MARIOLLE COPIES MME DE BURNE
When she appeared before him next morning bringing him his tea and
toast, and their eyes met, she began to tremble so that the cup and
sugar-bowl rattled on the salver. Mariolle went to her and relieved her
of her burden and placed it on the table; then, as she still kept her
eyes fastened on the floor, he said to her: "Look at me, little one."
She raised her eyes to him; they were full of tears.
"You must not cry," he continued. As he held her in his arms, she
murmured: "_Oh! mon Dieu!"_ He knew that it was not regret, nor sorrow,
nor remorse that had elicited from her those three agitated words, but
happiness, true happiness. It gave him a strange, selfish feeling of
delight, physical rather than moral, to feel this small person resting
against his heart, to feel there at last the presence of a woman who
loved him. He thanked her for it, as a wounded man lying by the
roadside would thank a woman who had stopped to succor him; he thanked
her with all his lacerated heart, and he pitied her a little, too,
in the depths of his soul. As he watched her thus, pale and tearful,
with eyes alight with love, he suddenly said to himself: "Why, she is
beautiful! How quickly a woman changes, becomes what she ought to be,
under the influence of the desires of her feelings and the necessities
of her existence!"
"Sit down," he said to her. He took her hands in his, her poor toiling
hands that she had made white and pretty for his sake, and very gently,
in carefully chosen phrases, he spoke to her of the attitude that they
should maintain toward each other. She was no longer his servant, but
she would preserve the appearance of being so for a while yet, so as
not to create a scandal in the village. She would live with him as his
housekeeper and would read to him frequently, and that would serve to
account for the change in the situation. He would have her eat at his
table after a little, as soon as she should be permanently installed in
her position as his reader.
When he had finished she simply replied: "No, Monsieur, I am your
servant, and I will continue to be so. I do not wish to have people
learn what has taken place and talk about it."
He could not shake her determination, although he urged her
strenuously, and when he had drunk his tea she carried away the salver
while he followed her with a softened look.
When she was gone he reflected. "She is a woman," he thought, "and
all women are equal when they are pleasing in our eyes. I have
made my waitress my mistress. She is pretty, she will be charming!
At all events she is younger and fresher than the _mondaines_ and
the _cocottes_. What difference does it make, after all? How many
celebrated actresses have been daughters of _concierges_! And yet they
are received as ladies, they are adored like heroines of romance, and
princes bow before them as if they were queens. Is this to be accounted
for on the score of their talent, which is often doubtful, or of their
beauty, which is often questionable? Not at all. But a woman, in truth,
always holds the place that she is able to create for herself by the
illusion that she is capable of inspiring."
He took a long walk that day, and although he still felt the same
distress at the bottom of his heart and his legs were heavy under him,
as if his suffering had loosened all the springs of his energy, there
was a feeling of gladness within him like the song of a little bird. He
was not so lonely, he felt himself less utterly abandoned; the forest
appeared to him less silent and less void.
He returned to his house with the glad thought that Elisabeth would
come out to meet him with a smile upon her lips and a look of
tenderness in her eyes.
The life that he now led for about a month on the bank of the little
stream was a real idyl. Mariolle was loved as perhaps very few men
have ever been, as a child is loved by its mother, as the hunter is
loved by his dog. He was all in all to her, her Heaven and earth, her
charm and delight. He responded to all her ardent and artless womanly
advances, giving her in a kiss her fill of ecstasy. In her eyes and in
her soul, in her heart and in her flesh there was no object but him;
her intoxication was like that of a young man who tastes wine for the
first time. Surprised and delighted, he reveled in the bliss of this
absolute self-surrender, and he felt that this was drinking of love at
its fountain-head, at the very lips of nature.
Nevertheless he continued to be sad, sad, and haunted by his deep,
unyielding disenchantment. His little mistress was agreeable, but
he always felt the absence of another, and when he walked in the
meadows or on the banks of the Loing and asked himself: "Why does
this lingering care stay by me so?" such an intolerable feeling of
desolation rose within him as the recollection of Paris crossed his
mind that he had to return to the house so as not to be alone.
Then he would swing in the hammock, while Elisabeth, seated on a
camp-chair, would read to him. As he watched her and listened to her he
would recall to mind conversations in the drawing-room of Michèle, in
the days when he passed whole evenings alone with her. Then tears would
start to his eyes, and such bitter regret would tear his heart that he
felt that he must start at once for Paris or else leave the country
forever.
Elisabeth, seeing his gloom and melancholy, asked him: "Are you
suffering? Your eyes are full of tears."
"Give me a kiss, little one," he replied; "you could not understand."
She kissed him, anxiously, with a foreboding of some tragedy that was
beyond her knowledge. He, forgetting his woes for a moment beneath her
caresses, thought: "Oh! for a woman who could be these two in one, who
might have the affection of the one and the charm of the other! Why is
it that we never encounter the object of our dreams, that we always
meet with something that is only approximately like them?"
He continued his vague reflections, soothed by the monotonous sound
of the voice that fell unheeded on his ear, upon all the charms that
had combined to seduce and vanquish him in the mistress whom he had
abandoned. In the besetment of her memory, of her imaginary presence,
by which he was haunted as a visionary by a phantom, he asked himself:
"Am I condemned to carry her image with me to all eternity?"
He again applied himself to taking long walks, to roaming through the
thicknesses of the forest, with the vague hope that he might lose her
somewhere, in the depths of a ravine, behind a rock, in a thicket, as
a man who wishes to rid himself of an animal that he does not care to
kill sometimes takes it away a long distance so that it may not find
its way home.
In the course of one of these walks he one day came again to the spot
where the beeches grew. It was now a gloomy forest, almost as black as
night, with impenetrable foliage. He passed along beneath the immense,
deep vault in the damp, sultry air, thinking regretfully of his earlier
visit when the little half-opened leaves resembled a verdant, sunshiny
mist, and as he was following a narrow path, he suddenly stopped in
astonishment before two trees that had grown together. It was a sturdy
beech embracing with two of its branches a tall, slender oak; and
there could have been no picture of his love that would have appealed
more forcibly and more touchingly to his imagination. Mariolle seated
himself to contemplate them at his ease. To his diseased mind, as
they stood there in their motionless strife, they became splendid and
terrible symbols, telling to him, and to all who might pass that way,
the everlasting story of his love.
Then he went on his way again, sadder than before, and as he walked
along, slowly and with eyes downcast, he all at once perceived, half
hidden by the grass and stained by mud and rain, an old telegram that
had been lost or thrown there by some wayfarer. He stopped. What was
the message of joy or sorrow that the bit of blue paper that lay there
at his feet had brought to some expectant soul?
He could not help picking it up and opening it with a mingled feeling
of curiosity and disgust. The words "Come--me--four o'clock--" were
still legible; the names had been obliterated by the moisture.
Memories, at once cruel and delightful, thronged upon his mind of all
the messages that he had received from her, now to appoint the hour for
a rendezvous, now to tell him that she could not come to him. Never had
anything caused him such emotion, nor startled him so violently, nor
so stopped his poor heart and then set it thumping again as had the
sight of those messages, burning or freezing him as the case might be.
The thought that he should never receive more of them filled him with
unutterable sorrow.
Again he asked himself what her thoughts had been since he left her.
Had she suffered, had she regretted the friend whom her coldness had
driven from her, or had she merely experienced a feeling of wounded
vanity and thought nothing more of his abandonment? His desire to learn
the truth was so strong and so persistent that a strange and audacious,
yet only half-formed resolve, came into his head. He took the road
to Fontainebleau, and when he reached the city went to the telegraph
office, his mind in a fluctuating state of unrest and indecision; but
an irresistible force proceeding from his heart seemed to urge him on.
With a trembling hand, then, he took from the desk a printed blank and
beneath the name and address of Mme. de Burne wrote this dispatch:
"I would so much like to know what you think of me! For my
part I can forget nothing. ANDRÉ MARIOLLE."
Then he went out, engaged a carriage, and returned to Montigny,
disturbed in mind by what he had done and regretting it already.
He had calculated that in case she condescended to answer him he
would receive a letter from her two days later, but the fear and the
hope that she might send him a dispatch kept him in his house all the
following day. He was in his hammock under the lindens on the terrace,
when, about three o'clock, Elisabeth came to tell him that there was a
lady at the house who wanted to see him.
The shock was so great that his breath failed him for a moment and his
legs bent under him, and his heart beat violently as he went toward
the house. And yet he could not dare hope that it was she.
When he appeared at the drawing-room door Mme. de Burne arose from
the sofa where she was sitting and came forward to shake hands with a
rather reserved smile upon her face, with a slight constraint of manner
and attitude, saying: "I came to see how you are, as your message did
not give me much information on the subject."
He had become so pale that a flash of delight rose to her eyes, and his
emotion was so great that he could not speak, could only hold his lips
glued to the hand that she had given him.
"_Dieu!_ how kind of you!" he said at last.
"No; but I do not forget my friends, and I was anxious about you."
She looked him in the face with that rapid, searching woman's look
that reads everything, fathoms one's thoughts to their very roots,
and unmasks every artifice. She was satisfied, apparently, for her
face brightened with a smile. "You have a pretty hermitage here," she
continued. "Does happiness reside in it?"
"No, Madame."
"Is it possible? In this fine country, at the side of this beautiful
forest, on the banks of this pretty stream? Why, you ought to be at
rest and quite contented here."
"I am not, Madame."
"Why not, then?"
"Because I cannot forget."
"Is it indispensable to your happiness that you should forget
something?"
"Yes, Madame."
"May one know what?"
"You know."
"And then?"
"And then I am very wretched."
She said to him with mingled fatuity and commiseration: "I thought that
was the case when I received your telegram, and that was the reason
that I came, with the resolve that I would go back again at once if I
found that I had made a mistake." She was silent a moment and then went
on: "Since I am not going back immediately, may I go and look around
your place? That little alley of lindens yonder has a very charming
appearance: it looks as if it might be cooler out there than here in
this drawing-room."
They went out. She had on a mauve dress that harmonized so well with
the verdure of the trees and the blue of the sky that she appeared to
him like some amazing apparition, of an entirely new style of beauty
and seductiveness. Her tall and willowy form, her bright, clean-cut
features, the little blaze of blond hair beneath a hat that was mauve,
like the dress, and lightly crowned by a long plume of ostrich-feathers
rolled about it, her tapering arms with the two hands holding the
closed sunshade crosswise before her, the loftiness of her carriage,
and the directness of her step seemed to introduce into the humble
little garden something exotic, something that was foreign to it. It
was a figure from one of Watteau's pictures, or from some fairy-tale or
dream, the imagination of a poet's or an artist's fancy, which had been
seized by the whim of coming away to the country to show how beautiful
it was. As Mariolle looked at her, all trembling with his newly lighted
passion, he recalled to mind the two peasant women that he had seen in
Montigny village.
"Who is the little person who opened the door for me?" she inquired.
"She is my servant."
"She does not look like a waitress."
"No; she is very good looking."
"Where did you secure her?"
"Quite near here; in an inn frequented by painters, where her innocence
was in danger from the customers."
"And you preserved it?"
He blushed and replied: "Yes, I preserved it."
"To your own advantage, perhaps."
"Certainly, to my own advantage, for I would rather have a pretty face
about me than an ugly one."
"Is that the only feeling that she inspires in you?"
"Perhaps it was she who inspired in me the irresistible desire of
seeing you again, for every woman when she attracts my eyes, even if it
is only for the duration of a second, carries my thoughts back to you."
"That was a very pretty piece of special pleading! And does she love
her preserver?"
He blushed more deeply than before. Quick as lightning the thought
flashed through his mind that jealousy is always efficacious as a
stimulant to a woman's feelings, and decided him to tell only half a
lie, so he answered, hesitatingly: "I don't know how that is; it may be
so. She is very attentive to me."
Rather pettishly, Mme. de Burne murmured: "And you?"
He fastened upon her his eyes that were aflame with love, and replied:
"Nothing could ever distract my thoughts from you."
This was also a very shrewd answer, but the phrase seemed to her so
much the expression of an indisputable truth, that she let it pass
without noticing it. Could a woman such as she have any doubts about
a thing like that? So she was satisfied, in fact, and had no further
doubts upon the subject of Elisabeth.
They took two canvas chairs and seated themselves in the shade of the
lindens over the running stream. He asked her: "What did you think of
me?"
"That you must have been very wretched."
"Was it through my fault or yours?"
"Through the fault of us both."
"And then?"
"And then, knowing how beside yourself you were, I reflected that it
would be best to give you a little time to cool down. So I waited."
"What were you waiting for?"
"For a word from you. I received it, and here I am. Now we are going to
talk like people of sense. So you love me still? I do not ask you this
as a coquette--I ask it as your friend."
"I love you still."
"And what is it that you wish?"
"How can I answer that? I am in your power."
"Oh! my ideas are very clear, but I will not tell you them without
first knowing what yours are. Tell me of yourself, of what has been
passing in your heart and in your mind since you ran away from me."
"I have been thinking of you; I have had no other occupation." He told
her of his resolution to forget her, his flight, his coming to the
great forest in which he had found nothing but her image, of his days
filled with memories of her, and his long nights of consuming jealousy;
he told her everything, with entire truthfulness, always excepting his
love for Elisabeth, whose name he did not mention.
She listened, well assured that he was not lying, convinced by her
inner consciousness of her power over him, even more than by the
sincerity of his manner, and delighted with her victory, glad that she
was about to regain him, for she loved him still.
Then he bemoaned himself over this situation that seemed to have no
end, and warming up as he told of all that he had suffered after having
carried it so long in his thoughts, he again reproached her, but
without anger, without bitterness, in terms of impassioned poetry, with
that impotency of loving of which she was the victim. He told her over
and over: "Others have not the gift of pleasing; you have not the gift
of loving."
She interrupted him, speaking warmly, full of arguments and
illustrations. "At least I have the gift of being faithful," she said.
"Suppose I had adored you for ten months, and then fallen in love with
another man, would you be less unhappy than you are?"
He exclaimed: "Is it, then, impossible for a woman to love only one
man?"
But she had her answer ready for him: "No one can keep on loving
forever; all that one can do is to be constant. Do you believe that
that exalted delirium of the senses can last for years? No, no. As
for the most of those women who are addicted to passions, to violent
caprices of greater or less duration, they simply transform life into
a novel. Their heroes are different, the events and circumstances are
unforeseen and constantly changing, the _dénouement_ varies. I admit
that for them it is amusing and diverting, for with every change they
have a new set of emotions, but for _him_--when it is ended, that is
the last of it. Do you understand me?"
"Yes; what you say has some truth in it. But I do not see what you are
getting at."
"It is this: there is no passion that endures a very long time; by
that I mean a burning, torturing passion like that from which you are
suffering now. It is a crisis that I have made hard, very hard for you
to bear--I know it, and I feel it--by--by the aridity of my tenderness
and the paralysis of my emotional nature. This crisis will pass away,
however, for it cannot last forever."
"And then?" he asked with anxiety.
"Then I think that to a woman who is as reasonable and calm as I am you
can make yourself a lover who will be pleasing in every way, for you
have a great deal of tact. On the other hand you would make a terrible
husband. But there is no such thing as a good husband, there never can
be."
He was surprised and a little offended. "Why," he asked, "do you wish
to keep a lover that you do not love?"
She answered, impetuously: "I do love him, my friend, after my fashion.
I do not love ardently, but I love."
"You require above everything else to be loved and to have your lovers
make a show of their love."
"It is true. That is what I like. But beyond that my heart requires a
companion apart from the others. My vainglorious passion for public
homage does not interfere with my capacity for being faithful and
devoted; it does not destroy my belief that I have something of myself
that I could bestow upon a lover that no other man should have: my
loyal affection, the sincere attachment of my heart, the entire and
secret trustfulness of my soul; in exchange for which I should receive
from him, together with all the tenderness of a lover, the sensation,
so sweet and so rare, of not being entirely alone upon the earth.
That is not love from the way you look at it, but it is not entirely
valueless, either."
He bent over toward her, trembling with emotion, and stammered: "Will
you let me be that man?"
"Yes, after a little, when you are more yourself. In the meantime,
resign yourself to a little suffering once in a while, for my sake.
Since you have to suffer in any event, isn't it better to endure it at
my side rather than somewhere far from me?" Her smile seemed to say
to him: "Why can you not have confidence in me?" and as she eyed him
there, his whole frame quivering with passion, she experienced through
every fiber of her being a feeling of satisfied well-being that made
her happy in her way, in the way that the bird of prey is happy when
he sees his quarry lying fascinated beneath him and awaiting the fatal
talons.
"When do you return to Paris?" she asked.
"Why--to-morrow!"
"To-morrow be it. You will come and dine with me?"
"Yes, Madame."
"And now I must be going," said she, looking at the watch set in the
handle of her parasol.
"Oh! why so soon?"
"Because I must catch the five o'clock train. I have company to dinner
to-day, several persons: the Princess de Malten, Bernhaus, Lamarthe,
Massival, De Maltry, and a stranger, M. de Charlaine, the explorer, who
is just back from upper Cambodia, after a wonderful journey. He is all
the talk just now."
Mariolle's spirits fell; it hurt him to hear these names mentioned one
after the other, as if he had been stung by so many wasps. They were
poison to him.
"Will you go now?" he said, "and we can drive through the forest and
see something of it."
"I shall be very glad to. First give me a cup of tea and some toast."
When the tea was served, Elisabeth was not to be found. The cook said
that she had gone out to make some purchases. This did not surprise
Mme. de Burne, for what had she to fear now from this servant? Then
they got into the landau that was standing before the door, and
Mariolle made the coachman take them to the station by a roundabout way
which took them past the Gorge-aux-Loups. As they rolled along beneath
the shade of the great trees where the nightingales were singing,
she was seized by the ineffable sensation that the mysterious and
all-powerful charm of nature impresses on the heart of man. "_Dieu!_"
she said, "how beautiful it is, how calm and restful!"
He accompanied her to the station, and as they were about to part she
said to him: "I shall see you to-morrow at eight o'clock, then?"
"To-morrow at eight o'clock, Madame."
She, radiant with happiness, went her way, and he returned to his house
in the landau, happy and contented, but uneasy withal, for he knew that
this was not the end.
Why should he resist? He felt that he could not. She held him by a
charm that he could not understand, that was stronger than all. Flight
would not deliver him, would not sever him from her, but would be an
intolerable privation, while if he could only succeed in showing a
little resignation, he would obtain from her at least as much as she
had promised, for she was a woman who always kept her word.
The horses trotted along under the trees and he reflected that not
once during that interview had she put up her lips to him for a kiss.
She was ever the same; nothing in her would ever change and he would
always, perhaps, have to suffer at her hands in just that same way.
The remembrance of the bitter hours that he had already passed, with
the intolerable certainty that he would never succeed in rousing her
to passion, laid heavy on his heart, and gave him a clear foresight of
struggles to come and of similar distress in the future. Still, he was
content to suffer everything rather than lose her again, resigned even
to that everlasting, ever unappeased desire that rioted in his veins
and burned into his flesh.
The raging thoughts that had so often possessed him on his way back
alone from Auteuil were now setting in again. They began to agitate
his frame as the landau rolled smoothly along in the cool shadows of
the great trees, when all at once the thought of Elisabeth awaiting
him there at his door, she, too, young and fresh and pretty, her
heart full of love and her mouth full of kisses, brought peace to his
soul. Presently he would be holding her in his arms, and, closing his
eyes and deceiving himself as men deceive others, confounding in the
intoxication of the embrace her whom he loved and her by whom he was
loved, he would possess them both at once. Even now it was certain that
he had a liking for her, that grateful attachment of soul and body that
always pervades the human animal as the result of love inspired and
pleasure shared in common. This child whom he had made his own, would
she not be to his dry and wasting love the little spring that bubbles
up at the evening halting place, the promise of the cool draught that
sustains our energy as wearily we traverse the burning desert?
When he regained the house, however, the girl had not come in. He was
frightened and uneasy and said to the other servant: "You are sure that
she went out?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
Thereupon he also went out in the hope of finding her. When he had
taken a few steps and was about to turn into the long street that runs
up the valley, he beheld before him the old, low church, surmounted by
its square tower, seated upon a little knoll and watching the houses of
its small village as a hen watches over her chicks. A presentiment that
she was there impelled him to enter. Who can tell the strange glimpses
of the truth that a woman's heart is capable of perceiving? What had
she thought, how much had she understood? Where could she have fled for
refuge but there, if the shadow of the truth had passed before her eyes?
The church was very dark, for night was closing in. The dim lamp,
hanging from its chain, suggested in the tabernacle the ideal presence
of the divine Consoler. With hushed footsteps Mariolle passed up along
the lines of benches. When he reached the choir he saw a woman on her
knees, her face hidden in her hands. He approached, recognized her, and
touched her on the shoulder. They were alone.
She gave a great start as she turned her head. She was weeping.
"What is the matter?" he said.
She murmured: "I see it all. You came here because she had caused you
to suffer. She came to take you away."
He spoke in broken accents, touched by the grief that he in turn had
caused: "You are mistaken, little one. I am going back to Paris,
indeed, but I shall take you with me."
She repeated, incredulously: "It can't be true, it can't be true."
"I swear to you that it is true."
"When?"
"To-morrow."
She began again to sob and groan: "My God! My God!"
Then he raised her to her feet and led her down the hill through the
thick blackness of the night, but when they came to the river-bank he
made her sit down upon the grass and placed himself beside her. He
heard the beating of her heart and her quick breathing, and clasping
her to his heart, troubled by his remorse, he whispered to her gentle
words that he had never used before. Softened by pity and burning with
desire, every word that he uttered was true; he did not endeavor to
deceive her, and surprised himself at what he said and what he felt, he
wondered how it was that, thrilling yet with the presence of that other
one whose slave he was always to be, he could tremble thus with longing
and emotion while consoling this love-stricken heart.
He promised that he would love her,--he did not say simply "love"--,
that he would give her a nice little house near his own and pretty
furniture to put in it and a servant to wait on her. She was reassured
as she listened to him, and gradually grew calmer, for she could not
believe that he was capable of deceiving her, and besides his tone and
manner told her that he was sincere. Convinced at length and dazzled
by the vision of being a lady, by the prospect--so undreamed of by the
poor girl, the servant of the inn--of becoming the "good friend" of
such a rich, nice gentleman, she was carried away in a whirl of pride,
covetousness, and gratitude that mingled with her fondness for André.
Throwing her arms about his neck and covering his face with kisses,
she stammered: "Oh! I love you so! You are all in all to me!"
He was touched and returned her caresses. "Darling! My little darling!"
he murmured.
Already she had almost forgotten the appearance of the stranger who
but now had caused her so much sorrow. There must have been some vague
feeling of doubt floating in her mind, however, for presently she asked
him in a tremulous voice: "Really and truly, you will love me as you
love me now?"
And unhesitatingly he replied: "I will love you as I love you now."
THE OLIVE GROVE
AND
OTHER TALES
THE OLIVE GROVE
When the 'longshoremen of Garandou, a little port of Provence, situated
in the bay of Pisca, between Marseilles and Toulon, perceived the boat
of the Abbé Vilbois entering the harbor, they went down to the beach to
help him pull her ashore.
The priest was alone in the boat. In spite of his fifty-eight years,
he rowed with all the energy of a real sailor. He had placed his hat
on the bench beside him, his sleeves were rolled up, disclosing his
powerful arms, his cassock was open at the neck and turned over his
knees, and he wore a round hat of heavy, white canvas. His whole
appearance bespoke an odd and strenuous priest of southern climes,
better fitted for adventures than for clerical duties.
He rowed with strong and measured strokes, as if to show the southern
sailors how the men of the north handle the oars, and from time to time
he turned around to look at the landing point.
The skiff struck the beach and slid far up, the bow plowing through the
sand; then it stopped abruptly. The five men watching for the abbé
drew near, jovial and smiling.
"Well!" said one, with the strong accent of Provence, "have you been
successful, Monsieur le Curé?"
The abbé drew in the oars, removed his canvas head-covering, put on
his hat, pulled down his sleeves, and buttoned his coat. Then having
assumed the usual appearance of a village priest, he replied proudly:
"Yes, I have caught three red-snappers, two eels, and five sunfish."
The fishermen gathered around the boat to examine, with the air of
experts, the dead fish, the fat red-snappers, the flat-headed eels,
those hideous sea-serpents, and the violet sunfish, streaked with
bright orange-colored stripes.
Said one: "I'll carry them up to your house, Monsieur le Curé."
"Thank you, my friend."
Having shaken hands all around, the priest started homeward, followed
by the man with the fish; the others took charge of the boat.
The Abbé Vilbois walked along slowly with an air of dignity. The
exertion of rowing had brought beads of perspiration to his brow and
he uncovered his head each time that he passed through the shade of an
olive grove. The warm evening air, freshened by a slight breeze from
the sea, cooled his high forehead covered with short, white hair, a
forehead far more suggestive of an officer than of a priest.
The village appeared, built on a hill rising from a large valley which
descended toward the sea.
It was a summer evening. The dazzling sun, traveling toward the ragged
crests of the distant hills, outlined on the white, dusty road the
figure of the priest, the shadow of whose three-cornered hat bobbed
merrily over the fields, sometimes apparently climbing the trunks of
the olive-trees, only to fall immediately to the ground and creep among
them.
With every step he took, he raised a cloud of fine, white dust, the
invisible powder which, in summer, covers the roads of Provence; it
clung to the edge of his cassock turning it grayish white. Completely
refreshed, his hands deep in his pockets, he strode along slowly and
ponderously, like a mountaineer. His eyes were fixed on the distant
village where he had lived twenty years, and where he hoped to die.
Its church--his church--rose above the houses clustered around it;
the square turrets of gray stone, of unequal proportions and quaint
design, stood outlined against the beautiful southern valley; and their
architecture suggested the fortifications of some old château rather
than the steeples of a place of worship.
The abbé was happy; for he had caught three red-snappers, two eels,
and five sunfish. It would enable him to triumph again over his flock,
which respected him, no doubt, because he was one of the most powerful
men of the place, despite his years. These little innocent vanities
were his greatest pleasures. He was a fine marksman; sometimes he
practiced with his neighbor, a retired army provost who kept a tobacco
shop; he could also swim better than anyone along the coast.
In his day he had been a well-known society man, the Baron de Vilbois,
but had entered the priesthood after an unfortunate love-affair. Being
the scion of an old family of Picardy, devout and royalistic, whose
sons for centuries had entered the army, the magistracy, or the Church,
his first thought was to follow his mother's advice and become a
priest. But he yielded to his father's suggestion that he should study
law in Paris and seek some high office.
While he was completing his studies his father was carried off by
pneumonia; his mother, who was greatly affected by the loss, died soon
afterward. He came into a fortune, and consequently gave up the idea of
following a profession to live a life of idleness. He was handsome and
intelligent, but somewhat prejudiced by the traditions and principles
which he had inherited, along with his muscular frame, from a long line
of ancestors.
Society gladly welcomed him and he enjoyed himself after the fashion of
a well-to-do and seriously inclined young man. But it happened that a
friend introduced him to a young actress, a pupil of the Conservatoire,
who was appearing with great success at the Odéon. It was a case of
love at first sight.
His sentiment had all the violence, the passion of a man born to
believe in absolute ideas. He saw her act the romantic rôle in which
she had achieved a triumph the first night of her appearance. She was
pretty, and, though naturally perverse, possessed the face of an angel.
She conquered him completely; she transformed him into a delirious
fool, into one of those ecstatic idiots whom a woman's look will
forever chain to the pyre of fatal passions. She became his mistress
and left the stage. They lived together four years, his love for her
increasing during the time. He would have married her in spite of his
proud name and family traditions, had he not discovered that for a long
time she had been unfaithful to him with the friend who had introduced
them.
The awakening was terrible, for she was about to become a mother, and
he was awaiting the birth of the child to make her his wife.
When he held the proof of her transgressions,--some letters found in a
drawer,--he confronted her with his knowledge and reproached her with
all the savageness of his uncouth nature for her unfaithfulness and
deceit. But she, a child of the people, being as sure of this man as of
the other, braved and insulted him with the inherited daring of those
women, who, in times of war, mounted with the men on the barricades.
He would have struck her to the ground--but she showed him her form.
As white as death, he checked himself, remembering that a child of his
would soon be born to this vile, polluted creature. He rushed at her
to crush them both, to obliterate this double shame. Reeling under his
blows, and seeing that he was about to stamp out the life of her unborn
babe, she realized that she was lost. Throwing out her hands to parry
the blows, she cried:
"Do not kill me! It is his, not yours!"
He fell back, so stunned with surprise that for a moment his rage
subsided. He stammered:
"What? What did you say?"
Crazed with fright, having read her doom in his eyes and gestures, she
repeated: "It's not yours, it's his."
Through his clenched teeth he stammered:
"The child?"
"Yes."
"You lie!"
And again he lifted his foot as if to crush her, while she struggled to
her knees in a vain attempt to rise. "I tell you it's his. If it was
yours, wouldn't it have come much sooner?"
He was struck by the truth of this argument. In a moment of strange
lucidity, his mind evolved precise, conclusive, irresistible reasons to
disclaim the child of this miserable woman, and he felt so appeased, so
happy at the thought, that he decided to let her live.
He then spoke in a calmer voice: "Get up and leave, and never let me
see you again."
Quite cowed, she obeyed him and went. He never saw her again.
Then he left Paris and came south. He stopped in a village situated
in a valley, near the coast of the Mediterranean. Selecting for his
abode an inn facing the sea, he lived there eighteen months in complete
seclusion, nursing his sorrow and despair. The memory of the unfaithful
one tortured him; her grace, her charm, her perversity haunted him, and
withal came the regret of her caresses.
He wandered aimlessly in those beautiful vales of Provence, baring his
head, filled with the thoughts of that woman, to the sun that filtered
through the grayish-green leaves of the olive-trees.
His former ideas of religion, the abated ardor of his faith, returned
to him during his sorrowful retreat. Religion had formerly seemed a
refuge from the unknown temptations of life, now it appeared as a
refuge from its snares and tortures. He had never given up the habit of
prayer. In his sorrow, he turned anew to its consolations, and often
at dusk he would wander into the little village church, where in the
darkness gleamed the light of the lamp hung above the altar, to guard
the sanctuary and symbolize the Divine Presence.
He confided his sorrow to his God, told Him of his misery, asking
advice, pity, help, and consolation. Each day, his fervid prayers
disclosed stronger faith.
The bleeding heart of this man, crushed by love for a woman, still
longed for affection; and soon his prayers, his seclusion, his constant
communion with the Savior who consoles and cheers the weary, wrought a
change in him, and the mystic love of God entered his soul, casting out
the love of the flesh.
He then decided to take up his former plans and to devote his life to
the Church.
He became a priest. Through family connections he succeeded in
obtaining a call to the parish of this village which he had come across
by chance. Devoting a large part of his fortune to the maintenance of
charitable institutions, and keeping only enough to enable him to help
the poor as long as he lived, he sought refuge in a quiet life filled
with prayer and acts of kindness toward his fellow-men.
Narrow-minded but kind-hearted, a priest with a soldier's temperament,
he guided his blind, erring flock forcibly through the mazes of this
life in which every taste, instinct, and desire is a pitfall. But
the old man in him never disappeared entirely. He continued to love
out-of-door exercise and noble sports, but he hated every woman, having
an almost childish fear of their dangerous fascination.
II.
The sailor who followed the priest, being a southerner, found it
difficult to refrain from talking. But he did not dare start a
conversation, for the abbé exerted a great prestige over his flock. At
last he ventured a remark: "So you like your lodge, do you, Monsieur le
Curé?"
This lodge was one of the tiny constructions that are inhabited during
the summer by the villagers and the town people alike. It was situated
in a field not far from the parish-house, and the abbé had hired it
because the latter was very small and built in the heart of the village
next to the church.
During the summer time, he did not live altogether at the lodge, but
would remain a few days at a time to practice pistol-shooting and be
close to nature.
"Yes, my friend," said the priest, "I like it very well."
The low structure could now be seen; it was painted pink, and the walls
were almost hidden under the leaves and branches of the olive-trees
that grew in the open field. A tall woman was passing in and out of the
door, setting a small table at which she placed, at each trip, a knife
and fork, a glass, a plate, a napkin, and a piece of bread. She wore
the small cap of the women of Arles, a pointed cone of silk or black
velvet, decorated with a white rosette.
When the abbé was near enough to make himself heard, he shouted:
"Eh! Marguerite!"
She stopped to ascertain whence the voice came, and recognizing her
master: "Oh! it's you, Monsieur le Curé!"
"Yes. I have caught some fine fish, and want you to broil this sunfish
immediately, do you hear?"
The servant examined, with a critical and approving glance, the fish
that the sailor carried.
"Yes, but we are going to have a chicken for dinner," she said.
"Well, it cannot be helped. To-morrow the fish will not be as fresh
as it is now. I mean to enjoy a little feast--it does not happen
often--and the sin is not great."
The woman picked out a sunfish and prepared to go into the house.
"Ah!" she said, "a man came to see you three times while you were out,
Monsieur le Curé."
Indifferently he inquired: "A man! What kind of man?"
"Why, a man whose appearance was not in his favor."
"What! a beggar?"
"Perhaps--I don't know. But I think he is more of a 'maoufatan.'"
The abbé smiled at this word, which, in the language of Provence means
a highwayman, a tramp, for he was well aware of Marguerite's timidity,
and knew that every day and especially every night she fancied they
would be murdered.
He handed a few sous to the sailor, who departed. And just as he was
saying: "I am going to wash my hands,"--for his past dainty habits
still clung to him,--Marguerite called to him from the kitchen
where she was scraping the fish with a knife, thereby detaching its
blood-stained, silvery scales:
"There he comes!"
The abbé looked down the road and saw a man coming slowly toward
the house; he seemed poorly dressed, indeed, so far as he could
distinguish. He could not help smiling at his servant's anxiety, and
thought, while he waited for the stranger: "I think, after all, she is
right; he does look like a 'maoufatan.'"
The man walked slowly, with his eyes on the priest and his hands buried
deep in his pockets. He was young and wore a full, blond beard; strands
of curly hair escaped from his soft felt hat, which was so dirty
and battered that it was impossible to imagine its former color and
appearance. He was clothed in a long, dark overcoat, from which emerged
the frayed edge of his trousers; on his feet were bathing shoes that
deadened his steps, giving him the stealthy walk of a sneak thief.
When he had come within a few steps of the priest, he doffed, with a
sweeping motion, the ragged hat that shaded his brow. He was not bad
looking, though his face showed signs of dissipation and the top of his
head was bald, an indication of premature fatigue and debauch, for he
certainly was not over twenty-five years old.
The priest responded at once to his bow, feeling that this fellow was
not an ordinary tramp, a mechanic out of work, or a jail-bird, hardly
able to speak any other tongue but the mysterious language of prisons.
"How do you do, Monsieur le Curé?" said the man. The priest answered
simply, "I salute you," unwilling to address this ragged stranger as
"Monsieur." They considered each other attentively; the abbé felt
uncomfortable under the gaze of the tramp, invaded by a feeling of
unrest unknown to him.
At last the vagabond continued: "Well, do you recognize me?"
Greatly surprised, the priest answered: "Why, no, you are a stranger to
me."
"Ah! you do not know me? Look at me well."
"I have never seen you before."
"Well, that may be true," replied the man sarcastically, "but let me
show you some one whom you will know better."
He put on his hat and unbuttoned his coat, revealing his bare chest. A
red sash wound around his spare frame held his trousers in place. He
drew an envelope from his coat pocket, one of those soiled wrappers
destined to protect the sundry papers of the tramp, whether they be
stolen or legitimate property, those papers which he guards jealously
and uses to protect himself against the too zealous gendarmes. He
pulled out a photograph about the size of a folded letter, one of those
pictures which were popular long ago; it was yellow and dim with age,
for he had carried it around with him everywhere and the heat of his
body had faded it.
Pushing it under the abbé's eyes, he demanded:
"Do you know him?"
The priest took a step forward to look and grew pale, for it was his
own likeness that he had given Her years ago.
Failing to grasp the meaning of the situation he remained silent.
The tramp repeated:
"Do you recognize him?"
And the priest stammered: "Yes."
"Who is it?"
"It is I."
"It is you?"
"Yes."
"Well, then, look at us both,--at me and at your picture!"
Already the unhappy man had seen that these two beings, the one in the
picture and the one by his side, resembled each other like brothers;
yet he did not understand, and muttered: "Well, what is it you wish?"
Then in an ugly voice, the tramp replied: "What do I wish? Why, first I
wish you to recognize me."
"Who are you?"
"Who am I? Ask anybody by the roadside, ask your servant, let's go and
ask the mayor and show him this; and he will laugh, I tell you that!
Ah! you will not recognize me as your son, papa curé?"
The old man raised his arms above his head, with a patriarchal gesture,
and muttered despairingly: "It cannot be true!"
The young fellow drew quite close to him.
"Ah! It cannot be true, you say! You must stop lying, do you hear?"
His clenched fists and threatening face, and the violence with which
he spoke, made the priest retreat a few steps, while he asked himself
anxiously which one of them was laboring under a mistake.
Again he asserted: "I never had a child."
The other man replied: "And no mistress, either?"
The aged priest resolutely uttered one word, a proud admission:
"Yes."
"And was not this mistress about to give birth to a child when you left
her?"
Suddenly the anger which had been quelled twenty-five years ago, not
quelled, but buried in the heart of the lover, burst through the wall
of faith, resignation, and renunciation he had built around it. Almost
beside himself, he shouted:
"I left her because she was unfaithful to me and was carrying the child
of another man; had it not been for this, I should have killed both you
and her, sir!"
The young man hesitated, taken aback at the sincerity of this outburst.
Then he replied in a gentler voice:
"Who told you that it was another man's child?"
"She told me herself and braved me."
Without contesting this assertion the vagabond assumed the indifferent
tone of a loafer judging a case:
"Well, then, mother made a mistake, that's all!"
After his outburst of rage, the priest had succeeded in mastering
himself sufficiently to be able to inquire:
"And who told you that you were my son?"
"My mother, on her deathbed, M'sieur le Curé. And then--this!" And he
held the picture under the eyes of the priest.
The old man took it from him; and slowly, with a heart bursting with
anguish, he compared this stranger with his faded likeness and doubted
no longer--it was his son.
An awful distress wrung his very soul, a terrible, inexpressible
emotion invaded him; it was like the remorse of some ancient crime. He
began to understand a little, he guessed the rest. He lived over the
brutal scene of the parting. It was to save her life, then, that the
wretched and deceitful woman had lied to him, her outraged lover. And
he had believed her. And a son of his had been brought into the world
and had grown up to be this sordid tramp, who exhaled the very odor of
vice as a goat exhales its animal smell.
He whispered: "Will you take a little walk with me, so that we can
discuss these matters?"
The young man sneered: "Why, certainly! Isn't that what I came for?"
They walked side by side through the olive grove. The sun had gone down
and the coolness of southern twilights spread an invisible cloak over
the country. The priest shivered, and raising his eyes with a familiar
motion, perceived the trembling gray foliage of the holy tree which had
spread its frail shadow over the Son of Man in His great trouble and
despondency.
A short, despairing prayer rose within him, uttered by his soul's
voice, a prayer by which Christians implore the Savior's aid: "O Lord!
have mercy on me."
Turning to his son he said: "So your mother is dead?"
These words, "Your mother is dead," awakened a new sorrow; it was
the torment of the flesh which cannot forget, the cruel echo of past
sufferings; but mostly the thrill of the fleeting, delirious bliss of
his youthful passion.
The young man replied: "Yes, Monsieur le Curé, my mother is dead."
"Has she been dead a long while?"
"Yes, three years."
A new doubt entered the priest's mind. "And why did you not find me out
before?"
The other man hesitated.
"I was unable to, I was prevented. But excuse me for interrupting these
recollections--I will enter into more details later--for I have not had
anything to eat since yesterday morning."
A tremor of pity shook the old man and holding forth both hands: "Oh!
my poor child!" he said.
The young fellow took those big, powerful hands in his own slender and
feverish palms.
Then he replied, with that air of sarcasm which hardly ever left his
lips: "Ah! I'm beginning to think that we shall get along very well
together, after all!"
The curé started toward the lodge.
"Let us go to dinner," he said.
He suddenly remembered, with a vague and instinctive pleasure, the fine
fish he had caught, which, with the chicken, would make a good meal for
the poor fellow.
The servant was in front of the door, watching their approach with an
anxious and forbidding face.
"Marguerite," shouted the abbé, "take the table and put it into the
dining-room, right away; and set two places, as quick as you can."
The woman seemed stunned at the idea that her master was going to dine
with this tramp.
But the abbé, without waiting for her, removed the plate and napkin and
carried the little table into the dining-room.
A few minutes later he was sitting opposite the beggar, in front of a
soup-tureen filled with savory cabbage soup, which sent up a cloud of
fragrant steam.
III.
When the plates were filled, the tramp fell to with ravenous avidity.
The abbé had lost his appetite and ate slowly, leaving the bread in the
bottom of his plate. Suddenly he inquired:
"What is your name?"
The man smiled; he was delighted to satisfy his hunger.
"Father unknown," he said, "and no other name but my mother's, which
you probably remember. But I possess two Christian names, which, by the
way, are quite unsuited to me--Philippe-Auguste."
The priest whitened.
"Why were you named thus?" he asked.
The tramp shrugged his shoulders. "I fancy you ought to know. After
mother left you, she wished to make your rival believe that I was his
child. He did believe it until I was about fifteen. Then I began to
look too much like you. And he disclaimed me, the scoundrel. I had been
christened Philippe-Auguste; now, if I had not resembled a soul, or if
I had been the son of a third person, who had stayed in the background,
to-day I should be the Vicomte Philippe-Auguste de Pravallon, son of
the count and senator bearing this name. I have christened myself
'No-luck.'"
"How did you learn all this?"
"They discussed it before me, you know; pretty lively discussions they
were, too. I tell you, that's what shows you the seamy side of life!"
Something more distressing than all he had suffered during the last
half hour now oppressed the priest. It was a sort of suffocation which
seemed as if it would grow and grow till it killed him; it was not due
so much to the things he heard as to the manner in which they were
uttered by this wayside tramp. Between himself and this beggar, between
his son and himself, he was discovering the existence of those moral
divergencies which are as fatal poisons to certain souls. Was this his
son? He could not yet believe it. He wanted all the proofs, every one
of them. He wanted to hear all, to listen to all. Again he thought of
the olive-trees that shaded his little lodge, and for the second time
he prayed: "O Lord! have mercy upon me."
Philippe-Auguste had finished his soup. He inquired: "Is there nothing
else, abbé?"
The kitchen was built in an annex. Marguerite could not hear her
master's voice. He always called her by striking a Chinese gong hung
on the wall behind his chair. He took the brass hammer and struck the
round metal plate. It gave a feeble sound, which grew and vibrated,
becoming sharper and louder till it finally died away on the evening
breeze.
The servant appeared with a frowning face and cast angry glances at the
tramp, as if her faithful instinct had warned her of the misfortune
that had befallen her master. She held a platter on which was the
sunfish, spreading a savory odor of melted butter through the room. The
abbé divided the fish lengthwise, helping his son to the better half:
"I caught it a little while ago," he said, with a touch of pride in
spite of his keen distress.
Marguerite had not left the room.
The priest added: "Bring us some wine, the white wine of Cape Corse."
She almost rebelled, and the priest, assuming a severe expression was
obliged to repeat: "Now, go, and bring two bottles, remember," for,
when he drank with anybody, a very rare pleasure, indeed, he always
opened one bottle for himself.
Beaming, Philippe-Auguste remarked: "Fine! A splendid idea! It has been
a long time since I've had such a dinner." The servant came back after
a few minutes. The abbé thought it an eternity, for now a thirst for
information burned his blood like infernal fire.
After the bottles had been opened, the woman still remained, her eyes
glued on the tramp.
"Leave us," said the curé.
She intentionally ignored his command.
He repeated almost roughly: "I have ordered you to leave us."
Then she left the room.
Philippe-Auguste devoured the fish voraciously, while his father sat
watching him, more and more surprised and saddened at all the baseness
stamped on the face that was so like his own. The morsels the abbé
raised to his lips remained in his mouth, for his throat could not
swallow; so he ate slowly, trying to choose, from the host of questions
which besieged his mind, the one he wished his son to answer first. At
last he spoke:
"What was the cause of her death?"
"Consumption."
"Was she ill a long time?"
"About eighteen months."
"How did she contract it?"
"We could not tell."
Both men were silent. The priest was reflecting. He was oppressed by
the multitude of things he wished to know and to hear, for since the
rupture, since the day he had tried to kill her, he had heard nothing.
Certainly, he had not cared to know, because he had buried her, along
with his happiest days, in forgetfulness; but now, knowing that she was
dead and gone, he felt within himself the almost jealous desire of a
lover to hear all.
He continued: "She was not alone, was she?"
"No, she lived with him."
The old man started: "With him? With Pravallon?"
"Why, yes."
And the betrayed man rapidly calculated that the woman who had deceived
him, had lived over thirty years with his rival.
Almost unconsciously he asked: "Were they happy?"
The young man sneered. "Why, yes, with ups and downs! It would have
been better had I not been there. I always spoiled everything."
"How, and why?" inquired the priest.
"I have already told you. Because he thought I was his son up to my
fifteenth year. But the old fellow wasn't a fool, and soon discovered
the likeness. That created scenes. I used to listen behind the door. He
accused mother of having deceived him. Mother would answer: 'Is it my
fault? you knew quite well when you took me that I was the mistress of
that other man.' You were that other man."
"Ah! They spoke of me sometimes?"
"Yes, but never mentioned your name before me, excepting toward the
end, when mother knew she was lost. I think they distrusted me."
"And you--and you learned quite early the irregularity of your mother's
position?"
"Why, certainly. I am not innocent and I never was. Those things are
easy to guess as soon as one begins to know life."
Philippe-Auguste had been filling his glass repeatedly. His eyes now
were beginning to sparkle, for his long fast was favorable to the
intoxicating effects of the wine. The priest noticed it and wished to
caution him. But suddenly the thought that a drunkard is imprudent and
loquacious flashed through him, and lifting the bottle he again filled
the young man's glass.
Meanwhile Marguerite had brought the chicken. Having set it on the
table, she again fastened her eyes on the tramp, saying in an indignant
voice: "Can't you see that he's drunk, Monsieur le Curé?"
"Leave us," replied the priest, "and return to the kitchen."
She went out, slamming the door.
He then inquired: "What did your mother say about me?"
"Why, what a woman usually says of a man she has jilted: that you were
hard to get along with, very strange, and that you would have made her
life miserable with your peculiar ideas."
"Did she say that often?"
"Yes, but sometimes only in allusions, for fear I would understand; but
nevertheless I guessed all."
"And how did they treat you in that house?"
"Me? They treated me very well at first and very badly afterward. When
mother saw that I was interfering with her, she shook me."
"How?"
"How? very easily. When I was about sixteen years old, I got into
various scrapes, and those blackguards put me into a reformatory to get
rid of me." He put his elbows on the table and rested his cheeks in his
palms. He was hopelessly intoxicated, and felt the unconquerable desire
of all drunkards to talk and boast about themselves.
He smiled sweetly, with a feminine grace, an arch grace the priest knew
and recognized as the hated charm that had won him long ago, and had
also wrought his undoing. Now it was his mother whom the boy resembled,
not so much because of his features, but because of his fascinating and
deceptive glance, and the seductiveness of the false smile that played
around his lips, the outlet of his inner ignominy.
Philippe-Auguste began to relate: "Ah! Ah! Ah!--I've had a fine life
since I left the reformatory! A great writer would pay a large sum for
it! Why, old Père Dumas's Monte Cristo has had no stranger adventures
than mine."
He paused to reflect with the philosophical gravity of the drunkard,
then he continued slowly:
"When you wish a boy to turn out well, no matter what he has done,
never send him to a reformatory. The associations are too bad. Now,
I got into a bad scrape. One night about nine o'clock, I, with three
companions--we were all a little drunk--was walking along the road
near the ford of Folac. All at once a wagon hove in sight, with the
driver and his family asleep in it. They were people from Martinon on
their way home from town. I caught hold of the bridle, led the horse
to the ferryboat, made him walk into it, and pushed the boat into the
middle of the stream. This created some noise and the driver awoke. He
could not see in the dark, but whipped up the horse, which started on
a run and landed in the water with the whole load. All were drowned!
My companions denounced me to the authorities, though they thought it
was a good joke when they saw me do it. Really, we didn't think that it
would turn out that way. We only wanted to give the people a ducking,
just for fun. After that I committed worse offenses to revenge myself
for the first one, which did not, on my honor, warrant the reformatory.
But what's the use of telling them? I will speak only of the latest
one, because I am sure it will please you. Papa, I avenged you!"
The abbé was watching his son with terrified eyes; he had stopped
eating.
Philippe-Auguste was preparing to begin. "No, not yet," said the
priest, "in a little while."
And he turned to strike the Chinese gong.
Marguerite appeared almost instantly. Her master addressed her in
such a rough tone that she hung her head, thoroughly frightened and
obedient: "Bring in the lamp and the dessert, and then do not appear
until I summon you."
She went out and returned with a porcelain lamp covered with a green
shade, and bringing also a large piece of cheese and some fruit.
After she had gone, the abbé turned resolutely to his son.
"Now I am ready to hear you."
Philippe-Auguste calmly filled his plate with dessert and poured wine
into his glass. The second bottle was nearly empty, though the priest
had not touched it.
His mouth and tongue, thick with food and wine, the man stuttered:
"Well, now for the last job. And it's a good one. I was home
again,--stayed there in spite of them, because they feared me,--yes,
feared me. Ah! you can't fool with me, you know,--I'll do anything,
when I'm roused. They lived together on and off. The old man had two
residences. One official, for the senator, the other clandestine, for
the lover. Still, he lived more in the latter than in the former, as
he could not get along without mother. Mother was a sharp one--she
knew how to hold a man! She had taken him body and soul, and kept him
to the last! Well, I had come back and I kept them down by fright. I
am resourceful at times--nobody can match me for sharpness and for
strength, too--I'm afraid of no one. Well, mother got sick and the old
man took her to a fine place in the country, near Meulan, situated in a
park as big as a wood. She lasted about eighteen months, as I told you.
Then we felt the end to be near. He came from Paris every day--he was
very miserable--really.
"One morning they chatted a long time, over an hour, I think, and I
could not imagine what they were talking about. Suddenly mother called
me in and said:
"'I am going to die, and there is something I want to tell you
beforehand, in spite of the Count's advice.' In speaking of him she
always said 'the Count.' 'It is the name of your father, who is alive.'
I had asked her this more than fifty times--more than fifty times--my
father's name--more than fifty times--and she always refused to tell. I
think I even beat her one day to make her talk, but it was of no use.
Then, to get rid of me, she told me that you had died penniless, that
you were worthless and that she had made a mistake in her youth, an
innocent girl's mistake. She lied so well, I really believed you had
died.
"Finally she said: 'It is your father's name.'
"The old man, who was sitting in an armchair, repeated three times,
like this: 'You do wrong, you do wrong, you do wrong, Rosette.'
"Mother sat up in bed. I can see her now, with her flushed cheeks and
shining eyes; she loved me, in spite of everything; and she said:
'Then you do something for him, Philippe!' In speaking to him she
called him 'Philippe' and me 'Auguste.'
"He began to shout like a madman: 'Do something for that loafer--that
blackguard, that convict? never!'
"And he continued to call me names, as if he had done nothing else all
his life but collect them.
"I was angry, but mother told me to hold my tongue, and she resumed:
'Then you must want him to starve, for you know that I leave no money.'
"Without being deterred, he continued: 'Rosette, I have given you
thirty-five thousand francs a year for thirty years,--that makes more
than a million. I have enabled you to live like a wealthy, a beloved,
and I may say, a happy woman. I owe nothing to that fellow, who has
spoiled our late years, and he will not get a cent from me. It is
useless to insist. Tell him the name of his father, if you wish. I am
sorry, but I wash my hands of him.'
"Then mother turned toward me. I thought: 'Good! now I'm going to find
my real father--if he has money, I'm saved.'
"She went on: 'Your father, the Baron de Vilbois, is to-day the Abbé
Vilbois, curé of Garandou, near Toulon. He was my lover before I left
him for the Count!'
"And she told me all, excepting that she had deceived you about her
pregnancy. But women, you know, never tell the whole truth."
Sneeringly, unconsciously, he was revealing the depths of his foul
nature. With beaming face he raised the glass to his lips and
continued:
"Mother died two days--two days later. We followed her remains to
the grave, he and I--say--wasn't it funny?--he and I--and three
servants--that was all. He cried like a calf--we were side by side--we
looked like father and son.
"Then he went back to the house alone. I was thinking to myself: 'I'll
have to clear out now and without a penny, too.' I owned only fifty
francs. What could I do to revenge myself?
"He touched me on the arm and said: 'I wish to speak to you.' I
followed him into his office. He sat down in front of the desk and,
wiping away his tears, he told me that he would not be as hard on me
as he had said he would to mother. He begged me to leave you alone.
That--that concerns only you and me. He offered me a thousand-franc
note--a thousand--a thousand francs. What could a fellow like me do
with a thousand francs?--I saw that there were very many bills in the
drawer. The sight of the money made me wild. I put out my hand as if to
take the note he offered me, but instead of doing so, I sprang at him,
threw him to the ground and choked him till he grew purple. When I saw
that he was going to give up the ghost, I gagged and bound him. Then I
undressed him, laid him on his stomach and--ah! ah! ah!--I avenged you
in a funny way!"
He stopped to cough, for he was choking with merriment. His ferocious,
mirthful smile reminded the priest once more of the woman who had
wrought his undoing.
"And then?" he inquired.