And he had answered: “I am not fatigued; but Sandres may be awake now.”
And she had said: “If you are afraid of my husband's being awake, that
is another thing. Let us return.”
On their way back she remained silent, and leaned no longer on his arm.
Why?
At that time it had never occurred to him, to ask himself “why.” Now he
seemed to apprehend something that he had not then understood.
Could it?
M. Saval felt himself blush, and he got up at a bound, as if he were
thirty years younger and had heard Madame Sandres say, “I love you.”
Was it possible? That idea which had just entered his mind tortured him.
Was it possible that he had not seen, had not guessed?
Oh! if that were true, if he had let this opportunity of happiness pass
without taking advantage of it!
He said to himself: “I must know. I cannot remain in this state of
doubt. I must know!” He thought: “I am sixty-two years of age, she is
fifty-eight; I may ask her that now without giving offense.”
He started out.
The Sandres' house was situated on the other side of the street, almost
directly opposite his own. He went across and knocked at the door, and a
little servant opened it.
“You here at this hour, Saval! Has some accident happened to you?”
“No, my girl,” he replied; “but go and tell your mistress that I want to
speak to her at once.”
“The fact is madame is preserving pears for the winter, and she is in
the preserving room. She is not dressed, you understand.”
“Yes, but go and tell her that I wish to see her on a very important
matter.”
The little servant went away, and Saval began to walk, with long,
nervous strides, up and down the drawing-room. He did not feel in the
least embarrassed, however. Oh! he was merely going to ask her
something, as he would have asked her about some cooking recipe. He was
sixty-two years of age!
The door opened and madame appeared. She was now a large woman, fat and
round, with full cheeks and a sonorous laugh. She walked with her arms
away from her sides and her sleeves tucked up, her bare arms all covered
with fruit juice. She asked anxiously:
“What is the matter with you, my friend? You are not ill, are you?”
“No, my dear friend; but I wish to ask you one thing, which to me is of
the first importance, something which is torturing my heart, and I want
you to promise that you will answer me frankly.”
She laughed, “I am always frank. Say on.”
“Well, then. I have loved you from the first day I ever saw you. Can you
have any doubt of this?”
She responded, laughing, with something of her former tone of voice.
“Great goose! what ails you? I knew it from the very first day!”
Saval began to tremble. He stammered out: “You knew it? Then . . .”
He stopped.
She asked:
“Then?”
He answered:
“Then—what did you think? What—what—what would you have answered?”
She broke into a peal of laughter. Some of the juice ran off the tips of
her fingers on to the carpet.
“What?”
“I? Why, you did not ask me anything. It was not for me to declare
myself!”
He then advanced a step toward her.
“Tell me—tell me . . . . You remember the day when Sandres went to sleep
on the grass after lunch . . . when we had walked together as far as the
bend of the river, below . . .”
He waited, expectantly. She had ceased to laugh, and looked at him,
straight in the eyes.
“Yes, certainly, I remember it.”
He answered, trembling all over:
“Well—that day—if I had been—if I had been—venturesome—what would you
have done?”
She began to laugh as only a happy woman can laugh, who has nothing to
regret, and responded frankly, in a clear voice tinged with irony:
“I would have yielded, my friend.”
She then turned on her heels and went back to her jam-making.
Saval rushed into the street, cast down, as though he had met with some
disaster. He walked with giant strides through the rain, straight on,
until he reached the river bank, without thinking where he was going. He
then turned to the right and followed the river. He walked a long time,
as if urged on by some instinct. His clothes were running with water,
his hat was out of shape, as soft as a rag, and dripping like a roof. He
walked on, straight in front of him. At last, he came to the place where
they had lunched on that day so long ago, the recollection of which
tortured his heart. He sat down under the leafless trees, and wept.
A SISTER'S CONFESSION
Marguerite de Therelles was dying. Although she was only fifty-six years
old she looked at least seventy-five. She gasped for breath, her face
whiter than the sheets, and had spasms of violent shivering, with her
face convulsed and her eyes haggard as though she saw a frightful
vision.
Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older than herself, was sobbing on
her knees beside the bed. A small table close to the dying woman's couch
bore, on a white cloth, two lighted candles, for the priest was expected
at any moment to administer extreme unction and the last communion.
The apartment wore that melancholy aspect common to death chambers; a
look of despairing farewell. Medicine bottles littered the furniture;
linen lay in the corners into which it had been kicked or swept. The
very chairs looked, in their disarray, as if they were terrified and had
run in all directions. Death—terrible Death—was in the room, hidden,
awaiting his prey.
This history of the two sisters was an affecting one. It was spoken of
far and wide; it had drawn tears from many eyes.
Suzanne, the elder, had once been passionately loved by a young man,
whose affection she returned. They were engaged to be married, and the
wedding day was at hand, when Henry de Sampierre suddenly died.
The young girl's despair was terrible, and she took an oath never to
marry. She faithfully kept her vow and adopted widow's weeds for the
remainder of her life.
But one morning her sister, her little sister Marguerite, then only
twelve years old, threw herself into Suzanne's arms, sobbing: “Sister, I
don't want you to be unhappy. I don't want you to mourn all your life.
I'll never leave you—never, never, never! I shall never marry, either.
I'll stay with you always—always!”
Suzanne kissed her, touched by the child's devotion, though not putting
any faith in her promise.
But the little one kept her word, and, despite her parents'
remonstrances, despite her elder sister's prayers, never married. She
was remarkably pretty and refused many offers. She never left her
sister.
They spent their whole life together, without a single day's separation.
They went everywhere together and were inseparable. But Marguerite was
pensive, melancholy, sadder than her sister, as if her sublime sacrifice
had undermined her spirits. She grew older more quickly; her hair was
white at thirty; and she was often ill, apparently stricken with some
unknown, wasting malady.
And now she would be the first to die.
She had not spoken for twenty-four hours, except to whisper at daybreak:
“Send at once for the priest.”
And she had since remained lying on her back, convulsed with agony, her
lips moving as if unable to utter the dreadful words that rose in her
heart, her face expressive of a terror distressing to witness.
Suzanne, distracted with grief, her brow pressed against the bed, wept
bitterly, repeating over and over again the words:
“Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!”
She had always called her “my little one,” while Marguerite's name for
the elder was invariably “sister.”
A footstep sounded on the stairs. The door opened. An acolyte appeared,
followed by the aged priest in his surplice. As soon as she saw him the
dying woman sat up suddenly in bed, opened her lips, stammered a few
words and began to scratch the bed-clothes, as if she would have made
hole in them.
Father Simon approached, took her hand, kissed her on the forehead and
said in a gentle voice:
“May God pardon your sins, my daughter. Be of good courage. Now is the
moment to confess them—speak!”
Then Marguerite, shuddering from head to foot, so that the very bed
shook with her nervous movements, gasped:
“Sit down, sister, and listen.”
The priest stooped toward the prostrate Suzanne, raised her to her feet,
placed her in a chair, and, taking a hand of each of the sisters,
pronounced:
“Lord God! Send them strength! Shed Thy mercy upon them.”
And Marguerite began to speak. The words issued from her lips one by
one—hoarse, jerky, tremulous.
“Pardon, pardon, sister! pardon me! Oh, if only you knew how I have
dreaded this moment all my life!”
Suzanne faltered through her tears:
“But what have I to pardon, little one? You have given me everything,
sacrificed all to me. You are an angel.”
But Marguerite interrupted her:
“Be silent, be silent! Let me speak! Don't stop me! It is terrible. Let
me tell all, to the very end, without interruption. Listen. You
remember—you remember—Henry—”
Suzanne trembled and looked at her sister. The younger one went on:
“In order to understand you must hear everything. I was twelve years
old—only twelve—you remember, don't you? And I was spoilt; I did just as
I pleased. You remember how everybody spoilt me? Listen. The first time
he came he had on his riding boots; he dismounted, saying that he had a
message for father. You remember, don't you? Don't speak. Listen. When I
saw him I was struck with admiration. I thought him so handsome, and I
stayed in a corner of the drawing-room all the time he was talking.
Children are strange—and terrible. Yes, indeed, I dreamt of him.
“He came again—many times. I looked at him with all my eyes, all my
heart. I was large for my age and much more precocious than—any one
suspected. He came often. I thought only of him. I often whispered to
myself:
“'Henry-Henry de Sampierre!'
“Then I was told that he was going to marry you. That was a blow! Oh,
sister, a terrible blow—terrible! I wept all through three sleepless
nights.
“He came every afternoon after lunch. You remember, don't you? Don't
answer. Listen. You used to make cakes that he was very fond of—with
flour, butter and milk. Oh, I know how to make them. I could make them
still, if necessary. He would swallow them at one mouthful and wash them
down with a glass of wine, saying: 'Delicious!' Do you remember the way
he said it?
“I was jealous—jealous! Your wedding day was drawing near. It was only a
fortnight distant. I was distracted. I said to myself: 'He shall not
marry Suzanne—no, he shall not! He shall marry me when I am old enough!
I shall never love any one half so much.' But one evening, ten days
before the wedding, you went for a stroll with him in the moonlight
before the house—and yonder—under the pine tree, the big pine tree—he
kissed you—kissed you—and held you in his arms so long—so long! You
remember, don't you? It was probably the first time. You were so pale
when you came back to the drawing-room!
“I saw you. I was there in the shrubbery. I was mad with rage! I would
have killed you both if I could!
“I said to myself: 'He shall never marry Suzanne—never! He shall marry
no one! I could not bear it.' And all at once I began to hate him
intensely.
“Then do you know what I did? Listen. I had seen the gardener prepare
pellets for killing stray dogs. He would crush a bottle into small
pieces with a stone and put the ground glass into a ball of meat.
“I stole a small medicine bottle from mother's room. I ground it fine
with a hammer and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glistening
powder. The next day, when you had made your little cakes; I opened them
with a knife and inserted the glass. He ate three. I ate one myself. I
threw the six others into the pond. The two swans died three days later.
You remember? Oh, don't speak! Listen, listen. I, I alone did not die.
But I have always been ill. Listen—he died—you know—listen—that was not
the worst. It was afterward, later—always—the most terrible—listen.
“My life, all my life—such torture! I said to myself: 'I will never
leave my sister. And on my deathbed I will tell her all.' And now I have
told. And I have always thought of this moment—the moment when all would
be told. Now it has come. It is terrible—oh!—sister—
“I have always thought, morning and evening, day and night: 'I shall
have to tell her some day!' I waited. The horror of it! It is done. Say
nothing. Now I am afraid—I am afraid! Oh! Supposing I should see him
again, by and by, when I am dead! See him again! Only to think of it! I
dare not—yet I must. I am going to die. I want you to forgive me. I
insist on it. I cannot meet him without your forgiveness. Oh, tell her
to forgive me, Father! Tell her. I implore you! I cannot die without
it.”
She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still plucking at the
sheets with her fingers.
Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not move. She was
thinking of him whom she had loved so long. What a life of happiness
they might have had together! She saw him again in the dim and distant
past-that past forever lost. Beloved dead! how the thought of them rends
the heart! Oh! that kiss, his only kiss! She had retained the memory of
it in her soul. And, after that, nothing, nothing more throughout her
whole existence!
The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling voice said:
“Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”
Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her arms round her
sister, and kissing her fervently, exclaimed:
“I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!”
COCO
Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farn, was known as “the
Manor.” No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word,
“Manor,” a meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was
undoubtedly the largest, richest and the best managed in the whole
neighborhood.
The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which
sheltered the delicate apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain,
inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for storing fodder
and grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little
chateau.
Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little
offensive as such things can be; the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and
countless poultry paraded through the tall grass.
Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women
folks, seated themselves around the long kitchen table where the soup
was brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered bowl.
The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean.
Maitre Lucas, a tall man who was getting stout, would go round three
times a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.
A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its
natural death, because she had brought it up and had always used it, and
also because it recalled many happy memories, was housed, through sheer
kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.
A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval by name, and
called, for convenience, Zidore, took care of this pensioner, gave him
his measure of oats and fodder in winter, and in summer was supposed to
change his pasturing place four times a day, so that he might have
plenty of fresh grass.
The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty his legs, large at
the knees and swollen above the hoofs. His coat, which was no longer
curried, looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes gave to his eyes
a sad expression.
When Zidore took the animal to pasture, he had to pull on the rope with
all his might, because it walked so slowly; and the youth, bent over and
out of breath, would swear at it, exasperated at having to care for this
old nag.
The farmhands, noticing the young rascal's anger against Coco, were
amused and would continually talk of the horse to Zidore, in order to
exasperate him. His comrades would make sport with him. In the village
he was called Coco-Zidore.
The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the
horse. He was a thin, long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse,
bristly red hair. He seemed only half-witted, and stuttered as though
ideas were unable to form in his thick, brute-like mind.
For a long time he had been unable to understand why Coco should be
kept, indignant at seeing things wasted on this useless beast. Since the
horse could no longer work, it seemed to him unjust that he should be
fed; he revolted at the idea of wasting oats, oats which were so
expensive, on this paralyzed old plug. And often, in spite of the orders
of Maitre Lucas, he would economize on the nag's food, only giving him
half measure. Hatred grew in his confused, childlike mind, the hatred of
a stingy, mean, fierce, brutal and cowardly peasant.
When summer came he had to move the animal about in the pasture. It was
some distance away. The rascal, angrier every morning, would start, with
his dragging step, across the wheat fields. The men working in the
fields would shout to him, jokingly:
“Hey, Zidore, remember me to Coco.”
He would not answer; but on the way he would break off a switch, and, as
soon as he had moved the old horse, he would let it begin grazing; then,
treacherously sneaking up behind it, he would slash its legs. The animal
would try to escape, to kick, to get away from the blows, and run around
in a circle about its rope, as though it had been inclosed in a circus
ring. And the boy would slash away furiously, running along behind, his
teeth clenched in anger.
Then he would go away slowly, without turning round, while the horse
watched him disappear, his ribs sticking out, panting as a result of his
unusual exertions. Not until the blue blouse of the young peasant was
out of sight would he lower his thin white head to the grass.
As the nights were now warm, Coco was allowed to sleep out of doors, in
the field behind the little wood. Zidore alone went to see him. The boy
threw stones at him to amuse himself. He would sit down on an embankment
about ten feet away and would stay there about half an hour, from time
to time throwing a sharp stone at the old horse, which remained standing
tied before his enemy, watching him continually and not daring to eat
before he was gone.
This one thought persisted in the mind of the young scamp: “Why feed
this horse, which is no longer good for anything?” It seemed to him that
this old nag was stealing the food of the others, the goods of man and
God, that he was even robbing him, Zidore, who was working.
Then, little by little, each day, the boy began to shorten the length of
rope which allowed the horse to graze.
The hungry animal was growing thinner, and starving. Too feeble to break
his bonds, he would stretch his head out toward the tall, green,
tempting grass, so near that he could smell, and yet so far that he
could not touch it.
But one morning Zidore had an idea: it was, not to move Coco any more.
He was tired of walking so far for that old skeleton. He came, however,
in order to enjoy his vengeance. The beast watched him anxiously. He did
not beat him that day. He walked around him with his hands in his
pockets. He even pretended to change his place, but he sank the stake in
exactly the same hole, and went away overjoyed with his invention.
The horse, seeing him leave, neighed to call him back; but the rascal
began to run, leaving him alone, entirely alone in his field, well tied
down and without a blade of grass within reach.
Starving, he tried to reach the grass which he could touch with the end
of his nose. He got on his knees, stretching out his neck and his long,
drooling lips. All in vain. The old animal spent the whole day in
useless, terrible efforts. The sight of all that green food, which
stretched out on all sides of him, served to increase the gnawing pangs
of hunger.
The scamp did not return that day. He wandered through the woods in
search of nests.
The next day he appeared upon the scene again. Coco, exhausted, had lain
down. When he saw the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his
place changed.
But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying on
the ground. He came nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head a
clump of earth which flattened out against the white hair, and he
started off again, whistling.
The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing
that his attempts to reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once
more lay down on his side and closed his eyes.
The following day Zidore did not come.
When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that
he was dead.
Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had
done, surprised that it should already be all over. He touched him with
his foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it drop, sat on him and
remained there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing. He
returned to the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he
wished to wander about at the hours when he used to change the horse's
pasture. He went to see him the next day. At his approach some crows
flew away. Countless flies were walking over the body and were buzzing
around it. When he returned home, he announced the event. The animal was
so old that nobody was surprised. The master said to two of the men:
“Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is.”
The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger. And
the grass grew thick, green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.
DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life
had been blameless. Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back,
her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully
arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying. The
whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so
resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body,
what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the
death of this parent had been.
Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible
principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were
weeping as though their hearts would break. She had, from childhood up,
armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without
weakness, and duty, without compromise. He, the man, had become a judge
and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones
without pity. She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed
her in this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through
her loathing for man.
They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.
The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the
long body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the
death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
of those last movements which precede eternal immobility.
A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up,
and the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and
out of breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself a
strong mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of
the last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.
He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is
a bread winner. He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
gesture: “Well, my poor children! I have come to help you pass these
last sad hours.” But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. “Thank you, father,
but my brother and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last
chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us, as
we—we—used to be when we were small and our poor mo—mother——”
Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.
Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. “As you wish,
my children.” He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
quietly, murmuring: “She was a saint!”
They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the
clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together
with the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land
except the occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some
belated insect. An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent
serenity surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her
and to appease nature itself.
Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes,
cried in a voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and
blankets: “Mamma, mamma, mamma!” And his sister, frantically striking
her forehead against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as
in an epileptic fit, moaned: “Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!” And both of
them, shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.
The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on
the sea when a calm follows a squall.
A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead. And
the memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so
torturing, came to their minds with all the little forgotten details,
those little intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one
who has left. They recalled to each other circumstances, words, smiles,
intonations of the mother who was no longer to speak to them. They saw
her again happy and calm. They remembered things which she had said, and
a little motion of the hand, like beating time, which she often used
when emphasizing something important.
And they loved her as they never had loved her before. They measured the
depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would
find themselves.
It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of
their lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their
mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which
they would thenceforth miss. They now became solitary, lonely beings;
they could no longer look back.
The nun said to her brother: “You remember how mamma used always to read
her old letters; they are all there in that drawer. Let us, in turn,
read them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her! It
would be like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her
mother, of our grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are
there and of whom she so often spoke, do you remember?”
Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper,
tied with care and arranged one beside the other. They threw these
relics on the bed and chose one of them on which the word “Father” was
written. They opened and read it.
It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family
desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century. The first
one started: “My dear,” another one: “My beautiful little girl,” others:
“My dear child,” or: “My dear (laughter).” And suddenly the nun began to
read aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her
tender memories. The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening
with his eyes fastened on his mother. The motionless body seemed happy.
Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:
“These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as a
shroud and she ought to be buried in it.” She took another package, on
which no name was written. She began to read in a firm voice: “My adored
one, I love you wildly. Since yesterday I have been suffering the
tortures of the damned, haunted by our memory. I feel your lips against
mine, your eyes in mine, your breast against mine. I love you, I love
you! You have driven me mad. My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild
desire to hold you again. My whole soul and body cries out for you,
wants you. I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses—”
The judge had straightened himself up. The nun stopped reading. He
snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature. There was
none, but only under the words, “The man who adores you,” the name
“Henry.” Their father's name was Rene. Therefore this was not from him.
The son then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one
out and read: “I can no longer live without your caresses.” Standing
erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the
dead woman. The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the
corners of her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed
the room slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the
dark night.
When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still
standing near the bed, her head bent down.
He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell-
mell back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed.
When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly
left his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he
had passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and
daughter, he said slowly: “Let us now retire, sister.”
A HUMBLE DRAMA
Meetings that are unexpected constitute the charm of traveling. Who has
not experienced the joy of suddenly coming across a Parisian, a college
friend, or a neighbor, five hundred miles from home? Who has not passed
a night awake in one of those small, rattling country stage-coaches, in
regions where steam is still a thing unknown, beside a strange young
woman, of whom one has caught only a glimpse in the dim light of the
lantern, as she entered the carriage in front of a white house in some
small country town?
And the next morning, when one's head and ears feel numb with the
continuous tinkling of the bells and the loud rattling of the windows,
what a charming sensation it is to see your pretty neighbor open her
eyes, startled, glance around her, arrange her rebellious hair with her
slender fingers, adjust her hat, feel with sure hand whether her corset
is still in place, her waist straight, and her skirt not too wrinkled.
She glances at you coldly and curiously. Then she leans back and no
longer seems interested in anything but the country.
In spite of yourself, you watch her; and in spite of yourself you keep
on thinking of her. Who is she? Whence does she come? Where is she
going? In spite of yourself you spin a little romance around her. She is
pretty; she seems charming! Happy he who . . . Life might be delightful
with her. Who knows? She is perhaps the woman of our dreams, the one
suited to our disposition, the one for whom our heart calls.
And how delicious even the disappointment at seeing her get out at the
gate of a country house! A man stands there, who is awaiting her, with
two children and two maids. He takes her in his arms and kisses as he
lifts her out. Then she stoops over the little ones, who hold up their
hands to her; she kisses them tenderly; and then they all go away
together, down a path, while the maids catch the packages which the
driver throws down to them from the coach.
Adieu! It is all over. You never will see her again! Adieu to the young
woman who has passed the night by your side. You know her no more, you
have not spoken to her; all the same, you feel a little sad to see her
go. Adieu!
I have had many of these souvenirs of travel, some joyous and some sad.
Once I was in Auvergne, tramping through those delightful French
mountains, that are not too high, not too steep, but friendly and
familiar. I had climbed the Sancy, and entered a little inn, near a
pilgrim's chapel called Notre-Dame de Vassiviere, when I saw a queer,
ridiculous-looking old woman breakfasting alone at the end table.
She was at least seventy years old, tall, skinny, and angular, and her
white hair was puffed around her temples in the old-fashioned style. She
was dressed like a traveling Englishwoman, in awkward, queer clothing,
like a person who is indifferent to dress. She was eating an omelet and
drinking water.
Her face was peculiar, with restless eyes and the expression of one with
whom fate has dealt unkindly. I watched her, in spite of myself,
thinking: “Who is she? What is the life of this woman? Why is she
wandering alone through these mountains?”
She paid and rose to leave, drawing up over her shoulders an astonishing
little shawl, the two ends of which hung over her arms. From a corner of
the room she took an alpenstock, which was covered with names traced
with a hot iron; then she went out, straight, erect, with the long steps
of a letter-carrier who is setting out on his route.
A guide was waiting for her at the door, and both went away. I watched
them go down the valley, along the road marked by a line of high wooden
crosses. She was taller than her companion, and seemed to walk faster
than he.
Two hours later I was climbing the edge of the deep funnel that incloses
Lake Pavin in a marvelous and enormous basin of verdure, full of trees,
bushes, rocks, and flowers. This lake is so round that it seems as if
the outline had been drawn with a pair of compasses, so clear and blue
that one might deem it a flood of azure come down from the sky, so
charming that one would like to live in a hut on the wooded slope which
dominates this crater, where the cold, still water is sleeping. The
Englishwoman was standing there like a statue, gazing upon the
transparent sheet down in the dead volcano. She was straining her eyes
to penetrate below the surface down to the unknown depths, where
monstrous trout which have devoured all the other fish are said to live.
As I was passing close by her, it seemed to me that two big tears were
brimming her eyes. But she departed at a great pace, to rejoin her
guide, who had stayed behind in an inn at the foot of the path leading
to the lake.
I did not see her again that day.
The next day, at nightfall, I came to the chateau of Murol. The old
fortress, an enormous tower standing on a peak in the midst of a large
valley, where three valleys intersect, rears its brown, uneven, cracked
surface into the sky; it is round, from its large circular base to the
crumbling turrets on its pinnacles.
It astonishes the eye more than any other ruin by its simple mass, its
majesty, its grave and imposing air of antiquity. It stands there,
alone, high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still the queen of the
valleys stretched out beneath it. You go up by a slope planted with
firs, then you enter a narrow gate, and stop at the foot of the walls,
in the first inclosure, in full view of the entire country.
Inside there are ruined halls, crumbling stairways, unknown cavities,
dungeons, walls cut through in the middle, vaulted roofs held up one
knows not how, and a mass of stones and crevices, overgrown with grass,
where animals glide in and out.
I was exploring this ruin alone.
Suddenly I perceived behind a bit of wall a being, a kind of phantom,
like the spirit of this ancient and crumbling habitation.
I was taken aback with surprise, almost with fear, when I recognized the
old lady whom I had seen twice.
She was weeping, with big tears in her eyes, and held her handkerchief
in her hand.
I turned around to go away, when she spoke to me, apparently ashamed to
have been surprised in her grief.
“Yes, monsieur, I am crying. That does not happen often to me.”
“Pardon me, madame, for having disturbed you,” I stammered, confused,
not knowing what to say. “Some misfortune has doubtless come to you.”
“Yes. No—I am like a lost dog,” she murmured, and began to sob, with her
handkerchief over her eyes.
Moved by these contagious tears, I took her hand, trying to calm her.
Then brusquely she told me her history, as if no longer ably to bear her
grief alone.
“Oh! Oh! Monsieur—if you knew—the sorrow in which I live—in what sorrow.
“Once I was happy. I have a house down there—a home. I cannot go back to
it any more; I shall never go back to it again, it is too hard to bear.
“I have a son. It is he! it is he! Children don't know. Oh, one has such
a short time to live! If I should see him now I should perhaps not
recognize him. How I loved him? How I loved him! Even before he was
born, when I felt him move. And after that! How I have kissed and
caressed and cherished him! If you knew how many nights I have passed in
watching him sleep, and how many in thinking of him. I was crazy about
him. When he was eight years old his father sent him to boarding-school.
That was the end. He no longer belonged to me. Oh, heavens! He came to
see me every Sunday. That was all!
“He went to college in Paris. Then he came only four times a year, and
every time I was astonished to see how he had changed, to find him
taller without having seen him grow. They stole his childhood from me,
his confidence, and his love which otherwise would not have gone away
from me; they stole my joy in seeing him grow, in seeing him become a
little man.
“I saw him four times a year. Think of it! And at every one of his
visits his body, his eye, his movements, his voice his laugh, were no
longer the same, were no longer mine. All these things change so quickly
in a child; and it is so sad if one is not there to see them change; one
no longer recognizes him.
“One year he came with down on his cheek! He! my son! I was dumfounded
—would you believe it? I hardly dared to kiss him. Was it really he, my
little, little curly head of old, my dear; dear child, whom I had held
in his diapers or my knee, and who had nursed at my breast with his
little greedy lips—was it he, this tall, brown boy, who no longer knew
how to kiss me, who seemed to love me as a matter of duty, who called me
'mother' for the sake of politeness, and who kissed me on the forehead,
when I felt like crushing him in my arms?
“My husband died. Then my parents, and then my two sisters. When Death
enters a house it seems as if he were hurrying to do his utmost, so as
not to have to return for a long time after that. He spares only one or
two to mourn the others.
“I remained alone. My tall son was then studying law. I was hoping to
live and die near him, and I went to him so that we could live together.
But he had fallen into the ways of young men, and he gave me to
understand that I was in his way. So I left. I was wrong in doing so,
but I suffered too much in feeling myself in his way, I, his mother! And
I came back home.
“I hardly ever saw him again.
“He married. What a joy! At last we should be together for good. I
should have grandchildren. His wife was an Englishwoman, who took a
dislike to me. Why? Perhaps she thought that I loved him too much.
“Again I was obliged to go away. And I was alone. Yes, monsieur.
“Then he went to England, to live with them, with his wife's parents. Do
you understand? They have him—they have my son for themselves. They have
stolen him from me. He writes to me once a month. At first he came to
see me. But now he no longer comes.
“It is now four years since I saw him last. His face then was wrinkled
and his hair white. Was that possible? This man, my son, almost an old
man? My little rosy child of old? No doubt I shall never see him again.
“And so I travel about all the year. I go east and west, as you see,
with no companion.
“I am like a lost dog. Adieu, monsieur! don't stay here with me for it
hurts me to have told you all this.”
I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance back, I saw the old
woman standing on a broken wall, looking out upon the mountains, the
long valley and Lake Chambon in the distance.
And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she wore around her thin
shoulders were fluttering tike a flag in the wind.
MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall, thin man in a corner
of the court who kept on calling an imaginary dog. He was crying in a
soft, tender voice: “Cocotte! Come here, Cocotte, my beauty!” and
slapping his thigh as one does when calling an animal. I asked the
physician, “Who is that man?” He answered: “Oh! he is not at all
interesting. He is a coachman named Francois, who became insane after
drowning his dog.”
I insisted: “Tell me his story. The most simple and humble things are
sometimes those which touch our hearts most deeply.”
Here is this man's adventure, which was obtained from a friend of his, a
groom:
There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in a suburb of Paris.
They had a villa in the middle of a park, at the edge of the Seine.
Their coachman was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull, kind-
hearted, simple and easy to deceive.
One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began to follow him. At
first he paid no attention to it, but the creature's obstinacy at last
made him turn round. He looked to see if he knew this dog. No, he had
never seen it. It was a female dog and frightfully thin. She was
trotting behind him with a mournful and famished look, her tail between
her legs, her ears flattened against her head and stopping and starting
whenever he did.
He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:
“Run along! Get out! Kss! kss!” She retreated a few steps, then sat down
and waited. And when the coachman started to walk again she followed
along behind him.
He pretended to pick up some stones. The animal ran a little farther
away, but came back again as soon as the man's back was turned.
Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast and called her. The
dog approached timidly. The man patted her protruding ribs, moved by the
beast's misery, and he cried: “Come! come here!” Immediately she began
to wag her tail, and, feeling herself taken in, adopted, she began to
run along ahead of her new master.
He made her a bed on the straw in the stable, then he ran to the kitchen
for some bread. When she had eaten all she could she curled up and went
to sleep.
When his employers heard of this the next day they allowed the coachman
to keep the animal. It was a good beast, caressing and faithful,
intelligent and gentle.
Nevertheless Francois adored Cocotte, and he kept repeating: “That beast
is human. She only lacks speech.”
He had a magnificent red leather collar made for her which bore these
words engraved on a copper plate: “Mademoiselle Cocotte, belonging to
the coachman Francois.”
She was remarkably prolific and four times a year would give birth to a
batch of little animals belonging to every variety of the canine race.
Francois would pick out one which he would leave her and then he would
unmercifully throw the others into the river. But soon the cook joined
her complaints to those of the gardener. She would find dogs under the
stove, in the ice box, in the coal bin, and they would steal everything
they came across.
Finally the master, tired of complaints, impatiently ordered Francois to
get rid of Cocotte. In despair the man tried to give her away. Nobody
wanted her. Then he decided to lose her, and he gave her to a teamster,
who was to drop her on the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.
Cocotte returned the same day. Some decision had to be taken. Five
francs was given to a train conductor to take her to Havre. He was to
drop her there.
Three days later she returned to the stable, thin, footsore and tired
out.
The master took pity on her and let her stay. But other dogs were
attracted as before, and one evening, when a big dinner party was on, a
stuffed turkey was carried away by one of them right under the cook's
nose, and she did not dare to stop him.
This time the master completely lost his temper and said angrily to
Francois: “If you don't throw this beast into the water before—to-morrow
morning, I'll put you out, do you hear?”
The man was dumbfounded, and he returned to his room to pack his trunk,
preferring to leave the place. Then he bethought himself that he could
find no other situation as long as he dragged this animal about with
him. He thought of his good position, where he was well paid and well
fed, and he decided that a dog was really not worth all that. At last he
decided to rid himself of Cocotte at daybreak.
He slept badly. He rose at dawn, and taking a strong rope, went to get
the dog. She stood up slowly, shook herself, stretched and came to
welcome her master.
Then his courage forsook him, and he began to pet her affectionately,
stroking her long ears, kissing her muzzle and calling her tender names.
But a neighboring clock struck six. He could no longer hesitate. He
opened the door, calling: “Come!” The beast wagged her tail,
understanding that she was to be taken out.
They reached the beach, and he chose a place where the water seemed
deep. Then he knotted the rope round the leather collar and tied a heavy
stone to the other end. He seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her
madly, as though he were taking leave of some human being. He held her
to his breast, rocked her and called her “my dear little Cocotte, my
sweet little Cocotte,” and she grunted with pleasure.
Ten times he tried to throw her into the water and each time he lost
courage.
But suddenly he made up his mind and threw her as far from him as he
could. At first she tried to swim, as she did when he gave her a bath,
but her head, dragged down by the stone, kept going under, and she
looked at her master with wild, human glances as she struggled like a
drowning person. Then the front part of her body sank, while her hind
legs waved wildly out of the water. Finally those also disappeared.
Then, for five minutes, bubbles rose to the surface as though the river
were boiling, and Francois, haggard, his heart beating, thought that he
saw Cocotte struggling in the mud, and, with the simplicity of a
peasant, he kept saying to himself: “What does the poor beast think of
me now?”
He almost lost his mind. He was ill for a month and every night he
dreamed of his dog. He could feel her licking his hands and hear her
barking. It was necessary to call in a physician. At last he recovered,
and toward the 2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at
Biesard, near Rouen.
There again he was near the Seine. He began to take baths. Each morning
he would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.
One day, as they were disporting themselves in the water, Francois
suddenly cried to his companion: “Look what's coming! I'm going to give
you a chop!”
It was an enormous, swollen corpse that was floating down with its feet
sticking straight up in the air.
Francois swam up to it, still joking: “Whew! it's not fresh. What a
catch, old man! It isn't thin, either!” He kept swimming about at a
distance from the animal that was in a state of decomposition. Then,
suddenly, he was silent and looked at it: attentively. This time he came
near enough to touch, it. He looked fixedly at the collar, then he
stretched out his arm, seized the neck, swung the corpse round and drew
it up close to him and read on the copper which had turned green and
which still stuck to the discolored leather: “Mademoiselle Cocotte,
belonging to the coachman Francois.”
The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.
He let out a frightful shriek and began to swim for the beach with all
his might, still howling; and as soon as he touched land he ran away
wildly, stark naked, through the country. He was insane!
THE CORSICAN BANDIT
The road ascended gently through the forest of Aitone. The large pines
formed a solemn dome above our heads, and that mysterious sound made by
the wind in the trees sounded like the notes of an organ.
After walking for three hours, there was a clearing, and then at
intervals an enormous pine umbrella, and then we suddenly came to the
edge of the forest, some hundred meters below, the pass leading to the
wild valley of Niolo.
On the two projecting heights which commanded a view of this pass, some
old trees, grotesquely twisted, seemed to have mounted with painful
efforts, like scouts sent in advance of the multitude in the rear. When
we turned round, we saw the entire forest stretched beneath our feet,
like a gigantic basin of verdure, inclosed by bare rocks whose summits
seemed to reach the sky.
We resumed our walk, and, ten minutes later, found ourselves in the
pass.
Then I beheld a remarkable landscape. Beyond another forest stretched a
valley, but a valley such as I had never seen before; a solitude of
stone, ten leagues long, hollowed out between two high mountains,
without a field or a tree to be seen. This was the Niolo valley, the
fatherland of Corsican liberty, the inaccessible citadel, from which the
invaders had never been able to drive out the mountaineers.
My companion said to me: “This is where all our bandits have taken
refuge?”
Ere long we were at the further end of this gorge, so wild, so
inconceivably beautiful.
Not a blade of grass, not a plant-nothing but granite. As far as our
eyes could reach, we saw in front of us a desert of glittering stone,
heated like an oven by a burning sun, which seemed to hang for that very
purpose right above the gorge. When we raised our eyes towards the
crests, we stood dazzled and stupefied by what we saw. They looked like
a festoon of coral; all the summits are of porphyry; and the sky
overhead was violet, purple, tinged with the coloring of these strange
mountains. Lower down, the granite was of scintillating gray, and seemed
ground to powder beneath our feet. At our right, along a long and
irregular course, roared a tumultuous torrent. And we staggered along
under this heat, in this light, in this burning, arid, desolate valley
cut by this torrent of turbulent water which seemed to be ever hurrying
onward, without fertilizing the rocks, lost in this furnace which
greedily drank it up without being saturated or refreshed by it.
But, suddenly, there was visible at our right a little wooden cross sunk
in a little heap of stones. A man had been killed there; and I said to
my companion.
“Tell me about your bandits.”
He replied:
“I knew the most celebrated of them, the terrible St. Lucia. I will tell
you his history.
“His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the district, it
is said; and St. Lucia was left alone with his sister. He was a weak,
timid youth, small, often ill, without any energy. He did not proclaim
vengeance against the assassin of his father. All his relatives came to
see him, and implored of him to avenge his death; he remained deaf to
their menaces and their supplications.
“Then, following the old Corsican custom, his sister, in her indignation
carried away his black clothes, in order that he might not wear mourning
for a dead man who had not been avenged. He was insensible to even this
affront, and rather than take down from the rack his father's gun, which
was still loaded, he shut himself up, not daring to brave the looks of
the young men of the district.
“He seemed to have even forgotten the crime, and lived with his sister
in the seclusion of their dwelling.
“But, one day, the man who was suspected of having committed the murder,
was about to get married. St. Lucia did not appear to be moved by this
news, but, out of sheer bravado, doubtless, the bridegroom, on his way
to the church, passed before the house of the two orphans.
“The brother and the sister, at their window, were eating frijoles, when
the young man saw the bridal procession going by. Suddenly he began to
tremble, rose to his feet without uttering a word, made the sign of the
cross, took the gun which was hanging over the fireplace, and went out.
“When he spoke of this later on, he said: 'I don't know what was the
matter with me; it was like fire in my blood; I felt that I must do it,
that, in spite of everything, I could not resist, and I concealed the
gun in a cave on the road to Corte.
“An hour later, he came back, with nothing in his hand, and with his
habitual air of sad weariness. His sister believed that there was
nothing further in his thoughts.
“But when night fell he disappeared.
“His enemy had, the same evening, to repair to Corte on foot,
accompanied by his two groomsmen.
“He was walking along, singing as he went, when St. Lucia stood before
him, and looking straight in the murderer's face, exclaimed: 'Now is the
time!' and shot him point-blank in the chest.
“One of the men fled; the other stared at, the young man, saying:
“'What have you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte
for help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone:
“'If you move another step, I'll shoot you in the leg.'
“The other, aware of his timidity hitherto, replied: 'You would not dare
to do it!' and was hurrying off when he fell instantaneously, his thigh
shattered by a bullet.
“And St. Lucia, coming over to where he lay, said:
“'I am going to look at your wound; if it is not serious, I'll leave you
there; if it is mortal I'll finish you off.”
“He inspected the wound, considered it mortal, and slowly reloading his
gun, told the wounded man to say a prayer, and shot him through the
head.
“Next day he was in the mountains.
“And do you know what this St. Lucia did after this?
“All his family were arrested by the gendarmes. His uncle, the cure, who
was suspected of having incited him to this deed of vengeance, was
himself put in prison, and accused by the dead man's relatives. But he
escaped, took a gun in his turn, and went to join his nephew in the
brush.
“Next, St. Lucia killed, one after the other, his uncle's accusers, and
tore out their eyes to teach the others never to state what they had
seen with their eyes.
“He killed all the relatives, all the connections of his enemy's family.
He slew during his life fourteen gendarmes, burned down the houses of
his adversaries, and was, up to the day of his death, the most terrible
of all the bandits whose memory we have preserved.”
The sun disappeared behind Monte Cinto and the tall shadow of the
granite mountain went to sleep on the granite of the valley. We
quickened our pace in order to reach before night the little village of
Albertaccio, nothing but a pile of stones welded into the stone flanks
of a wild gorge. And I said as I thought of the bandit:
“What a terrible custom your vendetta is!”
My companion answered with an air of resignation:
“What would you have? A man must do his duty!”
THE GRAVE
The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at
half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers,
who lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was
awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.
Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door
and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the
house. The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.
His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue
General Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.
The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of
the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a
horrible act of profanation.
A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the
evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.
A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this
hideous scene.
Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands
and took him to the police station.
It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named
Courbataille.
He was brought into court. The public prosecutor opened the case by
referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.
A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom. When the magistrate sat
down the crowd assembled cried: “Death! death!” With difficulty the
presiding judge established silence.
Then he said gravely:
“Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?”
Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose. He was a handsome fellow,
tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.
Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in
a voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he
proceeded.
“Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to
say. The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart. I loved her.
“I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness of
heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an
overpowering passion.
“Hear me:
“When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation. It was
not astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at
first sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been
plunged into a warm bath. Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted
me, and it was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person. It
seemed to me as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a
long time. She had within her something of my spirit.
“She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that
vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole
life.
“When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again
filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand
in mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined; her
smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to
fling myself upon the ground.
“So we became lovers.
“Yes, more than that: she was my very life. I looked for nothing further
on earth, and had no further desires. I longed for nothing further.
“One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river, we
were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold. It developed into
pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.
“During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation
prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead
I was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left. I
wept.
“During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief
was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.
“Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once
found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings so
terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that
price.
“Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.
“When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were
going mad. Just think of it! There is a woman whom you adore, a unique
woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her.
This woman has given herself to you and has created with you the
mysterious union that is called Love. Her eye seems to you more vast
than space, more charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with
her tenderness. This woman loves you. When she speaks to you her voice
floods you with joy.
“And suddenly she disappears! Think of it! She disappears, not only for
you, but forever. She is dead. Do you understand what that means? Never,
never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more. Nevermore will that
eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor any voice
like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.
“Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers. Never, never! The
molds of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects
with the same outlines and forms. But that one body and that one face
will never more be born again upon the earth. And yet millions and
millions of creatures will be born, and more than that, and this one
woman will not reappear among all the women of the future. Is it
possible? It drives one mad to think of it.
“She lived for twenty years, not more, and she has disappeared forever,
forever, forever! She thought, she smiled, she loved me. And now
nothing! The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this
world. And now nothing! And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so
warm, so sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box
under the earth. And her soul, her thought, her love—where is it?
“Not to see her again! The idea of this decomposing body, that I might
yet recognize, haunted me. I wanted to look at it once more.
“I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the
cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed
entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board. An abominable
odor, the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils. Oh, her bed
perfumed with orris!
“Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I
saw her. Her face was blue, swollen, frightful. A black liquid had oozed
out of her mouth.
“She! That was she! Horror seized me. But I stretched out my arm to draw
this monstrous face toward me. And then I was caught.
“All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor
of my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love
embrace.
“Do with me what you will.”
A strange silence seemed to oppress the room. They seemed to be waiting
for something more. The jury retired to deliberate.
When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and
did not even seem to think.
The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges
declared him to be not guilty.
He did not move and the room applauded.
The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature of
“Maufrigneuse.”
ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, Vol. 13.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES Translated by ALBERT M. C.
McMASTER, B.A. A. E. HENDERSON, B.A. MME. QUESADA and Others
VOLUME XIII.
OLD JUDAS
This entire stretch of country was amazing; it was characterized by a
grandeur that was almost religious, and yet it had an air of sinister
desolation.
A great, wild lake, filled with stagnant, black water, in which
thousands of reeds were waving to and fro, lay in the midst of a vast
circle of naked hills, where nothing grew but broom, or here and there
an oak curiously twisted by the wind.
Just one house stood on the banks of that dark lake, a small, low house
inhabited by Uncle Joseph, an old boatman, who lived on what he could
make by his fishing. Once a week he carried the fish he caught into the
surrounding villages, returning with the few provisions that he needed
for his sustenance.
I went to see this old hermit, who offered to take me with him to his
nets, and I accepted.
His boat was old, worm-eaten and clumsy, and the skinny old man rowed
with a gentle and monotonous stroke that was soothing to the soul,
already oppressed by the sadness of the land round about.
It seemed to me as if I were transported to olden times, in the midst of
that ancient country, in that primitive boat, which was propelled by a
man of another age.
He took up his nets and threw the fish into the bottom of the boat, as
the fishermen of the Bible might have done. Then he took me down to the
end of the lake, where I suddenly perceived a ruin on the other side of
the bank a dilapidated hut, with an enormous red cross on the wall that
looked as if it might have been traced with blood, as it gleamed in the
last rays of the setting sun.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That is where Judas died,” the man replied, crossing himself.
I was not surprised, being almost prepared for this strange answer.
Still I asked:
“Judas? What Judas?”
“The Wandering Jew, monsieur,” he added.
I asked him to tell me this legend.
But it was better than a legend, being a true story, and quite a recent
one, since Uncle Joseph had known the man.
This hut had formerly been occupied by a large woman, a kind of beggar,
who lived on public charity.
Uncle Joseph did not remember from whom she had this hut. One evening an
old man with a white beard, who seemed to be at least two hundred years
old, and who could hardly drag himself along, asked alms of this forlorn
woman, as he passed her dwelling.
“Sit down, father,” she replied; “everything here belongs to all the
world, since it comes from all the world.”
He sat down on a stone before the door. He shared the woman's bread, her
bed of leaves, and her house.
He did not leave her again, for he had come to the end of his travels.
“It was Our Lady the Virgin who permitted this, monsieur,” Joseph added,
“it being a woman who had opened her door to a Judas, for this old
vagabond was the Wandering Jew. It was not known at first in the
country, but the people suspected it very soon, because he was always
walking; it had become a sort of second nature to him.”
And suspicion had been aroused by still another thing. This woman, who
kept that stranger with her, was thought to be a Jewess, for no one had
ever seen her at church. For ten miles around no one ever called her
anything else but the Jewess.
When the little country children saw her come to beg they cried out:
“Mamma, mamma, here is the Jewess!”
The old man and she began to go out together into the neighboring
districts, holding out their hands at all the doors, stammering
supplications into the ears of all the passers. They could be seen at
all hours of the day, on by-paths, in the villages, or again eating
bread, sitting in the noon heat under the shadow of some solitary tree.
And the country people began to call the beggar Old Judas.
One day he brought home in his sack two little live pigs, which a farmer
had given him after he had cured the farmer of some sickness.
Soon he stopped begging, and devoted himself entirely to his pigs. He
took them out to feed by the lake, or under isolated oaks, or in the
near-by valleys. The woman, however, went about all day begging, but she
always came back to him in the evening.
He also did not go to church, and no one ever had seen him cross himself
before the wayside crucifixes. All this gave rise to much gossip:
One night his companion was attacked by a fever and began to tremble
like a leaf in the wind. He went to the nearest town to get some
medicine, and then he shut himself up with her, and was not seen for six
days.
The priest, having heard that the “Jewess” was about to die, came to
offer the consolation of his religion and administer the last sacrament.
Was she a Jewess? He did not know. But in any case, he wished to try to
save her soul.
Hardly had he knocked at the door when old Judas appeared on the
threshold, breathing hard, his eyes aflame, his long beard agitated,
like rippling water, and he hurled blasphemies in an unknown language,
extending his skinny arms in order to prevent the priest from entering.
The priest attempted to speak, offered his purse and his aid, but the
old man kept on abusing him, making gestures with his hands as if
throwing; stones at him.
Then the priest retired, followed by the curses of the beggar.
The companion of old Judas died the following day. He buried her
himself, in front of her door. They were people of so little account
that no one took any interest in them.
Then they saw the man take his pigs out again to the lake and up the
hillsides. And he also began begging again to get food. But the people
gave him hardly anything, as there was so much gossip about him. Every
one knew, moreover, how he had treated the priest.
Then he disappeared. That was during Holy Week, but no one paid any
attention to him.
But on Easter Sunday the boys and girls who had gone walking out to the
lake heard a great noise in the hut. The door was locked; but the boys
broke it in, and the two pigs ran out, jumping like gnats. No one ever
saw them again.
The whole crowd went in; they saw some old rags on the floor, the
beggar's hat, some bones, clots of dried blood and bits of flesh in the
hollows of the skull.
His pigs had devoured him.
“This happened on Good Friday, monsieur.” Joseph concluded his story,
“three hours after noon.”
“How do you know that?” I asked him.
“There is no doubt about that,” he replied.
I did not attempt to make him understand that it could easily happen
that the famished animals had eaten their master, after he had died
suddenly in his hut.
As for the cross on the wall, it had appeared one morning, and no one
knew what hand traced it in that strange color.
Since then no one doubted any longer that the Wandering Jew had died on
this spot.
I myself believed it for one hour.
THE LITTLE CASK
He was a tall man of forty or thereabout, this Jules Chicot, the
innkeeper of Spreville, with a red face and a round stomach, and said by
those who knew him to be a smart business man. He stopped his buggy in
front of Mother Magloire's farmhouse, and, hitching the horse to the
gatepost, went in at the gate.
Chicot owned some land adjoining that of the old woman, which he had
been coveting for a long while, and had tried in vain to buy a score of
times, but she had always obstinately refused to part with it.
“I was born here, and here I mean to die,” was all she said.
He found her peeling potatoes outside the farmhouse door. She was a
woman of about seventy-two, very thin, shriveled and wrinkled, almost
dried up in fact and much bent but as active and untiring as a girl.
Chicot patted her on the back in a friendly fashion and then sat down by
her on a stool.
“Well mother, you are always pretty well and hearty, I am glad to see.”
“Nothing to complain of, considering, thank you. And how are you,
Monsieur Chicot?”
“Oh, pretty well, thank you, except a few rheumatic pains occasionally;
otherwise I have nothing to complain of.”
“So much the better.”
And she said no more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work.
Her crooked, knotted fingers, hard as a lobster's claws, seized the
tubers, which were lying in a pail, as if they had been a pair of
pincers, and she peeled them rapidly, cutting off long strips of skin
with an old knife which she held in the other hand, throwing the
potatoes into the water as they were done. Three daring fowls jumped one
after the other into her lap, seized a bit of peel and then ran away as
fast as their legs would carry them with it in their beak.
Chicot seemed embarrassed, anxious, with something on the tip of his
tongue which he could not say. At last he said hurriedly:
“Listen, Mother Magloire—”
“Well, what is it?”
“You are quite sure that you do not want to sell your land?”
“Certainly not; you may make up your mind to that. What I have said I
have said, so don't refer to it again.”
“Very well; only I think I know of an arrangement that might suit us
both very well.”
“What is it?”
“Just this. You shall sell it to me and keep it all the same. You don't
understand? Very well, then follow me in what I am going to say.”
The old woman left off peeling potatoes and looked at the innkeeper
attentively from under her heavy eyebrows, and he went on:
“Let me explain myself. Every month I will give you a hundred and fifty
francs. You understand me! suppose! Every month I will come and bring
you thirty crowns, and it will not make the slightest difference in your
life—not the very slightest. You will have your own home just as you
have now, need not trouble yourself about me, and will owe me nothing;
all you will have to do will be to take my money. Will that arrangement
suit you?”
He looked at her good-humoredly, one might almost have said
benevolently, and the old woman returned his looks distrustfully, as if
she suspected a trap, and said:
“It seems all right as far as I am concerned, but it will not give you
the farm.”
“Never mind about that,” he said; “you may remain here as long as it
pleases God Almighty to let you live; it will be your home. Only you
will sign a deed before a lawyer making it over to me; after your death.
You have no children, only nephews and nieces for whom you don't care a
straw. Will that suit you? You will keep everything during your life,
and I will give you the thirty crowns a month. It is pure gain as far as
you are concerned.”
The old woman was surprised, rather uneasy, but, nevertheless, very much
tempted to agree, and answered:
“I don't say that I will not agree to it, but I must think about it.
Come back in a week, and we will talk it over again, and I will then
give you my definite answer.”
And Chicot went off as happy as a king who had conquered an empire.
Mother Magloire was thoughtful, and did not sleep at all that night; in
fact, for four days she was in a fever of hesitation. She suspected that
there was something underneath the offer which was not to her advantage;
but then the thought of thirty crowns a month, of all those coins
clinking in her apron, falling to her, as it were, from the skies,
without her doing anything for it, aroused her covetousness.
She went to the notary and told him about it. He advised her to accept
Chicot's offer, but said she ought to ask for an annuity of fifty
instead of thirty, as her farm was worth sixty thousand francs at the
lowest calculation.
“If you live for fifteen years longer,” he said, “even then he will only
have paid forty-five thousand francs for it.”
The old woman trembled with joy at this prospect of getting fifty crowns
a month, but she was still suspicious, fearing some trick, and she
remained a long time with the lawyer asking questions without being able
to make up her mind to go. At last she gave him instructions to draw up
the deed and returned home with her head in a whirl, just as if she had
drunk four jugs of new cider.
When Chicot came again to receive her answer she declared, after a lot
of persuading, that she could not make up her mind to agree to his
proposal, though she was all the time trembling lest he should not
consent to give the fifty crowns, but at last, when he grew urgent, she
told him what she expected for her farm.
He looked surprised and disappointed and refused.
Then, in order to convince him, she began to talk about the probable
duration of her life.
“I am certainly not likely to live more than five or six years longer. I
am nearly seventy-three, and far from strong, even considering my age.
The other evening I thought I was going to die, and could hardly manage
to crawl into bed.”
But Chicot was not going to be taken in.
“Come, come, old lady, you are as strong as the church tower, and will
live till you are a hundred at least; you will no doubt see me put under
ground first.”
The whole day was spent in discussing the money, and as the old woman
would not give in, the innkeeper consented to give the fifty crowns, and
she insisted upon having ten crowns over and above to strike the
bargain.
Three years passed and the old dame did not seem to have grown a day
older. Chicot was in despair, and it seemed to him as if he had been
paying that annuity for fifty years, that he had been taken in, done,
ruined. From time to time he went to see the old lady, just as one goes
in July to see when the harvest is likely to begin. She always met him
with a cunning look, and one might have supposed that she was
congratulating herself on the trick she had played him. Seeing how well
and hearty she seemed he very soon got into his buggy again, growling to
himself:
“Will you never die, you old hag?”
He did not know what to do, and he felt inclined to strangle her when he
saw her. He hated her with a ferocious, cunning hatred, the hatred of a
peasant who has been robbed, and began to cast about for some means of
getting rid of her.
One day he came to see her again, rubbing his hands as he did the first
time he proposed the bargain, and, after having chatted for a few
minutes, he said:
“Why do you never come and have a bit of dinner at my place when you are
in Spreville? The people are talking about it, and saying we are not on
friendly terms, and that pains me. You know it will cost you nothing if
you come, for I don't look at the price of a dinner. Come whenever you
feel inclined; I shall be very glad to see you.”
Old Mother Magloire did not need to be asked twice, and the next day but
one, as she had to go to the town in any case, it being market day, she
let her man drive her to Chicot's place, where the buggy was put in the
barn while she went into the house to get her dinner.
The innkeeper was delighted and treated her like a lady, giving her
roast fowl, black pudding, leg of mutton and bacon and cabbage. But she
ate next to nothing. She had always been a small eater, and had
generally lived on a little soup and a crust of bread and butter.
Chicot was disappointed and pressed her to eat more, but she refused,
and she would drink little, and declined coffee, so he asked her:
“But surely you will take a little drop of brandy or liqueur?”
“Well, as to that, I don't know that I will refuse.” Whereupon he
shouted out:
“Rosalie, bring the superfine brandy—the special—you know.”
The servant appeared, carrying a long bottle ornamented with a paper
vine-leaf, and he filled two liqueur glasses.
“Just try that; you will find it first rate.”
The good woman drank it slowly in sips, so as to make the pleasure last
all the longer, and when she had finished her glass, she said:
“Yes, that is first rate!”
Almost before she had said it Chicot had poured her out another
glassful. She wished to refuse, but it was too late, and she drank it
very slowly, as she had done the first, and he asked her to have a
third. She objected, but he persisted.
“It is as mild as milk, you know; I can drink ten or a dozen glasses
without any ill effects; it goes down like sugar and does not go to the
head; one would think that it evaporated on the tongue: It is the most
wholesome thing you can drink.”
She took it, for she really enjoyed it, but she left half the glass.
Then Chicot, in an excess of generosity, said:
“Look here, as it is so much to your taste, I will give you a small keg
of it, just to show that you and I are still excellent friends.” So she
took one away with her, feeling slightly overcome by the effects of what
she had drunk.
The next day the innkeeper drove into her yard and took a little iron-
hooped keg out of his gig. He insisted on her tasting the contents, to
make sure it was the same delicious article, and, when they had each of
them drunk three more glasses, he said as he was going away:
“Well, you know when it is all gone there is more left; don't be modest,
for I shall not mind. The sooner it is finished the better pleased I
shall be.”
Four days later he came again. The old woman was outside her door
cutting up the bread for her soup.
He went up to her and put his face close to hers, so that he might smell
her breath; and when he smelt the alcohol he felt pleased.
“I suppose you will give me a glass of the Special?” he said. And they
had three glasses each.
Soon, however, it began to be whispered abroad that Mother Magloire was
in the habit of getting drunk all by herself. She was picked up in her
kitchen, then in her yard, then in the roads in the neighborhood, and
she was often brought home like a log.
The innkeeper did not go near her any more, and, when people spoke to
him about her, he used to say, putting on a distressed look:
“It is a great pity that she should have taken to drink at her age, but
when people get old there is no remedy. It will be the death of her in
the long run.”
And it certainly was the death of her. She died the next winter. About
Christmas time she fell down, unconscious, in the snow, and was found
dead the next morning.
And when Chicot came in for the farm, he said:
“It was very stupid of her; if she had not taken to drink she would
probably have lived ten years longer.”
BOITELLE
Father Boitelle (Antoine) made a specialty of undertaking dirty jobs all
through the countryside. Whenever there was a ditch or a cesspool to be
cleaned out, a dunghill removed, a sewer cleansed, or any dirt hole
whatever, he way always employed to do it.
He would come with the instruments of his trade, his sabots covered with
dirt, and set to work, complaining incessantly about his occupation.
When people asked him then why he did this loathsome work, he would
reply resignedly:
“Faith, 'tis for my children, whom I must support. This brings me in
more than anything else.”
He had, indeed, fourteen children. If any one asked him what had become
of them, he would say with an air of indifference:
“There are only eight of them left in the house. One is out at service
and five are married.”
When the questioner wanted to know whether they were well married, he
replied vivaciously:
“I did not oppose them. I opposed them in nothing. They married just as
they pleased. We shouldn't go against people's likings, it turns out
badly. I am a night scavenger because my parents went against my
likings. But for that I would have become a workman like the others.”
Here is the way his parents had thwarted him in his likings:
He was at the time a soldier stationed at Havre, not more stupid than
another, or sharper either, a rather simple fellow, however. When he was
not on duty, his greatest pleasure was to walk along the quay, where the
bird dealers congregate. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a soldier from
his own part of the country, he would slowly saunter along by cages
containing parrots with green backs and yellow heads from the banks of
the Amazon, or parrots with gray backs and red heads from Senegal, or
enormous macaws, which look like birds reared in hot-houses, with their
flower-like feathers, their plumes and their tufts. Parrots of every
size, who seem painted with minute care by the miniaturist, God
Almighty, and the little birds, all the smaller birds hopped about,
yellow, blue and variegated, mingling their cries with the noise of the
quay; and adding to the din caused by unloading the vessels, as well as
by passengers and vehicles, a violent clamor, loud, shrill and
deafening, as if from some distant forest of monsters.
Boitelle would pause, with wondering eyes, wide-open mouth, laughing and
enraptured, showing his teeth to the captive cockatoos, who kept nodding
their white or yellow topknots toward the glaring red of his breeches
and the copper buckle of his belt. When he found a bird that could talk
he put questions to it, and if it happened at the time to be disposed to
reply and to hold a conversation with him he would carry away enough
amusement to last him till evening. He also found heaps of amusement in
looking at the monkeys, and could conceive no greater luxury for a rich
man than to own these animals as one owns cats and dogs. This kind of
taste for the exotic he had in his blood, as people have a taste for the
chase, or for medicine, or for the priesthood. He could not help
returning to the quay every time the gates of the barracks opened, drawn
toward it by an irresistible longing.
On one occasion, having stopped almost in ecstasy before an enormous
macaw, which was swelling out its plumes, bending forward and bridling
up again as if making the court curtseys of parrot-land, he saw the door
of a little cafe adjoining the bird dealer's shop open, and a young
negress appeared, wearing on her head a red silk handkerchief. She was
sweeping into the street the corks and sand of the establishment.
Boitelle's attention was soon divided between the bird and the woman,
and he really could not tell which of these two beings he contemplated
with the greater astonishment and delight.
The negress, having swept the rubbish into the street, raised her eyes,
and, in her turn, was dazzled by the soldier's uniform. There she stood
facing him with her broom in her hands as if she were bringing him a
rifle, while the macaw continued bowing. But at the end of a few seconds
the soldier began to feel embarrassed at this attention, and he walked
away quietly so as not to look as if he were beating a retreat.
But he came back. Almost every day he passed before the Cafe des
Colonies, and often he could distinguish through the window the figure
of the little black-skinned maid serving “bocks” or glasses of brandy to
the sailors of the port. Frequently, too, she would come out to the door
on seeing him; soon, without even having exchanged a word, they smiled
at one another like acquaintances; and Boitelle felt his heart touched
when he suddenly saw, glittering between the dark lips of the girl, a
shining row of white teeth. At length, one day he ventured to enter, and
was quite surprised to find that she could speak French like every one
else. The bottle of lemonade, of which she was good enough to accept a
glassful, remained in the soldier's recollection memorably delicious,
and it became a custom with him to come and absorb in this little tavern
on the quay all the agreeable drinks which he could afford.
For him it was a treat, a happiness, on which his thoughts dwelt
constantly, to watch the black hand of the little maid pouring something
into his glass while her teeth laughed more than her eyes. At the end of
two months they became fast friends, and Boitelle, after his first
astonishment at discovering that this negress had as good principles as
honest French girls, that she exhibited a regard for economy, industry,
religion and good conduct, loved her more on that account, and was so
charmed with her that he wanted to marry her.
He told her his intentions, which made her dance with joy. She had also
a little money, left her by a female oyster dealer, who had picked her
up when she had been left on the quay at Havre by an American captain.
This captain had found her, when she was only about six years old, lying
on bales of cotton in the hold of his ship, some hours after his
departure from New York. On his arrival in Havre he abandoned to the
care of this compassionate oyster dealer the little black creature, who
had been hidden on board his vessel, he knew not why or by whom.
The oyster woman having died, the young negress became a servant at the
Colonial Tavern.
Antoine Boitelle added: “This will be all right if my parents don't
oppose it. I will never go against them, you understand, never! I'm
going to say a word or two to them the first time I go back to the
country.”
On the following week, in fact, having obtained twenty-four hours'
leave, he went to see his family, who cultivated a little farm at
Tourteville, near Yvetot.
He waited till the meal was finished, the hour when the coffee baptized
with brandy makes people more open-hearted, before informing his parents
that he had found a girl who satisfied his tastes, all his tastes, so
completely that there could not exist any other in all the world so
perfectly suited to him.
The old people, on hearing this, immediately assumed a cautious manner
and wanted explanations. He had concealed nothing from them except the
color of her skin.
She was a servant, without much means, but strong, thrifty, clean, well-
conducted and sensible. All these things were better than money would be
in the hands of a bad housewife. Moreover, she had a few sous, left her
by a woman who had reared her, a good number of sous, almost a little
dowry, fifteen hundred francs in the savings bank. The old people,
persuaded by his talk, and relying also on their own judgment, were
gradually weakening, when he came to the delicate point. Laughing in
rather a constrained fashion, he said:
“There's only one thing you may not like. She is not a white slip.”
They did not understand, and he had to explain at some length and very
cautiously, to avoid shocking them, that she belonged to the dusky race
of which they had only seen samples in pictures at Epinal. Then they
became restless, perplexed, alarmed, as if he had proposed a union with
the devil.
The mother said: “Black? How much of her is black? Is the whole of her?”
He replied: “Certainly. Everywhere, just as you are white everywhere.”
The father interposed: “Black? Is it as black as the pot?”
The son answered: “Perhaps a little less than that. She is black, but
not disgustingly black. The cure's cassock is black, but it is not
uglier than a surplice which is white.”
The father said: “Are there more black people besides her in her
country?”
And the son, with an air of conviction, exclaimed: “Certainly!”
But the old man shook his head.
“That must be unpleasant.”
And the son:
“It isn't more disagreeable than anything else when you get accustomed
to it.”
The mother asked:
“It doesn't soil the underwear more than other skins, this black skin?”
“Not more than your own, as it is her proper color.”
Then, after many other questions, it was agreed that the parents should
see this girl before coming; to any decision, and that the young fellow,
whose, term of military service would be over in a month, should bring
her to the house in order that they might examine her and decide by
talking the matter over whether or not she was too dark to enter the
Boitelle family.
Antoine accordingly announced that on Sunday, the 22d of May, the day of
his discharge, he would start for Tourteville with his sweetheart.
She had put on, for this journey to the house of her lover's parents,
her most beautiful and most gaudy clothes, in which yellow, red and blue
were the prevailing colors, so that she looked as if she were adorned
for a national festival.
At the terminus, as they were leaving Havre, people stared at her, and
Boitelle was proud of giving his arm to a person who commanded so much
attention. Then, in the third-class carriage, in which she took a seat
by his side, she aroused so much astonishment among the country folks
that the people in the adjoining compartments stood up on their benches
to look at her over the wooden partition which divides the compartments.
A child, at sight of her, began to cry with terror, another concealed
his face in his mother's apron. Everything went off well, however, up to
their arrival at their destination. But when the train slackened its
rate of motion as they drew near Yvetot, Antoine felt ill at ease, as he
would have done at a review when; he did not know his drill practice.
Then, as he; leaned his head out, he recognized in the distance: his
father, holding the bridle of the horse harnessed to a carryall, and his
mother, who had come forward to the grating, behind which stood those
who were expecting friends.
He alighted first, gave his hand to his sweetheart, and holding himself
erect, as if he were escorting a general, he went to meet his family.
The mother, on seeing this black lady in variegated costume in her son's
company, remained so stupefied that she could not open her mouth; and
the father found it hard to hold the horse, which the engine or the
negress caused to rear continuously. But Antoine, suddenly filled with
unmixed joy at seeing once more the old people, rushed forward with open
arms, embraced his mother, embraced his father, in spite of the nag's
fright, and then turning toward his companion, at whom the passengers on
the platform stopped to stare with amazement, he proceeded to explain:
“Here she is! I told you that, at first sight, she is not attractive;
but as soon as you know her, I can assure you there's not a better sort
in the whole world. Say good-morning to her so that she may not feel
badly.”
Thereupon Mere Boitelle, almost frightened out of her wits, made a sort
of curtsy, while the father took off his cap, murmuring:
“I wish you good luck!”
Then, without further delay, they climbed into the carryall, the two
women at the back, on seats which made them jump up and down as the
vehicle went jolting along the road, and the two men in front on the
front seat.
Nobody spoke. Antoine, ill at ease, whistled a barrack-room air; his
father whipped the nag; and his mother, from where she sat in the
corner, kept casting sly glances at the negress, whose forehead and
cheekbones shone in the sunlight like well-polished shoes.
Wishing to break the ice, Antoine turned round.
“Well,” said he, “we don't seem inclined to talk.”
“We must have time,” replied the old woman.
He went on:
“Come! Tell us the little story about that hen of yours that laid eight
eggs.”
It was a funny anecdote of long standing in the family. But, as his
mother still remained silent, paralyzed by her emotion, he undertook
himself to tell the story, laughing as he did so at the memorable
incident. The father, who knew it by heart brightened at the opening
words of the narrative; his wife soon followed his example; and the
negress herself, when he reached the drollest part of it, suddenly gave
vent to a laugh, such a loud, rolling torrent of laughter that the
horse, becoming excited, broke into a gallop for a while.
This served to cement their acquaintance. They all began to chat.
They had scarcely reached the house and had all alighted, when Antoine
conducted his sweetheart to a room, so that she might take off her
dress, to avoid staining it, as she was going to prepare a nice dish,
intended to win the old people's affections through their stomachs. He
drew his parents outside the house, and, with beating heart, asked:
“Well, what do you say now?”
The father said nothing. The mother, less timid, exclaimed:
“She is too black. No, indeed, this is too much for me. It turns my
blood.”
“You will get used to it,” said Antoine.
“Perhaps so, but not at first.”
They went into the house, where the good woman was somewhat affected at
the spectacle of the negress engaged in cooking. She at once proceeded
to assist her, with petticoats tucked up, active in spite of her age.
The meal was an excellent one, very long, very enjoyable. When they were
taking a turn after dinner, Antoine took his father aside.
“Well, dad, what do you say about it?”
The peasant took care never to compromise himself.
“I have no opinion about it. Ask your mother.”
So Antoine went back to his mother, and, detaining her behind the rest,
said:
“Well, mother, what do you think of her?”
“My poor lad, she is really too black. If she were only a little less
black, I would not go against you, but this is too much. One would think
it was Satan!”
He did not press her, knowing how obstinate the old woman had always
been, but he felt a tempest of disappointment sweeping over his heart.
He was turning over in his mind what he ought to do, what plan he could
devise, surprised, moreover, that she had not conquered them already as
she had captivated himself. And they, all four, walked along through the
wheat fields, having gradually relapsed into silence. Whenever they
passed a fence they saw a countryman sitting on the stile, and a group
of brats climbed up to stare at them, and every one rushed out into the
road to see the “black” whore young Boitelle had brought home with him.
At a distance they noticed people scampering across the fields just as
when the drum beats to draw public attention to some living phenomenon.
Pere and Mere Boitelle, alarmed at this curiosity, which was exhibited
everywhere through the country at their approach, quickened their pace,
walking side by side, and leaving their son far behind. His dark
companion asked what his parents thought of her.
He hesitatingly replied that they had not yet made up their minds.
But on the village green people rushed out of all the houses in a
flutter of excitement; and, at the sight of the gathering crowd, old
Boitelle took to his heels, and regained his abode, while Antoine;
swelling with rage, his sweetheart on his arm, advanced majestically
under the staring eyes, which opened wide in amazement.
He understood that it was at an end, and there was no hope for him, that
he could not marry his negress. She also understood it; and as they drew
near the farmhouse they both began to weep. As soon as they had got back
to the house, she once more took off her dress to aid the mother in the
household duties, and followed her everywhere, to the dairy, to the
stable, to the hen house, taking on herself the hardest part of the
work, repeating always: “Let me do it, Madame Boitelle,” so that, when
night came on, the old woman, touched but inexorable, said to her son:
“She is a good girl, all the same. It's a pity she is so black; but
indeed she is too black. I could not get used to it. She must go back
again. She is too, too black!”
And young Boitelle said to his sweetheart:
“She will not consent. She thinks you are too black. You must go back
again. I will go with you to the train. No matter—don't fret. I am going
to talk to them after you have started.”
He then took her to the railway station, still cheering her with hope,
and, when he had kissed her, he put her into the train, which he watched
as it passed out of sight, his eyes swollen with tears.
In vain did he appeal to the old people. They would never give their
consent.
And when he had told this story, which was known all over the country,
Antoine Boitelle would always add:
“From that time forward I have had no heart for anything—for anything at
all. No trade suited me any longer, and so I became what I am—a night
scavenger.”
People would say to him:
“Yet you got married.”
“Yes, and I can't say that my wife didn't please me, seeing that I have
fourteen children; but she is not the other one, oh, no—certainly not!
The other one, mark you, my negress, she had only to give me one glance,
and I felt as if I were in Heaven.”
A WIDOW
This story was told during the hunting season at the Chateau Baneville.
The autumn had been rainy and sad. The red leaves, instead of rustling
under the feet, were rotting under the heavy downfalls.
The forest was as damp as it could be. From it came an odor of must, of
rain, of soaked grass and wet earth; and the sportsmen, their backs
hunched under the downpour, mournful dogs, with tails between their legs
and hairs sticking to their sides, and the young women, with their
clothes drenched, returned every evening, tired in body and in mind.
After dinner, in the large drawing-room, everybody played lotto, without
enjoyment, while the wind whistled madly around the house. Then they
tried telling stories like those they read in books, but no one was able
to invent anything amusing. The hunters told tales of wonderful shots
and of the butchery of rabbits; and the women racked their brains for
ideas without revealing the imagination of Scheherezade. They were about
to give up this diversion when a young woman, who was idly caressing the
hand of an old maiden aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair,
which she had often seen, without paying any attention to it.
She fingered it gently and asked, “Auntie, what is this ring? It looks
as if it were made from the hair of a child.”
The old lady blushed, grew pale, then answered in a trembling voice: “It
is sad, so sad that I never wish to speak of it. All the unhappiness of
my life comes from that. I was very young then, and the memory has
remained so painful that I weep every time I think of it.”
Immediately everybody wished to know the story, but the old lady refused
to tell it. Finally, after they had coaxed her for a long time, she
yielded. Here is the story:
“You have often heard me speak of the Santeze family, now extinct. I
knew the last three male members of this family. They all died in the
same manner; this hair belongs to the last one. He was thirteen when he
killed himself for me. That seems strange to you, doesn't it?
“Oh! it was a strange family—mad, if you will, but a charming madness,
the madness of love. From father to son, all had violent passions which
filled their whole being, which impelled them to do wild things, drove
them to frantic enthusiasm, even to crime. This was born in them, just
as burning devotion is in certain souls. Trappers have not the same
nature as minions of the drawing-room. There was a saying: 'As
passionate as a Santeze.' This could be noticed by looking at them. They
all had wavy hair, falling over their brows, curly beards and large eyes
whose glance pierced and moved one, though one could not say why.
“The grandfather of the owner of this hair, of whom it is the last
souvenir, after many adventures, duels and elopements, at about sixty-
five fell madly in love with his farmer's daughter. I knew them both.
She was blond, pale, distinguished-looking, with a slow manner of
talking, a quiet voice and a look so gentle that one might have taken
her for a Madonna. The old nobleman took her to his home and was soon so
captivated with her that he could not live without her for a minute. His
daughter and daughter-in-law, who lived in the chateau, found this
perfectly natural, love was such a tradition in the family. Nothing in
regard to a passion surprised them, and if one spoke before them of
parted lovers, even of vengeance after treachery, both said in the same
sad tone: 'Oh, how he must have suffered to come to that point!' That
was all. They grew sad over tragedies of love, but never indignant, even
when they were criminal.
“Now, one day a young man named Monsieur de Gradelle, who had been
invited for the shooting, eloped with the young girl.
“Monsieur de Santeze remained calm as if nothing had happened, but one
morning he was found hanging in the kennels, among his dogs.
“His son died in the same manner in a hotel in Paris during a journey
which he made there in 1841, after being deceived by a singer from the
opera.
“He left a twelve-year-old child and a widow, my mother's sister. She
came to my father's house with the boy, while we were living at
Bertillon. I was then seventeen.
“You have no idea how wonderful and precocious this Santeze child was.
One might have thought that all the tenderness and exaltation of the
whole race had been stored up in this last one. He was always dreaming
and walking about alone in a great alley of elms leading from the
chateau to the forest. I watched from my window this sentimental boy,
who walked with thoughtful steps, his hands behind his back, his head
bent, and at times stopping to raise his eyes as if he could see and
understand things that were not comprehensible at his age.
“Often, after dinner on clear evenings, he would say to me: 'Let us go
outside and dream, cousin.' And we would go outside together in the
park. He would stop quickly before a clearing where the white vapor of
the moon lights the woods, and he would press my hand, saying: 'Look!
look! but you don't understand me; I feel it. If you understood me, we
should be happy. One must love to know! I would laugh and then kiss this
child, who loved me madly.
“Often, after dinner, he would sit on my mother's knees. 'Come, auntie,'
he would say, 'tell me some love-stories.' And my mother, as a joke,
would tell him all the old legends of the family, all the passionate
adventures of his forefathers, for thousands of them were current, some
true and some false. It was their reputation for love and gallantry
which was the ruin of every one of these men; they gloried in it and
then thought that they had to live up to the renown of their house.
“The little fellow became exalted by these tender or terrible stories,
and at times he would clap his hands, crying: 'I, too, I, too, know how
to love, better than all of them!'
“Then, he began to court me in a timid and tender manner, at which every
one laughed, it was, so amusing. Every morning I had some flowers picked
by him, and every evening before going to his room he would kiss my hand
and murmur: 'I love you!'
“I was guilty, very guilty, and I grieved continually about it, and I
have been doing penance all my life; I have remained an old maid—or,
rather, I have lived as a widowed fiancee, his widow.
“I was amused at this childish tenderness, and I even encouraged him. I
was coquettish, as charming as with a man, alternately caressing and
severe. I maddened this child. It was a game for me and a joyous
diversion for his mother and mine. He was twelve! think of it! Who would
have taken this atom's passion seriously? I kissed him as often as he
wished; I even wrote him little notes, which were read by our respective
mothers; and he answered me by passionate letters, which I have kept.
Judging himself as a man, he thought that our loving intimacy was
secret. We had forgotten that he was a Santeze.
“This lasted for about a year. One evening in the park he fell at my
feet and, as he madly kissed the hem of my dress, he kept repeating: 'I
love you! I love you! I love you! If ever you deceive me, if ever you
leave me for another, I'll do as my father did.' And he added in a
hoarse voice, which gave me a shiver: 'You know what he did!'
“I stood there astonished. He arose, and standing on the tips of his
toes in order to reach my ear, for I was taller than he, he pronounced
my first name: 'Genevieve!' in such a gentle, sweet, tender tone that I
trembled all over. I stammered: 'Let us return! let us return!' He said
no more and followed me; but as we were going up the steps of the porch,
he stopped me, saying: 'You know, if ever you leave me, I'll kill
myself.'
“This time I understood that I had gone too far, and I became quite
reserved. One day, as he was reproaching me for this, I answered: 'You
are now too old for jesting and too young for serious love. I'll wait.'
“I thought that this would end the matter. In the autumn he was sent to
a boarding-school. When he returned the following summer I was engaged
to be married. He understood immediately, and for a week he became so
pensive that I was quite anxious.
“On the morning of the ninth day I saw a little paper under my door as I
got up. I seized it, opened it and read: 'You have deserted me and you
know what I said. It is death to which you have condemned me. As I do
not wish to be found by another than you, come to the park just where I
told you last year that I loved you and look in the air.'
“I thought that I should go mad. I dressed as quickly as I could and ran
wildly to the place that he had mentioned. His little cap was on the
ground in the mud. It had been raining all night. I raised my eyes and
saw something swinging among the leaves, for the wind was blowing a
gale.
“I don't know what I did after that. I must have screamed at first, then
fainted and fallen, and finally have run to the chateau. The next thing
that I remember I was in bed, with my mother sitting beside me.
“I thought that I had dreamed all this in a frightful nightmare. I
stammered: 'And what of him, what of him, Gontran?' There was no answer.
It was true!
“I did not dare see him again, but I asked for a lock of his blond hair.
Here—here it is!”
And the old maid stretched out her trembling hand in a despairing
gesture. Then she blew her nose several times, wiped her eyes and
continued:
“I broke off my marriage—without saying why. And I—I always have
remained the—the widow of this thirteen-year-old boy.” Then her head
fell on her breast and she wept for a long time.
As the guests were retiring for the night a large man, whose quiet she
had disturbed, whispered in his neighbor's ear: “Isn't it unfortunate
to, be so sentimental?”
THE ENGLISHMAN OF ETRETAT
A great English poet has just crossed over to France in order to greet
Victor Hugo. All the newspapers are full of his name and he is the great
topic of conversation in all drawing-rooms. Fifteen years ago I had
occasion several times to meet Algernon Charles Swinburne. I will
attempt to show him just as I saw him and to give an idea of the strange
impression he made on me, which will remain with me throughout time.
I believe it was in 1867 or in 1868 that an unknown young Englishman
came to Etretat and bought a little hut hidden under great trees. It was
said that he lived there, always alone, in a strange manner; and he
aroused the inimical surprise of the natives, for the inhabitants were
sullen and foolishly malicious, as they always are in little towns.
They declared that this whimsical Englishman ate nothing but boiled,
roasted or stewed monkey; that he would see no one; that he talked to
himself hours at a time and many other surprising things that made
people think that he was different from other men. They were surprised
that he should live alone with a monkey. Had it been a cat or a dog they
would have said nothing. But a monkey! Was that not frightful? What
savage tastes the man must have!
I knew this young man only from seeing him in the streets. He was short,
plump, without being fat, mild-looking, and he wore a little blond
mustache, which was almost invisible.
Chance brought us together. This savage had amiable and pleasing
manners, but he was one of those strange Englishmen that one meets here
and there throughout the world.
Endowed with remarkable intelligence, he seemed to live in a fantastic
dream, as Edgar Poe must have lived. He had translated into English a
volume of strange Icelandic legends, which I ardently desired to see
translated into French. He loved the supernatural, the dismal and
grewsome, but he spoke of the most marvellous things with a calmness
that was typically English, to which his gentle and quiet voice gave a
semblance of reality that was maddening.
Full of a haughty disdain for the world, with its conventions,
prejudices and code of morality, he had nailed to his house a name that
was boldly impudent. The keeper of a lonely inn who should write on his
door: “Travellers murdered here!” could not make a more sinister jest. I
never had entered his dwelling, when one day I received an invitation to
luncheon, following an accident that had occurred to one of his friends,
who had been almost drowned and whom I had attempted to rescue.
Although I was unable to reach the man until he had already been
rescued, I received the hearty thanks of the two Englishmen, and the
following day I called upon them.
The friend was a man about thirty years old. He bore an enormous head on
a child's body—a body without chest or shoulders. An immense forehead,
which seemed to have engulfed the rest of the man, expanded like a dome
above a thin face which ended in a little pointed beard. Two sharp eyes
and a peculiar mouth gave one the impression of the head of a reptile,
while the magnificent brow suggested a genius.
A nervous twitching shook this peculiar being, who walked, moved, acted
by jerks like a broken spring.
This was Algernon Charles Swinburne, son of an English admiral and
grandson, on the maternal side, of the Earl of Ashburnham.
He strange countenance was transfigured when he spoke. I have seldom
seen a man more impressive, more eloquent, incisive or charming in
conversation. His rapid, clear, piercing and fantastic imagination
seemed to creep into his voice and to lend life to his words. His
brusque gestures enlivened his speech, which penetrated one like a
dagger, and he had bursts of thought, just as lighthouses throw out
flashes of fire, great, genial lights that seemed to illuminate a whole
world of ideas.
The home of the two friends was pretty and by no means commonplace.
Everywhere were paintings, some superb, some strange, representing
different conceptions of insanity. Unless I am mistaken, there was a
water-color which represented the head of a dead man floating in a rose-
colored shell on a boundless ocean, under a moon with a human face.
Here and there I came across bones. I clearly remember a flayed hand on
which was hanging some dried skin and black muscles, and on the snow-
white bones could be seen the traces of dried blood.
The food was a riddle which I could not solve. Was it good? Was it bad?
I could not say. Some roast monkey took away all desire to make a steady
diet of this animal, and the great monkey who roamed about among us at
large and playfully pushed his head into my glass when I wished to drink
cured me of any desire I might have to take one of his brothers as a
companion for the rest of my days.
As for the two men, they gave me the impression of two strange,
original, remarkable minds, belonging to that peculiar race of talented
madmen from among whom have arisen Poe, Hoffmann and many others.
If genius is, as is commonly believed, a sort of aberration of great
minds, then Algernon Charles Swinburne is undoubtedly a genius.
Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this
sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but
are slightly touched by madness.
At any rate, this poet remains one of the first of his time, through his
originality and polished form. He is an exalted lyrical singer who
seldom bothers about the good and humble truth, which French poets are
now seeking so persistently and patiently. He strives to set down
dreams, subtle thoughts, sometimes great, sometimes visibly forced, but
sometimes magnificent.
Two years later I found the house closed and its tenants gone. The
furniture was being sold. In memory of them I bought the hideous flayed
hand. On the grass an enormous square block of granite bore this simple
word: “Nip.” Above this a hollow stone offered water to the birds. It
was the grave of the monkey, who had been hanged by a young, vindictive
negro servant. It was said that this violent domestic had been forced to
flee at the point of his exasperated master's revolver. After wandering
about without home or food for several days, he returned and began to
peddle barley-sugar in the streets. He was expelled from the country
after he had almost strangled a displeased customer.
The world would be gayer if one could often meet homes like that.
This story appeared in the “Gaulois,” November 29, 1882. It was the
original sketch for the introductory study of Swinburne, written by
Maupassant for the French translation by Gabriel Mourey of “Poems and
Ballads.”
MAGNETISM
It was a men's dinner party, and they were sitting over their cigars and
brandy and discussing magnetism. Donato's tricks and Charcot's
experiments. Presently, the sceptical, easy-going men, who cared nothing
for religion of any sort, began telling stories of strange occurrences,
incredible things which, nevertheless, had really occurred, so they
said, falling back into superstitious beliefs, clinging to these last
remnants of the marvellous, becoming devotees of this mystery of
magnetism, defending it in the name of science. There was only one
person who smiled, a vigorous young fellow, a great ladies' man who was
so incredulous that he would not even enter upon a discussion of such
matters.
He repeated with a sneer:
“Humbug! humbug! humbug! We need not discuss Donato, who is merely a
very smart juggler. As for M. Charcot, who is said to be a remarkable
man of science, he produces on me the effect of those story-tellers of
the school of Edgar Poe, who end by going mad through constantly
reflecting on queer cases of insanity. He has authenticated some cases
of unexplained and inexplicable nervous phenomena; he makes his way into
that unknown region which men are exploring every day, and unable always
to understand what he sees, he recalls, perhaps, the ecclesiastical
interpretation of these mysteries. I should like to hear what he says
himself.”
The words of the unbeliever were listened to with a kind of pity, as if
he had blasphemed in an assembly of monks.
One of these gentlemen exclaimed:
“And yet miracles were performed in olden times.”
“I deny it,” replied the other: “Why cannot they be performed now?”
Then, each mentioned some fact, some fantastic presentiment some
instance of souls communicating with each other across space, or some
case of the secret influence of one being over another. They asserted
and maintained that these things had actually occurred, while the
sceptic angrily repeated:
“Humbug! humbug! humbug!”
At last he rose, threw away his cigar, and with his hands in his
pockets, said: “Well, I also have two stories to tell you, which I will
afterwards explain. Here they are:
“In the little village of Etretat, the men, who are all seafaring folk,
go every year to Newfoundland to fish for cod. One night the little son
of one of these fishermen woke up with a start, crying out that his
father was dead. The child was quieted, and again he woke up exclaiming
that his father was drowned. A month later the news came that his father
had, in fact, been swept off the deck of his smack by a billow. The
widow then remembered how her son had woke up and spoken of his father's
death. Everyone said it was a miracle, and the affair caused a great
sensation. The dates were compared, and it was found that the accident
and the dream were almost coincident, whence they concluded that they
had happened on the same night and at the same hour. And there is a
mystery of magnetism.”
The story-teller stopped suddenly.
Thereupon, one of those who had heard him, much affected by the
narrative, asked:
“And can you explain this?”
“Perfectly, monsieur. I have discovered the secret. The circumstance
surprised me and even perplexed me very much; but you see, I do not
believe on principle. Just as others begin by believing, I begin by
doubting; and when I cannot understand, I continue to deny that there
can be any telepathic communication between souls; certain that my own
intelligence will be able to explain it. Well, I kept on inquiring into
the matter, and by dint of questioning all the wives of the absent
seamen, I was convinced that not a week passed without one of them, or
one of their children dreaming and declaring when they woke up that the
father was drowned. The horrible and continual fear of this accident
makes them always talk about it. Now, if one of these frequent
predictions coincides, by a very simple chance, with the death of the
person referred to, people at once declare it to be a miracle; for they
suddenly lose sight of all the other predictions of misfortune that have
remained unfulfilled. I have myself known fifty cases where the persons
who made the prediction forgot all about it a week afterwards. But, if,
then one happens to die, then the recollection of the thing is
immediately revived, and people are ready to believe in the intervention
of God, according to some, and magnetism, according to others.”
One of the smokers remarked:
“What you say is right enough; but what about your second story?”
“Oh! my second story is a very delicate matter to relate. It happened to
myself, and so I don't place any great value on my own view of the
matter. An interested party can never give an impartial opinion.
However, here it is:
“Among my acquaintances was a young woman on whom I had never bestowed a
thought, whom I had never even looked at attentively, never taken any
notice of.
“I classed her among the women of no importance, though she was not bad-
looking; she appeared, in fact, to possess eyes, a nose, a mouth, some
sort of hair—just a colorless type of countenance. She was one of those
beings who awaken only a chance, passing thought, but no special
interest, no desire.
“Well, one night, as I was writing some letters by my fireside before
going to bed, I was conscious, in the midst of that train of sensuous
visions that sometimes pass through one's brain in moments of idle
reverie, of a kind of slight influence, passing over me, a little
flutter of the heart, and immediately, without any cause, without any
logical connection of thought, I saw distinctly, as if I were touching
her, saw from head to foot, and disrobed, this young woman to whom I had
never given more than three seconds' thought at a time. I suddenly
discovered in her a number of qualities which I had never before
observed, a sweet charm, a languorous fascination; she awakened in me
that sort of restless emotion that causes one to pursue a woman. But I
did not think of her long. I went to bed and was soon asleep. And I
dreamed.
“You have all had these strange dreams which make you overcome the
impossible, which open to you double-locked doors, unexpected joys,
tightly folded arms?
“Which of us in these troubled, excising, breathless slumbers, has not
held, clasped, embraced with rapture, the woman who occupied his
thoughts? And have you ever noticed what superhuman delight these happy
dreams give us? Into what mad intoxication they cast you! with what
passionate spasms they shake you! and with what infinite, caressing,
penetrating tenderness they fill your heart for her whom you hold
clasped in your arms in that adorable illusion that is so like reality!
“All this I felt with unforgettable violence. This woman was mine, so
much mine that the pleasant warmth of her skin remained in my fingers,
the odor of her skin, in my brain, the taste of her kisses, on my lips,
the sound of her voice lingered in my ears, the touch of her clasp still
clung to me, and the burning charm of her tenderness still gratified my
senses long after the delight but disillusion of my awakening.
“And three times that night I had the same dream.
“When the day dawned she haunted me, possessed me, filled my senses to
such an extent that I was not one second without thinking of her.
“At last, not knowing what to do, I dressed myself and went to call on
her. As I went upstairs to her apartment, I was so overcome by emotion
that I trembled, and my heart beat rapidly.
“I entered the apartment. She rose the moment she heard my name
mentioned; and suddenly our eyes met in a peculiar fixed gaze.
“I sat down. I stammered out some commonplaces which she seemed not to
hear. I did not know what to say or do. Then, abruptly, clasping my arms
round her, my dream was realized so suddenly that I began to doubt
whether I was really awake. We were friends after this for two years.”
“What conclusion do you draw from it?” said a voice.
The story-teller seemed to hesitate.
“The conclusion I draw from it—well, by Jove, the conclusion is that it
was just a coincidence! And then—who can tell? Perhaps it was some
glance of hers which I had not noticed and which came back that night to
me through one of those mysterious and unconscious —recollections that
often bring before us things ignored by our own consciousness,
unperceived by our minds!”
“Call it whatever you like,” said one of his table companions, when the
story was finished; “but if you don't believe in magnetism after that,
my dear boy, you are an ungrateful fellow!”
A FATHER'S CONFESSION
All Veziers-le-Rethel had followed the funeral procession of M. Badon-
Leremince to the grave, and the last words of the funeral oration
pronounced by the delegate of the district remained in the minds of all:
“He was an honest man, at least!”
An honest man he had been in all the known acts of his life, in his
words, in his examples, his attitude, his behavior, his enterprises, in
the cut of his beard and the shape of his hats. He never had said a word
that did not set an example, never had given an alms without adding a
word of advice, never had extended his hand without appearing to bestow
a benediction.
He left two children, a boy and a girl. His son was counselor general,
and his daughter, having married a lawyer, M. Poirel de la Voulte, moved
in the best society of Veziers.
They were inconsolable at the death of their father, for they loved him
sincerely.