he were

allowed to do as he pleased. But you will see, you will see. He looks at

all the sweets as if they were so many girls. You never saw anything so

funny; you will see presently.”

I was then shown to my room, to change my dress for dinner, and hearing

a great clatter behind me on the stairs, I turned round and saw that all

the children were following me behind their father; to do me honor, no

doubt.

My windows looked out across a dreary, interminable plain, an ocean of

grass, of wheat and of oats, without a clump of trees or any rising

ground, a striking and melancholy picture of the life which they must be

leading in that house.

A bell rang; it was for dinner, and I went downstairs. Madame Radevin

took my arm in a ceremonious manner, and we passed into the dining-room.

A footman wheeled in the old man in his armchair. He gave a greedy and

curious look at the dessert, as he turned his shaking head with

difficulty from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands: “You will be amused,” he said; and all the

children understanding that I was going to be indulged with the sight of

their greedy grandfather, began to laugh, while their mother merely

smiled and shrugged her shoulders, and Simon, making a speaking trumpet

of his hands, shouted at the old man: “This evening there is sweet

creamed rice!” The wrinkled face of the grandfather brightened, and he

trembled more violently, from head to foot, showing that he had

understood and was very pleased. The dinner began.

“Just look!” Simon whispered. The old man did not like the soup, and

refused to eat it; but he was obliged to do it for the good of his

health, and the footman forced the spoon into his mouth, while the old

man blew so energetically, so as not to swallow the soup, that it was

scattered like a spray all over the table and over his neighbors. The

children writhed with laughter at the spectacle, while their father, who

was also amused, said: “Is not the old man comical?”

During the whole meal they were taken up solely with him. He devoured

the dishes on the table with his eyes, and tried to seize them and pull

them over to him with his trembling hands. They put them almost within

his reach, to see his useless efforts, his trembling clutches at them,

the piteous appeal of his whole nature, of his eyes, of his mouth and of

his nose as he smelt them, and he slobbered on his table napkin with

eagerness, while uttering inarticulate grunts. And the whole family was

highly amused at this horrible and grotesque scene.

Then they put a tiny morsel on his plate, and he ate with feverish

gluttony, in order to get something more as soon as possible, and when

the sweetened rice was brought in, he nearly had a fit, and groaned with

greediness, and Gontran called out to him:

“You have eaten too much already; you can have no more.” And they

pretended not to give him any. Then he began to cry; he cried and

trembled more violently than ever, while all the children laughed. At

last, however, they gave him his helping, a very small piece; and as he

ate the first mouthful, he made a comical noise in his throat, and a

movement with his neck as ducks do when they swallow too large a morsel,

and when he had swallowed it, he began to stamp his feet, so as to get

more.

I was seized with pity for this saddening and ridiculous Tantalus, and

interposed on his behalf:

“Come, give him a little more rice!” But Simon replied: “Oh! no, my dear

fellow, if he were to eat too much, it would harm him, at his age.”

I held my tongue, and thought over those words. Oh, ethics! Oh, logic!

Oh, wisdom! At his age! So they deprived him of his only remaining

pleasure out of regard for his health! His health! What would he do with

it, inert and trembling wreck that he was? They were taking care of his

life, so they said. His life? How many days? Ten, twenty, fifty, or a

hundred? Why? For his own sake? Or to preserve for some time longer the

spectacle of his impotent greediness in the family.

There was nothing left for him to do in this life, nothing whatever. He

had one single wish left, one sole pleasure; why not grant him that last

solace until he died?

After we had played cards for a long time, I went up to my room and to

bed; I was low-spirited and sad, sad, sad! and I sat at my window. Not a

sound could be heard outside but the beautiful warbling of a bird in a

tree, somewhere in the distance. No doubt the bird was singing in a low

voice during the night, to lull his mate, who was asleep on her eggs.

And I thought of my poor friend's five children, and pictured him to

myself, snoring by the side of his ugly wife.

SUICIDES To Georges Legrand.

Hardly a day goes by without our reading a news item like the following

in some newspaper:

“On Wednesday night the people living in No. 40 Rue de——-, were awakened

by two successive shots. The explosions seemed to come from the

apartment occupied by M. X——. The door was broken in and the man was

found bathed in his blood, still holding in one hand the revolver with

which he had taken his life.

“M. X——was fifty-seven years of age, enjoying a comfortable income, and

had everything necessary to make him happy. No cause can be found for

his action.”

What terrible grief, what unknown suffering, hidden despair, secret

wounds drive these presumably happy persons to suicide? We search, we

imagine tragedies of love, we suspect financial troubles, and, as we

never find anything definite, we apply to these deaths the word

“mystery.”

A letter found on the desk of one of these “suicides without cause,” and

written during his last night, beside his loaded revolver, has come into

our hands. We deem it rather interesting. It reveals none of those great

catastrophes which we always expect to find behind these acts of

despair; but it shows us the slow succession of the little vexations of

life, the disintegration of a lonely existence, whose dreams have

disappeared; it gives the reason for these tragic ends, which only

nervous and high-strung people can understand.

Here it is:

“It is midnight. When I have finished this letter I shall kill myself.

Why? I shall attempt to give the reasons, not for those who may read

these lines, but for myself, to kindle my waning courage, to impress

upon myself the fatal necessity of this act which can, at best, be only

deferred.

“I was brought up by simple-minded parents who were unquestioning

believers. And I believed as they did.

“My dream lasted a long time. The last veil has just been torn from my

eyes.

“During the last few years a strange change has been taking place within

me. All the events of Life, which formerly had to me the glow of a

beautiful sunset, are now fading away. The true meaning of things has

appeared to me in its brutal reality; and the true reason for love has

bred in me disgust even for this poetic sentiment: 'We are the eternal

toys of foolish and charming illusions, which are always being renewed.'

“On growing older, I had become partly reconciled to the awful mystery

of life, to the uselessness of effort; when the emptiness of everything

appeared to me in a new light, this evening, after dinner.

“Formerly, I was happy! Everything pleased me: the passing women, the

appearance of the streets, the place where I lived; and I even took an

interest in the cut of my clothes. But the repetition of the same sights

has had the result of filling my heart with weariness and disgust, just

as one would feel were one to go every night to the same theatre.

“For the last thirty years I have been rising at the same hour; and, at

the same restaurant, for thirty years, I have been eating at the same

hours the same dishes brought me by different waiters.

“I have tried travel. The loneliness which one feels in strange places

terrified me. I felt so alone, so small on the earth that I quickly

started on my homeward journey.

“But here the unchanging expression of my furniture, which has stood for

thirty years in the same place, the smell of my apartments (for, with

time, each dwelling takes on a particular odor) each night, these and

other things disgust me and make me sick of living thus.

“Everything repeats itself endlessly. The way in which I put my key in

the lock, the place where I always find my matches, the first object

which meets my eye when I enter the room, make me feel like jumping out

of the window and putting an end to those monotonous events from which

we can never escape.

“Each day, when I shave, I feel an inordinate desire to cut my throat;

and my face, which I see in the little mirror, always the same, with

soap on my cheeks, has several times made me weak from sadness.

“Now I even hate to be with people whom I used to meet with pleasure; I

know them so well, I can tell just what they are going to say and what I

am going to answer. Each brain is like a circus, where the same horse

keeps circling around eternally. We must circle round always, around the

same ideas, the same joys, the same pleasures, the same habits, the same

beliefs, the same sensations of disgust.

“The fog was terrible this evening. It enfolded the boulevard, where the

street lights were dimmed and looked like smoking candles. A heavier

weight than usual oppressed me. Perhaps my digestion was bad.

“For good digestion is everything in life. It gives the inspiration to

the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers,

the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily

(which is one of the greatest pleasures). A sick stomach induces

scepticism unbelief, nightmares and the desire for death. I have often

noticed this fact. Perhaps I would not kill myself, if my digestion had

been good this evening.

“When I sat down in the arm-chair where I have been sitting every day

for thirty years, I glanced around me, and just then I was seized by

such a terrible distress that I thought I must go mad.

“I tried to think of what I could do to run away from myself. Every

occupation struck me as being worse even than inaction. Then I bethought

me of putting my papers in order.

“For a long time I have been thinking of clearing out my drawers; for,

for the last thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills

pell-mell into the same desk, and this confusion has often caused me

considerable trouble. But I feel such moral and physical laziness at the

sole idea of putting anything in order that I have never had the courage

to begin this tedious business.

“I therefore opened my desk, intending to choose among my old papers and

destroy the majority of them.

“At first I was bewildered by this array of documents, yellowed by age,

then I chose one.

“Oh! if you cherish life, never disturb the burial place of old letters!

“And if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close

your eyes that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize

some forgotten handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of

memories; carry these papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes,

crush them to an invisible powder, or otherwise you are lost—just as I

have been lost for an hour.

“The first letters which I read did not interest me greatly. They were

recent, and came from living men whom I still meet quite often, and

whose presence does not move me to any great extent. But all at once one

envelope made me start. My name was traced on it in a large, bold

handwriting; and suddenly tears came to my eyes. That letter was from my

dearest friend, the companion of my youth, the confidant of my hopes;

and he appeared before me so clearly, with his pleasant smile and his

hand outstretched, that a cold shiver ran down my back. Yes, yes, the

dead come back, for I saw him! Our memory is a more perfect world than

the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.

“With trembling hand and dimmed eyes I reread everything that he told

me, and in my poor sobbing heart I felt a wound so painful that I began

to groan as a man whose bones are slowly being crushed.

“Then I travelled over my whole life, just as one travels along a river.

I recognized people, so long forgotten that I no longer knew their

names. Their faces alone lived in me. In my mother's letters I saw again

the old servants, the shape of our house and the little insignificant

odds and ends which cling to our minds.

“Yes, I suddenly saw again all my mother's old gowns, the different

styles which she adopted and the several ways in which she dressed her

hair. She haunted me especially in a silk dress, trimmed with old lace;

and I remembered something she said one day when she was wearing this

dress. She said: 'Robert, my child, if you do not stand up straight you

will be round-shouldered all your life.'

“Then, opening another drawer, I found myself face to face with memories

of tender passions: a dancing-pump, a torn handkerchief, even a garter,

locks of hair and dried flowers. Then the sweet romances of my life,

whose living heroines are now white-haired, plunged me into the deep

melancholy of things. Oh, the young brows where blond locks curl, the

caress of the hands, the glance which speaks, the hearts which beat,

that smile which promises the lips, those lips which promise the

embrace! And the first kiss-that endless kiss which makes you close your

eyes, which drowns all thought in the immeasurable joy of approaching

possession!

“Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered

them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I

saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture

more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.

“One last letter remained. It was written by me and dictated fifty years

ago by my writing teacher. Here it is:

“'MY DEAR LITTLE MAMMA:

“'I am seven years old to-day. It is the age of reason. I take advantage

of it to thank you for having brought me into this world.

“'Your little son, who loves you

“'ROBERT.'

“It is all over. I had gone back to the beginning, and suddenly I turned

my glance on what remained to me of life. I saw hideous and lonely old

age, and approaching infirmities, and everything over and gone. And

nobody near me!

“My revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it . . . . Never reread

your old letters!”

And that is how many men come to kill themselves; and we search in vain

to discover some great sorrow in their lives.

AN ARTIFICE

The old doctor sat by the fireside, talking to his fair patient who was

lying on the lounge. There was nothing much the matter with her, except

that she had one of those little feminine ailments from which pretty

women frequently suffer—slight anaemia, a nervous attack, etc.

“No, doctor,” she said; “I shall never be able to understand a woman

deceiving her husband. Even allowing that she does not love him, that

she pays no heed to her vows and promises, how can she give herself to

another man? How can she conceal the intrigue from other people's eyes?

How can it be possible to love amid lies and treason?”

The doctor smiled, and replied: “It is perfectly easy, and I can assure

you that a woman does not think of all those little subtle details when

she has made up her mind to go astray.

“As for dissimulation, all women have plenty of it on hand for such

occasions, and the simplest of them are wonderful, and extricate

themselves from the greatest dilemmas in a remarkable manner.”

The young woman, however, seemed incredulous.

“No, doctor,” she said; “one never thinks until after it has happened of

what one ought to have done in a critical situation, and women are

certainly more liable than men to lose their head on such occasions:”

The doctor raised his hands. “After it has happened, you say! Now I will

tell you something that happened to one of my female patients, whom I

always considered an immaculate woman.

“It happened in a provincial town, and one night when I was asleep, in

that deep first sleep from which it is so difficult to rouse us, it

seemed to me, in my dreams, as if the bells in the town were sounding a

fire alarm, and I woke up with a start. It was my own bell, which was

ringing wildly, and as my footman did not seem to be answering the door,

I, in turn, pulled the bell at the head of my bed, and soon I heard a

banging, and steps in the silent house, and Jean came into my room, and

handed me a letter which said: 'Madame Lelievre begs Dr. Simeon to come

to her immediately.'

“I thought for a few moments, and then I said to myself: 'A nervous

attack, vapors; nonsense, I am too tired.' And so I replied: 'As Dr.

Simeon is not at all well, he must beg Madame Lelievre to be kind enough

to call in his colleague, Monsieur Bonnet.' I put the note into an

envelope and went to sleep again, but about half an hour later the

street bell rang again, and Jean came to me and said: 'There is somebody

downstairs; I do not quite know whether it is a man or a woman, as the

individual is so wrapped up, but they wish to speak to you immediately.

They say it is a matter of life and death for two people.' Whereupon I

sat up in bed and told him to show the person in.

“A kind of black phantom appeared and raised her veil as soon as Jean

had left the room. It was Madame Berthe Lelievre, quite a young woman,

who had been married for three years to a large merchant in the town,

who was said to have married the prettiest girl in the neighborhood.

“She was terribly pale, her face was contracted as the faces of insane

people are, occasionally, and her hands trembled violently. Twice she

tried to speak without being able to utter a sound, but at last she

stammered out: 'Come—quick—quick, doctor. Come—my—friend has just died

in my bedroom.' She stopped, half suffocated with emotion, and then went

on: 'My husband will be coming home from the club very soon.'

“I jumped out of bed without even considering that I was only in my

nightshirt, and dressed myself in a few moments, and then I said: 'Did

you come a short time ago?' 'No,' she said, standing like a statue

petrified with horror. 'It was my servant—she knows.' And then, after a

short silence, she went on: 'I was there—by his side.' And she uttered a

sort of cry of horror, and after a fit of choking, which made her gasp,

she wept violently, and shook with spasmodic sobs for a minute: or two.

Then her tears suddenly ceased, as if by an internal fire, and with an

air of tragic calmness, she said: 'Let us make haste.'

“I was ready, but exclaimed: 'I quite forgot to order my carriage.' 'I

have one,' she said; 'it is his, which was waiting for him!' She wrapped

herself up, so as to completely conceal her face, and we started.

“When she was by my side in the carriage she suddenly seized my hand,

and crushing it in her delicate fingers, she said, with a shaking voice,

that proceeded from a distracted heart: 'Oh! if you only knew, if you

only knew what I am suffering! I loved him, I have loved him

distractedly, like a madwoman, for the last six months.' 'Is anyone up

in your house?' I asked. 'No, nobody except those, who knows

everything.'

“We stopped at the door, and evidently everybody was asleep. We went in

without making any noise, by means of her latch-key, and walked upstairs

on tiptoe. The frightened servant was sitting on the top of the stairs

with a lighted candle by her side, as she was afraid to remain with the

dead man, and I went into the room, which was in great disorder. Wet

towels, with which they had bathed the young man's temples, were lying

on the floor, by the side of a washbasin and a glass, while a strong

smell of vinegar pervaded the room.

“The dead man's body was lying at full length in the middle of the room,

and I went up to it, looked at it, and touched it. I opened the eyes and

felt the hands, and then, turning to the two women, who were shaking as

if they were freezing, I said to them: 'Help me to lift him on to the

bed.' When we had laid him gently on it, I listened to his heart and put

a looking-glass to his lips, and then said: 'It is all over.' It was a

terrible sight!

“I looked at the man, and said: 'You ought to arrange his hair a

little.' The girl went and brought her mistress' comb and brush, but as

she was trembling, and pulling out his long, matted hair in doing it,

Madame Lelievre took the comb out of her hand, and arranged his hair as

if she were caressing him. She parted it, brushed his beard, rolled his

mustaches gently round her fingers, then, suddenly, letting go of his

hair, she took the dead man's inert head in her hands and looked for a

long time in despair at the dead face, which no longer could smile at

her, and then, throwing herself on him, she clasped him in her arms and

kissed him ardently. Her kisses fell like blows on his closed mouth and

eyes, his forehead and temples; and then, putting her lips to his ear,

as if he could still hear her, and as if she were about to whisper

something to him, she said several times, in a heartrending voice:

“'Good-by, my darling!'

“Just then the clock struck twelve, and I started up. 'Twelve o'clock!'

I exclaimed. 'That is the time when the club closes. Come, madame, we

have not a moment to lose!' She started up, and I said:

“'We must carry him into the drawing-room.' And when we had done this, I

placed him on a sofa, and lit the chandeliers, and just then the front

door was opened and shut noisily. 'Rose, bring me the basin and the

towels, and make the room look tidy. Make haste, for Heaven's sake!

Monsieur Lelievre is coming in.'

“I heard his steps on the stairs, and then his hands feeling along the

walls. 'Come here, my dear fellow,' I said; 'we have had an accident.'

“And the astonished husband appeared in the door with a cigar in his

mouth, and said: 'What is the matter? What is the meaning of this?' 'My

dear friend,' I said, going up to him, 'you find us in great

embarrassment. I had remained late, chatting with your wife and our

friend, who had brought me in his carriage, when he suddenly fainted,

and in spite of all we have done, he has remained unconscious for two

hours. I did not like to call in strangers, and if you will now help me

downstairs with him, I shall be able to attend to him better at his own

house.'

“The husband, who was surprised, but quite unsuspicious, took off his

hat, and then he took his rival, who would be quite inoffensive for the

future, under the arms. I got between his two legs, as if I had been a

horse between the shafts, and we went downstairs, while his wife held a

light for us. When we got outside I stood the body up, so as to deceive

the coachman, and said: 'Come, my friend; it is nothing; you feel better

already I expect. Pluck up your courage, and make an effort. It will

soon be over.' But as I felt that he was slipping out of my hands, I

gave him a slap on the shoulder, which sent him forward and made him

fall into the carriage, and then I got in after him. Monsieur Lelievre,

who was rather alarmed, said to me: 'Do you think it is anything

serious?' To which I replied: 'No,' with a smile, as I looked at his

wife, who had put her arm into that of her husband, and was trying to

see into the carriage.

“I shook hands with them and told my coachman to start, and during the

whole drive the dead man kept falling against me. When we got to his

house I said that he had become unconscious on the way home, and helped

to carry him upstairs, where I certified that he was dead, and acted

another comedy to his distracted family, and at last I got back to bed,

not without swearing at lovers.”

The doctor ceased, though he was still smiling, and the young woman, who

was in a very nervous state, said: “Why have you told me that terrible

story?”

He gave her a gallant bow, and replied:

“So that I may offer you my services if they should be needed.”

DREAMS

They had just dined together, five old friends, a writer, a doctor and

three rich bachelors without any profession.

They had talked about everything, and a feeling of lassitude came over

them, that feeling which precedes and leads to the departure of guests

after festive gatherings. One of those present, who had for the last

five minutes been gazing silently at the surging boulevard dotted with

gas-lamps, with its rattling vehicles, said suddenly:

“When you've nothing to do from morning till night, the days are long.”

“And the nights too,” assented the guest who sat next to him. “I sleep

very little; pleasures fatigue me; conversation is monotonous. Never do

I come across a new idea, and I feel, before talking to any one, a

violent longing to say nothing and to listen to nothing. I don't know

what to do with my evenings.”

The third idler remarked:

“I would pay a great deal for anything that would help me to pass just

two pleasant hours every day.”

The writer, who had just thrown his overcoat across his arm, turned

round to them, and said:

“The man who could discover a new vice and introduce it among his fellow

creatures, even if it were to shorten their lives, would render a

greater service to humanity than the man who found the means of securing

to them eternal salvation and eternal youth.”

The doctor burst out laughing, and, while he chewed his cigar, he said:

“Yes, but it is not so easy to discover it. Men have however crudely,

been seeking for—and working for the object you refer to since the

beginning of the world. The men who came first reached perfection at

once in this way. We are hardly equal to them.”

One of the three idlers murmured:

“What a pity!”

Then, after a minute's pause, he added:

“If we could only sleep, sleep well, without feeling hot or cold, sleep

with that perfect unconsciousness we experience on nights when we are

thoroughly fatigued, sleep without dreams.”

“Why without dreams?” asked the guest sitting next to him.

The other replied:

“Because dreams are not always pleasant; they are always fantastic,

improbable, disconnected; and because when we are asleep we cannot have

the sort of dreams we like. We ought to dream waking.”

“And what's to prevent you?” asked the writer.

The doctor flung away the end of his cigar.

“My dear fellow, in order to dream when you are awake, you need great

power and great exercise of will, and when you try to do it, great

weariness is the result. Now, real dreaming, that journey of our

thoughts through delightful visions, is assuredly the sweetest

experience in the world; but it must come naturally, it must not be

provoked in a painful, manner, and must be accompanied by absolute

bodily comfort. This power of dreaming I can give you, provided you

promise that you will not abuse it.”

The writer shrugged his shoulders:

“Ah! yes, I know—hasheesh, opium, green tea—artificial paradises. I have

read Baudelaire, and I even tasted the famous drug, which made me very

sick.”

But the doctor, without stirring from his seat, said:

“No; ether, nothing but ether; and I would suggest that you literary men

should use it sometimes.”

The three rich bachelors drew closer to the doctor.

One of them said:

“Explain to us the effects of it.”

And the doctor replied:

“Let us put aside big words, shall we not? I am not talking of medicine

or morality; I am talking of pleasure. You give yourselves up every day

to excesses which consume your lives. I want to indicate to you a new

sensation, possible only to intelligent men—let us say even very

intelligent men—dangerous, like everything else that overexcites our

organs, but exquisite. I might add that you would require a certain

preparation, that is to say, practice, to feel in all their completeness

the singular effects of ether.

“They are different from the effects of hasheesh, of opium, or morphia,

and they cease as soon as the absorption of the drug is interrupted,

while the other generators of day dreams continue their action for

hours.

“I am now going to try to analyze these feelings as clearly as possible.

But the thing is not easy, so facile, so delicate, so almost

imperceptible, are these sensations.

“It was when I was attacked by violent neuralgia that I made use of this

remedy, which since then I have, perhaps, slightly abused.

“I had acute pains in my head and neck, and an intolerable heat of the

skin, a feverish restlessness. I took up a large bottle of ether, and,

lying down, I began to inhale it slowly.

“At the end of some minutes I thought I heard a vague murmur, which ere

long became a sort of humming, and it seemed to me that all the interior

of my body had become light, light as air, that it was dissolving into

vapor.

“Then came a sort of torpor, a sleepy sensation of comfort, in spite of

the pains which still continued, but which had ceased to make themselves

felt. It was one of those sensations which we are willing to endure and

not any of those frightful wrenches against which our tortured body

protests.

“Soon the strange and delightful sense of emptiness which I felt in my

chest extended to my limbs, which, in their turn, became light, as light

as if the flesh and the bones had been melted and the skin only were

left, the skin necessary to enable me to realize the sweetness of

living, of bathing in this sensation of well-being. Then I perceived

that I was no longer suffering. The pain had gone, melted away,

evaporated. And I heard voices, four voices, two dialogues, without

understanding what was said. At one time there were only indistinct

sounds, at another time a word reached my ear. But I recognized that

this was only the humming I had heard before, but emphasized. I was not

asleep; I was not awake; I comprehended, I felt, I reasoned with the

utmost clearness and depth, with extraordinary energy and intellectual

pleasure, with a singular intoxication arising from this separation of

my mental faculties.

“It was not like the dreams caused by hasheesh or the somewhat sickly

visions that come from opium; it was an amazing acuteness of reasoning,

a new way of seeing, judging and appreciating the things of life, and

with the certainty, the absolute consciousness that this was the true

way.

“And the old image of the Scriptures suddenly came back to my mind. It

seemed to me that I had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, that all the

mysteries were unveiled, so much did I find myself under the sway of a

new, strange and irrefutable logic. And arguments, reasonings, proofs

rose up in a heap before my brain only to be immediately displaced by

some stronger proof, reasoning, argument. My head had, in fact, become a

battleground of ideas. I was a superior being, armed with invincible

intelligence, and I experienced a huge delight at the manifestation of

my power.

“It lasted a long, long time. I still kept inhaling the ether from my

flagon. Suddenly I perceived that it was empty.”

The four men exclaimed at the same time:

“Doctor, a prescription at once for a liter of ether!”

But the doctor, putting on his hat, replied:

“As to that, certainly not; go and let some one else poison you!”

And he left them.

Ladies and gentlemen, what is your opinion on the subject?

SIMON'S PAPA

Noon had just struck. The school door opened and the youngsters darted

out, jostling each other in their haste to get out quickly. But instead

of promptly dispersing and going home to dinner as usual, they stopped a

few paces off, broke up into knots, and began whispering.

The fact was that, that morning, Simon, the son of La Blanchotte, had,

for the first time, attended school.

They had all of them in their families heard talk of La Blanchotte; and,

although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves

treated her with a somewhat disdainful compassion, which the children

had imitated without in the least knowing why.

As for Simon himself, they did not know him, for he never went out, and

did not run about with them in the streets of the village, or along the

banks of the river. And they did not care for him; so it was with a

certain delight, mingled with considerable astonishment, that they met

and repeated to each other what had been said by a lad of fourteen or

fifteen who appeared to know all about it, so sagaciously did he wink.

“You know—Simon—well, he has no papa.”

Just then La Blanchotte's son appeared in the doorway of the school.

He was seven or eight years old, rather pale, very neat, with a timid

and almost awkward manner.

He was starting home to his mother's house when the groups of his

schoolmates, whispering and watching him with the mischievous and

heartless eyes of children bent upon playing a nasty trick, gradually

closed in around him and ended by surrounding him altogether. There he

stood in their midst, surprised and embarrassed, not understanding what

they were going to do with him. But the lad who had brought the news,

puffed up with the success he had met with already, demanded:

“What is your name, you?”

He answered: “Simon.”

“Simon what?” retorted the other.

The child, altogether bewildered, repeated: “Simon.”

The lad shouted at him: “One is named Simon something—that is not a

name—Simon indeed.”

The child, on the brink of tears, replied for the third time:

“My name is Simon.”

The urchins began to laugh. The triumphant tormentor cried: “You can see

plainly that he has no papa.”

A deep silence ensued. The children were dumfounded by this

extraordinary, impossible, monstrous thing—a boy who had not a papa;

they looked upon him as a phenomenon, an unnatural being, and they felt

that hitherto inexplicable contempt of their mothers for La Blanchotte

growing upon them. As for Simon, he had leaned against a tree to avoid

falling, and he remained as if prostrated by an irreparable disaster. He

sought to explain, but could think of nothing-to say to refute this

horrible charge that he had no papa. At last he shouted at them quite

recklessly: “Yes, I have one.”

“Where is he?” demanded the boy.

Simon was silent, he did not know. The children roared, tremendously

excited; and those country boys, little more than animals, experienced

that cruel craving which prompts the fowls of a farmyard to destroy one

of their number as soon as it is wounded. Simon suddenly espied a little

neighbor, the son of a widow, whom he had seen, as he himself was to be

seen, always alone with his mother.

“And no more have you,” he said; “no more have you a papa.”

“Yes,” replied the other, “I have one.”

“Where is he?” rejoined Simon.

“He is dead,” declared the brat, with superb dignity; “he is in the

cemetery, is my papa.”

A murmur of approval rose among the little wretches as if this fact of

possessing a papa dead in a cemetery had caused their comrade to grow

big enough to crush the other one who had no papa at all. And these

boys, whose fathers were for the most part bad men, drunkards, thieves,

and who beat their wives, jostled each other to press closer and closer,

as though they, the legitimate ones, would smother by their pressure one

who was illegitimate.

The boy who chanced to be next Simon suddenly put his tongue out at him

with a mocking air and shouted at him:

“No papa! No papa!”

Simon seized him by the hair with both hands and set to work to disable

his legs with kicks, while he bit his cheek ferociously. A tremendous

struggle ensued between the two combatants, and Simon found himself

beaten, torn, bruised, rolled on the ground in the midst of the ring of

applauding schoolboys. As he arose, mechanically brushing with his hand

his little blouse all covered with dust, some one shouted at him:

“Go and tell your papa.”

Then he felt a great sinking at his heart. They were stronger than he

was, they had beaten him, and he had no answer to give them, for he knew

well that it was true that he had no papa. Full of pride, he attempted

for some moments to struggle against the tears which were choking him.

He had a feeling of suffocation, and then without any sound he commenced

to weep, with great shaking sobs. A ferocious joy broke out among his

enemies, and, with one accord, just like savages in their fearful

festivals, they took each other by the hand and danced round him in a

circle, repeating as a refrain:

“No papa! No papa!”

But suddenly Simon ceased sobbing. He became ferocious. There were

stones under his feet; he picked them up and with all his strength

hurled them at his tormentors. Two or three were struck and rushed off

yelling, and so formidable did he appear that the rest became panic-

stricken. Cowards, as the mob always is in presence of an exasperated

man, they broke up and fled. Left alone, the little fellow without a

father set off running toward the fields, for a recollection had been

awakened in him which determined his soul to a great resolve. He made up

his mind to drown himself in the river.

He remembered, in fact, that eight days before, a poor devil who begged

for his livelihood had thrown himself into the water because he had no

more money. Simon had been there when they fished him out again; and the

wretched man, who usually seemed to him so miserable, and ugly, had then

struck him as being so peaceful with his pale cheeks, his long drenched

beard, and his open eyes full of calm. The bystanders had said:

“He is dead.”

And some one had said:

“He is quite happy now.”

And Simon wished to drown himself also, because he had no father, just

like the wretched being who had no money.

He reached the water and watched it flowing. Some fish were sporting

briskly in the clear stream and occasionally made a little bound and

caught the flies flying on the surface. He stopped crying in order to

watch them, for their maneuvers interested him greatly. But, at

intervals, as in a tempest intervals of calm alternate suddenly with

tremendous gusts of wind, which snap off the trees and then lose

themselves in the horizon, this thought would return to him with intense

pain:

“I am going to drown myself because I have no papa.”

It was very warm, fine weather. The pleasant sunshine warmed the grass.

The water shone like a mirror. And Simon enjoyed some minutes of

happiness, of that languor which follows weeping, and felt inclined to

fall asleep there upon the grass in the warm sunshine.

A little green frog leaped from under his feet. He endeavored to catch

it. It escaped him. He followed it and lost it three times in

succession. At last he caught it by one of its hind legs and began to

laugh as he saw the efforts the creature made to escape. It gathered

itself up on its hind legs and then with a violent spring suddenly

stretched them out as stiff as two bars; while it beat the air with its

front legs as though they were hands, its round eyes staring in their

circle of yellow. It reminded him of a toy made of straight slips of

wood nailed zigzag one on the other; which by a similar movement

regulated the movements of the little soldiers fastened thereon. Then he

thought of his home, and then of his mother, and, overcome by sorrow, he

again began to weep. A shiver passed over him. He knelt down and said

his prayers as before going to bed. But he was unable to finish them,

for tumultuous, violent sobs shook his whole frame. He no longer

thought, he no longer saw anything around him, and was wholly absorbed

in crying.

Suddenly a heavy hand was placed upon his shoulder, and a rough voice

asked him:

“What is it that causes you so much grief, my little man?”

Simon turned round. A tall workman with a beard and black curly hair was

staring at him good-naturedly. He answered with his eyes and throat full

of tears:

“They beat me—because—I—I have no—papa—no papa.”

“What!” said the man, smiling; “why, everybody has one.”

The child answered painfully amid his spasms of grief:

“But I—I—I have none.”

Then the workman became serious. He had recognized La Blanchotte's son,

and, although himself a new arrival in the neighborhood, he had a vague

idea of her history.

“Well,” said he, “console yourself, my boy, and come with me home to

your mother. They will give you—a papa.”

And so they started on the way, the big fellow holding the little fellow

by the hand, and the man smiled, for he was not sorry to see this

Blanchotte, who was, it was said, one of the prettiest girls of the

countryside, and, perhaps, he was saying to himself, at the bottom of

his heart, that a lass who had erred might very well err again.

They arrived in front of a very neat little white house.

“There it is,” exclaimed the child, and he cried, “Mamma!”

A woman appeared, and the workman instantly left off smiling, for he saw

at once that there was no fooling to be done with the tall pale girl who

stood austerely at her door as though to defend from one man the

threshold of that house where she had already been betrayed by another.

Intimidated, his cap in his hand, he stammered out:

“See, madame, I have brought you back your little boy who had lost

himself near the river.”

But Simon flung his arms about his mother's neck and told her, as he

again began to cry:

“No, mamma, I wished to drown myself, because the others had beaten me

—had beaten me—because I have no papa.”

A burning redness covered the young woman's cheeks; and, hurt to the

quick, she embraced her child passionately, while the tears coursed down

her face. The man, much moved, stood there, not knowing how to get away.

But Simon suddenly ran to him and said:

“Will you be my papa?”

A deep silence ensued. La Blanchotte, dumb and tortured with shame,

leaned herself against the wall, both her hands upon her heart. The

child, seeing that no answer was made him, replied:

“If you will not, I shall go back and drown myself.”

The workman took the matter as a jest and answered, laughing:

“Why, yes, certainly I will.”

“What is your name,” went on the child, “so that I may tell the others

when they wish to know your name?”

“Philip,” answered the man:

Simon was silent a moment so that he might get the name well into his

head; then he stretched out his arms, quite consoled, as he said:

“Well, then, Philip, you are my papa.”

The workman, lifting him from the ground, kissed him hastily on both

cheeks, and then walked away very quickly with great strides. When the

child returned to school next day he was received with a spiteful laugh,

and at the end of school, when the lads were on the point of

recommencing, Simon threw these words at their heads as he would have

done a stone: “He is named Philip, my papa.”

Yells of delight burst out from all sides.

“Philip who? Philip what? What on earth is Philip? Where did you pick up

your Philip?”

Simon answered nothing; and, immovable in his faith, he defied them with

his eye, ready to be martyred rather than fly before them. The school

master came to his rescue and he returned home to his mother.

During three months, the tall workman, Philip, frequently passed by La

Blanchotte's house, and sometimes he made bold to speak to her when he

saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always

sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house.

Notwithstanding, being, like all men, a bit of a coxcomb, he imagined

that she was often rosier than usual when she chatted with him.

But a lost reputation is so difficult to regain and always remains so

fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve of La Blanchotte, they already

gossiped in the neighborhood.

As for Simon he loved his new papa very much, and walked with him nearly

every evening when the day's work was done. He went regularly to school,

and mixed with great dignity with his schoolfellows without ever

answering them back.

One day, however, the lad who had first attacked him said to him:

“You have lied. You have not a papa named Philip.”

“Why do you say that?” demanded Simon, much disturbed.

The youth rubbed his hands. He replied:

“Because if you had one he would be your mamma's husband.”

Simon was confused by the truth of this reasoning; nevertheless, he

retorted:

“He is my papa, all the same.”

“That can very well be,” exclaimed the urchin with a sneer, “but that is

not being your papa altogether.”

La Blanchotte's little one bowed his head and went off dreaming in the

direction of the forge belonging to old Loizon, where Philip worked.

This forge was as though buried beneath trees. It was very dark there;

the red glare of a formidable furnace alone lit up with great flashes

five blacksmiths; who hammered upon their anvils with a terrible din.

They were standing enveloped in flame, like demons, their eyes fixed on

the red-hot iron they were pounding; and their dull ideas rose and fell

with their hammers.

Simon entered without being noticed, and went quietly to pluck his

friend by the sleeve. The latter turned round. All at once the work came

to a standstill, and all the men looked on, very attentive. Then, in the

midst of this unaccustomed silence, rose the slender pipe of Simon:

“Say, Philip, the Michaude boy told me just now that you were not

altogether my papa.”

“Why not?” asked the blacksmith,

The child replied with all innocence:

“Because you are not my mamma's husband.”

No one laughed. Philip remained standing, leaning his forehead upon the

back of his great hands, which supported the handle of his hammer

standing upright upon the anvil. He mused. His four companions watched

him, and Simon, a tiny mite among these giants, anxiously waited.

Suddenly, one of the smiths, answering to the sentiment of all, said to

Philip:

“La Blanchotte is a good, honest girl, and upright and steady in spite

of her misfortune, and would make a worthy wife for an honest man.”

“That is true,” remarked the three others.

The smith continued:

“Is it the girl's fault if she went wrong? She had been promised

marriage; and I know more than one who is much respected to-day, and who

sinned every bit as much.”

“That is true,” responded the three men in chorus.

He resumed:

“How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to bring up her child all alone,

and how she has wept all these years she has never gone out except to

church, God only knows.”

“This is also true,” said the others.

Then nothing was heard but the bellows which fanned the fire of the

furnace. Philip hastily bent himself down to Simon:

“Go and tell your mother that I am coming to speak to her this evening.”

Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work,

and with a single blow the five hammers again fell upon their anvils.

Thus they wrought the iron until nightfall, strong, powerful, happy,

like contented hammers. But just as the great bell of a cathedral

resounds upon feast days above the jingling of the other bells, so

Philip's hammer, sounding above the rest, clanged second after second

with a deafening uproar. And he stood amid the flying sparks plying his

trade vigorously.

The sky was full of stars as he knocked at La Blanchotte's door. He had

on his Sunday blouse, a clean shirt, and his beard was trimmed. The

young woman showed herself upon the threshold, and said in a grieved

tone:

“It is ill to come thus when night has fallen, Mr. Philip.”

He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her.

She resumed:

“You understand, do you not, that it will not do for me to be talked

about again.”

“What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!”

No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of

the room the sound of a falling body. He entered quickly; and Simon, who

had gone to bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that

his mother murmured softly. Then, all at once, he found himself lifted

up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his

herculean arms, exclaimed:

“You will tell them, your schoolmates, that your papa is Philip Remy,

the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you any

harm.”

On the morrow, when the school was full and lessons were about to begin,

little Simon stood up, quite pale with trembling lips:

“My papa,” said he in a clear voice, “is Philip Remy, the blacksmith,

and he has promised to pull the ears of all who does me any harm.”

This time no one laughed, for he was very well known, was Philip Remy,

the blacksmith, and was a papa of whom any one in the world would have

been proud.

ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, Vol. 12.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES Translated by ALBERT M. C.

McMASTER, B.A. A. E. HENDERSON, B.A. MME. QUESADA and Others

VOLUME XII.

THE CHILD

Lemonnier had remained a widower with one child. He had loved his wife

devotedly, with a tender and exalted love, without a slip, during their

entire married life. He was a good, honest man, perfectly simple,

sincere, without suspicion or malice.

He fell in love with a poor neighbor, proposed and was accepted. He was

making a very comfortable living out of the wholesale cloth business,

and he did not for a minute suspect that the young girl might have

accepted him for anything else but himself.

She made him happy. She was everything to him; he only thought of her,

looked at her continually, with worshiping eyes. During meals he would

make any number of blunders, in order not to have to take his eyes from

the beloved face; he would pour the wine in his plate and the water in

the salt-cellar, then he would laugh like a child, repeating:

“You see, I love you too much; that makes me crazy.”

She would smile with a calm and resigned look; then she would look away,

as though embarrassed by the adoration of her husband, and try to make

him talk about something else; but he would take her hand under the

table and he would hold it in his, whispering:

“My little Jeanne, my darling little Jeanne!”

She sometimes lost patience and said:

“Come, come, be reasonable; eat and let me eat.”

He would sigh and break off a mouthful of bread, which he would then

chew slowly.

For five years they had no children. Then suddenly she announced to him

that this state of affairs would soon cease. He was wild with joy. He no

longer left her for a minute, until his old nurse, who had brought him

up and who often ruled the house, would push him out and close the door

behind him, in order to compel him to go out in the fresh air.

He had grown very intimate with a young man who had known his wife since

childhood, and who was one of the prefect's secretaries. M. Duretour

would dine three times a week with the Lemonniers, bringing flowers to

madame, and sometimes a box at the theater; and often, at the end of the

dinner, Lemonnier, growing tender, turning towards his wife, would

explain: “With a companion like you and a friend like him, a man is

completely happy on earth.”

She died in childbirth. The shock almost killed him. But the sight of

the child, a poor, moaning little creature, gave him courage.

He loved it with a passionate and sorrowful love, with a morbid love in

which stuck the memory of death, but in which lived something of his

worship for the dead mother. It was the flesh of his wife, her being

continued, a sort of quintessence of herself. This child was her very

life transferred to another body; she had disappeared that it might

exist, and the father would smother it in with kisses. But also, this

child had killed her; he had stolen this beloved creature, his life was

at the cost of hers. And M. Lemonnier would place his son in the cradle

and would sit down and watch him. He would sit this way by the hour,

looking at him, dreaming of thousands of things, sweet or sad. Then,

when the little one was asleep, he would bend over him and sob.

The child grew. The father could no longer spend an hour away from him;

he would stay near him, take him out for walks, and himself dress him,

wash him, make him eat. His friend, M. Duretour, also seemed to love the

boy; he would kiss him wildly, in those frenzies of tenderness which are

characteristic of parents. He would toss him in his arms, he would trot

him on his knees, by the hour, and M. Lemonnier, delighted, would

mutter:

“Isn't he a darling? Isn't he a darling?”

And M. Duretour would hug the child in his arms and tickle his neck with

his mustache.

Celeste, the old nurse, alone, seemed to have no tenderness for the

little one. She would grow angry at his pranks, and seemed impatient at

the caresses of the two men. She would exclaim:

“How can you expect to bring a child up like that? You'll make a perfect

monkey out of him.”

Years went by, and Jean was nine years old. He hardly knew how to read;

he had been so spoiled, and only did as he saw fit. He was willful,

stubborn and quick-tempered. The father always gave in to him and let

him have his own way. M. Duretour would always buy him all the toys he

wished, and he fed him on cake and candies. Then Celeste would grow

angry and exclaim:

“It's a shame, monsieur, a shame. You are spoiling this child. But it

will have to stop; yes, sir, I tell you it will have to stop, and before

long, too.”

M. Lemonnier would answer, smiling:

“What can you expect? I love him too much, I can't resist him; you must

get used to it.”

Jean was delicate, rather. The doctor said that he was anaemic,

prescribed iron, rare meat and broth.

But the little fellow loved only cake and refused all other nourishment;

and the father, in despair, stuffed him with cream-puffs and chocolate

eclairs.

One evening, as they were sitting down to supper, Celeste brought on the

soup with an air of authority and an assurance which she did not usually

have. She took off the cover and, dipping the ladle into the dish, she

declared:

“Here is some broth such as I have never made; the young one will have

to take some this time.”

M. Lemonnier, frightened, bent his head. He saw a storm brewing.

Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.

He tasted the soup and said:

“It is, indeed, excellent.”

The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it.

Then she retreated a few steps and waited.

Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of

disgust. Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly

poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.

He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and

threw it at his nurse. She received it full in the stomach. Then,

exasperated, she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began

pouring spoonful after spoonful of soup down his throat. He grew as red

as a beet, and he would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking,

beating the air with his hands.

At first the father was so surprised that he could not move. Then,

suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the

throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:

“Out! Out! Out! you brute!”

But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes

snapping, she cried out:

“What's gettin' hold of you? You're trying to thrash me because I am

making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!”

He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:

“Out! Get out-get out, you brute!”

Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her

voice trembling:

“Ah!—you think-you think that you can treat me like that? Oh! no. And

for whom?—for that brat who is not even yours. No, not yours! No, not

yours—not yours! Everybody knows it, except yourself! Ask the grocer,

the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!”

She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and

looked at him.

He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides. After a short

pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling:

“You say? you say? What do you say?”

She remained silent, frightened by his appearance. Once more he stepped

forward, repeating:

“You say—what do you say?”

Then in a calm voice, she answered:

“I say what I know, what everybody knows.”

He seized her and, with the fury of a beast, he tried to throw her down.

But, although old, she was strong and nimble. She slipped under his arm,

and running around the table once more furious, she screamed:

“Look at him, just look at him, fool that you are! Isn't he the living

image of M. Durefour? just look at his nose and his eyes! Are yours like

that? And his hair! Is it like his mother's? I tell you that everyone

knows it, everyone except yourself! It's the joke of the town! Look at

him!”

She went to the door, opened it, and disappeared.

Jean, frightened, sat motionless before his plate of soup.

At the end of an hour, she returned gently, to see how matters stood.

The child, after doing away with all the cakes and a pitcher full of

cream and one of syrup, was now emptying the jam-pot with his soup-

spoon.

The father had gone out.

Celeste took the child, kissed him, and gently carried him to his room

and put him to bed. She came back to the dining-room, cleared the table,

put everything in place, feeling very uneasy all the time.

Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house. She put her ear

against her master's door. He seemed to be perfectly still. She put her

eye to the keyhole. He was writing, and seemed very calm.

Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down, ready for any emergency.

She slept on a chair and awoke at daylight.

She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she swept

and dusted, and, towards eight o'clock, prepared M. Lemonnier's

breakfast.

But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she

would be received; she waited for him to ring. But he did not ring. Nine

o'clock, then ten o'clock went by.

Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up

with it, her heart beating fast.

She stopped before the door and listened. Everything was still. She

knocked; no answer. Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the

door and entered. With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray

which she had been holding in her hand.

In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a

ring in the ceiling. His tongue was sticking out horribly. His right

slipper was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot. An

upturned chair had rolled over to the bed.

Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking. All the neighbors crowded together.

The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.

A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.

It contained these words:

“I leave and entrust the child to you!”

A COUNTRY EXCURSION

For five months they had been talking of going to take luncheon in one

of the country suburbs of Paris on Madame Dufour's birthday, and as they

were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they rose very

early that morning. Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman's wagon and

drove himself. It was a very tidy, two-wheeled conveyance, with a cover

supported by four iron rods, with curtains that had been drawn up,

except the one at the back, which floated out like a sail. Madame

Dufour, resplendent in a wonderful, cherry colored silk dress, sat by

the side of her husband.

The old grandmother and a girl sat behind them on two chairs, and a boy

with yellow hair was lying at the bottom of the wagon, with nothing to

be seen of him except his head.

When they reached the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: “Here we

are in the country at last!” and at that signal his wife grew

sentimental about the beauties of nature. When they got to the

crossroads at Courbevoie they were seized with admiration for the

distant landscape. On the right was Argenteuil with its bell tower, and

above it rose the hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on

the left the aqueduct of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky,

and in the distance they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain; and

opposite them, at the end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of

Cormeilles. Quite in the distance; a very long way off, beyond the

plains and village, one could see the sombre green of the forests.

The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes,

and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of

bare, ugly country with an unpleasant odor. One might have thought that

it had been ravaged by a pestilence, which had even attacked the

buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small

cottages, which were left in an unfinished state, because the

contractors had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each

side.

Here and there tall factory chimneys rose up from the barren soil. The

only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted an

odor of petroleum and slate, blended with another odor that was even

less agreeable. At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time,

and the bridge was a delight. The river sparkled in the sun, and they

had a feeling of quiet enjoyment, felt refreshed as they drank in the

purer air that was not impregnated by the black smoke of factories nor

by the miasma from the deposits of night soil. A man whom they met told

them that the name of the place was Bezons. Monsieur Dufour pulled up

and read the attractive announcement outside an eating house: Restaurant

Poulin, matelottes and fried fish, private rooms, arbors, and swings.

“Well, Madame Dufour, will this suit you? Will you make up your mind at

last?”

She read the announcement in her turn and then looked at the house for

some time.

It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open

door she could see the bright zinc of the counter, at which sat two

workmen in their Sunday clothes. At last she made up her mind and said:

“Yes, this will do; and, besides, there is a view.”

They drove into a large field behind the inn, separated from the river

by the towing path, and dismounted. The husband sprang out first and

then held out his arms for his wife, and as the step was very high

Madame Dufour, in order to reach him, had to show the lower part of her

limbs, whose former slenderness had disappeared in fat, and Monsieur

Dufour, who was already getting excited by the country air, pinched her

calf, and then, taking her in his arms, he set her on the ground, as if

she had been some enormous bundle. She shook the dust out of the silk

dress and then looked round to see in what sort of a place she was.

She was a stout woman, of about thirty-six, full-blown, and delightful

to look at. She could hardly breathe, as her corsets were laced too

tightly, and their pressure forced her superabundant bosom up to her

double chin. Next the girl placed her hand on her father's shoulder and

jumped down lightly. The boy with the yellow hair had got down by

stepping on the wheel, and he helped Monsieur Dufour to lift his

grandmother out. Then they unharnessed the horse, which they had tied to

a tree, and the carriage fell back, with both shafts in the air. The men

took off their coats and washed their hands in a pail of water and then

went and joined the ladies, who had already taken possession of the

swings.

Mademoiselle Dufour was trying to swing herself standing up, but she

could not succeed in getting a start. She was a pretty girl of about

eighteen, one of those women who suddenly excite your desire when you

meet them in the street and who leave you with a vague feeling of

uneasiness and of excited senses. She was tall, had a small waist and

large hips, with a dark skin, very large eyes and very black hair. Her

dress clearly marked the outlines of her firm, full figure, which was

accentuated by the motion of her hips as she tried to swing herself

higher. Her arms were stretched upward to hold the rope, so that her

bosom rose at every movement she made. Her hat, which a gust of wind had

blown off, was hanging behind her, and as the swing gradually rose

higher and higher, she showed her delicate limbs up to the knees each

time, and the breeze from her flying skirts, which was more heady than

the fumes of wine, blew into the faces of the two men, who were looking

at her and smiling.

Sitting in the other swing, Madame Dufour kept saying in a monotonous

voice:

“Cyprian, come and swing me; do come and swing me, Cyprian!”

At last he went, and turning up his shirt sleeves, as if undertaking a

hard piece of work, with much difficulty he set his wife in motion. She

clutched the two ropes and held her legs out straight, so as not to

touch the ground. She enjoyed feeling dizzy at the motion of the swing,

and her whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went

higher and higher; she became too giddy and was frightened. Each time

the swing came down she uttered a piercing scream, which made all the

little urchins in the neighborhood come round, and down below, beneath

the garden hedge, she vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads making

various grimaces as they laughed.

When a servant girl came out they ordered luncheon.

“Some fried fish, a rabbit saute, salad and dessert,” Madame Dufour

said, with an important air.

“Bring two quarts of beer and a bottle of claret,” her husband said.

“We will have lunch on the grass,” the girl added.

The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after

one that belonged to the house, trying to coax it to come to her for the

last ten minutes. The animal, who was no doubt secretly flattered by her

attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of her

hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed

herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.

“Hello!” suddenly exclaimed the young man with the yellow hair, who was

wandering about. “Here are two swell boats!” They all went to look at

them and saw two beautiful canoes in a wooden shed; they were as

beautifully finished as if they had been ornamental furniture. They hung

side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining

length, and made one wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and

evenings along the flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees

dip their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually

rustling in the breeze and where the swift kingfishers dart about like

flashes of blue lightning.

The whole family looked at them with great respect.

“Oh, they are indeed swell boats!” Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, as

he examined them like a connoiseur. He had been in the habit of rowing

in his younger days, he said, and when he had spat in his hands—and he

went through the action of pulling the oars—he did not care a fig for

anybody. He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the

Joinville regattas. He grew quite excited at last and offered to make a

bet that in a boat like that he could row six leagues an hour without

exerting himself.

“Luncheon is ready,” the waitress said, appearing at the entrance to the

boathouse, and they all hurried off. But two young men had taken the

very seats that Madame Dufour had selected and were eating their

luncheon. No doubt they were the owners of the sculls, for they were in

boating costume. They were stretched out, almost lying on the chairs;

they were sun-browned and their thin cotton jerseys, with short sleeves,

showed their bare arms, which were as strong as a blacksmith's. They

were two strong, athletic fellows, who showed in all their movements

that elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise

and which is so different to the deformity with which monotonous heavy

work stamps the mechanic.

They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother and then a glance

on seeing the daughter.

“Let us give up our place,” one of them said; “it will make us

acquainted with them.”

The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating cap

in his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in the

garden. With many excuses they accepted, and that it might be more

rural, they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.

The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a

little way off and began to eat again, and their bare arms, which they

showed continually, rather embarrassed the girl. She even pretended to

turn her head aside and not to see them, while Madame Dufour, who was

rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every

moment, and, no doubt, compared them with the secret unsightliness of

her husband. She had squatted herself on ground, with her legs tucked

under her, after the manner of tailors, and she kept moving about

restlessly, saying that ants were crawling about her somewhere. Monsieur

Dufour, annoyed at the presence of the polite strangers, was trying to

find a comfortable position which he did not, however, succeed in doing,

and the young man with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an

ogre.

“It is lovely weather, monsieur,” the stout lady said to one of the

boating men. She wished to be friendly because they had given up their

place.

“It is, indeed, madame,” he replied. “Do you often go into the country?”

“Oh, only once or twice a year to get a little fresh air. And you,

monsieur?”

“I come and sleep here every night.”

“Oh, that must be very nice!”

“Certainly it is, madame.” And he gave them such a practical account of

his daily life that it awakened afresh in the hearts of these

shopkeepers who were deprived of the meadows and who longed for country

walks, to that foolish love of nature which they all feel so strongly

the whole year round behind the counter in their shop.

The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion and

Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.

“It is indeed a happy life,” he said. And then he added: “A little more

rabbit, my dear?”

“No, thank you,” she replied, and turning to the young men again, and

pointing to their arms, asked: “Do you never feel cold like that?”

They both began to laugh, and they astonished the family with an account

of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of their bathing while in a

state of tremendous perspiration, of their rowing in the fog at night;

and they struck their chests violently to show how hollow they sounded.

“Ah! You look very strong,” said the husband, who did not talk any more

of the time when he used to beat the English. The girl was looking at

them sideways now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, who had

swallowed some wine the wrong way, was coughing violently and

bespattering Madame Dufour's cherry-colored silk dress. She got angry

and sent for some water to wash the spots.

Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like a

blaze of fire and the fumes of the wine were getting into their heads.

Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccough, had unbuttoned his

waistcoat and the top button of his trousers, while his wife, who felt

choking, was gradually unfastening her dress. The apprentice was shaking

his yellow wig in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to

wine, and the old grandmother, feeling the effects of the wine, was very

stiff and dignified. As for the girl, one noticed only a peculiar

brightness in her eyes, while the brown cheeks became more rosy.

The coffee finished, they suggested singing, and each of them sang or

repeated a couplet, which the others applauded frantically. Then they

got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather

dizzy, were trying to get a breath of air, the two men, who were

altogether drunk, were attempting gymnastics. Heavy, limp and with

scarlet faces they hung or, awkwardly to the iron rings, without being

able to raise themselves.

Meanwhile the two boating men had got their boats into the water, and

they came back and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a

row.

“Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?” his wife exclaimed. “Please

come!”

He merely gave her a drunken nod, without understanding what she said.

Then one of the rowers came up with two fishing rods in his hands, and

the hope of catching a gudgeon, that great vision of the Parisian

shopkeeper, made Dufour's dull eyes gleam, and he politely allowed them

to do whatever they liked, while he sat in the shade under the bridge,

with his feet dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with

the yellow hair, who was sleeping soundly.

One of the boating men made a martyr of himself and took the mother.

“Let us go to the little wood on the Ile aux Anglais!” he called out as

he rowed off. The other boat went more slowly, for the rower was looking

at his companion so intently that he thought of nothing else, and his

emotion seemed to paralyze his strength, while the girl, who was sitting

in the bow, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water. She

felt a disinclination to think, a lassitude in her limbs and a total

enervation, as if she were intoxicated, and her face was flushed and her

breathing quickened. The effects of the wine, which were increased by

the extreme heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow as she

passed. A vague wish for enjoyment and a fermentation of her blood

seemed to pervade her whole body, which was excited by the heat of the

day, and she was also disturbed at this tete-a-tete on the water, in a

place which seemed depopulated by the heat, with this young man who

thought her pretty, whose ardent looks seemed to caress her skin and

were as penetrating and pervading as the sun's rays.

Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about

them. At last, however, he made an effort and asked her name.

“Henriette,” she said.

“Why, my name is Henri,” he replied. The sound of their voices had

calmed them, and they looked at the banks. The other boat had passed

them and seemed to be waiting for them, and the rower called out:

“We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson's,

because Madame Dufour is thirsty.” Then he bent over his oars again and

rowed off so quickly that he was soon out of sight.

Meanwhile a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came

nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise were

rising from its depths.

“What is that noise?” she asked. It was the noise of the weir which cut

the river in two at the island, and he was explaining it to her, when,

above the noise of the waterfall, they heard the song of a bird, which

seemed a long way off.

“Listen!” he said; “the nightingales are singing during the day, so the

female birds must be sitting.”

A nightingale! She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening

to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A nightingale!

That is to say, the invisible witness of her love trysts which Juliet

invoked on her balcony; that celestial music which it attuned to human

kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which

open an ideal sky to all the poor little tender hearts of sensitive

girls!

She was going to hear a nightingale.

“We must not make a noise,” her companion said, “and then we can go into

the wood, and sit down close beside it.”

The boat seemed to glide. They saw the trees on the island, the banks of

which were so low that they could look into the depths of the thickets.

They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of Henri's arm,

and they went beneath the trees.

“Stoop,” he said, so she stooped down, and they went into an

inextricable thicket of creepers, leaves and reed grass, which formed an

undiscoverable retreat, and which the young man laughingly called “his

private room.”

Just above their heads, perched in one of the trees which hid them, the

bird was still singing. He uttered trills and roulades, and then loud,

vibrating notes that filled the air and seemed to lose themselves on the

horizon, across the level country, through that burning silence which

weighed upon the whole landscape. They did not speak for fear of

frightening it away. They were sitting close together, and, slowly,

Henri's arm stole round the girl's waist and squeezed it gently. She

took that daring hand without any anger, and kept removing it whenever

he put it round her; without, however, feeling at all embarrassed by

this caress, just as if it had been something quite natural, which she

was resisting just as naturally.

She was listening to the bird in ecstasy. She felt an infinite longing

for happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the

revelation of superhuman poetry, and she felt such a softening at her

heart, and relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without

knowing why. The young man was now straining her close to him, yet she

did not remove his arm; she did not think of it. Suddenly the

nightingale stopped, and a voice called out in the distance:

“Henriette!”

“Do not reply,” he said in a low voice; “you will drive the bird away.”

But she had no idea of doing so, and they remained in the same position

for some time. Madame Dufour had sat down somewhere or other, for from

time to time they heard the stout lady break out into little bursts of

laughter.

The girl was still crying; she was filled with strange sensations.

Henri's head was on her shoulder, and suddenly he kissed her on the

lips. She was surprised and angry, and, to avoid him, she stood up.

They were both very pale when they left their grassy retreat. The blue

sky appeared to them clouded and the ardent sun darkened; and they felt

the solitude and the silence. They walked rapidly, side by side, without

speaking or touching each other, for they seemed to have become

irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust and hatred had arisen between

them, and from time to time Henriette called out: “Mamma!”

By and by they heard a noise behind a bush, and the stout lady appeared,

looking rather confused, and her companion's face was wrinkled with

smiles which he could not check.

Madame Dufour took his arm, and they returned to the boats, and Henri,

who was ahead, walked in silence beside the young girl. At last they got

back to Bezons. Monsieur Dufour, who was now sober, was waiting for them

very impatiently, while the young man with the yellow hair was having a

mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn. The carriage was

waiting in the yard, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was

very frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night before they

reached Paris, as the outskirts were not safe.

They all shook bands, and the Dufour family drove off.

“Good-by, until we meet again!” the oarsmen cried, and the answer they

got was a sigh and a tear.

Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw

Dufour, Ironmonger, over a door, and so he went in, and saw the stout

lady sitting at the counter. They recognized each other immediately, and

after an interchange of polite greetings, he asked after them all.

“And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?” he inquired specially.

“Very well, thank you; she is married.”

“Ah!” He felt a certain emotion, but said: “Whom did she marry?”

“That young man who accompanied us, you know; he has joined us in

business.”

“I remember him perfectly.”

He was going out, feeling very unhappy, though scarcely knowing why,

when madame called him back.

“And how is your friend?” she asked rather shyly.

“He is very well, thank you.”

“Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call, when he

is in the neighborhood.”

She then added: “Tell him it will give me great pleasure.”

“I will be sure to do so. Adieu!”

“Do not say that; come again very soon.”

The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that adventure,

which Henri had never forgotten, suddenly came back to him so clearly

that he returned alone to their room in the wood, and was overwhelmed

with astonishment when he went in. She was sitting on the grass, looking

very sad, while by her side, still in his shirt sleeves, the young man

with the yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some animal.

She grew so pale when she saw Henri that at first he thought she was

going to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally. But

when he told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there

frequently on Sundays to indulge in memories, she looked into his eyes

for a long time.

“I too, think of it,” she replied.

“Come, my dear,” her husband said, with a yawn. “I think it is time for

us to be going.”

ROSE

The two young women appear to be buried under a blanket of flowers. They

are alone in the immense landau, which is filled with flowers like a

giant basket. On the front seat are two small hampers of white satin

filled with violets, and on the bearskin by which their knees are

covered there is a mass of roses, mimosas, pinks, daisies, tuberoses and

orange blossoms, interwoven with silk ribbons; the two frail bodies seem

buried under this beautiful perfumed bed, which hides everything but the

shoulders and arms and a little of the dainty waists.

The coachman's whip is wound with a garland of anemones, the horses'

traces are dotted with carnations, the spokes of the wheels are clothed

in mignonette, and where the lanterns ought to be are two enormous round

bouquets which look as though they were the eyes of this strange,

rolling, flower-bedecked creature.

The landau drives rapidly along the road, through the Rue d'Antibes,

preceded, followed, accompanied, by a crowd of other carriages covered

with flowers, full of women almost hidden by a sea of violets. It is the

flower carnival at Cannes.

The carriage reaches the Boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle is

waged. All along the immense avenue a double row of flower-bedecked

vehicles are going and coming like an endless ribbon. Flowers are thrown

from one to the other. They pass through the air like balls, striking

fresh faces, bouncing and falling into the dust, where an army of

youngsters pick them up.

A thick crowd is standing on the sidewalks looking on and held in check

by the mounted police, who pass brutally along pushing back the curious

pedestrians as though to prevent the common people from mingling with

the rich.

In the carriages, people call to each other, recognize each other and

bombard each other with roses. A chariot full of pretty women, dressed

in red, like devils, attracts the eyes of all. A gentleman, who looks

like the portraits of Henry IV., is throwing an immense bouquet which is

held back by an elastic. Fearing the shock, the women hide their eyes

and the men lower their heads, but the graceful, rapid and obedient

missile describes a curve and returns to its master, who immediately

throws it at some new face.

The two young women begin to throw their stock of flowers by handfuls,

and receive a perfect hail of bouquets; then, after an hour of warfare,

a little tired, they tell the coachman to drive along the road which

follows the seashore.

The sun disappears behind Esterel, outlining the dark, rugged mountain

against the sunset sky. The clear blue sea, as calm as a mill-pond,

stretches out as far as the horizon, where it blends with the sky; and

the fleet, anchored in the middle of the bay, looks like a herd of

enormous beasts, motionless on the water, apocalyptic animals, armored

and hump-backed, their frail masts looking like feathers, and with eyes

which light up when evening approaches.

The two young women, leaning back under the heavy robes, look out lazily

over the blue expanse of water. At last one of them says:

“How delightful the evenings are! How good everything seems! Don't you

think so, Margot?”

“Yes, it is good. But there is always something lacking.”

“What is lacking? I feel perfectly happy. I don't need anything else.”

“Yes, you do. You are not thinking of it. No matter how contented we may

be, physically, we always long for something more—for the heart.”

The other asked with a smile:

“A little love?”

“Yes.”

They stopped talking, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon, then

the one called Marguerite murmured: “Life without that seems to me

unbearable. I need to be loved, if only by a dog. But we are all alike,

no matter what you may say, Simone.”

“Not at all, my dear. I had rather not be loved at all than to be loved

by the first comer. Do you think, for instance, that it would be

pleasant to be loved by—by—”

She was thinking by whom she might possibly be loved, glancing across

the wide landscape. Her eyes, after traveling around the horizon, fell

on the two bright buttons which were shining on the back of the

coachman's livery, and she continued, laughing: “by my coachman?”

Madame Margot barely smiled, and said in a low tone of voice:

“I assure you that it is very amusing to be loved by a servant. It has

happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes in such a funny

manner—it's enough to make you die laughing! Naturally, the more in love

they are, the more severe one must be with them, and then, some day, for

some reason, you dismiss them, because, if anyone should notice it, you

would appear so ridiculous.”

Madame Simone was listening, staring straight ahead of her, then she

remarked:

“No, I'm afraid that my footman's heart would not satisfy me. Tell me

how you noticed that they loved you.”

“I noticed it the same way that I do with other men—when they get

stupid.”

“The others don't seem stupid to me, when they love me.”

“They are idiots, my dear, unable to talk, to answer, to understand

anything.”

“But how did you feel when you were loved by a servant? Were

you—moved—flattered?”

“Moved? no, flattered—yes a little. One is always flattered to be loved

by a man, no matter who he may be.”

“Oh, Margot!”

“Yes, indeed, my dear! For instance, I will tell you of a peculiar

incident which happened to me. You will see how curious and complex our

emotions are, in such cases.

“About four years ago I happened to be without a maid. I had tried five

or six, one right after the other, and I was about ready to give up in

despair, when I saw an advertisement in a newspaper of a young girl

knowing how to cook, embroider, dress hair, who was looking for a

position and who could furnish the best of references. Besides all these

accomplishments, she could speak English.

“I wrote to the given address, and the next day the person in question

presented herself. She was tall, slender, pale, shy-looking. She had

beautiful black eyes and a charming complexion; she pleased me

immediately. I asked for her certificates; she gave me one in English,

for she came, as she said, from Lady Rymwell's, where she had been for

ten years.

“The certificate showed that the young girl had left of her own free

will, in order to return to France, and the only thing which they had

had to find fault in her during her long period of service was a little

French coquettishness.

“This prudish English phrase even made me smile, and I immediately

engaged this maid.

“She came to me the same day. Her name was Rose.

“At the end of a month I would have been helpless without her. She was a

treasure, a pearl, a phenomenon.

“She could dress my hair with infinite taste; she could trim a hat

better than most milliners, and she could even make my dresses.

“I was astonished at her accomplishments. I had never before been waited

on in such a manner.

“She dressed me rapidly and with a surprisingly light touch. I never

felt her fingers on my skin, and nothing is so disagreeable to me as

contact with a servant's hand. I soon became excessively lazy; it was so

pleasant to be dressed from head to foot, and from lingerie to gloves,

by this tall, timid girl, always blushing a little, and never saying a

word. After my bath she would rub and massage me while I dozed a little

on my couch; I almost considered her more of a friend than a servant.

“One morning the janitor asked, mysteriously, to speak to me. I was

surprised, and told him to come in. He was a good, faithful man, an old

soldier, one of my husband's former orderlies.

“He seemed to be embarrassed by what he had to say to me. At last he

managed to mumble:

“'Madame, the superintendent of police is downstairs.'

“I asked quickly:

“'What does he wish?'

“'He wishes to search the house.'

“Of course the police are useful, but I hate them. I do not think that

it is a noble profession. I answered, angered and hurt:

“'Why this search? For what reason? He shall not come in.'

“The janitor continued:

“'He says that there is a criminal hidden in the house.'

“This time I was frightened and I told him to bring the inspector to me,

so that I might get some explanation. He was a man with good manners and

decorated with the Legion of Honor. He begged my pardon for disturbing

me, and then informed me that I had, among my domestics, a convict.

“I was shocked; and I answered that I could guarantee every servant in

the house, and I began to enumerate them.

“'The janitor, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.'

“'It's not he.'

“'A stable-boy, son of farmers whom I know, and a groom whom you have

just seen.'

“'It's not he.'

“'Then, monsieur, you see that you must be mistaken.'

“'Excuse me, madame, but I am positive that I am not making a mistake.

“As the conviction of a notable criminal is at stake, would you be so

kind as to send for all your servants?”

“At first I refused, but I finally gave in, and sent downstairs for

everybody, men and women.

“The inspector glanced at them and then declared:

“'This isn't all.'

“'Excuse me, monsieur, there is no one left but my maid, a young girl

whom you could not possibly mistake for a convict.'

“He asked:

“'May I also see her?'

“'Certainly.'

“I rang for Rose, who immediately appeared. She had hardly entered the

room, when the inspector made a motion, and two men whom I had not seen,

hidden behind the door, sprang forward, seized her and tied her hands

behind her back.

“I cried out in anger and tried to rush forward to defend her. The

inspector stopped me:

“'This girl, madame, is a man whose name is Jean Nicolas Lecapet,

condemned to death in 1879 for assaulting a woman and injuring her so

that death resulted. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.

He escaped four months ago. We have been looking for him ever since.'

“I was terrified, bewildered. I did not believe him. The commissioner

continued, laughing:

“'I can prove it to you. His right arm is tattooed.'

“'The sleeve was rolled up. It was true. The inspector added, with bad

taste:

“'You can trust us for the other proofs.'

“And they led my maid away!

“Well, would you believe me, the thing that moved me most was not anger

at having thus been played upon, deceived and made ridiculous, it was

not the shame of having thus been dressed and undressed, handled and

touched by this man—but a deep humiliation—a woman's humiliation. Do you

understand?”

“I am afraid I don't.”

“Just think—this man had been condemned for—for assaulting a woman.

Well! I thought of the one whom he had assaulted—and—and I felt

humiliated—There! Do you understand now?”

Madame Margot did not answer. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes

fastened on the two shining buttons of the livery, with that sphinx-like

smile which women sometimes have.

ROSALIE PRUDENT

There was a real mystery in this affair which neither the jury, nor the

president, nor the public prosecutor himself could understand.

The girl Prudent (Rosalie), servant at the Varambots', of Nantes, having

become enceinte without the knowledge of her masters, had, during the

night, killed and buried her child in the garden.

It was the usual story of the infanticides committed by servant girls.

But there was one inexplicable circumstance about this one. When the

police searched the girl Prudent's room they discovered a complete

infant's outfit, made by Rosalie herself, who had spent her nights for

the last three months in cutting and sewing it. The grocer from whom she

had bought her candles, out of her own wages, for this long piece of

work had come to testify. It came out, moreover, that the sage-femme of

the district, informed by Rosalie of her condition, had given her all

necessary instructions and counsel in case the event should happen at a

time when it might not be possible to get help. She had also procured a

place at Poissy for the girl Prudent, who foresaw that her present

employers would discharge her, for the Varambot couple did not trifle

with morality.

There were present at the trial both the man and the woman, a middle-

class pair from the provinces, living on their income. They were so

exasperated against this girl, who had sullied their house, that they

would have liked to see her guillotined on the spot without a trial. The

spiteful depositions they made against her became accusations in their

mouths.

The defendant, a large, handsome girl of Lower Normandy, well educated

for her station in life, wept continuously and would not answer to

anything.

The court and the spectators were forced to the opinion that she had

committed this barbarous act in a moment of despair and madness, since

there was every indication that she had expected to keep and bring up

her child.

The president tried for the last time to make her speak, to get some

confession, and, having urged her with much gentleness, he finally made

her understand that all these men gathered here to pass judgment upon

her were not anxious for her death and might even have pity on her.

Then she made up her mind to speak.

“Come, now, tell us, first, who is the father of this child?” he asked.

Until then she had obstinately refused to give his name.

But she replied suddenly, looking at her masters who had so cruelly

calumniated her:

“It is Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot's nephew.”

The couple started in their seats and cried with one voice—“That's not

true! She lies! This is infamous!”

The president had them silenced and continued, “Go on, please, and tell

us how it all happened.”

Then she suddenly began to talk freely, relieving her pent-up heart,

that poor, solitary, crushed heart—laying bare her sorrow, her whole

sorrow, before those severe men whom she had until now taken for enemies

and inflexible judges.

“Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year.”

“What does Mr. Joseph Varambot do?”

“He is a non-commissioned officer in the artillery, monsieur. Well, he

stayed two months at the house, two months of the summer. I thought

nothing about it when he began to look at me, and then flatter me, and

make love to me all day long. And I let myself be taken in, monsieur. He

kept saying to me that I was a handsome girl, that I was good company,

that I just suited him—and I, I liked him well enough. What could I do?

One listens to these things when one is alone—all alone—as I was. I am

alone in the world, monsieur. I have no one to talk to—no one to tell my

troubles to. I have no father, no mother, no brother, no sister, nobody.

And when he began to talk to me it was as if I had a brother who had

come back. And then he asked me to go with him to the river one evening,

so that we might talk without disturbing any one. I went—I don't know—I

don't know how it happened. He had his arm around me. Really I didn't

want to—no—no—I could not—I felt like crying, the air was so soft —the

moon was shining. No, I swear to you—I could not—he did what he wanted.

That went on three weeks, as long as he stayed. I could have followed

him to the ends of the world. He went away. I did not know that I was

enceinte. I did not know it until the month after—”

She began to cry so bitterly that they had to give her time to collect

herself.

Then the president resumed with the tone of a priest at the

confessional: “Come, now, go on.”

She began to talk again: “When I realized my condition I went to see

Madame Boudin, who is there to tell you, and I asked her how it would

be, in case it should come if she were not there. Then I made the

outfit, sewing night after night, every evening until one o'clock in the

morning; and then I looked for another place, for I knew very well that

I should be sent away, but I wanted to stay in the house until the very

last, so as to save my pennies, for I have not got very much and I

should need my money for the little one.”

“Then you did not intend to kill him?”

“Oh, certainly not, monsieur!”

“Why did you kill him, then?”

“It happened this way. It came sooner than I expected. It came upon me

in the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes. Monsieur and Madame

Varambot were already asleep, so I went up, not without difficulty,

dragging myself up by the banister, and I lay down on the bare floor. It

lasted perhaps one hour, or two, or three; I don't know, I had such

pain; and then I pushed him out with all my strength. I felt that he

came out and I picked him up.

“Ah! but I was glad, I assure you! I did all that Madame Boudin told me

to do. And then I laid him on my bed. And then such a pain griped me

again that I thought I should die. If you knew what it meant, you there,

you would not do so much of this. I fell on my knees, and then toppled

over backward on the floor; and it griped me again, perhaps one hour,

perhaps two. I lay there all alone—and then another one comes—another

little one—two, yes, two, like this. I took him up as I did the first

one, and then I put him on the bed, the two side by side. Is it

possible, tell me, two children, and I who get only twenty francs a

month? Say, is it possible? One, yes, that can be managed by going

without things, but not two. That turned my head. What do I know about

it? Had I any choice, tell me?

“What could I do? I felt as if my last hour had come. I put the pillow

over them, without knowing why. I could not keep them both; and then I

threw myself down, and I lay there, rolling over and over and crying

until I saw the daylight come into the window. Both of them were quite

dead under the pillow. Then I took them under my arms and went down the

stairs out in the vegetable garden. I took the gardener's spade and I

buried them under the earth, digging as deep a hole as I could, one here

and the other one there, not together, so that they might not talk of

their mother if these little dead bodies can talk. What do I know about

it?

“And then, back in my bed, I felt so sick that I could not get up. They

sent for the doctor and he understood it all. I'm telling you the truth,

Your Honor. Do what you like with me; I'm ready.”

Half of the jury were blowing their noses violently to keep from crying.

The women in the courtroom were sobbing.

The president asked her:

“Where did you bury the other one?”

“The one that you have?” she asked.

“Why, this one—this one was in the artichokes.”

“Oh, then the other one is among the strawberries, by the well.”

And she began to sob so piteously that no one could hear her unmoved.

The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.

REGRET

Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes “Father Saval,” had just risen

from bed. He was weeping. It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were

falling. They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain.

M. Saval was not in good spirits. He walked from the fireplace to the

window, and from the window to the fireplace. Life has its sombre days.

It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached

the age of sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about

him. How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is

devoted to you!

He pondered over his life, so barren, so empty. He recalled former days,

the days of his childhood, the home, the house of his parents; his

college days, his follies; the time he studied law in Paris, his

father's illness, his death. He then returned to live with his mother.

They lived together very quietly, and desired nothing more. At last the

mother died. How sad life is! He lived alone since then, and now, in his

turn, he, too, will soon be dead. He will disappear, and that will be

the end. There will be no more of Paul Saval upon the earth. What a

frightful thing! Other people will love, will laugh. Yes, people will go

on amusing themselves, and he will no longer exist! Is it not strange

that people can laugh, amuse themselves, be joyful under that eternal

certainty of death? If this death were only probable, one could then

have hope; but no, it is inevitable, as inevitable as that night follows

the day.

If, however, his life had been full! If he had done something; if he had

had adventures, great pleasures, success, satisfaction of some kind or

another. But no, nothing. He had done nothing, nothing but rise from

bed, eat, at the same hours, and go to bed again. And he had gone on

like that to the age of sixty-two years. He had not even taken unto

himself a wife, as other men do. Why? Yes, why was it that he had not

married? He might have done so, for he possessed considerable means. Had

he lacked an opportunity? Perhaps! But one can create opportunities. He

was indifferent; that was all. Indifference had been his greatest

drawback, his defect, his vice. How many men wreck their lives through

indifference! It is so difficult for some natures to get out of bed, to

move about, to take long walks, to speak, to study any question.

He had not even been loved. No woman had reposed on his bosom, in a

complete abandon of love. He knew nothing of the delicious anguish of

expectation, the divine vibration of a hand in yours, of the ecstasy of

triumphant passion.

What superhuman happiness must overflow your heart, when lips encounter

lips for the first time, when the grasp of four arms makes one being of

you, a being unutterably happy, two beings infatuated with one another.

M. Saval was sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, in his

dressing gown. Assuredly his life had been spoiled, completely spoiled.

He had, however, loved. He had loved secretly, sadly, and indifferently,

in a manner characteristic of him in everything. Yes, he had loved his

old friend, Madame Sandres, the wife of his old companion, Sandres. Ah!

if he had known her as a young girl! But he had met her too late; she

was already married. Unquestionably, he would have asked her hand! How

he had loved her, nevertheless, without respite, since the first day he

set eyes on her!

He recalled his emotion every time he saw her, his grief on leaving her,

the many nights that he could not sleep, because he was thinking of her.

On rising in the morning he was somewhat more rational than on the

previous evening.

Why?

How pretty she was formerly, so dainty, with fair curly hair, and always

laughing. Sandres was not the man she should have chosen. She was now

fifty-two years of age. She seemed happy. Ah! if she had only loved him

in days gone by; yes, if she had only loved him! And why should she not

have loved him, he, Saval, seeing that he loved her so much, yes, she,

Madame Sandres!

If only she could have guessed. Had she not guessed anything, seen

anything, comprehended anything? What would she have thought? If he had

spoken, what would she have answered?

And Saval asked himself a thousand other things. He reviewed his whole

life, seeking to recall a multitude of details.

He recalled all the long evenings spent at the house of Sandres, when

the latter's wife was young, and so charming.

He recalled many things that she had said to him, the intonations of her

voice, the little significant smiles that meant so much.

He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks of

the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres was

employed at the sub-prefecture. And all at once the distinct

recollection came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood

on the banks of the river.

They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets.

It was a bright spring morning, one of those days which intoxicate one.

Everything smells fresh, everything seems happy. The voices of the birds

sound more joyous, and they fly more swiftly. They had luncheon on the

grass, under the willow trees, quite close to the water, which glittered

in the sun's rays. The air was balmy, charged with the odors of fresh

vegetation; they drank it in with delight. How pleasant everything was

on that day!

After lunch, Sandres went to sleep on the broad of his back. “The best

nap he had in his life,” said he, when he woke up.

Madame Sandres had taken the arm of Saval, and they started to walk

along the river bank.

She leaned tenderly on his arm. She laughed and said to him: “I am

intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated.” He looked at her, his

heart going pit-a-pat. He felt himself grow pale, fearful that he might

have looked too boldly at her, and that the trembling of his hand had

revealed his passion.

She had made a wreath of wild flowers and water-lilies, and she asked

him: “Do I look pretty like that?”

As he did not answer—for he could find nothing to say, he would have

liked to go down on his knees—she burst out laughing, a sort of annoyed,

displeased laugh, as she said: “Great goose, what ails you? You might at

least say something.”

He felt like crying, but could not even yet find a word to say.

All these things came back to him now, as vividly as on the day when

they took place. Why had she said this to him, “Great goose, what ails

you? You might at least say something!”

And he recalled how tenderly she had leaned on his arm. And in passing

under a shady tree he had felt her ear brushing his cheek, and he had

moved his head abruptly, lest she should suppose he was too familiar.

When he had said to her: “Is it not time to return?” she darted a

singular look at him. “Certainly,” she said, “certainly,” regarding him

at the same time in a curious manner. He had not thought of it at the

time, but now the whole thing appeared to him quite plain.