Short Fiction

By Guy de Maupassant.

Translated by Ernest Boyd, Storm Jameson, Jeffery E. Jeffery, Lafcadio Hearn, M. Walter Dunne, Henry C. Olinger, Albert M. Cohn-McMaster, Dora Knowlton Ranous, Bigelow, Brown & Co., Inc., and Francis Steegmuller.

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Guy de Maupassant

I

The first artists, in any line, are doubtless not those whose general ideas about their art are most often on their lips⁠—those who most abound in precept, apology and formula and can best tell us the reasons and the philosophy of things. We know the first usually by their energetic practice, the constancy with which they apply their principles and the serenity with which they leave us to hunt for their secret in the illustration, the concrete example. None the less it often happens that a valid artist flashes upon us for a moment the light by which he works, utters his mystery and shows us the rule by which he holds it just that he should be measured. This accident is happiest, I think, when it is soonest over; the shortest explanations of the products of genius are the best, and there is many a creator of living figures whose friends, however full of faith in his inspiration, will do well to pray for him when he sallies forth into the dim wilderness of theory. The doctrine is apt to be so much less inspired than the work, the work is often so much more intelligent than the doctrine. M. Guy de Maupassant has lately traversed with a firm and rapid step a literary crisis of this kind; he has clambered safely up the bank at the farther end of the morass. If he has relieved himself in the preface to Pierre et Jean, the last-published of his tales, he has also rendered a service to his friends; he has not only come home in a recognizable plight, escaping gross disaster with a success which even his extreme good sense was far from making in advance a matter of course, but he has expressed in intelligible terms (that by itself is a ground of felicitation) his most general idea, his own sense of his direction. He has arranged, as it were, the light in which he wishes to sit. If it is a question of attempting, under however many disadvantages, a sketch of him, the critic’s business therefore is simplified: there will be no difficulty about placing him, for he himself has chosen the spot, he has made the chalk-mark on the floor.

I may as well say at once that in dissertation M. de Maupassant does not write with his best pen; the philosopher in his composition is perceptibly inferior to the storyteller. I would rather have written half a page of “Boule de Suif” than the whole of the introduction to Flaubert’s Letters to Madame Sand; and his little disquisition on the novel in general, attached to that particular example of it which he has just put forth, is considerably less to the point than the masterpiece which it ushers in. In short, as a commentator M. de Maupassant is slightly vulgar, while as an artist he is wonderfully rare. Of course we must, in judging a writer, take one thing with another, and if I could make up my mind that M. de Maupassant is weak in theory it would almost make me like him better, render him more approachable, give him the touch of softness that he lacks and show us a human flaw. The most general quality of the author of “La Maison Tellier” and Bel-Ami, the impression that remains last, after the others have been accounted for, is an essential hardness⁠—hardness of form, hardness of nature; and it would put us more at ease to find that if the fact with him (the fact of execution) is so extraordinarily definite and adequate, his explanations, after it, were a little vague and sentimental. But I am not sure that he must even be held foolish to have noticed the race of critics; he is at any rate so much less foolish than several of that fraternity. He has said his say concisely and as if he were saying it once for all. In fine his readers must be grateful to him for such a passage as that in which he remarks that whereas the public at large very legitimately says to a writer, “Console me, amuse me, terrify me, make me cry, make me dream, or make me think,” what the sincere critic says is, “Make me something fine in the form that shall suit you best, according to your temperament.” This seems to me to put into a nutshell the whole question of the different classes of fiction, concerning which there has recently been so much discourse. There are simply as many different kinds as there are persons practicing the art, for if a picture, a tale, or a novel is a direct impression of life (and that surely constitutes its interest and value), the impression will vary according to the plate that takes it, the particular structure and mixture of the recipient.

I am not sure that I know what M. de Maupassant means when he says, “The critic shall appreciate the result only according to the nature of the effort; he has no right to concern himself with tendencies.” The second clause of that observation strikes me as rather in the air, thanks to the vagueness of the last word. But our author adds to the definiteness of his contention when he goes on to say that any form of the novel is simply a vision of the world from the standpoint of a person constituted after a certain fashion and that it is therefore absurd to say that there is, for the novelist’s use, only one reality of things. This seems to me commendable, not as a flight of metaphysics, hovering over bottomless gulfs of controversy, but, on the contrary, as a just indication of the vanity of certain dogmatisms. The particular way we see the world is our particular illusion about it, says M. de Maupassant, and this illusion fits itself to our organs and senses; our receptive vessel becomes the furniture of our little plot of the universal consciousness.

“How childish, moreover, to believe in reality, since we each carry our own in our thought and in our organs. Our eyes, our ears, our sense of smell, of taste, differing from one person to another, create as many truths as there are men upon earth. And our minds, taking instruction from these organs, so diversely impressed, understand, analyze, judge, as if each of us belonged to a different race. Each one of us therefore forms for himself an illusion of the world, which is the illusion poetic, or sentimental, or joyous, or melancholy, or unclean, or dismal, according to his nature. And the writer has no other mission than to reproduce faithfully this illusion, with all the contrivances of art that he has learned and has at his command. The illusion of beauty, which is a human convention! The illusion of ugliness, which is a changing opinion! The illusion of truth, which is never immutable! The illusion of the ignoble, which attracts so many! The great artists are those who make humanity accept their particular illusion. Let us, therefore, not get angry with any one theory, since every theory is the generalized expression of a temperament asking itself questions.”

What is interesting in this is not that M. de Maupassant happens to hold that we have no universal measure of the truth, but that it is the last word on a question of art from a writer who is rich in experience and has had success in a very rare degree. It is of secondary importance that our impression should be called, or not called, an illusion; what is excellent is that our author has stated more neatly than we have lately seen it done that the value of the artist resides in the clearness with which he gives forth that impression. His particular organism constitutes a case, and the critic is intelligent in proportion as he apprehends and enters into that case. To quarrel with it because it is not another, which it couldn’t possibly have been without a totally different outfit, appears to M. de Maupassant a deplorable waste of time. If this appeal to our disinterestedness may strike some readers as chilling (through their inability to conceive of any other form than the one they like⁠—limitation excellent for a reader but poor for a judge), the occasion happens to be none of the best for saying so, for M. de Maupassant himself precisely presents all the symptoms of a “case” in the most striking way, and shows us how far the consideration of them may take us. Embracing such an opportunity as this and giving ourselves to it freely seems to me indeed to be a course more fruitful in valid conclusions, as well as in entertainment by the way, than the more common method of establishing one’s own premises. To make clear to ourselves those of the author of Pierre et Jean⁠—those to which he is committed by the very nature of his mind⁠—is an attempt that will both stimulate and repay curiosity. There is no way of looking at his work less dry, less academic, for as we proceed from one of his peculiarities to another the whole horizon widens, yet without our leaving firm ground, and we see ourselves landed, step by step, in the most general questioning⁠—those explanations of things which reside in the race, in the society. Of course there are cases and cases, and it is the salient ones that the disinterested critic is delighted to meet.

What makes M. de Maupassant salient is two facts: the first of which is that his gifts are remarkably strong and definite, and the second that he writes directly from them, as it were: holds the final, the most uninterrupted⁠—I scarcely know what to call it⁠—the boldest communication with them. A case is poor when the cluster of the artist’s sensibilities is small or they themselves are wanting in keenness, or else when the personage doesn’t admit them⁠—either through ignorance, or diffidence, or stupidity, or the error of a false ideal⁠—to what may be called a legitimate share in his attempt. It is, I think, among English and American writers that this latter accident is most liable to occur; more than the French we are apt to be misled by some convention or other as to the sort of feeler we ought to put forth, forgetting that the best one will be the one that nature happens to have given us. We have doubtless often enough the courage of our opinions (when it befalls that we have opinions), but we have not so constantly that of our perceptions. There is a whole side of our perceptive apparatus that we in fact neglect, and there are probably many among us who would erect this tendency into a duty. M. de Maupassant neglects nothing that he possesses; he cultivates his garden with admirable energy; and if there is a flower you miss from the rich parterre you may be sure that it couldn’t possibly have been raised, his mind not containing the soil for it. He is plainly of the opinion that the first duty of the artist, and the thing that makes him most useful to his fellow-men, is to master his instrument, whatever it may happen to be.

His own is that of the senses, and it is through them alone, or almost alone, that life appeals to him; it is almost alone by their help that he describes it, that he produces brilliant works. They render him this great assistance because they are evidently, in his constitution, extraordinarily alive; there is scarcely a page in all his twenty volumes that does not testify to their vivacity. Nothing could be further from his thought than to disavow them and to minimize their importance. He accepts them frankly, gratefully, works them, rejoices in them. If he were told that there are many English writers who would be sorry to go with him in this, he would, I imagine, staring, say that that is about what was to have been expected of the Anglo-Saxon race, or even that many of them probably could not go with him if they would. Then he would ask how our authors can be so foolish as to sacrifice such a moyen, how they can afford to, and exclaim, “They must be pretty works, those they produce, and give a fine, true, complete account of life, with such omissions, such lacunae!” M. de Maupassant’s productions teach us, for instance, that his sense of smell is exceptionally acute⁠—as acute as that of those animals of the field and forest whose subsistence and security depend upon it. It might be thought that he would, as a student of the human race, have found an abnormal development of this faculty embarrassing, scarcely knowing what to do with it, where to place it. But such an apprehension betrays an imperfect conception of his directness and resolution, as well as of his constant economy of means. Nothing whatever prevents him from representing the relations of men and women as largely governed by the scent of the parties. Human life in his pages (would this not be the most general description he would give of it?) appears for the most part as a sort of concert of odors, and his people are perpetually engaged, or he is engaged on their behalf, in sniffing up and distinguishing them, in some pleasant or painful exercise of the nostril. “If everything in life speaks to the nostril why on earth shouldn’t we say so?” I suppose him to inquire; “and what a proof of the empire of poor conventions and hypocrisies, ches rous antres, that you should pretend to describe and characterize and yet take no note (or so little that it comes to the same thing) of that essential sign!”

Not less powerful is his visual sense, the quick, direct discrimination of his eye, which explains the singularly vivid concision of his descriptions. These are never prolonged or analytic, have nothing of enumeration, of the quality of the observer who counts the items to be sure he has made up the sum. His eye selects unerringly, unscrupulously, almost impudently⁠—catches the particular thing in which the character of the object or the scene resides and, by expressing it with the artful brevity of a master, leaves a convincing, original picture. If he is inveterately synthetic he is never more so than in the way he brings this hard, short, intelligent gaze to bear. His vision of the world is for the most part a vision of ugliness, and even when it is not there is in his easy power to generalize a certain absence of love, a sort of bird’s-eye-view contempt. He has none of the superstitions of observation, none of our English indulgencies, our tender and often imaginative superficialities. If he glances into a railway carriage bearing its freight into the Parisian suburbs of a summer Sunday, a dozen dreary lives map themselves out in a flash.

“There were stout ladies in farcical clothes, those middle-class goodwives of the banlieue who replace the distinction they don’t possess by an irrelevant dignity; gentlemen weary of the office, with sallow faces and twisted bodies and one of their shoulders a little forced up by perpetual bending at work over a table. Their anxious, joyless faces spoke moreover of domestic worries, incessant needs for money, old hopes finally shattered; for they all belonged to the army of poor threadbare devils who vegetate frugally in a mean little plaster house, with a flowerbed for a garden.⁠ ⁠…”

Even in a brighter picture, such as the admirable vignette of the drive of Madame Tellier and her companions, the whole thing is an impression, as painters say nowadays, in which the figures are cheap. The six women at the station clamber into a country cart and go jolting through the Norman landscape to the village.

“But presently the jerky trot of the nag shook the vehicle so terribly that the chairs began to dance, tossing up the travelers to right, to left, with movements like puppets, scared grimaces, cries of dismay suddenly interrupted by a more violent bump. They clutched the sides of the trap, their bonnets turned over on to their backs, or upon the nose or the shoulder; and the white horse continued to go, thrusting out his head and straightening the little tail, hairless like that of a rat, with which from time to time he whisked his buttocks. Joseph Rivet, with one foot stretched upon the shaft, the other leg bent under him and his elbows very high, held the reins and emitted from his throat every moment a kind of cluck which caused the animal to prick up his ears and quicken his pace. On either side of the road the green country stretched away. The colza, in flower, produced in spots a great carpet of undulating yellow, from which there rose a strong, wholesome smell, a smell penetrating and pleasant, carried very far by the breeze. In the tall rye the bluebottles held up their little azuro heads, which the women wished to pluck; but M. Rivet refused to stop. Then, in some place, a whole field looked as if it were sprinkled with blood, it was so crowded with poppies. And in the midst of the great level, taking color in this fashion from the flowers of the soil, the trap passed on with the jog of the white horse, seeming itself to carry & nosegay of richer hues; it disappeared behind the big trees of a farm, to come out again where the foliage stopped and parade afresh through the green and yellow crops, pricked with red or blue, its blazing cartload of women, which receded in the sunshine.”

As regards the other sense, the sense par excellence, the sense which we scarcely mention in English fiction and which I am not very sure I shall be allowed to mention in an English periodical, M. de Maupassant speaks for that, and of it, with extraordinary distinctness and authority. To say that it occupies the first place in his picture is to say too little; it covers in truth the whole canvas, and his work is little else but a report of its innumerable manifestations. These manifestations are not, for him, so many incidents of life, they are life itself; they represent the standing answer to any question that we may ask about it. He describes them in detail, with a familiarity and a frankness which leave nothing to be added; I should say with singular truth if I did not consider that in regard to this article he may be taxed with a certain exaggeration. M. de Maupassant would doubtless affirm that where the empire of the sexual sense is concerned no exaggeration is possible; nevertheless it may be said that whatever depths may be discovered by those who dig for them, the impression of the human spectacle for him who takes it as it comes has less analogy with that of the monkeys’ cage than this admirable writer’s account of it. I speak of the human spectacle as we Anglo-Saxons see it⁠—as we Anglo-Saxons pretend we see it M. de Maupassant would possibly say.

At any rate I have perhaps touched upon this peculiarity sufficiently to explain my remark that his point of view is almost solely that of the senses. If he is a very interesting case this makes him also an embarrassing one, embarrassing and mystifying for the moralist. I may as well admit that no writer of the day strikes me as equally so. To find M. de Maupassant a lion in the path⁠—that may seem to some people a singular proof of want of courage; but I think the obstacle will not be made light of by those who have really taken the measure of the animal. We are accustomed to think, we of the English faith, that a cynic is a living advertisement of his errors, especially in proportion as he is a thoroughgoing one; and M. de Maupassant’s cynicism, unrelieved as it is, will not be disposed of offhand by a critic of a competent literary sense. Such a critic is not slow to perceive, to his no small confusion, that though, judging from usual premises, the author of Bel-Ami ought to be a warning, he somehow is not. His baseness, as it pervades him, ought to be written all over him; yet somehow there are there certain aspects⁠—and those commanding, as the house-agents say⁠—in which it is not in the least to be perceived. It is easy to exclaim that if he judges life only from the point of view of the senses many are the noble and exquisite things that he must leave out. What he leaves out has no claim to get itself considered till after we have done justice to what he takes in. It is this positive side of M. de Maupassant that is most remarkable⁠—the fact that his literary character is so complete and edifying. “Auteur à peu près irréprochable dans un genre qui ne l’est pas,” as that excellent critic M. Jules Lemaitre says of him, he disturbs us by associating a conscience and a high standard with a temper long synonymous, in our eyes, with an absence of scruples. The situation would be simpler certainly if he were a bad writer; but none the less it is possible, I think, on the whole, to circumvent him, even without attempting to prove that after all he is one.

The latter part of his introduction to Pierre et Jean is less felicitous than the beginning, but we learn from it⁠—and this is interesting⁠—that he regards the analytic fashion of telling a story, which has lately begotten in his own country some such remarkable experiments (few votaries as it has attracted among ourselves), as very much less profitable than the simple epic manner which “avoids with care all complicated explanations, all dissertations upon motives, and confines itself to making persons and events pass before our eyes.” M. de Maupassant adds that in his view “psychology should be hidden in a book, as it is hidden in reality under the facts of existence. The novel conceived in this manner gains interest, movement, color, the bustle of life.” When it is a question of an artistic process we must always mistrust very sharp distinctions, for there is surely in every method a little of every other method. It is as difficult to describe an action without glancing at its motive, its moral history, as it is to describe a motive without glancing at its practical consequence. Our history and our fiction are what we do; but it surely is not more easy to determine where what we do begins than to determine where it ends⁠—notoriously a hopeless task. Therefore it would take a very subtle sense to draw a hard and fast line on the borderland of explanation and illustration. If psychology be hidden in life, as, according to M. de Maupassant, it should be in a book, the question immediately comes up, “From whom is it hidden?” From some people, no doubt, but very much less from others; and all depends upon the observer, the nature of one’s observation and one’s curiosity. For some people motives, reasons, relations, explanations, are a part of the very surface of the drama, with the footlights beating full upon them. For me an act, an incident, an attitude may be a sharp, detached, isolated thing, of which I give a full account in saying that in such and such a way it came off. For you it may be hung about with implications, with relations and conditions as necessary to help you to recognize it as the clothes of your friends are to help you know them in the street. You feel that they would seem strange to you without petticoats and trousers.

M. de Maupassant would probably urge that the right thing is to know, or to guess, how events come to pass, but to say as little about it as possible. There are matters in regard to which he goes in, as the phrase is, for saying much, but that is not one of them. The contention to which I allude strikes me as rather arbitrary, so difficult is it to put one’s finger upon the reason why, for instance, there should be so little mystery about what happened to Christiane Andermatt, in Mont-Oriol, when she went to walk on the hills with Paul Brétigny, and so much, say, about the forces that formed her for that gentleman’s convenience, or those lying behind any other odd collapse that our author may have related. The rule misleads, and the best rule certainly is the tact of the individual writer, which will adapt itself to the material as the material comes to him. The cause we plead is ever pretty sure to be the cause of our idiosyncrasies, and if M. de Maupassant thinks meanly of “explanations,” it is, I suspect, that they come to him in no great affluence. His view of the conduct of man is so simple as scarcely to require them; and indeed so far as they are needed he is, virtually, explanatory. He deprecates reference to motives, but there is one, covering an immense ground in his horizon, as I have already hinted, to which he perpetually refers. If the sexual impulse is not a moral antecedent it is none the less the wire that moves almost all M. de Maupassant’s puppets, and as he has not hidden it I cannot see that he has eliminated analysis or made a sacrifice to discretion. His pages are studded with that particular analysis; he is constantly peeping behind the curtain, telling us what he discovers there. The truth is that the admirable system of simplification which makes his tales so rapid and so concise (especially his shorter ones, for his novels in some degree, I think, suffer from it), strikes us as not in the least a conscious intellectual effort, a selective, comparative process. He tells us all he knows, all he suspects, and if these things take no account of the moral nature of man it is because he has no window looking in that direction and not because artistic scruples have compelled him to close it up. The very compact mansion in which he dwells presents on that side a perfectly dead wall.

This is why, if his axiom that you produce the effect of truth better by painting people from the outside than from the inside has a large utility, his example is convincing in a much higher degree. A writer is fortunate when his theory and his limitations so exactly correspond, when his curiosities may be appeased with such precision and promptitude. M. de Maupassant contends that the most that the analytic novelist can do is to put himself⁠—his own peculiarities⁠—into the costume of the figure analyzed. This may be true, but if it applies to one manner of representing people who are not ourselves it applies also to any other manner. It is the limitation, the difficulty of the novelist, to whatever clan or camp he may belong. M. de Maupassant is remarkably objective and impersonal, but he would go too far if he were to entertain the belief that he has kept himself out of his books. They speak of him eloquently, even if it only be to tell us how easy⁠—how easy, given his talent of course⁠—he has found this impersonality. Let us hasten to add that in the case of describing a character it is doubtless more difficult to convey the impression of something that is not one’s self (the constant effort, however delusive at bottom, of the novelist), than in the case of describing some object more immediately visible. The operation is more delicate, but that circumstance only increases the beauty of the problem.

On the question of style our author has some excellent remarks; we may be grateful indeed for every one of them, save an odd reflection about the way to “become original” if we happen not to be so. The recipe for this transformation, it would appear, is to sit down in front of a blazing fire, or a tree in a plain, or any object we encounter in the regular way of business, and remain there until the tree, or the fire, or the object, whatever it be, become different for us from all other specimens of the same class. I doubt whether this system would always answer, for surely the resemblance is what we wish to discover, quite as much as the difference, and the best way to preserve it is not to look for something opposed to it. Is not this indication of the road to take to become, as a writer, original touched with the same fallacy as the recommendation about eschewing analysis? It is the only naivete I have encountered in M. de Maupassant’s many volumes. The best originality is the most unconscious, and the best way to describe a tree is the way in which it has struck us. “Ah, but we don’t always know how it has struck us,” the answer to that may be, “and it takes some time and ingenuity⁠—much fasting and prayer⁠—to find out.” If we don’t know, it probably hasn’t struck us very much⁠—so little indeed that our inquiry had better be relegated to that closed chamber of an artist’s meditations, that sacred back kitchen, which no à priori rule can light up. The best thing the artist’s adviser can do in such a case is to trust him and turn away, to let him fight the matter out with his conscience. And be this said with a full appreciation of the degree in which M. de Maupassant’s observations on the whole question of a writer’s style, at the point we have come to today, bear the stamp of intelligence and experience. His own style is of so excellent a tradition that the presumption is altogether in favor of what he may have to say.

He feels oppressively, discouragingly, as many another of his countrymen must have felt⁠—for the French have worked their language as no other people have done⁠—the penalty of coming at the end of three centuries of literature, the difficulty of dealing with an instrument of expression so worn by friction, of drawing new sounds from the old familiar pipe. “When we read, so saturated with French writing as we are that our whole body gives us the impression of being a paste made of words, do we ever find a line, a thought which is not familiar to us and of which we have not had at least a confused presentiment?” And he adds that the matter is simple enough for the writer who only seeks to amuse the public by means already known; he attempts little, and he produces “with confidence, in the candor of his mediocrity,” works which answer no question and leave no trace. It is he who wants to do more than this that has less and less an easy time of it. Everything seems to him to have been done, every effect produced, every combination already made. If he be a man of genius his trouble is lightened, for mysterious ways are revealed to him and new combinations spring up for him even after novelty is dead. It is to the simple man of taste and talent, who has only a conscience and a will, that the situation may sometimes well appear desperate; he judges himself as he goes, and he can only go step by step over ground where every step is already a footprint.

If it be a miracle whenever there is a fresh tone the miracle has been wrought for M. de Maupassant. Or is he simply a man of genius to whom shortcuts have been disclosed in the watches of the night? At any rate he has had faith⁠—religion has come to his aid; I mean the religion of his mother tongue, which he has loved well enough to be patient for her sake. He has arrived at the peace which passeth understanding, at a kind of conservative piety. He has taken his stand on simplicity, on a studied sobriety, being persuaded that the deepest science lies in that direction rather than in the multiplication of new terms, and on this subject he delivers himself with superlative wisdom. “There is no need of the queer, complicated, numerous and Chinese vocabulary which is imposed on us today under the name of artistic writing, to fix all the shades of thought; the right way is to distinguish with an extreme clearness all those modifications of the value of a word which come from the place it occupies. Let us have fewer nouns, verbs and adjectives of an almost imperceptible sense, and more different phrases variously constructed, ingeniously cast, full of the science of sound and rhythm. Let us have an excellent general form rather than be collectors of rare terms.” M. de Maupassant’s practice does not fall below his exhortation (though I must confess that in the foregoing passage he makes use of the detestable expression “stylist,” which I have not reproduced). Nothing can exceed the masculine firmness, the quiet force of his own style, in which every phrase is a close sequence, every epithet a paying piece, and the ground is completely cleared of the vague, the ready-made and the second-best. Less than anyone today does he beat the air; more than anyone does he hit out from the shoulder.

II

He has produced a hundred short tales and only four regular novels; but if the tales deserve the first place in any candid appreciation of his talent it is not simply because they are so much the more numerous: they are also more characteristic; they represent him best in his originality, and their brevity, extreme in some cases, does not prevent them from being a collection of masterpieces. (They are very unequal, and I speak of the best.) The little story is but scantily relished in England, where readers take their fiction rather by the volume than by the page and the novelist’s idea is apt to resemble one of those old-fashioned carriages which require a wide court to turn round. In America, where it is associated preeminently with Hawthorne’s name, with Edgar Poe’s and with that of Mr. Bret Harte, the short tale has had a better fortune. France, however, has been the land of its great prosperity, and M. de Maupassant had from the first the advantage of addressing a public accustomed to catch on, as the modern phrase is, quickly. In some respects, it may be said, he encountered prejudices too friendly, for he found a tradition of indecency ready made to his hand. I say indecency with plainness, though my indication would perhaps please better with another word, for we suffer in English from a lack of roundabout names for the conte leste⁠—that element for which the French, with their grivois, their gaillard, their égrillard, their gaudriole, have so many convenient synonyms. It is an honored tradition in France that the little story, in verse or in prose, should be liable to be more or less obscene (I can think only of that alternative epithet), though I hasten to add that among literary forms it does not monopolize the privilege. Our uncleanness is less producible⁠—at any rate it is less produced.

For the last ten years our author has brought forth with regularity these condensed compositions, of which, probably, to an English reader, at a first glance, the most universal sign will be their licentiousness. They really partake of this quality, however, in a very differing degree, and a second glance shows that they may be divided into numerous groups. It is not fair, I think, even to say that what they have most in common is their being extremely lestes. What they have most in common is their being extremely strong, and after that their being extremely brutal. A story may be obscene without being brutal, and vice versa, and M. de Maupassant’s contempt for those interdictions which are supposed to be made in the interest of good morals is but an incident⁠—a very large one indeed⁠—of his general contempt. A pessimism so great that its alliance with the love of good work, or even with the calculation of the sort of work that pays best in a country of style, is, as I have intimated, the most puzzling of anomalies (for it would seem in the light of such sentiments that nothing is worth anything), this cynical strain is the sign of such gems of narration as “La Maison Tellier,” “L’Histoire dune Fille de Ferme,” “L’Ane,” “Le Chien,” “Mademoiselle Fifi,” “Monsieur Parent,” “L’Héritage,” “En Famille,” “Le Baptème,” “Le Père Amable.” The author fixes a hard eye on some small spot of human life, usually some ugly, dreary, shabby, sordid one, takes up the particle and squeezes it either till it grimaces or till it bleeds. Sometimes the grimace is very droll, sometimes the wound is very horrible; but in either case the whole thing is real, observed, noted and represented, not an invention or a castle in the air. M. de Maupassant sees human life as a terribly ugly business relieved by the comical, but even the comedy is for the most part the comedy of misery, of avidity, of ignorance, helplessness and grossness. When his laugh is not for these things it is for the little saletés (to use one of his own favorite words) of luxurious life, which are intended to be prettier, but which can scarcely be said to brighten the picture. I like “La Bête à Maître Belhomme,” “La Ficelle,” “Le Petit Füt,” “Le Cas de Madame Luneau,” “Tribuneauz Rustiques,” and many others of this category much better than his anecdotes of the mutual confidences of his little marquises and baronnes.

Not counting his novels for the moment, his tales may be divided into the three groups of those which deal with the Norman peasantry, those which deal with the petit employé and small shopkeeper, usually in Paris, and the miscellaneous, in which the upper walks of life are represented and the fantastic, the whimsical, the weird, and even the supernatural, figure as well as the unexpurguted. These last things range from “Le Horla” (which is not a specimen of the author’s best vein⁠—the only occasion on which he has the weakness of imitation is when he strikes us as emulating Edgar Poe), to “Miss Harriet,” and from “Boule de Suif” (a triumph) to that almost inconceivable little growl of Anglophobia, “Décourerte”⁠—inconceivable I mean in its irresponsibility and ill-nature on the part of a man of M. de Maupassant’s distinction; passing by such little perfections as “Petit Soldat,” “L’Abandonné,” “Le Collier” (the list is too long for complete enumeration), and such gross imperfections (for it once in a while befalls our author to go woefully astray), as “La Femme de Paul,” “Cháli,” “Les Soeurs Rondoli.” To these might almost be added as a special category the various forms in which M. de Maupassant relates adventures in railway carriages. Numerous, to his imagination, are the pretexts for enlivening fiction afforded by first, second and third class compartments; the accidents (which have nothing to do with the conduct of the train), that occur there constitute no inconsiderable part of our earthly transit.

It is surely by his Norman peasant that his tales will live; he knows this worthy as if he had made him, understands him down to the ground, puts him on his feet with a few of the freest, most plastic touches. M. de Maupassant does not admire him, and he is such a master of the subject that it would ill become an outsider to suggest a revision of judgment. He is a part of the contemptible furniture of the world, but on the whole, it would appear, the most grotesque part of it. His caution, his canniness, his natural astuteness, his stinginess, his general grinding sordidness, are as unmistakable as that quaint and brutish dialect in which he expresses himself and on which our author plays like a virtuoso. It would be impossible to demonstrate with a finer sense of the humor of the thing the fatuities and densities of his ignorance, the bewilderments of his opposed appetites, the overreachings of his caution. His existence has a gay side, but it is apt to be the merciless gaiety commemorated in “Farce Normande,” an anecdote which, like many of M. de Maupassant’s anecdotes, it is easier to refer the reader to than to repeat. If it is most convenient to place “La Maison Tellier” among the tales of the peasantry, there is no doubt that it stands at the head of the list. It is absolutely unadapted to the perusal of ladies and young persons, but it shares this peculiarity with most of its fellows, so that to ignore it on that account would be to imply that we must forswear M. de Maupassant altogether, which is an incongruous and insupportable conclusion. Every good story is of course both a picture and an idea, and the more they are interfused the better the problem is solved. In “La Maison Tellier” they fit each other to perfection; the capacity for sudden innocent delights latent in natures which have lost their innocence is vividly illustrated by the singular scenes to which our acquaintance with Madame and her staff (little as it may be a thing to boast of), successively introduces us. The breadth, the freedom and brightness of all this give the measure of the author’s talent and of that large, keen way of looking at life which sees the pathetic and the droll, the stuff of which the whole piece is made, in the queerest and humblest patterns. The tone of “La Maison Tellier” and the few compositions which closely resemble it expresses M. de Maupassant’s nearest approach to geniality. Even here, however, it is the geniality of the showman exhilarated by the success with which he feels that he makes his mannequins (and especially his womankins) caper and squeak, and who after the performance tosses them into their box with the irreverence of a practiced hand. If the pages of the author of Bel-Ami may be searched almost in vain for a manifestation of the sentiment of respect, it is naturally not by Mme. Tellier and her charges that we must look most to see it called forth; but they are among the things that please him most.

Sometimes there is a sorrow, a misery, or even a little heroism, that he handles with a certain tenderness (Une Vie is the capital example of this), without insisting on the poor, the ridiculous or, as he is fond of saying, the bestial side of it. Such an attempt, admirable in its sobriety and delicacy, is the sketch, in “L’Abandonné,” of the old lady and gentleman, Mme. de Cadour and M. d’Apreval, who, staying with the husband of the former at a little watering-place on the Normandy coast, take a long, hot walk on a summer’s day, on a straight, white road, into the interior, to catch a clandestine glimpse of a young farmer, their illegitimate son. He has been pensioned, he is ignorant of his origin, and is a commonplace and unconciliatory rustic. They look at him, in his dirty farmyard, and no sign passes between them; then they turn away and crawl back, in melancholy silence, along the dull French road. The manner in which this dreary little occurrence is related makes it as large as a chapter of history. There is tenderness in “Miss Harriet,” which sets forth how an English old maid, fantastic, hideous, sentimental and tract-distributing, with a smell of india-rubber, fell in love with an irresistible French painter and drowned herself in the well because she saw him kissing the maidservant; but the figure of the lady grazes the farcical. Is it because we know Miss Harriet (if we are not mistaken in the type the author has had in his eye), that we suspect the good spinster was not so weird and desperate, addicted though her class may be, as he says, to “haunting all the tables d’hôte in Europe, to spoiling Italy, poisoning Switzerland, making the charming towns of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carrying everywhere their queer little manias, their meurs de restales pétrifiées, their indescribable garments, and that odor of india-rubber which makes one think that at night they must be slipped into a case”? What would Miss Harriet have said to M. de Maupassant’s friend, the hero of the “Découverte,” who, having married a little Anglaise because he thought she was charming when she spoke broken French, finds she is very flat as she becomes more fluent, and has nothing more urgent than to denounce her to his compatriot on the steamboat and to relieve his wrath in ejaculations of “Sales Anglais”?

M. de Maupassant evidently knows a great deal about the army of clerks who work under government, but it is a terrible tale that he has to tell of them and of the petit bourgeois in general. It is true that he has treated the petit bourgeois in Pierre et Jean without holding him up to our derision, and the effort has been so fruitful that we owe to it the work for which, on the whole, in the long list of his successes, we are most thankful. But of Pierre et Jean, a production neither comic nor cynical (in the degree, that is, of its predecessors), but serious and fresh, I will speak anon. In “Monsieur Parent,” “l’Heritage,” “En Famille,” “Une Partie de Campagne,” “Promenade,” and many other pitiless little pieces, the author opens the window wide to his perception of everything mean, narrow and sordid. The subject is ever the struggle for existence in hard conditions, lighted up simply by more or less polissonnerie. Nothing is more striking to an Anglo-Saxon reader than the omission of all the other lights, those with which our imagination, and I think it ought to be said our observation, is familiar, and which our own works of fiction at any rate do not permit us to forget: those of which the most general description is that they spring from a certain mixture of good humor and piety⁠—piety, I mean, in the civil and domestic sense quite as much as in the religious. The love of sport, the sense of decorum, the necessity for action, the habit of respect, the absence of irony, the pervasiveness of childhood, the expansive tendency of the race, are a few of the qualities (the analysis might, I think, be pushed much further), which ease us off, mitigate our tension and irritation, rescue us from the nervous exasperation which is almost the commonest element of life as depicted by M. de Maupassant. No doubt there is in our literature an immense amount of conventional blinking, and it may be questioned whether pessimistic representation in M. de Maupassant’s manner does not follow his particular original more closely than our perpetual quest of pleasantness (does not Mr. Rider Haggard make even his African carnage pleasant?) adheres to the lines of the world we ourselves know.

Fierce indeed is the struggle for existence among even our pious and good-humored millions, and it is attended with incidents as to which after all little testimony is to be extracted from our literature of fiction. It must never be forgotten that the optimism of that literature is partly the optimism of women and of spinsters; in other words the optimism of ignorance as well as of delicacy. It might be supposed that the French, with their mastery of the arts d’agrément, would have more consolations than we, but such is not the account of the matter given by the new generation of painters. To the French we seem superficial, and we are certainly open to the reproach; but none the less even to the infinite majority of readers of good faith there will be a wonderful want of correspondence between the general picture of Bel-Ami, of Mont-Oriol, of Une Vie, “Yvette” and En Famille, and our own vision of reality. It is an old impression of course that the satire of the French has a very different tone from ours; but few English readers will admit that the feeling of life is less in ours than in theirs. The feeling of life is evidently, de part et d’autre, a very different thing. If in ours, as the novel illustrates it, there are superficialities, there are also qualities which are far from being negatives and omissions: a large imagination and (is it fatuous to say?) a large experience of the positive kind. Even those of our novelists whose manner is most ironic pity life more and hate it less than M. de Maupassant and his great initiator Flaubert. It comes back I suppose to our good-humor (which may apparently also be an artistic force); at any rate we have reserves about our shames and our sorrows, indulgences and tolerances about our Philistinism, forbearances about our blows and a general friendliness of conception about our possibilities, which take the cruelty from our self-derision and operate in the last resort as a sort of tribute to our freedom. There is a horrible, admirable scene in “Monsieur Parent,” which is a capital example of triumphant ugliness. The harmless gentleman who gives his name to the tale has an abominable wife, one of whose offensive attributes is a lover (unsuspected by her husband) only less impudent than herself. M. Parent comes in from a walk with his little boy, at dinnertime, to encounter suddenly in his abused, dishonored, deserted home, convincing proof of her misbehavior. He waits and waits dinner for her, giving her the benefit of every doubt; but when at last she enters, late in the evening, accompanied by the partner of her guilt, there is a tremendous domestic concussion. It is to the peculiar vividness of this scene that I allude, the way we hear it and see it and its most repulsive details are evoked for us; the sordid confusion, the vulgar noise, the disordered table and ruined dinner, the shrill insolence of the wife, her brazen mendacity, the scared inferiority of the lover, the mere momentary heroics of the weak husband, the scuffle and somersault, the eminently unpoetic justice with which it all ends.

When Thackeray relates how Arthur Pendennis goes home to take potluck with the insolvent Newcomes at Boulogne and how the dreadful Mrs. Mackenzie receives him, and how she makes a scene, when the frugal repast is served, over the diminished mutton-bone, we feel that the notation of that order of misery goes about as far as we can bear it. But this is child’s play to the history of M. and Mme. Caravan and their attempt, after the death (or supposed death) of the husband’s mother, to transfer to their apartment before the arrival of the other heirs certain miserable little articles of furniture belonging to the deceased, together with the frustration of the maneuver, not only by the grim resurrection of the old woman (which is a sufficiently fantastic item), but by the shock of battle when a married daughter and her husband appear. No one gives us like M. de Maupassant the odious words exchanged on such an occasion as that; no one depicts with so just a hand the feelings of small people about small things. These feelings are very apt to be “fury”; that word is of strikingly frequent occurrence in his pages. “L’Héritage” is a drama of private life in the little world of the Ministère de la Marine⁠—a world, according to M. de Maupassant, of dreadful little jealousies and ineptitudes. Readers of a robust complexion should learn how the wretched M. Lesable was handled by his wife and her father on his failing to satisfy their just expectations, and how he comported himself in the singular situation thus prepared for him. The story is a model of narration, but it leaves our poor average humanity dangling like a beaten rag.

Where does M. de Maupassant find the great multitude of his detestable women? or where at least does he find the courage to represent them in such colors? Jeanne de Lamare, in Une Vie, receives the outrages of fate with a passive fortitude; and there is something touching in Mme. Roland’s âme tendre de caissière, as exhibited in Pierre et Jean. But for the most part M. de Maupassant’s heroines are a mixture of extreme sensuality and extreme mendacity. They are a large element in that general disfigurement, that illusion de l’ignoble, qui attire tant d’êtres, which makes the perverse or the stupid side of things the one which strikes him first, which leads him, if he glances at a group of nurses and children sunning themselves in a Parisian square, to notice primarily the yeux de brute of the nurses; or if he speaks of the longing for a taste of the country which haunts the shopkeeper fenced in behind his counter, to identify it as the amour bête de la nature; or if he has occasion to put the boulevards before us on a summer’s evening, to seek his effect in these terms: “The city, as hot as a stew, seemed to sweat in the suffocating night. The drains puffed their pestilential breath from their mouths of granite, and the underground kitchens poured into the streets, through their low windows, the infamous miasmas of their dishwater and old sauces.” I do not contest the truth of such indications, I only note the particular selection and their seeming to the writer the most apropos.

Is it because of the inadequacy of these indications when applied to the long stretch that M. de Maupassant’s novels strike us as less complete, in proportion to the talent expended upon them, than his contes and nouvelles? I make this invidious distinction in spite of the fact that Une Vie (the first of the novels in the order of time) is a remarkably interesting experiment, and that Pierre et Jean is, so far as my judgment goes, a faultless production. Bel-Ami is full of the bustle and the crudity of life (its energy and expressiveness almost bribe one to like it), but it has the great defect that the physiological explanation of things here too visibly contracts the problem in order to meet it. The world represented is too special, too little inevitable, too much to take or to leave as we like⁠—a world in which every man is a cad and every woman a harlot. M. de Maupassant traces the career of a finished blackguard who succeeds in life through women, and he represents him primarily as succeeding in the profession of journalism. His colleagues and his mistresses are as depraved as himself, greatly to the injury of the ironic idea, for the real force of satire would have come from seeing him engaged and victorious with natures better than his own. It may be remarked that this was the case with the nature of Mme. Walter; but the reply to that is⁠—hardly! Moreover the author’s whole treatment of the episode of Mme. Walter is the thing on which his admirers have least to congratulate him. The taste of it is so atrocious that it is difficult to do justice to the way it is made to stand out. Such an instance as this pleads with irresistible eloquence, as it seems to me, the cause of that salutary diffidence or practical generosity which I mentioned on a preceding page. I know not the English or American novelist who could have written this portion of the history of Bel-Ami if he would. But I also find it impossible to conceive of a member of that fraternity who would have written it if he could. The subject of Mont-Oriol is full of queerness to the English mind. Here again the picture has much more importance than the idea, which is simply that a gentleman, if he happen to be a low animal, is liable to love a lady very much less if she presents him with a pledge of their affection. It need scarcely be said that the lady and gentleman who in M. de Maupassant’s pages exemplify this interesting truth are not united in wedlock⁠—that is with each other.

M. de Maupassant tells us that he has imbibed many of his principles from Gustave Flaubert, from the study of his works as well as, formerly, the enjoyment of his words. It is in Une Vie that Flaubert’s influence is most directly traceable, for the thing has a marked analogy with L’Education Sentimentale. That is, it is the presentation of a simple piece of a life (in this case a long piece), a series of observations upon an episode quelconque, as the French say, with the minimum of arrangement of the given objects. It is an excellent example of the way the impression of truth may be conveyed by that form, but it would have been a still better one if in his search for the effect of dreariness (the effect of dreariness may be said to be the subject of Une Vie, so far as the subject is reducible), the author had not eliminated excessively. He has arranged, as I say, as little as possible; the necessity of a “plot” has in no degree imposed itself upon him, and his effort has been to give the uncomposed, unrounded look of life, with its accidents, its broken rhythm, its queer resemblance to the famous description of “Bradshaw,” as a compound of trains that start but don’t arrive and trains that arrive but don’t start. It is almost an arrangement of the history of poor Mme. de Lamare to have left so many things out of it, for after all she is described in very few of the relations of life. The principal ones are there certainly; we see her as a daughter, a wife and a mother, but there is a certain accumulation of secondary experience that marks any passage from youth to old age which is a wholly absent element in M. de Maupassant’s narrative, and the suppression of which gives the thing a tinge of the arbitrary. It is in the power of this secondary experience to make a great difference, but nothing makes any difference for Jeanne de Lamare as M. de Maupassant puts her before us. Had she no other points of contact than those he describes?⁠—no friends, no phases, no episodes, no chances, none of the miscellaneous remplissage of life? No doubt M. de Maupassant would say that he has had to select, that the most comprehensive enumeration is only a condensation, and that, in accordance with the very just principles enunciated in that preface to which I have perhaps too repeatedly referred, he has sacrificed what is uncharacteristic to what is characteristic. It characterizes the career of this French country lady of fifty years ago that its long gray expanse should be seen as peopled with but five or six figures. The essence of the matter is that she was deceived in almost every affection, and that essence is given if the persons who deceived her are given.

The reply is doubtless adequate, and I have only intended my criticism to suggest the degree of my interest. What it really amounts to is that if the subject of this artistic experiment had been the existence of an English lady, even a very dull one, the air of verisimilitude would have demanded that she should have been placed in a denser medium. Une Vie may after all be only a testimony to the fact of the melancholy void of the coast of Normandy, even within a moderate drive of a great seaport, under the Restoration and Louis Philippe. It is especially to be recommended to those who are interested in the question of what constitutes a “story,” offering as it does the most definite sequences at the same time that it has nothing that corresponds to the usual idea of a plot, and closing with an implication that finds us prepared. The picture again in this case is much more dominant than the idea, unless it be an idea that loneliness and grief are terrible. The picture, at any rate, is full of truthful touches, and the work has the merit and the charm that it is the most delicate of the author’s productions and the least hard. In none other has he occupied himself so continuously with so innocent a figure as his soft, bruised heroine; in none other has he paid our poor blind human history the compliment (and this is remarkable, considering the fatness of so much of the particular subject), of finding it so little béte. He may think it, here, but comparatively he doesn’t say it. He almost betrays a sense of moral things. Jeanne is absolutely passive, she has no moral spring, no active moral life, none of the edifying attributes of character (it costs her apparently as little as may be in the way of a shock, a complication of feeling, to discover, by letters, after her mother’s death, that this lady has not been the virtuous woman she has supposed); but her chronicler has had to handle the immaterial forces of patience and renunciation, and this has given the book a certain purity, in spite of two or three “physiological” passages that come in with violence⁠—a violence the greater as we feel it to be a result of selection. It is very much a mark of M. de Maupassant that on the most striking occasion, with a single exception, on which his picture is not a picture of libertinage, it is a picture of unmitigated suffering. Would he suggest that these are the only alternatives?

The exception that I here allude to is for Pierre et Jean, which I have left myself small space to speak of. Is it because in this masterly little novel there is a show of those immaterial forces which I just mentioned, and because Pierre Roland is one of the few instances of operative character that can be recalled from so many volumes, that many readers will place M. de Maupassant’s latest production altogether at the head of his longer ones? I am not sure, inasmuch as after all the character in question is not extraordinarily distinguished and the moral problem not presented in much complexity. The case is only relative. Perhaps it is not of importance to fix the reasons of preference in respect to a piece of writing so essentially a work of art and of talent. Pierre et Jean is the best of M. de Maupassant’s novels mainly because M. de Maupassant has never before been so clever. It is a pleasure to see a mature talent able to renew itself, strike another note and appear still young. This story suggests the growth of a perception that everything has not been said about the actors on the world’s stage when they are represented as either helpless victims or as mere bundles of appetites. There is an air of responsibility about Pierre Roland, the person on whose behalf the tale is mainly told, which almost constitutes a pledge. An inquisitive critic may ask why in this particular case M. de Maupassant should have stuck to the petit bourgeois, the circumstances not being such as to typify that class more than another. There are reasons indeed which on reflection are perceptible; it was necessary that his people should be poor, and necessary even that to attenuate Madame Roland’s misbehavior she should have had the excuse of the contracted life of a shopwoman in the Rue Montmartre. Were the inquisitive critic slightly malicious as well, he might suspect the author of a fear that he should seem to give way to the illusion du beau if, in addition to representing the little group in Pierre et Jean as persons of about the normal conscience, he had also represented them as of the cultivated class. If they belong to the humble life this belittles and⁠—I am still quoting the supposedly malicious critic⁠—M. de Maupassant must, in one way or the other, belittle. To the English reader it will appear, I think, that Pierre and Jean are rather more of the cultivated class than two young Englishmen in the same social position. It belongs to the drama that the struggle of the elder brother⁠—educated, proud and acute⁠—should be partly with the pettiness of his opportunities. The author’s choice of a milieu, moreover, will serve to English readers as an example of how much more democratic contemporary French fiction is than that of his own country. The greater part of it⁠—almost all the work of Zola and of Daudet, the best of Flaubert’s novels and the best of those of the brothers De Goncourt⁠—treat of that vast, dim section of society which, lying between those luxurious walks on whose behalf there are easy presuppositions and that darkness of misery which, in addition to being picturesque, brings philanthropy also to the writer’s aid, constitutes really, in extent and expressiveness, the substance of any nation. In England, where the fashion of fiction still sets mainly to the country house and the hunting-field, and yet more novels are published than anywhere else in the world, that thick twilight of mediocrity of condition has been little explored. May it yield triumphs in the years to come!

It may seem that I have claimed little for M. de Maupassant, so far as English readers are concerned with him, in saying that after publishing twenty improper volumes he has at last published a twenty-first which is neither indecent nor cynical. It is not this circumstance that has led me to dedicate so many pages to him, but the circumstance that in producing all the others he yet remained, for those who are interested in these matters, a writer with whom it was impossible not to reckon. This is why I called him, to begin with, so many ineffectual names: a rarity, a “case,” an embarrassment, a lion in the path. He is still in the path as I conclude these observations, but I think that in making them we have discovered a legitimate way round. If he is a master of his art and it is discouraging to find what low views are compatible with mastery, there is satisfaction on the other hand in learning on what particular condition he holds his strange success. This condition, it seems to me, is that of having totally omitted one of the items of the problem, an omission which has made the problem so much easier that it may almost be described as a shortcut to a solution. The question is whether it is a fair cut. M. de Maupassant has simply skipped the whole reflective part of his men and women⁠—that reflective part which governs conduct and produces character. He may say that he doesn’t see it, doesn’t know it; to which the answer is, “So much the better for you, if you wish to describe life without it. The strings you pull are by so much the less numerous, and you can therefore pull those that remain with greater promptitude, consequently with greater firmness, with a greater air of knowledge.” Pierre Roland, I repeat, shows a capacity for reflection, but I cannot think who else does, among the thousand figures who compete with him⁠—I mean for reflection addressed to anything higher than the gratification of an instinct. We have an impression that M. d’Apreval and Madame de Cadour reflect, as they trudge back from their mournful excursion, but that indication is not pushed very far. An aptitude for this exercise is a part of disciplined manhood, and disciplined manhood M. de Maupassant has simply not attempted to represent. I can remember no instance in which he sketches any considerable capacity for conduct, and his women betray that capacity as little as his men. I am much mistaken if he has once painted a gentleman, in the English sense of the term. His gentlemen, like Paul Brétigny and Gontran de Ravenel, are guilty of the most extraordinary deflections. For those who are conscious of this element in life, look for it and like it, the gap will appear to be immense. It will lead them to say, “No wonder you have a contempt if that is the way you limit the field. No wonder you judge people roughly if that is the way you see them. Your work, on your premises, remains the admirable thing it is, but is your case not adequately explained?”

The erotic element in M. de Maupassant, about which much more might have been said, seems to me to be explained by the same limitation and explicable in a similar way wherever else its literature occurs in excess. The carnal side of man appears the most characteristic if you look at it a great deal; and you look at it a great deal if you don’t look at the other, at the side by which he reacts against his weaknesses, his defects. The more you look at the other the less the whole business to which French novelists have ever appeared to English readers to give a disproportionate place⁠—the business, as I may say, of the senses⁠—will strike you as the only typical one. Is not this the most useful reflection to make in regard to the famous question of the morality, the decency, of the novel? It is the only one, it seems to me, that will meet the case as we find the case today. Hard and fast rules, à priori restrictions, mere interdictions (you shall not speak of this, you shall not look at that), have surely served their time and will in the nature of the case never strike an energetic talent as anything but arbitrary. A healthy, living and growing art, full of curiosity and fond of exercise, has an indefeasible mistrust of rigid prohibitions. Let us then leave this magnificent art of the novelist to itself and to its perfect freedom, in the faith that one example is as good as another and that our fiction will always be decent enough if it be sufficiently general. Let us not be alarmed at this prodigy (though prodigies are alarming) of M. de Maupassant, who is at once so licentious and so impeccable, but gird ourselves up with the conviction that another point of view will yield another perfection.

Henry James.

Short Fiction

The Dead Hand

One evening, about eight months ago, a friend of mine, Louis R., had invited together some college friends. We drank punch, and smoked, and talked about literature and art, telling amusing stories from time to time, as young men do when they come together. Suddenly the door opened wide, and one of my best friends from childhood entered like a hurricane. “Guess where I come from!” he shouted immediately. “Mabille’s, I bet,” one of us replied. “No,” said another, “you are too cheerful; you have just borrowed some money, or buried your uncle, or pawned your watch.” A third said: “You have been drunk, and as you smelt Louis’s punch, you came up to start all over again.”

“You are all wrong. I have come from P⁠⸺ in Normandy, where I have been spending a week, and from which I have brought along a distinguished criminal friend of mine, whom I will introduce, with your permission.” With these words he drew from his pocket a skinned hand. It was a horrible object; black and dried, very long and looking as if it were contracted. The muscles, of extraordinary power, were held in place on the back and palm by a strip of parchment-like skin, while the narrow, yellow nails still remained at the tips of the fingers. The whole hand reeked of crime a mile off.

“Just fancy,” said my friend, “the other day the belongings of an old sorcerer were sold who was very well known all over the countryside. He used to ride to the sabbath every Saturday night on a broomstick, he practised white and black magic, caused the cows to give blue milk and to wear their tails like that of Saint Anthony’s companion. At all events, the old ruffian had a great affection for this hand, which, he said, was that of a celebrated criminal, who was tortured in 1736 for having thrown his legitimate spouse head foremost into a well, and then hung the priest who married them to the spire of his church. After this twofold exploit he went wandering all over the world, and during a short but busy career he had robbed twelve travellers, smoked out some twenty monks in a monastery, and turned a nunnery into a harem.”

“But,” we cried, “what are you going to do with that horrible thing?”

“Why, I’ll use it as a bell handle to frighten away my criditors.”

“My dear fellow,” said Henry Smith, a tall, phlegmatic Englishman, “I believe this hand is simply a piece of Indian meat, preserved by some new method. I should advise you to make soup of it.”

“Don’t joke about it, gentlemen,” said a medical student, who was three sheets in the wind, with the utmost solemnity. “Pierre, if you take my advice, give this piece of human remains a Christian burial, for fear the owner of it may come and demand its return. Besides, this hand may perhaps have acquired bad habits. You know the proverb: ‘Once a thief always a thief.’ ”

“And ‘once a drunkard always a drunkard,’ ” retorted our host, pouring out a huge glass of punch for the student, who drank it off at a gulp, and fell under the table dead drunk. This sally was greeted with loud laughter. And Pierre, raising his glass, saluted the hand: “I drink to your master’s next visit.” Then the conversation turned to other topics, and we separated to go home.

As I was passing his door the next day, I went in. It was about two o’clock, and I found him reading and smoking. “Well, how are you?” I said. “Very well,” he answered.

“And what about your hand?”

“My hand? You must have seen it on my bell, where I put it last night when I came in. By the way, fancy, some idiot, no doubt trying to play a trick on me, came ringing at my door about midnight. I asked who was there, but, as nobody answered, I got back to bed and fell asleep again.”

Just at that moment there was a ring. It was the landlord, a vulgar and most impertinent person. He came in without greeting us, and said to my friend: “I must ask you, Sir, to remove at once that piece of carrion which you have attached to your bell-handle. Otherwise I shall be obliged to ask you to leave.”

“Sir,” replied Pierre very gravely, “you are insulting a hand which is worthy of better treatment. I would have you know that it belonged to a most respectable man.”

The landlord turned on his heel and walked out, just as he had come in. Pierre followed him, unhooked the hand, and attached it to the bell in his bedroom. “It is better there,” he said. “Like the Trappists’ memento mori, this hand will bring me serious thoughts every night as I fall asleep.” An hour later I left him and went home.

I slept badly the following night. I was nervous and restless. Several times I awoke with a start, and once I even fancied that a man had got into my room. I got up and looked in the wardrobes and under the bed. Finally, about six o’clock in the morning, when I was beginning to doze off, a violent knock at my door made me jump out of bed. It was my friend’s servant, half undressed, pale and trembling. “Oh, Sir,” he cried with a sob, “they’ve murdered the poor master.” I dressed in haste and rushed off to Pierre’s.

The house was full of people, arguing and moving about incessantly. Everyone was holding forth, relating the event and commenting upon it from every angle. With great difficulty I reached the bedroom. The door was guarded, but I gave my name, and I was admitted. Four police officers were standing in the centre of the room, notebook in hand, and they were making an examination. From time to time they spoke to each other in whispers and made entries in their notebooks. Two doctors were chatting near the bed on which Pierre was lying unconscious. He was not dead, but he looked awful. His staring eyes, his dilated pupils, seemed to be gazing fixedly with unspeakable terror at something strange and horrible. His fingers were contracted stiffly, and his body was covered up to his chin by a sheet, which I lifted. On his throat were the marks of five fingers which had pressed deeply into his flesh, and his shirt was stained by a few drops of blood. At that moment something struck me. I glanced at the bedroom bell; the skinned hand had disappeared. Doubtless the doctors had taken it away to spare the feelings of the people who came into the patient’s room, for that hand was really dreadful. I did not ask what had become of it.

I now take a cutting from one of the next day’s papers, giving the story of the crime, with all the details the police could procure. This is what it said:

“A horrible outrage was committed yesterday, the victim being a young gentleman, Monsieur Pierre B⁠⸺ a law student, and a member of one of the best families in Normandy. The young man returned home about ten o’clock in the evening, he dismissed his servant, a man named Bonvin, saying he was tired, and that he was going to bed. Towards midnight this man was aroused suddenly by his master’s bell, which was ringing furiously. He was frightened, lit a lamp and waited. The bell stopped for a minute, then rang again with such violence that the servant, frightened out of his wits, rushed out of his room and went to wake up the concierge. The latter ran and notified the police, and about fifteen minutes later they burst in the door.

“A terrible sight met their eyes. The furniture was all upset, and everything indicated that a fearful struggle had taken place between the victim and his aggressor. Young Pierre B⁠⸺ was lying motionless on his back in the middle of the room, his face livid, and his eyes dilated in the most dreadful fashion. His throat bore the deep marks of five fingers. The report of Doctor Bourdeau, who was immediately summoned, states that the aggressor must have been endowed with prodigious strength, and have had an extraordinarily thin and muscular hand, for the fingers had almost met in the flesh, and left five marks like bullet holes in the throat. No motive for the crime can be discovered, nor the identity of the criminal.”

The next day the same newspaper reported:

“M. Pierre B⁠⸺, the victim of the awful outrage which we related yesterday, recovered consciousness after two hours of devoted attention on the part of Doctor Bourdeau. His life is not in danger, but fears are entertained for his sanity. No trace of the guilty party has been found.”

It was true, my poor friend was mad. For seven months I went every day to see him at the hospital, but he did not recover the slightest glimmering of reason. In his delirium strange words escaped him, and like all insane people, he had an obsession, and always fancied a spectre was pursuing him. One day I was sent for in great haste, with a message that he was worse. He was dying when I reached him. He remained very calm for two hours, then all of a sudden, in spite of our efforts, he sat up in bed, and shouted, waving his arms as if in prey to mortal terror: “Take it! Take it! He is strangling me! Help! Help!” He ran twice around the room screaming, then he fell dead, with his face to the ground.

As he was an orphan, it was my duty to follow his remains to the little village of P⁠⸺ in Normandy, where his parents were buried. It was from this village that he came on the evening when he found us drinking punch at Louis R.’s, where he had shown us the skinned hand. His body was enclosed in a leaden coffin, and four days later I was walking sadly, with the old priest who had first taught him to read and write, in the little cemetery where his grave was being dug. The weather was glorious; the blue sky was flooded with light; the birds were singing in the hedgerows, where we had gone so often as children to eat blackberries. I fancied I could see him again creeping along the hedge and slipping in through the little hole which I knew so well, down there at the end of the paupers’ plot. Then we used to return to the house, with our cheeks and lips black with the juice of the fruit we had eaten. I looked at the bramble-bushes; they were covered with berries. I mechanically plucked one and put it into my mouth. The priest had opened his breviary and was murmuring his oremus. At the end of the avenue I could hear the spades of the gravediggers, as they dug his tomb.

Suddenly they called to us, the priest closed his prayerbook, and we went to see what they wanted. They had turned up a coffin. With a stroke of their picks they knocked off the lid, and we saw an unusually tall skeleton, lying on its back, whose empty eyes seemed to be looking at us defiantly. I had a queer sensation, for some unknown reason, and was almost afraid. “Hello!” cried one of the men, “look, the ruffian’s hand is cut off. Here it is.” And he picked up a big, dried-up hand, which was lying beside the body, and handed it to us. “I say,” said the other man laughing, “you would think that he was watching you, and that he was going to spring at your throat and make you give him back his hand.”

“Come along,” said the priest, “leave the dead in peace, and close that coffin again. We will dig a grave somewhere else for poor Monsieur Pierre.”

Everything was finished the next day and I set out for Paris again, after having left fifty francs with the old priest for masses for the repose of the soul of the man whose grave we had disturbed.

Doctor Heraclius Gloss

I

The Mental Faculties of Doctor Heraclius Gloss

Doctor Heraclius Gloss was a very learned man. Although no book of any description written by him had ever appeared in the bookshops of the town, all the inhabitants of the erudite city of Balançon regarded Doctor Heraclius Gloss as a very learned man.

How and of what was he a doctor? No one could say. No more was known than that his father and his grandfather had been called “Doctor” by their fellow citizens. He had inherited their title at the same time as he had inherited their name and their possessions: in his family one became “Doctor” from father to son, just as, from son to father, one was called Heraclius Gloss.

But even though he possessed no diploma signed and countersigned by every member of some illustrious Faculty, Doctor Heraclius was, none the less, a very worthy and a very learned man. One had only to see the forty shelves loaded with books which covered the four panels of his vast study to be quite convinced that no more learned doctor had ever honoured the city of Balançon. And, moreover, each time there was any mention of his name in the presence of either the Dean or the Warden, these worthies were always seen to smile mysteriously. It was even rumoured that one day the Warden had delivered a long eulogy on him in Latin before the Archbishop; and the witness who told the story quoted besides, as undeniable proof, these few words which he had heard:

Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus.

It was said, too, that the Dean and the Warden dined with him every Sunday; and thus no one would have dared to dispute that Doctor Heraclius Gloss was a very learned man.

II

The Physical Appearance of Doctor Heraclius Gloss

If it is true, as certain philosophers claim, that there is perfect harmony between the mental and the physical sides of a man and that one can read in the lines of the face the principal traits of a character, then Doctor Heraclius was not created to give the lie to such assertion. He was small, alert and wiry. He had in him something of the rat, the ant and the terrier: that is to say, he was the kind of being which investigates, gnaws, hunts and never tires. Looking at him one could not understand how all the doctrines which he had studied could ever have found their way into so small a head, but one could imagine, on the other hand, that he himself could have burrowed his way into science and lived there nibbling like a rat in a thick book.

What was most peculiar about him was the extraordinary thinness of his person; his friend the Dean pretended, perhaps not without reason, that he must have been forgotten for several centuries and pressed side by side with a rose and a violet in the leaves of a folio volume⁠—for he was always very smart and addicted to scent. His face especially was so like a razor blade that the side-pieces of his gold spectacles, jutting far beyond his temples, had the effect of a great yardarm on the mast of a ship.

“If he had not been the learned Doctor Heraclius,” the Warden of the Faculty of Balançon declared, “he would certainly have made an excellent knife.”

He wore a wig, dressed with care, was never ill, loved animals, did not detest his fellow men and adored roast quails.

III

How Doctor Heraclius Used to Spend His Days

As soon as the doctor was up, washed and shaved, and had partaken of a roll and butter dipped in a cup of chocolate flavoured with vanilla, he went down into his garden. Like all town gardens it was not very big, but it was pleasant, shady, full of flowers, quiet and, one might almost say, conducive to thought. In short, if one tried to picture the ideal garden for a philosopher in search of Truth, one would get some notion of the one round which Doctor Heraclius Gloss took three or four brisk turns before settling down to his daily lunch of roast quails. This little stroll, he used to say, was excellent the first thing in the morning; it quickened one’s circulation, numbed by sleep, cleared one’s brain and toned up the digestive organs.

After that the Doctor had his lunch. Then, as soon as he had drunk his coffee⁠—which he did at one gulp, for he never gave way to the sleepiness provoked by the digestive process begun at table⁠—he donned his big overcoat and went out. And each day, after having passed the Faculty and checked the time by his clumsy Louis XV watch with that of the haughty dial of the university clock, he disappeared into the Ruelle des Vieus Pigeons, whence he emerged only to return to his dinner.

What used Doctor Heraclius Gloss to do in the Ruelle des Vieus Pigeons? What used he to do, in Heaven’s name? Why, he sought philosophic truth there, and this was his way of doing so.

All the booksellers’ shops in Balançon were collected in this obscure and dirty little alley, and it would have taken years to read the titles alone of all the out of the way works which lay piled from cellar to attic in each of the fifty hovels which comprised the Ruelle des Vieus Pigeons. Doctor Heraclius Gloss considered the alley, its houses, its booksellers and its books as his own particular property. It often happened that as some bric-a-brac merchant was on his way to bed, he would hear a noise in his attic and would creep stealthily up, armed with a gigantic old-fashioned torch, only to find Doctor Heraclius Gloss, buried to his waist in a pile of books, holding with one hand the remains of a candle which was melting between his fingers, and with the other hand turning the leaves of some old manuscript from which he hoped the Truth would spring. And the poor Doctor would be surprised to hear that the belfry clock had struck nine long since and that he would have to eat a detestable dinner.

He took his research seriously, did Doctor Heraclius.

He had plumbed the depths of all philosophies, ancient and modern; he had studied the sects of India and the religions of the Negroes of Africa; there was no tribe, however insignificant, among the barbarians of the north or the savages of the south whose superstitions he had not sounded. But alas! alas! the more he used to study, to search, to investigate and meditate, the more undecided he became.

“My friend,” said he to the Warden one evening, “how much happier than we are men like Columbus who launch themselves across the seas in search of a new world! They have only to go straight ahead. The difficulties they have to face are no more than material obstacles which a stalwart man will always surmount; whilst we, tossed incessantly on an ocean of uncertainty, roughly carried away by a hypothesis like a ship by the North Wind, we suddenly encounter, as though it were a headwind, an opposing doctrine, which drives us back without hope to the port from which we started.”

One night when he was philosophising with the Dean he said to the latter:

“How right we are, my friend, to say that truth lives in a well. Buckets go down for fish, but they never bring up anything but clear water. I will leave you to guess,” he added pointedly, “how I would spell the first word.”1

It was the only pun he was ever heard to make.

IV

How Doctor Heraclius Spent His Nights

When Doctor Heraclius returned home he was generally much fatter than when he went out, for each of his pockets⁠—and he had eighteen of them⁠—was stuffed with old books of a philosophical nature, which he had just bought in the Ruelle des Vieux Pigeons; and the facetious Rector would pretend that if a chemist had analysed him at that moment it would have been found quite two-thirds of the Doctor’s composition was old paper.

At seven o’clock Heraclius Gloss sat down to table and as he ate perused the ancient books which he had just acquired. At half-past eight he rose with dignity: he was no longer the alert and lively little man that he had been all day, but a serious thinker whose brow was bent under the weight of deep meditation, like the shoulders of a porter under too heavy a load. Having thrown to his housekeeper a majestic: “I am at home to no one,” he disappeared into his study, and once there sat down before a desk heaped with books and⁠ ⁠… pondered. Truly a strange sight for anyone who could have seen into the doctor’s mind at that moment⁠—this monstrous procession of contrasting divinities and disparate beliefs, this fantastic interlacing of doctrines and hypotheses. His mind was like an arena in which the champions of all the philosophies tilted against each other in a colossal tournament. He amalgamated, combined, and mixed the old Oriental spiritualism with German materialism, the ethics of the Apostles with those of the Epicureans. He tried combinations of doctrine as one experiments in a laboratory with chemical compounds, but without ever seeing the Truth which he so much desired come bubbling to the surface; and his good friend the Warden maintained that this philosophic truth, eternally waited, was very like a philosopher’s stone⁠—a stumbling block.

At midnight the Doctor went to bed and his dreams when asleep were the same as those of his waking hours.

V

How the Dean Placed His Hopes in Eclecticism, the Doctor in Revelation and the Warden in Digestion

One evening when the Dean, the Warden and the Doctor were together in the latter’s vast study, they had a most interesting discussion.

“My friend,” said the Warden, “one ought to be an eclectic and an epicurean. Choose that which is good and reject that which is evil. Philosophy is a huge garden which extends all over the world. Pluck the dazzling flowers of the East, the pale blossoms of the North, the wild violets and cultivated roses, make a nosegay of them and inhale its perfume. If that perfume is not the most exquisite that you could imagine, it will at least be a thousand times more agreeable and more fragrant than that of a single flower⁠—be its scent the strongest in the world.”

“More varied, certainly,” replied the Doctor, “but more fragrant, no⁠—not at least if one could but find the flower which combines and concentrates in itself the scents of all the others. For in your bouquet you would not be able to prevent certain smells from destroying each other; and, in philosophy, certain beliefs from contradicting each other. The truth is a one whole⁠—and with your eclecticism you will never obtain other than a truth composed of fragments. I too have been an eclectic, but now I am an absolutist. What I desire is not a chance approximation, but the absolute truth. Every intelligent man, has, I believe, the presentiment of it and on the day when he meets it on his path he will cry: ‘There it is at last!’ It is the same thing where beauty is concerned. In my own case I did not know love until I was twenty-five. I had seen pretty women, but they had not stirred me. It would have been necessary to take something from each of them to form the ideal being whom I dimly perceived, and even then, as with the bouquet of which you spoke just now, I should not have obtained perfect beauty⁠—which is indissoluble, like gold and the truth. But one day I at last met that woman; I knew that it was she and I loved her.”

Somewhat agitated, the Doctor paused, and the Warden looked towards the Dean with a shrewd smile. After a moment Heraclius Gloss went on:

“It is revelation that we must wait for. It was revelation which lit the way for the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, and brought him to the Christian faith.⁠ ⁠…”

“Which, for you, is not the true faith,” interrupted the Warden with a laugh, “since you do not believe in it. So revelation is no more sure than eclecticism.”

“Pardon me, my friend,” retorted the Doctor. “Paul was not a philosopher. He had only a half-revelation; but his mind could not grasp the absolute truth, which is abstract. But philosophy has progressed since then, and on the day when some circumstance or other⁠—a book, or a word perhaps⁠—reveals the truth to a man enlightened enough to understand it, it will suddenly make everything clear and all superstition will vanish before it, as the stars vanish at sunrise.”

“Amen!” said the Warden, “but tomorrow a second man will be enlightened and a third on the day after. Then they will hurl their revelations at each other’s heads. Luckily, though, revelations are not very dangerous weapons.”

“But don’t you believe in anything then?” exclaimed the Doctor, who was beginning to get angry.

“I believe in digestion,” replied the Warden solemnly. “I swallow with indifference every creed, dogma, morality, superstition, hypothesis and illusion, just as at a good dinner I eat with equal pleasure hors d’ouvre, soup, joint, vegetables, sweets and dessert, after which I stretch myself philosophically on my bed, assured that my undisturbed digestion will bring me pleasant sleep during the night and life and health on the following morning.”

“Take my advice,” the Dean hastened to interpose, “and don’t let us push the comparison any farther.”

An hour afterwards, as they were leaving the house of the learned Heraclius, the Warden suddenly began to laugh and said:

“Poor Doctor, if the truth appears before him as the woman he loved did, he will be the most deceived man that the world has ever known.”

And a drunkard who was making his way home with difficulty fell down from sheer fright when he heard the Dean’s boisterous laugh mingling its deep bass with the Warden’s piercing falsetto.

VI

How for the Doctor the Road to Damascus Turned Out to Be the Ruelle des Vieux Pigeons, and How the Truth Was Revealed to Him in the Form of a Metempsychosic Manuscript

On the 17th March in the year of grace 17⁠—, the Doctor woke up in a feverish condition. During the night he had several times in his dreams seen a tall white man, dressed in patriarchal robes, who touched him on the forehead with his finger and spoke unintelligible words. To the learned Heraclius this dream seemed to be a very significant warning. But why a warning and significant of what? The doctor did not know exactly, but nevertheless he was expectant of something.

After his lunch he went as usual to the Ruelle des Vieux Pigeons and just as it was striking noon entered No. 31, belonging to Nicholas Bricolet, outfitter, dealer in antique furniture, secondhand bookseller, and in his spare time cobbler as well. The Doctor, as though moved by an inspiration, climbed at once to the attic, put his hand up to the third shelf of a Louis XIII bookcase, and took down from it a bulky parchment manuscript, entitled:

My Eighteen Metempsychoses. An Account of My Existences Since the Year CLXXXIV of the So-Called Christian Era.

Immediately following this singular title was the following introduction, which Heraclius Gloss deciphered forthwith.

“This manuscript, which contains the true story of my transmigrations, was begun by me in the city of Rome in the year 184 of the Christian era, as stated above. This explanation, destined to enlighten mankind on the alternations of reappearances of the soul, is signed by me, this 16th day of April 1748, in the town of Balançon, where I have been cast by the vicissitudes of my fate.

“Let any clearheaded man, intent upon the problems of philosophy, scan these pages, and light will be revealed to him in the most startling way.

“For this reason I am going to summarise in a few lines the substance of my story, which can be studied below, however little the reader may know of Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Spanish and French; for in the different epochs when I have reappeared as a human being, I have lived among diverse peoples. Next I will explain by what chain of ideas, what psychological precautions and what mnemonic devices I arrived at certain infallible metempsychosic conclusions.

“In the year 184 I was living in Rome and was a philosopher. As I was strolling one day along the Appian Way the idea occurred to me that Pythagoras might well have been like the still faint dawn of a great day soon to come. From that moment I had but one desire, one aim, one constant preoccupation⁠—to remember my past. But alas! all my efforts were in vain. There came back to me no memory of my previous existence.

“Now, one day I saw by chance on the pedestal of a statue of Jupiter which stood in my entrance hall, certain marks which I had carved there in my youth and which suddenly reminded me of an event long since forgotten. This was like a ray of light to me; and I realized that if a few years, sometimes one night, even, were sufficient to efface a memory, how much more certainly things accomplished in previous existences and over which had passed the great sleep of intermediate animal lives, would disappear from our remembrance.

“So I carved my own history on stone tablets in the hope that fate would one day put them before my eyes again and that for me they would act like the writing on the pedestal of the statue.

“It happened as I wished. A century later, when I was an architect, I was instructed to demolish an old house on the site of which a palace was to be built.

“One day the workmen under me brought me a broken stone covered with writing, which they had found when preparing the foundations. I set myself to decipher it and as I was reading the life of whoever had written the lines, there came back to me in an instant glimmers of light from a forgotten past. Little by little daylight penetrated my soul. I understood. I remembered. It was I who had engraved that stone.

“But during this interval of a century, what had I done and what had I been? Under what form had I suffered? Nothing could teach me that. One day, however, I had a clue, but it was so faint and vague that I dared not rely upon it. An old man, a neighbour of mine, told me that fifty years previously (just nine months before I was born) much amusement was caused in Rome by an adventure which happened to the Senator Marcus Antonius Cornelius Lipa. His wife, who was good looking and very perverse, so it was said, had purchased from the Phoenician merchants, a large monkey of which she became very fond. The Senator Cornelius Lipa was jealous of the affection which his better half showed for this four-handed beast with the face of a man, and killed him. In listening to this story I had a very vague idea that that monkey was myself and that in that form I had suffered for a long time as a penalty for some moral fall, but I gathered nothing very clearly or precisely. However, I was led to establish the following hypothesis, which is at least quite plausible.

“To take the form of an animal is a penance imposed upon the soul for crimes committed as a human being. Recollection of higher existences is given to the beast in order to punish him by the consciousness of his fall. Only a soul which has been purified by suffering can regain human form; it then forgets the animal periods through which it has passed, since it is regenerated and since such knowledge would imply unmerited suffering. Consequently Man should preserve and respect the beasts, just as one respects a sinner who is expiating his evildoing, and also in order that others may protect him when he in his turn reappears in animal form. This, in effect, is analogous to the Christian precept: ‘Do not unto others what you would not have done unto you.’

“The account of my transmigrations will show how I had the good fortune to rediscover my memories in each of my existences; how I transcribed the story anew, first on brass tablets, then on Egyptian papyrus, and at length, long afterwards, on German parchment, such as I am using today.

“It remains for me to deduce from this doctrine its philosophic conclusion. Every philosophy has been arrested before the insoluble problem of the destiny of the soul. The Christian dogma which prevails nowadays asserts that God will bring together the righteous in Paradise and will send the wicked to Hell where they will burn with the Devil. But modern common sense no longer believes in a God with the countenance of a patriarch sheltering the souls of the good under his wings as a hen shelters her chickens. Moreover, reason contradicts Christian dogma, for Paradise and Hell cannot be nowhere.

“Since space, which is infinite, is filled with worlds similar to our own; since by multiplying the generations which have succeeded each other since the beginning of this world, by those which have teemed in the innumerable worlds inhabited as our own is, one would arrive at a total of souls so supernatural and impossible⁠—the multiplication thereof being infinite⁠—that God would infallibly lose his head⁠—sound though it may be⁠—and the Devil would be in the same case, thus producing a grievous disturbance; since the number of righteous souls is infinite, just as the number of wicked souls is infinite and space itself is infinite: therefore it would be necessary to have an infinite Paradise and an infinite Hell⁠—facts which bring us to this: that Paradise would be everywhere and Hell everywhere⁠—that is to say nowhere.

“Now Reason does not contradict the metempsychosic faith. The soul, passing from the snake to the pig, from the pig to the bird, from the bird to the dog, arrives at last at the monkey and then at Man. The soul always starts afresh when each new fault is committed, up till the moment when it achieves the fulfilment of terrestrial purification which permits it to pass on to a superior world. Thus it progresses unceasingly from beast to beast and from sphere to sphere, going from the most imperfect state to the most perfect, in order to arrive at last in the planet of supreme happiness whence a fresh fault will again precipitate it into the regions of supreme suffering to recommence its transmigrations.

“The circle, that universal and fatal sign, encloses then the vicissitudes of our existences just as it governs the evolution of worlds.”

VII

How One May Interpret a Couplet by Corneille in Two Ways

By the time the doctor had finished reading this strange document, he was rigid with stupefaction. Then without any bargaining he bought it for the sum of twelve pounds and fivepence halfpenny, allowing the bookseller to pass it off on him as a Hebrew manuscript recovered from the excavations at Pompeii.

The Doctor remained in his study for four days and nights, and by dint of patience and with the help of dictionaries, managed to decipher, more or less successfully, the German and Spanish periods of the manuscript: for though he knew Greek, Latin and a little Italian, he was almost entirely ignorant of German and Spanish. At length, fearing that he might have grossly misinterpreted the sense, he begged his friend, the Warden, who was deeply versed in these two languages, to correct the translation. This the latter did with pleasure; but it was three whole days before he could set himself seriously to the task, because every time he glanced through the doctor’s version he was overcome by a fit of laughter so prolonged and so violent that twice he almost had convulsions. When he was asked the reason of this extraordinary hilarity he replied:

“The reason? Well, there are three: firstly, the ridiculous face of my worthy colleague Heraclius: secondly, his equally ridiculous translation, which is as much like the text as a guitar is like a windmill: and lastly, the text itself, which is as queer a thing as one could possibly imagine.”

Oh, obstinate Warden! Nothing could convince him. The sun itself might have come in person to burn his beard and his hair and he would have taken it for a candle. As for Doctor Heraclius Gloss, it need hardly be said that he was radiant, enlightened, transformed. Like Pauline, he kept repeating every other moment:

“I see, I feel, I believe, I am disillusioned.” And each time the Warden interrupted him to observe that disillusioned could be written in two ways.2

“I see, I feel, I believe, I am among the deluded.”

VIII

How, Just as One Can Be More Royalist Than the King and More Devout Than the Pope, One Can Equally Be More of a Metempsychosist Than Pythagoras

Great as may be the joy of a shipwrecked man who has drifted for long days and nights lost on the ocean on a fragile raft, without mast or sail or compass and without hope, when he suddenly sights the shore which he has so long desired, such joy was as nothing compared with that which swept over Doctor Heraclius Gloss when, after being for so long tossed by the surge of the philosophies on the raft of uncertainty, he entered at length, triumphant and enlightened, the haven of metempsychosis.

The truth of this doctrine had struck him so forcibly that he embraced it at once even to its most extreme conclusions. Nothing in it was obscure to him, and in a few days, by means of meditation and calculations, he reached the point of being able to fix the exact date on which a man who died in such a year would reappear on earth. He knew approximately the time of all the transmigrations of a soul through the series of inferior beings, and according to the presumed total of good or evil accomplished in the last period of its life as a human being, he could tell the moment when this soul would enter into the body of a snake, a pig, a riding horse, an ox, a dog, an elephant or a monkey. The reappearances of a given soul in its superior form succeeded each other at regular intervals whatever might have been its previous sins. Thus the degree of punishment, always in proportion to the degree of culpability, consisted, not in the duration of exile under animal forms, but in the sojourn, more or less long, which the soul had to make within the body of an impure beast. The scale of beasts began in inferior degrees with the snake or the pig and ended with the monkey “which is Man deprived of speech,” said the Doctor: to which his worthy friend, the Warden, always replied that by the same process of reasoning Heraclius Gloss was nothing else but a monkey endowed with speech.

IX

Obverse and Reverse

Doctor Heraclius was very happy during the days following his surprising discovery. He lived in a state of downright jubilation, he was full of the glory of difficulties overcome, of mysteries unveiled, of great hopes realized. Metempsychosis encompassed him like the sky. It seemed to him that a curtain had been suddenly torn down and that his eyes had been opened to things hitherto unknown.

He made his dog sit at table beside him, and in solemn tête-à-têtes before the fire sought to discover in the eye of the innocent beast the mystery of its previous existences.

He realized, however, that there were two dark blots on his happiness⁠—the Dean and the Warden. The Dean shrugged his shoulders furiously every time Heraclius tried to convert him to the metempsychosic doctrine, and the Warden annoyed him with the most uncalled-for jests. These latter were quite intolerable. No sooner did the Doctor begin to expound his faith than the diabolical Warden instantly agreed with him; he pretended he was an adept listening to the words of a great apostle and he invented the most unlikely animal genealogies for every person of their mutual acquaintance. Thus he would say that Laboude, the Cathedral bellringer, from the time of his first transmigration could never have been anything but a melon, and that since then he had scarcely changed at all, being content to ring morning and evening the bell under which he had grown. He pretended that the Abbé Rosencroix, senior curate at St. Eulalie, had undoubtedly been a destructive crow, for he had preserved both its dress and its functions. Then, inverting the roles in the most deplorable manner, he would declare that M. Bocaille, the chemist, was only a degenerate ibis, since he was obliged to use an instrument to administer a remedy so simple that, according to Herodotus, the sacred bird used to give it to himself with no other help than that of his long beak.

X

How a Mountebank Can Be More Cunning Than a Learned Doctor

Nevertheless, Doctor Heraclius continued his series of discoveries without becoming discouraged. Henceforth every animal had a mysterious significance in his eyes. He ceased to see the beast itself in contemplating the man who was purifying himself in its guise; and at the very sight of this invisible sign of expiation he would speculate upon the past sins of the soul dwelling therein.

One day when he was strolling in the Square at Balançon, he saw a large wooden hut from which came the sound of terrible howling, while on the platform a mountebank incoherently invited the crowd to come and see the terrible apache tamer Tomahawk or Rumbling Thunder. Heraclius, much impressed, paid the penny demanded and went in. O Fortune that watches over great minds! Hardly had he entered the hut when he saw an enormous cage on which were written words that flamed suddenly before his dazzled eyes: The Man of the Woods. The Doctor immediately experienced that nervous shiver which accompanies a great mental shock, and, trembling with emotion, went nearer. He saw an enormous monkey sitting quietly on its posterior with its legs crossed like a tailor or a Turk. Before this superb specimen of man in his last transmigration, Heraclius Gloss, pale with joy, stood lost in profound meditation. After a few minutes, the Man of the Woods, divining, without doubt, the irresistible sympathy suddenly produced in the heart of the Man of Cities, who was stubbornly staring at him, began to make such a frightful grimace at his regenerate brother that the Doctor felt the hairs of his head stand on end. Then, having executed a fantastic somersault absolutely incompatible with the dignity of a man, even of a man completely fallen in estate, the four-handed gentleman gave way to the most unseemly hilarity at the sight of the Doctor’s beard. The Doctor, however, found nothing shocking in the gaiety of this victim of former sins. On the contrary he saw in it one similarity the more with mankind, a still greater probability of relationship; and his scientific curiosity became so intense that he resolved to buy this master of grimaces, no matter what the price, in order to study him at leisure. What an honour for himself, what a triumph for the great doctrine, if he succeeded at last in getting into communication with the animal side of humanity, in understanding this poor monkey and making the monkey understand him!

Naturally enough the proprietor of the menagerie was loud in praise of his tenant: he was the most intelligent, gentle, well-behaved, lovable animal that he had ever seen in all his long career as a showman of wild beasts; and to prove his word he went close to the bars of the cage and put his hand inside. The monkey promptly bit it⁠—by way of a joke. Naturally, too, the showman demanded a fabulous price. Heraclius paid it without argument. Then, preceded by two porters bent double under the enormous cage, the Doctor went off in triumph in the direction of his own home.

XI

In Which It Is Shown That Heraclius Gloss Was in No Way Exempt from All the Weaknesses of the Stronger Sex

But the nearer he got to his house, the slower he walked, for a problem, very very much more difficult than that of philosophic truth, was disturbing his mind⁠—a problem which the unfortunate doctor formulated thus:

“By means of what subterfuge shall I be able to hide from my servant Honorine the introduction into my house of this human being in the rough?”

Ah! the luckless Heraclius, who undaunted could face the formidable shrugs of the Dean’s shoulders and the terrible chaff of the Warden, was far from being as brave before the outbursts of his servant Honorine. But why should the Doctor have been so afraid of this freshfaced, pleasant little woman who seemed so brisk and so devoted to her master’s interests? Ask why Hercules dallied at the feet of Omphale, and why Samson allowed Delilah to rob him of his strength and his courage, which, as the Bible tells us, were in his hair.

One day, alas! when the Doctor was walking in the fields, nursing his despair over a great passion wherein he had been betrayed (for it was not without cause that the Dean and the Warden were so much amused on their way home on a certain evening) he met at a hedge corner a little girl tending sheep. The learned man, who had not always and exclusively been searching for philosophic truth and who, besides, did not at that time suspect the great mystery of metempsychosis, instead of paying attention to the sheep, as he certainly would have done, if he had known facts of which he was then ignorant, began, alas! to chat with her who tended them. Soon after he took her into his service and this first act of weakness led to further ones. He became one of his shepherdess’ sheep himself after a little while, and it was whispered that although this rustic Delilah, like the one in the Bible, had cut off the hair of the poor unsuspecting man, she had not on that account deprived his forehead of all ornament?

Alas! what he had foreseen came to pass and even exceeded his expectations. At the very sight of the inhabitant of the woods in his wire cage, Honorine abandoned herself to an outburst of unbecoming fury and having overwhelmed her master with a shower of most ill-sounding epithets, turned to let her anger fall upon her unexpected guest.

But the latter, doubtless because he had not the same reason as had the Doctor to humour such an ill-mannered house keeper, began to cry and howl and stamp and gnash his teeth: he clung to the bars of his cage in so furious a manner, and accompanied his action with gestures so entirely indiscreet in the presence of a person whom he was meeting for the first time that Honorine was forced to withdraw like a defeated warrior and shut herself up in her kitchen.

And so, master of the field and delighted with the unexpected help with which his intelligent companion had furnished him, Heraclius carried off his prize to his study and installed the cage and its occupant in front of the desk in a corner by the fire.

XII

Which Explains How Doctor and Animal Tamer Are in No Way Synonymous

When began an exchange of significant glances between the two individuals who found themselves together, and each day for a whole week the Doctor passed long hours in conversing by means of his eyes (so, at least, he thought) with the interesting subject which he had acquired. But that was not enough. What Heraclius wanted was to study the animal at liberty, to surprise its secrets, its desires, its thoughts, to allow it to come and go at will, and through the daily companionship of a life of intimacy, to watch it recover forgotten habits and thus to identify by unmistakable signs the memory of a former life. But for this his guest would have to be free, that is to say, the cage would have to be opened. Now this undertaking was simply a matter of putting his fear aside. In vain the Doctor tried the influence of personal magnetism, and then that of cakes and nuts. The monkey started playing tricks which made him nervous every time he came close to the bars of the cage. But one day he was no longer able to resist the desire which tormented him and he went brusquely forward, turned the key in the padlock, opened the door wide, and, trembling with emotion, stood back a little way awaiting the upshot, which be it said, was not long in coming.

The astonished monkey hesitated at first and then in one bound was outside his cage and in another on the table. In a second he had upset all the papers and books; then a third jump took him into the arms of the Doctor and the evidence of his affection was so violent that if Heraclius had not worn a wig, his last hairs would undoubtedly have remained between the fingers of his redoubtable brother. But if the monkey was agile, the Doctor was not less so. He sprang first to the right, then to the left, slipped like an eel under the table, cleared the sofa like a hare and, still hotly pursued, gained the door and shut it quickly behind him. Then, panting like a horse at the finish of a race, he leant against the wall to save himself from collapsing.

Heraclius Gloss was prostrate for the rest of the day. He felt thoroughly upset, but what principally concerned him was that he had absolutely no idea how he and his thoughtless guest would be enabled to leave their respective positions. He brought a chair up to the door, fortunately impassable, and used the keyhole as an observatory. Then he saw O prodigy! O unhoped-for happiness! the fortunate conqueror stretched on the sofa warming his feet at the fire. In his first transport of joy the Doctor almost went back into the room, but reflection checked him; and, as though guided by a sudden light, he told himself that starvation would no doubt succeed where kindness had failed. This time he was proved right and the hungry monkey capitulated.

In other respects he was a good fellow, that monkey. Reconciliation was complete, and from that day forward the Doctor and his companion lived like old friends.

XIII

How Doctor Heraclius Gloss Found Himself in Exactly the Same Position as Good King Henry IV Who, Having Heard Two Leading Counsel Plead Their Case, Was of Opinion That Both Were Right

Some time after this memorable day heavy rain prevented Doctor Heraclius from going into his garden as was his custom, and he spent the whole morning in his study considering his monkey in a philosophic spirit. The monkey, perched on a writing table, amused himself by throwing paper balls at the dog, Pythagoras, who was lying stretched on the hearth rug. The doctor, meanwhile, was studying the gradations and the progress in intellect of declassed men and comparing the degree of subtlety displayed by the two animals which he had with him.

“In the dog,” said the Doctor to himself, “instinct still dominates, whilst in the monkey reason prevails. The former smells, hears, and sees with those marvellous organs which for him are a good half of his intelligence; the latter, connecting one fact with another, cogitates.”

At this moment the monkey, made impatient by the indifference and immobility of his enemy who, with his head between his paws, was content to lift his eyes occasionally towards his securely placed aggressor, decided to come down and reconnoitre. He jumped lightly from the table and crept quietly forward⁠—so quietly indeed that there was not a sound except for the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the clock which seemed to make a tremendous noise in the dead silence of the study. Then with a sharp and unexpected movement, he seized in both hands the fluffy tail of the unfortunate Pythagoras. But the latter, motionless up till that moment, had followed every movement of the monkey. His stillness was only a trap to lure his hitherto unassailable adversary within reach. As soon as ever Master Monkey, pleased with his trick, grabbed Pythagoras’ tail, the latter bounded up and before the other could escape, had fixed his strong teeth in that portion of his rival’s body which is modestly known as the ham. It is doubtful how the struggle would have ended had not Heraclius intervened, but when he had reestablished peace, he asked himself, as he sat down again quite out of breath, whether, all things considered, his dog had not on this occasion shown more cunning than the animal commonly referred to as “Cunning Personified.” Heraclius remained plunged in deep perplexity.

XIV

How Heraclius All but Devoured a Dish of Beautiful Ladies of a Past Age

When lunch time came, the Doctor went into the dining room, sat down at the table, tucked his napkin into his coat, and set the precious manuscript open beside him. But as he was about to lift to his mouth a little wing of quail, plump and savoury, he glanced at the holy book and the few lines on which his eyes fell glittered more terribly before him than did those famous words suddenly written on the wall by an unknown hand in the banqueting hall of the celebrated King Belshazzar.

This is what the Doctor saw:

“Abstain from all food which once had life, for in eating flesh you are eating your own kind: and he who, having fathomed the grand metempsychosic truth, kills and devours animals that are nought else but men in their inferior forms, shall be graded with the ferocious cannibal who feasts upon his vanquished foe.”

And on the table, fresh and plump, held together by a little silver skewer and giving out an appetising smell, were half a dozen quails.

The fight between mind and stomach was terrible, but be it said to Heraclius’ glory, it was short. The poor man, quite overcome and afraid lest he would not for long be able to resist such fearful temptation, rang for his servant and in a broken voice enjoined her to remove forthwith the abominable dish and to serve henceforth only eggs, milk and vegetables. Honorine almost collapsed on hearing this surprising statement. She would have protested, but before the inflexible eye of her master she hurried off with the condemned birds, consoling herself, however, with the agreeable thought that, generally speaking, what is one person’s loss is not everyone else’s.

“Quails, quails! What could quails have been in another life?” the wretched Heraclius asked himself as he sadly ate a superb cauliflower à la créme, which seemed to him on this occasion disastrously nasty. “What sort of human being could have been elegant enough, delicate and fine enough, to pass into the exquisite little bodies of these roguish, pretty birds? Ah, doubtless it could only have been the adorable little mistresses of bygone times”⁠ ⁠… and the Doctor grew even paler at the thought of having eaten for his lunch every day for more than thirty years half a dozen beautiful ladies of a past age.

XV

How the Warden Interpreted God’s Commandments

On the evening of this unlucky day the Dean and the Warden came to talk for an hour or two with Heraclius in his study. The Doctor straightway told them of his embarrassing position and explained to them how quails and other edible animals were now prohibited to him just as ham was to a Jew. Whereupon the Dean, who no doubt had had a bad dinner, lost all control and blasphemed in such a terrible way that the poor Doctor, although he respected him even while deploring his blindness, did not know where to hide himself. As for the Warden, he entirely approved of Heraclius’ scruples pointing out to him that a disciple of Pythagoras who fed on the flesh of animals would expose himself to the risk of eating his father’s ribs garnished with mushrooms or the truffled feet of his ancestor; and he quoted in support of his case the Fourth Commandment of the Christian God:

“ ‘Honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land⁠ ⁠…’ ”

“It is true,” he added, “that I, who am not a believer, rather than let myself die of hunger, would prefer to change the divine precept slightly⁠—or rather to replace it by this:

“ ‘Devour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land.’ ”

XVI

How the Forty-Second Reading of the Manuscript Shed New Light Into the Doctor’s Mind

Just as a rich man can derive new pleasures and new satisfactions from his great fortune, so Doctor Heraclius, in possession of the inestimable manuscript, made surprising discoveries therein each time that he reread it.

One evening when he had finished reading it for the forty-second time, a sudden idea flashed upon him like lightning. As we have already seen, the Doctor could tell approximately at what date a man who had disappeared would end his transmigrations and reappear in his first form. He was thus suddenly thunderstruck by the thought that the author of the manuscript might have regained his place in humanity. Then, as feverishly excited as an alchemist who thinks himself on the point of discovering the philosopher’s stone, he set to work on the most minute calculations to establish the probability of this supposition and after several hours of persistent work on abstruse metempsychosic deductions, he managed to convince himself that this man must be his contemporary or at any rate be on the point of being reborn to the life of reason. But Heraclius possessed no document which indicated the precise date of the great metempsychosist’s death and therefore could not fix for certain the moment of his return.

He had hardly glimpsed the possibility of discovering this being who in his eyes was more than man, more than philosopher, almost more than God, when he was conscious of one of those profound emotions such as one experiences when one suddenly learns that one’s father, whom for years one had thought dead, is living and close to one. A holy anchorite who had sustained himself all his life on the love and remembrance of Christ and who realised suddenly that his God was about to appear before him, would not have been more overcome than was Doctor Heraclius when he had convinced himself that he would one day meet the author of the manuscript.

XVII

How Doctor Heraclius Gloss Set About Finding the Author of the Manuscript

A few days later readers of the Balançon Star noted with astonishment on the fourth page of the paper the following advertisement:

Pythagoras⁠—Rome in 184⁠—memory recovered on the pedestal of a statue of Jupiter⁠—philosopher, architect, soldier, workman, monk, surveyor, doctor, poet, sailor⁠—think and remember⁠—the story of your life is in my hands. Write H. G. ℅ P.O. Balançon.

The doctor never doubted that if the man whom he so eagerly desired to find happened to read this notice, incomprehensible to everyone else, he would at once grasp its hidden meaning and put in an appearance. So every day before sitting down to his meal he went to the Post Office to ask if there were any letters addressed to H. G. and each time he pushed open the door on which was written “Letters, Inquiries, Prepayments,” he was actually more agitated than a lover on the point of opening his first letter from his mistress.

But alas! day followed day and was despairingly like its predecessor: the clerk gave the Doctor the same answer each morning; and each morning the latter returned home more gloomy and more discouraged. But the inhabitants of Balançon, like everybody else in the world, were subtle, indiscreet, slanderous and inquisitive, and soon connected the surprising notice inserted in the Star with the daily visits of the Doctor to the Post Office. And then they asked themselves what mystery there was in the affair and began to discuss it.

XVIII

In Which Doctor Heraclius Recognises with Amazement the Author of the Manuscript

One night, being unable to sleep, the doctor got up between one and two in the morning to reread a passage that he thought he had not quite understood. He put on his slippers and opened the door of his room as softly as possible so as not to disturb all the “human-animals” who were expiating their sins under his roof. Whatever had been the previous circumstances of these lucky creatures, they had certainly never before enjoyed such perfect peace and happiness, for such was the kindness of heart of the good man that in his hospitable house they found food, lodging and everything else. Without making a sound, the Doctor reached his study door and went in. Now Heraclius was without doubt a courageous man. He was not afraid of spectres or ghosts; but however fearless a man may be, there exist certain terrors which, like cannon balls, will pierce the most indomitable courage. The Doctor stood transfixed, livid, horror-stricken, his eyes haggard and his hair on end, his teeth chattering and his whole body quivering from head to foot in a dreadful way, before the incomprensible sight which confronted him.

His lamp was alight on his table, and before the fire, with his back turned to the door by which he himself had entered, he saw⁠ ⁠… Doctor Heraclius Gloss, studiously perusing his manuscript. There was no possible doubt. It was certainly himself. Over his shoulders was his own long silk dressing-gown embroidered with large red flowers, and on his head was his Greek cap made of black velvet traced in gold. The Doctor realised that if this other self of his were to turn round, if the two Heraclius’ were to see each other face to face, he, who was shaking in his skin at that very moment, would fall shrivelled before this reproduction of himself. Then another nervous spasm caused his hands to twitch, and the candlestick which he was carrying fell to the floor with a crash that made him jump in terror. His other self turned sharply round and the petrified Doctor recognised⁠—his monkey. For some seconds his thoughts whirled in his mind like dead leaves swept before a hurricane, and then he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of joy more violent than he had ever before experienced, for he realised that this author whom he had longed for as the Jews longed for the Messiah, was before him. It was his monkey. Nearly mad with happiness, he dashed forward, seized the venerable being in his arms and embraced him more passionately than ever an adored mistress was clasped by her lover. Then he settled himself on the other side of the fireplace and remained there gazing at his companion until daylight came.

XIX

How the Doctor Was Placed in a Terrible Dilemma

But just as the most beautiful summer days are sometimes abruptly spoilt by a fearful storm, so the Doctor’s happiness was suddenly marred by a most awful possibility. He had found the being for whom he had been searching, certainly: but alas! it was only a monkey. Without doubt they would be able to understand each other, but they could never converse. The Doctor fell back from heaven to earth. Farewell to those long interviews from which he had hoped to gain so much, farewell to that wonderful crusade which they were to have undertaken together⁠—the crusade against superstition! For, battling alone, the Doctor would not possess weapons adequate to overthrow the hydra of ignorance. He needed a man, an apostle, a confessor, a martyr⁠—a role which could scarcely be filled by a monkey! What was he to do? A menacing voice rang in his ears⁠—“Kill him.” Heraclius trembled. In a second he realized that if he killed the monkey the soul thus freed would immediately enter the body of an infant on the point of birth, and that it would then be necessary to wait at least twenty years before that infant reached maturity, by which time the Doctor would be seventy. It was possible, certainly. But could he be sure of tracing the man? Moreover, his religion forbade him to do away with any living being under penalty of committing a murder: therefore, if he did this his soul would pass after death into the body of a ferocious animal, as was decreed for a murderer. What did it matter? Would he not be a victim of science⁠—of his faith? He seized an enormous Turkish scimitar which was hanging against some tapestry and, like Abraham on the mountain, was about to strike, when a sudden thought restrained him. Supposing this man’s sins were not yet expiated, and supposing his soul returned for a second time into the body of a monkey instead of passing into that of a child? This was possible, probable even, nearly certain in fact. In thus committing a futile crime, the Doctor would condemn himself to a terrible punishment without benefiting his fellow-men. Worn out, he dropped back into his chair. Such long drawn out emotion had exhausted him, and he fainted.

XX

In Which the Doctor Has a Little Talk with His Servant

When he opened his eyes it was seven o’clock, and Honorine was bathing his temples with vinegar. The Doctor’s first thought was for his monkey, but the animal had disappeared.

“My monkey, where’s my monkey?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, it’s about time we did talk about him,” retorted the servant, who was also a mistress and was always ready to lose her temper. “A bad thing for him to be lost, is it? A pretty creature, upon my word! He mimics everything he sees you do. Didn’t I find him trying on your boots the other day? And then this morning, when I picked you up here⁠—and God knows what mad ideas you’ve got into your head lately⁠—anyhow they prevent your having a decent night’s rest⁠—this wretched creature⁠—devil, rather, in the form of a monkey⁠—had put on your skullcap and your dressing gown. He was looking at you and seemed to be laughing, as though it was a huge joke to see a man who had fainted. Then, when I tried to get near, the brute went for me as though he wanted to eat me, but, thank heavens, I’m not frightened of him and I’ve got a good pair of hands. I fetched the shovel to him and I hit him so hard on his ugly back that he ran away into your room. He’s probably up to some other mischievous trick there now.”

“You hit my monkey!” roared the exasperated Doctor. “Understand this, my good woman, from now onwards he’s to be respected and waited on like the master of the house.”

“Well, well, he’s not only the master of the house, he’s the master of the master, too, and has been for a long time past,” grumbled Honorine, as she went off to her kitchen, convinced that Doctor Heraclius Gloss was certainly mad.

XXI

In Which It Is Shown That a Dearly-Loved Friend Can Lighten the Heaviest Sorrow

As the doctor had said, from that day onward the monkey was really master of the house, and Heraclius became the animal’s humble valet. He thought of him with infinite tenderness for hours at a time, acted towards him with the thoughtfulness of a lover, lavished on him a whole dictionary of tender phrases, clasped his hand as one clasps that of a friend. When talking to him, he looked earnestly at him and explained the points in his arguments which might have been obscure. In fact he surrounded the creature’s entire life with gentle care and delicate attention.

But the monkey accepted it all as calmly as a god receiving the homage of its worshippers. Heraclius, like all great minds living in solitude, isolated by their sublimity above the common level of foolishness of ordinary people, had up till then felt himself alone. Alone in his work, alone in his hopes, in his struggles and his failures, alone even in his discovery and his triumph. He had not yet preached his doctrine to the masses. He had not even been able to convince his most intimate friends, the Warden and the Dean. But from the day on which he discovered his monkey to be the great philosopher of his dreams, the Doctor felt less isolated.

As he was convinced that all animals were deprived of speech only because of past misdeeds, and that as part of the same punishment they were endowed with the remembrance of previous existences, Heraclius became passionately devoted to his companion, and in doing this consoled himself for all the misery he had endured. For, as a fact, the Doctor’s life had for some time past been growing sadder. The Warden and the Dean came to see him less frequently, and this made a large gap in his existence. They had even ceased coming to dinner on Sundays since he had decreed that no food which had once had life should be served at his table. This change of habit was a great sacrifice, even for him, and now and again it assumed the proportions of a genuine grief, for he who had hitherto awaited so eagerly the pleasant hour devoted to his lunch, now almost dreaded its arrival. He would go sadly into his dining room realizing that now there was nothing to look forward to. Moreover, he was continuously haunted by the thought of quails⁠—a thought which plagued him with remorse. But alas! it was not his remorse for having eaten so many⁠—it was, on the contrary, his despair at having renounced them forever.

XXII

In Which the Doctor Discovers That His Monkey Resembles Him Even More Than He Thought

One morning the Doctor was woken up by an unusual noise. He jumped out of bed, dressed hurriedly and made for the kitchen, from which came extraordinary sounds of shouting and kicking. For a long time past Honorine had been harbouring in her mind black thoughts of vengeance against the intruder who had stolen her master’s affection. At last the treacherous woman, knowing the tastes and habits of these animals, had managed, by means of some trick or other, to tie the poor monkey firmly to the leg of her kitchen table. Then when she was certain that he was held fast she went to the other end of the room and amused herself by tempting him with a feast calculated to excite his greed, and thus inflicted on him the tortures of Tantalus⁠—tortures such as are reserved in Hell for the worst sinners of all. The perverse housekeeper roared with laughter and invented further refinements of torture such as would only occur to a woman. The man-monkey writhed in fury when savoury dishes were proffered from some way off, and in his rage at finding himself tied to the leg of the heavy table, made horrible faces, thereby adding to the enjoyment of his brutal temptress.

At last, just as the anxious Doctor appeared in the doorway, the victim of this hateful trick made a tremendous effort and succeeded in breaking the cords which held him. Had it not been for the hurried intervention of the indignant Heraclius, heaven knows what delicacies would not have been gobbled up by this new four-handed Tantalus.

XXIII

How the Doctor Realized That His Monkey Had Shamefully Imposed Upon Him

This time anger triumphed over respect; the doctor seized the monkey philosopher by the throat and dragged him howling into the study, where he administered the most terrible thrashing that the back of any metempsychosist had ever received.

The moment Heraclius’ tired arm relaxed its hold on the throat of the wretched beast, who after all was only guilty of the same tastes as those of his human brother, the monkey freed himself from the grasp of his outraged master, jumped on to the table, seized the Doctor’s big snuff box which was lying on a book and flung it, wide open, at its owner’s head. Heraclius just had time to close his eyes and avoid the whirlwind of snuff which would certainly have blinded him. When he opened them the criminal had disappeared, taking with him the manuscript of which he was presumed to be the author.

Heraclius’ consternation was indescribeable. He dashed like a madman in pursuit of the fugitive, determined to recover the precious manuscript at no matter what sacrifice. He explored the house from cellar to attic, opened all his cupboards and looked under all the furniture, but his search revealed nothing. At last he went and sat in despair under a tree in the garden. Presently he became aware of light little taps on his head, caused, so he thought at first, by dead leaves broken off by the wind. But suddenly he saw a little ball of paper rolling in front of him on the path. He picked it up and opened it. Mercy! It was a page of his manuscript. Horrified, he looked up and saw his accursed monkey calmly preparing fresh missiles of the same kind, with an expression of malignant joy on his face that Satan himself could not have outdone when he saw Adam accept the fatal apple⁠—that apple which, throughout the ages, from Eve to Honorine, women have never ceased offering us. At the sight of this a terrible thought flashed through the Doctor’s mind and he realized that he had been deceived, tricked and mystified in the most abominable way by this hairy impostor who was no more the missing philosopher than he was the Pope or the Grand Turk. The precious document would have disappeared altogether had not Heraclius caught sight of a garden hose near at hand. He snatched it up and, working it with almost superhuman strength, gave the wretch such a totally unexpected bath that he began to jump from branch to branch with shrill cries. But the monkey, dodging cleverly to obtain a moment’s respite, suddenly flung the torn parchment straight in his adversary’s face, jumped down from the tree and fed towards the house. But before the manuscript had touched the doctor, the poor man had fallen on his back with his legs in the air, quite overcome with emotion. When he rose he had not the strength to avenge this new outrage but crept with difficulty back to his study where he discovered to his joy that only three pages were missing.

XXIV

Eureka

A visit from the dean and the Warden restored him.

All three talked for an hour or two without mentioning metempsychosis; but when his two friends were leaving Heraclius could not contain himself any longer. While the Dean was struggling into his bearskin coat, he drew aside the Warden, of whom he was less afraid, and confided all his trouble to him. He told him how he thought he had found the author of the manuscript, how he had been mistaken, how the wretched monkey had played a most scandalous trick on him and how utterly in despair he felt. In fact, confronted with the ruin of his illusions, Heraclius broke down completely. The Warden, much moved, clasped him by the hand and was just about to speak when the Dean’s solemn voice calling out “Aren’t you ever coming, Warden?” boomed from the hall.

“Come, come,” said the Warden, with a final clasp of the unhappy Doctor’s hand and the sort of smile with which one comforts a child who has been naughty, “cheer up, my friend. Perhaps after all you’re the author of the manuscript yourself.”

Then he went out into the dark street, leaving the astonished Heraclius on the doorstep.

The Doctor went slowly back to his study, muttering from time to time:

“Perhaps I am the author of the manuscript.”

He made another careful study of the way in which the document had been recovered at each appearance of its author and then he recalled how he himself had found it. The dream which had preceded the happy day like a providential warning, the emotion he had felt on entering Ruelle des Vieux Pigeons⁠—all this came back to him, clearly, distinctly, surprisingly. And then he stood up, spreading out his arms as though he had seen a vision, and cried in a resounding voice:

“It is I! It is I!”

A shiver seemed to pass through the whole house. Pythagoras barked violently, the disturbed animals suddenly woke up and became so excited that it seemed as though each one was bent on celebrating in his own tongue the tremendous resurrection of the prophet of metempsychosis. Then, in the grip of an overwhelming emotion, Heraclius sat down, opened the last page of this new Bible and reverently added to it the entire history of his life.

XXV

“I Am That I Am.”

From that day onwards Heraclius was filled with tremendous pride. In the same way that the Messiah sprang from God the Father, so he had sprung from Pythagoras⁠—or rather he himself was Pythagoras, for in the past he had lived in the body of that philosopher. Thus his genealogy could challenge that of the most ancient families of the nobility. He looked with supreme contempt on all the great men in the history of the race and their highest achievements seemed as nothing beside his. He installed himself in sublime isolation among his worlds and his animals: he was metempsychosis itself and his house was its temple.

He had forbidden both his servant and his gardener to kill noxious animals. Caterpillars and snails multiplied in his garden, and in the guise of enormous spiders with hairy legs onetime mortals paraded their loathsome transformation on the walls of his study⁠—a fact which made the offensive Warden say that if all cadgers, each changed according to his kind, were to settle on the too sensitive minded Doctor’s skull, he would still take good care not to wage war on the poor degraded parasites. Only one thing troubled Heraclius in this superb flowering of his hopes: this was the continual spectacle of animals devouring each other⁠—spiders lying in wait for flies, birds carrying off the spiders, cats gobbling up the birds, and his own dog Pythagoras joyfully mangling any cat which came within reach of his teeth.

From morning till night he followed the slow progressive march of metempsychosis at every degree in the animal scale. He received sudden revelations when he watched sparrows pecking in the gutter: and ants, those ceaseless farseeing workers, thrilled him intensely. In them he saw all the work-dodging, useless people who, as an expiation for their past idleness and nonchalance, had been condemned to persistent labour. He remained for hours at a time with his nose on the grass watching them and was amazed at what he saw. Then, like Nebuchadnezzar, he would crawl on all fours, rolling in the dust with his dog, living with his animals, even grovelling with them. For him, Man gradually disappeared from creation, and soon he was only conscious of animals. When he thought of them he felt that he was their brother; he spoke to no one but them, and when by chance he was forced to talk to men, he found himself as helpless as though he was among foreigners, and was shocked at the stupidity of his fellow creatures.

XXVI

What Was Said at Madame Labotte’s, the Fruiterer’s, 26, Rue de la Maraicherie

Mdlle. Victoire, cook to the Dean of the Faculty of Balançon, Mademoiselle Gertrude, servant of the Warden of the said Faculty, and Mademoiselle Anastasie, housekeeper to the Abbé Beaufleury, Curé of St. Eulalie⁠—such was the respectable coterie which happened meet at the counter of Madame Labotte, fruiterer, 26 Rue de la Maraicherie, one Thursday morning.

These ladies, with their shopping baskets on their left arms and little white goffered caps posed coquettishly on their heads so that the ribbons hung down their backs, were listening with interest to Mademoiselle Anastasie who was telling them how the Abbé Beaufleurry had that very morning exorcised a poor woman possessed of five devils.

Suddenly Mademoiselle Honorine, Doctor Heraclius’ housekeeper, rushed in like a whirlwind and sank into a chair, overcome by emotion. Then, when she saw that they were all thoroughly intrigued, she burst out:

“No, it’s too much! Whatever happens I’ll not stop any longer in that house.” And then she hid her face in her hands and began to sob. A moment or two later, when she was a little calmer, she went on:

“After all, it’s not the poor man’s fault if he’s mad.”

“Who?” asked Mademoiselle Labotte.

“Why, her master, Doctor Heraclius,” put in Mademoiselle Victoire. “So what the Dean said is true then⁠—your master has gone queer in the head?”

“I should just think so!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Anastasie. “The Curé, talking to the Abbé Rosencroix the other day, declared that Doctor Heraclius was a proper reprobate, that he worshipped animals, after the style of a man called Pythagoras who, so it seems, was a heretic as wicked as Luther.”

“What’s happened now?” interrupted Mademoiselle Gertrude. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Well, just think,” said Honorine, drying her eyes on the corner of her apron, “for nearly six months now my poor master has been mad about animals. He believes that he has been created and placed in the world to serve them, he speaks to them as though they were sensible human beings, and one would almost believe that he gets an answer from inside them somehow. Anyway, yesterday evening I saw that mice were eating my provisions and I put a mousetrap in the larder. This morning I found I’d caught one. I called the cat and was just going to give the little beast to him when the master rushed in like a madman. He snatched the trap out of my hands and let the brute loose in the middle of my pickles. And when I got angry he turned on me and treated me as one wouldn’t treat a rag and bone man.”

There was a tense silence for some minutes and then Mademoiselle Honorine added:

“After all, I don’t blame the poor man. He’s mad.”

Two hours later the story of the Doctor and the mouse had gone the round of every kitchen in Balançon. At lunchtime all the bourgeois were telling it to each other, and at eight o’clock M. le Premier repeated it, as he drank his coffee, to six magistrates who had been dining with him. These gentlemen, seated in solemn attitudes, listened dreamily, without smiling, but with grave nods of their heads. At eleven o’clock the Prefect, who was giving a party, was worried with it in front of six minor officials and when he asked the Warden for his opinion, the latter, who was parading his white tie and his propensity for mischief before group after group of guests, answered thus:

“After all, what does this prove, Prefect? Why, that if La Fontaine were still living, he could write a new fable entitled ‘The Philosopher’s Mouse,’ which would end up⁠—‘The more foolish of the two is not the one one thinks.’ ”

XXVII

How Doctor Heraclius Did Not Agree with the Dauphin, Who, Having Saved a Monkey from Drowning, Threw It Back Again and Went Off to Find a Man to Save Instead

When Heraclius went out the following morning he noticed that everyone looked at him with curiosity as he passed and that people turned to glance twice at him. At first all this attention astonished him; he wondered what the reason of it was and thought that perhaps his doctrine had spread without his knowledge and that he was on the point of being appreciated by his fellow citizens. He was suddenly filled with a great tenderness towards these people, whom he already saw as his enthusiastic disciples, and he began to acknowledge them by smiling right and left, like a prince among his people. The whisperings that followed him seemed to him murmurs of praise and he beamed cheerfully at the thought of the imminent consternation of the Warden and the Dean.

In this way he reached the Quai de la Brille. A few yards away a group of excited children, roaring with laughter, were throwing stones into the water, while some sailors, lounging in the sun and smoking, seemed interested in the game. Heraclius approached and then suddenly drew back as though he had received a heavy blow in the chest. Ten yards from the bank, sinking and coming up again by turns, a kitten was drowning. The poor little animal was making desperate efforts to regain the bank, but each time she showed her head above water a stone thrown by one of the urchins, who were enjoying her agony, made her go under again. The wicked rascals vied with each other and urged each other on, and when a well-aimed shot hit the wretched animal there were shouts of laughter and cries of joy. Suddenly a glancing pebble hit the kitten on the forehead and a trickle of blood appeared on her white fur. The torturers burst into shouts of joy and applause, which, however, turned suddenly into a terrible panic. Livid, trembling with rage, upsetting all before him and striking out with his fists and feet, the Doctor hurled himself among the brats like a wolf into a flock of sheep. Their terror was so great and their flight so rapid that one of them, distracted with fear, threw himself into the river and disappeared. Heraclius quickly unbuttoned his coat, kicked off his shoes and jumped into the water. He was seen to swim vigorously for a moment or two, catch hold of the kitten just as she was sinking, and regain the bank. Then he seated himself on a stone and having dried and kissed the little being whom he had snatched from death, he folded her lovingly in his arms like a baby and without troubling about the child, whom two sailors were bringing to land, and quite indifferent to the din going on behind him, he strode off towards his house, forgetting his shoes and coat which he had left behind him on the bank.

XXVIII

“This Story Will Show You That, if You Want to Save a Fellow Creature from Blows and Believe That It Is Better to Rescue a Cat Than a Man, You Will Excite the Anger of Your Neighbours. All Roads Lead to Rome⁠—But Metempsychosis Leads to the Lunatic Asylum.”⁠—Balançon Star

Two hours later a huge crowd of shouting people was jostling and pushing in front of the Doctor’s windows. Soon a shower of stones shattered the panes and the crowd was about to rush the doors when the police appeared at the end of the street. Things gradually became calmer and the mob scattered, but two policemen remained outside the Doctor’s house until the following day. The Doctor was in a state of extreme agitation the whole evening. He told himself that the letting loose of the crowd on him was due to the underhand threats of the priests and to the explosion of hatred which always heralds the advent of a new religion among the followers of an old one. He raised himself to the status of a martyr and felt ready to confess his faith before his executioners. He brought into his study as many animals as the room would hold and dawn found him sleeping between his dog, a goat and a sheep, and clasping to his heart the kitten which he had saved.

A loud knock at his door awakened him, and Honorine showed in a solemn looking individual, followed by two detectives, with the Medical Officer of Health in the background. The solemn individual made himself known as the Chief of Police, and courteously invited Heraclius to follow him. Very much upset, the latter did so and was made to get into a carriage which was waiting at the door. Then, sitting next the Chief of Police, with the Medical Officer and one detective facing him and the other detective on the box beside the driver, Heraclius soon noticed that they were driving down the Rue des Juifs, through the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville and the Boulevard de la Pucelle. At last they stopped outside a grim-looking building on the door of which was written “Home for the Mentally Deficient.” The Doctor suddenly realized the terrible trap into which he had fallen and the devilish cunning of his enemies. Summoning all his strength he tried to hurl himself into the road, but two strong hands forced him back into his seat. Then began a terrible struggle between him and the three men in charge of him: he wriggled and twisted and kicked and bit, howling with rage all the time. But at last he was overpowered, tied up, and carried into the fatal building. Its door clanged behind him with an ominous sound.

He was taken into a narrow cell of a peculiar kind. The fireplace and the windows were barred, the bed and the solitary chair were attached to the floor by iron chains, and there was no piece of furniture which could be picked up and handled by the occupant. As it turned out, events proved that these precautions were by no means unnecessary, for as soon as the doctor found himself in these new surroundings he gave way to the rage that was almost choking him. He tried to smash the furniture, to tear out the bars and to break the windows. Unsuccessful in this, he rolled on the ground and gave vent to such fearful cries that two men in blouses and uniform caps hurried in, followed by a huge bald-headed man dressed in black. At a sign, the two men seized Heraclius and in an instant had him in a straight waistcoat; then they glanced towards the man in black. The latter looked pensively at Heraclius for a moment and then said:

“Take him to the douche room.”

Heraclius was carried into a large cold room in the middle of which was an empty bath. Still yelling, he was undressed and placed in this bath. Before he knew what was happening, he was almost suffocated by as horrible an avalanche of cold water as ever descended on the back of any human being⁠—even in the Arctic regions. Heraclius was completely silenced. The man in black, who had been watching him all the time, felt his pulse and said:

“Give him another one.”

A second shower fell from the ceiling and the Doctor collapsed, choking, to the bottom of his ice-cold bath. He was then picked up, wrapped in warm blankets and put to bed in his cell, where he slept soundly for thirty-five hours.

He woke the following morning with a steady pulse and a clear head. For some minutes he considered the situation and then he began to read his manuscript, which he had taken care not to leave behind. The man in black presently appeared, and when lunch was brought they had it together. The Doctor, who had not forgotten his cold bath, was very quiet and polite and made no reference to the subject which had resulted in such a misadventure; but conversed for a long time very entertainingly, in an endeavour to prove to his host that he was as sane as the seven sages of Greece.

The man in black, as he was leaving, gave the Doctor permission to take a stroll in the garden, which was a large one planted with trees. About fifty persons were taking exercise there: some were laughing, shouting and haranguing each other, others were grave and melancholy.

One of the first persons the Doctor noticed was a tall man with a long beard and white hair, who was walking by himself with his eyes on the ground. Without knowing why, the Doctor felt interested in the fate of this unknown man. Presently, the latter raised his eyes and stared fixedly at Heraclius. They advanced, greeted each other ceremoniously and began to talk. The Doctor learnt that his companion was called Dagobert Félorme, and that he was Professor of modern languages at the college of Balançon. Heraclius did not notice anything wrong with the man’s mind and was wondering what could have brought him to such a place when suddenly the other stopped, grasped Heraclius’ hand firmly and said: “Do you believe in metempsychosis?” The Doctor swayed and began to stammer an answer. Their eyes met and for some time the two of them stood staring at each other. At last Heraclius was overcome by his emotion, and tears welled up in his eyes. He opened his arms and they embraced. Then, confiding in each other, they soon realized that they were inspired by the same faith and impregnated with the same doctrine. There was no point on which they differed. But as this astonishing similarity of thought began to be established, a feeling of peculiar uneasiness came over the Doctor, for it seemed to him that the more the stranger grew in his estimation, the more he himself lost in his own. He was seized with jealousy.

Suddenly his companion exclaimed:

“Metempsychosis⁠—It is I. It was I who discovered the evolution of souls and who welded the destinies of men. I was Pythagoras.”

The Doctor stopped dead, pale as a sheet.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I am Pythagoras.”

Once again they stared at each other, and then the stranger spoke again.

“I have been philosopher, architect, soldier, labourer, monk, mathematician, doctor, poet, sailor, in turn,” he said.

“So have I,” said Heraclius.

“I’ve written my life’s history in Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Spanish and French,” cried the other.

“So have I,” answered Heraclius.

Both stopped speaking and looked daggers at each other.

“In the year 184,” shouted the other, “I lived in Rome as a philosopher.”

Then the Doctor, shaking like a leaf in a gust of wind, drew his precious document from his pocket and brandished it like a pistol under his adversary’s nose. The latter sprang back.

“My manuscript,” he cried, and put out his hand to seize it.

“It’s mine,” roared Heraclius, and with surprising rapidity he raised the object of contention above his head, changed it to his other hand behind his back and did every sort of extraordinary trick with it to keep it out of his frenzied rival’s reach. The latter clenched his teeth, stamped his feet and roared: “Thief! Thief! Thief!”

Then with a quick and cunning movement he managed to get hold of a corner of the paper which Heraclius was trying to keep from him. For some seconds they pulled hard and angrily in opposite directions, and then, as neither would give way, the manuscript, which might be described as forming a living hyphen between them, acted as wisely as the late King Solomon might have done, by separating into two equal parts, with the result that the two warriors sat down with unexpected suddenness ten paces apart, each clutching his half of the spoils of victory between shrivelled fingers.

They did not move but sat staring at each other like rival forces which, having gauged each other’s strength, are loth to come to grips again. Dagobert Félorme began first:

“The proof that I am the author of this manuscript,” he said, “is that I knew of it before you.”

Heraclius did not answer, and the other went on:

“The proof that I am the author of this manuscript is that I can repeat it from end to end in the seven languages in which it is written.”

Heraclius did not answer⁠—but he was thinking hard. A revolution was taking place in him. There was no possible doubt⁠—victory lay with his rival. But this author⁠—whom at one time he had invoked with all his prayers, raised his indignation now as a false god. For, as a dethroned god himself, he revolted against divinity. Before he had come to regard himself as the author of the manuscript, he had longed to meet whoever had written it, but from the day when he began to say: “It was I who wrote this. Metempsychosis is I myself,” he could no longer sanction anyone usurping his place. Like a man who would burn his house down rather than see it occupied by someone else, he was prepared to burn both temple and god, to burn metempsychosis itself even, as soon as a stranger ascended the altar to which he had exalted himself.

And so, after a long silence, he said slowly and solemnly:

“You are mad.”

At this, his enemy dashed at him like a lunatic, and a fresh struggle more terrible than the first would have begun had not the guardians rushed up and re-imprisoned these religious fanatics in their respective cells.

For a month the Doctor did not leave his room. He passed his days alone with his head between his hands in profound meditation. From time to time the Dean and the Warden came to see him and by means of clever comparisons and delicate allusions gently assisted the change that was taking place in his mind. Thus they told him how a certain Dagobert Félorme, professor of languages at the college of Balançon, had gone mad while writing a philosophical treatise on the doctrine of Pythagoras, Aristotle and Plato⁠—a treatise which he had imagined he had begun under the Emperor Commodus.

At last, one beautiful sunny morning, the Doctor came to himself. Once more he was the Heraclius of the good old days. Warmly clasping the hands of his two friends he told them that he had renounced forever metempsychosis, expiations in animal form and transmigrations. Tapping himself on the breast he admitted that he had been entirely mistaken. A week later the doors of the asylum were opened to him.

XXIX

How One Sometimes Exchanges Scylla for Charybdis

Heraclius paused for a moment as he was leaving the fatal building and took a deep breath of the fine air of liberty. Then, with his brisk step of former days, he set off towards his house. After he had been walking for above five minutes a street urchin saw him and at once gave a long whistle, which was promptly answered from a neighbouring street. A second urchin appeared and the first one pointed to Heraclius and shouted with all his might:

“Here’s the animal man come out of the madhouse.”

Keeping close behind the Doctor they both began to imitate with remarkable skill the noise made by every sort of animal. Presently a dozen or more joined the first-comers and formed an escort to the ex-metempsychosist, as noisy as it was objectionable. One of them walked ten yards in front of the Doctor carrying a broom-handle on which he had fixed a rabbit skin like a flag. Three others followed imitating the roll of a drum, and then came the frightened Doctor; with his frock-coat tightly buttoned and his hat over his eyes he looked like a general in the middle of his troops.

After him came a whole horde of ragamuffins, running, turning cartwheels, yelling, bellowing, barking, miawing, neighing, mooing, crowing and inventing a thousand other amusing things, to the great enjoyment of the townsfolk standing at their doors. The bewildered Heraclius quickened his pace still more. Suddenly, a prowling dog got between his legs and in a paroxysm of rage the Doctor let fly such a terrific kick at the poor beast (which he would formerly have welcomed) that the latter ran off howling with pain. Such a tremendous din burst out all round that Heraclius lost his head and began to run as hard as he could, still followed by his infernal procession.

The gang passed like a whirlwind through the principal streets and came to a stop outside the Doctor’s house. Seeing the door ajar, he darted through it and closed it behind him. Then, still running, he went on up to his study. There he was greeted by the monkey, who put out his tongue at him as a sign of welcome. It was a sight that made him recoil as though a ghost had appeared. For was not his monkey the living souvenir of all his misfortunes, the cause of his madness and of all the humiliations and outrages to which he had been subjected? He seized an oak stool which was handy and with one blow split the miserable creature’s skull. The latter dropped like a stone at the feet of his murderer. Then, soothed at having carried out this execution, Heraclius sank into an armchair and unbuttoned his coat.

When Honorine appeared she almost fainted with joy at the sight of her master. In her delight she sprang towards him and kissed him on both cheeks, forgetting the distance that, in the eyes of the world, is supposed to exist between the master and his servant, in which, so it was said, the Doctor had already shown her the way. Meanwhile, the mob had not dispersed but was still creating such a noise outside the front door that Heraclius, much put out, went down into his garden. A horrible sight met his eyes.

Honorine who, although she deplored her master’s madness, had wanted to give him a pleasant surprise for his homecoming, had watched like a mother over the lives of all the animals in the place, so that, owing to their natural fecundity, the garden had the appearance of the interior of Noah’s Ark when the flood subsided. For the garden was a confused mass of animals, a veritable swarm, beneath which trees, shrubs, grass and earth had entirely disappeared. The branches were bent under the weight of whole regiments of birds, while underneath them dogs, cats, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks and turkeys, rolled in the dust. The air resounded with a clamour of sound as loud as that made by the brats on the other side of the house.

Heraclius could restrain himself no longer. He snatched up a spade which had been left against the wall and like the two famous warriors whose exploits are described by Homer, sprang this way and that, hitting out right and left. Foaming at the mouth and with rage in his heart, he began a terrible massacre of all his harmless friends. Terrified chickens hid under the walls and cats climbed up the trees. But he gave no quarter and the confusion was indescribable. When the ground was scattered with corpses he collapsed from sheer exhaustion and slept on the field of carnage like a victorious general.

Next day his excitement had vanished and he thought of taking a walk round the town. But as soon as he left his doorstep the street urchins, who had been lying in wait for him, started pursuing him once more, shouting: “Oh! Oh! the animal man! the friend of the beasts!” And they began to make the same noises as on the previous day, with plenty of added variations.

The Doctor went hurriedly back: anger choked him and, since he could not vent it on men, he swore a deadly hatred and vowed war to the death against all animals. From then onwards he had only one desire, one aim, one ceaseless preoccupation⁠—to kill animals. He lay in wait for them from morning till night; he stretched nets in his garden to catch birds and snares in the gutters to strangle the neighbours’ cats. Passing dogs were attracted by appetising bits of meat placed in his half-open door⁠—which always shut quickly when a foolish victim succumbed to temptation. Complaints were soon heard on all sides. The Chief of Police came several times in person to order him to stop his relentless warfare. He was inundated with summonses, but nothing could arrest his vengeance. At last there was general indignation. A second riot broke out in the town and he would without doubt have been lynched by the crowd but for the intervention of armed force. All the doctors in Balançon were summoned to the prefecture and declared unanimously that Dr. Heraclius Gloss was mad. For the second time he passed through the town between two policemen, and saw the heavy door of the building on which was written: “Home for the Mentally Deficient,” close behind him.

XXX

How the Proverb⁠—“The Madder One Is, the More One Laughs”⁠—Is Not Always Quite True

The next he went into the courtyard of the establishment and the first person he set eyes on was the author of the manuscript on metempsychosis. The two enemies looked each other up and down and then drew close. A circle was formed round them and Dagobert cried:

“Here’s the man who wanted to steal my life’s work, who wanted to filch from me the glory of my discovery.”

A murmur passed through the crowd, and Heraclius answered:

“Here’s the man who pretends that animals are men and men animals.”

Then they both began to talk at once and became more and more excited. As on the first occasion, they soon came to blows, but the onlookers separated them.

From that day onwards each of them tried with amazing perseverance and tenacity to recruit followers and soon the whole community was divided into two rival parties. These parties were so enthusiastic, so violent and so irreconcilable that if a metempsychosist happened to run across an adversary a terrible battle ensued. To avoid these sanguinary encounters the Governor was obliged to arrange separate hours of exercise for each faction: for there had never been such relentless hatred between two rival sects since the quarrel between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. Thanks to this prudent arrangement, however, the chiefs of the hostile clans lived happily⁠—beloved and listened to by their disciples, obeyed and venerated.

Sometimes during the night the sound of a dog howling and barking outside the walls would make Heraclius and Dagobert tremble in their beds. It was the faithful Pythagoras who, having escaped his master’s vengeance by a miracle, had tracked him to the threshold of his new home and was trying to gain an entrance to the house into which only men had the right to pass.

On the River

Last summer I rented a country cottage on the banks of the Seine, several miles from Paris, and I used to go out to sleep there every night. After a while, I formed the acquaintance of one of my neighbours, a man between thirty and forty years of age, who really was one of the queerest characters I have ever met. He was an old boating-man, crazy on the subject of boats, and was always either in, or on, or by the water. He must have been born in a boat, and probably he will die in one, some day, while taking a last outing.

One evening, as we were walking along the banks of the Seine, I asked him to tell me about some of his nautical experiences. Immediately his face lighted up, and he became eloquent, almost poetical, for his heart was full of an all-absorbing, irresistible, devouring passion⁠—a love for the river.

“Ah!” said he, “how many recollections I have of the river that flows at our feet! You street-dwellers have no idea what the river really is. But let a fisherman pronounce the word. To him it means mystery, the unknown, a land of mirage and phantasmagoria, where odd things that have no real existence are seen at night and strange noises are heard; where one trembles without knowing the reason why, as when passing through a cemetery⁠—and indeed the river is a sinister cemetery without graves.

“Land, for a fisherman, has boundaries, but the river, on moonless nights, appears to him unlimited. A sailor doesn’t feel the same way about the sea. The sea is often cruel, but it roars and foams, it gives us fair warning; the river is silent and treacherous. It flows stealthily, without a murmur, and the eternal gentle motion of the water is more awful to me than the big ocean waves.

“Dreamers believe that the deep hides immense lands of blue, where the drowned roll around among the big fish, in strange forests or in crystal caves. The river has only black depths, where the dead decay in the slime. But it’s beautiful when the sun shines on it, and the waters splash softly on the banks covered with whispering reeds.

“In speaking of the ocean the poet says:

“ ‘O flots, que vous savez de lugubres histoires!
Flots profonds, redoutés des mères à genoux,
Vous vous les racontez en montant les marées,
Et c’est ce qui vous fait ces voix désespérées
Que vous avez, le soir, quand vous venez vers nous.’3

Well, I believe that the stories the slender reeds tell one another in their wee, silvery voices are even more appalling than the ghastly tragedies related by the roaring waves.

“But as you have asked me to relate some of my recollections, I will tell you a strange adventure that happened to me here, about ten years ago.

“Then, as now, I lived in old mother Lafon’s house and one of my best friends, Louis Bernet, who since has given up boating, as well as his happy-go-lucky ways, to become a State Councillor, was camping out in the village of C⁠⸺, two miles away. We used to take dinner together every day, either at his place or at mine.

“One evening, as I was returning home alone, feeling rather tired, and with difficulty rowing the twelve-foot boat that I always took out at night, I stopped to rest a little while near that point over there, formed by reeds, about two hundred yards in front of the railway bridge. The weather was magnificent; the moon was shining very brightly, and the air was soft and still. The calmness of the surroundings tempted me, and I thought how pleasant it would be to fill my pipe here and smoke. No sooner said than done, and, laying hold of the anchor, I dropped it overboard. The boat, which was following the stream, slid to the end of the chain and came to a stop; I settled myself aft on a rug, as comfortably as I could. There was not a sound to be heard nor a movement to be seen, though sometimes I noticed the almost imperceptible rippling of the water on the banks, and watched the highest clumps of reeds, which at times assumed strange shapes that appeared to move.

“The river was perfectly calm, but I was affected by the extraordinary stillness that enveloped me. The frogs and toads, the nocturnal musicians of the swamps, were voiceless. Suddenly, at my right, a frog croaked. I started; it stopped, and all was silent. I resolved to light my pipe for distraction. But, strange to say, though I was an inveterate smoker I failed to enjoy it, and after a few puffs I grew sick and stopped smoking. Then I began to hum an air, but the sound of my voice depressed me.

“At last I lay down in the boat and watched the sky. For a while I remained quiet, but presently the slight pitching of the boat disturbed me. I felt as if it were swaying to and fro from one side of the river to the other, and that an invisible force or being was drawing it slowly to the bottom and then raising it to let it drop again. I was knocked about as if in a storm; I heard strange noises; I jumped up; the water was shining and all was still. Then I knew that my nerves were slightly shaken, and decided to leave the river. I pulled on the chain. The boat moved along, but presently I felt some resistance and pulled harder. The anchor refused to come up; it had caught in something at the bottom and remained stuck. I pulled and tugged but to no avail. With the oars I turned the boat around and forced her upstream, in order to alter the position of the anchor. This was all in vain, however, for the anchor did not yield; so in a rage, I began to shake at the chain, which wouldn’t budge.

“I sat down discouraged, to ponder over my mishap. It was impossible to break the chain or to separate it from the boat, as it was enormous and was riveted to a piece of wood as big as my arm; but as the weather continued fine, I did not doubt but that some fisherman would come along and rescue me. The accident calmed me so much that I managed to remain quiet and smoke my pipe. I had a bottle of rum with me so I drank two or three glasses of it and began to laugh at my situation. It was so warm that it would not have mattered much had I been obliged to spend all night out of doors.

“Suddenly something jarred slightly against the side of the boat. I started, and a cold sweat broke over me from head to foot. The noise was due to a piece of wood drifting along with the current, but it proved sufficient to disturb my mind, and once more I seized the chain and tugged in desperation. I felt the same strange nervousness creep over me. The anchor remained firm. I seated myself again, exhausted.

“Meantime the river was covering itself with a white mist that lay close to the water, so that when I stood up neither the stream, nor my feet, nor the boat, were visible to me; I could distinguish only the ends of the reeds and, a little farther away, the meadow, ashen in the moonlight, with large black patches formed by groups of Italian poplars reaching toward the sky. I was buried up to my waist in something that looked like a blanket of down of a peculiar whiteness; and all kinds of fantastic visions arose before me. I imagined that someone was trying to crawl into the boat, which I could no longer see, and that the river hidden under the thick fog was full of strange creatures that were swimming all around me. I felt a horrible depression steal over me, my temples throbbed, my heart beat wildly, and, losing all control over myself, I was ready to plunge overboard and swim to safety. But this idea suddenly filled me with horror. I imagined myself lost in the dense mist, floundering about aimlessly among the reeds and water-plants, unable to find the banks of the river or the boat; and I felt as if I should certainly be drawn by my feet to the bottom of the dark waters. As I really should have had to swim against the current for at least five hundred yards before reaching a spot where I could safely land, it was nine chances to ten that, being unable to see in the fog, I should drown, although I was a fine swimmer.

“I tried to overcome my dread. I determined not to be afraid, but there was something in me besides my will and that something was fainthearted. I asked myself what there was to fear; my courageous self railed at the other, the timid one; never before had I so fully realised the opposition that exists between the two beings we have in us; the one willing, the other resisting, and each one triumphing in turn. But this foolish and unaccountable fear was growing worse and worse, and was becoming positive terror. I remained motionless, with open eyes and straining ears, waiting. For what? I scarcely knew, but it must have been for something terrible. I believe that had a fish suddenly taken it into its head to jump out of the water, as frequently happens, I should have fallen in a dead faint. However, I managed to keep my senses after a violent effort to control myself. I took my bottle of rum and again raised it to my lips.

“Suddenly I began to shout at the top of my voice, turning successively toward the four points of the horizon. After my throat had become completely paralysed with shouting, I listened. A dog was barking in the distance.

“I drank some more rum and lay down in the bottom of the boat. I remained thus at least one hour, perhaps two, without sleeping, my eyes open, visited by nightmares. I did not dare to sit up, though I had an insane desire to do so; I put it off from second to second, saying: ‘Now then, I’ll get up,’ but I was afraid to move. At last I raised myself with infinite care, as if my life depended on the slightest sound I might make, and peered over the edge of the boat. I was greeted by the most marvellous, stupendous sight that it is possible to imagine. It was a vision of fairyland, one of those phenomena that travellers in distant countries tell us about, but that we are unable to believe.

“The mist, which two hours ago hung over the water, had lifted and settled on the banks of the stream. It formed on each side an unbroken hill, six or seven yards in height, that shone in the moonlight with the dazzling whiteness of snow. Nothing could be seen but the flashing river, moving between the two white mountains, and overhead a full moon that illuminated the milky-blue sky.

“All the hosts of the water had awakened; the frogs were croaking dismally, while from time to time a toad sent its short, monotonous, and gloomy note to the stars. Strange to say, I was no longer frightened; I was surrounded by a landscape so utterly unreal that the strangest freaks of nature would not have surprised me at all.

“How long this situation lasted I am unable to tell, for I finally dozed off to sleep. When I awoke, the moon was gone and the sky was covered with clouds. The water splashed dismally, the wind was blowing, it was cold and completely dark. I finished the rum and lay listening to the rustling of the reeds and the murmur of the river. I tried to see, but failed to distinguish the boat or even my hands, although I held them close to my eyes. The darkness, however, was slowly decreasing. Suddenly I thought I saw a shadow glide past me. I shouted to it and a voice responded: it was a fisherman. I called to him and told him of my plight. He brought his boat alongside mine and both began tugging at the chain. The anchor still would not yield. A cold, rainy day was setting in, one of those days that bring disaster and sadness. I perceived another boat, which we hailed. The owner added his strength to ours, and little by little the anchor gave way. It came up very slowly, laden with considerable weight. Finally a black heap appeared and we dragged it into my boat. It was the body of an old woman, with a big stone tied around her neck!”

At the Church Door

He used to live in a little house near the main road at the entrance to a village. After he married the daughter of a farmer in the district he set up as a wheelwright, and as they both worked hard, they amassed a small fortune. But one thing caused them great sorrow; they had no children. At last a child was born to them, and they called him Jean. They showered kisses upon him, wrapped him up in their affection, and became so fond of him that they could not let an hour pass without seeing him. When he was five years old a circus passed through the village and pitched its tent on the square in front of the Town Hall.

Jean had seen them and had slipped out of the house. After a long search his father discovered him in the midst of the trained goats and dogs. He was sitting on the knee of an old clown and was shouting with laughter.

Three days later, at dinner time, just as they were sitting down to table, the wheelwright and his wife discovered that their son was not in the house. They looked in the garden, and as they did not find him there, the father went to the roadside and shouted with all his might: “Jean!”

Night was falling, and a brownish mist filled the horizon, and everything retreated into the dark and gloomy distance. Three tall fir-trees close by seemed to be weeping. No voice replied, but the air was full of vague moaning. The father listened for a long time, believing that he could hear something, now on his right now on his left, and he plunged wildly into the night, calling incessantly: “Jean! Jean!”

He ran on until daybreak, filling the shadows with his cries, frightening the prowling animals, his heart torn by a terrible anguish, so that at times he thought he was going mad. His wife remained seated at the door, and wept until morning. Their son was never found.

From that time they aged rapidly in their sorrow, which nothing could console. Finally they sold their house and set out to look for their son themselves. They questioned the shepherds on the hills, the passing tradesmen, the peasants in the villages and the authorities in the towns. But it was a long time since their son had been lost. Nobody knew anything, and probably he himself had now forgotten his name and his birthplace. They wept and lost all hope. Very soon their money was exhausted, and they hired themselves out by the day to the farmers and innkeepers, discharging the most humble tasks, living on the leavings of others, sleeping out of doors and suffering from cold. But as they became feeble from overwork, nobody would employ them, and they were compelled to beg along the roads. They accosted travellers with sad faces and supplicating voices, imploring a piece of bread from the harvesters eating their dinner beneath a tree, at midday in the fields. They devoured it in silence, seated on the edge of the ditches. An innkeeper to whom they related their misfortunes, said to them one day:

“I also knew someone who lost a daughter; it was in Paris he found her.”

Immediately they set out for Paris.

When they reached the great city they were frightened by its size and by the crowds in the streets. But they realised that he must be amongst all these people, without knowing how to set about finding him. Then they were afraid they would not recognise him, for they had not seen him for fifteen years. They visited every street and square, stopping wherever they saw a crowd gathered, in the hope of a chance meeting, some prodigious stroke of luck, an act of pity on the part of Fate. They would often wander blindly ahead, clinging to each other, and looking so sad and so poor that people gave them alms without being asked. Every Sunday they spent the day in front of the churches, watching the crowds going in and out, and scanning each face for a distant resemblance. Several times they fancied they recognised him, but they were always mistaken.

At the door of one of the churches to which they returned most frequently there was an old man who sprinkled holy water, and who had become their friend. His own story was also very sad, and their commiseration for him led to a great friendship between them. They finally lived together in a wretched garret at the top of a big house, a great distance out, near the open fields, and sometimes the wheelwright took his new friend’s place at the church, when the old man was ill. One very harsh winter came, the old sprinkler of holy water died, and the parish priest appointed in his place the wheelwright, of whose misfortunes he had heard.

Then he came every morning and seated himself in the same place, on the same chair, wearing out the old stone column against which he leant with the continual rubbing of his back. He gazed fixedly at every man who entered, and he looked forward to Sunday with the impatience of a schoolboy, because that was the day when the church was constantly full of people.

He grew very old, getting weaker and weaker under the damp arches, and every day his hope crumbled away. By this time he knew everyone who came to Mass, their hours, their habits, and he could recognise their steps on the tiled floor. His life had become so narrowed that it was a great event for him when a stranger entered the church. One day two ladies came; one old and the other young. Probably a mother and daughter, he thought. Behind them a young man appeared, who followed them, and when they went out he saluted them. After having offered them holy water he took the arm of the older lady.

“That must be the young lady’s intended,” thought the wheelwright.

For the rest of the day he racked his memory to discover where he once had seen a young man like that. But the one he was thinking of must now be an old man, for he seemed to have known him away back in his youth.

The same man came back frequently to escort the two ladies, and this vague resemblance, remote yet familiar, which he could not identify, obsessed the old man so much that he made his wife come to aid his feeble memory.

One evening, as it was getting dark, the strangers entered together. When they had passed, the husband said:

“Well, do you know who he is?”

His wife was troubled and tried, in turn, to remember. Suddenly she whispered:

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… but he is darker, taller, stronger, and dressed like a gentlemen, yet, father, he has the same face, you know, as you had when you were young.”

The old man gave a start.

It was true, the young man resembled him, and he resembled his brother who was dead, and his father, whom he remembered while he was still young. They were so deeply stirred that they could not speak. The three people were coming down the aisle and going out. The man touched the sprinkler with his finger, and the old man who was holding it shook so much that the holy water rained upon the ground.

“Jean?” he cried.

The man stopped and looked at him.

“Jean?” he repeated softly.

The two ladies looked at him in astonishment.

Then for the third time he said, sobbing: “Jean?”

The man stooped and looked closely into his face, then a recollection of childhood flashed in his mind, and he replied:

“Father Pierre and mother Jeanne!”

He had forgotten everything, his father’s other name, and that of his own birthplace, but he still remembered these two words, so often repeated: “Father Pierre; mother Jeanne!”

He knelt down with his head on the knees of the old man and wept. Then he kissed his father and mother by turns, while their voices were choked by joy unlimited. The two ladies also cried, for they realised that great happiness had come. They all went home with the young man, who told them his story.

The circus people had kidnapped him, and for three years he had travelled with them through many countries. Then the company broke up, and one day an old lady in a château gave a sum of money to adopt him, because she liked him. As he was intelligent, they sent him to school and college, and, as the old lady had no children, she left her fortune to him. He also had searched for his parents, but as the only thing he could remember was the two names, “father Pierre and mother Jeanne,” he could not discover them. Now he was going to be married, and he introduced his fiancée, who was as good as she was pretty.

When the two old people, in their turn, had related their sorrows and sufferings, they embraced him again, and that night they stayed awake very late, for they were afraid to go to bed lest happiness, which had evaded them so long, should abandon them once more, when they were asleep. But they had exhausted the endurance of misfortune, and lived happily till the end.

Lieutenant Laré’s Marriage

At the very beginning of the campaign Lieutenant Laré took two guns from the Prussians. The general said tersely: “Thanks, Lieutenant,” and gave him the cross of the Legion of Honour. Being as prudent as he was brave, subtle, inventive, and very resourceful, he was placed in charge of some hundred men, and he organised a service of scouts which saved the army several times during retreats.

Like a tidal wave the invaders poured over the entire frontier, wave after wave of men, leaving behind them the scum of pillage. General Carrel’s brigade was separated from its division, and had to retreat continuously, taking part in daily engagements, but preserving its ranks almost intact, thanks to the vigilance and speed of Lieutenant Laré, who seemed to be everywhere at once, outwitting the enemy, disappointing their calculations, leading the Uhlans astray, and killing their outposts.

One morning the general sent for him.

“Lieutenant,” he said, “here is a telegram from General de Lacère, who will be lost if we do not come to his help by tomorrow at dawn. You will start at dusk with three hundred men, whom you will station all along the road. I shall follow two hours later. Reconnoitre the route carefully. I do not want to run into an enemy division.”

It had been freezing hard for a week. At two o’clock it began to snow, by the evening the ground was covered, and heavy snowflakes obscured the closest objects. At six o’clock the detachment set out. Two men by themselves marched ahead to act as scouts. Then came a platoon of ten men commanded by the lieutenant himself. The remainder advanced in two long columns. A couple of hundred yards away on the left and right flanks a few soldiers marched in couples. The snow, which was still falling, powdered them white in the darkening shadows, and, as it did not melt on their uniforms, they were barely distinguishable in the dark from the general pallor of the landscape.

From time to time they halted, and then not a sound could be heard but that imperceptible rustle of falling snow, a vague and sinister sound, which is felt rather than heard. An order was given in whispers, and when the march was resumed they had left behind them a sort of white phantom standing in the snow, growing more and more indistinct until finally it disappeared. These were the living signposts which were to guide the army.

The scouts slowed their pace. Something was looming up in front of them.

“Swing to the right,” said the lieutenant, “that’s the woods of Ronfi; the château is more to the left.”

Soon the command to halt was heard. The detachment stopped and waited for the lieutenant, who, escorted by only ten men, had gone to reconnoitre the chateâu. They advanced, creeping under the trees. Suddenly they stopped dead. A frightful silence hovered about them, then, right beside them a clear, musical little voice broke the silence of the woods, saying:

“Father, we shall lose our way in the snow. We shall never reach Blainville.”

A deeper voice replied:

“Don’t be afraid, my child. I know the country as well as the back of my hand.”

The lieutenant said something, and four men moved off noiselessly, like phantoms.

All at once the piercing cry of a woman rang out in the night. Two prisoners were brought to him, an old man and a little girl, and the lieutenant, still speaking in whispers, cross-examined them.

“Your name?”

“Pierre Bernard.”

“Occupation?”

“Comte de Ronfi’s butler.”

“Is this your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“What does she do?”

“She is a sewing-maid at the chateâu.”

“Where are you going to?”

“We are running away.”

“Why?”

“Twelve Uhlans passed this evening. They shot three guards and hanged the gardener. I got frightened about the child.”

“Where are you going to?”

“Blainville.”

“Why?”

“Because there is a French army there.”

“Do you know the way?”

“Perfectly.”

“All right. Follow us.”

They rejoined the column, and the march across the fields was resumed. The old man walked in silence beside the lieutenant. His daughter marched beside him. Suddenly she stopped.

“Father,” she said, “I am so tired I cannot go any farther.”

She sat down, shaking with the cold, and seemed ready to die. Her father tried to carry her, but he was too old and feeble.

“Lieutenant,” he said, with a sob, “we shall be in your way. France comes first. Leave us.”

The officer had given an order, and several men had gone off, returning with some cut branches. In a moment a stretcher was made, and the whole detachment had come up.

“There is a woman here dying of cold,” said the lieutenant, “who will give a coat to cover her?”

Two hundred coats were taken off.

“Now, who will carry her?”

Every arm was placed at her disposal. The girl was wrapped in the warm military coats, laid gently upon the stretcher, and then lifted on to four robust shoulders. Like an Oriental queen carried by her slaves she was placed in the middle of the detachment, which continued its march, more vigorously, more courageously and more joyfully, warmed by the presence of a woman, the sovereign inspiration to which the ancient blood of France owes so much progress.

After an hour there was another halt, and they all lay down in the snow. Away off in the middle of the plain a huge black shadow was running. It was like a fantastic monster, which stretched out like a snake, then suddenly rolled itself up in a ball, bounded forward wildly, stopped and went on again. Whispered orders circulated amongst the men, and from time to time a little, sharp, metallic noise resounded. The wandering object suddenly came nearer, and twelve Uhlans were seen trotting at full speed, one after the other, having lost their way in the night. A terrible flash suddenly revealed two hundred men lying on the ground in front of them. A brief report died away in the silence of the snow, and all twelve, with their twelve horses, fell.

After a long wait the march was resumed, the old man they had picked up acting as guide. At length a distant voice shouted: “Who goes there?” Another voice nearer at hand gave the password. There was another wait, while the parley proceeded. The snow had ceased to fall. A cold wind swept the sky, behind which innumerable stars glittered. They grew pale and the eastern sky became pink.

A staff-officer came up to receive the detachment, but just as he was asking who was on the stretcher, the latter began to move, two little hands opened the heavy coats, and a charming little face, as pink as the dawn, with eyes more bright than the stars which had disappeared, replied:

“It is I, Sir.”

The delighted soldiers applauded, and carried the girl in triumph right into the middle of the camp where the arms were stored. Soon afterwards General Carrel arrived. At nine o’clock the Prussians attacked. At noon they retreated.

That evening, as Lieutenant Laré was dropping off to sleep on a heap of straw, utterly worn out, the general sent for him. He found him in his tent chatting with the old man whom they had picked up during the night. As soon as he entered the general took him by the hand, and turned to the stranger:

“My dear comte,” said he, “here is the young man of whom you were speaking a while back. He is one of my best officers.”

He smiled, lowered his voice, and repeated:

“The best.”

Then, turning to the astonished lieutenant, he introduced “Comte de Ronfi-Quédissac.”

The old gentleman seized his two hands:

“My dear lieutenant, you have saved my daughter’s life, and there is only one way in which I can thank you.⁠ ⁠… You will come in a few months’ time and tell me⁠ ⁠… whether you like her.⁠ ⁠…”

Exactly one year later to the day, in the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas, Captain Laré was married to Mademoiselle Louise Hortense Geneviève de Ronfi-Quédissac. She brought with her a dowry of six hundred thousand francs, and they say she was the prettiest bride of the year.

Simon’s Father

Noon had just struck. The school-door opened and the youngsters streamed out tumbling over one another in their haste to get out quickly. But instead of promptly dispersing and going home to dinner as was their daily wont, they stopped a few paces off, broke up into knots and set to whispering.

The fact was that that morning Simon, the son of La Blanchotte, had, for the first time, attended school.

They had all of them in their families heard of La Blanchotte; and although in public she was welcome enough, the mothers among themselves treated her with compassion of a somewhat disdainful kind, which the children had caught without in the least knowing why.

As for Simon himself, they did not know him, for he never went abroad, and did not play around with them through the streets of the village or along the banks of the river. So they did not like him much, and it was with a certain delight, mingled with astonishment, that they gathered in groups this morning, repeating to each other this phrase pronounced by a lad of fourteen or fifteen who appeared to know all about it, so sagaciously did he wink: “You know Simon⁠—well, he has no father.”

La Blanchotte’s son appeared in his turn upon the threshold of the school.

He was seven or eight years old, rather pale, very neat, with a timid and almost awkward manner.

He was making his way back to his mother’s house when the various groups of his schoolfellows, perpetually whispering, and watching him with the mischievous and heartless eyes of children bent upon playing a nasty trick, gradually surrounded him and ended by enclosing him altogether. There he stood amongst them, surprised and embarrassed, not understanding what they were going to do to him. But the lad who had brought the news, puffed up with the success he had met with, demanded:

“What is your name?”

He answered: “Simon.”

“Simon what?” retorted the other.

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

The lad shouted at him: “You must be named Simon something! That is not a name⁠—Simon indeed!”

And he, on the brink of tears, replied for the third time:

“My name is Simon.”

The urchins began laughing. The lad, triumphantly lifted up his voice: “You can see plainly that he has no father.”

A deep silence ensued. The children were dumbfounded by this extraordinary, impossibly monstrous thing⁠—a boy who had no father; they looked upon him as a phenomenon, an unnatural being, and they felt rising in them the hitherto inexplicable pity of their mothers for La Blanchotte. As for Simon, he had propped himself against a tree to avoid falling, and he stood there as if paralysed by an irreparable disaster. He sought to explain, but he could think of no answer for them, no way to deny this horrible charge that he had no father. At last he shouted at them quite recklessly: “Yes, I have one.”

“Where is he?” demanded the boy.

Simon was silent, he did not know. The children shrieked, tremendously excited. These sons of the soil, more animal than human, experienced the cruel craving which makes the fowls of a farmyard destroy one of their own kind as soon as it is wounded. Simon suddenly spied a little neighbour, the son of a widow, whom he had always seen, as he himself was to be seen, quite alone with his mother.

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

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

“Where is he?” rejoined Simon.

“He is dead,” declared the brat with superb dignity, “he is in the cemetery, is my father.”

A murmur of approval rose amid the scapegraces, as if the fact of possessing a father dead in a cemetery made their comrade big enough to crush the other one who had no father at all. And these rogues, whose fathers were for the most part evildoers, drunkards, thieves, and harsh with their wives, hustled each other as they pressed closer and closer to Simon as though they, the legitimate ones, would stifle in their pressure one who was beyond the law.

The lad next Simon suddenly put his tongue out at him with a waggish air and shouted at him:

“No father! No father!”

Simon seized him by the hair with both hands and set to work to kick his legs while he bit his cheek ferociously. A tremendous struggle ensued. The two boys were separated and Simon found himself beaten, torn, bruised, rolled on the ground in the middle of the ring of applauding little vagabonds. As he arose, mechanically brushing his little blouse all covered with dust with his hand, someone shouted at him:

“Go and tell your father.”

He then felt a great sinking in his heart. They were stronger than he, they had beaten him and he had no answer to give them, for he knew it was true that he had no father. Full of pride he tried for some moments to struggle against the tears which were suffocating him. He had a choking fit, and then without cries he began to weep with great sobs which shook him incessantly. Then a ferocious joy broke out among his enemies, and, just like savages in fearful festivals, they took one another by the hand and danced in a circle about him as they repeated in refrain:

“No father! No father!”

But suddenly Simon ceased sobbing. Frenzy overtook him. There were stones under his feet; he picked them up and with all his strength hurled them at his tormentors. Two or three were struck and ran away yelling, and so formidable did he appear that the rest became panic-stricken. Cowards, like a jeering crowd in the presence of an exasperated man, they broke up and fled. Left alone, the little thing without a father set off running toward the fields, for a recollection had been awakened which nerved his soul to a great determination. He made up his mind to drown himself in the river.

He remembered, in fact, that eight days ago a poor devil who begged for his livelihood had thrown himself into the water because he was destitute. Simon had been there when they fished him out again; and the sight of the fellow, who had seemed to him so miserable and ugly, had then impressed him⁠—his pale cheeks, his long drenched beard, and his open eyes being full of calm. The bystanders had said:

“He is dead.”

And someone had added:

“He is quite happy now.”

So Simon wished to drown himself also because he had no father, just as the wretched man did who had no money.

He reached the water and watched it flowing. Some fishes were rising briskly in the clear stream and occasionally made little leaps and caught the flies on the surface. He stopped crying in order to watch them, for their feeding interested him vastly. But, at intervals, as in the lulls of a tempest, when tremendous gusts of wind snap off trees and then die away, this thought would return to him with intense pain:

“I am about to drown myself because I have no father.”

It was very warm and lovely. The pleasant sunshine warmed the grass; the water shone like a mirror; and Simon enjoyed for some minutes the happiness of that languor which follows weeping, desirous even of falling asleep there upon the grass in the warmth of noon.

A little green frog leaped from under his feet. He endeavoured to catch it. It escaped him. He pursued it and lost it three times following. At last he caught it by one of its hind legs and began to laugh as he saw the efforts the creature made to escape. It gathered itself up on its large legs and then with a violent spring suddenly stretched them out as stiff as two bars. Its eyes stared wide open in their round, golden circle, and it beat the air with its front limbs, using them as though they were hands. It reminded him of a toy made with straight slips of wood nailed zigzag one on the other, which by a similar movement regulated the exercise of the little soldiers fastened thereon. Then he thought of his home and of his mother, and overcome by great sorrow he again began to weep. His limbs trembled; and he placed himself on his knees and said his prayers as before going to bed. But he was unable to finish them, for such hurried and violent sobs overtook him that he was completely overwhelmed. He thought no more, he no longer heeded anything around him but was wholly given up to tears.

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

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

Simon turned round. A tall workman, with a black beard and curly hair, was staring at him good-naturedly. He answered with his eyes and throat full of tears:

“They have beaten me because I⁠—I have no father⁠—no father.”

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

The child answered painfully amid his spasms of grief:

“But I⁠—I⁠—I have none.”

Then the workman became serious. He had recognized La Blanchotte’s son, and although a recent arrival to the neighbourhood he had a vague idea of her history.

“Well,” said he, “console yourself, my boy, and come with me home to your mother. You’ll have a father.”

And so they started on the way, the big one holding the little one by the hand. The man smiled again, for he was not sorry to see this Blanchotte, who by popular report was one of the prettiest girls in the countryside, and, perhaps, he said to himself at the bottom of his heart, that a lass who had erred once might very well err again.

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

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

A woman appeared, and the workman instantly left off smiling, for he at once perceived that there was no more fooling to be done with the tall pale girl, who stood austerely at her door as though to defend from one man the threshold of that house where she had already been betrayed by another. Intimidated, his cap in his hand, he stammered out:

“See, Madame, I have brought you back your little boy, who was lost near the river.”

But Simon flung his arms about his mother’s neck and told her, as he again began to cry:

“No, mamma, I wished to drown myself, because the others had beaten me⁠—had beaten me⁠—because I have no father.”

A painful blush covered the young woman’s cheeks, and, hurt to the quick, she embraced her child passionately, while the tears coursed down her face. The man, much moved, stood there, not knowing how to get away. But Simon suddenly ran up to him and said:

“Will you be my father?”

A deep silence ensued. La Blanchotte, dumb and tortured with shame, leaned against the wall, her hands upon her heart. The child, seeing that no answer was made him, replied:

“If you do not wish it, I shall return to drown myself.”

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

“Why, yes, I wish it, certainly.”

“What is your name,” went on the child, “so that I may tell the others when they wish to know your name?”

“Philip,” answered the man.

Simon was silent a moment so that he might get the name well into his memory; then he stretched out his arms, quite consoled, and said:

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

The workman, lifting him from the ground, kissed him hastily on both cheeks, and then strode away quickly.

When the child returned to school next day he was received with a spiteful laugh, and at the end of school, when the lad was about to begin again, Simon threw these words at his head as he would have done a stone: “My father’s name is Philip.”

Yells of delight burst out from all sides.

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

Simon answered nothing; and immovable in faith he defied them with his eye, ready to be martyred rather than fly before them. The schoolmaster came to his rescue and he returned home to his mother.

For about three months, the tall workman, Philip, frequently passed by La Blanchotte’s house, and sometimes made bold to speak to her when he saw her sewing near the window. She answered him civilly, always sedately, never joking with him, nor permitting him to enter her house. Notwithstanding this, being like all men, a bit of a coxcomb, he imagined that she was often rosier than usual when she chatted with him.

But a fallen reputation is so difficult to recover, and always remains so fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve La Blanchotte maintained, they already gossiped in the neighbourhood.

As for Simon, he loved his new father very much, and walked with him nearly every evening when the day’s work was done. He went regularly to school and mixed in a dignified way with his schoolfellows without ever answering them back.

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

“You have lied. You have no father called Philip.”

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

The youth rubbed his hands. He replied: “Because if you had one he would be your mamma’s husband.”

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

“He is my father all the same.”

“That may well be,” exclaimed the urchin with a sneer, “but that is not being your father altogether.”

La Blanchotte’s little one bowed his head and went off dreaming in the direction of the forge belonging to old Loizon, where Philip worked.

This forge was entombed in trees. It was very dark there, the red glare of a formidable furnace alone lit up with great flashes five blacksmiths, who hammered upon their anvils with a terrible din. Standing enveloped in flame, they worked like demons, their eyes fixed on the red-hot iron they were pounding; and their dull ideas rising and falling with their hammers.

Simon entered without being noticed and quietly plucked his friend by the sleeve. Philip turned round. All at once the work came to a standstill and the men looked on very attentively. Then, in the midst of this unaccustomed silence, rose Simon’s piping voice.

“Philip, explain to me what La Michaude’s boy has just told me, that you are not altogether my father.”

“And why so?” asked the smith.

The child replied in all innocence:

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

No one laughed. Philip remained standing, leaning his forehead upon the back of his great hands, which held the handle of his hammer upright upon the anvil. He mused. His four companions watched him, and, like a tiny mite among these giants, Simon anxiously waited. Suddenly, one of the smiths, voicing the sentiment of all, said to Philip:

“All the same La Blanchotte is a good and honest girl, stalwart and steady in spite of her misfortune, and one who would make a worthy wife for an honest man.”

“That is true,” remarked the three others.

The smith continued:

“Is it the girl’s fault if she has fallen? She had been promised marriage, and I know more than one who is much respected today and has sinned every bit as much.”

“That is true,” responded the three men in chorus.

He resumed:

“How hard she has toiled, poor thing, to educate her lad all alone, and how much she has wept since she no longer goes out, save to church, God only knows.”

“That is also true,” said the others.

Then no more was heard save the roar of the bellows which fanned the fire of the furnace. Philip hastily bent down towards Simon:

“Go and tell your mamma that I shall come to speak to her.”

Then he pushed the child out by the shoulders. He returned to his work and in unison the five hammers again fell upon their anvils. Thus they wrought the iron until nightfall, strong, powerful, happy, like Vulcans satisfied. But as the great bell of a cathedral resounds upon feast days, above the jingling of the other bells, so Philip’s hammer, dominating the noise of the others, clanged second after second with a deafening uproar. His eye on the fire, he plied his trade vigorously, erect amid the sparks.

The sky was full of stars as he knocked at La Blanchotte’s door. He had his Sunday blouse on, a fresh shirt, and his beard was trimmed. The young woman showed herself upon the threshold and said in a grieved tone:

“It is not right to come this way when night has fallen, Mr. Philip.”

He wished to answer, but stammered and stood confused before her.

She resumed.

“And you understand quite well that it will not do that I should be talked about any more.”

Then he said all at once:

“What does that matter to me, if you will be my wife!”

No voice replied to him, but he believed that he heard in the shadow of the room the sound of a body falling. He entered very quickly; and Simon, who had gone to his bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that his mother said very softly. Then he suddenly found himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean arms, exclaimed to him:

“You will tell your schoolfellows that your father is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and that he will pull the ears of all who do you any harm.”

The next day, when the school was full and lessons were about to begin, little Simon stood up quite pale with trembling lips:

“My father,” said he in a clear voice, “is Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and he has promised to box the ears of all who do me any harm.”

This time no one laughed any longer, for he was very well known, was Philip Remy, the blacksmith, and he was a father of whom they would all have been proud.

A Family Affair

The Neuilly steam-tram had just passed the Porte Maillot, and was going along the broad avenue that terminates at the Seine. The small engine that was attached to the car whistled, to warn any obstacle to get out of its way, let off steam, panted like a person out of breath from running, and its pistons made a rapid noise, like iron legs running. The oppressive heat of the end of a summer day lay over the whole city, and from the road, although there was not a breath of wind stirring, there arose a white, chalky, opaque, suffocating, and warm dust which stuck to the moist skin, filled the eyes, and got into the lungs. People were standing in the doors of their houses in search of a little air.

The windows of the steam-tram were down, and the curtains fluttered in the wind. There were very few passengers inside, because on such warm days people preferred the top or the platforms. The few inside consisted of stout women in strange toilettes, shopkeepers’ wives from the suburbs, who made up for the distinguished looks which they did not possess by ill-assumed dignity; of gentlemen tired of their office, with yellow faces, who stooped with one shoulder higher than the other, in consequence of long hours of work bending over the desk. Their uneasy and melancholy faces also spoke of domestic troubles, of constant want of money, of former hopes that had been finally disappointed. They all belonged to that army of poor, threadbare devils who vegetate economically in mean, plastered houses, with a tiny grass border for a garden, in the midst of the district where rubbish is deposited, on the outskirts of Paris.

Near the door a short, fat man, with a puffy face and a big stomach, dressed in black and wearing a decoration in his buttonhole, was talking to a tall, thin man, attired in a dirty, white linen suit all unbuttoned, and wearing a white Panama hat. The former spoke so slowly and hesitatingly, that occasionally it almost seemed as if he stammered; it was Monsieur Caravan, chief clerk in the Admiralty. The other, who had formerly been surgeon on board a merchant ship, had set up in practice in Courbevoie, where he applied the vague remnants of medical knowledge which he had retained after an adventurous life, to healing the wretched population of that district. His name was Chenet, and he had made the people call him Doctor, and strange rumours were current as to his morality.

Monsieur Caravan had always led the normal life of a man in a government office. Every morning for the last thirty years he had invariably gone the same way to his office, had met the same men going to business at the same time and nearly on the same spot, returned home every evening the same way, and again met the same faces, which he had seen growing old. Every morning, after buying his halfpenny paper at the corner of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, he bought his two rolls, and then rushed to his office, like a culprit giving himself up to justice. He got to his desk as quickly as possible, always feeling uneasy, as if expecting a rebuke for some neglect of duty of which he might have been guilty.

Nothing had ever occurred to change the monotonous order of his existence; no event affected him except the work of his office, gratuities, and promotion. He never spoke of anything but of his duties, either at the Admiralty or at home, for he had married the portionless daughter of one of his colleagues. His mind, which was in a state of atrophy from his depressing daily work, had no other thoughts, hopes, or dreams than such as related to the office, and there was a constant source of bitterness that spoiled every pleasure that he might have had, and that was the employment of so many commissioners of the navy, “tinmen,” as they were called, because of their silver-lace, as first-class clerks and heads of departments. Every evening at dinner he discussed the matter hotly with his wife, who shared his angry feelings, and proved to their own satisfaction that it was in every way unjust to give jobs in Paris to men who ought properly to have been employed in the navy.

He was old now, and had scarcely noticed how his life was passing, for school had merely been exchanged, without any transition, for the office, and the ushers at whom he had formerly trembled were replaced by his chiefs, of whom he was terribly afraid. When he had to go into the rooms of these official despots, it made him tremble from head to foot, and that constant fear had given him a very awkward manner in their presence, a humble demeanour, and a kind of nervous stammering.

He knew nothing more about Paris than a blind man could know, who was led to the same spot by his dog every day. If he read the account of any uncommon events, or of scandals, in his halfpenny paper, they appeared to him like fantastic tales, which some pressman had made up out of his own head, in order to amuse minor clerks. He did not read the political news, which his paper frequently altered, as the cause which subsidized them might require, for he was not fond of innovations, and when he went through the Avenue of the Champs-Élysées every evening, he looked at the surging crowd of pedestrians, and at the stream of carriages, like a traveller who has lost his way in a strange country.

As he had completed his thirty years of obligatory service that year, on the first of January, he had had the cross of the Legion of Honour bestowed upon him, which, in the semi-military public offices, is a recompense for the long and miserable slavery⁠—the official phrase is, “loyal services”⁠—of unfortunate convicts who are riveted to their desks. That unexpected dignity gave him a high and new idea of his own capacities, and altogether altered him. He immediately left off wearing light trousers and fancy waistcoats, and wore black trousers and long coats, on which his “ribbon,” which was very broad, showed off better. He got shaved every morning, trimmed his nails more carefully, changed his linen every two days, from a legitimate sense of what was proper, and out of respect for the national Order of which he formed a part. In fact, from that day he was another Caravan, scrupulously clean, majestic, and condescending.

At home, he said, “my cross,” at every moment, and he had become so proud of it that he could not bear to see other men wearing any other ribbon in their buttonholes. He got angry when he saw strange orders, which “nobody ought to be allowed to wear in France,” and he bore Chenet a particular grudge, as he met him on a tramcar every evening, wearing a decoration of some sort or another, white, blue, orange, or green.

The conversation of the two men, from the Arc de Triomphe to Neuilly, was always the same. That day as usual, they discussed, first of all, various local abuses, which disgusted them both, and the mayor of Neuilly received his full share of the blame. Then, as invariably happens in the company of a medical man, Caravan began to enlarge on the subject of illness, as, in that manner, he hoped to obtain a little gratuitous advice, or even a consultation if he were careful enough not to give himself away. His mother had been causing him no little anxiety for some time; she had frequent and prolonged fainting fits, and, although she was ninety, she would not take care of herself.

Caravan grew quite tenderhearted when he mentioned her great age, and more than once asked Doctor Chenet, emphasizing the word “doctor,” whether he had often met anyone as old as that. And he rubbed his hands with pleasure; not, perhaps, that he cared very much about seeing the good woman last forever here on earth, but because the long duration of his mother’s life was, as it were, an earnest of old age for himself. Then he continued:

“In my family, we last long, and I am sure that, unless I meet with an accident, I shall not die until I am very old.”

The officer of health looked at him with pity, glancing for a moment at his neighbour’s red face, his short, thick neck, his “corporation,” as Chenet called it, that hung down between two flaccid, fat legs, and the apoplectic rotundity of the old, flabby official. Lifting the dirty Panama hat which he wore from his head, he said, with a snigger:

“I am not so sure of that, old fellow; your mother is as tough as nails, and I should say that your life is not a very good one.”

This rather upset Caravan, who did not speak again until the tram put them down at their destination. The two friends got out, and Chenet asked his friend to have a glass of vermouth at the Café du Globe, opposite, a place which both of them were in the habit of frequenting. The proprietor, who was a friend of theirs, held out two fingers to them, which they shook across the bottles on the counter, and then they joined three of their friends, who were playing at dominoes, and had been there since midday. They exchanged cordial greetings, with the usual inquiry: “Anything fresh?” Then the three players continued their game, and held out their hands without looking up, when the others wished them “Good night” and went home to dinner.

Caravan lived in a small, two-storied house in Courbevoie, near the meeting of the roads; the ground floor was occupied by a hairdresser. Two bedrooms, a dining room, and a kitchen where mended chairs wandered from room to room, as they were wanted, formed the whole of their apartments, and Madame Caravan spent nearly her whole time in cleaning them up, while her daughter, Marie-Louise, who was twelve, and her son, Philippe-Auguste, were running about with all the little, dirty, mischievous brats of the neighbourhood, and playing in the gutters.

Caravan had installed his mother, whose avarice was notorious in the neighbourhood, and who was terribly thin, in the room above them. She was always in a bad temper and never passed a day without quarrelling and flying into furious tempers. She used to apostrophise the neighbours standing at their own doors, the vegetable venders, the street-sweepers, and the street-boys, in the most violent language. The latter, to have their revenge, used to follow her at a distance when she went out and call out rude things after her.

A little servant from Normandy, who was incredibly giddy and thoughtless, performed the household work, and slept on the second floor in the same room as the old woman, for fear of anything happening to her in the night.

When Caravan got in, his wife, who suffered from a chronic passion for cleaning, was polishing up the mahogany chairs, that were scattered about the room, with a piece of flannel. She always wore cotton gloves and adorned her head with a cap, ornamented with many coloured ribbons, which was always tilted on one ear, and whenever anyone caught her, polishing, sweeping, or washing, she used to say:

“I am not rich; everything is very simple in my house, but cleanliness is my luxury, and that is worth quite as much as any other.”

As she was gifted with sound, obstinate, practical common sense, she swayed her husband in everything. Every evening during dinner, and afterward, when they were in bed, they talked over the business in the office, and, although she was twenty years younger, he confided everything to her as if she had had the direction, and followed her advice in every matter.

She had never been pretty, and now had grown ugly; in addition to that, she was short and thin, while her careless and tasteless way of dressing herself hid the few, small feminine attributes which might have been brought out if she had possessed any skill in dress. Her petticoats were always awry, and she frequently scratched herself, no matter on what place, totally indifferent as to who might be there, out of a sort of habit which had become almost an unconscious movement. The only ornaments that she allowed herself were silk ribbons, which she had in great profusion, and of various colours mixed together, in the pretentious caps which she wore at home.

As soon as she saw her husband she got up, and said, as she kissed him:

“Did you remember Potin, my dear?”

He fell into a chair, in consternation, for that was the fourth time he had forgotten a commission that he had promised to do for her.

“It is a fatality,” he said; “in spite of my thinking of it all day long, I am sure to forget it in the evening.”

But as he seemed really so very sorry, she merely said, quietly:

“You will think of it tomorrow, I daresay. Anything fresh at the office?”

“Yes, a great piece of news: another tinman has been appointed senior chief clerk.” She became angry.

“To what department?”

“The department of Foreign Supplies.”

“So he succeeds Ramon. That was the very post that I wanted you to have. And what about Ramon?”

“He retires on his pension.”

She grew furious, her cap slid down on her shoulder, and she continued:

“There is nothing more to be done in that hole now. And what is the name of the new commissioner?”

“Bonassot.”

She took up the Naval Year Book, which she always kept close at hand, and looked him up:

“ ‘Bonassot⁠—Toulon. Born in 1851. Student-Commissioner in 1871. Sub-Commissioner in 1875.’

Has he been to sea?” she continued, and at that question Caravan’s looks cleared up, and he laughed until his sides shook.

“Just like Balin⁠—just like Balin, his chief.” Then he added an old office joke, and laughed more than ever:

“It would not even do to send them by water to inspect the Point-du-Four, for they would be sick on the Seine steamboats.”

But she remained as serious as if she had not heard him, and then she said in a low voice, while she scratched her chin:

“If only we had a deputy to fall back upon. When the Chamber hears all that is going on at the Admiralty, the minister will be turned out⁠—”

She was interrupted by a terrible noise on the stairs. Marie-Louise and Philippe-Auguste, who had just come in from the gutter, were giving each other slaps all the way upstairs. Their mother rushed at them furiously, and taking each of them by an arm, she dragged them into the room, shaking them vigorously. But as soon as they saw their father, they rushed up to him. He kissed them affectionately, and taking one of them on each knee, he began to talk to them.

Philippe-Auguste was an ugly, ill-kempt little brat, dirty from head to foot, with the face of an idiot, and Marie-Louise was already like her mother⁠—spoke like her, repeated her words, and even imitated her movements. She also asked him whether there was anything fresh at the office, and he replied merrily:

“Your friend, Ramon, who comes and dines here every Sunday, is going to leave us, little one. There is a new senior head-clerk.”

She looked at her father, and with a precocious child’s pity, she said:

“So somebody has been put over your head again!”

He stopped laughing and did not reply. Then, in order to create a diversion, he said, addressing his wife, who was cleaning the windows:

“How is mamma, up there?”

Madame Caravan left off rubbing, turned round, pulled her cap up, as it had fallen quite on to her back, and said, with trembling lips:

“Ah! yes; let us talk about your mother. She has created a pretty scene. Just think that a short time ago Madame Lebaudin, the hairdresser’s wife, came upstairs to borrow a packet of starch from me, and, as I was not at home, your mother called her a beggar woman, and turned her out; but I gave it to the old woman. She pretended not to hear, as she always does when one tells her unpleasant truths, but she is no more deaf than I am, as you know. It is all a sham, and the proof of it is, that she went up to her own room immediately without saying a word.”

Caravan, taken aback, did not utter a word, and at that moment the little servant came in to announce dinner. In order to let his mother know, he took a broom-handle, which always stood hidden in a corner, and rapped loudly on the ceiling three times, and then they went into the dining room. Madame Caravan, junior, helped the soup, and waited for the old woman. But she did not come, and the soup was getting cold, so they began to eat slowly, and when their plates were empty, they waited again. Then Madame Caravan, who was furious, attacked her husband:

“She does it on purpose, you know that as well as I do. But you always uphold her.”

In great perplexity between the two, he sent up Marie-Louise to fetch her grandmother, and sat motionless, with his eyes down, while his wife tapped her glass angrily with her knife. In about a minute the door flew open suddenly, and the child came in again, out of breath, and very pale, and said quickly:

“Grandmamma has fallen down on the ground.”

Caravan jumped up, threw his table-napkin down, and rushed upstairs, while his wife, who thought it was some trick of her mother-in-law, followed more slowly, shrugging her shoulders, as if to express her doubt. When they got upstairs, however, they found the old woman lying at full length in the middle of the room, and when they turned her over they saw that she was insensible and motionless. Her skin looked more wrinkled and yellow than usual, her eyes were closed, her teeth clenched, and her thin body was stiff.

Caravan kneeled down by her and began to moan:

“My poor mother! my poor mother!” he said. But the other Madame Caravan said:

“Bah! She has only fainted again, that is all, and she has done it to prevent us from dining comfortably, you may be sure of that.”

They put her on the bed, undressed her completely, and Caravan, his wife, and the servant began to rub her, but, in spite of their efforts, she did not recover consciousness, so they sent Rosalie, the servant, to fetch “Doctor” Chenet. He lived a long way off, on the quay going toward Suresnes, and so it was a considerable time before he arrived. He came at last, however, and, after having looked at the old woman, felt her pulse, and auscultated her, he said:

“It is all over.”

Caravan threw himself on the body, sobbing violently. He kissed his mother’s rigid face, and wept so that great tears fell on the dead woman’s face, like drops of water. Naturally, Madame Caravan, junior, showed a decorous amount of grief, uttered feeble moans as she stood behind her husband, and she rubbed her eyes vigorously.

But, suddenly, Caravan raised himself up, with his thin hair in disorder, and, looking very ugly in his grief, said:

“But, are you sure, doctor? Are you quite sure?”

The medical man stooped over the body, and, handling it with professional dexterity, as a shopkeeper might do, when showing off his goods, he said: “See, my dear friend, look at her eye.”

He raised the eyelid and the old woman’s look reappeared under his finger, altogether unaltered, unless, perhaps, the pupil was rather larger, and Caravan felt a severe shock at the sight. Then Monsieur Chenet took her thin arm, forced the fingers open, and said, angrily, as if he had been contradicted:

“Just look at her hand; I never make a mistake, you may be quite sure of that.”

Caravan fell on the bed, and almost bellowed, while his wife, still whimpering, did what was necessary.

She brought the night-table, on which she spread a table-napkin. Then she placed four wax candles on it, which she lighted; then took a sprig of box, which was hanging over the chimney glass, and put it between the candles, into the plate, which she filled with clean water, as she had no holy water. After a moment’s rapid reflection, she threw a pinch of salt into the water, no doubt thinking she was performing some sort of act of consecration by doing that. When she had finished the setting which is supposed to be appropriate to Death, she remained standing motionless, and the medical man, who had been helping her, whispered to her:

“We must take Caravan away.”

She nodded assent, and, going up to her husband, who was still on his knees, sobbing, she raised him up by one arm, while Chenet took him by the other.

They put him into a chair, and his wife kissed his forehead and then began to lecture him. Chenet enforced her words, and preached firmness, courage, and resignation⁠—the very things which are always wanting in such overwhelming misfortune⁠—and then both of them took him by the arms again and led him out.

He was crying like a big child, with convulsive sobs; his arms were hanging down and his legs seemed useless; he went downstairs without knowing what he was doing, and moved his legs mechanically. They put him into the chair which he always occupied at dinner, in front of his empty soup-plate. And there he sat, without moving, with his eyes fixed on his glass, so stupefied with grief that he could not even think.

In a corner, Madame Caravan was talking with the doctor, and asking what the necessary formalities were, as she wanted to obtain practical information. At last, Monsieur Chenet, who appeared to be waiting for something, took up his hat and prepared to go, saying that he had not dined yet; whereupon she exclaimed:

“What! You have not dined? But stop here, doctor; don’t go. You shall have whatever we can give you, for, of course, you will understand that we won’t eat much.” However, he made excuses and refused, but she persisted, and said:

“You really must stop; at times like this people like to have friends near them, and, besides that, perhaps you will be able to persuade my husband to take some nourishment; he must keep up his strength.”

The doctor bowed, and, putting down his hat, said:

“In that case, I will accept your invitation, Madame.”

She gave Rosalie, who seemed to have lost her head, some orders, and then sat down, “to pretend to eat,” as she said, “to keep the ‘doctor’ company.”

The soup was brought in again, and Monsieur Chenet took two helpings. Then there came a dish of tripe, which exhaled a smell of onions, and which Madame Caravan made up her mind to taste.

“It is excellent,” the doctor said, at which she smiled, and, turning to her husband, she said:

“Do take a little, my poor Alfred, only just to get something into your stomach. Remember that you have got to pass the night watching by her!”

He held out his plate, docilely, just as he would have gone to bed if he had been told to, obeying her in everything without resistance and without reflection, and, therefore, he ate. The doctor helped himself three times, while Madame Caravan, from time to time, fished out a large piece on the end of her fork, and swallowed it with a sort of studied inattention.

When a salad bowl full of macaroni was brought in, the doctor said:

“By Jove! That is what I am very fond of.” And this time Madame Caravan helped everybody. She even filled the children’s saucers, which they had scraped clean, and who, being left to themselves, had been drinking wine without any water, and were now kicking each other under the table.

Chenet remembered that Rossini, the composer, had been very fond of that Italian dish, and suddenly he exclaimed:

“Why! that rhymes, and one could begin some lines like this:

‘The Maestro Rossini
Was fond of macaroni.’

Nobody listened to him, however. Madame Caravan, who had suddenly grown thoughtful, was thinking of all the probable consequences of the event, while her husband made bread pellets, which he put on the tablecloth, and looked at with a fixed, idiotic stare. As he was devoured by thirst, he was continually raising his glass to his lips, and the consequence was that his senses, already rather upset by the shock and grief, seemed to dance about vaguely in his head, which was heavy from the laborious process of digestion which had begun.

Meanwhile, the doctor, who had been drinking away steadily, was getting visibly drunk, and Madame Caravan herself felt the reaction which follows all nervous shocks. She was agitated and excited, and although she had been drinking nothing but water, she felt her head rather confused.

By and by, Chenet began to relate stories of deaths, that appeared funny to him. In the suburbs of Paris, which are full of people from the provinces, one meets with the indifference toward death, even of a father or a mother, which all peasants show; a want of respect, an unconscious callousness which is common in the country, and rare in Paris. Said he:

“Why, I was sent for last week to the Rue du Puteaux, and when I went, I found the sick person (and there was the whole family calmly sitting near the bed) finishing a bottle of liqueur of aniseed, which had been bought the night before to satisfy the dying man’s fancy.”

But Madame Caravan was not listening; she was continually thinking of the inheritance, and Caravan was incapable of understanding anything.

Soon Rosalie served coffee, which had been made very strong, to keep up their courage, and as every cup was well dosed with cognac, it made all their faces red, and confused their ideas still more. To make matters still worse, Chenet suddenly seized the brandy bottle and poured out “a drop just to wash their mouths out with,” as he termed it, for each of them. Then, without speaking any more, overcome, in spite of themselves, by that feeling of animal comfort which alcohol affords after dinner, they slowly sipped the sweet cognac, which formed a yellowish syrup at the bottom of their cups.

The children had gone to sleep, and Rosalie carried them off to bed. Then, Caravan, mechanically obeying that wish to forget oneself which possesses all unhappy persons, helped himself to brandy again several times, and his dull eyes grew bright. At last the doctor rose to go, and seizing his friend’s arm, he said:

“Come with me; a little fresh air will do you good. When you are in trouble, you must not stick to one spot.”

The other obeyed mechanically, put on his hat, took his stick, and went out, and both of them went arm-in-arm toward the Seine, in the starlight night.

The air was warm and sweet, for all the gardens in the neighbourhood are full of flowers at that season of the year, and their scent, which is scarcely perceptible during the day, seems to awaken at the approach of night, and mingles with the light breezes which blow upon them in the darkness.

The broad avenue, with its two rows of gaslamps, which extend as far as the Arc de Triomphe, was deserted and silent, but there was the distant roar of Paris, which seemed to have a reddish vapour hanging over it. It was a kind of continual rumbling, which was at times answered by the whistle of a train at full speed, in the distance, travelling to the ocean through the provinces.

The fresh air on the faces of the two men rather overcame them at first, made the doctor lose his equilibrium a little, and increased Caravan’s giddiness, from which he had suffered since dinner. He walked as if he were in a dream; his thoughts were paralysed; although he felt no great grief, for he was in a state of mental torpor that prevented him from suffering, and he even felt a sense of relief which was increased by the warm scent of the night.

When they reached the bridge, they turned to the right and faced the fresh breeze from the river, which rolled along, calm and melancholy, bordered by tall poplar-trees. The stars looked as if they were floating on the water and were moving with the current. A slight, white mist that floated over the opposite banks filled their lungs with a sensation of cold, and Caravan stopped suddenly, for he was struck by that smell from the water, which brought back old memories to his mind. For suddenly, in his mind, he saw his mother again, in Picardy, as he had seen her years before, kneeling in front of their door and washing the heaps of linen, by her side, in the little stream that ran through their garden. He almost fancied that he could hear the sound of the wooden beetle with which she beat the linen, in the calm silence of the country, and her voice, as she called out to him: “Alfred, bring me some soap.” And he smelled the odour of the trickling water, of the mist rising from the wet ground, of the heap of wet linen which he should never forget, the less that it came back to him on the very evening on which his mother died.

He stopped, paralysed by a sudden feeling of anguish. It was like a beam of light illuminating all at once the whole extent of his misfortune, and this meeting with vagrant thoughts plunged him into a black abyss of irremediable despair. He felt heartbroken at that eternal separation. His life seemed cut in half, all his youth gone, swallowed up by that death. All the former life was over and done with, all the recollections of his youthful days would vanish; for the future, there would be nobody to talk to him of what had happened in days gone by, of the people he had known of old, of his own part of the country, and of his past life; that was a part of his existence which was gone forever, and the other might as well end now.

Then the procession of memories came. He saw his mother as she was when younger, wearing well-worn dresses, which he remembered for such a long time that they seemed inseparable from her. He recollected her in various forgotten circumstances, her suppressed appearance, the different tones of her voice, her habits, her manias, her fits of anger, the wrinkles on her face, the movements of her thin fingers, and all her well-known attitudes, which she would never have again, and clutching hold of the doctor, he began to moan and weep. His flabby legs began to tremble, his whole stout body was shaken by his sobs, all he could say was:

“My mother, my poor mother, my poor mother!”

But his companion, who was still drunk, and who intended to finish the evening in certain places of bad repute that he frequented secretly, made him sit down on the grass by the riverside, and left him almost immediately, under the pretext that he had to see a patient.

Caravan went on crying for a long time, and then, when he had got to the end of his tears⁠—when his grief had, so to speak, run out of him⁠—he again felt relief, repose, and sudden tranquillity.

The moon had risen and bathed the horizon in its soft light. The tall poplar-trees had a silvery sheen on them, and the mist on the plain looked like floating snow. The river, in which the stars were no longer reflected, and which looked as if it were covered with mother-of-pearl, flowed on, rippled by the wind. The air was soft and sweet, and Caravan inhaled it almost greedily, thinking that he could perceive a feeling of freshness, of calm and of superhuman consolation pervading him.

He really tried to resist that feeling of comfort and relief, and kept on saying to himself: “My mother, my poor mother!” He tried to make himself cry, from a kind of conscientious feeling, but he could not succeed in doing so any longer, and the sad thoughts which had made him sob so bitterly a short time before had almost passed away. In a few moments he rose to go home, and returned slowly, under the influence of that serene night, with a heart soothed in spite of himself.

When he reached the bridge, he saw the last tramcar, ready to start, and the lights through the windows of the Café du Globe, and felt a longing to tell somebody of the catastrophe that had happened, to excite pity, to make himself interesting. He put on a woeful face, pushed open the door, and went up to the counter, where the landlord always stood. He had counted on creating an effect, and had hoped that everybody would get up and come to him with outstretched hands, and say: “Why, what is the matter with you?” But nobody noticed his disconsolate face, so he rested his two elbows on the counter, and, burying his face in his hands, he murmured: “Good heavens! Good heavens!”

The landlord looked at him and said: “Are you ill, Monsieur Caravan?”

“No, my friend,” he replied, “but my mother has just died.”

“Ah!” the other exclaimed, and as a customer at the other end of the establishment asked for a glass of beer, he replied: “All right, I’m coming,” and he went to attend to him, leaving Caravan almost stupefied at his want of sympathy.

The three domino players were sitting at the same table which they had occupied before dinner, totally absorbed in their game, and Caravan went up to them, in search of pity, but as none of them appeared to notice him, he made up his mind to speak.

“A great misfortune has happened to me since I was here,” he said.

All three raised their heads slightly at the same instant, but kept their eyes fixed on the pieces which they held in their hands.

“What do you say?”

“My mother has just died.”

Whereupon one of them said: “Oh! By Jove!” with that false air of sorrow which indifferent people assume. Another, who could not find anything to say, emitted a sort of sympathetic whistle, shaking his head at the same time, and the third turned to the game again, as if he were saying to himself: “Is that all!”

Caravan had expected some of those expressions that are said to “come from the heart,” and when he saw how his news was received he left the table, indignant at their calmness before a friend’s sorrow, although at that moment he was so dazed with grief that he hardly felt it, and went home.

His wife was waiting for him in her nightgown, sitting in a low chair by the open window, still thinking of the inheritance.

“Undress yourself,” she said; “we will talk when we are in bed.”

He raised his head, and looking at the ceiling, he said:

“But there is nobody up there.”

“I beg your pardon, Rosalie is with her, and you can go and take her place at three o’clock in the morning, when you have had some sleep.”

He only partially undressed, however, so as to be ready for anything that might happen, and after tying a silk handkerchief round his head, he joined his wife, who had just got in between the sheets. For some time they remained side by side, and neither of them spoke. She was thinking.

Even in bed, her nightcap was adorned with a pink bow, and was pushed rather over one ear, as was the way with all the caps that she wore. Presently, she turned toward him and said:

“Do you know whether your mother made a will?”

He hesitated for a moment, and then replied:

“I⁠—I do not think so. No, I am sure that she did not.”

His wife looked at him, and she said, in a low, furious voice:

“I call that infamous; here we have been wearing ourselves out for ten years in looking after her, and have boarded and lodged her! Your sister would not have done so much for her, nor I either, if I had known how I was to be rewarded! Yes, it is a disgrace to her memory! I daresay that you will tell me that she paid us, but one cannot pay one’s children in ready money for what they do; that obligation is recognized after death; at any rate, that is how honourable people act. So I have had all my worry and trouble for nothing! Oh, that is nice! that is very nice!”

Poor Caravan, who felt nearly distracted, kept on saying:

“My dear, my dear, please, please be quiet.”

She grew calmer by degrees, and, resuming her usual voice and manner, she continued:

“We must let your sister know tomorrow.”

He started, and said:

“Of course we must; I had forgotten all about it; I will send her a telegram the first thing in the morning.”

“No,” she replied, like a woman who has foreseen everything; “no, do not send it before ten or eleven o’clock, so that we may have time to turn round before she comes. It does not take more than two hours to get here from Charenton, and we can say that you lost your head from grief. If we let her know in the course of the day, that will be soon enough, and will give us time to look round.”

But Caravan put his hand to his forehead, and in the same timid voice in which he always spoke of his chief, the very thought of whom made him tremble, he said:

“I must let them know at the office.”

“Why?” she replied. “On such occasions like this, it is always excusable to forget. Take my advice, and don’t let him know; your chief will not be able to say anything to you, and you will put him into a nice fix.”

“Oh! yes, I shall, indeed, and he will be in a terrible rage, too, when he notices my absence. Yes, you are right; it is a capital idea, and when I tell him that my mother is dead, he will be obliged to hold his tongue.”

And he rubbed his hands in delight at the joke, when he thought of his chief’s face; while the body of the dead old woman lay upstairs, beside the sleeping servant.

But Madame Caravan grew thoughtful, as if she were preoccupied by something which she did not care to mention. But at last she said:

“Your mother had given you her clock, had she not; the girl playing at cup and ball?”

He thought for a moment, and then replied:

“Yes, yes; she said to me a long time ago, when she first came here: ‘I shall leave the clock to you, if you look after me well.’ ”

Madame Caravan was reassured, and regained her serenity, and said:

“Well, then, you must go and fetch it out of her room, for if we get your sister here, she will prevent us from having it.”

He hesitated: “Do you think so?” That made her angry.

“I certainly think so; as soon as it is in our possession, she will know nothing at all about where it came from; it belongs to us. It is just the same with the chest of drawers with the marble top that is in her room; she gave it to me one day when she was in a good temper. We will bring it down at the same time.”

Caravan, however, seemed incredulous, and said:

“But, my dear, it is a great responsibility!”

She turned on him furiously.

“Oh! Indeed! Will you never alter? You would let your children die of hunger, rather than make a move. Does not that chest of drawers belong to us, since she gave it to me? And if your sister is not satisfied, let her tell me so, me! I don’t care a straw for your sister. Come, get up, and we will bring down what your mother gave us, immediately.”

Trembling and vanquished, he got out of bed, and began to put on his trousers, but she stopped him:

“It is not worth while to dress yourself; your underclothes are quite enough; I mean to go as I am.”

They both left the room in their nightclothes, went upstairs quite noiselessly, opened the door, and went into the room where the four lighted tapers and the plate with the sprig of box alone seemed to be watching the old woman in her rigid repose; for Rosalie, who was lying back in the easy-chair with her legs stretched out, her hands folded in her lap, and her head on one side, was also quite motionless, and snoring with her mouth wide open.

Caravan took the clock, which was one of those grotesque objects that were produced so plentifully under the Empire. A girl in gilt bronze was holding a cup and ball, and the ball formed the pendulum.

“Give that to me,” his wife said, “and take the marble top off the chest of drawers.”

He put the marble on his shoulder with a considerable effort, and they left the room. Caravan had to stoop in the doorway, and trembled as he went downstairs, while his wife walked backward, so as to light him, holding the candlestick in one hand and the clock under her other arm.

When they were in their own room, she heaved a sigh.

“We have got over the worst part of the job,” she said; “so now let us go and fetch the other things.”

But the drawers were full of the old woman’s wearing apparel which they must manage to hide somewhere, and Madame Caravan soon thought of a plan.

“Go and get that wooden box in the passage; it is hardly worth anything and we may just as well put it here.”

And when he had brought it upstairs, the change began. One by one, she took out all the collars, cuffs, chemises, caps, all the well-worn things that had belonged to the poor woman lying there behind them, and arranged them methodically in the wooden box, in such a manner as to deceive Madame Braux, the deceased woman’s other child, who would be coming the next day.

When they had finished, they first of all carried the drawers downstairs, and the remaining portion afterward, each of them holding an end. It was some time before they could make up their minds where it would stand best; but at last they settled upon their own room, opposite the bed, between the two windows. As soon as it was in its place, Madame Caravan filled it with her own things. The clock was placed on the chimneypiece in the dining room. They looked to see what the effect was, and were both delighted with it, agreeing that nothing could be better. Then they got into bed, she blew out the candle, and soon everybody in the house was asleep.

It was broad daylight when Caravan opened his eyes again. His mind was rather confused when he woke up, and he did not clearly remember what had happened for a few minutes; when he did, he felt it painfully, and jumped out of bed, almost ready to cry again.

He very soon went to the room overhead, where Rosalie was still sleeping in the same position as the night before, for she did not wake up once during the whole time. He sent her to do her work, put fresh tapers in the place of those that had burned out, and then he looked at his mother, revolving in his mind those apparently profound thoughts, those religious and philosophical commonplaces, which trouble people of mediocre minds in the face of death.

But he went downstairs as soon as his wife called him. She had written out a list of what had to be done during the morning, which rather frightened him when he saw it.

Lodge a declaration of death at the Town Hall.

See the coroner.

Order the coffin.

Give notice to the church.

Go to the undertaker.

Order the notices of her death at the printer’s.

Go to the lawyer.

Telegraph the news to all the family.

Besides all this, there were a number of small commissions; so he took his hat and went out. As the news had got abroad, Madame Caravan’s female friends and neighbours soon began to come in, and begged to be allowed to see the body. There had been a scene at the hairdresser’s, on the ground floor, about the matter, between husband and wife, while he was shaving a customer. While busily knitting the woman had said: “Well, there is one less, and one as great a miser as one ever meets with. I certainly was not very fond of her; but, nevertheless, I must go and have a look at her.”

The husband, while lathering his customer’s chin, said:

“That is another queer fancy! Nobody but a woman would think of such a thing. It is not enough for them to worry you during life, but they cannot even leave you in peace when you are dead.”

But his wife, not put out in the least, replied: “I can’t help it; I must go. It has been on me since the morning. If I were not to see her, I should think about it all my life, but when I have had a good look at her, I shall be satisfied.”

The knight of the razor shrugged his shoulders, and remarked in a low voice to the gentleman whose cheek he was scraping:

“Now, what sort of ideas do you think these confounded females have? I should not amuse myself by inspecting a corpse!”

But his wife heard him, and replied very quietly:

“But I do, I do.” And then, putting her knitting down on the counter, she went upstairs, to the first floor, where she met two other neighbours. These had just come, and were discussing the event with Madame Caravan, who was giving them the details. Then the four went together to the mortuary chamber. The women went in softly, and, one after the other, sprinkled the bedclothes with the salted water, kneeled down, made the sign of the cross while they mumbled a prayer, then got up, and, open-mouthed, regarded the corpse for a long time, while the daughter-in-law of the dead woman, with her handkerchief to her face, pretended to be sobbing piteously.

When she turned to walk away, whom should she perceive standing close to the door but Marie-Louise and Philippe-Auguste, who were curiously taking stock of things. Then, forgetting to control her temper, she threw herself upon them with up lifted hand, crying out in a furious voice: “Will you get out of this, you brats.”

Ten minutes later, going upstairs again with another contingent of neighbours, she prayed, wept profusely, performed all her duties, and again caught the children following her upstairs. She boxed their ears soundly, but the next time she paid no heed to them, and at each fresh influx of visitors the two urchins followed in the wake, crowded themselves up in a corner, slavishly imitating everything they saw their mother do.

When afternoon came round the crowds of curious people began to diminish, and soon there were no more visitors. Madame Caravan, returning to her own apartments, began to make the necessary preparations for the funeral ceremony, and the deceased was left by herself.

The window of the room was open. A torrid heat entered along with clouds of dust; the flames of the four candles were flickering in the direction of the corpse, and upon the cloth which covered the face, the closed eyes, the two hands stretched out, small flies alighted, came, went, and buzzed up and down incessantly, being the only companions of the old woman during the next hour.

Marie-Louise and Philippe-Auguste, however, had now left the house, and were running up and down the street. They were soon surrounded by their playmates, and by little girls, especially, who were older, and who were interested in the mysteries of life, and asked questions in the manner of persons of great importance.

“Then your grandmother is dead?”

“Yes, she died yesterday evening.”

“What does a dead person look like?”

Then Marie began to explain, telling all about the candles, the sprig of box and the cadaverous face. It was not long before great curiosity was aroused in the breasts of all the children, and they asked to be allowed to go upstairs to look at the departed.

Then Marie-Louise arranged a party for the first visit, consisting of five girls and two boys⁠—the biggest and the most courageous. She made them take off their shoes so that they might not be discovered. The troop filed into the house and mounted the stairs as stealthily as an army of mice.

Once in the chamber, the little girl, imitating her mother, regulated the ceremony. She solemnly walked in advance of her comrades, went down on her knees, made the sign of the cross, moistened the lips of the corpse with a few drops of water, stood up again, sprinkled the bed, and while the children all crowded together were approaching⁠—frightened and curious, and eager to look at the face and hands of the deceased⁠—she began suddenly to simulate sobbing, and to bury her eyes in her little handkerchief. Then, instantly consoled on thinking of the other children downstairs waiting at the door, she withdrew in haste, returning in a minute with another group, and then a third; for all the little ruffians of the neighbourhood, even to the little beggars in rags, had congregated in order to participate in this new pleasure. Each time she repeated her mother’s grimaces with absolute perfection.

At length, however, she tired of it. Some game or another attracted the children away from the house, and the old grandmother was left alone, forgotten suddenly by everybody.

A dismal gloom pervaded the chamber, and upon the dry and rigid features of the corpse the dying flames of the candles cast occasional gleams of light.

Toward eight o’clock, Caravan ascended to the chamber of death, closed the windows, and renewed the candles. On entering now he was quite composed, evidently accustomed to regard the corpse as though it had been there for a month. He even went the length of declaring that, as yet, there were no signs of decomposition, making this remark just at the moment when he and his wife were about to sit down at table. “Pshaw!” she responded, “she is made of wood; she will keep for a year.”

The soup was eaten without a word being uttered by anyone. The children, who had been free all day, were now worn out by fatigue and were sleeping soundly in their chairs, and nobody ventured to break the silence.

Suddenly the flame of the lamp went down. Madame Caravan immediately turned up the wick, a prolonged, gurgling noise ensued, and the light went out. She had forgotten to buy oil during the day. To send for it now to the grocer’s would keep back the dinner, and everybody began to look for candles. But none were to be found except the night lights which had been placed upon the table upstairs, in the death-chamber.

Madame Caravan, always prompt in her decisions, quickly dispatched Marie-Louise to fetch two, and her return was awaited in total darkness.

The footsteps of the girl who had ascended the stairs were distinctly heard. Then followed silence for a few seconds, and then the child descended precipitately. She threw open the door affrighted, and in a choked voice murmured: “Oh! papa, grandmamma is dressing herself!”

Caravan bounded to his feet with such precipitation that his chair rolled over against another chair. He stammered out: “What! What do you say?”

But Marie-Louise, gasping with emotion, repeated: “Grand⁠—grand⁠—grandmamma is putting on her clothes, and is coming downstairs.”

Caravan rushed boldly up the staircase, followed by his wife, dumbfounded; but he came to a standstill before the door of the room, overcome with terror, not daring to enter. What was he going to see? Madame Caravan, more courageous, turned the handle of the door and stepped forward into the room.

The room seemed to be darker, and in the middle of it, a tall emaciated figure moved about. The old woman stood upright, and in awakening from her lethargic sleep, before even full consciousness had returned to her, in turning upon her side and raising herself on her elbow, she had extinguished three of the candles which burned near the mortuary bed. Then, recovering her strength, she got out of bed and began to look for her things. The absence of her chest of drawers had at first given her some trouble, but, after a little, she had succeeded in finding her things at the bottom of the wooden trunk, and was now quietly dressing. She emptied the dishful of salted water, replaced the box which contained the latter behind the looking-glass, arranged the chairs in their places, and was ready to go downstairs when her son and daughter-in-law appeared.

Caravan rushed forward, seized her by the hands, and embraced her with tears in his eyes, while his wife, who was behind him, repeated in a hypocritical tone of voice: “Oh, what a blessing! Oh, what a blessing!”

But the old woman, not at all moved, without even appearing to understand, as rigid as a statue, and with glazed eyes, simply asked: “Will dinner soon be ready?”

He stammered out, not knowing what he said:

“Oh, yes, mother, we have been waiting for you.”

And with an alacrity unusual in him he took her arm, while Madame Caravan the younger seized the candle and lighted them downstairs, walking backward in front of them, step by step, just as she had done the previous night, in front of her husband, when he was carrying the marble.

On reaching the first floor, she ran against people who were ascending. It was the family from Charenton, Madame Braux, followed by her husband.

The wife, tall and fleshy, with the stomach of a victim of dropsy, opened wide her astonished eyes, ready to take flight. The husband, a shoemaker and socialist, a little hairy man, the perfect image of a monkey, murmured, quite unconcerned: “Well, what next? Is she resurrected?”

As soon as Madame Caravan recognized them, she made despairing signs to them; then speaking aloud, she said: “Mercy! How do you mean! Look there! What a happy surprise!”

But Madame Braux, dumbfounded, understood nothing. She responded in a low voice: “It was your telegram which made us come; we believed it was all over.”

Her husband, who was behind her, pinched her to make her keep silent. He added with a malignant laugh, which his thick beard concealed: “It was very kind of you to invite us here. We set out in posthaste”⁠—a remark which showed clearly the hostility that for a long time had reigned between the households. Then, just as the old woman had arrived at the last steps, he pushed forward quickly and rubbed against her cheeks the hair which covered his face, bawling out in her ear, on account of her deafness: “How well you look, mother; sturdy as usual, hey!”

Madame Braux, in her amazement at seeing the old woman alive whom they all believed to be dead, dared not even embrace her; and her enormous bulk blocked up the passage and hindered the others from advancing. The old woman, uneasy and suspicious, but without speaking, looked at everyone around her. Her little gray eyes, piercing and hard, fixed themselves now on the one and now on the other, full of thoughts which could be read by her embarrassed children.

Caravan, to explain matters, said: “She has been somewhat ill, but she is quite better now⁠—quite well, indeed, are you not, mother?”

Then the good woman, stopping in her walk, responded in a husky voice, as though it came from a distance: “It was catalepsy. I heard you all the while.”

An embarrassing silence followed. They entered the dining room, and in a few minutes sat down to an improvised dinner.

Only Monsieur Braux had retained his self-possession; his gorilla features grinned wickedly, while he let fall some words of double meaning which painfully disconcerted everyone.

But the bell in the hall kept on ringing every second; and Rosalie, who had lost her head, came looking for Caravan, who dashed out, throwing down his napkin. His brother-in-law even asked him whether it was not one of his visiting days, to which he stammered out, “No, a few messages; nothing of importance.”

Next, a packet was brought in, which he began to open without thinking, and the death announcements, with black borders, appeared. Reddening up to the very eyes, Caravan closed the envelope, and pushed it into his waistcoat pocket.

His mother had not seen it! She was looking intently at her clock, which stood on the mantelpiece, and the embarrassment increased in midst of a glacial silence. Turning her wrinkled old witch’s face toward her daughter, the old woman, from whose eyes flashed fierce malice, said:

“On Monday bring me your little girl. I want so much to see her.”

Madame Braux, her features illuminated, exclaimed: “Yes, mother, I will,” while Madame Caravan, the younger, became pale, and seemed to be enduring the most excruciating agony. The two men, however, gradually drifted into conversation, and soon became embroiled in a political discussion. Braux maintained the most revolutionary and communistic doctrines, gesticulating and throwing about his arms, his eyes gleaming in his hairy countenance.

“Property, sir,” he said, “is a robbery perpetrated on the working classes; the land is the common property of every man; hereditary rights are an infamy and a disgrace.” But, hereupon, he suddenly stopped, having all the appearance of a man who has just said something foolish: then, resuming, after a pause, he said in softer tones: “But, I can see quite well that this is not the proper moment to discuss things.”

The door was opened, and “Doctor” Chenet appeared. For a moment he seemed bewildered, but regaining his composure, he approached the old woman, and said:

“Ah, ha! mamma, you are better today. Oh! I never had any doubt but you would come round again; in fact, I said to myself as I was mounting the staircase: ‘I have an idea that I shall find the old woman on her feet once more.’ ” Then he tapped her gently on the back: “Ah! she is as solid as the Pont-Neuf, she will bury us all out: you will see if she does not.”

He sat down, accepted the coffee that was offered him, and soon began to join in the conversation of the two men, backing up Braux, for he himself had been mixed up in the Commune.

Now the old woman, feeling herself fatigued, wished to leave the room, at which Caravan rushed forward. She thereupon looked him in the eyes and said to him:

“You must carry my clock and chest of drawers upstairs again without a moment’s delay.”

“Yes, mamma,” he replied, stammering; “yes, I will do so.”

The old woman then took the arm of her daughter and withdrew from the room. The two Caravans remained rooted to the floor, silent, plunged in the deepest despair, while Braux rubbed his hands and sipped his coffee, gleefully.

Suddenly Madame Caravan, consumed with rage, attacked him, exclaiming: “You are a thief, a scoundrel, a cur. I would spit in your face, if⁠—I would⁠—I⁠—would⁠—” She could find nothing further to say, suffocating as she was with rage, while Braux still sipped his coffee, laughing.

His wife, returning just then, rushed at her sister-in-law, and both⁠—the one with her enormous bulk, the other, epileptic and spare⁠—with angry voices and hands trembling, hurled wild insults at each other.

Chenet and Braux now interposed, and the latter, taking his better half by the shoulders, pushed her out of the door in front of him, shouting:

“Get out, you ass: you make too much noise.” Then the two were heard in the street quarrelling with each other, until they had disappeared in the distance.

Monsieur Chenet also took his departure, leaving the Caravans alone, face to face. The husband fell back in his chair, and with the cold sweat standing out in beads on his temples murmured: “What on earth shall I say at the office?”

Boule de Suif

For several days in succession straggling remnants of the routed army had passed through the town. They were not the regular army, but a disjointed rabble, the men unshaven and dirty, their uniforms in tatters, slouching along without regimental colors, without order⁠—worn out, broken down, incapable of thought or resolution, marching from pure habit and dropping with fatigue the moment they stopped. The majority belonged to the militia, men of peaceful pursuits, retired from business, sinking under the weight of their accoutrements; quick-witted little militiamen as prone to terror as they were to enthusiasm, as ready to attack as they were to fly; and here and there a few red trousers, remnants of a company mowed down in one of the big battles; sombre-coated artillerymen, side by side with these various uniforms of the infantry, and now and then the glittering helmet of a heavily booted dragoon who followed with difficulty the march of the lighter-footed soldiers of the line.

Companies of franc-tireurs, heroically named “Avengers of the Defeat,” “Citizens of the Tomb,” “Companions in Death,” passed in their turn, looking like a horde of bandits.

Their chiefs⁠—formerly drapers or corn-dealers, retired soap-boilers or suet-refiners, temporary heroes, created officers for their money or the length of their moustaches, heaped with arms, flannels, and gold lace⁠—talked loudly, discussed plans of campaign, and gave you to understand that they were the sole support of France in her death-agony; but they were generally in terror of their own soldiers, gallows birds, most of them brave to foolhardiness, all of them given to pillage and debauchery.

Report said that the Prussians were about to enter Rouen. The National Guard, which for two months past had made the most careful reconnoitreings in the neighbouring wood, even to the extent of occasionally shooting their own sentries and putting themselves in battle array if a rabbit stirred in the brushwood, had now retired to their domestic hearths; their arms, their uniforms, all the murderous apparatus with which they had been wont to strike terror to the hearts of all beholders for three leagues round, had vanished.

Finally, the last of the French soldiery crossed the Seine on their way to Pont-Audemer by Saint Sever and Bourg-Achard; and then, last of all, came their despairing general tramping on foot between two orderlies, powerless to attempt any action with these disjointed fragments of his forces, himself utterly dazed and bewildered by the downfall of a people accustomed to victory and now so disastrously beaten in spite of its traditional bravery.

After that a profound calm, the silence of terrified suspense, fell over the city. Many a rotund bourgeois, emasculated by a purely commercial life, awaited the arrival of the victors with anxiety, trembling lest their meat-skewers and kitchen carving-knives should come under the category of arms.

Life seemed to have come to a standstill, the shops were closed, the streets silent. From time to time an inhabitant, intimidated by their silence, would flit rapidly along the pavement, keeping close to the walls.

In this anguish of suspense, men longed for the coming of the enemy.

In the latter part of the day following the departure of the French troops, some Uhlans, appearing from goodness knows where, traversed the city hastily. A little later, a black mass descended from the direction of Sainte-Catherine, while two more invading torrents poured in from the roads from Darnétal and Boisguillaume. The advance guards of the three corps converged at the same moment into the square of the Hotel de Ville, while battalion after battalion of the German army wound in through the adjacent streets, making the pavement ring under their heavy rhythmic tramp.

Orders shouted in strange and guttural tones were echoed back by the apparently dead and deserted houses, while from behind the closed shutters eyes peered furtively at the conquerors, masters by right of might, of the city and the lives and fortunes of its inhabitants. The people in their darkened dwellings fell a prey to the helpless bewilderment which comes over men before the floods, the devastating upheavals of the earth, against which all wisdom and all force are unavailing. The same phenomenon occurs each time that the established order of things is overthrown, when public security is at an end, and when all that the laws of man or of nature protect is at the mercy of some blind elemental force. The earthquake burying an entire population under its falling houses; the flood that carries away the drowned body of the peasant with the carcasses of his cattle and the beams torn from his rooftree; or the victorious army massacring those who defend their lives, and making prisoners of the rest⁠—pillaging in the name of the sword, and thanking God to the roar of cannon⁠—are so many appalling scourges which overthrow all faith in eternal justice, all the confidence we are taught to place in the protection of Providence and the reason of man.

Small detachments now began knocking at the doors and then disappearing into the houses. It was the occupation after the invasion. It now behooved the vanquished to make themselves agreeable to the victors.

After a while, the first alarms having subsided, a new sense of tranquillity began to establish itself. In many families the Prussian officer shared the family meals. Not infrequently he was a gentleman, and out of politeness expressed his commiseration with France and his repugnance at having to take part in such a war. They were grateful enough to him for this sentiment⁠—besides, who knew when they might not be glad of his protection? By gaining his good offices one might have fewer men to feed. And why offend a person on whom one was utterly dependent? That would not be bravery but temerity, a quality of which the citizens of Rouen could no longer be accused as in the days of those heroic defences by which the city had made itself famous. Above all, they said, with the unassailable urbanity of the Frenchman, it was surely permissible to be on politely familiar terms in private, provided one held aloof from the foreign soldier in public. In the street, therefore, they ignored one another’s existence, but once indoors they were perfectly ready to be friendly, and each evening found the German staying longer at the family fireside.

The town itself gradually regained its wonted aspect. The French inhabitants did not come out much, but the Prussian soldiers swarmed in the streets. For the rest, the blue hussar officers who trailed their mighty implements of death so arrogantly over the pavement did not appear to entertain a vastly deeper grade of contempt for the simple townsfolk than did the officers of the Chasseurs who had drunk in the same cafés the year before. Nevertheless there was a something in the air; something subtle and indefinable, an intolerably unfamiliar atmosphere like a widely diffused odour⁠—the odour of invasion. It filled the private dwellings and the public places, it affected the taste of food, and gave one the impression of being on a journey, far away from home, among barbarous and dangerous tribes.

The conquerors demanded money⁠—a great deal of money. The inhabitants paid and went on paying; for the matter of that, they were rich. But the wealthier a Normandy tradesman becomes, the more keenly he suffers at each sacrifice each time he sees the smallest particle of his fortune pass into the hands of another.

Two or three leagues beyond the town, however, following the course of the river about Croisset, Dieppedalle or Biessard, the sailors and the fishermen would often drag up the swollen corpse of some uniformed German, killed by a knife-thrust or a kick, his head smashed in by a stone, or thrown into the water from some bridge. The slime of the river bed swallowed up many a deed of vengeance, obscure, savage, and legitimate; unknown acts of heroism, silent onslaughts more perilous to the doer than battles in the light of day and without the trumpet blasts of glory.

For hatred of the Alien is always strong enough to arm some intrepid beings who are ready to die for an Idea.

At last, seeing that though the invaders had subjected the city to their inflexible discipline they had not committed any of the horrors with which rumour had accredited them throughout the length of their triumphal progress, the public took courage and the commercial spirit began once more to stir in the hearts of the local tradespeople. Some of them who had grave interests at stake at Havre, then occupied by the French army, purposed trying to reach that port by going overland to Dieppe and there taking ship.

They took advantage of the influence of German officers whose acquaintance they had made, and a passport was obtained from the general in command.

Having therefore engaged a large diligence with four horses for the journey, and ten persons having entered their names at the livery stable office, they resolved to start on the Tuesday morning before daybreak, to avoid all public remark.

For some days already the ground had been hard with frost, and on the Monday, about three o’clock in the afternoon, thick dark clouds coming up from the north brought the snow, which fell without intermission all the evening and during the whole night.

At half past four the travellers were assembled in the courtyard of the Hotel de Normandie, from whence they were to start.

They were all still half asleep, their teeth chattering with cold in spite of their thick wraps. It was difficult to distinguish one from another in the darkness, their heaped-up winter clothing making them look like fat priests in long cassocks. Two of the men, however, recognized each other; they were joined by a third, and they began to talk. “I am taking my wife with me,” said one. “So am I.” “And I too.” The first one added: “We shall not return to Rouen, and if the Prussians come to Havre we shall slip over to England.”

They were all like-minded and all had the same project.

Meanwhile there was no sign of the horses being put in. A small lantern carried by a hostler appeared from time to time out of one dark doorway only to vanish instantly into another. There was a stamping of horses’ hoofs deadened by the straw of the litter, and the voice of a man speaking to the animal and cursing sounded from the depths of the stables. A faint sound of bells gave evidence of harnessing, and became presently a clear and continuous jingle timed by the movement of the beast, now stopping, now going on again with a brisk shake, and accompanied by the dull tramp of hobnailed sabots.

A door closed sharply. All sound ceased. The frozen travellers were silent, standing stiff and motionless. A continuous curtain of white snowflakes glistened as it fell to the ground, blotting out the shape of things, powdering everything with an icy froth; and in the utter stillness of the town, quiet and buried under its winter pall, nothing was audible but this faint, fluttering, and indefinable rustle of falling snow⁠—more a sensation than a sound⁠—the intermingling of ethereal atoms seeming to fill space, to cover the world.

The man reappeared with his lantern, dragging after him by a rope a dejected and unwilling horse. He pushed it against the pole, fixed the traces, and was occupied for a long time in buckling the harness, having only the use of one hand as he carried the lantern in the other. As he turned away to fetch the other horse he caught sight of the motionless group of travellers, by this time white with snow. “Why don’t you get inside the carriage?” he said, “you would at least be under cover.”

It had never occurred to them, and they made a rush for it. The three men packed their wives into the upper end and then got in themselves, after which other distinct and veiled forms took the remaining seats without exchanging a word.

The floor of the vehicle was covered with straw into which the feet sank. The ladies at the end, who had brought little copper charcoal foot-warmers, proceeded to light them, and for some time discussed their merits in subdued tones, repeating to one another things which they had known all their lives.

At last, the diligence having been furnished with six horses instead of four on account of the difficulties of the road, a voice outside asked, “Is everybody here?” A voice from within answered “Yes,” and they started.

The conveyance advanced slowly⁠—slowly⁠—the wheels sinking in the snow; the whole vehicle groaned and creaked, the horses slipped, wheezed, and smoked, and the driver’s gigantic whip cracked incessantly, flying from side to side, twining and untwining like a slender snake, and cutting sharply across one or other of the six humping backs, which would thereupon straighten up with a more violent effort.

Imperceptibly the day grew. The airy flakes which a traveller⁠—a true-born Rouennais⁠—likened to a shower of cotton, had ceased to fall; a dirty grey light filtered through the heavy thick clouds which served to heighten the dazzling whiteness of the landscape, where now a long line of trees crusted with icicles would appear, now a cottage with a hood of snow.

In the light of this melancholy dawn the occupants of the diligence began to examine one another curiously.

Right at the end, in the best seats, opposite to one another, dozed Madame and Monsieur Loiseau, wholesale wine merchant of the Rue Grand Pont.

The former salesman of a master who had become bankrupt, Loiseau had bought up the stock and made his fortune. He sold very bad wine at very low prices to the small country retail dealers, and enjoyed the reputation among his friends and acquaintances of being an unmitigated rogue, a thorough Norman full of trickery and jovial humour.

His character for knavery was so well established that one evening at the Prefecture, Monsieur Tournel, a man of keen and trenchant wit, author of certain fables and songs⁠—a local celebrity⁠—seeing the ladies growing drowsy, proposed a game of “L’oiseau vole.”4 The pun itself flew through the prefect’s reception rooms and afterwards through the town, and for a whole month called up a grin on every face in the province.

Loiseau was himself a noted wag and famous for his jokes both good and bad, and nobody ever mentioned him without adding immediately, “That man, Loiseau, is simply priceless!”

He was of medium height with a balloon-like stomach and a rubicund face framed in grizzled whiskers. His wife⁠—tall, strong, resolute, loud in voice and rapid of decision⁠—represented order and arithmetic in the business, which he enlivened by his jollity and bustling activity.

Beside them, in a more dignified attitude as befitted his superior station, sat Monsieur Carré-Lamadon, a man of weight; an authority on cotton, proprietor of three spinning factories, officer of the Legion of Honour and member of the General Council. All the time of the Empire he had remained leader of a friendly opposition, for the sole purpose of making a better thing out of it when he came round to the cause which he had fought with polite weapons, to use his own expression. Madame Carré-Lamadon, who was much younger than her husband, was the consolation of all officers of good family who might be quartered at the Rouen garrison. She sat there opposite to her husband, very small, very dainty, very pretty, wrapped in her furs, and regarding the lamentable interior of the vehicle with despairing eyes.

Their neighbours, the Count and Countess Hubert de Bréville, bore one of the most ancient and noble names in Normandy. The Count, an elderly gentleman of dignified appearance, did all in his power to accentuate by every artifice of the toilet his natural resemblance to Henri Quatre, who, according to a legend of the utmost glory to the family, had honoured with his royal embraces a Dame de Bréville, whose husband, in consequence, had been made Count and Governor of the province.

A colleague of Monsieur Carré-Lamadon in the General Council, Count Hubert represented the Orléanist faction in the department. The history of his marriage with the daughter of a small tradesman of Nantes had always remained a mystery. But as the Countess had an air of grandeur, understood better than anyone else the art of receiving, passed even for having been beloved by one of the sons of Louis Philippe, the neighbouring nobility bowed down to her, and her salon held the first place in the county, the only one which preserved the traditions of old-fashioned gallantry and to which the entrée was difficult.

The fortune of the Brévilles⁠—all in Government Funds⁠—was reported to yield them an income of five hundred thousand francs.

The six passengers occupied the upper end of the conveyance, the representatives of revenued society, serene in the consciousness of its strength⁠—honest well-to-do people possessed of Religion and Principles.

By some strange chance all the women were seated on the same side, the Countess having two Sisters of Mercy for neighbours, wholly occupied in fingering their long rosaries and mumbling Paters and Aves. One of them was old and so deeply pitted with the smallpox that she looked as if she had received a charge of grapeshot full in the face; the other was very shadowy and frail, with a pretty unhealthy little face, a narrow phthisical chest, consumed by that devouring faith which creates martyrs and ecstatics.

Seated opposite to the two nuns were a man and woman who excited a good deal of attention.

The man, who was well known, was Cornudet, “the Democrat,” the terror of all respectable, law-abiding people. For twenty years he had dipped his great red beard into the beer mugs of all the democratic cafés. In the company of kindred spirits he had managed to run through a comfortable little fortune inherited from his father, a confectioner, and he looked forward with impatience to the Republic, when he should obtain the well-merited reward for so many revolutionary draughts. On the Fourth of September⁠—probably through some practical joke⁠—he understood that he had been appointed prefect, but on attempting to enter upon his duties the clerks, who had remained sole masters of the offices, refused to recognize him, and he was constrained to retire. For the rest, he was a good fellow, inoffensive and serviceable, and had busied himself with incomparable industry in organizing the defence of the town; had had holes dug all over the plain, cut down all the young trees in the neighbouring woods, scattered pitfalls up and down all the high roads, and at the threatened approach of the enemy⁠—satisfied with his preparations⁠—had fallen back with all haste on the town. He now considered that he would be more useful in Havre, where fresh entrenchments would soon become necessary.

The woman, one of the so-called “gay” sisterhood, was noted for her precocious stoutness, which had gained her the nickname of “Boule de Suif”⁠—“ball of fat.” She was a little roly-poly creature, cushioned with fat, with podgy fingers squeezed in at the joints like rows of thick, short sausages; her skin tightly stretched and shiny, her bust enormous, and yet she was attractive and much sought after, her freshness was so pleasant. Her face was like a ruddy apple⁠—a peony rose just burst into bloom⁠—and out of it gazed a pair of magnificent dark eyes overshadowed by long thick lashes that deepened their blackness; and lower down, a charming little mouth, dewy to the kiss, and furnished with a row of tiny milk-white teeth. Over and above all this she was, they said, full of inestimable qualities.

No sooner was her identity recognized than a whisper ran through the ladies in which the words “prostitute” and “public scandal,” were so conspicuously distinct that she raised her head and retaliated by sweeping her companions with such a bold and defiant look that deep silence instantly fell upon them, and they all cast down their eyes with the exception of Loiseau, who watched her with a kindling eye.

However, conversation was soon resumed between the three ladies, whom the presence of this “person” had suddenly rendered friendly⁠—almost intimate. It seemed to them that they must, as it were, raise a rampart of their dignity as spouses between them and this shameless creature who made a traffic of herself; for legalized love always takes a high hand with her unlicensed sister.

The three men too, drawn to one another by a conservative instinct at sight of Cornudet, talked money in a certain tone of contempt for the impecunious. Count Hubert spoke of the damage inflicted on him by the Prussians, of the losses which would result to him from the seizing of cattle and from ruined crops, but with all the assurance of a great landed proprietor, ten times millionaire, whom these ravages might inconvenience for the space of a year at most. Monsieur Carré-Lamadon, of great experience in the cotton industry, had taken the precaution to send six hundred thousand francs across to England as provision against a rainy day. As for Loiseau, he made arrangements to sell all the common wines in his cellars to the French commission of supplies, consequently the Government owed him a formidable sum, which he counted upon receiving at Havre.

The three exchanged rapid and amicable glances. Although differing in position they felt themselves brothers in money, and of the great freemasonry of those who possess, of those who can make the gold jingle when they put their hands in the breeches-pockets.

The diligence went so slowly that by ten o’clock in the morning they had not made four leagues. The men got out three times and climbed the hill on foot. They began to grow anxious, for they were to have lunched at Totes, and now they despaired of reaching that place before night. Everybody was on the lookout for some inn by the way, when the vehicle stuck fast in a snowdrift, and it took two hours to get it out.

Meanwhile the pangs of hunger began to affect them severely both in mind and body, and yet not an inn, not a tavern even, was to be seen; the approach of the Prussians and the passage of the famished French troops had frightened away all trade.

The gentlemen foraged diligently for the provisions in the farms by the roadside; but they failed to obtain so much as a piece of bread, for the mistrustful peasant hid all reserve stores for fear of being pillaged by the soldiers, who, having no food supplied to them, took by force everything they could lay their hands on.

Towards one o’clock Loiseau announced that he felt a very decided void in his stomach. Everybody had been suffering in the same manner for a long time, and the violent longing for food had extinguished conversation.

From time to time someone would yawn, to be almost immediately imitated by another and then each of the rest in turn, and according to their disposition, manners, or social standing, would open their mouth noisily, or modestly cover with the hand the gaping cavity from which the breath issued in a vapour.

Boule de Suif had several times stooped down as if feeling for something under her skirts. She hesitated a moment, looked at her companions, and then composedly resumed her former position. The faces were pale and drawn. Loiseau declared he would give a thousand francs for a ham. His wife made a faint movement as to protest, but restrained herself. It always affected her painfully to hear of money being thrown away, nor could she even understand a joke upon the subject.

“To tell the truth,” said the Count, “I do not feel quite myself either⁠—how could I have omitted to think of bringing provisions?” And everybody reproached themselves with the same neglectfulness.

Cornudet, however, had a flask of rum which he offered round. It was coldly refused. Loiseau alone accepted a mouthful, and handed back the flask with thanks saying, “That’s good! that warms you up and keeps the hunger off a bit.” The alcohol raised his spirits somewhat, and he proposed that they should do the same as on the little ship in the song⁠—eat the fattest of the passengers. This indirect but obvious allusion to Boule de Suif shocked the gentle people. Nobody responded and only Cornudet smiled. The two Sisters of Mercy had ceased to tell their beads and sat motionless, their hands buried in their wide sleeves, their eyes obstinately lowered, doubtless engaged in offering back to Heaven the sacrifice of suffering which it sent them.

At last, at three o’clock, when they were in the middle of an interminable stretch of bare country without a single village in sight, Boule de Suif, stooping hurriedly, drew from under the seat a large basket covered with a white napkin.

Out of it she took, first of all, a little china plate and a delicate silver drinking-cup, and then an immense dish, in which two whole fowls ready carved lay stiffened in their jelly. Other good things were visible in the basket: patties, fruits, pastry⁠—in fact provisions for a three days’ journey in order to be independent of inn cookery. The necks of four bottles protruded from between the parcels of food. She took the wing of a fowl and began to eat it daintily with one of those little rolls which they call “Regence” in Normandy.

Every eye was fixed upon her. As the odour of the food spread through the carriage nostrils began to quiver and mouths to fill with water, while the jaws, just below the ears, contracted painfully. The dislike entertained by the ladies for this abandoned young woman grew savage, almost to the point of longing to murder her or at least to turn her out into the snow, her and her drinking-cup and her basket and her provisions.

Loiseau, however, was devouring the dish of chicken with his eyes. “Madame has been more prudent than we,” he said. “Some people always think of everything.”

She turned her head in his direction. “If you would care for any, Monsieur⁠—? It is not comfortable to fast for so long.”

He bowed. “By Jove!⁠—frankly, I won’t refuse. I can’t stand this any longer⁠—the fortune of war, is it not, madame?” And with a comprehensive look he added: “In moments such as this we are only too glad to find anyone who will oblige us.” He had a newspaper which he spread on his knee to save his trousers, and with the point of a knife which he always carried in his pocket he captured a drumstick all glazed with jelly, tore it with his teeth, and then proceeded to chew it with satisfaction so evident that a deep groan of distress went up from the whole party.

Upon this Boule de Suif in a gentle and humble tone invited the two Sisters to share the collation. They both accepted on the spot, and without raising their eyes began to eat very hurriedly, after stammering a few words of thanks. Nor did Cornudet refuse his neighbour’s offer, and with the Sisters they formed a kind of table by spreading out newspapers on their knees.

The jaws opened and shut without a pause, biting, chewing, gulping ferociously. Loiseau, hard at work in his corner, urged his wife in a low voice to follow his example. She resisted for some time, then, after a pang which gripped her very vitals, she gave in. Whereupon her husband, rounding off his phrases, asked if their “charming fellow-traveller” would permit him to offer a little something to Madame Loiseau.

“Why, yes, certainly, Monsieur,” she answered with a pleasant smile, and handed him the dish.

There was a moment of embarrassment when the first bottle of claret was uncorked⁠—there was but the one drinking-cup. Each one wiped it before passing it to the rest. Cornudet alone, from an impulse of gallantry no doubt, placed his lips on the spot still wet from the lips of his neighbour.

Then it was that, surrounded by people who were eating, suffocated by the fragrant odour of the viands, the Count and Countess de Bréville and Monsieur and Madame Carré-Lamadon suffered the agonies of that torture which has ever been associated with the name of Tantalus. Suddenly the young wife of the cotton manufacturer gave a deep sigh. Every head turned towards her; she was as white as the snow outside, her eyes closed, her head fell forward⁠—she had fainted. Her husband, distraught with fear, implored assistance of the whole company. All lost their heads till the elder of the two Sisters, who supported the unconscious lady, forced Boule de Suif’s drinking-cup between her lips and made her swallow a few drops of wine. The pretty creature stirred, opened her eyes, smiled and then declared in an expiring voice that she felt quite well now. But to prevent her being overcome again in the same manner, the Sister induced her to drink a full cup of wine, adding, “It is simply hunger⁠—nothing else.”

At this Boule de Suif, blushing violently, looked at the four starving passengers and faltered shyly, “Mon Dieu! If I might make so bold as to offer the ladies and gentlemen⁠—” She stopped short, fearing a rude rebuff.

Loiseau, however, at once threw himself into the breach. “Parbleu! under such circumstances we are all companions in misfortune and bound to help each other. Come, ladies, don’t stand on ceremony⁠—take what you can get and be thankful: who knows whether we shall be able to find so much as a house where we can spend the night? At this rate we shall not reach Tôtes till tomorrow afternoon.”

They still hesitated, nobody having the courage to take upon themselves the responsibility of the decisive “Yes.” Finally the Count seized the bull by the horns. Adopting his most grandiose air, he turned with a bow to the embarrassed young woman and said, “We accept your offer with thanks, madame.”

The first step only was difficult. The Rubicon once crossed, they fell to with a will. They emptied the basket, which contained, besides the provisions already mentioned: a pâté de foie gras, a lark pie, a piece of smoked tongue, some pears, a slab of gingerbread, mixed biscuits, and a cup of pickled onions and gherkins in vinegar⁠—for, like all women, Boule de Suif adored pickles.

They could not well eat the young woman’s provisions and not speak to her, so they conversed⁠—stiffly at first, and then, seeing that she showed no signs of presuming, with less reserve. Mesdames de Bréville and Carré-Lamadon, having a great deal of savoir vivre, knew how to make themselves agreeable with tact and delicacy. The Countess, in particular, exhibited the amiable condescension of the extremely highborn lady whom no contact can sully, and was charming. But big Madame Loiseau, who had the soul of a gendarme, remained unmoved, speaking little and eating much.

The conversation naturally turned upon the war. They related horrible deeds committed by the Prussians and examples of the bravery of the French; all these people who were flying rendering full homage to the courage of those who remained behind. Incidents of personal experience soon followed, and Boule de Suif told, with that warmth of colouring which women of her type often employ in expressing their natural feelings, how she had come to leave Rouen.

“I thought at first I should be able to hold out,” she said, “for I had plenty of provisions in my house, and would much rather feed a few soldiers than turn out of my home and go goodness knows where. But when I saw them⁠—these Prussians⁠—it was too much for me. They made my blood boil with rage, and I cried the whole day for shame. Oh, if I had only been a man!⁠—well, there! I watched them from my window⁠—fat pigs that they were with their spiked helmets⁠—and my servant had to hold my hands to prevent me throwing the furniture down on the top of them. Then some of them came to be quartered on me, and I flew at the throat of the first one⁠—they are not harder to strangle than anyone else⁠—and would have finished him too if they had not dragged me off by the hair. Of course I had to lie low after that. So as soon as I found an opportunity I left⁠—and here I am.”

Everybody congratulated her. She rose considerably in the estimation of her companions, who had not shown themselves of such valiant mettle, and listening to her tale, Cornudet smiled the benignant and approving smile of an apostle⁠—as a priest might on hearing a devout person praise the Almighty; democrats with long beards having the monopoly of patriotism as the men of the cassock possess that of religion. He then took up the parable in a didactic tone with the phraseology culled from the notices posted each day on the walls, and finished up with a flourish of eloquence in which he scathingly alluded to “that blackguard Badinguet.”5

But Boule de Suif fired up at this for she was a Bonapartist. She turned upon him with scarlet cheeks and stammering with indignation, “Ah! I should just like to have seen any of you in his place! A nice mess you would have made of it! It is men of your sort that ruined him, poor man. There would be nothing for it but to leave France for good if we were governed by cowards like you!”

Cornudet, nothing daunted, preserved a disdainful and superior smile, but there was a feeling in the air that high words would soon follow, whereupon the Count interposed, and managed, not without difficulty, to quiet the infuriated young woman by asserting authoritatively that every sincere opinion was to be respected. Nevertheless the Countess and the manufacturer’s wife, who nourished in their hearts the unreasoning hatred of all well-bred people for the Republic and at the same time that instinctive weakness of all women for uniformed and despotic governments, felt drawn, in spite of themselves, to this woman of the street who had so much sense of the fitness of things and whose opinions so closely resembled their own.

The basket was empty⁠—this had not been difficult among ten of them⁠—they only regretted it was not larger. The conversation was kept up for some little time longer, although somewhat more coldly after they had finished eating.

The night fell, the darkness grew gradually more profound, and the cold, to which digestion rendered them more sensitive, made even Boule de Suif shiver in spite of her fat. Madame de Bréville thereupon offered her her charcoal foot-warmer, which had been replenished several times since the morning; she accepted with alacrity, for her feet were like ice. Mesdames Carré-Lamadon and Loiseau lent theirs to the two Sisters.

The driver had lit his lanterns, which shed a vivid light over the cloud of vapour that hung over the steaming backs of the horses and over the snow at each side of the road, which seemed to open out under the shifting reflection of the lights.

Inside the conveyance nothing could be distinguished any longer, but there was a sudden movement between Boule de Suif and Cornudet, and Loiseau, peering through the gloom, fancied he saw the man with the beard start back quickly as if he had received a well-directed but noiseless blow.

Tiny points of fire appeared upon the road in front. It was Tôtes. The travellers had been driving for eleven hours, which, with the four half-hours for food and rest to the horses, made thirteen. They entered the town and stopped in front of the Hôtel du Commerce.

The door opened. A familiar sound caused every passenger to tremble⁠—it was the clink of a scabbard on the stones. At the same moment a German voice called out something.

Although the diligence had stopped, nobody attempted to get out, as though they expected to be massacred on setting foot to the ground. The driver then appeared holding up one of the lanterns, which suddenly illumined the vehicle to its farthest corner and revealed the two rows of bewildered faces with their open mouths and startled eyes wide with alarm.

Beside the driver in the full glare of the light stood a German officer, a tall young man excessively slender and blonde, compressed into his uniform like a girl in her stays, and wearing, well over one ear, a flat black wax-cloth cap like the “Boots” of an English hotel. His preposterously long moustache, which was drawn out stiff and straight, and tapered away indefinitely to each side till it finished off in a single thread so thin that it was impossible to say where it ended, seemed to weigh upon the corners of his mouth and form a deep furrow in either cheek.

In Alsatian-French and stern accents he invited the passengers to descend: “Vill you get out, chentlemen and laties?”

The two Sisters were the first to obey with the docility of holy women accustomed to unfaltering submission. The Count and Countess appeared next, followed by the manufacturer and his wife, and after them Loiseau pushing his better half in front of him. As he set foot to the ground he remarked to the officer, more from motives of prudence than politeness, “Good evening, Monsieur,” to which the other with the insolence of the man in possession, vouchsafed no reply but a stare.

Boule de Suif and Cornudet, though the nearest the door, were the last to emerge⁠—grave and haughty in face of the enemy. The buxom young woman struggled hard to command herself and be calm; the democrat tugged at his long rusty beard with a tragic and slightly trembling hand. They sought to preserve their dignity, realizing that in such encounters each one, to a certain extent, represents his country; and the two being similarly disgusted at the servile readiness of their companions, she endeavored to show herself prouder than her fellow travellers who were honest women, while he, feeling that he must set an example, continued in his attitude his mission of resistance begun by digging pitfalls in the high roads.

They all entered the huge kitchen of the inn, and the German, having been presented with the passport signed by the general in command⁠—where each traveller’s name was accompanied by a personal description and a statement as to his or her profession⁠—he proceeded to scrutinize the party for a long time, comparing the persons with the written notices.

Finally, he exclaimed unceremoniously, “That’s all right,” and disappeared.

They breathed again more freely. Hunger having reasserted itself, supper was ordered. It would take half an hour to prepare, so while two servants were apparently busied about it the travellers dispersed to look at their rooms. These were all together down each side of a long passage ending in a door marked “Toilet.”

At last, just as they were sitting down to table, the innkeeper himself appeared. He was a former horse-dealer, a stout asthmatic man with perpetual wheezings and blowings and rattlings of phlegm in his throat. His father had transmitted to him the name of Follenvie.

“Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset?” he said.

Boule de Suif started and turned round. “That is my name.”

“Mademoiselle, the Prussian officer wants to speak to you at once.”

“To me?”

“Yes, if you really are Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset.”

She hesitated, thought for a moment, and then declared roundly: “That may be, but I’m not going.”

There was a movement round about her⁠—everybody was much exercised as to the reason of this summons. The Count came over to her.

“You may do wrong to refuse, madame, for it may entail considerable annoyance not only on yourself but on the rest of your companions. It is a fatal mistake ever to offer resistance to people who are stronger than ourselves. The step can have no possible danger for you⁠—it is probably about some little formality that has been omitted.”

One and all concurred with him, implored and urged and scolded, till they ended by convincing her; for they were all apprehensive of the results of her obstinacy.

“Well, it is only for your sakes that I am doing it!” she said at last. The Countess pressed her hand. “And we are most grateful to you.”

She left the room, and the others agreed to wait for her before beginning the meal. Each one lamented at not having been asked for instead of this hotheaded, violent young woman, and mentally prepared any number of platitudes for the event of being called in their turn.

At the end of ten minutes she returned, crimson with rage, choking, snorting⁠—“Oh, the blackguard; the low blackguard!” she stammered.

They all crowded round her to know what had happened, but she would not say, and the Count becoming insistent, she answered with much dignity, “No, it does not concern anybody! I can’t speak of it.”

They then seated themselves round a great soup tureen from which steamed a smell of cabbage. In spite of this little contretemps the supper was a gay one. The cider, of which the Loiseaus and the two nuns partook from motives of economy, was good. The rest ordered wine and Cornudet called for beer. He had a particular way of uncorking the bottle, of making the liquid froth, of gazing at it while he tilted the glass, which he then held up between his eye and the light to enjoy the color; while he drank, his great beard, which had the tints of his favourite beverage, seemed to quiver fondly, his eyes squinting that he might not lose sight of his tankard for a moment, and altogether he had the appearance of fulfilling the sole function for which he had been born. You would have said that he established in his own mind some connection or affinity between the two great passions that monopolized his life⁠—Ale and Revolution⁠—and most assuredly he never tasted the one without thinking of the other.

Monsieur and Madame Follenvie dined at the farther end of the table. The husband⁠—puffing and blowing like an exploded locomotive⁠—had too much cold on the chest to be able to speak and eat at the same time, but his wife never ceased talking. She described her every impression at the arrival of the Prussians and all they did and all they said, execrating them in the first place because they cost so much, and secondly because she had two sons in the army. She addressed herself chiefly to the Countess, as it flattered her to be able to say she had conversed with a lady of quality.

She presently lowered her voice and proceeded to recount some rather delicate matters, her husband breaking in from time to time with⁠—“You had much better hold your tongue, Madame Follenvie,”⁠—to which she paid not the slightest attention, but went on.

“Well, madame, as I was saying⁠—these men, they do nothing but eat potatoes and pork and pork and potatoes from morning till night. And as for their habits⁠—! Saving your presence, they make dirt everywhere. And you should see them exercising for hours and days together out there in the fields⁠—It’s forward march and backward march, and turn this way and turn that. If they even worked in the fields or mended the roads in their own country! But, no, madame, these soldiers are no good to anybody, and the poor people have to keep them and feed them simply that they may learn how to murder. I know I am only a poor ignorant old woman, but when I see these men wearing themselves out by tramping up and down from morning till night, I cannot help saying to myself, if there are some people who make a lot of useful discoveries, why should others give themselves so much trouble to do harm? After all, isn’t it an abomination to kill anybody, no matter whether they are Prussians, or English, or Poles, or French? If you revenge yourself on someone who has harmed you, that is wicked, for you are punished; but let them shoot down our sons as if they were game, and it is all right, and they give medals to the man who kills the most. No, no, I say, I shall never be able to see any rhyme or reason in that!”

“War is barbarous if one attacks an unoffending neighbour⁠—it is a sacred duty if one defends one’s country,” remarked Cornudet in a declamatory tone.

The old woman drooped her head. “Yes⁠—defending oneself, of course, that is quite another thing; but wouldn’t it be better to kill all these kings who do this for their pleasure?”

Cornudet’s eyes flashed. “Bravo, citizeness!” he cried.

Monsieur Carré-Lamadon was lost in thought. Although he was an ardent admirer of famous military men, the sound common sense of this peasant woman made him reflect upon the wealth which would necessarily accrue to the country if all these unemployed and consequently ruinous hands⁠—so much unproductive force⁠—were available for the great industrial works that would take centuries to complete.

Loiseau meanwhile had left his seat and gone over beside the innkeeper, to whom he began talking in a low voice. The fat man laughed, coughed, and spat, his unwieldy stomach shaking with mirth at his neighbour’s jokes, and he bought six hogsheads of claret from him for the spring when the Prussians would have cleared out.

Supper was scarcely over when, dropping with fatigue, everybody went off to bed.

Loiseau, however, who had noticed certain things, let his wife go to bed and proceeded to glue first his ear and then his eye to the keyhole, endeavouring to penetrate what he called “the mysteries of the corridor.”

After about an hour he heard a rustling, and hurrying to the keyhole, he perceived Boule de Suif looking ampler than ever in a dressing-gown of blue cashmere trimmed with white lace. She had a candle in her hand and was going towards the door at the end of the corridor. Then a door at one side opened cautiously, and when she returned after a few minutes, Cornudet in his shirtsleeves was following her. They were talking in a low voice and presently stood still; Boule de Suif apparently defending the entrance of her room with much energy. Unfortunately Loiseau was unable to hear what they said, but at last, as they raised their voices somewhat, he caught a word or two. Cornudet was insisting eagerly. “Look here,” he said, “you are really very ridiculous⁠—what difference can it make to you?”

And she with an offended air retorted, “No!⁠—let me tell you there are moments when that sort of thing won’t do; and besides⁠—here⁠—it would be a crying shame.”

He obviously did not understand. “Why?”

At this she grew angry. “Why?” and she raised her voice still more, “you don’t see why? and there are Prussians in the house⁠—in the next room for all you know!”

He made no reply. This display of patriotic prudery evidently aroused his failing dignity, for with a brief kiss he made for his own door on tiptoe.

Loiseau, deeply thrilled and amused, executed a double shuffle in the middle of the room, donned his nightcap, slipped into the blankets where the bony figure of his spouse already reposed, and waking her with a kiss he murmured: “Do you love me, darling?”

The whole house sank to silence. But anon there arose from somewhere⁠—it might have been the cellar, it might have been the attics⁠—impossible to determine the direction⁠—a rumbling⁠—sonorous, even, regular, dull, prolonged roar as of a boiler under high steam pressure: Monsieur Follenvie slept.

It had been decided that they should start at eight o’clock the next morning, so they were all assembled in the kitchen by that hour; but the diligence, roofed with snow, stood solitary in the middle of the courtyard without horses or driver. The latter was sought for in vain either in the stables or in the coachhouse. The men of the party then resolved to beat the country round for him, and went out accordingly. They found themselves in the public square with the church at one end, and low-roofed houses down each side in which they caught sight of Prussian soldiers. The first one they came upon was peeling potatoes; farther on another was washing out a barber’s shop; while a third, bearded to the eyes, was soothing a crying child and rocking it to and fro on his knee to quiet it. The big peasant women whose men were all “with the army in the war” were ordering about their docile conquerors and showing them by signs what work they wanted done⁠—chopping wood, grinding coffee, fetching water; one of them was even doing the washing for his hostess, a helpless old crone.

The Count, much astonished, stopped the beadle, who happened to come out of the priest’s house at that moment, and asked the meaning of it all.

“Oh,” replied the old church rat, “these are not at all bad. From what I hear they are not Prussians, either; they come from farther off, but where I can’t say; and they have all left a wife and children at home. I am very sure the women down there are crying for their men, too, and it will all make a nice lot of misery for them as well as for us. We are not so badly off here for the moment, because they do no harm and are working just as if they were in their own homes. You see, Monsieur, the poor always help one another; it is the bigwigs who make the wars.”

Cornudet, indignant at the friendly understanding established between the victors and the vanquished, retired from the scene, preferring to shut himself up in the inn. Loiseau of course must have his joke. “They are re-populating,” he said. Monsieur Carré-Lamadon found a more fitting expression. “They are making reparations.”

But the driver was nowhere to be found. At last he was unearthed in the village café hobnobbing fraternally with the officer’s orderly.

“Did you not have orders to have the diligence ready by eight o’clock?” the Count asked him.

“Oh, yes, but I got another order later on.”

“What?”

“Not to put the horses in at all.”

“Who gave you that order?”

“Why⁠—the Prussian commandant.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know⁠—you had better ask him. I am told not to harness the horses, and so I don’t harness them⁠—there you are.”

“Did he tell you so himself?”

“No, Monsieur, the innkeeper brought me the message from him.”

“When was that?”

“Last night, just as I was going to bed.”

The three men returned much disconcerted. They asked for Monsieur Follenvie, but were informed by the servant that on account of his asthma he never got up before ten o’clock⁠—he had even positively forbidden them to awaken him before then except in case of fire.

Then they asked to see the officer, but that was absolutely impossible, although he lodged at the inn.

Monsieur Follenvie alone was authorized to approach him on nonmilitary matters. So they had to wait. The women returned to their rooms and occupied themselves as best they could.

Cornudet installed himself in the high chimney-corner of the kitchen, where a great fire was burning. He had one of the little coffee-room tables brought to him and a can of beer, and puffed away placidly at his pipe, which enjoyed among the democrats almost equal consideration with himself, as if in serving Cornudet it served the country also. The pipe was a superb meerschaum, admirably coloured, black as the teeth of its owner, but fragrant, curved, shining familiar to his hand, and the natural complement to his physiognomy. He sat there motionless, his eyes fixed alternately on the flame of the hearth and the foam on the top of his tankard, and each time after drinking he passed his bony fingers with a self-satisfied gesture through his long greasy hair, while he absorbed the fringe of froth from his moustache.

Under the pretext of stretching his legs, Loiseau went out and palmed off his wines on the country retail dealers. The Count and the manufacturer talked politics. They forecast the future of France, the one putting his faith in the Orléans, the other in an unknown saviour, a hero who would come to the fore when things were at their very worst⁠—a Du Guesclin, a Joan of Arc perhaps, or even another Napoleon I. Ah, if only the Prince Imperial were not so young! Cornudet listened to them with the smile of a man who could solve the riddle of Fate if he would. His pipe perfumed the whole kitchen with its balmy fragrance.

On the stroke of ten Monsieur Follenvie made his appearance. They instantly attacked him with questions, but he had but one answer which he repeated two or three times without variation. “The officer said to me, ‘Monsieur Follenvie, you will forbid them to harness the horses for these travellers tomorrow morning. They are not to leave till I give my permission. You understand?’ That is all.”

They demanded to see the officer; the Count sent up his card, on which Monsieur Carré-Lamadon added his name and all his titles. The Prussian sent word that he would admit the two men to his presence after he had lunched, that is to say, about one o’clock.

The ladies came down and they all managed to eat a little in spite of their anxiety. Boule de Suif looked quite ill and very much agitated.

They were just finishing coffee when the orderly arrived to fetch the two gentlemen.

Loiseau joined them, but when they proposed to bring Cornudet along to give more solemnity to their proceedings, he declared haughtily that nothing would induce him to enter into any communication whatsoever with the Germans, and he returned to his chimney-corner and ordered another bottle of beer.

The three men went upstairs, and were shown into the best room in the inn, where they were received by the officer lolling in an armchair, his heels on the chimneypiece, smoking a long porcelain pipe, and arrayed in a flamboyant dressing-gown, taken, no doubt, from the abandoned dwelling-house of some bourgeois of inferior taste. He did not rise, he vouchsafed them no greeting of any description, he did not even look at them⁠—a brilliant sample of the victorious military cad.

At last after some moments, waiting he said: “Vat do you vant?”

The Count acted as spokesman.

“We wish to leave, Monsieur.”

“No.”

“May I take the liberty of asking the reason for this refusal?”

“Pecause I do not shoose.”

“With all due respect, Monsieur, I would draw your attention to the fact that your general gave us a permit for Dieppe, and I cannot see that we have done anything to justify your hard measures.”

“I do not shoose⁠—dat’s all⁠—you can co town.”

They all bowed and withdrew.

The afternoon was miserable. They could make nothing of this caprice of the German’s, and the most far-fetched ideas tortured their minds. The whole party remained in the kitchen engaging in endless discussions, imagining the most improbable things. Were they to be kept as hostages?⁠—but if so, to what end?⁠—or taken prisoners⁠—or asked a large ransom? This last suggestion threw them into a cold perspiration of fear. The wealthiest were seized with the worst panic and saw themselves forced, if they valued their lives, to empty bags of gold into the rapacious hands of this soldier. They racked their brains for plausible lies to dissemble their riches, to pass themselves off as poor⁠—very poor. Loiseau pulled off his watch-chain and hid it in his pocket. As night fell their apprehensions increased. The lamp was lighted, and as there were still two hours till supper Madame Loiseau proposed a game of thirty-one. It would be some little distraction, at any rate. The plan was accepted; even Cornudet, who had put out his pipe from motives of politeness, taking a hand.

The Count shuffled the cards, dealt, Boule de Suif had thirty-one at the first deal; and very soon the interest in the game allayed the fears that beset their minds. Cornudet, however, observed that the two Loiseaus were in league to cheat.

Just as they were sitting down to the evening meal Monsieur appeared and said in his husky voice: “The Prussian officer wishes to know if Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset has not changed her mind yet?”

Boule de Suif remained standing and turned very pale, then suddenly her face flamed and she fell into such a paroxysm of rage that she could not speak. At last she burst out: “You can tell that scoundrel⁠—that low scum of a Prussian⁠—that I won’t⁠—and I never will⁠—do you hear?⁠—never! never! never!”

The fat innkeeper retired. They instantly surrounded Boule de Suif, questioning, entreating her to disclose the mystery of her visit. At first she refused, but presently she was carried away by her indignation: “What does he want?⁠—what does he want?⁠—he wants me to make love to him!” she shouted.

The general indignation was so violent that nobody was shocked. Cornudet brought his beer glass down on the table with such a bang that it broke. There was a perfect babel of invective against the drunken lout, a hurricane of wrath, a union of all for resistance, as if each had been required to contribute a portion of the sacrifice demanded of her. The Count protested with disgust that these people behaved really as if they were early barbarians. The women, in particular, accorded her the most lively and affectionate sympathy. The nuns, who only appeared at meals, dropped their eyes and said nothing.

The first fury of the storm having abated, they sat down to supper, but there was little conversation and a good deal of thoughtful abstraction.

The ladies retired early; the men, while they smoked, got up a game of écarté, which Monsieur Follenvie was invited to join, as they intended pumping him skilfully as to the means that could be employed for overcoming the officer’s opposition to their departure. Unfortunately, he would absorb himself wholly in his cards, and neither listened to what they said nor gave any answer to their questions, but repeated incessantly, “Play, gentlemen, play!” His attention was so deeply engaged that he forgot to spit, which caused his chest to wheeze from time to time; his wheezing lungs running through the whole gamut of asthma from notes of the profoundest bass to the shrill, hoarse crow of the young cock.

He refused to go to bed when his wife, who was dropping with sleep, came to fetch him. She therefore departed alone, for on her devolved the “day duty,” and she always rose with the sun, while her husband took the “night duty,” and was always ready to sit up all night with friends. He merely called out, “Mind you put my egg flip in front of the fire!” and returned to his cards. When they were convinced that there was nothing to be got out of him, they declared that it was high time to go to bed, and left him.

They were up again pretty early the next day, filled with an indefinite hope, a still keener desire to be gone, and a horror of another day to be got through in this horrible little inn.

Alas! the horses were still in the stable and the coachman remained invisible. For lack of something better to do, they sadly wandered round the diligence.

Lunch was very depressing, and a certain chilliness had sprung up with regard to Boule de Suif, for the night⁠—which brings counsel⁠—had somewhat modified their opinions. They were almost vexed with the girl now for not having gone to the Prussian secretly, and thus prepared a pleasant surprise for her companions in the morning. What could be simpler, and, after all, who could have been any the wiser? She might have saved appearances by telling the officer that she could not bear to see their distress any longer. It could make so very little difference to her one way or another!

But, as yet, nobody confessed to these thoughts. In the afternoon, as they were feeling bored to extinction, the Count proposed a walk round the village. Everybody wrapped up carefully and the little party started, with the exception of Cornudet, who preferred sitting by the fire, and the two Sisters, who passed their days in the church or with the curé.

The cold⁠—grown more intense each day⁠—nipped their noses and ears viciously, and the feet became so painful that every step was anguish; but when they caught sight of the open stretch of country it appeared to them so appallingly lugubrious under its illimitable white covering that they turned back with one accord, their hearts constricted, their spirits below zero. The four ladies walked in front, the three men following a little behind.

Loiseau, who thoroughly took in the situation, suddenly broke out, “How long was this damned wench going to keep them hanging on in this hole?” The Count, courteous as ever, observed that one could not demand so painful a sacrifice of any woman⁠—the offer must come from her. Monsieur Carré-Lamadon remarked that if⁠—as there was every reason to believe⁠—the French made an offensive countermarch by way of Dieppe, the collision could only take place at Tôtes. This reflection greatly alarmed the other two. “Why not escape on foot?” suggested Loiseau. The Count shrugged his shoulders. “How can you think of such a thing in this snow⁠—and with our wives? Besides which, we should instantly be pursued, caught in ten minutes, and brought back prisoners at the mercy of these soldiers.” This was incontestable⁠—there was nothing more to be said.

The ladies talked dress, but a certain constraint seemed to have risen up between them.

All at once, at the end of the street, the officer came in sight, his tall figure, like a wasp in uniform, silhouetted against the dazzling background of snow, and walking with his knees well apart, with that movement peculiar to the military when endeavouring to save their carefully polished boots from the mud.

In passing the ladies he bowed, but only stared contemptuously at the men, who, be it said, had the dignity not to lift their hats, though Loiseau made a faint gesture in that direction.

Boule de Suif blushed up to her eyes, and the three married women felt it a deep humiliation to have encountered this soldier while they were in the company of the young woman he had treated so cavalierly.

The conversation then turned upon him, his general appearance, his face. Madame Carré-Lamadon, who had known a great many officers and was competent to judge of them as a connoisseur, considered this one really not half bad⁠—she even regretted that he was not French, he would have made such a fascinating hussar, and would certainly have been much run after.

Once indoors again, they did not know what to do with themselves. Sharp words were exchanged on the most insignificant pretexts. The silent dinner did not last long, and they shortly afterwards went to bed, hoping to kill time by sleeping.

They came down next morning with jaded faces and exasperation in their hearts. The women scarcely addressed a word to Boule de Suif.

Presently the church bell began to ring; it was for a christening. Boule de Suif had a child out at nurse with some peasants near Yvetot. She did not see it once in a year and never gave it a thought, but the idea of this baby which was going to be baptized filled her heart with sudden and violent tenderness for her own, and nothing would satisfy her but that she should assist at the ceremony.

No sooner was she gone than they all looked at one another and proceeded to draw up their chairs; for everybody felt that things had come to that point that something must be decided upon. Loiseau had an inspiration: that they should propose to the officer to keep Boule de Suif and let the rest go.

Monsieur Follenvie undertook the mission, but returned almost immediately. The German, who had some knowledge of human nature, had simply turned him out of the room. He meant to retain the whole party so long as his desire was unsatisfied.

At this Madame Loiseau’s plebeian tendencies got the better of her. “But surely we are not going to sit down calmly here and die of old age! As that is this harlot’s trade, I don’t see that she has any right to refuse one man more than another. Why, she took anybody she could get in Rouen, down to the very cab drivers. Yes, Madame, the coachman of the Prefecture. I know all about it. He buys his wine at our shop. And now, when it lies with her to get us out of this scrape, she pretends to be particular⁠—the brazen hussy! For my part, I consider the officer has behaved very well! He has probably not had a chance for some time, and there were three here whom, no doubt, he would have preferred; but no⁠—he is content to take the one who is public property. He respects married women. Remember, he is master here. He had only to say ‘I will,’ and he could have taken us by force with his soldiers!”

A little shudder ran through the other two women. Pretty little Madame Carré-Lamadon’s eyes shone and she turned rather pale as though she already felt herself forcibly seized by the officer.

The men, who had been arguing the matter in a corner, now joined them. Loiseau, foaming with rage, was for delivering up “the hussy” bound hand and foot to the enemy. But the Count, coming of three generations of ambassadors, and gifted with the physique of the diplomatist, was on the side of skill as opposed to brute force.

“She must be persuaded,” he said. Whereupon they conspired.

The women drew up closer together, voices were lowered, and the discussion became general, each one offering his or her advice. Nothing was said to shock the proprieties. The ladies, in particular, were most expert in felicitous turns of phrase, charming subtleties of speech for expressing the most ticklish things. A foreigner would have understood nothing, the language was so carefully veiled. But as the slight coating of modesty with which every woman of the world is enveloped is hardly more than skin deep, they expanded under the influence of this equivocal adventure, enjoying themselves tremendously at bottom, thoroughly in their element, dabbling in sensuality with the gusto of an epicurean cook preparing a toothsome delicacy for somebody else.

The story finally appeared to them so funny that they quite recovered their spirits. The Count indulged in some rather risky pleasantries, but so well put that they raised a responsive smile; Loiseau, in his turn, rapped out some decidedly strong jokes which nobody took in bad part, and the brutal proposition expressed by his wife swayed all their minds: “As that is her trade, why refuse one man more than another?” Little Madame Carré-Lamadon seemed even to think that in her place she would refuse this one less readily than another.

They were long in preparing the blockade, as if against an invested fortress. Each one agreed upon the part they would play, the arguments they would bring forward, the manoeuvres they would execute. They arranged the plan of attack, the stratagems to be employed, and the surprises of the assault for forcing this living citadel to receive the enemy within its gates. Cornudet alone held aloof, completely outside the affair.

They were so profoundly occupied with the matter in hand that they never heard Boule de Suif enter the room. But the Count breathed a low warning “Hush!” and they lifted their heads. She was there. The talking ceased abruptly, and a certain feeling of embarrassment prevented them from addressing her at first, till the Countess, more versed than the others in the duplicities of the drawing room, asked how she had enjoyed the christening.

Still full of emotion at what she had witnessed, Boule de Suif described every detail⁠—the peoples’ faces, their attitudes, even the appearance of the church. It was so nice to pray now and then, she added.

Till luncheon, however, the ladies confined themselves merely to being agreeable to her in order to increase her confidence in them and her docility to their counsels. But once seated at the table, the attack began. It first took the form of a desultory conversation on devotion to a cause. Examples from ancient history were cited: Judith and Holofernes, and then, without any apparent connection, Lucretia and Sextus, Cleopatra admitting to her couch all the hostile generals, and reducing them to the servility of slaves. Then began a fantastic history, which had sprung up in the minds of the ignorant millionaires, in which the women of Rome were seen on their way to Capua, to rock Hannibal to sleep in their arms, and his officers along with him, and the phalanxes of the mercenaries. The women were mentioned who had arrested the course of conquerors, made of their bodies a rampart, a means of dominating, a weapon; who had vanquished by their heroic embraces beings hideous or repulsive, and sacrificed their chastity to vengeance or patriotism. They even talked in veiled terms of an Englishwoman of good family who had herself inoculated with a horrible contagious disease, in order to give it to Napoleon, who was saved miraculously by a sudden indisposition at the hour of the fatal meeting.

And all this in so discreet and moderate a manner, with now and then a little burst of warm enthusiasm, admirably calculated to excite emulation. To hear them you would have finally come to the conclusion that woman’s sole mission here below was to perpetually sacrifice her person, to abandon herself continually to the caprices of the warrior.

The two Sisters appeared to be deaf to it all, sunk in profound thought. Boule de Suif said nothing.

They allowed her all the afternoon for reflection, but instead of calling her “Madame,” as they had done up till now, they addressed her simply as “Mademoiselle”⁠—nobody could have said exactly why⁠—as if to send her down a step in the esteem she had gained, and force her to feel the shame of her position.

In the evening just as the soup was being brought to the table Monsieur Follenvie made his appearance again with the same message as before: “The Prussian officer sends to ask Mademoiselle Elizabeth Rousset if she had not changed her mind.”

“No, Monsieur,” Boule de Suif replied curtly.

At supper the coalition weakened. Loiseau put his foot in it three times. They all racked their brains for fresh instances to the point, and found none, when the Countess, possibly without premeditation and only from a vague desire to render homage to religion, interrogated the older of the two Sisters on the main incidents in the lives of the saints. Now, several of them had committed acts which would be counted crimes in our eyes, but the Church readily pardons such misdeeds when they are accomplished for the glory of God or the benefit of our neighbours. It was a powerful argument, and the Countess took advantage of it. Then by one of those tacit agreements, those veiled complaisances in which everyone who wears ecclesiastical habit excels, or perhaps simply from a happy want of intelligence, a helpful stupidity, the old nun brought formidable support to the conspiracy. They had imagined her timid; she proved herself bold, verbose, violent. She was not troubled by any of the shilly-shallyings of casuistry, her doctrine was like a bar of iron, her faith never wavered, her conscience knew no scruples. She considered Abraham’s sacrifice a very simple affair, for she herself would have instantly killed father or mother at an order from above, and nothing, she averred, could displease the Lord if the intention were commendable. The Countess, taking advantage of the sacred authority of her unexpected ally, drew her on to make an edifying paraphrase, as it were, on the well-known moral maxim: “The end justifies the means.

“Then, Sister,” she inquired, “you think God approves of every pathway that leads to Him, and pardons the deed if the motive be a pure one?”

“Who can doubt it, Madame? An action blamable in itself is often rendered meritorious by the impulse which inspires it.”

And she continued in the same strain, unravelling the intricacies of the will of the Almighty, predicting His decisions, making Him interest Himself in matters which, of a truth, did not concern Him at all.

All this was skillfully and discreetly wrapped up, but each word of the pious woman in the big white cap made a breach in the indignant resistance of the courtesan. The conversation then glancing off slightly, the woman of the pendent rosaries went on to speak of the religious houses of her Order, of her superior, of herself and her fragile little companion, her dear little Sister St. Nicephora. They had been summoned to Havre to nurse the hundreds of soldiers there down with smallpox. She described the condition of these poor wretches, gave details of their disease; and while they were thus stopped upon the road by the whim of this Prussian, many French soldiers might die whom perhaps they could have saved. That was her specialty⁠—nursing soldiers. She had been in the Crimea, in Italy, in Austria; and relating her campaigns, she suddenly revealed herself as one of those Sisters of the fife and drum who seem made for following the camp, picking up the wounded in the thick of battle, and better than any officer for quelling with a word the great hulking undisciplined louts⁠—a regular Sister Rataplan, her ravaged face all pitted with innumerable holes, calling up an image of the devastations of war.

No one spoke after her for fear of spoiling the excellent effect.

Immediately after dinner they hurried to their rooms, not to reappear till pretty late the next morning.

Luncheon passed off quietly. They allowed the seed sown yesterday time to grow and bear fruit.

In the afternoon the Countess proposed a walk, whereupon the Count, following the preconcerted arrangement, took Boule de Suif’s arm and fell behind with her a little. He adopted that familiar, paternal, somewhat contemptuous tone which elderly men affect towards such girls, calling her “my dear child,” treating her from the height of his social position and indisputable respectability.

He came to the point without further preamble. “So you prefer to keep us here exposed like yourself to all the violence which must inevitably follow a check to the Prussian arms, rather than consent to accord one of those favours you have so often dispensed in your time?”

Boule de Suif did not reply.

He then appealed to her kindness of heart, her reason, her sentiment. He knew how to remain “Monsieur le Comte,” yet showing himself at the same time chivalrous, flattering⁠—in a word, altogether amiable. He exalted the sacrifice she would be making for them, touched upon their gratitude, and with a final flash of roguishness, “Besides, my dear, he may think himself lucky⁠—he will not find many such pretty girls as you in his own country!”

Boule de Suif said nothing and rejoined the rest of the party.

When they returned, she went straight to her room and did not come down again. The anxiety was terrible. What was she going to do? How unspeakably mortifying if she still persisted in her refusal!

The dinner-hour arrived, they waited for her in vain. Monsieur Follenvie, entering presently, announced that Mademoiselle Rousset was indisposed, and that there was consequently no need to delay supper any longer. They all pricked up their ears. The Count approached the innkeeper with a whispered “All right?”

“Yes.”

For propriety’s sake he said nothing to his companions, but he made them a slight sign of the head. A great sigh of relief went up from every heart, every face lit up with joy.

“Saperlipopette!” cried Loiseau, “I will stand champagne if there is such a thing in this establishment!”

Madame Loiseau suffered a pang of anguish when the innkeeper returned with four bottles in his hands. Everybody suddenly turned communicative and cheerful, and their hearts overflowed with prurient delight. The Count seemed all at once to become aware that Madame Carré-Lamadon was charming; the manufacturer paid compliments to the Countess. Conversation became lively, sprightly, and full of sparkle.

Suddenly Loiseau, with an anxious expression, raised his arms and shouted: “Silence!” They all stopped talking, surprised and already terrified. Then he listened intently, motioning to them to be silent with his two hands, and raising his eyes to the ceiling. He listened again, and resumed in his natural voice: “It is all right. Don’t worry.”

They did not understand at first, but soon a smile spread over their faces.

A quarter of an hour later he began the same comedy, and repeated it frequently during the evening. He pretended to be questioning someone on the floor above, giving advice in double-meaning phrases which he drew from his repertory as a commercial traveller. At times he would assume an air of sadness, and sigh: “Poor girl”; or he would mutter between his teeth with a furious air: “You swine of a Prussian!”⁠—Sometimes, when least expected, he would shout in resonant tones: “Enough! Enough!” adding, as though speaking to himself, “if only we see her again; if the scoundrel does not kill her!”

Although these jokes were in deplorable taste, they amused everyone and hurt nobody, for, like everything else, indignation is qualified by circumstances, and the atmosphere about them had gradually become charged with obscene thoughts.

By the time they reached dessert the women themselves were indulging in decidedly risky witticisms. Eyes grew bright, tongues were loosened, a good deal of wine had been consumed. The Count, who, even in his cups, retained his characteristic air of diplomatic gravity, made some highly spiced comparisons on the subject of the end of the winter season at the Pole and the joy of icebound mariners at sight of an opening to the south.

Loiseau, now in full swing, rose, and lifting high his glass of champagne, “To our deliverance!” he cried. Everybody started to their feet with acclamation. Even the two Sisters of Mercy, yielding to the solicitations of the ladies, consented to take a sip of the effervescing wine which they had never tasted before. They pronounced it to be very like lemonade, though the taste was finer.

“What a pity there is no piano,” said Loiseau as a crowning point to the situation, “we might have finished up with a quadrille.”

Cornudet had not uttered a word, nor made a sign of joining in the general hilarity; he was apparently plunged in the gravest abstractions, only pulling viciously at his great beard from time to time as if to draw it out longer than before. At last, about midnight, when the company was preparing to separate, Loiseau came stumbling over to him, and digging him in the ribs: “You seem rather down in the mouth this evening, citizen⁠—haven’t said a word.”

Cornudet threw up his head angrily, and sweeping the company with a flashing and terrible look: “I tell you all that what you have done today is infamous!”

He rose, made his way to the door, exclaimed once again, “Infamous!” and vanished.

This somewhat dashed their spirits for the moment. Loiseau, nonplussed at first, soon regained his aplomb and burst into a roar of laughter. “Sour grapes, old man⁠—sour grapes!”

The others not understanding the allusion, he proceeded to relate the “mysteries of the corridor.” This was followed by an uproarious revival of gaiety. The ladies were in a frenzy of delight, the Count and Monsieur Carré-Lamadon laughed till they cried. They could not believe it.

“Do you mean to say he wanted⁠—”

“I tell you I saw it with my own eyes.”

“And she refused?”

“Because the Prussian was in the next room.”

“It is incredible.”

“As true as I stand here!”

The Count nearly choked; the manufacturer held both his sides.

“And you can understand that he does not quite see the joke of the thing this evening⁠—oh, no⁠—not at all!”

And they all three went off again, breathless, choking, sick with laughter.

After that they parted for the night. But Madame Loiseau remarked to her husband when they were alone that that little cat of a Carré-Lamadon had laughed on the wrong side of her mouth all the evening. “You know how it is with these women⁠—they dote upon a uniform, and whether it is French or Prussian matters precious little to them. But, Lord⁠—it seems to me a poor way of looking at things.”

All night the darkness of the corridor seemed full of thrills, of slight noises, scarcely audible, the pattering of bare feet, and creaking that was almost imperceptible. Certainly nobody got to sleep until very late, for it was long before the lights ceased to shine under the doors. Champagne, they say, often has that disturbing effect; it makes one restless and wakeful.

Next morning a brilliant winter sun shone on the dazzling snow. The diligence was by this time ready and waiting before the door, while a flock of white pigeons, muffled in their thick plumage, strutted solemnly in and out among the feet of the six horses, seeking what they might devour.

The driver, enveloped in his sheepskin, sat on the box smoking his pipe, and the radiant travellers were busily laying in provisions for the rest of the journey.

They were only waiting now for Boule de Suif. She appeared.

She looked agitated and downcast as she advanced timidly towards her fellow travellers, who all, with one movement, turned away their heads as if they had not seen her. The Count, with a dignified movement, took his wife by the arm and drew her away from this contaminating contact.

The poor thing stopped short, bewildered; then gathering up her courage she accosted the wife of the manufacturer with a humble “Good morning, Madame.” The other merely replied with an impertinent little nod, accompanied by a stare of outraged virtue. Everybody seemed suddenly extremely busy, and they avoided her as if she had brought the plague in her skirts. They then precipitated themselves into the vehicle, where she arrived the last and by herself, and resumed in silence the seat she had occupied during the first part of the journey.

They affected not to see her, not to recognize her; only Madame Loiseau, glancing round at her with scorn and indignation, said half audibly to her husband, “It’s a good thing that I am not sitting beside her!”

The heavy conveyance jolted off, and the journey recommenced.

No one spoke for the first little while. Boule de Suif did not venture to raise her eyes. She felt incensed at her companions, and at the same time deeply humiliated at having yielded to their persuasions, and let herself be sullied by the kisses of this Prussian into whose arms they had hypocritically thrust her.

The Countess was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. Turning to Madame Carré-Lamadon, she said, “You know Madame d’Etrelles, I think?”

“Oh, yes; she is a great friend of mine.”

“What a charming woman!”

“Fascinating! So truly refined; very cultivated, too, and an artist to the tips of her fingers⁠—she sings delightfully, and draws to perfection.”

The manufacturer was talking to the Count, and through the rattle of the crazy windowpanes one caught a word here and there; shares⁠—dividends⁠—premium⁠—settling day⁠—and the like. Loiseau, who had appropriated an old pack of cards from the inn, thick with the grease of the five years’ rubbing on dirty tables, started a game of bezique with his wife. The two Sisters pulled up the long rosaries hanging at their waists, made the sign of the cross, and suddenly began moving their lips rapidly, faster and faster, hurrying their vague babble as if for a wager; kissing a medal from time to time, crossing themselves again, and then resuming their rapid and monotonous murmur.

Cornudet sat motionless⁠—thinking.

At the end of the three hours’ steady travelling Loiseau gathered up his cards and remarked facetiously, “It’s turning hungry.”

His wife then produced a parcel, which she untied, and brought out a piece of cold veal. This she cut up into thin, firm slices, and both began to eat.

“Supposing we do the same?” said the Countess, and proceeded to unpack the provisions prepared for both couples. In one of those oblong dishes with a china hare upon the cover to indicate that a roast hare lies beneath, was a succulent selection of cold viands⁠—brown slices of juicy venison mingled with other meats. A delicious square of Gruyère cheese wrapped in newspaper still bore imprinted on its dewy surface the words “General News.”

The two Sisters brought out a sausage smelling of garlic, and Cornudet, plunging his hands into the vast pockets of his loose greatcoat, drew up four hard-boiled eggs from one and a big crust of bread from the other. He peeled off the shells and threw them into the straw under his feet, and proceeded to bite into the egg, dropping pieces of the yolk into his long beard, from whence they shone out like stars.

In the hurry and confusion of the morning Boule de Suif had omitted to take thought for the future, and she looked on, furious, choking with mortification, at these people all munching away so placidly. A storm of rage convulsed her, and she opened her mouth to hurl at them the torrent of abuse that rose to her lips, but she could not speak, suffocated by her indignation.

Nobody looked at her, nobody thought of her. She felt herself drowning in the flood of contempt shown towards her by these honest scoundrels who had first sacrificed her and then cast her off like some useless and unclean thing. Then her thoughts reverted to her great basket full of good things which they had so greedily devoured⁠—the two fowls in their glittering coat of jelly, her patties, her pears, her four bottles of claret; and her fury suddenly subsided like the breaking of an overstrung chord and she felt that she was on the verge of tears. She made the most strenuous efforts to overcome it⁠—straightened herself up and choked back her sobs as children do, but the tears would rise. They glittered for a moment on her lashes, and presently two big drops rolled slowly over her cheeks. Others gathered in quick succession like water dripping from a rock and splashed on to the ample curve of her bosom. She sat up very straight, her eyes fixed, her face pale and rigid, hoping that nobody would notice.

But the Countess saw her and nudged her husband. He shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, “What can you expect? It is not my fault.” Madame Loiseau gave a silent chuckle of triumph and murmured, “She is crying over her shame.” The two Sisters had resumed their devotions after carefully wrapping up the remnants of their sausages.

Then Cornudet, while digesting his eggs, stretched his long legs under the opposite seat, leaned back, smiled like a man who has just thought of a capital joke, and began to softly whistle the “Marseillaise.”

The faces clouded; the popular air seemed unpleasing to his neighbors; they became nervous⁠—irritable⁠—looking as if they were ready to throw back their heads and howl like dogs at the sound of a barrel organ. He was perfectly aware of this, but did not stop. From time to time he hummed a few of the words:

Amour sacré de la patrie,
Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs,
Liberté, liberté chérie,
Combats avec tes défenseurs!

They drove at a much quicker pace today, the snow being harder; and all the way to Dieppe, during the long, dull hours of the journey, through all the jolting and rattling of the conveyance, in the falling shades of evening and later in the profound darkness of the carriage he continued with unabated persistency his vengeful and monotonous whistling; forcing his wearied and exasperated fellow travellers to follow the song from end to end and to remember every word that corresponded to each note.

And Boule de Suif wept on, and at times a sob which she could not repress broke out between two couplets in the darkness.

Les Dimanches d’Un Bourgeois

I

Preparing for Excursions

Monsieur Patissot, born in Paris, having failed in his studies at the Collège Henri IV, obtained employment in a government department through the influence of one of his aunts, who kept a cigar store where a chief clerk of the department bought his supply of tobacco. He advanced very slowly and would perhaps have died a fourth-class clerk, had it not been for the benevolent Providence that watches over us all.

When he was about fifty-two years old, he had only begun to explore, as a tourist, that region of France which lies between the fortifications of Paris and the provinces proper. The history of his promotion may be of use to a great many clerks, just as the description of his outings may help a number of Parisians to plan their own trips, thus being able to avoid certain mishaps which befell him.

In 1854, M. Patissot was making only eighteen hundred francs a year. His peculiar disposition rendered him unpopular with his superiors, who let him linger in an eternal and hopeless expectation of the clerk’s ideal, an increase of salary.

Though he worked conscientiously, he did not know how to push, being, he said, too proud to do it. His pride consisted in refusing to bow and scrape before his superiors, after the manner of some of his fellow-workers whom he declined to name. He used to add that his bluntness embarrassed many persons, for, like all the rest, he criticised injustice and the favoritism that was shown to outsiders, strangers to the department. But his indignant voice never passed the door of the little box in which he worked.

First as a clerk, then as a Frenchman, and finally as a man of order, he adhered from principle to all established forms of the government, having a religious reverence for power when it belonged to others than his own chiefs.

Every time he found the chance, he would stand where he could see the Emperor pass, that he might have the honor of raising his hat, and he would depart very proud at having bowed to the Chief of the State.

After repeatedly contemplating the sovereign, he followed the example of a great many of his fellow-citizens: he copied the cut of his Majesty’s beard, of his coat, his style of wearing his hair, his walk, even his mannerisms⁠—how many men in every country seem reproductions of the reigning sovereign! Indeed, he did resemble Napoleon III slightly, but his own hair was black, so he dyed it. The likeness then was striking, and when he chanced to see in the street a man who also resembled the imperial person, he would feel jealous and eye him disdainfully!

This desire of aping some distinguished person grew to be a mania with him, and having heard an usher of the Tuileries imitate the Emperor’s speech, he, too, gradually adopted the intonation and studied slowness of his Majesty’s voice.

He became so identified with his model that they could easily have been mistaken for each other; many persons in the department, even high officials, began to notice the likeness, and regarded it as unseemly and even vulgar. They spoke of it to the minister, who summoned the clerk before him. But when he laid eyes on the Emperor’s counterpart he burst out laughing and repeated several times: “This is funny, really, very funny!” His words were noised around, and the following day Patissot’s immediate chief proposed his subordinate for an increase in salary of three hundred francs, which was immediately granted. From that time, he was promoted regularly, thanks to his simian faculty of imitation. His chiefs even went so far as to imagine that some high honor would come to him one day, and addressed him with deference.

But when the Republic was proclaimed it brought disaster. He felt absolutely crushed and lost his head; he stopped dyeing his hair, shaved off his imperial and had his hair cropped close, thus acquiring an inoffensive and benevolent expression that was most uncompromising.

Then his chiefs sought revenge for the long time he had imposed on them, and, having become Republicans through the instinct of self-preservation, they persecuted him and delayed his promotion. He, too, changed his political faith, but as the Republic was not a living being to whom one might bear a likeness and as its presidents followed one another in rapid succession, he found himself in a predicament, and felt thwarted in his instinct of imitation, because his attempt to copy his latest ideal, M. Thiers, had utterly failed. His peculiar fancy, however, led him to seek continually a new manifestation. He reflected long and earnestly, and one morning appeared at the office with a new hat, the right side of which was decorated with a tiny tricolor rosette. His colleagues were astonished and laughed over it for days. But the gravity of his bearing finally awed them, and again his chiefs felt worried. What mystery lay behind this rosette? Was it only a manifestation of patriotism, the confirmation of his adherence to the Republic, or was it the secret sign of some powerful association?

As he wore it so persistently, his colleagues thought he must have some occult and powerful protection. They decided that at all events it was wise to be on guard, especially as the unruffled calmness with which he received their pleasantries increased their apprehensions. They treated him with great regard, and thus his sham courage saved him, for on the first day of January, 1880, he was appointed head-clerk.

His whole life had been spent indoors. He had remained single for love of tranquillity, as he hated noise and motion. He spent his Sundays reading tales of adventure and ruling blotters, which he used to present to his colleagues. In his whole life he had taken but three vacations of a week each, in order to move to new quarters. Once in a while, on a holiday, he would take an excursion-train to Havre or to Dieppe, to expand and elevate his soul by contemplation of the ocean.

He was full of that common sense which borders on stupidity. For a long time he had been living quietly and economically, temperate out of prudence, continent by temperament, when suddenly he was seized with a sickening apprehension. One evening in the street he had an attack of dizziness that made him fear a stroke of apoplexy. He betook himself to a doctor, and received for five francs the following diagnosis:

“Mr. Patissot, fifty-two years old, a clerk, single. Full-blooded temperament, threatened with apoplexy. Appications of cold water, a moderate diet, plenty of exercise.

“Montellier, M.D.”

Patissot almost collapsed, and during the whole of the following month he worked in his office with a wet towel wrapped around his head like a turban, from which drops of water fell frequently on his work, compelling him to begin it all over again. Every little while he would read over the prescription in the hope of discovering some hidden meaning, and tried to fix upon the kind of exercise that would insure him against apoplexy.

He consulted his friends, to whom he showed the fatal paper. One of them suggested boxing. He at once hunted up an instructor, and received the very first day an uppercut which disgusted him forever with this healthful form of exercise. Fencing stiffened him so that he could not sleep for two nights, and the exertion of singlestick almost killed him. Suddenly he had an inspiration. It was to take long walks on Sundays in the suburbs of Paris and in those parts of the city that were unknown to him.

The thought of the means of procuring a proper outfit for these trips filled his mind during a whole week. And on Sunday, the last day of May, he began his preparations. After reading all the queer advertisements that are distributed in the streets by a lot of poor, half-blind, or limping creatures, he went to various shops just to look around, intending to purchase some time later. He first entered a so-called American shoe-shop and asked to see some thick walking shoes. The clerk brought out some contrivances that looked like ironclad battleships, bristling all over with nails, and explained that they were manufactured from the hide of the Rocky Mountain bisons. He was so carried away with them that he would gladly have bought two pairs. But one sufficed and he laid down the money and departed, carrying the bundle under his arm, which grew lame from the exertion.

He bought a pair of corduroy trousers such as carpenters wear, and also heavy linen gaiters that reached to his knees. He still needed a knapsack in which to carry his provisions, a field glass to reconnoiter distant villages perched on the slope of the hills, and an ordnance map for reference, so that he would not have to question the peasants working in the fields.

Then, to be able to endure the heat, he resolved to buy a light alpaca coat, advertised by the well-known firm of Raminau, at the bargain price of six francs fifty.

He went to the shop, and a tall young man with rosy fingernails, bushy hair, and a pleasant smile, showed him the desired garment. It did not conform to the statements of the advertisement. Patissot inquired hesitatingly: “Will it really wear well?”

The young man simulated perfectly the embarrassment of an honest salesman who does not wish to deceive a customer and, lowering his voice in a confidential manner, he said: “Dear me! Monsieur, you must understand that for six francs and a half we are unable to furnish an article like this, for instance,” and he held up a coat very much better than the other.

After looking it over, Patissot asked the price: Twelve francs fifty. It was a temptation. But before making up his mind, he again questioned the clerk, who was watching him narrowly: “Then you guarantee this one? Is it really good?” “Yes, it’s quite good, but of course it mustn’t get wet! If you want good quality you have it right here, but, there are coats and coats. It is first-rate for the price. Twelve francs fifty, of course, is very little. Naturally, a coat for twenty-five francs would be much better. For this amount you get a very superior article, just as strong as cloth and more durable. After a wetting, a little pressing will make it come out like new; it never fades and is warmer yet lighter than cloth.” And he held up the goods, crumpling, shaking, and stretching it, to show its excellent quality. He spoke convincingly, dispelling the customer’s doubts with word and gesture. Patissot bought the coat, and the pleasant salesman tied the bundle, still lauding the value of the acquisition. When the package was paid for he suddenly stopped talking, and with a superior smile, bowing pleasantly while holding the door, he watched his customer depart, Monsieur Patissot, laden with bundles, trying in vain to raise his hat.

At home Patissot studied his map and tried on his ironclad boots which felt as heavy as skates. He slipped and fell, and vowed he would be more careful in the future. Then he laid out his purchases on a chair and contemplated them a long while, finally retiring to his bed, pondering: “How strange I never thought of taking outings before!”

II

Patissot’s First Outing

Monsieur Patissot worked listlessly during the whole week, dreaming of the outing he had planned for the following Sunday. He was seized with a sudden longing for the country, for green trees, and the desire for rustic scenes that comes to every Parisian in the springtime took possession of his whole being.

He retired early on Saturday night, and was up with the dawn.

His window opened on a dark and narrow courtyard, a sort of shaft, through which floated up all the different odors of the needy families below.

He immediately glanced at the small square of sky that appeared between the roofs, and saw that it was of a deep blue and filled with sunshine.

Swallows darted through it continually, but their flight could be watched only for a second. He thought that from such a height they surely were able to see the country, the green foliage of the wooded hills, and great stretches of horizon.

An insane longing came to him to wander among the cool leaves. So he dressed himself quickly, drew on his heavy boots, and spent a great deal of time lacing the leggings, which were new and strange to him. After strapping his knapsack to his back (it was filled with meat, cheese, and bottles of wine, for the unaccustomed exercise was sure to sharpen his appetite), he started, a stick in his hand. He adopted a well-marked gait (like a soldier’s, he thought), whistling lively airs that lightened his step. People turned around to gaze after him, a dog barked at him, and a cabman called out: “Good luck, Monsieur Dumolet.” But he paid no attention to them, and marched along briskly, proudly swinging his stick.

The city was awakening in the sunlight and the warmth of a fine spring day. The fronts of the houses shone brightly, canaries warbled in their cages, and a joyousness filled the air, lighting up the faces of the passersby with an expression of universal contentment with all things.

He walked toward the Seine to take the boat for Saint-Cloud. Amid the staring curiosity of the passersby, he followed the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, the boulevard, and the Rue Royale, mentally comparing himself to the Wandering Jew. In crossing a gutter he slipped on the nails of his shoes and fell to the ground with a terrible rattling in his knapsack. A passerby helped him to his feet and he resumed his walk at a slower pace. When he reached the river he waited for a boat.

He watched it approach under the bridges, looking very small at first, then larger, till it finally assumed in his mind the proportions of an ocean steamer, coming to take him for a long trip across the seas, to visit unknown nations and to see unfamiliar sights. The boat came alongside the landing, and he went aboard. Women in their Sunday clothes, with big red faces, were seated everywhere, arrayed in gorgeous gowns and gay ribbons.

Patissot walked to the bow and stood there, with legs apart, like a sailor, to create the impression that he was used to steamers. But as he feared the pitching of the boat, he rested on his stick, so as to be sure of keeping his equilibrium.

After passing the Pont-du-Jour, the river widened, flowing calmly under the dazzling sunlight; then, after passing between two islands, the boat turned a wooded hill where a great many little white houses peeped through the foliage. A voice shouted Bas-Meudon, Sèvres, Saint-Cloud, and Patissot landed.

On the quay, he reopened his map, in order to avoid making any possible mistakes. Everything was quite clear, however. He had only to follow a road that would take him to Celle, where he would turn first to the left, then a little to the right, and afterward would reach Versailles just in time to visit the park before dinner.

The road was hilly, and Patissot puffed and blew, crushed by the weight of his provisions, his legs sore from his gaiters, and his thick shoes feeling as heavy as cast-iron. Suddenly he stopped with a gesture of despair! in the flurry of his departure he had forgotten the field glass!

At last he reached the woods. Then, notwithstanding the terrific heat, and his perspiring brow, and the weight of his harness and the jerkings of his knapsack, he started on a run or rather on a trot toward the green trees, like some old, worn-out nag.

He entered the deliciously cool shade and gazed tenderly at the thousands of little flowers that grew by the wayside; they looked very delicate on their long stems and were all different, some yellow, some blue, some lavender. Insects of various colorings and shapes, long, short, of wonderful build, monsters both tiny and fearful, were ascending with difficulty the blades of grass, which bent under their weight. And Patissot began to admire creation sincerely. But being exhausted he sat down.

He wanted to take a bite. But on examining his provisions, he was amazed at their condition. One of the bottles had been broken in his fall and the contents, unable to find an outlet through the oilcloth, had made a wine soup of his food.

However, he managed to eat a slice of cold leg of mutton, carefully wiped off, a slice of ham, several crusts of bread, soaked and red, and he quenched his thirst with some fermented claret that was covered with an unappetizing pink foam.

After resting nearly two hours, he again consulted his map and went on his way.

In time, he found himself at an entirely unexpected crossroad. He looked at the sun, tried to locate himself, reflected, studied the multitude of fine crosslines on his map that represented the roads, and finally reached the conclusion that he was lost.

Before him lay a most alluring path, specked with drops of sunshine that illuminated the white daisies hidden in the grass. It seemed endless, and was quite still and deserted.

A solitary bumblebee frolicked around, now and then lighting on a flower, to leave it almost immediately for a new resting-place. Its fat body, supported by tiny transparent wings, looked like brown velvet streaked with yellow. Patissot was watching it with keen interest, when something stirred at his feet. At first he was frightened and jumped aside, but stooping carefully, he saw that it was a frog no larger than a nut, which was making gigantic leaps.

He bent down to catch it, but it slid between his fingers. Then, with infinite precautions, he crawled toward it on his hands and knees, advancing very slowly, and looking like a tremendous waddling turtle, with his knapsack on his back. When he was near enough to the little creature, he prepared his attack, threw out both hands, fell flat on his nose in the grass, and picked himself up, clutching two handfuls of dirt but no frog. He looked for it a long time, but in vain.

As soon as he was on his feet, he perceived, at a great distance, two figures coming toward him and making signs. A woman was waving a parasol and a man in shirtsleeves was carrying a coat over his arm. Then the woman began to run, calling out: “Monsieur! Monsieur!” He wiped his brow and replied: “Madame!”

“Monsieur, we are lost, positively lost,” said the lady, as she approached him.

A feeling of shame prevented him from making a similar confession and he gravely asserted: “You are on the road to Versailles.”

“What, on the road to Versailles? Why, we are going to Rueil,” said she.

He was taken aback, but nevertheless replied calmly: “Madame, I will prove to you with my map that you are really on the road to Versailles.”

The husband approached. He wore a hopeless, distracted expression. His wife, a young and pretty brunette, grew furious as soon as he drew near. “Now see what you’ve done! Here we are at Versailles. Please look at the map that Monsieur is kind enough to show you. Are you able to read? Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! how stupid some people are! Didn’t I tell you to take to the right? But you wouldn’t listen, no, you think you know everything!”

The poor fellow seemed exceedingly distressed, and replied: “But, my dear, it is you⁠—”

She refused to let him continue and began to reproach him with all the misfortunes of all their life, from their marriage to that moment. But he kept casting despairing glances toward the woods, anxiously scanning the path and uttering from time to time a piercing sound something like a single word, Tuit. This did not appear to disturb his wife, but it filled Patissot with astonishment.

Suddenly the young woman, turning with a smile to the chief clerk, remarked: “If Monsieur will permit us, we will accompany him, so as to keep from getting lost and being obliged to sleep in the woods.”

As Patissot could not very well refuse, he bowed with a heavy heart, tortured with apprehension, and not knowing where he could lead them.

They walked a long while; the man was continually crying: Tuit; and at last darkness settled. The veil of mist that hovers over the country at dusk slowly descended and the delightful coolness which fills the woods at nightfall lent a peculiar charm to the atmosphere. The young wife had taken Patissot’s arm, and her red lips addressed continual reproaches to her husband, who made no reply but kept on calling: Tuit louder and louder. At last the fat clerk inquired: “What is that call for?”

The man, with tears in his eyes, replied:

“I’ve lost my poor dog!”

“What, you’ve lost your dog?”

“Yes, we brought him up in Paris and he had never been in the country before. When he saw the leaves he acted like a mad thing. He ran into the woods and I haven’t seen him since. He will surely starve to death there.”

The young wife shrugged her shoulders: “When a person is as stupid as you are, he cannot keep dogs.”

But he had suddenly stopped, and began to feel himself all over. She watched him a moment, and then asked:

“Well, what has happened now?”

“I didn’t notice that I had my coat on my arm. I have lost my purse, with my money in it!”

At this turn of affairs the woman choked with rage. Finally she said:

“Well, then go back at once and look for it.”

Gently he answered: “Yes, my dear, but where shall I find you?”

Patissot replied boldly: “At Versailles.” And he mentioned the Hotel des Réservoirs, having heard people speak of it.

The husband turned back, anxiously scanning the ground as he walked away, and shouting Tuit every minute. It was some time before he disappeared; at last he was lost in the darkness, but his voice still sounded at a great distance uttering its lamentable Tuit, the call growing sharper and sharper as the path grew darker and his hope became more faint.

Patissot felt delightfully moved when he found himself alone in the woods, at the mysterious hour of dusk, with this little strange woman clinging to his arm. For the first time in all his egotistical life, he had an inkling of poetical love, of the charm of sweet surrender, and of nature’s participation in our affections. He racked his brain in vain for some appropriate and gallant expression. But they were nearing a village road, and saw some houses at the right; then a man passed them. Patissot tremblingly inquired the name of the place. The man said it was Bougival.

“What, Bougival? Are you sure?”

“I should think so! I live here.”

The young woman was laughing uproariously. The idea that her husband was lost filled her with mirth. Patissot found a rustic restaurant near the water, and there they dined. The lady was charming, vivacious, full of amusing stories that turned the head of her companion. When it was time to leave, she exclaimed: “Why, now that I think of it, I haven’t a cent of change; you know my husband lost his purse.”

Patissot immediately offered her his own, and pulled out a louis, thinking he couldn’t lend her less. She said nothing, but held out her hand and took it, uttering a dignified, “Thank you, Monsieur,” followed by a pretty smile. Then she tied her bonnet-strings in front of the mirror, refused to let him accompany her, now that she knew her way, and departed like a vanishing bird, leaving Patissot to add up mournfully the expenses of his outing.

He stayed at home the next day on account of a sick-headache.

III

A Visit

During a whole week Patissot related his adventure to everyone that would listen to him, describing poeticaly the places he had visited, and growing indignant at the little enthusiasm he aroused among his colleagues. Only Monsieur Boivin, an old clerk nicknamed “Boileau,” lent him undivided attention. He lived in the country and had a small garden on which he lavished a great deal of care; he was content with little and was said to be perfectly happy. Patissot was now able to understand him, and the similarity of their tastes made them fast friends. To seal this budding friendship, Père Boivin invited him to breakfast the following Sunday at his little house in Colombes.

Patissot took the eight o’clock train, and after looking a long while discovered in the very heart of the town, an obscure street, a sort of filthy passageway enclosed by two high walls. At the end appeared a moldy door fastened with a string wound around two nails. He opened it and was confronted by an indescribable creature, apparently a woman. The upper part of her body was wrapped in a dirty shawl, a ragged skirt hung around her hips, and her frowsy hair was filled with pigeon feathers. Her little gray eyes scanned the visitor inhospitably; after a pause she inquired: “What do you wish?”

“Monsieur Boivin.”

“He lives here. What do you want of Monsieur Boivin?”

Patissot was embarrassed, and hesitated.

“Why⁠—he expects me.”

Her manner became fiercer and she replied: “Oh! you’re the one, are you, who is coming for breakfast?”

He stammered a trembling “Yes.” Turning toward the house she yelled:

“Boivin, here’s the man!”

Boivin instantly appeared in the doorway of a sort of plaster structure, covered with tin, that looked something like a chaufferette. He wore a pair of soiled white trousers and a dirty straw hat. He shook hands with Patissot and carried him off to what he proudly termed his garden; it was a little piece of ground about as big as a handkerchief, surrounded by houses. The sun shone on it only two or three hours every day; pansies, carnations, and a few rosebushes vegetated in this dark well, heated like a furnace by the radiation of the sun on the roofs. “We have no trees,” he said, “but the high walls are just as good, and it is as shady here as in the woods.”

Then, laying his hand on Patissot’s arm, he said: “Will you do me a favor? You’ve seen the old woman⁠—she isn’t very easy, is she? But you haven’t heard all, wait till breakfast. Just think, to keep me at home, she locks up my office suit and lets me have only clothes that are too soiled to wear in the city. Today I’m dressed decently because I told her that you were coming. That’s understood. But I cannot water the flowers for fear of soiling my trousers, and if I do that I’m lost! I thought you might do it for me.”

Patissot consented, took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and began to work the pump, that wheezed and blew like a consumptive and gave out a stream of water about as big as his little finger. It took ten minutes to fill the watering-can. Patissot was dripping with perspiration. Boivin directed his efforts. “Here, water this plant⁠—a little more. That’s enough! Now to this one.”

The can leaked, and Patissot’s feet got more water than the flowers, so that the edges of his trousers were soaked with mud. Twenty times at least he went to and fro, wetting his feet, and perspiring violently whenever he worked the pump handle; and when he was exhausted and wished to stop, old Boivin would pull him by the sleeve, and plead: “Just one more can, just one, and that will be enough.”

As a reward, he gave him a full-blown rose which lost all its petals as soon as it came in contact with Patissot’s coat, leaving in his buttonhole a sort of greenish pear, that caused him great surprise. He didn’t care to make any comment, however, out of politeness, and Boivin did not appear to notice it.

Suddenly Madame Boivin’s voice rang out: “Well! are you coming? How many times shall I tell you that it’s ready?”

They walked toward the chaufferette, trembling like two culprits.

If the garden was shady the house was not, and the heat of the rooms was worse than that of an oven.

Three plates, flanked with greasy forks and knives, had been laid on a dirty wooden table, in the middle of which stood a dish filled with soup-meat and potatoes floating around in some sort of liquid. They sat down and began to eat.

A large decanter filled with pinkish water attracted Patissot’s eye. Boivin, slightly embarrassed, mentioned it to his wife saying: “Dear, couldn’t you give us today a little pure wine?”

She eyed him furiously, then burst out:

“So that you can both get drunk, I suppose, and carouse here all day? No, thank you!” He said no more. After the ragout the woman brought in another dish of potatoes prepared with rancid lard, and when, still silent, they had finished, she declared:

“That’s all there is. Now get out.”

Boivin stared at her in amazement.

“What has happened to the pigeon you were picking this morning?” he inquired.

She put her hands on her hips.

“You haven’t had enough, I suppose? Is it a reason, because you bring people here, to eat up everything there is in the house? What do you think I’ll have to eat tonight, sir?”

The two men arose and stood in the doorway. Boivin whispered in Patissot’s ear:

“Wait for me a minute, and we’ll set out.” He went into the next room to finish dressing, and Patissot overheard the following dialogue:

“Give me twenty sous, dear.”

“What do you want them for?”

“Why, I don’t know what may happen; it is always safer to have some money.”

She screamed so as to be heard outside: “No, sir, I shan’t give it to you. After this man has breakfasted here, the least he can do is to pay your expenses.”

Boivin joined Patissot; the latter, wishing to be polite, bowed to the mistress of the house, stammering:

“Madame⁠—delightful time⁠—many thanks⁠—”

She answered:

“That’s all right, but don’t you bring him home intoxicated, or you will be sorry!”

And they set out.

They walked to the Seine and stopped in front of an island covered with poplar-trees.

Boivin looked at the river tenderly and squeezed his friend’s arm.

“In a week we’ll be there, Monsieur Patissot.”

“Where shall we be, Monsieur Boivin?”

“Why, at the beginning of the fishing season: it opens on the fifteenth.”

Patissot felt a slight tremor pass over him, like the commotion which is felt on seeing for the first time the woman who is to be one’s fate. He replied:

“Ah! so you fish, Monsieur Boivin?”

“Do I fish, Monsieur? Why, it’s my only delight!”

Patissot then questioned him closely. Boivin named all the fish that frolicked in that dirty water. And Patissot believed that he saw them. Boivin designated the various baits, the hooks, the places and the time favorable to catching each species. And Patissot felt that he knew more about fishing than Boivin himself. They agreed to meet for the overture on the following Sunday, for Patissot’s special benefit. He was delighted to have found such an experienced initiator.

They dined in a sort of dark hovel patronized by the fishermen and the rabble of the place. At the door Boivin thought fit to remark:

“It doesn’t look like much, but it’s very nice inside.”

They seated themselves at a table. After the second glass of claret Patissot knew why Madame Boivin gave her spouse reddened water; the little man was losing his head; he talked at random, got up, wanted to play tricks, acted as peacemaker in a drunken quarrel, and would have been killed, as well as Patissot, had not the owner of the place interfered. After the coffee he was so intoxicated that he could not stand, despite his friend’s efforts to keep him from drinking; and when they departed Patissot had to guide his faltering steps.

They walked across the meadows, and after wandering around for a long time in the dark, lost their way. Suddenly they found themselves amid a thicket of tall sticks that reached to their noses.

It was a vineyard. They felt around a long time, unsteady, maudlin, and unable to find a way out. At last Boivin fell over a stick that scratched his face, and he sat down on the ground yelling at the top of his voice with a drunkard’s obstinacy, while Patissot, distracted, shouted for assistance.

A belated peasant went to their rescue and put them on the right road.

But as they approached Boivin’s home Patissot became timorous. At last they arrived at the door; it was suddenly flung open and Madame Boivin, like the furies of old, appeared with a light in her hand. As soon as she saw her husband she jumped at Patissot, screaming:

“Ohl you scoundrel! I knew that you would get him drunk.”

The poor fellow was seized with an insane terror, and, dropping his friend in the slimy gutter of the passageway, he ran as fast as his legs would carry him toward the railway station.

IV

Fishing

The day before he was to throw a bait into the river for the first time in his life, Monsieur Patissot bought for eighty centimes a pamphlet entitled, “The Perfect Fisherman.”

Besides gleaning from it much useful information, he was greatly impressed with the style, and learned by heart the following excerpt:

In a word, if you wish to succeed, and be able to fish right and left, up or down stream, without care or precautions of any kind, and with that conquering air that admits of no defeat, then fish before, during, and after a thunderstorm, when the sky opens and is streaked with lightning and the earth echoes with the rolling of thunder; it is then that the fish, either from terror or avidity, forget their habits in a sort of universal and turbulent flight.

In the confusion resulting, you may follow or neglect all the signs that indicate favorable conditions, for you are sure of marching to victory.

In order to be able to catch fish of different sizes, he bought three poles so constructed as to simulate walking-sticks in the city; on the river, a slight jerk would transform them into fishing-rods. He purchased the smaller hooks for fry and with sizes 12 and 15 he hoped to fill his basket with carp and flounders. He refrained from buying groundworms, because he knew that he could find them everywhere, but he secured a provision of sandworms.

In the evening, at home, he gazed at them with interest. The hideous creatures swarmed in their bran bath as in putrefied meat. Patissot began to practice fastening them to the hooks. He took one out with disgust, but had hardly laid it on the sharp end of the curved steel before it burst and spilled its insides. He tried to bait a hook at least twenty times without success, and probably would have continued all night had he not feared to exhaust his supply.

He started next morning on the first train. The station was crowded with people armed with fishing-rods, some, like Patissot’s, looking like walking-sticks, while others, all in one piece, pointed their slender ends toward heaven, forming as it were, a forest of reeds that clashed and mingled like swords, or swayed like masts above an ocean of broad-brimmed straw hats.

When the locomotive pulled out of the station fishing-rods were sticking out of every window of the train, which looked like a huge spiked caterpillar unrolling itself through the fields.

The passengers got out at Courbevoie, and almost fought to get seats in the diligence for Bezons. A crowd of fishermen swung themselves on top of the omnibus, and as they were holding their rods in their hands, the conveyance suddenly took on the appearance of a large porcupine.

All along the road men were going in one direction, looking like pilgrims on the way to an unknown Jerusalem. They walked hurriedly carrying tin boxes fastened on their backs⁠—their swaying rods resembling the staffs of the ancient knights on their way back from Palestine.

At Bezons the river could be seen. The banks were lined with people, many men in frock-coats and others in blouses, women, children, and even young girls; they were all fishing.

Patissot immediately started for the dam where his friend Boivin was waiting. The latter greeted him rather coldly. He had just become acquainted with a big, fat man about fifty years old, having a sunburned countenance, who seemed very well informed on all fishing matters. The three men hired a boat and settled themselves almost under the fall of the dam, where the largest number of fish is generally found. Boivin was ready at once, and having baited his hook he threw it in the river and watched, motionless, with rapt attention, the bobbing of the tiny buoy. Occasionally he would pull the line out of the water and throw it in again further away. The fat man, after throwing his well-baited hooks, laid the rod by his side, filled his pipe and lighted it, folded his arms, and, without glancing once at the cork, dreamily fell to watching the water. Patissot tried to fasten his baits to the hooks, but they burst every time. After a few minutes he hailed Boivin: “Monsieur Boivin, would you be kind enough to put these creatures on the hooks? I have tried, but cannot succeed.” Boivin lifted his head. “I would request you not to interrupt me, Monsieur Patissot; we are not here for pleasure.” He baited the line, however, and Patissot threw it into the river, carefully imitating his friend’s motions.

The boat pitched recklessly, shaken by the waves and spun around like a top by the current, though it was anchored at both ends; and Patissot, absorbed in the sport, felt vaguely uncomfortable and dizzy.

They had taken nothing as yet; Père Boivin was getting very nervous and was shaking his head despairingly, and Patissot was very greatly affected thereby; only the fat man sat motionless and continued to smoke quietly, without paying the slightest attention to his line. At last, Patissot, becoming quite downhearted, turned to him and remarked sadly:

“They don’t bite, do they?”

He simply replied:

“No, they don’t!”

Patissot considered him with surprise.

“Do you sometimes make a good haul?”

“Never!”

“What! never?”

The fat man, smoking like a factory chimney, let out the following words which filled his neighbor with consternation:

“You see, I wouldn’t like it a bit if they did bite. I don’t come here to fish, but merely because I like the spot; you get a good shaking up, as you do on the sea. If I take a rod along, I only do it to appear like the rest of them.”

Monsieur Patissot quite to the contrary, was feeling miserable. His discomfort, at first ill defined, was increasing and taking on a definite form. He felt indeed, as if he were on the ocean and decidedly seasick.

After the first attack had passed off, he proposed that they should leave, but Boivin became furious at this suggestion and almost annihilated him. The fat man, however, moved by pity, insisted on returning, and when Patissot’s dizziness was dispelled they bethought themselves of breakfast.

Two restaurants were near at hand. One was quite small and looked like a beer-garden, being patronized by the poorer class of fishermen. The other, called Le Châlet des Tilleuls, looked like a cottage, and drew the élite of the sportsmen. The two hosts, born enemies, watched each other with keen hatred across a field that separated them, on which the house of the dam-keeper and garde-pêche was built. Of these two officials, one was in favor of the beer-garden and the other of the cottage, and the dissensions of those isolated houses reproduced the history of the entire human race.

Boivin, who patronized the beer-garden, wished to go there, saying: “The service is excellent and it’s cheap; you will see. Anyway, Monsieur Patissot, don’t hope to get me intoxicated, as you did last Sunday; my wife was furious, and swears that she will never forgive you!”

The fat man declared that Les Tilleuls was the only place for him, because, he said, it was a fine house where the cooking was as good as in the best Paris restaurants. “As you please,” replied Boivin, “I’m going where I always go.” And he departed. Vexed at his friend, Patissot followed the fat man.

They breakfasted together, exchanged their views on various subjects, communicated their impressions, and discovered that they were made for each other.

After breakfast everyone went back to fish, but the two new friends started to walk along the bank and stopped near the railway bridge. They threw out their lines and began to talk. The fish still refused to bite, but Patissot had become resigned.

A family came up. The father wore a beard and carried an immensely long rod; three boys of different sizes were carrying poles of various lengths, according to age; and the portly mother gracefully held a charming rod decorated at the handle with a ribbon. The father bowed.

“Is this spot favorable, gentlemen?” he inquired.

Patissot was going to speak when his friend answered:

“Fine!”

The whole family smiled and settled around the two fishermen. Patissot felt then an overpowering desire to catch something, just one fish of any kind, if only as big as a fly, so as to win the consideration of these people; and he began to handle his rod as he had seen Boivin handle his that morning. He would let the cork follow the stream to the end of the line, then gave a jerk and pulled the hook out of the river; then describing a large circle in the air, he would throw it in a little farther away.

He was thinking he had mastered the trick of throwing the line gracefully, when suddenly the rod that he had just jerked with a rapid wrist motion caught somewhere behind him. He pulled; a scream rent the air, and he beheld fastened to one of the hooks and traveling through the sky like a meteor, a magnificent bonnet, trimmed with flowers, which he landed in the middle of the river.

He turned around wildly and let go of his line; it followed the bonnet that was being carried down the river, while the fat man lay on his back and roared with laughter. The lady disheveled and amazed, choked with rage; her husband also grew angry and demanded the price of the bonnet, for which Patissot paid at least three times its value.

Then the whole family departed with much dignity.

Patissot took another rod and sat bathing sandworms until night. His neighbor slept soundly on the grass, and awoke about seven o’clock.

“Let’s leave,” said he.

So Patissot pulled in his line, but gave a cry and sat down hard in his astonishment. A tiny fish was wriggling at the end of the string. On examining it they found that it was pierced through the middle; the hook had caught in it when being drawn out of the water.

It gave Patissot triumphant, unbounded joy. He wanted it fried for himself alone.

During dinner the intimacy of the two friends increased. Patissot learned that the big man lived in Argenteuil and had sailed boats for thirty years without discouragement. He agreed to breakfast with him the following Sunday, and to take a sail in his clipper, the Plongeon.

He was so interested in the conversation that he forgot all about his catch. After the coffee it recurred to him and he insisted that it should be served.

It looked like a yellow and twisted match dropped in the middle of the plate. But he ate it with pride, and going home on the omnibus he told his fellow-passengers that he had caught fourteen pounds of fry that day.

V

Two Famous Men

Monsieur Patissot had promised his friend, the boating man, that he would spend the following Sunday with him. An unforeseen circumstance interfered with his plans. He met one of his cousins whom he very seldom saw. He was an amiable journalist, standing very well in all the various social sets, and he offered his assistance to Patissot to show him all sorts of interesting things.

“What are you going to do next Sunday, for instance?” he inquired.

“I am going to Argenteuil to have some boating.”

“Oh, come, now! That’s a bore, your boating; there is no variety in it. I’ll take you with me. I will introduce you to two celebrated men, and we’ll visit the homes of two artists.”

“But I am ordered to go to the country.”

“I’ll make a call on Meissonier, on the way, at his place at Poissy. Then we’ll walk to Medan, where Zola lives. I have a commission to secure his next novel for our journal.”

Patissot, wild with joy, accepted the invitation.

He even bought a new frock-coat, that he might make a good appearance, his old one being a little worn, and he was horribly afraid lest he should say foolish things, either to the painter or the man of letters, as most persons do when they speak about an art which they have never practised.

He told his fears to his cousin, who began to laugh, saying to him: “Bah! Only pay compliments, nothing but compliments, always compliments, that carries off the foolish things, if you happen to say any. You know Meissonier’s pictures?”

“I should think so!”

“You have read the Rougon-Macquart series?”

“From beginning to end.”

“That suffices. Mention a picture from time to time, speak of a novel occasionally, and add ‘Superb! Extraordinary!! Delicious execution!! Wonderfully powerful!’ That is the way to get along. I know that those two men are fearfully surfeited with everything: but you see praises always please an artist.”

Sunday morning they set out for Poissy.

They found Meissonier’s place a few steps from the station at the end of the church square. Passing through a low gate painted red, which led into a magnificent arbor of vines, the journalist stopped, and turning toward his companion, asked:

“What do you think Meissonier is like?”

Patissot hesitated. Finally he replied:

“A small man, very well groomed, shaven, and with a military air.” The other man smiled and said:

“That is good. Come.”

An odd structure built like a chalet appeared at the left, and at the right, almost opposite a little tower, was the main house. It was a singular looking building, with a little of all styles of architecture about it⁠—the Gothic fortress, the manor, the villa, the cottage, the residence, the cathedral, the mosque, the pyramid, with a strange mingling of Oriental and Occidental methods of building. It was certainly of a most wonderfully complicated style, enough to drive a classical architect crazy; nevertheless, there was something fantastic and beautiful about it, and it had been planned by the painter and executed under his orders.

They entered: a collection of trunks filled a little parlor. A small man appeared clad in a jacket. The most striking thing about him was his beard; it was a prophet’s beard, of incredible size, a river, a flood, a Niagara of a beard. He greeted the journalist:

“Pardon me, my dear Monsieur, but I arrived only yesterday, and everything is still at sixes and sevens in the house. Sit down.”

The other refused, excusing himself:

“My dear master, I, came only to present my homage, as I was passing by.” Patissot, very much embarrassed, kept bowing at each of his friend’s words, as if by an automatic movement, and he murmured, stammering a little: “What a su‑su‑superb place!” The painter, flattered, smiled pleasantly, and offered to show it to them.

He led them first to a little pavilion of feudal aspect, in which was his former studio, looking out on a terrace. Then they passed through a drawing room, a dining room, a vestibule full of marvelous works of art, of adorable Beauvais, and hung with Gobelin and Flanders tapestries. But the strange luxury of ornamentation of the exterior became, on the inside, a luxury of prodigious stairways. It was a magnificent stairway of honor, a hidden stairway in one tower, and one for the servants in another; stairways everywhere! There Patissot by chance opened a door and retreated stupefied. It was a veritable temple, this place, the name of which respectable people pronounce only in English; an original and charming sanctuary, fitted up in exquisite taste, adorned like a pagoda, the decoration of which had surely cost great efforts of thought!

They next visited the park, which was complex, varied, tortuous with many fine old trees. But the journalist insisted on going away, and with many thanks he left the master.

They met a gardener as they were departing. Patissot asked him: “Has Monsieur Meissonier owned this place long?”

The old man replied: “Oh! Monsieur, I must explain. He bought the land in 1846, but the house⁠—he has torn it down and rebuilt it five or six times. I am sure he has spent two millions on it, Monsieur!”

And Patissot, as he went away, was filled with an immense consideration for the artist, not so much on account of his great success, his fame, and his genius, but because he spent so much money for a fancy, while ordinary bourgeois deprived themselves of the gratifying of all fancies in order to hoard money.

After passing through Poissy, they set out on foot along the road to Medan. The highway at first follows the Seine, which is dotted with charming islands at this place. They climbed a hill to pass through the pretty village of Villaines, descended a bit, and finally reached the section of the country where dwelt the author of the Rougon-Macquart novels.

An old and pretty church, flanked by two little towers, stood on the left. They took a few steps further, and a passing peasant showed them the door of the great writer of romance.

Before entering, they examined the house. It was a great structure, square and new and very tall, and appeared to have given birth, like the mountain and the mouse in the fable, to a tiny white house, nestling at its base. The small house was the original residence, and had been built by the former proprietor. The tower had been erected by M. Zola.

They rang. A huge dog, a cross between a St. Bernard and a Newfoundland, began to growl so fiercely that Patissot felt a vague desire to retrace his steps. But a servant, running forward, quieted the animal, calling it Bertrand, opened the door, and took the journalist’s card to carry it to his master.

“If he will only receive us!” murmured Patissot: “I should be very sorry to come so far without seeing him.”

His companion smiled:

“Never fear,” said he, “I have my own idea about getting in.”

But the domestic, returning, simply asked them to follow him.

They entered the new building, and Patissot, greatly moved, puffed as he climbed a stairway of ancient form, leading to the second floor.

He tried at the same time to picture to himself this man, whose glorious name resounded at that moment in all the corners of the world, amid the exasperated hatred of some, the real or feigned indignation of the “upper circles” of society, the envious dislike of certain compeers, the respect of a multitude of readers, and the frantic admiration of a great many: and he expected to see a sort of bearded giant, of terrible aspect, appear, with a resounding voice, and at first not very prepossessing.

The door opened into an extremely large and high room, fully lighted by a window looking out on the plain. Ancient tapestries covered the walls; on the left of the entrance, a monumental fireplace flanked by two stone men, could have burned a hundred-year-old oak-tree in a day; and an immense table, upon which were books, papers, and journals, occupied the middle of this apartment, which was so vast and grand that it at once engrossed the eye, and the attention was only afterward directed to its occupant, who was stretched out, as they entered, upon an Oriental divan on which twenty persons could have slept.

He took a few steps toward them, bowed, pointed to two seats, and sat down again upon his divan, with one leg bent under him. A book lay at his side, and with his right hand he played with an ivory paper-cutter, the tip of which he looked at from time to time, with one eye only, shutting the other with the habit of the nearsighted.

While the journalist was explaining the object of his visit, and the writer was listening without yet replying, looking fixedly at him, at certain moments, Patissot, more and more ill at ease, gazed at this celebrity.

Hardly forty years of age, he was of medium stature, rather stout, and of pleasing appearance. His head, like those found in many Italian paintings of the sixteenth century, without being handsome in the sculptor’s sense of the word, conveyed an impression that he possessed great power and intelligence. The short hair stood up on the well-developed head, above a thick black mustache; and the whole chin was covered with a beard trimmed close to the skin. The dark glance, often ironical, was penetrating; giving the impression that behind it an active brain was always working, piercing through persons, interpreting words, analyzing gestures, laying bare the heart. That strong, round head was very like his name, quick and short, with two syllables, bounding in the resonance of the two vowels.

When the journalist had made his proposition, the writer answered that he could not make any definite engagement, that he would see about it later; that as yet his plans were not sufficiently decided. Then he was silent. It was a dismissal, and the two men, a little confused, rose. But a desire seized Patissot; he desired that this personage, so well known, should say a word to him, any word whatsoever, which he could repeat to his friends; and summoning up courage, he stammered: “Oh! Monsieur, if you knew how much I appreciate your works!” The other bowed, but did not reply. Patissot became bold. He continued:

“It is a very great honor for me to speak to you today.”

The writer bowed again, but with a stiff and impatient air. Patissot perceived this, and losing his head, he added:

“What a su‑su‑su‑superb place!”

Then the spirit of the proprietor awaked in the indifferent heart of the man of letters, and smiling, he opened the window to show them the extent of the view.

There was an extensive view in all directions, including Triel, Pisse-Fontaine, Chanteloup, all the heights of Hautrie, and the Seine, as far as the eye could reach.

The two visitors, delighted, congratulated the great writer; and immediately the house was open to them. They saw everything, even to the fine kitchen, the walls of which, inlaid with tiles in blue designs, excited the wonder of the peasants.

“How did you happen to buy this place?” asked the journalist. And the romancer said that, in looking for a house to hire for a summer, he had found the little house, recently built, which was for sale at a few thousand francs, a trifle, almost nothing. He had bought it on the spot.

“But everything you have added must have cost you dear?”

The writer smiled, saying:

“Yes, considerable.”

And the two men went away.

The journalist, taking Patissot’s arm, philosophized in a slow voice: “Every general has his Waterloo,” said he. “Every Balzac has his foible, and every artist residing in the country has a desire to be a landed proprietor.”

They took the train at the station of Villaines, and in the car, Patissot mentioned in a loud voice the names of the illustrious painter and famous romancer, as if they were his friends. He even forced himself to believe that he had breakfasted with one and dined with the other.

VI

Before the Festival

The festival was approaching and the quiverings of it were already running through the streets, as ripples pass over the surface of the water when a storm is rising. The shops, adorned with flags, displayed a gaiety of dyes, and the merchants cheated about the three colors as grocers do over their candles. Hearts were wrought up, little by little. Citizens spoke in the streets, after dinner, about the festival and exchanged ideas regarding it.

“What a festival it will be, my friends, what a festival!”

“You didn’t know? All the sovereigns will come incognito, as bourgeois, to see it.”

“It seems that the Emperor of Russia has arrived; he intends to go everywhere with the Prince of Wales.”

“Oh! What a festival it will be!”

It would be a festival, certainly, what Monsieur Patissot called a great occasion; one of those indescribable tumults that for fifteen hours roll from one end of the city to another all the populace, bedizened with tinsel, a wave of perspiring people, where, side by side are tossed the stout gossip with tricolored ribbons, puffing and panting, who has grown stout behind her counter; the rickety employee, towing his wife and brat; the workingman, carrying his youngster astride his neck; the bewildered provincial, with his stupefied, idiotic physiognomy, the lightly-shaved groom still smelling of the stable. And the strangers dressed like monkeys, the English women, like giraffes, the shining-faced water-carrier, and the innumerable phalanx of little bourgeois, inoffensive citizens, amused at everything. O topsy-turvyness, backbreaking fatigue, sweat and dust, vociferations, eddies of human flesh, extermination of corns, bewilderment of all thought, frightful odors, breaths of the multitudes, wafts of garlic, give, oh, give to Monsieur Patissot all the joy his heart can contain!

Our worthy friend made his preparations for the festival after reading the proclamation of the mayor on the walls of the district.

This notice ran:

It is principally to the private decorations that I wish to call your attention. Decorate your homes, illuminate your windows, unite, club together, to give your houses and your streets a more brilliant and more artistic appearance than that of the neighboring houses and streets.

Monsieur Patissot pondered deeply over what artistic appearance he could give his own house.

A serious obstacle presented itself. His only window looked upon a court, a dark court, narrow and deep, where only the rats would see his Venetian lanterns.

He must have a public opening. He found one. On the first floor of his house lived a rich man, a noble and a royalist, whose coachman, also a reactionist, occupied a room on the sixth floor, facing the street. Monsieur Patissot supposed that, for a certain price, any conscience could be bought, and he offered five francs to this wielder of the whip to give up to him his room, from noon to midnight. The offer was accepted at once.

Then he began to busy himself about the decorations. Were three flags and four Chinese lanterns enough to give to this snuffbox an artistic physiognomy and to express all the exaltation of his soul? No, decidedly not! But, in spite of long researches and nocturnal meditations, Monsieur Patissot could not think of anything else. He consulted his neighbors, who were astounded at his inquiry. He questioned his colleagues. Everybody had purchased lanterns and flags, attaching to them tricolored decorations for the day.

Then he began to seek for an original idea. He haunted cafés, approaching the customers, but they were lacking in imagination. Then one morning he climbed to the top of an omnibus. A gentleman of respectable aspect was smoking a cigar at his side; a workingman further off puffed at his reversed pipe; two street-boys were near the coachman; and employees of all sorts were going to business for the price of three sous.

Before the shops bundles of flags were resplendent under the rising sun. Patissot turned toward his neighbor.

“This will be a fine festival,” said he. The gentleman gave a side glance and replied with an arrogant air: “It’s all the same to me!”

“You are not going to take part in it?” Patissot asked, surprised.

The other disdainfully shook his head.

“They make me sick with their festival! What is it the festival of? The government? I don’t recognize this government, Monsieur.”

But Patissot, himself an employee of the government, sternly answered:

“The government, Monsieur, is the Republic.”

His neighbor was not disconcerted, and, quietly putting his hands into his pockets, replied:

“Well, what of it? I don’t object. Republic or anything else, I don’t care about it. What I want, Monsieur, is to know my government. I have seen Charles X and I stood by him; I have seen Louis Philippe and I stood by him; I have seen Napoleon III, and I stood by him; but I have never seen the Republic.”

Patissot, still serious, replied:

“It is represented by its President.”

“Well, let them show him to me,” the other grunted.

Patissot shrugged his shoulders.

“Everybody can see him⁠—he is not concealed in a wardrobe.”

But suddenly the stout man grew angry:

“Pardon me, Monsieur, he cannot be seen. I have tried more than a hundred times, Monsieur. I have posted myself near the Élysée; he did not come out. A passerby told me that he was playing billiards in the café opposite. I went into the café opposite. He was not there. They promised me that he would go to Melan for the meeting. I went to Melan and I did not see him. I got tired finally. I have never seen Gambetta, either, and I don’t know a single deputy.”

He became excited.

“A government, Monsieur, ought to show itself. It is made for that, for nothing else. People ought to know that on a certain day, at a certain hour, the government will pass through a certain street. In that way people can see it and be satisfied.”

Patissot, quieted, rather liked these statements.

“It is true,” said he, “that people would prefer to know those who govern them.”

The gentleman replied in a softer tone:

“Do you know how I should manage the festival myself? Well, Monsieur, I should have a procession with gilded cars, like the sacred chariots of kings, and I should take the members of the government, from the President down to the deputies, through Paris in them, all day long. In that way everybody would know by sight at least, the persons of the State.”

But one of the street-boys near the coachman turned around, saying:

“And the fat ox, where would you put him?”

A laugh ran through the two benches. Patissot understood the objection, and murmured:

“That, perhaps, would not be dignified.”

The gentleman, after reflecting, agreed.

“Well, then,” said he, “I should place them on view somewhere so that everybody could see them without putting themselves out; on the Triumphal Arc de l’Étoile, for instance, and I should make the whole population file before them. That would lend great character to the event.”

But the boy again turned around and asked:

“Would it need a telescope to see their faces?”

The gentleman did not reply; he continued:

“It is like the distribution of flags! There ought to be some pretext, some organization, perhaps a little war; and then the standards could be presented to the troops as a recompense. I had an idea of which I wrote to the minister; but he has not deigned to reply to me. As they have chosen the date of the taking of the Bastile, an imitation of that might be made; they ought to have built a Bastile in cardboard, painted by a scene-painter, and concealing the whole Column of July within the walls. Then, Monsieur, the troop should make an assault and capture the citadel. That would have been a fine spectacle, and a lesson at the same time, to see the army itself overthrow the ramparts of tyranny. Then they ought to set the sham Bastile on fire; and amid the flames should appear the column, with the Genius of Liberty, symbol of a new order and of the freedom of the people.”

Everybody on the omnibus top listened this time, finding these ideas excellent. An old man said:

“That is a great thought, Monsieur, and one which does you honor. It is to be regretted that the government has not adopted it.”

A young man declared that they ought to have the poems of Barbier recited by actors in the streets, to teach the people art and liberty simultaneously.

This proposition excited great enthusiasm. Everybody wished to talk; their brains were exalted. A street-organ passing by droned out a bar of the “Marseillaise”; a workingman chanted the words, and everyone in chorus shouted the refrain. The lofty nature of the song and its stirring rhythm fired the coachman, whose flogged horses were galloping. Monsieur Patissot bawled at the top of his lungs, slapping his thighs, and the inside passengers, terrified, wondered what kind of tempest had burst over their heads.

They stopped singing after a time, and Monsieur Patissot, judging his neighbor to be a man well able to take the initiative, consulted him on the preparations which he expected to make.

“Lanterns and flags are all very well,” said Patissot, “but I would like something better.”

The other reflected a long time, but found nothing to suggest. So Monsieur Patissot, in despair of finding any novelty, bought three flags and four lanterns.

VII

A Sad Story

To recover from the fatigues of the celebration, Monsieur Patissot conceived the plan of passing the following Sunday tranquilly ensconced somewhere in communication with nature.

Desiring a fine view, he chose the terrace of Saint-Germain. He set out after breakfast and, when he had visited the museum of prehistoric curiosities⁠—as a matter of duty, for he understood nothing about them⁠—he stood struck with admiration before that great promenade, from which in the distance are seen Paris, the surrounding region, all the plains, villages, woods, ponds, towns even, and that great bluish serpent with innumerable undulations, that gentle and adorable river which touches the heel of France⁠—the Seine!

In the background, made blue by light mists, he distinguished, at an incredible distance, little places like white spots, on the slopes of the green hills. And musing that on these almost invisible points men like himself lived, suffered, and toiled, he reflected for the first time on the smallness of the world. He said to himself that, in space, other points still more imperceptible, systems greater than our world, perhaps, bear races more nearly perfect. But a vertigo seized him at the extent of the possibility, and he stopped thinking of these things, as they bothered his head. Then he followed the terrace at a slow pace, through its whole breadth, a little wearied, as if fatigued by too heavy reflections.

When he reached the end, he sat down on a bench. A gentleman happened to be there with his hands crossed over his cane and his chin resting on his hands, in an attitude of profound meditation. But Patissot belonged to the race of those who cannot pass three seconds at the side of a fellow-being without speaking to him. He first looked at his neighbor, hemmed, then suddenly said:

“Could you tell me, Monsieur, the name of the village that I see down there?”

The gentleman raised his head and in a sad voice replied:

“It is Sartrouville.”

Then he was silent. Patissot, contemplating the immense perspective of the terrace, shaded with trees a century old, feeling in his lungs the great breath of the forest which rustled behind him, rejoiced by the springtime odors of the woods and great fields, gave an abrupt little laugh and, with a keen eye, remarked:

“There are some fine nooks for lovers here.”

His neighbor turned toward him with a disconsolate air, and replied:

“If I were in love, Monsieur, I would throw myself into the river.”

Patissot not being of the same mind, protested.

“Hey! hey! you speak of it with great unconcern; and why so?”

“Because it has already cost me too dear for me to wish to begin it again.”

Patissot gave a grin of joy as he replied:

“Well, if you have been guilty of follies, they always cost dear.”

But the other sighed in a melancholy way, and said sadly:

“No, Monsieur, I have not perpetrated any follies; I have been betrayed by events, that is all.”

Patissot, who scented a good story, continued:

“For all that, we cannot dislike the curés; it is not in nature.”

Then the man lifted his eyes sorrowfully to heaven.

“That is true, Monsieur, but if the priests were men like others, my misfortune would not have happened. I am an enemy to ecclesiastical celibacy, Monsieur, and I have my reasons for it.”

“Would it be indiscreet to ask you?”

“Not at all. This is my story: I am a Norman, Monsieur. My father was a miller at Darnétal, near Rouen; and when he died we were left mere children, my brother and I, in the charge of our uncle, a good stout curé of Caux.

“He brought us up, gave us our education; and then sent us both to Paris to find suitable situations.

“My brother was twenty-one years old and I was twenty-two.

“We lodged together from economy, and we were living quietly when the adventure occurred which I am going to tell you.

“One evening as I was going home, I happened to meet on the sidewalk a young lady who pleased me very much. She answered to all my tastes; she was rather tall, Monsieur, and had a pleasant air. I dared not speak to her, of course, but I gave her a penetrating glance. The next morning I found her at the same place; then, as I was timid, I only bowed. She replied with a little smile, and the day after I approached her and spoke to her.

“Her name was Victorine, and she worked at sewing in a dressmaker’s establishment. I felt very soon that my heart was taken.

“I said to her: ‘Mademoiselle, it seems to me that I cannot live away from you.’ She lowered her eyes without answering. Then I seized her hand and I felt her press mine in return. I was captured, Monsieur: but I did not know what to do on account of my brother. My faith! I was just deciding to tell him everything when he opened his mouth first: He also was in love. Then it was agreed that we should take another lodging, but that we should not breathe a word of it to our good uncle, who should keep on addressing his letters in care of my domestic. So it was done; and a week later Victorine joined me in my home. We gave a little dinner, to which my brother brought his sweetheart, and in the evening, when everything was put in order, we definitely took possession of our lodging.

“We had been asleep for an hour, perhaps, when a violent ringing of the bell awaked me. I looked at the clock, it was three in the morning. I slipped on my trousers and hurried toward the door, saying to myself, ‘it is some misfortune, surely⁠—’

“It was my uncle, Monsieur, he had on his traveling coat, and carried his valise in his hand.

“ ‘Yes, it is I, my boy, I have come to surprise you, and to spend several days in Paris. Monseigneur has given me leave of absence.’

“He kissed me on both cheeks, entered, and shut the door. I was more dead than alive, Monsieur. But as he was about to penetrate into my bedroom, I almost grasped him by the collar.

“ ‘No, not that way, uncle, this way, this way.’

“And I made him go into the dining room. You see my situation⁠—what was I to do? He said to me:

“ ‘And your brother, is he asleep? Go and wake him up.’

“I stammered:

“ ‘No, uncle, he has been obliged to pass the night at the office for an urgent order.’

“My uncle rubbed his hands.

“ ‘Business is all right, then?’

“An idea occurred to me.

“ ‘You must be hungry, uncle, after your journey.’

“ ‘My faith! that’s true, I could nibble a little crust.’

“I rushed to the cupboard, where I had put the remains of the dinner. He was a great eater, my uncle, a true Norman curé, capable of eating twelve hours at a sitting. I brought out a bit of beef, to make the time longer, for I knew that he did not care for it; then after he had eaten enough of it, I presented the remnant of a chicken, a paté almost whole, a potato salad, three pots of cream, and some good wine that I had laid aside for the next day.

“Ah, Monsieur, how he did gorge!

“ ‘For heaven’s sake!’ said I to myself, ‘what a storeroom!’ And I stuffed him, Monsieur, I stuffed him. He did not resist, either.

“When he had devoured everything, it was five in the morning. I was on pins and needles. I drew him along another hour still, with the coffee and all the rinsings; but finally he rose.

“ ‘Let me see your lodging,’ said he.

“I was lost, and I followed, thinking of throwing myself out of the window. As I entered the bedroom ready to faint, waiting for something to occur, a last hope made my heart leap.

“The brave girl had closed the bed-curtains. Ah, if he only should not open them! But alas! Monsieut, he approached the bed immediately, with a candle in his hand, and suddenly he raised the curtains of the bed. It was warm, we had drawn down the bedclothes, and there was left only the sheet, which she had pulled up over her head; but her outlines, Monsieur, her outlines could be seen! I trembled in all my limbs, with my throat compressed, choking. Then my uncle turned toward me, laughing heartily, so that I almost jumped to the ceiling from astonishment.

“ ‘Ah! you joker, you did not want to wake up your brother. Well, you’ll see how I shall awake him.’

“And I saw his peasant’s hand rising; and while he was choking with laughter, his hand fell like a thunderbolt on⁠—on⁠—well⁠—on the outlines that could be seen, Monsieur.

“There was a terrible cry in the bed; and then something like a tempest under the sheet. The form moved. She could not disentangle herself. Finally, almost at one jump, she appeared, with eyes like lanterns, and she stared at my uncle, who backed out, his mouth gaping, and puffing, Monsieur, as if he were going to be ill!

“Then I lost my head and fled. I wandered about for six days not daring to go back to my quarters. Finally, when I did pluck up courage to return, nobody was there.”

Patissot, shaking with laughter, said: “I should think not!” which made his neighbor stop talking.

But in a second, the man resumed:

“I never saw my uncle again. He disinherited me, persuaded that I took advantage of the absence of my brother to play my tricks.

“I never saw Victorine again, either. All my family turned their backs upon me; and my brother himself, who had profited by the situation, as he inherited one hundred thousand francs at the death of my uncle, seems to consider me an old libertine. And yet, Monsieur, I swear to you that never since that moment, never, never!⁠—There are, you see, minutes that a man never forgets.”

“And what are you doing here?” asked Patissot.

The other swept the horizon with a glance, as if he feared to be overheard by some unseen ear; then he murmured, with a sound of terror in his voice:

“I am flying from the women, Monsieur!”

VIII

A Trial of Love

Many poets think that nature is not complete without woman, and from that idea, without doubt, came all the flowery comparisons in their songs, which make in turn of our natural companion a rose, a violet, a tulip, and other charming objects.

The need of tenderness that overcomes us at the hour of twilight, when the mist of evening begins to float over the hillsides, and when all the perfumes of the earth intoxicate us, overflows into lyric invocations; and Monsieur Patissot, like others, was seized with a longing for tenderness, for soft kisses, given along paths where the sunshine falls, with hands clasped, and plump figures pliant to his embrace.

He began by regarding love as a delectation without limits, and in his hours of reverie, he thanked the great Unknown for placing so much charm in the caresses of humanity. He felt that he must have a companion, but did not know where to find her.

Upon the advice of a friend, he went to the Folies-Bergères. He saw a complete assortment there, and became greatly perplexed to choose between them, for the desires of his heart sprang, above all, from poetic impulses, and a love of poetic things did not seem exactly the principal attribute of the young ladies with blackened eyelashes who cast disturbing smiles at him, showing the enamel of their false teeth.

Finally his choice rested upon a young débutante, who appeared poor and timid, and whose unhappy look seemed to announce a nature that might be easily poetized.

He agreed to meet her on the following day at the Saint-Lazare station.

She did not keep the appointment, but she had the grace to send a friend in her stead.

The friend was a tall, red-haired girl, dressed patriotically in three colors, and covered with an immense tunnel-hat, of which her head occupied the center. Monsieur Patissot was a little disappointed, but courteously accepted the substitute. And they started for Maisons-Laffitte, where regattas and a grand Venetian festival had been announced.

As soon as they were in the car, already occupied by two gentlemen who wore decorations, and their ladies, who must at least have been marquises, so dignified did they appear, the tall, red-haired girl, who answered to the name of Octavie, announced to Patissot, with the voice of a parrot, that she was a very good girl, fond of joking, and that she adored the country because one could pluck flowers and eat fried fish there. She laughed with a shrillness that threatened to break the windows, calling her companion, familiarly, “My big wolf.”

A sense of shame came over Patissot, upon whom his title of government employee imposed a certain reserve. After a time, however, Octavie became silent, looking sidewise at her neighbors, and felt herself seized with the strong desire that haunts all women of a certain class to make the acquaintance of respectable women. At the end of five minutes she thought she had hit upon a capital plan, and, drawing a copy of the Gil-Blas from her pocket, she offered it to one of the ladies, who was astonished at her freedom, and refused the journal with a shake of her head. Then the tall, red-haired girl, hurt, began a tirade of words of a double meaning, speaking of women who play their own games without being any better than certain other women; and at times she said things so broad that they had the effect of a bomb bursting amid the glacial dignity of the travelers.

Finally they arrived at their destination. Patissot at once wished to seek the shady corners of the park, hoping that the melancholy of the forest would quiet the irritated feelings of his companion. But quite another effect was produced than that which he hoped. As soon as she was among the leaves and saw the grass, she began to sing at the top of her lungs, bits of operas that remained in her giddy pate, trilling and warbling, passing from Robert le diable to Musette, fancying above all a sentimental song whose stanzas she sang with a sound as piercing as a gimlet.

Suddenly she announced that she was hungry and wished to return. Patissot, who was awaiting the hoped-for tenderness, tried in vain to detain her. Then she grew angry.

“I did not come here to bore myself, did I?” she snapped.

And he had to seek the Petit-Havre restaurant, near the place where the regattas were about to be held.

She ordered a tremendous breakfast, with a succession of dishes enough to feed a regiment. Then, not being able to wait while they were prepared, she demanded the relishes. A box of sardines was brought. She attacked it as if she were about to eat the tin box itself; but after she had consumed two or three of the little oily fish, she declared that she was no longer hungry, and desired to go to see the preparations for the regatta.

Patissot, in despair, and seized with hunger in his turn, absolutely refused to budge. She went away alone, promising to return for the dessert, and he began to eat by himself, not knowing how to bring this rebellious nature to the idealization of his dream. As she did not return, he went to search for her. She had met some friends, a band of boating men, half naked, red to the tips of their ears, and gesticulating, who were settling in shouts all the details of the race, in front of the house of the Constructor Fournaise.

Two gentlemen of respectable aspect, doubtless judges, listened attentively to them. As soon as she perceived Patissot, Octavie, hanging on the tanned arm of a tall devil, who certainly possessed more biceps than brains, whispered a few words in his ear.

The other answered:

“Agreed.”

And she went back quite joyfully to her former escort, with a lively and almost caressing expression.

“I want to go out in a boat,” said she.

Happy to see her in so charming a mood, he consented to this new desire, and engaged a craft.

But she obstinately refused to view the regattas, in spite of Patissot’s wish.

“I would rather be alone with you, my wolf,” said she.

His heart trembled. At last!

He took off his frock-coat and began to ply the oars furiously.

A monumental old mill, whose worm-eaten arms hung over the water, bestrode with its two arches a little inlet of the river. They passed swiftly beneath, and when they were on the other side they perceived in front of them an adorable bit of river, shaded by great trees that formed a sort of vault above. The little inlet wound, turned, and zigzagged to the left and to the right, continually revealing new horizons, large meadows on one side, and on the other a hillside all covered with chalets. They passed in front of a bathing establishment, almost buried in verdure, a charming rural nook, where gentlemen in fresh gloves, with ladies wreathed in flowers, displayed all the awkwardness of elegant folk in the country.

She uttered a cry of joy:

“We’ll have a bath there, presently.”

Then, further on in a sort of bay, she wished to stop.

“Come here, big one, near to me,” she said, coaxingly.

She put her arm around his neck, and with her head resting on his shoulder, she murmured:

“How happy I am! how delightful it is on the water!”

Patissot, in a word, was swimming in happiness; and he thought of those stupid boating men, who, without ever feeling the penetrating charm of the shores and the frail grace of the rose-trees, always go about panting, sweating, and brutalized by exercise, from the tavern where they breakfast to the tavern where they dine.

After a time the soothing influences about him sent him to sleep. When he awaked he was all alone! He called at first; nobody answered. Feeling very anxious, he climbed up the bank, fearing lest some misfortune had happened.

Then, far in the distance and coming toward him, he saw a long, slender wherry, which appeared to fly like an arrow. It was rowed by four oarsmen black as Negroes with the sun. They appeared to be skimming over the water; a woman held the tiller. Heavens! It seemed⁠—It was she! To regulate the playing of the oars, she was singing in her shrill voice a boating song, which she interrupted a moment when they came in front of Patissot. Then, throwing him a kiss, she shouted to him:

“Get along, you big canary!”

IX

A Dinner and Some Ideas

On the occasion of the national celebration, Monsieur Antoine Perdrix, head of Monsieur Patissot’s bureau, was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He had been in the service thirty years under preceding governments and ten years under the present. His employees, although they murmured a little at being thus rewarded in the person of their chief, judged it proper to offer him a cross adorned with paste diamonds; and the new Chevalier, not wishing to be behind, invited them all to a dinner for the following Sunday at his place at Asnières.

The house, decorated with Moorish ornaments, had the effect of a café concert-hall, but its location gave it great value because the line of the railway, skirting the garden for its whole length, passed within twenty meters of the steps.

Within the circle of incumbent turf stood a basin of Roman cement containing goldfish, and a fountain of water, with a stream not much larger than that of a syringe, at times threw into the air microscopic rainbows at which visitors marveled.

The feeding of this irrigator was the constant occupation of Monsieur Perdrix, who frequently rose at five o’clock in the morning in order to fill the reservoir. In his shirtsleeves, his big stomach protruding, he pumped with desperation, so that on his return from the office he might have the satisfaction of seeing the fountain play, and imagining that a coolness and freshness spread from it over the garden. On the evening of the official dinner, all the guests, one after the other, went into ecstasies over the situation of the domain, and every time they heard a train coming in the distance, Monsieur Perdrix announced its destination to them: Saint-Germain, Havre, Cherbourg, or Dieppe, and they made playful signs to travelers who were looking out of the car-windows.

The entire office staff arrived first. There was Monsieur Capitaine, subchief; Monsieur Patissot, chief clerk: then Messieurs de Sombreterre and Vallin, elegant young employees, who came to the office only at their own hours; finally Monsieur Rade, celebrated throughout the whole ministry for the absurd doctrines he upheld; and the copying clerk, Monsieur Boivin.

Monsieur Rade passed for a type. Some persons treated him as a fanatic or an idealist, others as a revolutionist. All agreed that he was an awkward fellow. Already old, thin and small, with a lively eye and long thin locks, he had all his life professed the most profound contempt for the administrative duties. He was a rummager of books and a great reader, with a nature always revolting against everything, a seeker of truth and despiser of popular prejudices. He had a neat and paradoxical fashion of expressing his opinions which closed the mouths of self-satisfied imbeciles and of those who were discontented without knowing why. People said: “That old fool, Rade,” or perhaps, “That harebrained Rade,” and the slowness of his advancement seemed to bear out the successful mediocrities charged against him. The independence of his speech often made his colleagues tremble, and they sometimes wondered how he had been able to keep his place. As soon as they were at table, Monsieur Perdrix, in a well-turned little speech, thanked his collaborators, promised them his protection, the more efficacious as his power increased, and finished with an emotional peroration in which he thanked and glorified the liberal and just government that knew how to seek merit among the humble.

Monsieur Capitaine, subchief, replied in the name of the bureau, felicitated, congratulated, greeted, exalted, sang the praises of everybody; and frantic applause followed these two morsels of eloquence. After this the guests applied themselves seriously to eating.

All went well throughout the dinner, the poverty of the conversation not worrying anybody. But at the dessert a discussion arose suddenly, whereupon Monsieur Rade let himself loose, and began to pass the limits of discretion in his speech.

They were speaking of love naturally, and, a breath of chivalry intoxicating this roomful of bureaucrats, they were praising with exaltation the superior beauty of woman, her delicacy of soul, her aptitude for exquisite things, the correctness of her judgment, and the refinement of her sentiments. Monsieur Rade began to protest energetically, refusing to the so-called fair sex all the qualities attributed to it; and then in the presence of the general indignation, he quoted some authors.

“Schopenhauer, Messieurs, Schopenhauer, a great philosopher whom Germany venerates. This is what he says: ‘The intelligence of man must have been very much obscured by love to make him call beautiful that short-figured sex with narrow shoulders, large hips, and crooked legs. Its whole beauty, really, rests in the instinct of love. Instead of calling it the fair sex, it would have been more correct to call it the unaesthetic sex. Women have neither the sentiment nor the intelligence of music, any more than of poetry or of the plastic arts; among them there is only pure mimicry, pure pretense, pure affectation, cultivated from their desire to please.’ ”

“The man that said that is an imbecile!” declared Monsieur de Sombreterre.

Monsieur Rade, smiling, continued: “And Rousseau, Messieurs? Here is his opinion: ‘Women in general love no art, are skilled in none, and have no genius.’ ”

Monsieur de Sombreterre disdainfully shrugged his shoulders.

“Rousseau is as stupid as the other one, that’s all,” said he.

Monsieur Rade, still smiling, rejoined: “And Lord Byron, who nevertheless loved women, said this: ‘They ought to be well fed and well clad, but they ought not to mingle in society. They should also be instructed in religion, but should be unacquainted with poetry and politics, and read only books of piety and cooking.’ You see, Messieurs,” continued Monsieur Rade, “they all study painting and music, and yet there is not one of them who has painted a good picture, or composed a remarkable opera! Why, Messieurs? Simply because they are the sexus sequior, the second sex in all respects, made to be kept apart, and on the second plane.”

Monsieur Patissot grew angry.

“And Madame Sand, Monsieur?”

“An exception, Monsieur, an exception. I will quote to you still another passage, from the great English philosopher, Herbert Spencer. Here it is: ‘Each sex is capable, under the influence of special stimulants, of manifesting the faculties ordinarily reserved for the other. Thus, to take an extreme case, a special excitation may cause the breasts of men to give milk; in time of famine little children deprived of their mother have been known to be saved in this way. Nevertheless, we shall not place this faculty of giving milk among the attributes of the male. So also, the feminine intelligence, which in certain cases will give superior products, should not be considered in an estimate of the feminine nature as a social factor.’ ”

Monsieur Patissot, wounded in all his natively chivalric instincts, declared:

“You are not a Frenchman, Monsieur. French gallantry is one of the forms of patriotism.”

Monsieur Rade retorted: “I have very little patriotism, Monsieur, the least possible.”

At this a coolness spread throughout the company, but he tranquilly continued:

“Admit with me that war is a monstrous thing; that this custom of official slaughtering of the people constitutes a permanent state of savagery. It is odious, since the only real good is life, to see the government, whose duty it is to protect the existence of its subjects, persistently seeking methods to destroy them. That is so, isn’t it? And, if war is a terrible thing is not patriotism also, since it is the mother idea which supports it? When an assassin kills, he has usually some design, that of robbing; but when a brave man with a bayonet-thrust kills another honest man, the father of a family, or a great artist, perhaps, what thought does he obey?”

Everyone felt deeply hurt.

“When a man thinks of such things he does not often mention them in society,” added Monsieur Rade.

Monsieur Patissot rejoined: “There are nevertheless, Monsieur, certain principles that all honest men recognize.”

“What are they?” asked Monsieur Rade.

“Morality, Monsieur,” solemnly replied Monsieur Patissot.

Monsieur Rade beamed.

“Let me give you a single example,” he said, “one little example, Monsieur. What opinion have you of certain men who live at the expense of women? Well, only a hundred years ago it was considered quite the thing to live at a woman’s expense, and even to devour her whole property. So you see that the principles of morality are not fixed, and thus⁠—”

Monsieur Perdrix, visibly embarrassed, stopped him.

“You would sap the foundation of society, Monsieur Rade. There must always be moral principles as public safeguards. Thus in politics, Monsieur de Sombreterre is Legitimist, Monsieur Vallin, Orléanist, Monsieur Patissot and I are Republicans, we all have very different principles, and yet we get along very well, because we have principles of some kind.”

But Monsieur Rade cried: “I have principles too, Messieurs⁠—very decided ones.”

Monsieur Patissot raised his head and coldly replied:

“I should be happy to hear them, Monsieur.”

Monsieur Rade did not wait to be urged.

“Here they are, Monsieur: First principle⁠—that government by one man is a monstrosity. Second principle⁠—Restricted suffrage is an injustice. Thid principle⁠—Universal suffrage is a piece of stupidity. To deliver up millions of men, choice minds, learned men, geniuses even, to the caprice or will of a being who, in a moment of gaiety, madness, intoxication, or love, will not hesitate to sacrifice everything for his excited fancy, will squander the riches of the country, painfully gathered by all, will cut to pieces thousands of men on battlefields, seems to me, a mere logician, to be a monstrous aberration.

“But, admitting that a country ought to govern itself, to exclude from suffrage, under some always debatable pretext, a part of the citizens, is an injustice so flagrant that it seems to me useless to discuss it further.

“There remains universal suffrage. You will admit with me that men of genius are rare, will you not? To be generous, let us agree that there are five in France today. Let us add, still to be within our estimate, two hundred men of great talent, a thousand others possessing various talents, and two thousand men who are superior in some way. There you have a staff of three thousand two hundred and five minds. After which you have the army of mediocrities, followed by the multitudes of imbeciles. As the mediocrities and the imbeciles always form the immense majority, it is inadmissible that they can erect an intelligent government.

“To be just, I will add that, logically, universal suffrage seems to me the only admissible principle, but I assert that it is inapplicable and I will show you the reason why.

“To make all the living forces of a country cooperate in the government, to represent all interests, and conserve all rights, is an ideal dream, but not practical, because the only force that can be measured is just that which ought to be most neglected⁠—the brute force of numbers. According to your method, unintelligent numbers lead genius, learning, all the acquired knowledge, wealth, and industry. When you are able to give to a member of the Institute ten thousand votes against a ragman’s one vote, a hundred votes to a great landed proprietor, against ten to his farmer, you will have nearly established an equilibrium between the forces and obtained a national representation that will truly represent all the powers of the nation. But I defy you to do it.

“Here are my conclusions: Formerly when a man could not succeed at anything else, he became a photographer; now he becomes a deputy. A power thus composed will always be lamentably incapable, but incapable of doing evil as well as incapable of doing good. A despot, on the contrary, if he is stupid, may do much evil, and if he is intelligent, which very rarely happens, he may accomplish much good.

“Between these forms of government I do not pretend to decide; and I declare myself an anarchist⁠—I mean a partisan of the power the most effaced, the most imperceptible, yet the most liberal, in the widest sense of the word, and revolutionary at the same time; that is to say, revolutionary against its eternal enemy, which can be nothing but absolutely defective, under present conditions.”

Cries of indignation rose about the table, and all the guests⁠—Legitimists, Orléanists, and Republicans⁠—grew red with anger. Monsieur Patissot especially, was choking with rage, and turning toward Monsieur Rade, he said:

“Then, Monsieur, you don’t believe in anything.”

“No, Monsieur,” the other replied, simply.

The anger roused in all the guests at this reply, prevented Monsieur Rade from continuing, and Monsieur Perdrix, reassuming his prerogative as chief, closed the discussion.

“Enough, Messieurs⁠—we each have our opinions and we are not likely to change them,” he said, with dignity.

The first statement was approved, but Monsieur Rade, always in revolt, was determined to have the last word.

“I have a moral principle, nevertheless,” said he. It may be formulated in a phrase: ‘Never do anything to another, which you would not have him do to you.’ I defy you to find fault with that, while in three discussions I will undertake to demolish the most sacred of your principles.”

This time nobody answered. But as they were going home in the evening, two by two, each man said to his companion: “Truly, Monsieur Rade goes much too far. His head certainly is affected. He ought to be appointed chief of the Charenton Asylum!”

X

A Public Meeting

At each side of a door, above which, in staring letters, appeared the word “Ball,” large posters of a flaring red announced that on this Sunday this place of popular amusement would be devoted to another purpose.

Monsieur Patissot, sauntering about like a good bourgeois while digesting his dinner, and strolling leisurely toward the station, stopped, his attention being attracted by this bit of scarlet color, and he read as follows:

General International Association for the Vindication of the Rights of Women. Central Committee sitting at Paris.

Great Public Meeting.

Under the presidency of the freethinking citizeness, Zoé Lamour, and of the Russian nihilist citizeness, Eva Schourine, with the assistance of a delegation of citizenesses of the free circle of Independent Thought, and of a group of citizen adherents, Citizeness Césarine Brau and Citizen Sapience Cornut, returned from exile, will speak.

Price of admission, one franc.

An old woman wearing spectacles, seated at a table covered with a cloth, took the money.

Monsieur Patissot entered.

In the hall, already nearly full, floated an odor like that of a wet dog, mingled with the suspicious perfumes of public balls.

Monsieur Patissot, looking about, found a seat in the second row beside a little woman, dressed like a working-girl, with an exalted expression, but having a swelling on one cheek.

The whole staff was present. Citizeness Zoé Lamour, a good-looking, stout, dark woman, wearing red flowers in her black hair, shared the presidency with a thin little Russian nihilist citizeness, Eva Schourine.

Just below them, illustrious citizeness Césarine Brau, called the “down-caster of men,” a pretty woman also, was seated at the side of citizen Sapience Cornut, returned from exile. The latter was a solid old man with flowing locks and a ferocious appearance, who gazed about the hall as a cat looks at a flock of birds, his closed fists resting on his knees.

On the right, a delegation of antique citizenesses, severed from their husbands, dried up in celibacy and exasperated with waiting, sat opposite a group of citizen “reformers of humanity,” who had never cut their beards nor their hair, no doubt to indicate the infinitude of their aspirations.

The general public was scattered throughout the hall. It was a mixed gathering.

Women were in the majority, belonging to the rank of concierges and of shopkeepers who close their shops on Sunday. The type of inconsolable old maid appeared everywhere, between the red faces of the women of the bourgeois.

Three college students were whispering in a corner, having come there to be among a crowd of women. A few families had entered the place out of curiosity.

In the front row a Negro, clad in yellow ticking, curly-haired and magnificent, stared at the presiding officers, and grinned from ear to ear with a silent, restrained laugh, that showed his white teeth gleaming out his black face. He laughed without a movement of the body, like a man who was delighted, transported with joy. Why was he there? Mystery. Had he thought he was coming to a show? Or did he say to himself, in his woolly African pate: “Truly, they are very funny, these jokers; we don’t find anything like that under the equator.”

Citizeness Zoé Lamour opened the meeting with a little speech.

She recalled the servitude of woman since the beginning of the world; her obscure, but always heroic position, her constant devotion to all great ideas. She compared her to the people of other times, the people of kings, and of the aristocrats, calling her the eternal martyr for whom every man is a master; and in a great lyric outburst she cried: “The people had its ’eighty-nine⁠—let us have ours! Oppressed man made his Revolution; the captive broke his chain, the outraged slave revolted! Women! let us imitate our despots! Let us revolt! Let us break the ancient chain of marriage and of servitude; let us march to the conquest of our rights, let us, also, make our revolution!”

She sat down amid thunders of applause; and the Negro, wild with joy, knocked his head against his knees, uttering shrill cries.

The Russian nihilist citizeness, Eva Schourine, arose, and, in a piercing and ferocious voice, said:

“I am a Russian. I have raised the standard of revolt; this hand of mine has struck the oppressors of my country, and I declare to you, French women now listening to me, I am ready, under all skies, in all parts of the universe, to strike at the tyranny of man, to avenge everywhere women who are so odiously oppressed!”

A great tumult of approbation rose, and citizen Sapience Cornut, himself, standing up, gallantly rubbed his tawny beard against this avenging hand.

Then the ceremonies took on a truly international character. The citizenesses delegated by foreign powers arose, one after another, offering the adhesion of their respective countries. A German woman spoke first. Obese, with a growth of tow hair on her head, she sputtered in a thick voice, and with an atrocious accent:

“I want to tell you all the joy that filled the daughter of Germany when she heard of the great movement of the Parisian women.”

An Italian woman, a Spanish woman, and a Swedish woman each said almost the same thing in queer dialects, and finally, an inordinately tall English woman, whose teeth resembled garden implements, expressed herself in these terms:

“I also wish to assure you of the support of the women of Free England offered to the picturesque feminine population of France, for the final and entire emancipation of the female sex! Hip, hip, hurrah!”

At this the Negro began to utter cries of such enthusiasm, with such immoderate gestures of delight, throwing his legs over the back of the seats, and slapping his legs with fury, that the two custodians of the meeting were obliged to calm him.

Patissot’s neighbor murmured: “Hysterical women! All hysterical women!”

Patissot thinking that he was addressed, replied: “What is it?”

The gentleman made excuses. “Pardon me, I was not speaking to you. I simply said that all these women are hysterical.”

Monsieur Patissot, prodigiously surprised, inquired:

“You know them, then?”

“Well, rather, Monsieur. Zoé Lamour took her novitiate to become a nun. That’s one. Eva Schourine has been punished as an incendiary, and decided to be crazy. That’s two. Césarine Brau is a mere intriguer, who wishes to get herself spoken of. I see three others there who passed through my hands at the hospital of X⁠⸺. As for all the old jailbirds who surround us, I need not speak of them.”

A loud “hush” came from all sides. Citizen Sapience Cornut, returned from exile, arose. He first rolled his terrible eyes, then, in a hollow voice that sounded like the roaring of the wind in a cavern, he began:

“There are words as great as principles, luminous as suns, resounding as bursts of thunder: Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! They are the banners of the people; under their folds we bravely marched to the assault of tyrannies. It is your turn, O women! to brandish them as weapons, to march to the conquest of independence. Be free, free in love, in the home, in the fatherland. Become our equals at the hearth, our equals in the street, our equals especially in politics and before the law. Fraternity! Be our sisters, the confidants of our grand projects, our valiant companions. Become truly a half of humanity, instead of being only a small part of it.”

And he plunged into transcendental politics, developing plans as large as the world, speaking of the soul of society, predicting the Universal Republic built upon these three indestructible bases: Liberty, equality, fraternity.

When he ceased talking the hall was almost shaken down with the salvos of applause. Monsieur Patissot, amazed, turned toward his neighbor, asking:

“Isn’t he a little crazy?”

The old gentleman replied: “No, Monsieur, there are millions like him. It is a result of education.”

Patissot did not understand.

“Of education?” he asked.

“Yes, now that they know how to read and to write, their latent foolishness comes out.”

“Then, Monsieur, you believe that education⁠—”

“Pardon, Monsieur, I am a Liberal. I only mean to say this: You have a watch, haven’t you? Well, break a spring and take it to this citizen Cornut, begging him to mend it. He will answer you, with an oath, that he is not a watchmaker. But if there is anything wrong in that infinitely complicated machine known as France, he believes himself the most capable of men to repair it at a sitting. And forty thousand brawlers of his kind think the same and proclaim it without ceasing. I say, Monsieur, that we lack here new governing classes; that, as men born of fathers having held power, brought up in that idea, especially educated for that purpose⁠—just as young men are taught who are intended for the Polytechnic⁠—”

Numerous cries of “Hush!” interrupted him again. A young man with a melancholy air took the platform.

He began: “Mesdames, I have asked to be permitted to speak in order to combat your theories. To demand for women civil rights, equal to those exercised by men, is equivalent to demanding the end of your power. The exterior aspect alone of women reveals that she is not destined for hard physical labor nor prolonged intellectual efforts. Her sphere is another, but not less beautiful one. She puts poetry into life. By the power of her grace, the glance of her eye, the charm of her smile, she dominates man, who dominates the world. Man has strength, which you cannot take from him; but you have seductiveness, which captivates his strength. Of what do you complain? Since the world began, you have been queens and rulers. Nothing is done without you. It is for you that all fine works are accomplished.

“But the day on which you become our equals, civilly and politically, you will become our rivals. Take care, then, that the charm that constitutes your whole strength shall not be broken. For then, as we are incontestably the more vigorous and the better equipped for the sciences and the arts, your inferiority will appear, and you will become truly oppressed.

“You have a fine role to play, Mesdames, since for us you represent the whole seductiveness of life, the illimitable illusion, the eternal reward of our efforts. Do not seek to change this. Besides, you will never succeed in doing so.”

Hisses interrupted him, and he stepped down.

Patissot’s neighbor, arising, remarked:

“A little romantic, that young man, but with good sense for all that. Will you come and have a bock, Monsieur?”

“With pleasure,” Patissot replied.

They went away while citizeness Césarine Brau was preparing to respond.

Suicides

Hardly a day goes by without our reading in some newspaper the following paragraph.

“On Wednesday night the people living in No. 40 Rue de ⸻, were awakened by two shots in succession. They seemed to come from the apartment occupied by M. X. ⸻. The door was broken in and the man was found bathed in his blood, still holding in one hand the revolver with which he had taken his life.

“M. X. ⸻ was fifty-seven years of age, enjoying a comfortable income, and had everything necessary to make him happy. No cause can be found for his action.”

What terrible grief, what unknown suffering, hidden despair, secret wounds drive these presumably happy persons to suicide? We search, we imagine tragedies of love, we suspect financial troubles, and, as we never find anything definite, we apply to these deaths the word “mystery.”

A letter found on the desk of one of these “suicides without cause,” and written during his last night, beside his loaded revolver, has come into our hands. We deem it rather interesting. It reveals none of those great catastrophes which we always expect to find behind these acts of despair; but it shows us the slow succession of the little vexations of life, the disintegration of a lonely existence, whose dreams have disappeared; it gives the reason for these tragic ends, which only nervous and high-strung people can understand.

Here it is:

“It is midnight. When I have finished this letter I shall kill myself. Why? I shall attempt to give the reasons, not for those who may read these lines, but for myself, to kindle my waning courage, to impress upon myself the fatal necessity of this act which could only be deferred.

“I was brought up by simple-minded parents who were unquestioning believers. And I believed as they did.

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

“During the last few years a strange change has been taking place within me. All the events of Life, which formerly had to me the glow of a beautiful sunset, are now fading away. The true meaning of things has appeared to me in its brutal reality; and the true reason for love has bred in me disgust even for romantic love. ‘We are the eternal toys of foolish and charming illusions, which are always being renewed.’

“On growing older, I had become partly reconciled to the awful mystery of life, to the uselessness of effort; when the emptiness of everything appeared to me in a new light, this evening, after dinner.

“Formerly, I was happy! Everything pleased me: the passing women, the appearance of the streets, the place where I lived; and I even took an interest in the cut of my clothes. But the repetition of the same sights has had the result of filling my heart with weariness and disgust, just as one would feel were one to go every night to the same theatre.

“For the last thirty years I have been rising at the same hour; and, at the same restaurant, for thirty years, I have been eating at the same hours the same dishes brought me by different waiters.

“I have tried travel. The loneliness which one feels in strange places terrified me. I felt so alone, so small on the earth that I quickly started on my homeward journey.

“But here the unchanging expression of my furniture, which has stood for thirty years in the same place, the worn armchairs that I had known when quite new, the smell of my apartment (for, with time, each dwelling takes on a particular odour) each night, these and other things disgust me and make me sick of living thus.

“Everything repeats itself endlessly. The way in which I put my key in the lock, the place where I always find my matches, the first object which meets my eye when I enter the room, make me feel like jumping out of the window and putting an end to those monotonous events from which we can never escape.

“Each day, when I shave, I feel an inordinate desire to cut my throat; and my face, which I see in the little mirror, always the same, with soap on my cheeks, has several times made me cry from sadness.

“Now I even hate to be with people whom I used to meet with pleasure; I know them so well, I can tell just what they are going to say and what I am going to answer. Each brain is like a circus, where the same horse keeps circling around eternally. In spite of our efforts, our detours, the limit is near, and it is rounded out continuously, without any unexpected sallies, and without a door leading to the unknown. We must circle round always, around the same ideas, the same joys, the same pleasures, the same habits, the same beliefs, the same sensations of disgust.

“The fog was terrible this evening. It enfolded the boulevard, where the street lights were dimmed and looked like smoking candles. A heavier weight than usual oppressed me. Perhaps my digestion was bad.

“For good digestion is everything in life. It gives inspiration to the artist, amorous desires to young people, clear ideas to thinkers, the joy of life to everybody, and it also allows one to eat heartily (which is really the greatest pleasure). A sick stomach induces scepticism, unbelief, nightmares, and a desire for death. I have often noticed this fact. Perhaps I would not kill myself, if my digestion had been good this evening.

“When I sat down in the armchair where I have been sitting every day for thirty years, I glanced around me, and just then I was seized by such a terrible distress that I thought I must go mad.

“I tried to think of what I could do to run away from myself. Every occupation struck me as being worse even than inaction. Then I bethought me of putting my papers in order.

“For a long time I have been thinking of clearing out my drawers; for, for the last thirty years, I have been throwing my letters and bills pell-mell into the same desk, and this confusion has often caused me considerable trouble. But I feel such moral and physical laziness at the sole idea of putting anything in order that I have never had the courage to begin this tedious business.

“I therefore opened my desk, intending to choose among my old papers and destroy the majority of them.

“At first I was bewildered by this array of documents, yellowed by age, then I chose one.

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

“And if, perchance, you should, take the contents by the handful, close your eyes that you may not read a word, so that you may not recognize some forgotten handwriting which may plunge you suddenly into a sea of memories; carry these papers to the fire; and when they are in ashes, crush them to an invisible powder, or otherwise you are lost⁠—just as I have been lost for an hour.

“The first letters which I read not did interest me greatly. They were recent, and came from living men whom I still meet quite often, and whose presence does not move me to any great extent. But all at once one envelope made me start. My name was traced on it in a large, bold, handwriting; and suddenly tears came to my eyes. That letter was from my dearest friend, the companion of my youth, the confidant of my hopes; and he appeared before me so clearly, with his pleasant smile and his hand outstretched, that a cold shiver ran down my back. Yes, yes, the dead come back, for I saw him! Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.

“With trembling hand and dimmed eyes I reread everything that he told me, and in my poor sobbing heart I felt a wound so painful that I began to groan as a man whose bones are slowly being crushed.

“Then I travelled over my whole life, just as one travels along a river. I recognized people so long forgotten that I no longer knew their names. Their faces alone lived in me. In my mother’s letters I saw again the old servants, the shape of our house and the little insignificant odds and ends which cling to our minds.

“Yes, I suddenly saw again all my mother’s old gowns, the different styles which she adopted and the several ways in which she dressed her hair. She haunted me especially in a silk dress, trimmed with old lace; and I remembered something she said one day when she was wearing this dress. She said: ‘Robert, my child, if you do not stand up straight you will be round-shouldered all your life.’

“Then, opening another drawer, I found myself face to face with memories of tender passions: a dancing-pump, a torn handkerchief, even a garter, locks of hair and dried flowers. Then the sweet romances of my life, whose living heroines are now white-haired, plunged me into the deep melancholy of things. Oh, the young brows where blond locks curl, the caress of the hands, the glance which speaks, the hearts which beat, that smile which promises the lips, those lips which promise the embrace! And the first kiss⁠—that endless kiss which makes you close your eyes, which drowns all thought in the immeasurable joy of approaching possession!

“Taking these old pledges of former love in both my hands, I covered them with furious caresses, and in my soul, torn by these memories, I saw them each again at the hour of surrender; and I suffered a torture more cruel than all the tortures invented in all the fables about hell.

“One last letter remained. It was written by me and dictated fifty years ago by my writing teacher.

“Here it is:

“ ‘My Dear Little Mamma:

“ ‘I am seven years old today. It is the age of understanding. I take advantage of it to thank you for having brought me into this world.

“ ‘Your little son, who loves you,

“ ‘Robert.’

“It is all over. I had gone back to the beginning, and suddenly I turned my glance on what remained to me of life. I saw hideous and lonely old age, and approaching infirmities, and everything over and gone. And nobody near me!

“My revolver is here, on the table. I am loading it.⁠ ⁠… Never reread your old letters!”

And that is how many men come to kill themselves; and we search in vain to discover some great sorrow in their lives.

A Grandmother’s Advice

The old-fashioned château was built on a wooded height. Tall trees surrounded it with dark greenery; and the vast park extended its vistas here over a deep forest and there over an open plain. Some little distance from the front of the mansion stood a huge stone basin in which marble nymphs were bathing. Other basins arranged in order succeeded each other down as far as the foot of the slope, and a spring which had been turned to the purpose sent cascades dancing from one to the other.

From the manor house which preserved the grace of a superannuated coquette down to the grottoes encrusted with shell-work, where slumbered the loves of a bygone age, everything in this antique demesne had retained the physiognomy of former days. Everything seemed to speak still of ancient customs, of the manners of long ago, of faded gallantries, and of the airy graces so dear to our grandmothers.

In a little Louis XV drawing room, whose walls were covered with shepherds paying court to shepherdesses, beautiful ladies in hoop-petticoats, and gallant gentlemen in wigs, a very old woman who seemed dead as soon as she ceased to move was almost lying down in a large easy-chair, while her thin, mummy-like hands hung down, on each side of the chair.

Her eyes were gazing languidly towards the distant horizon as if they sought to follow through the park visions of her youth. Through the open window every now and then came a breath of air laden with the scent of grass and the perfume of flowers. It made her white locks flutter around her wrinkled forehead and old memories, through her brain.

Beside her on a stool covered with tapestry, a young girl with long, fair hair hanging in plaits over her neck, was embroidering an altar-cloth. There was a pensive expression in her eyes, and it was easy to see that, while her agile fingers worked, her brain was busy with thoughts.

But the old lady suddenly turned round her head.

“Berthe,” she said, “read something out of the newspapers for me, so that I may still know sometimes what is happening in the world.”

The young girl took up a newspaper, and cast a rapid glance over it.

“There is a great deal about politics, grandmamma; am I to pass it by?”

“Yes, yes, darling. Are there no accounts of love affairs? Is gallantry, then, dead in France, that they no longer talk about abductions or adventures as they did formerly?”

The girl made a long search through the columns of the newspaper.

“Here is one,” she said. “It is entitled: ‘A Love Drama!’ ”

The old woman smiled through her wrinkles. “Read that for me,” she said.

And Berthe commenced. It was a case of vitriol-throwing. A wife, in order to avenge herself on her husband’s mistress, had burned her face and eyes. She had left the Assize Court acquitted, declared to be innocent, amid the applause of the crowd.

The grandmother moved about excitedly in her chair, and exclaimed:

“This is horrible⁠—why, it is perfectly horrible! See whether you can find anything else to read for me, darling.”

Berthe again made a search; and farther down in police court reports, where she was still looking, she read:

“ ‘Awful Tragedy.’⁠—An ancient virgin had allowed herself to yield to the embraces of a young man. Then, to avenge herself on her lover, whose heart was fickle, and whose allowance was ungenerous, she shot him four times at close range with a revolver. Two bullets had lodged in his chest, one in his shoulder, one in his thigh. The unhappy man would be maimed for life. The lady was acquitted amidst the applause of the crowd, and the newspaper spoke very severely of this seducer of foolish virgins.”

This time the old grandmother appeared quite shocked, and, in a trembling voice, she said:

“Why, you are mad, nowadays. You are mad! The good God has given you love, the only allurement in life. Man has added to this gallantry, the only distraction of our dull hours, and here are you mixing up with it vitriol and revolvers, as if one were to put mud into a flagon of Spanish wine.”

Berthe did not seem to understand her grandmother’s indignation.

“But grandmamma, this woman avenged herself. Remember she was married, and her husband deceived her.”

The grandmother gave a start.

“What ideas have they been filling your head with, you young girls of today?”

Berthe replied:

“But marriage is sacred, grandmamma.”

The grandmother’s heart, which had its birth in the great age of gallantry, gave a sudden leap.

“It is love that is sacred,” she said. “Listen, child, to an old woman who has seen three generations, and who has had a long, long experience of men and women. Marriage and love have nothing in common. We marry to found a family, and we form families in order to constitute society. Society cannot dispense with marriage. If society is a chain, each family is a link in that chain. In order to weld those links, we always seek for metals of the same kind. When we marry, we must bring the same conventions together; we must combine fortunes, unite similar races, and aim at the common interest, which is riches and children. We marry only once, my child, because the world requires us to do so, but we may love twenty times in one lifetime because nature has so made us. Marriage, you see, is law, and love is an instinct, which impels us sometimes along a straight and sometimes along a crooked path. The world has made laws to combat our instincts⁠—it was necessary to make them; but our instincts are always stronger, and we ought not to resist them too much, because they come from God, while the laws only come from men. If we did not perfume life with love, as much love as possible, darling, as we put sugar into medicines for children, nobody would care to take it just as it is.”

Berthe opened her eyes widely in astonishment. She murmured:

“Oh! grandmamma, we can only love once.”

The grandmother raised her trembling hands towards Heaven, as if again to invoke the defunct God of gallantries. She exclaimed indignantly:

“You have become a race of serfs, a race of common people. Since the Revolution, it is impossible any longer to recognise society. You have attached big words to every action, and wearisome duties to every corner of existence; you believe in equality and eternal passion. People have written verses telling you that people have died of love. In my time verses were written to teach men to love every woman. And we! when we liked a gentleman, my child, we sent him a page. And when a fresh caprice came into our hearts, we were not slow in getting rid of the last lover⁠—unless we kept both of them.”

The young girl, turning very pale, faltered out:

“So then women had no honour?”

The old lady was furious: “No honour! because we loved, and dared to say so, and even boasted of it? But, my child, if one of us, among the greatest ladies in France, had lived without a lover, she would have had the entire court laughing at her. And you imagine, perhaps, that your husbands will love only you all their lives? As if, indeed, that could be the case! I tell you that marriage is a thing necessary in order that Society should exist, but it is not in the nature of our race, do you understand? There is only one good thing in life, and that is love, and they want to deprive us of it. Nowadays you are told: ‘You must love one man only.’ It is as if somebody were to force me to eat turkey only all my life long. But that man is to have as many mistresses as there are months in the year!

“He will follow his amorous instincts, which will drive him towards women as butterflies are attracted by every flower. Then I am to go out into the streets with a bottle of vitriol and blind the poor girls who only obeyed their instincts! I am not to revenge myself on him, but on them! I am to make a monster of some poor creature whom God created to please, to love and to be loved. And your present day society, your society of clowns, of bourgeois, of beggars on horseback, will applaud and acquit me. It is infamous, I tell you, that you cannot understand love; and I am glad to die rather than see a world without gallantry, without women who know what love means. You take everything seriously nowadays, the vengeance of low females who kill their lovers brings tears of pity to the eyes of the twelve citizens come together to probe the hearts of criminals. Is that your wisdom? Your logic? Women shoot men, and then complain that men are no longer gallant!”

The young girl seized the wrinkled hands of the old lady in hers, which were trembling:

“Please stop, grandmother!”

And, on her knees, with tears in her eyes, she prayed to Heaven to bestow on her a great passion, one eternal passion alone, in accordance with the dream of modern poets, while the grandmother, kissing her forehead, still quite penetrated by that charming, healthy logic with which the philosophers of gallantry sprinkled salt upon the life of the eighteenth century, murmured:

“Take care, my poor darling! If you believe in such foolishness as this, you will be very unhappy.”

Story of a Farm Girl

As the weather was very fine, the people on the farm had dined more speedily than usual, and had returned to the fields.

The female servant, Rose, remained alone in the large kitchen, where the fire on the hearth was dying out, under the large pot of hot water. From time to time she took some water out of it, and slowly washed her plates and dishes, stopping occasionally to look at the two streaks of light which the sun threw on to the long table through the window, and which showed the defects in the glass.

Three venturesome hens were picking up the crumbs under the chairs, while the smell of the poultry yard, and the warmth from the cow-stall came in through the half-open door, and a cock was heard crowing in the distance.

When she had finished her work, wiped down the table, dusted the mantelpiece, and put the plates on the high dresser, close to the wooden clock, with its sonorous ticking, she drew a long breath, as she felt rather oppressed, without exactly knowing why. She looked at the black clay walls, the rafters that were blackened with smoke, from which spiders’ webs were hanging, amid red herrings and strings of onions, and then she sat down, rather overcome by the stale emanations which the floor, on which so many things had been continually spilt, gave out. With this there was mingled the pungent smell of the pans of milk, which were set out to raise the cream in the adjoining dairy.

She wanted to sew, as usual, but she did not feel strong enough for it, and so she went to get a mouthful of fresh air at the door. As she felt the caressing light of the sun, her heart was filled with sweetness and a feeling of content penetrated her body.

In front of the door a shimmery haze arose from the dunghill. The fowls were lying on it; some of them were scratching with one claw in search of worms, while the cock stood up proudly among them. Every moment he selected one of them, and walked round her with a slight cluck of amorous invitation. The hen got up in a careless way as she received his attentions, bent her claws and supported him with her wings; then she shook her feathers to shake out the dust, and stretched herself out on the dunghill again, while he crowed, counting his triumphs, and the cocks in all the neighbouring farmyards replied to him, as if they were uttering amorous challenges from farm to farm.

The girl looked at them without thinking, and then she raised her eyes and was almost dazzled at the sight of the apple trees in blossom, which looked almost like powdered heads. But just then, a colt, full of life and friskiness, galloped past her. Twice he jumped over the ditches, and then stopped suddenly, as if surprised at being alone.

She also felt inclined to run; she felt inclined to move and to stretch her limbs, and to repose in the warm, breathless air. She took a few undecided steps, and closed her eyes, for she was seized with a feeling of animal comfort; and then she went to look for the eggs in the hen loft. There were thirteen of them, which she took in and put into the sideboard; but the smell from the kitchen incommoded her again, and she went out to sit on the grass for a while.

The farmyard, which was surrounded by trees, seemed to be asleep. The tall grass, among which the yellow dandelions rose up like streaks of yellow light, was of a vivid green, fresh spring green. The apple trees threw their shade all round them, and the thatched houses, on which the blue and yellow iris flowers with their swordlike leaves grew, smoked as if the moisture of the stables and barns were coming through the straw.

The girl went to the shed where the carts and traps were kept. Close to it, in a ditch, there was a large patch of violets, whose scent was perceptible all round, while beyond it, the open country could be seen where crops were growing, with clumps of trees in the distance, and groups of labourers here and there, who looked as small as dolls, and white horses like toys, which were pulling a child’s cart, driven by a man as tall as one’s finger.

She took up a bundle of straw, threw it into the ditch and sat down upon it; then, not feeling comfortable, she undid it, spread it out and lay down upon it at full length, on her back, with both arms under her head, and her legs stretched out.

Gradually her eyes closed, and she was falling into a state of delightful languor. She was, in fact, almost asleep, when she felt two hands on her bosom, and then she sprang up at a bound. It was Jacques, one of the farm labourers, a tall powerful fellow from Picardy, who had been making love to her for a long time. He had been looking after the sheep, and seeing her lying down in the shade, he had come stealthily, holding his breath, with glistening eyes, and bits of straw in his hair.

He tried to kiss her, but she gave him a smack in the face, for she was as strong as he, and he was crafty enough to beg her pardon; so they sat down side by side and talked amicably. They spoke about the weather, which was favourable for the harvest, of the season, which had begun well, of their master, who was a decent man, then of their neighbours, of all the people in the country round, of themselves, of their village, of their youthful days, of their recollections, of their relations, whom they would not see for a long time, perhaps never again. She grew sad as she thought of it, while he, with one fixed idea in his head, rubbed against her with a kind of a shiver, overcome by desire.

“I have not seen my mother for a long time,” she said. “It is very hard to be separated like that.” And her gaze was lost in the distance, towards the village in the North, which she had left.

Suddenly, however, he seized her by the neck and kissed her again; but she struck him so violently in the face with her clenched fist, that his nose began to bleed, and he got up and laid his head against the trunk of a tree. When she saw that, she was sorry, and going up to him, she said: “Have I hurt you?” He, however, only laughed. “No, it was a mere nothing”; only, she had hit him right in the middle of the nose. “What a devil!” he said, and he looked at her with admiration, for she had inspired him with a feeling of respect and of a very different kind of admiration, which was the beginning of real love for that tall, strong wench.

When the bleeding had stopped, he proposed a walk, as he was afraid of his neighbour’s heavy hand, if they remained side by side like that much longer; but she took his arm of her own accord, in the avenue, as if they had been out for an evening walk, and said: “It is not nice of you to despise me like that, Jacques.” He protested, however. No, he did not despise her. He was in love with her, that was all. “So you really want to marry me?” she asked.

He hesitated, and then looked at her sideways, while she looked straight ahead of her. She had fat, red cheeks, a full, protuberant bust under her loose cotton blouse, thick, red lips, and her bosom, which was almost bare, was covered with small beads of perspiration. He felt a fresh access of desire, and putting his lips to her ear, he murmured: “Yes, of course I do.”

Then she threw her arms round his neck, and kissed him for such a long time that they both of them lost their breath. From that moment the eternal story of love began between them. They played with one another in corners; they met in the moonlight under a haystack, and gave each other bruises on the legs with their heavy nailed boots underneath the table. By degrees, however, Jacques seemed to grow tired of her; he avoided her; scarcely spoke to her, and did not try any longer to meet her alone, which made her sad and anxious; and soon she found that she was pregnant.

At first, she was in a state of consternation, but then she got angry, and her rage increased every day, because she could not meet him, as he avoided her most carefully. At last, one night, when everyone in the farmhouse was asleep, she went out noiselessly in her petticoat, with bare feet, crossed the yard and opened the door of the stable, where Jacques was lying in a large box of straw, over his horses. He pretended to snore when he heard her coming, but she knelt down by his side and shook him until he sat up.

“What do you want?” he then asked her. And she, with clenched teeth, and trembling with anger, replied: “I want⁠ ⁠… I want you to marry me, as you promised.” But he only laughed, and replied: “Oh! If a man were to marry all the girls with whom he has made a slip, he would have more than enough to do.”

Then she seized him by the throat, threw him on to his back, so that he could not disengage himself from her, and half strangling him, she shouted into his face: “I am in the family way! Do you hear? I am in the family way?”

He gasped for breath, as he was nearly choked, and so they remained, both of them, motionless and without speaking, in the dark silence, which was only broken by the noise that a horse made as he pulled the hay out of the manger, and then slowly chewed it.

When Jacques found that she was the stronger, he stammered out: “Very well, I will marry you, as that is the case.” But she did not believe his promises. “It must be at once,” she said. “You must have the banns put up.” “At once,” he replied. “Swear before God that you will.” He hesitated for a few moments, and then said: “I swear it, by God.”

Then she released her grasp, and went away, without another word.

She had no chance of speaking to him for several days, and as the stable was now always locked at night, she was afraid to make any noise, for fear of creating a scandal. One morning, however, she saw another man come in at dinnertime, and so she said: “Has Jacques left?” “Yes,” the man replied; “I have taken his place.”

This made her tremble so violently that she could not unhook the pot; and later when they were all at work, she went up into her room and cried, burying her head in her bolster, so that she might not be heard. During the day, however, she tried to obtain some information without exciting any suspicions, but she was so overwhelmed by the thoughts of her misfortune, that she fancied that all the people whom she asked, laughed maliciously. All she learned, however, was, that he had left the neighbourhood altogether.

Part II

Then a life of constant misery began for her. She worked mechanically, without thinking of what she was doing, with one fixed idea in her head: “Suppose people were to know.”

This continual feeling made her so incapable of reasoning, that she did not even try to think of any means of avoiding the disgrace that she knew must ensue, which was irreparable, and drawing nearer every day, and which was as sure as death itself. She got up every morning long before the others, and persistently tried to look at her figure in a piece of broken looking-glass at which she did her hair, as she was very anxious to know whether anybody would notice a change in her, and during the day she stopped working every few minutes to look at herself from top to toe, to see whether the size of her stomach did not make her apron look too short.

The months went on, and she scarcely spoke now, and when she was asked a question, she did not appear to understand, but she had a frightened look, with haggard eyes and trembling hands, which made her master say to her occasionally: “My poor girl, how stupid you have grown lately.”

In church, she hid behind a pillar, and no longer ventured to go to confession, as she feared to face the priest, to whom she attributed superhuman powers, which enabled him to read people’s consciences; and at meal times the looks of her fellow servants almost made her faint with mental agony, and she was always fancying that she had been found out by the cowherd, a precocious and cunning little lad, whose bright eyes seemed always to be watching her.

One morning the postman brought her a letter, and as she had never received one in her life before, she was so upset by it that she was obliged to sit down. Perhaps it was from him? But as she could not read, she sat anxious and trembling, with that piece of paper covered with ink in her hand; after a time, however, she put it into her pocket, as she did not venture to confide her secret to anyone. She often stopped in her work to look at those lines written at regular intervals, and which terminated in a signature, imagining vaguely that she would suddenly discover their meaning, until at last, as she felt half mad with impatience and anxiety, she went to the schoolmaster, who told her to sit down, and read to her, as follows:

“My Dear Daughter: This is to tell you that I am very ill. Our neighbour, Monsieur Dentu, has written this letter to ask you to come, if you can. For your affectionate mother,

Césaire Dentu,

Deputy Mayor.”

She did not say a word, and went away, but as soon as she was alone, her legs gave way, and she fell down by the roadside, and remained there till night.

When she got back, she told the farmer her trouble, who allowed her to go home for as long as she wanted, and promised to have her work done by a charwoman, and to take her back when she returned.

Her mother was dying and breathed her last the day she arrived, and the next day Rose gave birth to a seven months’ child, a miserable little skeleton, thin enough to make anybody shudder, and which seemed to be suffering continually, to judge by the painful manner in which it moved its poor little hands about, which were as thin as a crab’s legs; but it lived, for all that. She said that she was married, but that she could not saddle herself with the child, so she left it with some neighbours, who promised to take care of it, and she went back to the farm.

But then, in her heart, which had been wounded so long, there arose something like brightness, an unknown love for that frail little creature which she had left behind her, but there was fresh suffering in that very love, suffering which she felt every hour and every minute, because she was parted from her child. What pained her most, however, was a mad longing to kiss it, to press it in her arms, to feel the warmth of its little body against her skin. She could not sleep at night; she thought of it the whole day long, and in the evening, when her work was done, she used to sit in front of the fire and look at it intently, like people do whose thoughts are far away.

They began to talk about her, and to tease her about the lover she must have. They asked her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding to be, and the christening? And often she ran away, to cry by herself, for these questions seemed to hurt her, like the prick of a pin, and in order to forget these irritations, she began to work still more energetically, and still thinking of her child, she sought for the means of saving up money for it, and determined to work so that her master would be obliged to raise her wages.

Then, by degrees, she almost monopolized the work, and persuaded him to get rid of one servant girl, who had become useless since she had taken to working like two; she saved money on the bread, oil and candles, on the corn, which they gave to the fowls too extravagantly, and on the fodder for the horses and cattle, which was rather wasted. She was as miserly about her master’s money, as if it had been her own, and by dint of making good bargains, of getting high prices for all their produce, and by baffling the peasants’ tricks when they offered anything for sale, he at last entrusted her with buying and selling everything, with the direction of all the labourers, and with the quantity of provisions necessary for the household, so that in a short time she became indispensable to him. She kept such a strict eye on everything about her, that under her direction the farm prospered wonderfully, and for five miles round people talked of “Master Vallin’s servant,” and the farmer himself said everywhere: “That girl is worth more than her weight in gold.”

But time passed by, and her wages remained the same. Her hard work was accepted as something that was due from every good servant, and as a mere token of her goodwill; and she began to think rather bitterly, that if the farmer could put fifty or a hundred crowns extra into the bank every month, thanks to her, she was still only earning her two hundred and forty francs a year, neither more nor less, and so she made up her mind to ask for an increase of wages. She went to see the master three times about it, but when she saw him, she spoke about something else. She felt a kind of modesty in asking for money, as if it were something disgraceful; but at last, one day, when the farmer was having breakfast by himself in the kitchen, she said to him, with some embarrassment, that she wished to speak to him particularly. He raised his head in surprise, with both his hands on the table, holding his knife, with its point in the air, in one, and a piece of bread in the other, and he looked fixedly at the girl, who felt uncomfortable under his gaze, but asked for a week’s holiday, so that she might get away, as she was not very well. He acceded to her request immediately, and then added, in some embarrassment himself:

“When you come back, I shall have something to say to you, myself.”

Part III

The child was nearly eight months old, and she did not know it again. It had grown rosy and chubby all over like a little bundle of living fat. She threw herself on it as if it had been some prey, and kissed it so violently that it began to scream with terror, and then she began to cry herself, because it did not know her, and stretched out its arms to its nurse, as soon as it saw her. But the next day, it began to get used to her, and laughed when it saw her, and she took it into the fields and ran about excitedly with it, and sat down under the shade of the trees, and then, for the first time in her life, she opened her heart to somebody, and told him her troubles, how hard her work was, her anxieties and her hopes, and she quite tired the child with the violence of her caresses.

She took the greatest pleasure in handling it, in washing and dressing it, for it seemed to her that all this was the confirmation of her maternity, and she would look at it, almost feeling surprised that it was hers, and she used to say to herself in a low voice, as she danced it in her arms: “It is my baby, it is my baby.”

She cried all the way home as she returned to the farm, and had scarcely got in, before her master called her into his room, and she went, feeling astonished and nervous, without knowing why.

“Sit down there,” he said. She sat down, and for some moments they remained side by side, in some embarrassment, with their arms hanging at their sides, as if they did not know what to do with them, and looking each other in the face, after the manner of peasants.

The farmer, a stout, jovial, obstinate man of forty-five, who had lost two wives, evidently felt embarrassed, which was very unusual with him, but at last he made up his mind, and began to speak vaguely, hesitating a little, and looking out of the window as he talked.

“Rose,” he said, “have you never thought of settling down?” She grew as pale as death, and, seeing that she gave him no answer, he went on: “You are a good, steady, active and economical girl, and a wife like you would make a man’s fortune.”

She did not move, but looked frightened; she did not even try to comprehend his meaning, for her thoughts were in a whirl, as if at the approach of some great danger; so after waiting for a few seconds, he went on: “You see, a farm without a mistress can never succeed, even with such a servant as you.” Then he stopped, for he did not know what else to say, and Rose looked at him with the air of a person who thinks that he is face to face with a murderer, and ready to flee at the slightest movement he may make; but after waiting for about five minutes, he asked her: “Well, will it suit you?” “Will what suit me, master?” And he said, quickly: “Why, to marry me, by Jove!”

She jumped up, but fell back on to her chair as if she had been struck, and there she remained motionless, like a person who is overwhelmed by some great misfortune, but at last the farmer grew impatient, and said: “Come, what more do you want?” She looked at him almost in terror; then suddenly the tears came into her eyes, and she said twice, in a choking voice: “I cannot, I cannot!” “Why not?” he asked. “Come, don’t be silly; I will give you until tomorrow to think it over.”

And he hurried out of the room, very glad to have got the matter over, for it had troubled him a good deal. He had no doubt that she would the next morning accept a proposal which she could never have expected, and which would be a capital bargain for him, as he thus bound a woman to himself who would certainly bring him more than if she had the best dowry in the district.

Neither could there be any scruples about an unequal match between them, for in the country everyone is very nearly equal; the farmer works just like his labourers do, who frequently become masters in their turn, and the female servants constantly become the mistresses of the establishments, without its making any change in their lives or habits.

Rose did not go to bed that night. She threw herself, dressed as she was, on her bed, and she had not even the strength to cry left in her, she was so thoroughly overcome. She remained quite inert, scarcely knowing that she had a body, and with her mind in such a state as if it had been taken to pieces with one of those instruments which are used in remaking a mattress; only at odd moments could she collect fragments of her thoughts, and then she was frightened at the idea of what might happen. Her terror increased, and every time the great kitchen clock struck the hour she broke into a perspiration of fear. She was losing control of herself, and had a succession of nightmares; her candle went out, and then she began to imagine that someone had thrown a spell over her, like country people so often fancy, and she felt a mad inclination to run away, to escape and to flee before her misfortune, like a ship scuds before the wind.

An owl hooted, and she shivered, sat up, put her hands to her face, into her hair, and all over her body, and then she went downstairs, as if she were walking in her sleep. When she got into the yard, she stooped down, so as not to be seen by any prowling ruffian, for the moon, which was setting, shed a bright light over the fields. Instead of opening the gate, she scrambled over the bank, and as soon as she was outside, she started off. She went on straight before her, with a quick, elastic trot, and from time to time, she unconsciously uttered a piercing cry. Her long shadow accompanied her, and now and then some night bird flew over her head, while the dogs in the farmyards barked, as they heard her pass; one even jumped over the ditch and followed her and tried to bite her, but she turned round at it, and gave such a terrible yell, that the frightened animal ran back and cowered in silence in its kennel.

Sometimes a family of young hares was gambolling in a field, but when the frantic fugitive approached, like a delirious Diana, the timid creatures scampered away, the mother and her little ones disappearing into a burrow, while the father ran at full tilt, his leaping shadow, with long ears erect, standing out against the setting moon, which was now sinking down at the other end of the world, and casting an oblique light over the fields, like a huge lantern standing on the ground at the horizon.

The stars grew dim, and the birds began to twitter; day was breaking. The girl was worn out and panting, and when the sun rose in the purple sky, she stopped, for her swollen feet refused to go any farther; but she saw a pond in the distance, a large pond whose stagnant water looked like blood under the reflection of this new day, and she limped on with short steps and with her hand on her heart, in order to dip both her legs in it. She sat down on a tuft of grass, took off her heavy shoes, which were full of dust, pulled off her stockings and plunged her legs into the still water, from which bubbles were rising here and there.

A feeling of delicious coolness pervaded her from head to foot, and suddenly, while she was looking fixedly at the deep pool, she was seized with giddiness, and with a mad longing to throw herself into it. All her sufferings would be over in there; over forever. She no longer thought of her child; she only wanted peace, complete rest, and to sleep forever, and she got up with raised arms and took two steps forward. She was in the water up to her thighs, and she was just about to throw herself in, when sharp, pricking pains in her ankles made her jump back, and she uttered a cry of despair, for, from her knees to the tips of her feet, long, black leeches were sucking in her life blood, and were swelling, as they adhered to her flesh. She did not dare to touch them, and screamed with horror, so that her cries of despair attracted a peasant, who was driving along at some distance, to the spot. He pulled off the leeches one by one, applied herbs to the wounds, and drove the girl to her master’s farm, in his gig.

She was in bed for a fortnight, and as she was sitting outside the door on the first morning that she got up, the farmer suddenly came and planted himself before her. “Well,” he said, “I suppose the affair is settled, isn’t it?” She did not reply at first, and then, as he remained standing and looking at her intently with his piercing eyes, she said with difficulty: “No, master, I cannot.” But he immediately flew into a rage.

“You cannot, girl; you cannot? I should just like to know the reason why?” She began to cry, and repeated: “I cannot.” He looked at her and then exclaimed, angrily: “Then, I suppose you have a lover?” “Perhaps that is it,” she replied, trembling with shame.

The man got as red as a poppy, and stammered out in a rage: “Ah! So you confess it, you slut! And pray, who is the fellow? Some penniless, half-starved ragamuffin, without a roof to his head, I suppose? Who is it, I say?” And as she gave him no answer, he continued: “Ah! So you will not tell me.⁠ ⁠… Then I will tell you; it is Jean Baudu?” “No, not he,” she exclaimed. “Then it is Pierre Martin?” “Oh, no, master.”

And he angrily mentioned all the young fellows in the neighbourhood, while she denied that he had hit upon the right one, and every moment wiped her eyes with the corner of her big blue apron. But he still tried to find it out, with his brutish obstinacy, and, as it were, scratched her heart to discover her secret, just like a terrier scratches a hole, to try and get at the animal which he scents in it. Suddenly, however, the man shouted: “By George! It is Jacques, the man who was here last year. They used to say that you were always talking together, and that you thought about getting married.”

Rose was choking, and she grew scarlet, while her tears suddenly stopped, and dried up on her cheeks, like drops of water on hot iron, and she exclaimed: “No, it is not he, it is not he!” “Is that really a fact?” the cunning peasant, who partly guessed the truth, asked; and she replied, hastily: “I will swear it; I will swear it to you⁠ ⁠…” She tried to think of something by which to swear, as she did not venture to invoke sacred things, but he interrupted her: “At any rate, he used to follow you into every corner, and devoured you with his eyes at meal times. Did you ever give him your promise, eh?”

This time she looked her master straight in the face. “No, never, never; I will solemnly swear to you, that if he were to come today and ask me to marry him, I would have nothing to do with him.” She spoke with such an air of sincerity that the farmer hesitated, and then he continued, as if speaking to himself: “What, then? You have not had a misfortune, as they call it, or it would have been known, and as it has no consequences, no girl would refuse her master on that account. There must be something at the bottom of it, however.”

She could say nothing; she had not the strength to speak, and he asked her again: “You will not?” “I cannot, master,” she said, with a sigh, and he turned on his heel.

She thought she had got rid of him altogether, and spent the rest of the day almost tranquilly, but as worn out as if she had been turning the threshing machine all day, instead of the old white horse, and she went to bed as soon as she could, and fell asleep immediately. In the middle of the night, however, two hands touching the bed, woke her. She trembled with fear, but she immediately recognized the farmer’s voice, when he said to her: “Don’t be frightened, Rose; I have come to speak to you.” She was surprised at first, but when he tried to get into the bed, she understood what he wanted, and began to tremble violently, as she felt quite alone in the darkness, still heavy from sleep, and quite naked in the bed, beside this man who desired her. She certainly did not consent, but she resisted weakly, herself struggling against that instinct which is always strong in simple natures, and very imperfectly protected, by the undecided will of inert and feeble creatures. She turned her head now to the wall, and now towards the room, in order to avoid the attentions which the farmer tried to press on her, and her body writhed a little under the coverlet, as she was weakened by the fatigue of the struggle, while he became brutal, intoxicated by desire. With a sudden movement he pulled off the bedclothes; then she saw that resistance was useless. With an ostrich-like sense of modesty she hid her face in her hands, and ceased to struggle.

They lived together as man and wife, and one morning he said to her: “I have put up our banns, and we will get married next month.”

She did not reply, for what could she say? She did not resist, for what could she do?

Part IV

She married him. She felt as if she were in a pit with inaccessible edges, from which she could never get out, and all kinds of misfortunes remained hanging over her head, like huge rocks, which would fall on the first occasion. Her husband gave her the impression of a man whom she had stolen, and who would find it out some day or other. And then she thought of her child, who was the cause of her misfortunes, but who was also the cause of all her happiness on earth, and whom she went to see twice a year, though she came back more unhappy each time. But she gradually grew accustomed to her life, her fears were allayed, her heart was at rest, and she lived with an easier mind, though still with some vague fear floating in her mind, and so years went on, and the child was six. She was almost happy now, when suddenly the farmer’s temper grew very bad.

For two or three years he seemed to have been nursing some secret anxiety, to be troubled by some care, some mental disturbance, which was gradually increasing. He remained at table a long time after dinner, with his head in his hands, sad and devoured by sorrow. He always spoke hastily, sometimes even brutally, and it even seemed as if he bore a grudge against his wife, for at times he answered her roughly, almost angrily.

One day, when a neighbour’s boy came for some eggs, and she spoke very crossly to him, as she was very busy, her husband suddenly came in, and said to her in his unpleasant voice: “If that were your own child you would not treat him so.” She was hurt, and did not reply, and then she went back into the house, with all her grief awakened afresh, and at dinner, the farmer neither spoke to her, nor looked at her, and he seemed to hate her, to despise her, to know something about the affair at last. In consequence, she lost her head, and did not venture to remain alone with him after the meal was over, but she left the room and hastened to the church.

It was getting dusk; the narrow nave was in total darkness, but she heard footsteps in the choir, for the sacristan was preparing the tabernacle lamp for the night. That spot of trembling light, which was lost in the darkness of the arches, looked to Rose like her last hope, and with her eyes fixed on it, she fell on her knees. The chain rattled as the little lamp swung up into the air, and almost immediately the small bell rang out the Angelus through the increasing mist. She went up to him, as he was going out.

“Is Monsieur le Curé at home?” she asked. “Of course he is; this is his dinnertime.” She trembled as she rang the bell of the priest’s house. The priest was just sitting down to dinner, and he made her sit down also. “Yes, yes, I know all about it; your husband has mentioned the matter to me that brings you here.” The poor woman nearly fainted, and the priest continued: “What do you want, my child?” And he hastily swallowed several spoonfuls of soup, some of which dropped on to his greasy cassock. But Rose did not venture to say anything more, and she got up to go, but the priest said: “Courage.⁠ ⁠…”

And she went out, and returned to the farm, without knowing what she was doing. The farmer was waiting for her, as the labourers had gone away during her absence, and she fell heavily at his feet, and shedding a flood of tears, she said to him: “What have you got against me?”

He began to shout and to swear: “What have I got against you? That I have no children, by God! When a man takes a wife, he does not want to be left alone with her until the end of his days. That is what I have against you. When a cow has no calves, she is not worth anything, and when a woman has no children, she is also not worth anything.”

She began to cry, and said: “It is not my fault! It is not my fault!” He grew rather more gentle when he heard that, and added: “I do not say that it is, but it is very annoying, all the same.”

Part V

From that day forward, she had only one thought; to have a child, another child; she confided her wish to everybody, and in consequence of this, a neighbour told her of an infallible method. This was, to make her husband a glass of water with a pinch of ashes in it, every evening. The farmer consented to try it, but without success; so they said to each other: “Perhaps there are some secret ways.” And they tried to find out. They were told of a shepherd who lived ten miles off, and so Vallin one day drove off to consult him. The shepherd gave him a loaf on which he made some marks; it was kneaded up with herbs, and both of them were to eat a piece of it before and after their mutual caresses; but they ate the whole loaf without obtaining any results from it.

Next, a schoolmaster unveiled mysteries, and processes of love which were unknown in the country, but infallible, so he declared; yet none of them had the desired effect. Then the priest advised them to make a pilgrimage to the shrine at Fécamp. Rose went with the crowd and prostrated herself in the abbey, and mingling her prayers with the coarse wishes of the peasants around her, she prayed that she might be fruitful a second time; but it was in vain, and then she thought that she was being punished for her first fault, and she was seized by terrible grief. She was wasting away with sorrow; her husband was also ageing prematurely, and was wearing himself out in useless hopes.

Then war broke out between them; he called her names and beat her. They quarreled all day long, and when they were in bed together at night he flung insults and obscenities at her, panting with rage, until one night, not being able to think of any means of making her suffer more, he ordered her to get up and go and stand out of doors in the rain, until daylight. As she did not obey him, he seized her by the neck, and began to strike her in the face with his fists, but she said nothing, and did not move. In his exasperation he knelt on her stomach, and with clenched teeth, and mad with rage, he began to beat her. Then in her despair she rebelled, and flinging him against the wall with a furious gesture, she sat up, and in an altered voice, she hissed: “I have had a child, I have had one! I had it by Jacques; you know Jacques well. He promised to marry me, but he left this neighborhood without keeping his word.”

The man was thunderstruck, and could hardly speak, but at last he stammered out: “What are you saying? What are you saying?” Then she began to sob, and amidst her tears she said: “That is the reason why I did not want to marry you. I could never tell you, for you would have left me without any bread for my child. You have never had any children, so you cannot understand, you cannot understand!”

He said again, mechanically, with increasing surprise: “You have a child? You have a child?”

“You had me by force, as I suppose you know? I did not want to marry you,” she said, still sobbing.

Then he got up, lit the candle, and began to walk up and down, with his arms behind him. She was cowering on the bed and crying, and suddenly he stopped in front of her, and said: “Then it is my fault that you have no children?” She gave him no answer, and he began to walk up and down again, and then, stopping again, he continued: “How old is your child?” “Just six,” she whispered. “Why did you not tell me about it?” he asked. “How could I?” she replied, with a sigh.

He remained standing, motionless. “Come, get up,” he said. She got up, with some difficulty, and then, when she was standing on the floor, he suddenly began to laugh, with his hearty laugh of his good days, and seeing how surprised she was, he added: “Very well, we will go and fetch the child, as you and I can have none together.”

She was so scared that, if she had had the strength, she would assuredly have run away, but the farmer rubbed his hands and said: “I wanted to adopt one, and now we have found one. I asked the priest about an orphan, some time ago.”

Then, still laughing, he kissed his weeping and agitated wife on both cheeks, and shouted out, as if she could not hear him: “Come along, mother, we will go and see whether there is any soup left; I should not mind a plateful.”

She put on her petticoat, and they went downstairs; and while she was kneeling in front of the fireplace, and lighting the fire under the pot, he continued to walk up and down the kitchen in long strides, and said:

“Well, I am really glad of this: I must say I am glad; I am really very glad.”

A Country Excursion

For five months they had been talking of going to lunch at some country restaurant in the neighbourhood of Paris, on Madame Dufour’s birthday, and as they were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they had risen very early that morning. Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman’s cart, and drove himself. It was a very neat, two-wheeled conveyance. It had a roof supported by four iron posts to which were attached curtains, which had been raised so that they could see the countryside. The curtain at the back, alone, fluttered in the breeze like a flag. Madame Dufour, resplendent in a wonderful, cherry-coloured silk dress, sat by the side of her husband. The old grandmother and the daughter were accommodated with two chairs, and a yellow-haired youth, of whom, however, nothing was to be seen except his head, lay at the bottom of the trap.

After they had followed the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and passed the fortifications by the Porte Maillot, they began to enjoy the scenery.

When they got to the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: “Here we are in the country at last!” At that warning, his wife grew sentimental about the beauties of nature. When they got to the crossroads at Courbevoie, they were seized with admiration for the tremendous view. Down there on the right was the spire of Argenteuil church, above it rose the hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on the left, the aqueduct of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky. In the distance they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain, and opposite to them, at the end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of Cormeilles. Far in the background, a very long way off, beyond the plains and villages, one could see the sombre green of the forests.

The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes, and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of bare, ugly country, which smelled unpleasant. You would have thought that it had been ravaged by a pestilence which had even attacked the buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small cottages left in an unfinished state, as if the contractors had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each side.

Here and there tall factory-chimneys rose up from the barren soil, the only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted an odour of petroleum and slate, mingled with another smell that was even still less agreeable. At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time. It was delightful on the bridge; the river sparkled in the sun, and they had a feeling of quiet satisfaction and enjoyment in drinking in purer air, not impregnated by the black smoke of factories, nor by the miasma from the dumping-grounds. A man whom they met told them that the name of the place was Bezons; so Monsieur Dufour pulled up, and read the attractive announcement outside an eating-house:

“Restaurant Poulin, fish soups and fried fish, private rooms, arbours, and swings.”

“Well! Madame Dufour, will this suit you? Will you make up your mind at last?”

She read the announcement in her turn, and then looked at the house for a time.

It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open door she could see the bright zinc of the counter, at which two workmen in their Sunday best were sitting. At last she made up her mind, and said:

“Yes, this will do; and, besides, there is a view.”

So they drove into a large stretch of ground planted with trees, behind the inn, which was only separated from the river by the towing-path, and got out. The husband sprang out first, and held out his arms for his wife. As the step was very high, Madame Dufour, in order to reach him, had to show the lower part of her limbs, whose former slenderness had disappeared in fat. Monsieur Dufour, who was already getting excited by the country air, pinched her calf, and then, taking her in his arms, set her on the ground, as if she had been some enormous bundle. She shook the dust out of the silk dress, and then looked round, to see in what sort of a place she was.

She was a stout woman, of about thirty-six, like a full-blown rose, and delightful to look at. She could hardly breathe, as she was laced too tightly, which forced the heaving mass of her superabundant bosom up to her double chin. Next, the girl put her hand on to her father’s shoulder, and jumped lightly down. The youth with the yellow hair had got down by stepping on the wheel, and he helped Monsieur Dufour to get the grandmother out. Then they unharnessed the horse, which they tied up to a tree, and the carriage fell back, with both shafts in the air. The man and boy took off their coats, washed their hands in a pail of water, and then joined the ladies, who had already taken possession of the swings.

Mademoiselle Dufour was trying to swing herself standing up, but she could not succeed in getting a start. She was a pretty girl of about eighteen; one of those women who suddenly excite your desire when you meet them in the street, and who leave you with a vague feeling of uneasiness and of excited senses. She was tall, had a small waist and large hips, with a dark skin, very large eyes, and very black hair. Her dress clearly marked the outlines of her firm, full figure, which was accentuated by the motion of her hips as she tried to swing herself higher. Her arms were stretched over her head to hold the rope, so that her bosom rose at every movement she made. Her hat, which a gust of wind had blown off, was hanging behind her, and as the swing gradually rose higher and higher, she showed her delicate limbs up to the knees at each time, and the wind from the perfumed petticoats, more heady than the fumes of wine, blew into the faces of her father and friend, who were looking at her, smiling.

Sitting in the other swing, Madame Dufour kept saying in a monotonous voice:

“Cyprian, come and swing me; do come and swing me, Cyprian!”

At last he complied, and turning up his shirtsleeves, as if he intended to work very hard, with much difficulty he set his wife in motion. She clutched the two ropes, and held her legs out straight, so as not to touch the ground. She enjoyed feeling giddy from the motion of the swing, and her whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went higher and higher, she grew too giddy and got frightened. Every time she was coming back, she uttered a shriek, which made all the little urchins come round, and down below, beneath the garden hedge, she vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads, making faces as they laughed.

When a servant girl came out, they ordered lunch.

“Some fried fish, a stewed rabbit, salad, and dessert,” Madame Dufour said, with an important air.

“Bring two quarts of wine, and a bottle of claret,” her husband said.

“We will have lunch on the grass,” the girl added.

The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been petting one that belonged to the house, and had been bestowing the most affectionate words on it, for the last ten minutes. The animal, no doubt secretly pleased by her attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of her hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.

“Hello!” exclaimed the youth with the yellow hair, who was ferreting about, “here are two swell boats!” They all went to look at them, and saw two beautiful skiffs in a wooden boathouse, which were as beautifully finished as if they had been objects of luxury. They were moored side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining length, and aroused in one a wish to drift in them on warm summer mornings and evenings, along flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees dip their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually rustling in the breeze, and where the swift kingfishers dart about like flashes of blue lightning.

The whole family looked at them with great respect.

“They are indeed two swell boats,” Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, and he examined them closely, commenting on them like a connoisseur. He had been in the habit of rowing in his younger days, he said, and when he had that in his hands⁠—and he went through the action of pulling the oars⁠—he did not care a fig for anybody. He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the Joinville regattas, and he made jokes on the word “dames,” used to describe the two things for holding the oars. He grew quite excited at last, and offered to make a bet that in a boat like that he could row six miles an hour, without exerting himself.

“Lunch is ready,” said the servant, appearing at the entrance to the boathouse. They all hurried off, but two young men were already lunching at the best place, which Madame Dufour had chosen in her mind as her seat. No doubt they were the owners of the skiffs, for they were dressed in boating costume. They were stretched out, almost lying on chairs, and were sunburned, and had on flannel trousers and thin cotton jerseys, with short sleeves, which showed their bare arms, which were as strong as blacksmiths’. They were two strong young fellows, who thought a great deal of their vigour, and who showed in all their movements that elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise, and which is so different from the awkwardness with which the same continual work stamps the mechanic.

They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother, and then a look on seeing the daughter.

“Let us give up our place,” one of them said; “it will make us acquainted with them.”

The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating-cap in his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in the garden. With many excuses they accepted, and so that it might be more rural, they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.

The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a little way off, and began to eat again. Their bare arms, which they showed continually, rather embarrassed the young girl, who even pretended to turn her head aside, and not to see them. But Madame Dufour, who was rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every moment, and no doubt compared them with the secret unsightliness of her husband. She had squatted herself on the ground with her legs tucked under her, after the manner of tailors, and kept wriggling about continually, under the pretext that ants were crawling about her somewhere. Monsieur Dufour, whom the presence and politeness of the strangers had put into rather a bad temper, was trying to find a comfortable position, which he did not, however, succeed in doing, while the youth with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an ogre.

“It is lovely weather, Monsieur,” the stout lady said to one of the boating-men. She wished to be friendly, because they had given up their place.

“It is, indeed, Madame,” he replied; “do you often go into the country?”

“Oh! Only once or twice a year, to get a little fresh air; and you, Monsieur?”

“I come and sleep here every night.”

“Oh! That must be very nice?”

“Certainly it is, Madame.” And he gave them such a poetical account of his daily life, that in the hearts of these shopkeepers, who were deprived of the meadows, and who longed for country walks, it roused that innate love of nature, which they all felt so strongly the whole year round, behind the counter in their shop.

The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion, and Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.

“It is indeed a happy life,” he said. And then he added: “A little more rabbit, my dear?”

“No, thank you,” she replied, and turning to the young men again, and pointing to their arms, asked: “Do you never feel cold like that?”

They both laughed, and amazed the family by telling of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of bathing while in a state of tremendous perspiration, of rowing in the fog at night, and they struck their chests violently, to show how they sounded.

“Ah! You look very strong,” the husband said, and he did not talk any more of the time when he used to beat the English. The girl was looking at them askance now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, as he had swallowed some wine the wrong way, and was coughing violently, bespattered Madame Dufour’s cherry-coloured silk dress. Madame got angry, and sent for some water to wash the spots.

Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like a blaze of fire and the fumes of the wine were getting into their heads. Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccup, had unbuttoned his waistcoat and the top of his trousers, while his wife, who felt choking, was gradually unfastening her dress. The youth was shaking his yellow mop of hair in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to wine, and as the old grandmother felt drunk, she endeavoured to be very stiff and dignified. As for the girl, she showed nothing except a peculiar brightness in her eyes, while the brown skin on her cheeks became more rosy.

The coffee finished them off; they spoke of singing, and each of them sang, or repeated a couplet, which the others repeated enthusiastically. Then they got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather dizzy, were getting some fresh air, the two males, who were altogether drunk, were performing gymnastic tricks. Heavy, limp, and with scarlet faces, they hung awkwardly on to the iron rings, without being able to raise themselves, while their shirts were continually threatening to part company with their trousers, and to flap in the wind like flags.

Meanwhile, the two boating-men had got their skiffs into the water. They came back, and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a row.

“Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?” his wife exclaimed. “Please come!”

He merely gave her a drunken look, without understanding what she said. Then one of the rowers came up, with two fishing-rods in his hand; and the hope of catching a gudgeon, that great aim of the Parisian shopkeeper, made Dufour’s dull eyes gleam. He politely allowed them to do whatever they liked, while he sat in the shade, under the bridge, with his feet dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with the yellow hair, who was sleeping soundly close to him.

One of the boating-men made a martyr of himself, and took the mother.

“Let us go to the little wood on the Ile aux Anglais!” he called out, as he rowed off. The other skiff went slower, for the rower was looking at his companion so intently, that he thought of nothing else. His emotion paralysed his strength, while the girl, who was sitting on the steerer’s seat, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water. She felt disinclined to think, felt a lassitude in her limbs, a complete self-relaxation, as if she were intoxicated. She had become very flushed, and breathed pantingly. The effect of the wine, increased by the extreme heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow, as she passed. A vague wish for enjoyment, a fermentation of her blood, seemed to pervade her whole body, and she was also a little agitated by this tête-à-tête on the water, in a place which seemed depopulated by the heat, with this young man, who thought her beautiful, whose looks seemed to caress her skin, and whose eyes were as penetrating and exciting as the sun’s rays.

Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about them. At last he made an effort and asked her name.

“Henriette,” she said.

“Why! My name is Henri,” he replied. The sound of their voices calmed them, and they looked at the banks. The other skiff had gone ahead of them, and seemed to be waiting for them. The rower called out:

“We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson because Madame Dufour is thirsty.” Then he bent over his oars again and rowed off so quickly that he was soon out of sight.

Meanwhile, a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise were rising from its depths.

“What is that noise?” she asked. It was the noise of the weir, which cut the river in two, at the island. He was explaining it to her, when above the noise of the waterfall they heard the song of a bird, which seemed a long way off.

“Listen!” he said; “the nightingales are singing during the day, so the females must be sitting.”

A nightingale! She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A nightingale! That is to say, the invisible witness of the lover’s interview which Juliet invoked on her balcony; that celestial music which is attuned to human kisses; that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which open idealized visions to the poor, tender, little hearts of sensitive girls!

She was going to hear a nightingale.

“We must not make a noise,” her companion said, “and then we can go into the wood, and sit down close to it.”

The skiff seemed to glide. They saw the trees on the island, the banks of which were so low that they could look into the depths of the thickets. They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of Henri’s arm, and they went beneath the trees.

“Stoop,” he said, so she bent down, and they went into an inextricable thicket of creepers, leaves, and reed-grass, which formed an impenetrable retreat, and which the young man laughingly called “his private room.”

Just above their heads, perched in one of the trees which hid them, the bird was still singing. He uttered shakes and trills, and then long, vibrating sounds that filled the air and seemed to lose themselves in the distance, across the level country, through that burning silence which hung low upon the whole country round. They did not speak for fear of frightening the bird away. They were sitting close together, and slowly Henri’s arm stole round the girl’s waist and squeezed it gently. She took that daring hand, but without anger, and kept removing it whenever he put it round her; not, however, feeling at all embarrassed by this caress, just as if it had been something quite natural which she was resisting just as naturally.

She was listening to the bird in ecstasy. She felt an infinite longing for happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for a revelation of divine poesy. She felt such a softening at her heart, and such a relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without knowing why. The young man was now straining her close to him, and she did not remove his arm; she did not think of it. Suddenly the nightingale stopped, and a voice called out in the distance:

“Henriette!”

“Do not reply,” he said in a low voice, “you will drive the bird away.”

But she had no idea of doing so, and they remained in the same position for some time. Madame Dufour had sat down somewhere or other, for from time to time they heard the stout lady break out into little bursts of laughter.

The girl was still crying; she was filled with delightful feelings, her skin was burning and she felt a strange sensation of tickling. Henri’s head was on her shoulder, and suddenly he kissed her on the lips. She was surprised and angry, and, to avoid him, she threw herself back. But he fell upon her and his whole body covered hers. For a long time he sought her lips, which she refused him, then he pressed her mouth to his. Seized with desire she returned his kiss, holding him to her breast, and she abandoned all resistance, as if crushed by too heavy a weight.

Everything about them was still. The bird began again to sing, sending forth three penetrating notes at first, like a call of love, then, after a momentary silence, it began in weaker tones its slow modulations. A soft breeze crept up, raising a murmur among the leaves, while from the depths of the branches two burning sighs mingled with the song of the nightingale and the gentle breath of the wood.

An intoxication possessed the bird and by degrees its notes came more rapidly like a fire spreading or a passion increasing, and they seemed to be an accompaniment to the kisses which resounded beneath the tree. Then the delirium of his song burst forth. He seemed to swoon on certain notes, to have spasms of melodious emotion. Sometimes he would rest a moment, emitting only two or three slight sounds suddenly terminated on a sharp note. Or he would launch into a frenzy, pouring out his song, with thrills and jerks, like a mad song of love, followed by cries of triumph. Then he stopped, hearing beneath him a sigh so deep that it seemed as though a soul were transported. The sound was prolonged for a while, then it ended in a sob.

They were both very pale when they quitted their grassy retreat. The blue sky looked dull to them, the ardent sun was clouded over to their eyes, they perceived not the solitude and the silence. They walked quickly side by side, without speaking or touching each other, appearing to be irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust had sprung up between their bodies, and hatred between their souls. From time to time Henriette called out: “Mamma!”

They heard a noise in a thicket, and Henri fancied he saw a white dress being quickly pulled down over a fat calf. The stout lady appeared, looking rather confused, and more flushed than ever, her eyes shining and her breast heaving, and perhaps just a little too close to her companion. The latter must have had some strange experience, for his face was wrinkled with smiles that he could not check.

Madame Dufour took his arm tenderly, and they returned to the boats. Henri went on first, still without speaking, by the girl’s side, and he thought he heard a loud kiss being stifled. At last they got back to Bezons.

Monsieur Dufour, who had sobered up, was waiting for them very impatiently, while the youth with the yellow hair was having a mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn. The carriage was in the yard, with the horse yoked, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night, before they got back to Paris, the outskirts not being safe.

The young men shook hands with them, and the Dufour family drove off.

“Goodbye, until we meet again!” the oarsmen cried, and the answers they got were a sigh and a tear.

Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw “Dufour, Ironmonger,” over a door. So he went in, and saw the stout lady sitting at the counter. They recognized each other immediately, and after an interchange of polite greetings, he inquired after them all.

“And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?” he inquired, specially.

“Very well, thank you; she is married.”

“Ah!” Mastering his feelings, he added: “To whom was she married?”

“To that young man who went with us, you know; he has joined us in business.”

“I remember him perfectly.”

He was going out, feeling unhappy, though scarcely knowing why, when Madame called him back.

“And how is your friend?” she asked, rather shyly.

“He is very well, thank you.”

“Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call when he is in the neighbourhood.” She blushed, then added: “Tell him it will give me great pleasure.”

“I will be sure to do so. Adieu!”

“I will not say that; come again, very soon.”

The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that memorable adventure suddenly came back to him so clearly that he revisited the “private room” in the wood, and was overwhelmed with astonishment when he went in. She was sitting on the grass, looking very sad, while by her side, again in his shirtsleeves, the young man with the yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some brute.

She grew so pale when she saw Henri, that at first he thought she was going to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally, as if there had never been anything between them. But when he told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there very often on Sundays, to dream of old memories, she looked into his eyes for a long time. “I, too, think of it every evening,” she replied.

“Come, my dear,” her husband said, with a yawn; “I think it is time for us to be going.”

In the Spring

When the first fine spring days come, and the earth awakes and assumes its garment of verdure, when the perfumed warmth of the air blows on our faces and fills our lungs, and even appears to penetrate our heart, we feel vague longings for undefined happiness, a wish to run, to walk at random, to inhale the spring. As the winter had been very severe the year before, this longing assumed an intoxicating feeling in May; it was like a superabundance of sap.

Well, one morning on waking, I saw from my window the blue sky glowing in the sun above the neighbouring houses. The canaries hanging in the windows were singing loudly, and so were the servants on every floor; a cheerful noise rose up from the streets, and I went out, with my spirits as bright as the day was, to go⁠—I did not exactly know where. Everybody I met seemed to be smiling; an air of happiness appeared to pervade everything, in the warm light of returning spring. One might almost have said that a breeze of love was blowing through the city, and the young women whom I saw in the streets in their morning toilettes, in the depths of whose eyes there lurked a hidden tenderness, and who walked with languid grace, filled my heart with agitation.

Without knowing how or why, I found myself on the banks of the Seine. Steamboats were starting for Suresnes, and suddenly I was seized by an unconquerable wish to have a walk through the woods. The deck of the Mouche6 was crowded with passengers, for the sun in early spring draws you out of the house, in spite of yourself, and everybody moves about, goes and comes, and talks to his neighbour.

I had a female neighbour; a little working-girl, no doubt, who possessed the true Parisian charm; a little head, with light curly hair, which looked like frizzed light, came down to her ears and descended to the nape of her neck, danced in the wind, and then became such fine, such light-coloured down, that one could scarcely see it, but on which one felt an irresistible desire to impress a shower of kisses.

Under my insistent glances, she turned her head towards me, and then immediately looked down, while a slight fold deepened the corner of her mouth, which looked as if she were ready to break out into a smile, and showed there more of that fine, silky, pale down which the sun was gilding a little.

The calm river grew wider; the atmosphere was warm and perfectly still, but a murmur of life seemed to fill all space. My neighbour raised her eyes again, and, this time, as I was still looking at her, she smiled, decidedly. She was charming like that, and in her passing glance, I saw a thousand things, which I had hitherto been ignorant of, for I saw unknown depths, all the charm of tenderness, all the poetry which we dream of, all the happiness for which we continually search. I felt an insane longing to open my arms and to carry her off somewhere, so as to whisper as to whisper the sweet music of words of love into her ears.

I was just going to speak to her, when somebody touched me on the shoulder, and when I turned round in some surprise, I saw an ordinary looking man, who was neither young nor old, and who gazed at me sadly:

“I should like to speak to you,” he said.

I made a grimace, which he no doubt saw, for he added:

“It is a matter of importance.”

I got up, therefore, and followed him to the other end of the boat, and then he said:

“Monsieur, when winter comes, with its cold, wet and snowy weather, your doctor says to you constantly: ‘Keep your feet warm, guard against chills, colds, bronchitis, rheumatism and pleurisy.’

“Then you are very careful, you wear flannel, a heavy overcoat and thick shoes, but all this does not prevent you from passing two months in bed. But when spring returns, with its leaves and flowers, its warm, soft breezes, and its smell of the fields, which cause you vague disquiet and causeless emotion, nobody says to you:

“ ‘Monsieur, beware of love! It is lying in ambush everywhere; it is watching for you at every corner; all its snares are laid, all its weapons are sharpened, all its guiles are prepared! Beware of love.⁠ ⁠… Beware of love. It is more dangerous than colds, bronchitis, or pleurisy! It never forgives, and makes everybody commit irreparable follies.’

“Yes, Monsieur, I say that the French Government ought to put large public notices on the walls, with these words: ‘Return of Spring. French citizens, beware of love!’ just as they put: ‘Beware of paint.’

“However, as the government will not do this, I must do it in its stead, and I say to you: ‘Beware of love,’ for it is just going to seize you, and it is my duty to inform you of it, just as in Russia they inform anyone that his nose is frozen.”

I was much astonished at this individual, and assuming a dignified manner, I said:

“Really, Monsieur, you appear to me to be interfering in a matter which is no business of yours.”

He made an abrupt movement, and replied:

“Ah! Monsieur! Monsieur! If I see that a man is in danger of being drowned at a dangerous spot, ought I to let him perish? So just listen to my story, and you will see why I ventured to speak to you like this.

“It was about this time last year that it occurred. But, first of all, I must tell you that I am a clerk in the Admiralty, where our chiefs, the commissioners, take their gold lace and quill-driving officers seriously, and treat us like foretop men on board a ship⁠—Ah, if all our chiefs were civilians⁠—but let that pass⁠—Well, from my office I could see a small bit of blue sky and the swallows, and I felt inclined to dance among my portfolios.

“My yearning for freedom grew so intense, that, in spite of my repugnance, I went to see my chief, who was a short, bad-tempered man, always in a rage. When I told him that I was not well, he looked at me, and said: ‘I do not believe it, Monsieur, but be off with you! Do you think that any office can go on, with clerks like you?’ I started at once, and went down the Seine. It was a day like this, and I took the Mouche, to go as far as Saint-Cloud. Ah! What a good thing it would have been if my chief had refused me permission to leave the office for the day!

“I seemed to expand in the sun. I loved it all; the steamer, the river, the trees, the houses, my fellow-passengers, everything. I felt inclined to kiss something, no matter what; it was love, laying its snare. Presently, at the Trocadéro, a girl, with a small parcel in her hand, came on board and sat down opposite to me. She was certainly pretty; but it is surprising, Monsieur, how much prettier women seem to us when it is fine, at the beginning of the spring. Then they have an intoxicating charm, something quite peculiar about them. It is just like drinking wine after the cheese.

“I looked at her, and she also looked at me, but only occasionally, like that girl did at you, just now; but at last, by dint of looking at each other constantly, it seemed to me that we knew each other well enough to enter into conversation, and I spoke to her, and she replied. She was decidedly pretty and nice, and she intoxicated me, Monsieur!

“She got out at Saint-Cloud, and I followed her. She went and delivered her parcel, and when she returned, the boat had just started. I walked by her side, and the warmth of the air made us both sigh. ‘It would be very nice in the woods,’ I said. ‘Indeed, it would,’ she replied. ‘Shall we go there for a walk, Mademoiselle?’

“She gave me a quick, upward look, as if to see exactly what I was like, and then, after a little hesitation, she accepted my proposal, and soon we were there, walking side by side. Under the foliage, which was still rather thin, the tall, thick, bright, green grass was inundated by the sun, and full of small insects that also made love to one another, and birds were singing everywhere. My companion began to jump and to run, intoxicated by the air, and the smell of the country, and I ran and jumped behind her. How stupid we are at times, Monsieur!

“Then she wildly sang a thousand things; opera airs, and the song of Musette! The song of Musette! How poetical it seemed to me, then! I almost cried over it. Ah! Those silly songs make us lose our heads; and, believe me, never marry a woman who sings in the country, especially if she sings the song of Musette!

“She soon grew tired, and sat down on a grassy slope, and I sat down at her feet, and took her hands, her little hands, that were so marked with the needle, and that moved me. I said to myself: ‘These are the sacred marks of toil.’ Oh! Monsieur, do you know what those sacred marks of labour mean? They mean all the gossip of the workroom, the whispered blackguardism, the mind soiled by all the filth that is talked; they mean lost chastity, foolish chatter, all the wretchedness of daily bad habits, all the narrowness of ideas which belongs to women of the lower orders, united in the girl whose sacred fingers bear the sacred marks of toil.

“Then we looked into each other’s eyes for a long while. Oh! What power a woman’s eye has! How it agitates us, how it invades our very being, takes possession of us, and dominates us. How profound it seems, how full of infinite promises! People call that looking into each other’s souls! Oh! Monsieur, what humbug! If we could see into each other’s souls, we should be more careful of what we did. However, I was enthusiastic, mad. I tried to take her into my arms, but she said: ‘Paws off!’ Then I knelt down, and opened my heart to her, and poured out all the affection that was suffocating me, on her knees. She seemed surprised at my change of manner, and gave me a sidelong glance, as if to say: ‘Ah! So that is the way women make a fool of you, old fellow! Very well, we will see.’ In love, Monsieur, we are all boobies at a fair, and the women are the dealers.

“No doubt I could have had her, and I saw my own stupidity later, but what I wanted was not a woman’s body; it was love, it was the ideal. I was sentimental, when I ought to have been using my time to a better purpose.

“As soon as she had had enough of my protestations of love, she got up, and we returned to Saint-Cloud, and I did not leave her until we got to Paris; but she looked so sad as we were returning, that at last I asked her what was the matter. ‘I am thinking,’ she replied, ‘that this has been one of those days of which we have but few in life.’ And my heart beat so that it felt as if it would break my ribs.

“I saw her on the following Sunday, and the next Sunday, and every Sunday. I took her to Bougival, Saint-Germain, Maisons-Lafitte, Poissy; to every suburban resort of lovers.

“The little jade, in turn, pretended to love me, until, at last, I altogether lost my head, and three months later I married her.

“What can you expect, Monsieur, when a man is a clerk, living alone, without any relations, or anyone to advise him? One says to oneself: ‘How sweet life would be with a wife!’

“And so one gets married, and she calls you names from morning till night, understands nothing, knows nothing, chatters continually, sings the song of Musette at the top of her voice (oh! that song of Musette, how tired one gets of it!); quarrels with the coal dealer, tells the concierge all her domestic details, confides all the secrets of her bedroom to the neighbour’s servant, discusses her husband with the tradespeople, and has her head so stuffed with stupid stories, idiotic superstitions, extraordinary ideas and monstrous prejudices, that I shed tears of discouragement every time I talk to her.”

He stopped, as he was rather out of breath, and very much moved, and I looked at him, for I felt pity for this poor, artless devil, and I was just going to give him some sort of answer, when the boat stopped. We were at Saint-Cloud.

The little woman who had so taken my fancy, got up in order to land. She passed close to me, and gave me a side glance and a furtive smile; one of those smiles that drive you mad; then she jumped on the landing-stage. I sprang forward to follow her, but my neighbour laid hold of my arm. I shook myself loose, however, whereupon he seized the skirt of my coat, and pulled me back, exclaiming:

“You shall not go! You shall not go!” in such a loud voice, that everybody turned round and laughed, and I remained standing motionless and furious, but without venturing to face scandal and ridicule, and the steamboat started.

The little woman on the landing-stage looked at me as I went off with an air of disappointment, while my persecutor rubbed his hands, and whispered to me:

“Well, I have done you a good turn, you’ll see!”

Paul’s Mistress

The Restaurant Grillon, a small commonwealth of boatmen, was slowly emptying. In front of the door all was tumult⁠—cries and calls⁠—and huge fellows in white jerseys gesticulated with oars on their shoulders.

The ladies in bright spring toilettes stepped aboard the skiffs with care, and seating themselves astern, arranged their dresses, while the landlord of the establishment, a mighty, red-bearded, self-possessed individual of renowned strength, offered his hand to the pretty creatures, and kept the frail crafts steady.

The rowers, bare-armed, with bulging chests, took their places in their turn, playing to the gallery as they did so⁠—a gallery consisting of middle-class people dressed in their Sunday clothes, of workmen and soldiers leaning upon their elbows on the parapet of the bridge, all taking a great interest in the sight.

One by one the boats cast off from the landing stage. The oarsmen bent forward and then threw themselves backward with even swing, and under the impetus of the long curved oars, the swift skiffs glided along the river, grew smaller in the distance, and finally disappeared under the railway bridge, as they descended the stream toward La Grenouillère. One couple only remained behind. The young man, still almost beardless, slender, with a pale countenance, held his mistress, a thin little brunette with the air of a grasshopper, by the waist; and occasionally they gazed into each other’s eyes. The landlord shouted:

“Come, Mr. Paul, make haste,” and they drew near.

Of all the guests of the house, Mr. Paul was the most liked and most respected. He paid well and punctually, while the others hung back for a long time if indeed they did not vanish without paying. Besides which he was a sort of walking advertisement for the establishment, inasmuch as his father was a senator. When a stranger would inquire: “Who on earth is that little chap who thinks so much of his girl?” some habitué would reply, half-aloud, with a mysterious and important air: “Don’t you know? That is Paul Baron, a senator’s son.”

And invariably the other would exclaim:

“Poor devil! He has got it badly.”

Mother Grillon, a good and worthy business woman, described the young man and his companion as “her two turtledoves,” and appeared quite touched by this passion, which was profitable for her business.

The couple advanced at a slow pace. The skiff Madeleine was ready, and at the moment of embarking they kissed each other, which caused the public collected on the bridge to laugh. Mr. Paul took the oars, and rowed away for La Grenouillère.

When they arrived it was just upon three o’clock and the large floating café overflowed with people.

The immense raft, sheltered by a tarpaulin roof, is joined to the charming island of Croissy by two narrow footbridges, one of which leads into the centre of the aquatic establishment, while the other unites with a tiny islet, planted with a tree and called “The Flower Pot,” and thence leads to land near the bath office.

Mr. Paul made fast his boat alongside the establishment, climbed over the railing of the café, and then, grasping his mistress’s hands, assisted her out of the boat. They both seated themselves at the end of a table opposite each other.

On the opposite side of the river along the towing-path, a long string of vehicles was drawn up. Cabs alternated with the fine carriages of the swells; the first, clumsy, with enormous bodies crushing the springs, drawn by broken-down hacks with hanging heads and broken knees; the second, slightly built on light wheels, with horses slender and straight, their heads well up, their bits snowy with foam, and with solemn coachmen in livery, heads erect in high collars, waiting bolt upright, with whips resting on their knees.

The bank was covered with people who came off in families, or in parties, or in couples, or alone. They plucked at the blades of grass, went down to the water, ascended the path, and having reached the spot, stood still awaiting the ferryman. The clumsy punt plied incessantly from bank to bank, discharging its passengers upon the island. The arm of the river (called the Dead Arm) upon which this refreshment wharf lay, seemed asleep, so feeble was the current. Fleets of yawls, of skiffs, of canoes, of podoscaphs, of gigs, of craft of all forms and of all kinds, crept about upon the motionless stream, crossing each other, intermingling, running foul of one another, stopping abruptly under a jerk of the arms only to shoot off afresh under a sudden strain of the muscles and gliding swiftly along like great yellow or red fishes.

Others arrived continually; some from Chatou up the stream; others from Bougival down it; laughter crossed the water from one boat to another, calls, admonitions, or imprecations. The boatmen exposed the bronzed and knotted muscles of their biceps to the heat of the day; and like strange floating flowers, the silk parasols, red, green, blue, or yellow, of the ladies bloomed in the sterns of the boats.

A July sun flamed high in the heavens; the atmosphere seemed full of burning merriment; not a breath of air stirred the leaves of the willows or poplars.

In front, away in the distance, the inevitable Mont-Valérien reared its fortified ramparts, tier above tier, in the intense light; while on the right the divine slopes of Louveciennes, following the bend of the river, disposed themselves in a semicircle, displaying in turn across the rich and shady lawns of large gardens the white walls of country seats.

Upon the outskirts of La Grenouillère a crowd of pedestrians moved about beneath the giant trees which make this corner of the island one of the most delightful parks in the world.

Women and girls with yellow hair and breasts developed beyond all measurement, with exaggerated hips, their complexions plastered with rouge, their eyes daubed with charcoal, their lips bloodred, laced up, rigged out in outrageous dresses, trailed the crying bad taste of their toilettes over the fresh green sward; while beside them young men posed in their fashion-plate garments with light gloves, patent leather boots, canes the size of a thread, and single eyeglasses emphasizing the insipidity of their smiles.

Opposite La Grenouillère the island is narrow, and on its other side, where also a ferryboat plies, bringing people unceasingly across from Croissy, the rapid branch of the river, full of whirlpools and eddies and foam, rushes along with the strength of a torrent. A detachment of pontoon-builders, in the uniform of artillerymen, was encamped upon this bank, and the soldiers seated in a row on a long beam watched the water flowing.

In the floating establishment there was a boisterous and uproarious crowd. The wooden tables upon which the spilt refreshments made little sticky streams were covered with half-empty glasses and surrounded by half-tipsy individuals. The crowd shouted, sang, and brawled. The men, their hats at the backs of their heads, their faces red, with the shining eyes of drunkards, moved about vociferating and evidently looking for the quarrels natural to brutes. The women, seeking their prey for the night, sought for free liquor in the meantime; and the unoccupied space between the tables was dominated by the customary local public, a whole regiment of rowdy boatmen, with their female companions in short flannel skirts.

One of them performed on the piano and appeared to play with his feet as well as his hands; four couples glided through a quadrille, and some young men watched them, polished and correct, men who would have looked respectable, did not their innate viciousness show in spite of everything.

For there you see all the scum of society, all its well-bred debauchery, all the seamy side of Parisian society⁠—a mixture of counter-jumpers, of strolling players, of low journalists, of gentlemen in tutelage, of rotten stockjobbers, of ill-famed debauchees, of old used-up fast men; a doubtful crowd of suspicious characters, half-known, half-sunk, half-recognised, half-criminal, pickpockets, rogues, procurers of women, sharpers with dignified manners, and a bragging air which seems to say: “I shall kill the first man who treats me as a scoundrel.”

The place reeks of folly, and stinks of vulgarity and cheap gallantry. Male and female are just as bad one as the other. There dwells an odour of so-called love, and there one fights for a yes, or for a no, in order to sustain a worm-eaten reputation, which a thrust of the sword or a pistol bullet only destroys further.

Some of the neighbouring inhabitants looked in out of curiosity every Sunday; some young men, very young, appeared there every year to learn how to live, some promenaders lounging about showed themselves there; some greenhorns wandered thither. With good reason is it named La Grenouillère. At the side of the covered wharf where drink was served, and quite close to the Flower Pot, people bathed. Those among the women who possessed the requisite roundness of form came there to display their wares and to get clients. The rest, scornful, although well filled out with wadding, supported by springs, corrected here and altered there, watched their dabbling sisters with disdain.

The swimmers crowded on to a little platform to dive. Straight like vine poles, or round like pumpkins, gnarled like olive branches, bowed over in front, or thrown backward by the size of their stomachs, and invariably ugly, they leaped into the water, splashing it over the drinkers in the café.

Notwithstanding the great trees which overhang the floating-house, and notwithstanding the vicinity of the water, a suffocating heat filled the place. The fumes of the spilt liquors mingled with the effluvia of the bodies and with the strong perfumes with which the skin of the trader in love is saturated and which evaporate in this furnace. But beneath all these diverse scents a slight aroma of poudre de riz lingered, disappearing and reappearing, and perpetually encountered as though some concealed hand had shaken an invisible powder-puff in the air. The show was on the river, where the perpetual coming and going of the boats attracted the eyes. The girls in the boats sprawled upon their seats opposite their strong-wristed males, and scornfully contemplated the dinner-hunting females prowling about the island.

Sometimes when a crew in full swing passed at top speed, the friends who had gone ashore gave vent to shouts, and all the people as if suddenly seized with madness commenced to yell.

At the bend of the river toward Chatou fresh boats continually appeared. They came nearer and grew larger, and as faces became recognisable, the vociferations broke out anew.

A canoe covered with an awning and manned by four women came slowly down the current. She who rowed was petite, thin, faded, in a cabin-boy’s costume, her hair drawn up under an oilskin hat. Opposite her, a lusty blonde, dressed as a man, with a white flannel jacket, lay upon her back at the bottom of the boat, her legs in the air, resting on the seat at each side of the rower. She smoked a cigarette, while at each stroke of the oars, her chest and her stomach quivered, shaken by the stroke. At the back, under the awning, two handsome girls, tall and slender, one dark and the other fair, held each other by the waist as they watched their companions.

A cry arose from La Grenouillère, “There’s Lesbos,” and all at once a furious clamour, a terrifying scramble took place; the glasses were knocked down; people clambered on to the tables; all in a frenzy of noise bawled: “Lesbos! Lesbos! Lesbos!” The shout rolled along, became indistinct, was no longer more than a kind of deafening howl, and then suddenly it seemed to start anew, to rise into space, to cover the plain, to fill the foliage of the great trees, to extend to the distant slopes, and reach even to the sun.

The rower, in the face of this ovation, had quietly stopped. The handsome blonde, stretched out upon the bottom of the boat, turned her head with a careless air, as she raised herself upon her elbows; and the two girls at the back commenced laughing as they saluted the crowd.

Then the hullabaloo redoubled, making the floating establishment tremble. The men took off their hats, the women waved their handkerchiefs, and all voices, shrill or deep, together cried:

“Lesbos.”

It was as if these people, this collection of the corrupt, saluted their chiefs like the warships which fire guns when an admiral passes along the line.

The numerous fleet of boats also saluted the women’s boat, which pushed along more quickly to land farther off.

Mr. Paul, contrary to the others, had drawn a key from his pocket and whistled with all his might. His nervous mistress grew paler, caught him by the arm to make him be quiet, and upon this occasion she looked at him with fury in her eyes. But he appeared exasperated, as though borne away by jealousy of some man or by deep anger, instinctive and ungovernable. He stammered, his lips quivering with indignation:

“It is shameful! They ought to be drowned like puppies with a stone about the neck.”

But Madeleine instantly flew into a rage; her small and shrill voice became a hiss, and she spoke volubly, as though pleading her own cause:

“And what has it to do with you⁠—you indeed? Are they not at liberty to do what they wish since they owe nobody anything? You shut up and mind your own business.”

But he cut her speech short:

“It is the police whom it concerns, and I will have them marched off to St. Lazare; indeed I will.”

She gave a start:

“You?”

“Yes, I! And in the meantime I forbid you to speak to them⁠—you understand, I forbid you to do so.”

Then she shrugged her shoulders and grew calm in a moment:

“My dear, I shall do as I please; if you are not satisfied, be off, and instantly. I am not your wife, am I? Very well then, hold your tongue.”

He made no reply and they stood face to face, their lips tightly closed, breathing quickly.

At the other end of the great wooden café the four women made their entry. The two in men’s costumes marched in front: the one thin like an oldish tomboy, with a yellow tinge on her temples; the other filling out her white flannel garments with her fat, swelling out her wide trousers with her buttocks and swaying about like a fat goose with enormous legs and yielding knees. Their two friends followed them, and the crowd of boatmen thronged about to shake their hands.

The four had hired a small cottage close to the water’s edge, and lived there as two households would have lived.

Their vice was public, recognised, patent to all. People talked of it as a natural thing, which almost excited their sympathy, and whispered in very low tones strange stories of dramas begotten of furious feminine jealousies, of the stealthy visit of well known women and of actresses to the little house close to the water’s edge.

A neighbour, horrified by these scandalous rumours, notified the police, and the inspector, accompanied by a man, had come to make inquiry. The mission was a delicate one; it was impossible, in short, to accuse these women, who did not abandon themselves to prostitution, of any tangible crime. The inspector, very much puzzled, and, indeed, ignorant of the nature of the offences suspected, had asked questions at random, and made a lofty report conclusive of their innocence.

The joke spread as far as Saint Germain. They walked about the Grenouillère establishment with mincing steps like queens; and seemed to glory in their fame, rejoicing in the gaze that was fixed on them, so superior to this crowd, to this mob, to these plebeians.

Madeleine and her lover watched them approach, and the girl’s eyes lit up.

When the first two had reached the end of the table, Madeleine cried:

“Pauline!”

The large woman turned and stopped, continuing all the time to hold the arm of her feminine cabin-boy:

“Good gracious, Madeleine! Do come and talk to me, my dear.”

Paul squeezed his fingers upon his mistress’s wrist, but she said to him, with such an air: “You know, my dear, you can clear out, if you like,” that he said nothing and remained alone.

Then they chatted in low voices, all three of them standing. Many pleasant jests passed their lips, they spoke quickly; and Pauline now and then looked at Paul, by stealth, with a shrewd and malicious smile.

At last, unable to put up with it any longer, he suddenly rose and in a single bound was at their side, trembling in every limb. He seized Madeleine by the shoulders.

“Come, I wish it,” said he; “I have forbidden you to speak to these sluts.”

Whereupon Pauline raised her voice and set to work blackguarding him with her Billingsgate vocabulary. All the bystanders laughed; they drew near him; they raised themselves on tiptoe in order the better to see him. He remained dumb under this downpour of filthy abuse. It appeared to him that the words which came from that mouth and fell upon him defiled him like dirt, and, in presence of the row which was beginning, he fell back, retraced his steps, and rested his elbows on the railing toward the river, turning his back upon the victorious women.

There he stayed watching the water, and sometimes with rapid gesture, as though he could pluck it out, he removed with his nervous fingers the tear which stood in his eye.

The fact was that he was hopelessly in love, without knowing why, notwithstanding his refined instincts, in spite of his reason, in spite, indeed, of his will. He had fallen into this love as one falls into a muddy hole. Of a tender and delicate disposition, he had dreamed of liaisons, exquisite, ideal, and impassioned, and there that little bit of a woman, stupid like all prostitutes, with an exasperating stupidity, not even pretty, but thin and a spitfire, had taken him prisoner, possessing him from head to foot, body and soul. He had submitted to this feminine witchery, mysterious and all powerful, this unknown power, this prodigious domination⁠—arising no one knows whence, but from the demon of the flesh⁠—which casts the most sensible man at the feet of some harlot or other without there being anything in her to explain her fatal and sovereign power.

And there at his back he felt that some infamous thing was brewing. Shouts of laughter cut him to the heart. What should he do? He knew well, but he could not do it.

He steadily watched an angler upon the bank opposite him, and his motionless line.

Suddenly, the worthy man jerked a little silver fish, which wriggled at the end of his line, out of the river. Then he endeavoured to extract his hook, pulled and turned it, but in vain. At last, losing patience, he commenced to tear it out, and all the bleeding gullet of the fish, with a portion of its intestines came out. Paul shuddered, rent to his heartstrings. It seemed to him that the hook was his love, and that if he should pluck it out, all that he had in his breast would come out in the same way at the end of a curved iron, fixed in the depths of his being, to which Madeleine held the line.

A hand was placed upon his shoulder; he started and turned; his mistress was at his side. They did not speak to each other; and like him she rested her elbows upon the railing, and fixed her eyes upon the river.

He tried to speak to her and could find nothing. He could not even disentangle his own emotions; all that he was sensible of was joy at feeling her there close to him, come back again, as well as shameful cowardice, a craving to pardon everything, to allow everything, provided she never left him.

At last, after a few minutes, he asked her in a very gentle voice:

“Would you like to go? It will be nicer in the boat.”

She answered: “Yes, darling.”

And he assisted her into the skiff, pressing her hands, all softened, with some tears still in his eyes. Then she looked at him with a smile and they kissed each other again.

They reascended the river very slowly, skirting the willow-bordered, grass-covered bank, bathed and still in the afternoon warmth. When they had returned to the Restaurant Grillon, it was barely six o’clock. Then leaving their boat they set off on foot towards Bezons, across the fields and along the high poplars which bordered the river. The long grass ready to be mowed was full of flowers. The sinking sun glowed from beneath a sheet of red light, and in the tempered heat of the closing day the floating exhalations from the grass, mingled with the damp scents from the river, filled the air with a soft languor, with a happy light, with an atmosphere of blessing.

A soft weakness overtook his heart, a species of communion with this splendid calm of evening, with this vague and mysterious throb of teeming life, with the keen and melancholy poetry which seems to arise from flowers and things, and reveals itself to the senses at this sweet and pensive time.

Paul felt all that; but for her part she did not understand anything of it. They walked side by side; and, suddenly, tired of being silent, she sang. She sang in her shrill, unmusical voice some street song, some catchy air, which jarred upon the profound and serene harmony of the evening.

Then he looked at her and felt an impassable abyss between them. She beat the grass with her parasol, her head slightly inclined, admiring her feet and singing, dwelling on the notes, attempting trills, and venturing on shakes. Her smooth little brow, of which he was so fond, was at that time absolutely empty! empty! There was nothing therein but this canary music; and the ideas which formed there by chance were like this music. She did not understand anything of him; they were now as separated as if they did not live together. Did his kisses never go any farther than her lips?

Then she raised her eyes to him and laughed again. He was moved to the quick and, extending his arms in a paroxysm of love, he embraced her passionately.

As he was rumpling her dress she finally broke away from him, murmuring by way of compensation as she did so:

“That’s enough. You know I love you, my darling.”

But he clasped her around the waist and, seized by madness, he started to run with her. He kissed her on the cheek, on the temple, on the neck, all the while dancing with joy. They threw themselves down panting at the edge of a thicket, lit up by the rays of the setting sun, and before they had recovered breath they were in one another’s arms without her understanding his transport.

They returned, holding each other by the hand, when, suddenly, through the trees, they perceived on the river the skiff manned by the four women. Fat Pauline also saw them, for she drew herself up and blew kisses to Madeleine. And then she cried:

“Until tonight!”

Madeleine replied: “Until tonight!”

Paul felt as if his heart had suddenly been frozen.

They reentered the house for dinner and installed themselves in one of the arbours, close to the water. They began to eat in silence. When night arrived, the waiter brought a candle enclosed in a glass globe, which gave a feeble and glimmering light; and they heard every moment the bursts of shouting from the boatmen in the large room on the first floor.

Toward dessert, Paul, taking Madeleine’s hand, tenderly said to her:

“I feel very tired, my darling; unless you have any objection, we will go to bed early.”

She, however, understood the ruse, and shot an enigmatical glance at him⁠—that glance of treachery which so readily appears in the depths of a woman’s eyes. Having reflected she answered:

“You can go to bed if you wish, but I have promised to go to the ball at La Grenouillère.”

He smiled in a piteous manner, one of those smiles with which one veils the most horrible suffering, and replied in a coaxing but agonized tone:

“If you were really nice, we should remain here, both of us.”

She indicated no with her head, without opening her mouth.

He insisted:

“I beg of you, my darling.”

Then she roughly broke out:

“You know what I said to you. If you are not satisfied, the door is open. No one wishes to keep you. As for myself, I have promised; I shall go.”

He placed his two elbows upon the table, covered his face with his hands, and remained there pondering sorrowfully.

The boat people came down again, shouting as usual, and set off in their vessels for the ball at La Grenouillère.

Madeleine said to Paul:

“If you are not coming, say so, and I will ask one of these gentlemen to take me.”

Paul rose:

“Let us go!” murmured he.

And they left.

The night was black, the sky full of stars, but the air was heat-laden by oppressive breaths of wind, burdened with emanations, and with living germs, which destroyed the freshness of the night. It offered a heated caress, made one breathe more quickly, gasp a little, so thick and heavy did it seem. The boats started on their way, bearing Venetian lanterns at the prow. It was not possible to distinguish the craft, but only the little coloured lights, swift and dancing up and down like frenzied glowworms, while voices sounded from all sides in the shadows. The young people’s skiff glided gently along. Now and then, when a fast boat passed near them, they could, for a moment, see the white back of the rower, lit up by his lantern.

When they turned the elbow of the river, La Grenouillère appeared to them in the distance. The establishment en fête, was decorated with flags and garlands of coloured lights, in grape-like clusters. On the Seine some great barges moved about slowly, representing domes, pyramids, and elaborate monuments in fires of all colours. Illuminated festoons hung right down to the water, and sometimes a red or blue lantern, at the end of an immense invisible fishing-rod, seemed like a great swinging star.

All this illumination spread a light around the café, lit up the great trees on the bank, from top to bottom, the trunks standing out in pale gray and the leaves in milky green upon the deep black of the fields and the heavens. The orchestra, composed of five suburban artists, flung far its public-house dance-music, poor of its kind and jerky, inciting Madeleine to sing anew.

She wanted to go in at once. Paul wanted first to take a stroll on the island, but he was obliged to give way. The attendance was now more select. The boatmen, almost alone, remained, with here and there some better class people, and young men escorted by girls. The director and organiser of this spree, looking majestic in a jaded black suit, walked about in every direction, bald-headed and worn by his old trade of purveyor of cheap public amusements.

Fat Pauline and her companions were not there; and Paul breathed again.

They danced; couples opposite each other capered in the maddest fashion, throwing their legs in the air, until they were upon a level with the noses of their partners.

The women, whose thighs seemed disjointed, pranced around with flying skirts which revealed their underclothing, wriggling their stomachs and hips, causing their breasts to shake, and spreading the powerful odour of perspiring female bodies.

The men squatted like toads, some making obscene gestures; some twisted and distorted themselves, grimacing and hideous; some turned cartwheels on their hands, or, perhaps, trying to be funny, posed with exaggerated gracefulness.

A fat servant-maid and two waiters served refreshments.

The café boat being only covered with a roof and having no wall whatever to shut it in, this harebrained dance flaunted in the face of the peaceful night and of the firmament powdered with stars.

Suddenly, Mont-Valérien, opposite, appeared, illumined, as if some conflagration had arisen behind it. The radiance spread and deepened upon the sky, describing a large luminous circle of white, wan light. Then something or other red appeared, grew greater, shining with a burning crimson, like that of hot metal upon the anvil. It gradually developed into a round body rising from the earth; and the moon, freeing herself from the horizon, rose slowly into space. As she ascended, the purple tint faded and became yellow, a shining bright yellow, and the satellite grew smaller in proportion as her distance increased.

Paul watched the moon for some time, lost in contemplation, forgetting his mistress; when he returned to himself the latter had vanished.

He sought her, but could not find her. He threw his anxious eye over table after table, going to and fro unceasingly, inquiring for her from one person and then another. No one had seen her. He was tormented with uneasiness, when one of the waiters said to him:

“You are looking for Madame Madeleine, are you not? She left a few moments ago, with Madame Pauline.” And at the same instant, Paul perceived the cabin-boy and the two pretty girls standing at the other end of the café, all three holding each other’s waists and lying in wait for him, whispering to one another. He understood, and, like a madman, dashed off into the island.

He first ran toward Chatou, but having reached the plain, retraced his steps. Then he began to search the dense coppices, occasionally roaming about distractedly, or halting to listen.

The toads all about him poured out their short metallic notes.

From the direction of Bougival, some unknown bird warbled a song which reached him faintly from the distance.

Over the broad fields the moon shed a soft light, resembling powdered wool; it penetrated the foliage, silvered the bark of the poplars, and riddled with its brilliant rays the waving tops of the great trees. The entrancing poetry of this summer night had, in spite of himself, entered into Paul, athwart his infatuated anguish, stirring his heart with ferocious irony, and increasing even to madness his craving for an ideal tenderness, for passionate outpourings on the breast of an adored and faithful woman. He was compelled to stop, choked by hurried and rending sobs.

The convulsion over, he went on.

Suddenly, he received what resembled the stab of a dagger. There, behind that bush, some people were kissing. He ran thither; and found an amorous couple whose faces were united in an endless kiss.

He dared not call, knowing well that She would not respond, and he had a frightful dread of coming upon them suddenly.

The flourishes of the quadrilles, with the earsplitting solos of the cornet, the false shriek of the flute, the shrill squeaking of the violin, irritated his feelings, and increased his suffering. Wild and limping music was floating under the trees, now feeble, now stronger, wafted hither and thither by the breeze.

Suddenly he thought that possibly She had returned. Yes, she had returned! Why not? He had stupidly lost his head, without cause, carried away by his fears, by the inordinate suspicions which had for some time overwhelmed him. Seized by one of those singular calms which will sometimes occur in cases of the greatest despair, he returned toward the ballroom.

With a single glance of the eye, he took in the whole room. He made the round of the tables, and abruptly again found himself face to face with the three women. He must have had a doleful and queer expression of countenance, for all three burst into laughter.

He made off, returned to the island, and threw himself into the coppice panting. He listened again, listened a long time, for his ears were singing. At last, however, he believed he heard farther off a little, sharp laugh, which he recognised at once; and he advanced very quietly, on his knees, removing the branches from his path, his heart beating so rapidly, that he could no longer breathe.

Two voices murmured some words, the meaning of which he did not understand, and then they were silent.

Then, he was possessed by a frightful longing to fly, to save himself, forever, from this furious passion which threatened his existence. He was about to return to Chatou and take the train, resolved never to come back again, never again to see her. But her likeness suddenly rushed in upon him, and he mentally pictured the moment in the morning when she would awake in their warm bed, and would press coaxingly against him, throwing her arms around his neck, her hair dishevelled, and a little entangled on the forehead, her eyes still shut and her lips apart ready to receive the first kiss. The sudden recollection of this morning caress filled him with frantic recollections and the maddest desire.

The couple began to speak again; and he approached, stooping low. Then a faint cry rose from under the branches quite close to him. He advanced again, in spite of himself, irresistibly attracted, without being conscious of anything⁠—and he saw them.

If her companion had only been a man. But that! that! He felt as though he were spellbound by the very infamy of it. And he stood there astounded and overwhelmed, as if he had discovered the mutilated corpse of one dear to him, a crime against nature, a monstrous, disgusting profanation. Then, in an involuntary flash of thought, he remembered the little fish whose entrails he had felt being torn out! But Madeleine murmured: “Pauline!” in the same tone in which she had often called him by name, and he was seized by such a fit of anguish that he turned and fled.

He struck against two trees, fell over a root, set off again, and suddenly found himself near the rapid branch of the river, which was lit up by the moon. The torrent-like current made great eddies where the light played upon it. The high bank dominated the stream like a cliff, leaving a wide obscure zone at its foot where the eddies could be heard swirling in the darkness.

On the other bank, the country seats of Croissy could be plainly seen.

Paul saw all this as though in a dream; he thought of nothing, understood nothing, and all things, even his very existence, appeared vague, far-off, forgotten, and closed.

The river was there. Did he know what he was doing? Did he wish to die? He was mad. He turned, however, toward the island, toward Her, and in the still air of the night, in which the faint and persistent burden of the music was borne up and down, he uttered, in a voice frantic with despair, bitter beyond measure, and superhumanly low, a frightful cry:

“Madeleine!”

His heartrending call shot across the great silence of the sky, and sped over the horizon. Then with a tremendous leap, with the bound of a wild animal, he jumped into the river. The water rushed on, closed over him, and from the place where he had disappeared a series of great circles started, enlarging their brilliant undulations, until they finally reached the other bank. The two women had heard the noise of the plunge. Madeleine drew herself up and exclaimed:

“It is Paul,”⁠—a suspicion having arisen in her soul⁠—“he has drowned himself”; and she rushed toward the bank, where Pauline rejoined her.

A clumsy punt, propelled by two men, turned round and round on the spot. One of the men rowed, the other plunged into the water a great pole and appeared to be looking for something. Pauline cried:

“What are you doing? What is the matter?”

An unknown voice answered:

“It is a man who has just drowned himself.”

The two haggard women, huddling close to each other, followed the manoeuvres of the boat. The music of La Grenouillère continued to sound in the distance, seeming with its cadences to accompany the movements of the sombre fishermen; and the river which now concealed a corpse, whirled round and round, illuminated. The search was prolonged. The horrible suspense made Madeleine shiver all over. At last, after at least half an hour, one of the men announced:

“I have got him.”

And he pulled up his long pole very gently, very gently. Then something large appeared upon the surface. The other boatman left his oars, and by uniting their strength and hauling upon the inert weight, they succeeded in getting it into their boat.

Then they made for land, seeking a place well lighted and low. At the moment they landed, the women also arrived. The moment she saw him, Madeleine fell back with horror. In the moonlight he already appeared green, with his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his clothes full of slime. His fingers, closed and stiff, were hideous. A kind of black and liquid plaster covered his whole body. The face appeared swollen, and from his hair, plastered down by the ooze, there ran a stream of dirty water.

The two men examined him.

“Do you know him?” asked one.

The other, the Croissy ferryman, hesitated:

“Yes, it certainly seems to me that I have seen that head; but you know when a body is in that state one cannot recognize it easily.” And then, suddenly:

“Why, it’s Mr. Paul!”

“Who is Mr. Paul?” inquired his comrade.

The first answered:

“Why, Mr. Paul Baron, the son of the senator, the little chap who was so much in love.”

The other added, philosophically:

“Well, his fun is ended now; it is a pity, all the same, when one is rich!”

Madeleine had fallen on the ground sobbing. Pauline approached the body and asked:

“Is he really quite dead?”

The men shrugged their shoulders.

“Oh! after that length of time, certainly.”

Then one of them asked:

“Was it not at Grillon’s that he lodged?”

“Yes,” answered the other; “we had better take him back there, there will be something to be made out of it.”

They embarked again in their boat and set out, moving off slowly on account of the rapid current. For a long time after they were out of sight of the place where the women remained, the regular splash of the oars in the water could be heard.

Then Pauline took the poor weeping Madeleine in her arms, petted her, embraced her for a long while, and consoled her.

“How can you help it? it is not your fault, is it? It is impossible to prevent men from doing silly things. He did it of his own free will; so much the worse for him, after all!”

And then lifting her up:

“Come, my dear, come and sleep at the house; it is impossible for you to go back to Grillon’s tonight.”

And she embraced her again, saying: “Come, we will cure you.”

Madeleine arose, and weeping all the while but with fainter sobs, laid her head upon Pauline’s shoulder, as though she had found a refuge in a closer and more certain affection, more familiar and more confiding, and she went off slowly.

Madame Tellier’s Establishment

Part I

They used to go there every evening at about eleven o’clock, just as they went to the café. Six or eight of them used to meet there; they were always the same set, not fast men, but respectable citizens, and young men of the town, and they used to drink their Chartreuse, and tease the girls, or else they would talk seriously with Madame, whom everybody respected, and then they used to go home before twelve o’clock. The younger men would sometimes stay the night.

It was a small, homely kind of house, painted yellow, at the corner of a street behind Saint Étienne’s church, and from the windows one could see the docks, full of ships which were being unloaded, the great salt marsh, called “La Retenue,” and behind, the old, gray chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, on the hill.

Madame, who came of a respectable family of peasant proprietors in the department of the Eure, had taken up that profession, just as she would have become a milliner or dressmaker. The prejudice against prostitution, which is so violent and deeply rooted in large towns, does not exist in the country places in Normandy. The peasant says:

“It is a paying business,” and he sends his daughter to keep a harem of fast girls, just as he would send her to keep a girls’ school.

She had inherited the house from an old uncle, to whom it had belonged. Monsieur and Madame, who had formerly been innkeepers near Yvetot, had immediately sold their house, as they thought that the business at Fécamp was more profitable, and they arrived one fine morning to assume the direction of the enterprise, which was declining on account of the absence of the owners. They were good people enough in their way, and soon made themselves liked by their staff and their neighbours.

Monsieur died of apoplexy two years later, for as his new profession kept him in idleness and without any exercise, he had grown excessively stout, and his health had suffered. Since she had been a widow, all the frequenters of the establishment had wanted her; but people said that personally she was quite virtuous, and even the girls in the house could not discover anything against her. She was tall, stout and affable, and her complexion, which had become pale in the dimness of her house, the shutters of which were scarcely ever opened, shone as if it had been varnished. She had a fringe of curly, false hair, which gave her a juvenile look, that contrasted strongly with the ripeness of her figure. She was always smiling and cheerful, and was fond of a joke, but there was a shade of reserve about her, which her new occupation had not quite made her lose. Coarse words always shocked her, and when any young fellow who had been badly brought up called her establishment by its right name, she was angry and disgusted.

In a word, she had a refined mind, and although she treated her women as friends, yet she very frequently used to say that “she and they were not made of the same stuff.”

Sometimes during the week, she would hire a carriage and take some of her girls into the country, where they used to enjoy themselves on the grass by the side of the little river. They were like a lot of girls let out from a school, and used to run races, and play childish games. They had a cold dinner on the grass, and drank cider, and went home at night with a delicious feeling of fatigue, and in the carriage they kissed Madame as their kind mother, who was full of goodness and complaisance.

The house had two entrances. At the corner there was a sort of low café, which sailors and the lower orders frequented at night, and she had two girls whose special duty it was to attend to that part of the business. With the assistance of the waiter, whose name was Frédéric, and who was a short, light-haired, beardless fellow, as strong as a horse, they set the half bottles of wine and the jugs of beer on the shaky marble tables, and then, sitting astride on the customers’ knees, they urged them to drink.

The three other girls (there were only five of them) formed a kind of aristocracy, and were reserved for the company on the first floor, unless they were wanted downstairs, and there was nobody on the first floor. The Jupiter room, where the better classes used to meet, was papered in blue, and embellished with a large drawing representing Leda stretched out under the swan. That room was reached by a winding staircase, which ended at a narrow door opening on to the street, and above it, all night long a little lamp burned, behind wire bars, such as one still sees in some towns, at the foot of some shrine of a saint.

The house, which was old and damp, rather smelled of mildew. At times there was an odour of Eau de cologne in the passages, or a half open door downstairs admitted the noise of the common men sitting and drinking downstairs, to the first floor, much to the disgust of the gentlemen who were there. Madame, who was familiar with those of her customers with whom she was on friendly terms, never left the drawing room, and took much interest in what was going on in the town, and they regularly told her all the news. Her serious conversation was a change from the ceaseless chatter of the three women; it was a rest from the obscene jokes of those stout individuals who every evening indulged in the commonplace debauchery of drinking a glass of liquor in company with prostitutes.

The names of the girls on the first floor were Fernande, Raphaële, and Rosa la Rosse. As the staff was limited, Madame had endeavoured that each member of it should be a pattern, an epitome of the feminine type, so that every customer might find as nearly as possible the realization of his ideal. Fernande represented the handsome blonde; she was very tall, rather fat, and lazy; a country girl, who could not get rid of her freckles, and whose short, light, almost colourless, tow-like hair, which was like combed-out flax, barely covered her head.

Raphaële, who came from Marseilles, a regular seaport streetwalker, played the indispensable part of the handsome Jewess, and was thin, with high cheek bones, which were covered with rouge, and her black hair, which was always covered with pomade, fell in curls on her forehead. Her eyes would have been handsome, if the right one had not had a speck in it. Her Roman nose came down over a square jaw, where two false upper teeth contrasted strangely with the bad colour of the rest.

Rosa la Rosse was a little roll of fat, nearly all stomach, with very short legs, and from morning till night she sang songs, which were alternately indecent or sentimental, in a harsh voice, told silly, interminable tales, and only stopped talking in order to eat, and left off eating in order to talk; she was never still, and was active as a squirrel, in spite of her fat, and of her short legs; and her laugh, which was a torrent of shrill cries, resounded here and there, ceaselessly, in a bedroom, in the attic, in the café, everywhere, and about nothing.

The two women on the ground floor, Louise, who was nicknamed Cocote, and Flora, whom they called Balançoire, because she limped a little, looked like kitchen-maids dressed up for the carnival. The former always dressed as Liberty, with a tri-coloured sash, and the other as a Spanish woman, with a string of copper coins, which jingled at every step she took, in her carroty hair. They were like all other women of the lower orders, neither uglier nor better looking than they usually are. They looked just like servants at an inn, and they were generally called the two Pumps.

A jealous peace, which was, however, very rarely disturbed, reigned among these five women, thanks to Madame’s conciliatory wisdom, and to her constant good humour, and the establishment, which was the only one of the kind in the little town, was very much frequented. Madame had succeeded in giving it such a respectable appearance, she was so amiable and obliging to everybody, her good heart was so well known, that she was treated with a certain amount of consideration. The regular customers went out of their way to be nice to her, and were delighted when she was especially friendly towards them, and when they met during the day, they would say: “Until this evening, you know where,” just as men say: “At the café, after dinner.” In a word, Madame Tellier’s house was somewhere to go to, and they very rarely missed their daily meetings there.

One evening, towards the end of May, the first arrival, Monsieur Poulin, who was a timber merchant, and had been mayor, found the door shut. The little lantern behind the grating was not alight; there was not a sound in the house; everything seemed dead. He knocked, gently at first, but then more loudly, but nobody answered the door. Then he went slowly up the street, and when he got to the market place, he met Monsieur Duvert, the shipbuilder, who was going to the same place, so they went back together, but did not meet with any better success. But suddenly they heard a loud noise close to them, and on going round the house, they saw a number of English and French sailors, who were hammering at the closed shutters of the café with their fists.

The two gentlemen immediately made their escape, for fear of being compromised, but a low Pst stopped them; it was Monsieur Tournevau, the fish curer, who had recognized them, and was trying to attract their attention. They told him what had happened, and he was all the more vexed at it, as he, a married man, and father of a family, only went there on Saturdays, securitatis causa, as he said, alluding to a measure of sanitary policy, which his friend Doctor Borde had advised him to observe. That was his regular evening, and now he should be deprived of it for the whole week.

The three men went as far as the quay together, and on the way they met young Monsieur Philippe, the banker’s son, who frequented the place regularly, and Monsieur Pinipesse, the Collector of Taxes, and they all returned together by the street known as “the Ghetto,” to make a last attempt. But the exasperated sailors were besieging the house, throwing stones at the shutters, and shouting, and the five first-floor customers went away as quickly as possible, and walked aimlessly about the streets.

Presently they met Monsieur Dupuis, the insurance agent, and then Monsieur Vasse, the Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, and they took a long walk, going to the pier first of all, where they sat down in a row on the granite parapet, and watched the waves breaking. The foam on the crest of the waves gleamed a luminous white in the shadows, disappearing almost immediately, and the monotonous noise of the sea breaking on the rocks was prolonged through the darkness along the rocky shore. When the sad promenaders had sat there for some time, Monsieur Tournevau said:

“This is not very amusing!”

“Decidedly not,” Monsieur Pinipesse replied, and they started off again slowly.

After going through the street, which is called Sous-le-Bois, at the foot of the hill, they returned over the wooden bridge which crosses the Retenue, passed close to the railway, and came out again on to the market place, when suddenly a quarrel arose between Monsieur Pinipesse, the Collector of Taxes, and Monsieur Tournevau, about an edible fungus which one of them declared he had found in the neighbourhood.

As they were out of temper already from sheer boredom, they would very probably have come to blows, if the others had not interfered. Monsieur Pinipesse went off furious, and soon another altercation arose between the ex-mayor, Monsieur Poulin, and Monsieur Dupuis, the insurance agent, on the subject of the tax collector’s salary, and the profits which he might make. Insulting remarks were freely passing between them, when a torrent of formidable cries was heard, and the body of sailors, who were tired of waiting so long outside a closed house, came into the square. They were walking arm-in-arm, two and two, and formed a long procession, and were shouting furiously. The landsmen went and hid themselves under a gateway, and the yelling crew disappeared in the direction of the abbey. For a long time they still heard the noise, which diminished like a storm in the distance, and then silence was restored, and Monsieur Poulin and Monsieur Dupuis, who were enraged with each other, went in different directions, without wishing each other goodbye.

The other four set off again, and instinctively went in the direction of Madame Tellier’s establishment, which was still closed, silent, impenetrable. A quiet, but obstinate, drunken man was knocking at the door of the café, and then stopped and called Frédéric, the waiter, in a low voice, but finding that he got no answer, he sat down on the doorstep, and waited the course of events.

The others were just going to retire, when the noisy band of sailors reappeared at the end of the street. The French sailors were shouting the “Marseillaise,” and the Englishmen, “Rule Britannia.” There was a general lurching against the wall, and then the drunken brutes went on their way towards the quay, where a fight broke out between the two nations, in the course of which an Englishman had his arm broken, and a Frenchman his nose split.

The drunken man, who had stopped outside the door, was crying by that time, as drunken men and children cry, when they are vexed, and the others went away. By degrees, calm was restored in the noisy town; here and there, at moments, the distant sound of voices could be heard, and then died away in the distance.

One man, only, was still wandering about, Monsieur Tournevau, the fish curer, who was vexed at having to wait until the next Saturday, and he hoped for something to turn up, he did not know what; but he was exasperated at the police for thus allowing an establishment of such public utility, which they had under their control, to be closed.

He went back to it, examining the walls, and trying to find out the reason, and on the shutter he saw a notice stuck up, so he struck a wax vesta, and read the following in a large, uneven hand: “Closed on account of Confirmation.”

Then he went away, as he saw it was useless to remain, and left the drunken man lying on the pavement fast asleep, outside that inhospitable door.

The next day, all the regular customers, one after the other, found some reason for going through the street with a bundle of papers under their arm, to keep them in countenance, and with a furtive glance they all read that mysterious notice:

Closed on account of Confirmation.

Part II

The fact is, Madame had a brother, who was a carpenter in their native place, Virville in the Department of Eure. When Madame had still kept the inn at Yvetot, she had stood godmother to that brother’s daughter, who had received the name of Constance, Constance Rivet; she herself being a Rivet on her father’s side. The carpenter, who knew that his sister was in a good position, did not lose sight of her, although they did not meet often, for they were both kept at home by their occupations, and lived a long way from each other. But as the girl was twelve years old, and going to be confirmed, he seized that opportunity of coming together, and wrote to his sister that he was counting on her for the ceremony. Their old parents were dead, and as she could not well refuse, she accepted the invitation. Her brother, whose name was Joseph, hoped that by dint of showing his sister attentions, she might be induced to make her will in the girl’s favour, as she had no children of her own.

His sister’s occupation did not trouble his scruples in the least, and besides, nobody knew anything about it in Virville. When they spoke of her, they only said: “Madame Tellier is living at Fécamp,” which might mean that she was living on her own private income. It was quite twenty miles from Fécamp to Virville, and for a peasant, twenty miles on land are more than is crossing the ocean to an educated person. The people at Virville had never been farther than Rouen, and nothing attracted the people from Fécamp to a village of five hundred houses, in the middle of a plain, and situated in another department, and, at any rate, nothing was known about her business.

But the Confirmation was coming on, and Madame was in great embarrassment. She had no under mistress, and did not care to leave her house, even for a day, for all the rivalries between the girls upstairs and those downstairs, would infallibly break out; no doubt Frédéric would get drunk, and when he was in that state he would knock anybody down for a mere word. At last, however, she made up her mind to take them all with her, with the exception of the man, to whom she gave a holiday, until the next day but one.

When she asked her brother, he made no objection, but undertook to put them all up for a night, and so on Saturday morning, the eight o’clock express carried off Madame and her companions in a second-class carriage. As far as Beuzeille, they were alone, and chattered like magpies, but at that station a couple got in. The man, an old peasant, dressed in a blue blouse with a folding collar, wide sleeves, tight at the wrist, and ornamented with white embroidery, wore an old high hat whose long rusty nap seemed to stand on end, held an enormous green umbrella in one hand, and a large basket in the other, from which the heads of three frightened ducks protruded. The woman, who sat stiffly in her rustic finery, had a face like a fowl, and with a nose that was as pointed as a bill. She sat down opposite her husband and did not stir, as she was startled at finding herself in such smart company.

There was certainly an array of striking colours in the carriage. Madame was dressed in blue silk from head to foot, and had on over her dress a dazzling red shawl of imitation French cashmere. Fernande was panting in a Scottish plaid dress, whose bodice, which her companions had laced as tight as they could, had forced up her falling bosom into a double dome, that was continually heaving up and down, and which seemed liquid beneath the material. Raphaële, with a bonnet covered with feathers, so that it looked like a nest full of birds, had on a lilac dress with gold spots on it, and there was something Oriental about it that suited her Jewish face. Rosa la Rosse had on a pink petticoat with large flounces, and looked like a very fat child, an obese dwarf; while the two Pumps looked as if they had cut their dresses out of old, flowered curtains, dating from the Restoration.

As soon as they were no longer alone in the compartment, the ladies put on staid looks, and began to talk of subjects which might give the others a high opinion of them. But at Bolbec a gentleman with light whiskers, wearing a gold chain, and two or three rings, got in, and put several parcels wrapped in oilcloth into the net over his head. He looked inclined for a joke, and a good-natured fellow. He saluted, smiled, and said affably:

“Are you ladies changing to another garrison?”

This question embarrassed them all considerably. Madame, however, quickly recovered her composure, and said sharply, to avenge the honour of her corps:

“I think you might try and be polite!”

He excused himself, and said: “I beg your pardon, I ought to have said nunnery.”

As Madame could not think of a retort, or perhaps as she thought herself justified sufficiently, she gave him a dignified bow, and pinched in her lips.

Then the gentleman, who was sitting between Rosa la Rosse and the old peasant, began to wink knowingly at the ducks, whose heads were sticking out of the basket, and when he felt that he had fixed the attention of his public, he began to tickle them under their bills, and spoke funnily to them, to make the company smile.

“We have left our little pond, quack! quack! to make the acquaintance of the little spit, quack! quack!”

The unfortunate creatures turned their necks away, to avoid his caresses, and made desperate efforts to get out of their wicker prison, and then, suddenly, all at once, uttered the most lamentable quacks of distress. The women exploded with laughter. They leaned forward and pushed each other, so as to see better; they were very much interested in the ducks, and the gentleman redoubled his airs, his wit, and his teasing.

Rosa joined in, and leaning over her neighbour’s legs, she kissed the three animals on the head, and immediately all the girls wanted to kiss them in turn, and the gentleman took them on to his knees, made them jump up and down and pinched them. The two peasants, who were even in greater consternation than their poultry, rolled their eyes as if they were possessed, without venturing to move, and their old wrinkled faces had not a smile nor a movement.

Then the gentleman, who was a commercial traveller, offered the ladies braces by way of a joke, and taking up one of his packages, he opened it. It was a trick, for the parcel contained garters. There were blue silk, pink silk, red silk, violet silk, mauve silk garters, and the buckles were made of two gilt metal Cupids, embracing each other. The girls uttered exclamations of delight and looked at them with that gravity which is natural to a woman when she is hankering after a bargain. They consulted one another by their looks or in a whisper, and replied in the same manner, and Madame was longingly handling a pair of orange garters that were broader and more imposing looking than the rest; really fit for the mistress of such an establishment.

The gentleman waited, for a bright idea had struck him.

“Come, my dears,” he said, “you must try them on.”

There was a storm of exclamations, and they squeezed their petticoats between their legs, as if they thought he was going to ravish them, but he quietly waited his time, and said: “Well, if you will not, I shall pack them up again.”

And he added cunningly: “I offer any pair they like, to those who will try them on.”

But they would not, and sat up very straight, and looked dignified.

But the two Pumps looked so distressed that he renewed the offer to them, and Flora Balançoire especially visibly hesitated. He pressed her: “Come, my dear, a little courage! Just look at that lilac pair; it will suit your dress admirably⁠ ⁠…”

That decided her, and pulling up her dress she showed a thick leg fit for a milkmaid, in a badly-fitting, coarse stocking. The commercial traveller stooped down and fastened the garter below the knee first of all and then above it; and he tickled the girl gently, which made her scream and jump. When he had done, he gave her the lilac pair, and asked: “Who next?”

“I! I!” they all shouted at once, and he began on Rosa la Rosse, who uncovered a shapeless, round thing without any ankle, a regular “sausage of a leg,” as Raphaële used to say.

The commercial traveller complimented Fernande, and grew quite enthusiastic over her powerful columns.

The thin tibias of the handsome Jewess met with less success, and Louise Cocote, by way of a joke, put her petticoats over his head, so that Madame was obliged to interfere to check such unseemly behaviour.

Lastly, Madame herself put out her leg, a handsome, Norman leg, muscular and plump, and in his surprise and pleasure, the commercial traveller gallantly took off his hat to salute that master calf, like a true French cavalier.

The two peasants, who were speechless from surprise, looked aside, out of the corners of their eyes, and they looked so exactly like fowls that the man with the light whiskers, when he sat up, said “cock-a-doodle-do!” under their very noses, and that gave rise to another storm of amusement.

The old people got out at Motteville, with their basket, their ducks, and their umbrella, and they heard the woman say to her husband, as they went away:

“They are bad women, who are off to that cursed place Paris.”

The funny commercial traveller himself got out at Rouen, after behaving so coarsely, that Madame was obliged sharply to put him into his right place, and she added, as a moral: “This will teach us not to talk to the first-comer.”

At Oissel they changed trains, and at a little station farther on, Monsieur Joseph Rivet was waiting for them with a large cart and a number of chairs in it, which was drawn by a white horse.

The carpenter politely kissed all the ladies, and then helped them into his conveyance.

Three of them sat on three chairs at the back, Raphaële, Madame and her brother on the three chairs in front, and Rosa, who had no seat, settled herself as comfortably as she could on tall Fernande’s knees, and then they set off.

But the horse’s jerky trot shook the cart so terribly that the chairs began to dance, throwing the travellers into the air, to the right and to the left, as if they had been dancing puppets, which made them make frightened grimaces, and scream with fear. But this was suddenly cut short by another jolt of the cart.

They clung on to the sides of the vehicle, their bonnets fell on to their backs, their noses on their shoulders, and the white horse went on stretching out his head, and holding out his tail quite straight, a little, hairless rat’s tail, with which he whisked his buttocks from time to time.

Joseph Rivet, with one leg on the shafts and the other bent under him, held out the reins with his elbows very high, and he kept uttering a kind of chuckling sound, which made the horse prick up its ears and go faster.

The green country extended on either side of the road, and here and there the colza in flower presented a waving expanse of yellow, from which there arose a strong, wholesome, sweet and penetrating smell, which the wind carried to some distance. Cornflowers showed their little blue heads among the tall rye, and the women wanted to pick them, but Monsieur Rivet refused to stop. Then sometimes a whole field appeared to be covered with blood, so thickly were the poppies growing, and the cart, which looked as if it were filled with flowers of more brilliant hue, drove on through the fields coloured with wild flowers, and disappeared behind the trees of a farm, only to reappear and to go on again through the yellow or green standing crops, studded with red or blue, a dazzling carload of women, fleeing beneath the sun.

One o’clock struck as they drove up to the carpenter’s door. They were tired out, and pale with hunger, as they had eaten nothing since they left home, and Madame Rivet ran out, and made them alight, one after another, and kissed them as soon as they were on the ground, and she seemed as if she would never tire of kissing her sister-in-law, whom she apparently wanted to monopolize. They had lunch in the workshop, which had been cleared out for the next day’s dinner.

A capital omelette, followed by fried eel, and washed down by good, sharp cider, made them all feel comfortable.

Rivet had taken a glass so that he might drink their health, and his wife cooked, waited on them, brought in the dishes, took them out, and asked all of them in a whisper whether they had everything they wanted. A number of boards standing against the walls, and heaps of shavings that had been swept into the corners, gave out a smell of planed wood, or carpentering, that resinous odour which penetrates the lungs.

They wanted to see the little girl, but she had gone to church, and would not be back until evening, so they all went out for a stroll in the country.

It was a small village, through which the high road passed. Ten or a dozen houses on either side of the single street, were inhabited by the butcher, the grocer, the carpenter, the innkeeper, the shoemaker, and the baker.

The church was at the end of the street, and was surrounded by a small churchyard, and four enormous lime-trees, which stood just outside the porch, shaded it completely. It was built of flint, in no particular style, and had a slated steeple. Beyond it, the open country began again, broken here and there by clumps of trees which hid the homestead.

Although he was in his working clothes, Rivet had given his arm to his sister, out of politeness, and was walking with her majestically. His wife, who was overwhelmed by Raphaële’s gold-spangled dress, was walking between her and Fernande, and fat Rosa was trotting behind with Louise Cocote and Flora Balançoire, who was limping along, quite tired out.

The inhabitants came to their doors, the children left off playing, and a window curtain would be raised, revealing a muslin cap, while an old woman with a crutch, and who was almost blind, crossed herself as if it were a religious procession, and they all looked for a long time after those handsome ladies from the town, who had come so far to be present at the confirmation of Joseph Rivet’s little girl, and the carpenter rose very much in the public estimation.

As they passed the church, they heard some children singing; little shrill voices were singing a hymn, but Madame would not let them go in, for fear of disturbing the little cherubs.

After a walk, during which Joseph Rivet enumerated the principal landed proprietors, spoke about the yield of the land, and productiveness of the cows and sheep, he took his herd of women home and installed them in his house, and as it was very small, they had put them into the rooms, two by two.

Just for once, Rivet would sleep in the workshop on the shavings; his wife was going to share her bed with her sister-in-law, and Fernande and Raphaële were to sleep together in the next room. Louise and Flora were put into the kitchen, where they had a mattress on the floor, and Rosa had a little dark cupboard at the top of the stairs to herself, close to the loft, where the candidate for confirmation was to sleep.

When the girl came in, she was overwhelmed with kisses; all the women wished to caress her, with that need of tender expansion, that professional habit of wheedling, which had made them kiss the ducks in the railway carriage.

They all took her on to their laps, stroked her soft, light hair, and pressed her in their arms with vehement and spontaneous outbursts of affection, and the child, who was very good and religious, bore it all patiently.

As the day had been a fatiguing one for everybody, they all went to bed soon after dinner. The whole village was wrapped in that perfect stillness of the country, which is almost like a religious silence, and the girls, who were accustomed to the noisy evenings of their establishment, felt rather impressed by the perfect repose of the sleeping village, and they shivered, not with cold, but with those little shivers of solitude which come over uneasy and troubled hearts.

As soon as they were in bed, two and two together, they clasped each other in their arms, as if to protect themselves against this feeling of the calm and profound slumber of the earth. But Rosa la Rosse, who was alone in her little dark cupboard, and was not accustomed to sleep alone, felt a vague and painful emotion come over her.

She was tossing about in bed, unable to get to sleep, when she heard the faint sobs of a crying child close to her head through the partition. She was frightened, and called out, and was answered by a weak voice, broken by sobs. It was the little girl, who was always used to sleeping in her mother’s room, and who was frightened in her small attic.

Rosa was delighted, got up softly so as not to awaken anyone, and went and fetched the child. She took her into her warm bed, kissed her and pressed her to her bosom, cossetted her, lavished exaggerated manifestations of tenderness on her, and at last grew calmer herself and went to sleep. And till morning, the candidate for confirmation slept with her head on the prostitute’s naked bosom.

At five o’clock, the little church bell ringing the Angelus, woke the women up, who usually slept the whole morning long, their only rest after the fatigues of the night. The peasants were up already, and the women went busily from house to house, talking animatedly, carefully bringing short, starched, muslin dresses in bandboxes, or very long wax tapers, with a bow of silk fringed with gold in the middle, and with dents in the wax for the fingers.

The sun was already high in the blue sky, which still had a rosy tint towards the horizon, like a faint trace of dawn remaining. Families of fowls were walking about outside the houses, and here and there a black cock, with a glistening breast, raised his head, which was crowned by his red comb, flapped his wings, and uttered his shrill crow, which the other cocks repeated.

Vehicles of all sorts came from neighbouring parishes, and discharged tall, Norman women, in dark dresses, with neckerchiefs crossed over the bosom, which were fastened with silver brooches, a hundred years old. The men had put on their blouses over their new frock-coats, or over their old dress-coats of green cloth, the two tails of which hung down below their blouses. When the horses were in the stable, there was a double line of rustic conveyances along the road; carts, cabriolets, tilburies, charabancs, traps of every shape and age, resting on their shafts, or else with them in the air.

The carpenter’s house was as busy as a beehive. The ladies, in dressing-jackets and petticoats, with their hanging down, thin, short hair, which looked as if it were faded and worn by use, were busy dressing the child, who was standing motionless on a table, while Madame Tellier was directing the movements of her flying column. They washed her, did her hair, dressed her, and with the help of a number of pins, they arranged the folds of her dress, and took in the waist, which was too large, and made her look as elegant as possible. Then, when she was ready, she was told to sit down and not to move, and the crowd of excited women hurried off to get ready themselves.

The bell of the little church began to ring again, and its poor tinkle was lost in the air, like a feeble voice which is soon drowned in space. The candidates came out of the houses, and went towards the parochial building which contained the two schools and the town hall and stood quiet at one end of the village, while the “House of God” was situated at the other.

The parents, in their very best clothes, followed their children, with awkward looks, and those clumsy movements of bodies always bent at work. The little girls disappeared in a cloud of muslin, which looked like whipped cream, while the lads, who looked like embryo waiters, and whose heads shone with pomade, walked with their legs apart, so as not to get any dust or dirt on their black trousers.

It was something for the family to be proud of, when a large number of relations, who had come from a distance, surrounded the child, and, consequently, the carpenter’s triumph was complete. Madame Tellier’s regiment, with its mistress at its head, followed Constance; her father gave his arm to his sister, her mother walked by the side of Raphaële, Fernande, with Rosa and the two Pumps together, and thus they walked majestically through the village, like a general’s staff in full uniform, while the effect on the village was startling.

At the school, the girls arranged themselves under the Sister of Mercy, and the boys under the schoolmaster, a handsome man, who looked well, and they started off, singing a hymn as they went. The boys led the way, in two files, between the two rows of unyoked vehicles, and the girls followed in the same order; and as all the people in the village had given the town ladies the precedence out of politeness, they came immediately behind the girls, and lengthened the double line of the procession still more, three on the right and three on the left, while their dresses were as striking as the set piece in a firework display.

When they went into the church, the congregation grew quite excited. They pressed against each other, they turned round, they jostled one another in order to see, and some of the devout ones spoke almost aloud, as they were so astonished at the sight of those ladies whose dresses were more trimmed than the chasubles of the choirboys.

The Mayor offered them his pew, the first one on the right, close to the choir, and Madame Tellier sat there with her sister-in-law, Fernande and Raphaële, Rosa la Rosse, and the two Pumps occupied the second seat, in company with the carpenter.

The choir was full of kneeling children, the girls on one side, and the boys on the other, and the long wax tapers which they held looked like lances, pointing in all directions, and three men were standing in front of the lectern, singing as loud as they could. They prolonged the syllables of the sonorous Latin indefinitely, holding on to Amens with interminable a‑a’s, while the serpent kept up the monotonous, long drawn out notes, which that long-throated, copper instrument uttered. A child’s shrill voice took up the reply, and from time to time a priest sitting in a stall and wearing a square biretta, got up, muttered something, and sat down again, while the three singers continued, with their eyes fixed on the big book of plainsong lying open before them on the outstretched wings of an eagle, mounted on a pivot.

Then silence ensued. The whole congregation knelt with one movement, and the celebrant appeared, old and venerable, with white hair, bent over the chalice which he carried in his left hand. Two assistants in red robes walked in front of him, and behind appeared a crowd of choristers in heavy clogs, who lined up on both sides of the choir.

A small bell chimed amidst dead silence. The service began. The priest moved slowly back and forth in front of the tabernacle of gold, genuflecting, intoning in a cracked voice, lisping with age, the preliminary prayers. As soon as he stopped all the choristers and the organ burst forth simultaneously, and in the congregation men also sang, not so loudly, more humbly, as befits mere spectators. Suddenly the Kyrie eleison rose to the heavens from every heart and throat. Grains of dust and fragments of mouldering wood actually fell from the ancient arch which was shaken by this explosion of sound. The sun beating on the slates of the roof turned the little church into a furnace. A great emotion, an anxious wait, the imminence of the ineffable mystery, filled the hearts of the children with awe, and touched the breasts of their mothers.

The priest, who had remained seated for some time, walked up again towards the altar and, bareheaded, with his silvery hair, he approached the supernatural act with trembling gestures. He turned towards the faithful and, spreading out his hands, pronounced the words: “Orate, fratres,” “pray, brethren.” They all prayed. The old priest was now uttering in a stammering whisper the mysterious and supreme words; the bell chimed several times in succession; the prostrate crowd called upon God; the children were fainting from boundless anxiety.

It was then that Rosa, with her head in both her hands, suddenly thought of her mother and her village church on her first communion. She almost fancied that that day had returned, when she was so small, and almost hidden in her white dress, and she began to cry.

First of all, she wept silently, and the tears dropped slowly from her eyes, but her emotion increased with her recollections, and she began to sob. She took out her pocket-handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and held it to her mouth, so as not to scream, but it was useless. A sort of rattle escaped her throat, and she was answered by two other profound, heartbreaking sobs; for her two neighbours, Louise and Flora, who were kneeling near her, overcome by similar recollections, were sobbing by her side, amidst a flood of tears, and as tears are contagious, Madame soon in turn found that her eyes were wet, and on turning to her sister-in-law, she saw that all the occupants of her seat were also crying.

The priest was creating the body of Christ. The children were unconscious of everything, prostrated on the tiled floor by burning devotion, and throughout the church, here and there, a wife, a mother, a sister, seized by the strange sympathy of poignant emotion, and agitated by those handsome ladies on their knees, who were shaken by their sobs, was moistening her checked cotton handkerchief, and pressing her beating heart with her left hand.

Just as the sparks from an engine will set fire to dry grass, so the tears of Rosa and of her companions infected the whole congregation in a moment. Men, women, old men, and lads in new blouses were soon all sobbing, and something superhuman seemed to be hovering over their heads; a spirit, the powerful breath of an invisible and all-powerful being.

Then, in the choir a sharp short noise resounded. The Sister of Mercy had given the signal for communion by striking on her prayerbook, and the children, shivering with a divine fever, approached the holy table. A whole row knelt down. The old priest, holding in his hand the pyx of gilt silver, walked in front of them, administering the sacred host, the body of Christ, the salvation of the world. They opened their mouths convulsively, with nervous grimaces, their eyes shut and their faces deathly pale. And the long communion altar cloth, spread out beneath their chins, quivered like running water.

Suddenly a species of madness seemed to pervade the church, the noise of a crowd in a state of frenzy, a tempest of sobs and stifled cries. It passed through them like gusts of wind which bow the trees in a forest, and the priest remained standing, motionless, the host in his hand, paralysed by emotion, saying: “It is God, it is God who is amongst us, manifesting his presence. He is descending upon his kneeling people in reply to my prayers.” He stammered out incoherent prayers, without finding words, prayers of the soul, when it soars towards heaven.

He finished giving communion in such a state of religious exaltation that his legs shook under him, and when he himself had partaken of the blood of the Lord, he plunged into a prayer of ecstatic thanks.

The people behind him gradually grew calmer. The choristers, in all the dignity of their white surplices, went on in somewhat uncertain voices, and the serpent itself seemed hoarse, as if the instrument had been weeping.

Raising his hands the priest then made a sign to them to be silent, and passing between the two lines of communicants plunged in an ecstasy of happiness, he went up to the chancel steps. The congregation sat down amidst the noise of chairs, and they all blew their noses violently. As soon as they saw the priest, there was silence, and he began to speak in low, muffled, hesitating tones: “My dear brethren and sisters, and children, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have just given me the greatest joy of my life. I felt that God was coming down amongst us in response to my call. He came, he was there, present, filling your souls, causing your tears to overflow. I am the oldest priest in the diocese, and today I am the happiest. A miracle has taken place among us, a true, a great, a sublime miracle. While Jesus Christ was entering the bodies of these little children for the first time, the Holy Spirit, the celestial bird, the breath of God descended upon you, possessed you, seized you, and bent you like reeds in the wind.”

Then, in firmer tones, turning towards the two pews where the carpenter’s guests were seated:

“I especially thank you, my dear sisters, who have come from such a distance, and whose presence among us, whose evident faith and ardent piety have set such a salutary example to all. You have edified my parish; your emotion has warmed all hearts; without you, this great day would not, perhaps, have had this really divine character. It is sufficient, at times, that there should be one chosen to keep in the flock, to make the whole flock blessed.”

His voice failed him from emotion. He added: “I pray for grace for you. Amen.” And he returned to the altar to conclude the service.

Then they all left the church as quickly as possible, and the children themselves were restless, as they were tired with such a prolonged tension of the mind. Besides that, they were hungry, and by degrees the parents left without waiting for the last gospel, to see about dinner.

There was a crowd outside, a noisy crowd, a babel of loud voices, where the shrill Norman accent was discernible. The villagers, formed two ranks, and when the children appeared, each family seized its own.

The whole houseful of women caught hold of Constance, surrounded her and kissed her, and Rosa was especially demonstrative. At last she took hold of one hand, while Madame Tellier held the other, and Raphaële and Fernande held up her long muslin petticoat, so that it might not drag in the dust; Louise and Flora brought up the rear with Madame Rivet, and the child, who was very silent and thoughtful, filled with the sense of God whom she had absorbed, set off home, in the midst of this guard of honour.

The dinner was served in the workshop, on long boards supported by trestles, and through the open door they could see all the enjoyment that was going on. Everywhere they were feasting, and through every window were to be seen tables surrounded by people in their Sunday best, and a cheerful noise was heard in every house, while the men were sitting in their shirtsleeves, drinking pure cider, glass after glass, and in the middle of each company two children could be seen, here two boys, there two girls, dining one with the family of the other.

In the carpenter’s house, their gaiety maintained somewhat of an air of reserve, which was the consequence of the emotion of the girls in the morning, and Rivet was the only one who was in a good form, and he was drinking to excess. Madame Tellier was looking at the clock every moment, for, in order not to lose two days following, they ought to take the 3:55 train, which would bring them to Fécamp towards evening.

The carpenter tried very hard to distract her attention, so as to keep his guests until the next day, but he did not succeed, for she never joked when there was business to be done, and as soon as they had had their coffee she ordered her girls to make haste and get ready, and then, turning to her brother, she said:

“You must have the horses put in immediately,” and she herself went to finish her last preparations.

When she came down again, her sister-in-law was waiting to speak to her about the child, and a long conversation took place, in which, however, nothing was settled. The carpenter’s wife finished, and pretended to be very much moved, and Madame Tellier, who was holding the girl on her knees, would not pledge herself to anything definite, but merely gave vague promises⁠ ⁠… she would not forget her, there was plenty of time, and then, they would meet again.

But the conveyance did not come to the door, and the women did not come downstairs. Upstairs, they even heard loud laughter, falls, little screams, and much clapping of hands, and so, while the carpenter’s wife went to the stable to see whether the cart was ready, Madame went upstairs.

Rivet, who was very drunk, and half undressed, was vainly trying to violate Rosa, who was dying with laughter. The two Pumps were holding him by the arms and trying to calm him, as they were shocked at such a scene after that morning’s ceremony; but Raphaële and Fernande were urging him on, writhing and holding their sides with laughter, and they uttered shrill cries at every useless attempt that the drunken fellow made. The man was furious, his face was red, he was all unbuttoned, and he was trying to shake off the two women who were clinging to him, while he was pulling at Rosa’s dress with all his might and muttering: “So you won’t, you hussy?”

But Madame, who was very indignant, went up to her brother, seized him by the shoulders, and threw him out of the room with such violence that he fell against a wall in the passage, and a minute afterwards they heard him pumping water on to his head in the yard, and when he came back with the cart, he was quite calm.

They returned the same way as they had come the day before, and the little white horse started off, with his quick, dancing trot. Under the hot sun, their fun, which had been checked during dinner, broke out again. The girls were now amused at the jolts which the wagon gave, pushed their neighbour’s chairs, and burst out laughing every moment, for they were in the vein for it, after Rivet’s vain attempt.

There was a haze over the country, the roads were glaring, and dazzled their eyes, and the wheels raised up two trails of dust, which followed the cart for a long time along the high road, and presently Fernande, who was fond of music, asked Rosa to sing something, and she boldly struck up the “Gros Curé de Meudon,” but Madame made her stop immediately, as she thought it a song which was very unsuitable for such a day, and she added:

“Sing us something of Béranger’s.” And so, after a moment’s hesitation, she began Béranger’s song, “The Grandmother,” in her worn-out voice:

Ma grand’mère, un soir à sa fête,
De vin pur ayant bu deux doigts,
Nous disait, en branlant la tête:
Que d’amoureux j’eus autrefois!

Combien je regrette
Mon bras si dodu,
Ma jambe bien faite,
Et le temps perdu!

And the girls in chorus, led by Madame, repeated the refrain:

Combien je regrette
Mon bras si dodu,
Ma jambe bien faite,
Et le temps perdu!

“That’s fine!” declared Rivet, carried away by the rhythm, and Rosa went on at once:

Quoi, maman, vous n’étiez pas sage?
—Non, vraiment! et de mes appas,
Seule, à quinze ans, j’appris l’usage,
Car la nuit, je ne dormais pas.

They all shouted the refrain to every verse, while Rivet beat time on the shafts with his foot, and on the horse’s back with the reins, who, as if he himself were carried away by the rhythm, broke into a wild gallop, and threw all the women in a heap, one on the top of the other, on the bottom of the conveyance.

They got up, laughing wildly, and the song went on, shouted at the top of their voices, beneath the burning sky, among the ripening grain, to the rapid gallop of the little horse, who set off every time the refrain was sung, and galloped a hundred yards, to their great delight, while occasionally a stone breaker by the roadside sat up and looked at the wild and shouting female load through his wire spectacles.

When they got out at the station, the carpenter said:

“I am sorry you are going; we might have had some fun together.” But Madame replied very sensibly: “Everything has its right time, and we cannot always be enjoying ourselves.” And then he had a sudden inspiration:

“Look here, I will come and see you at Fécamp next month.” And he gave a knowing look, with a bright and roguish eye.

“Come,” Madame said, “you must be sensible; you may come if you like, but you are not to be up to any of your tricks.”

He did not reply, and as they heard the whistle of the train, he immediately began to kiss them all. When he came to Rosa’s turn, he tried to get to her mouth, which she, however, smiling with her lips closed, turned away from him each time by a rapid movement of her head to one side. He held her in his arms, but he could not attain his object, as his large whip, which he was holding in his hand and waving behind the girl’s back in desperation, interfered with his efforts.

“Passengers for Rouen, take your seats, please!” a guard cried, and they got in. There was a slight whistle, followed by a loud whistle, from the engine, which noisily puffed out its first jet of steam, while the wheels began to turn a little, with a visible effort, and Rivet left the station and went to the gate by the side of the line to get another look at Rosa, and as the carriage full of human merchandise passed him, he began to crack his whip and to jump, while he sang at the top of his voice:

Combien je regrette
Mon bras si dodu,
Ma jambe bien faite,
Et le temps perdu!

And then he watched a white pocket-handkerchief, which somebody was waving, as it disappeared in the distance.

Part III

They slept the peaceful sleep of a quiet conscience, until they got to Rouen, and when they returned to the house, refreshed and rested, Madame could not help saying:

“It was all very well, but I was already longing to get home.”

They hurried over their supper, and then, when they had put on their professional costume, waited for their usual customers, and the little coloured lamp outside the door told the passersby that the flock had returned to the fold, and in a moment the news spread, nobody knew how or by whom. Monsieur Phillippe, the banker’s son, even carried his forgetfulness so far, as to send a special messenger to Monsieur Tournevau, who was confined to the bosom of his family.

The fish-curer used every Sunday to have several cousins to dinner, and they were having coffee, when a man came in with a letter in his hand. Monsieur Tournevau was much excited, he opened the envelope and grew pale; it only contained these words in pencil:

“The cargo of cod has been found; the ship has come into port; good business for you. Come immediately.”

He felt in his pockets, gave the messenger twopence, and suddenly blushing to his ears, he said: “I must go out.” He handed his wife the laconic and mysterious note, rang the bell, and when the servant came in, he asked her to bring him his hat and overcoat immediately. As soon as he was in the street, he began to run, and the way seemed to him to be twice as long as usual, his impatience was so great.

Madame Tellier’s establishment had put on quite a holiday look. On the ground floor, a number of sailors were making a deafening noise, and Louise and Flora drank with one and the other, so as to merit their name of the two Pumps more than ever. They were being called for everywhere at once; already they were not able to cope with business, and the night bid fair to be a very busy one for them.

The circle in the upstairs room was complete by nine o’clock. Monsieur Vasse, the Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, Madame’s usual, but Platonic wooer, was talking to her in a corner, in a low voice, and they were both smiling, as if they were about to come to an understanding. Monsieur Poulin, the ex-mayor, was holding Rosa astride on his knees; and she, with her nose close to his, was running her podgy hands through the old gentleman’s white whiskers. A glimpse of her bare thigh was visible beneath her upraised dress of yellow silk, and was thrown into relief by the background of his dark trousers, while her red stockings were held up by blue garters, the commercial traveller’s present.

Tall Fernande, who was lying on the sofa, had both her feet on Monsieur Pinipesse, the tax-collector’s stomach, and her back on young Monsieur Philippe’s waistcoat; her right arm was round his neck, while she held a cigarette in her left.

Raphaële appeared to be discussing matters with Monsieur Dupuis, the insurance agent, and she finished by saying: “Yes, my dear, I will, this evening.” Then waltzing across the room⁠—“Anything you like this evening,” she cried.

Just then, the door opened suddenly, and Monsieur Tournevau came in, who was greeted with enthusiastic cries of: “Long live Tournevau!” And Raphaële, who was still twirling round, went and threw herself into his arms. He seized her in a vigorous embrace, and without saying a word, lifting her up as if she had been a feather, he went through the room, opened the door at the other end and disappeared with his living burden in the direction of the stairs, amidst great applause.

Rosa, who was exciting the ex-mayor, kissing him every moment, and pulling both his whiskers at the same time in order to keep his head straight, was inspired by this example. “Come, do what he did,” she said. The old boy got up, pulled his waistcoat straight, and followed the girl, fumbling in the pocket where he kept his money.

Fernande and Madame remained with the four men, and Monsieur Philippe exclaimed: “I will pay for some champagne; get three bottles, Madame Tellier.” And Fernande gave him a hug, and whispered to him: “Play us a waltz, will you?” So he rose and sat down at the old piano in the corner, and managed to get a hoarse waltz out of the entrails of the instrument. The tall girl put her arms round the Tax-Collector, Madame fell into the arms of Monsieur Vasse, and the two couples turned round, kissing as they danced. Monsieur Vasse, who had formerly danced in good society, waltzed with such elegance that Madame was quite captivated. She looked at him with a glance which said “Yes,” a more discreet and delicious “Yes” than the spoken word.

Frédéric brought the champagne; the first cork popped, and Monsieur Philippe played the introduction to a quadrille, through which the four dancers walked in society fashion, decorously, with propriety, deportment, bows and curtsies, and then they began to drink. Monsieur Tournevau returned, relieved, contented, radiant. “I do not know,” he said, “what has happened to Raphaële; she is perfect this evening.” A glass was handed to him and he drank it off at a gulp, as he murmured, “By heavens, everything is being done on a luxurious scale!”

Monsieur Philippe at once struck up a lively polka, and Monsieur Tournevau started off with the handsome Jewess, whom he held up in the air, without letting her feet touch the ground. Monsieur Pinipesse and Monsieur Vasse had started off with renewed vigour, and from time to time one or other couple would stop to toss off a long glass of sparkling wine, and the dance was threatening to become never-ending, when Rosa opened the door.

She had a candlestick in her hand, her hair was down, and she was in bedroom slippers and chemise. Her face was flushed and very animated: “I want to dance,” she shouted. “And what about the old gentleman?” Raphaële asked. Rosa burst out laughing: “Him? he’s asleep already. He falls asleep at once.” She caught hold of Monsieur Dupuis, who was sitting on the sofa doing nothing, and the polka was resumed.

But the bottles were empty. “I will pay for one,” Monsieur Tournevau said. “So will I,” Monsieur Vasse declared. “And I will do the same,” Monsieur Dupuis remarked.

They all began to clap their hands, and it soon became a regular ball, and from time to time, Louise and Flora ran upstairs quickly, had a few turns, while their customers downstairs grew impatient, and then they returned regretfully to the café. At midnight they were still dancing. From time to time one of the girls would disappear, and when she was wanted for the dance, it would suddenly be discovered that one of the men was also missing.

“Where have you been?” asked Monsieur Philippe, jocularly, when Monsieur Pinipesse returned with Fernande. “Watching Monsieur Poulin sleep,” replied the Tax-Collector. The joke was a great success, and all the men in turn went upstairs to see Monsieur Poulin sleeping, with one or other of the girls, who on this occasion displayed an unusual amiability.

Madame shut her eyes to what was going on and she had long private talks in corners with Monsieur Vasse, as if to settle the last details of something that had already been settled.

At last, at one o’clock, the two married men, Monsieur Tournevau and Monsieur Pinipesse, declared that they were going home, and wanted to pay. Nothing was charged for except the champagne, and that only cost six francs a bottle, instead of ten, which was the usual price, and when they expressed their surprise at such generosity, Madame, who was beaming, said to them:

“We don’t have a holiday every day.”

An Adventure in Paris

Is there any stronger feeling than curiosity in a woman? Fancy seeing, knowing, touching what one has dreamed about! What would a woman not do for that? Once a woman’s eager curiosity is roused, she will be guilty of any folly, commit any imprudence, venture upon anything, and recoil from nothing. I am speaking of women who are really women, who are endowed with that triple-bottomed disposition, which appears to be reasonable and cool on the surface, but whose three secret compartments are filled as follows: The first, with female uneasiness, which is always in a state of fluttering; the next, with sly tricks which are coloured with an imitation of good faith, with the sophistical and formidable wiles of apparently devout women; and the last, with all those charming, improper acts, with that delightful deceit, exquisite perfidy, and all those wayward qualities which drive lovers who are stupidly credulous to suicide, but delight others.

The woman whose adventure I am about to relate was a little person from the provinces, who had been insipidly respectable till then. Her life, which was apparently so calm, was spent at home, with a busy husband and two children, whom she brought up like an irreproachable woman. But her heart beat with unsatisfied curiosity and unknown longing. She was continually thinking of Paris, and read the fashionable papers eagerly. The accounts of parties, of the dresses and various entertainments, excited her longing; but, above all, she was strangely agitated by those paragraphs which were full of double meaning, by those veils which were half raised by clever phrases, and which gave her a glimpse of culpable and ravishing delights, and from her home in the provinces she saw Paris in an apotheosis of magnificent and corrupt luxury.

During the long nights, when she dreamed, lulled by the regular snores of a husband, sleeping on his back by her side, with a silk handkerchief tied round his head, she saw in her sleep those well-known men whose names appeared regularly on the first page of the newspapers like stars in the dark sky. She pictured to herself their lives⁠—continual excitement, constant debauches, orgies such as they practised in ancient Rome, which were horribly voluptuous, with refinements of sensuality so complicated, that she could not even imagine them.

The boulevards seemed to her to be a kind of abyss of human passions, and there could be no doubt that the houses there concealed mysteries of prodigious love. But she felt that she was growing old, without having known life, except in those regular, horribly monotonous, everyday occupations which constitute the happiness of the home. She was still pretty, for she was well preserved by a tranquil existence, like winter fruit in a closed cupboard; but she was consumed, agitated and upset by her secret desires. She used to ask herself whether she should die without having experienced any of those damning, intoxicating joys, without having plunged once, just once, into that flood of Parisian voluptuousness.

By dint of much perseverance, she paved the way for a journey to Paris, found a pretext, got some relatives to invite her, and as her husband could not go with her, she went alone. As soon as she arrived, she invented a reason for remaining for some days, or rather for some nights, if necessary, as she told him that she had met some friends who lived a little way out town.

And then she set out on a voyage of discovery. She went up and down the boulevards, without seeing anything except roving and licensed vice. She looked into the large cafés, and read the Agony Column of the Figaro, which every morning seemed to her like a tocsin, a summons to love. But nothing put her on the track of those orgies of actors and actresses; nothing revealed to her those temples of debauchery which opened, she imagined, at some magic word, like the cave in the Arabian Nights, or the catacombs in Rome, where the mysteries of a persecuted religion were secretly celebrated.

Her relatives, who were quite middle-class people, could not introduce her to any of those well-known men, of whose names her head was full; and in despair she was thinking of returning, when chance came to her aid. One day, as she was going along the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, she stopped to look into a shop full of those coloured Japanese knickknacks, which attract the eye by their colour. She was looking at the grotesque little ivories, the tall vases of flaming enamel, and the curious bronzes, when she heard the shopkeeper inside dilating, with many bows, on the value of an enormous, potbellied, comical figure⁠—which was quite unique, he said⁠—to a little, bald-headed, grey-bearded man.

Every moment the shopkeeper repeated his customer’s name, which was a celebrated one, in a voice like a trumpet. The other customers, young women and well-dressed gentlemen, gave a swift and furtive but respectful glance at the celebrated writer, who was looking admiringly at the china figure. They were both equally ugly, as ugly as two brothers who had sprung from the same mother.

“To you the price will be a thousand francs, Monsieur Varin, and that is exactly what it cost me. I should ask anybody else fifteen hundred, but I think a great deal of literary and artistic customers, and have special prices for them. They all come to me, Monsieur Varin. Yesterday, Monsieur Busnach bought a large, antique goblet from me, and the other day I sold two candelabra like this (aren’t they beautiful?) to Monsieur Alexandre Dumas. If Monsieur Zola were to see that Japanese figure he would buy it immediately, Monsieur Varin.”

The author hesitated in perplexity, as he wanted to have the figure, but the price was above him, and he thought no more about being stared at than if he had been alone in the desert. She came in trembling, with her eyes fixed shamelessly upon him, and she did not even ask herself whether he were good-looking, elegant, or young. It was Jean Varin himself, Jean Varin. After a long struggle and painful hesitation, he put the figure down on to the table.

“No, it is too expensive,” he said.

The shopkeeper’s eloquence redoubled. “Oh! Monsieur Varin, too expensive? It is worth two thousand francs, if it is worth a sou.”

But the man of letters replied sadly, still looking at the figure with the enameled eyes: “I do not say it is not: but it is too expensive for me.”

And thereupon, she, seized by a kind of mad audacity, came forward and said: “What will you charge me for the figure?”

The shopkeeper, in surprise, replied: “Fifteen hundred francs, Madame.”

“I will take it.”

The writer, who had not even noticed her till that moment, turned round suddenly. He looked at her from head to foot, with half-closed eyes, observantly, and then he took in the details, as a connoisseur. She was charming, suddenly animated by the flame which had hitherto been dormant in her. And then, a woman who gives fifteen hundred francs for a knickknack is not to be met with every day.

But she was overcome by a feeling of delightful delicacy, and turning to him, she said in a trembling voice:

“Excuse me, Monsieur; no doubt I have been rather hasty, as perhaps you had not finally made up your mind.”

He, however, only bowed, and said: “Indeed I had, Madame.”

And she, filled with emotion, continued: “Well, Monsieur, if either today, or at any other time, you change your mind, you can have this Japanese figure. I only bought it because you seemed to like it.”

He was visibly flattered, and smiled. “I should much like to find out how you know who I am?” he said.

Then she told him how she admired him, and became quite eloquent as she quoted his works, and while they were talking, he rested his arms on a table and fixed his bright eyes upon her, trying to make out who and what she really was. But the shopkeeper, who was pleased to have that living puff of his goods, called out, from the other end of the shop: “Just look at this, Monsieur Varin; is it not beautiful?”

And then everyone looked round, and she almost trembled with pleasure at being seen talking so intimately with such a well-known man.

At last, however, intoxicated, as it were, by her feelings, she grew bold, like a general who is about to order an assault.

“Monsieur,” she said, “will you do me a great, a very great pleasure? Allow me to offer you this funny Japanese figure, as a souvenir from a woman who admires you passionately, and whom you have seen for ten minutes.”

He refused. She persisted, but still he resisted her offer, very much amused, and laughing heartily. But that only made her more obstinate, and she said: “Very well, then, I shall take it to your house immediately; where do you live?”

He refused to give her his address, but she got it from the shopkeeper, and when she had paid for her purchase, she ran out to take a cab. The writer went after her, as he did not wish to accept a present from a person whom he did not know. He reached her just as she was jumping into a vehicle, and getting in after her, he almost fell on top of her, as the cab gave a jolt. Then he sat down by her side, feeling very much annoyed.

It was no good for him to argue and to beg her; she showed herself intractable, and when they got to the door, she stated her conditions: “I will undertake not to leave this with you,” she said, “if you will promise to do all I want today.” And the whole affair seemed so funny to him that he agreed.

“What do you generally do at this time?” she asked him; and after hesitating for a few moments, he replied: “I generally go for a walk.”

“Very well, then, we will go to the Bois de Boulogne!” she said, in a resolute voice, and they started.

He was obliged to tell her the names of all the well-known women, pure or impure, with every detail about them⁠—their mode of life, their habits, their homes, and their vices; and when it was getting dusk, she said to him: “What do you do every day at this time?”

“I have some absinthe,” he replied, with a laugh.

“Very well, then, Monsieur,” she went on seriously; “let us go and have some absinthe.”

They went into a large café on the boulevard which he frequented, and where he met some of his colleagues, whom he introduced to her. She was half beside herself with pleasure, and kept saying to herself: “At last! At last!”

But time went on, and she asked: “Is it your dinner time?” To which he replied: “Yes.”

“Then, let us go and have dinner.”

When they left Bignon’s after dinner, she wanted to know what he did in the evening, and looking at her fixedly, he replied: “That depends; sometimes I go to the theatre.”

“Very well, then, let us go to the theatre.”

They went to the Vaudeville with a pass, thanks to him, and, to her great pride, the whole house saw her sitting by his side in the balcony stalls.

When the play was over, he gallantly kissed her hand, and said: “It only remains for me to thank you for this delightful day.”

But she interrupted him: “What do you do at this time, every night?”

“Why⁠—why⁠—I go home.”

She began to laugh, a little tremulous laugh: “Very well, Monsieur, let us go to your rooms.”

They did not say anything more. She shivered occasionally, from head to foot, feeling inclined to stay, and inclined to run away, but with a fixed determination, after all, to see it out to the end. She was so excited that she had to hold on to the bannister as she went upstairs, and he went on ahead of her, with a wax match in his hand.

As soon as they were in the room, she undressed herself quickly, and retired without saying a word, and then she waited for him, cowering against the wall. But she was as simple as it was possible for a provincial lawyer’s wife to be, and he was more exacting than a pasha with three tails, and so they did not at all understand each other.

At last, however, he went to sleep. The night passed, and the silence was only disturbed by the ticktack of the clock, while she, lying motionless, thought of her conjugal nights, and by the light of the Chinese lantern, she looked nearly heartbroken at the little fat man lying on his back, whose round stomach raised up the bedclothes, like a balloon filled with gas. He snored with the noise of a wheezy organ pipe, with prolonged snorts and comic chokings. His few hairs profited by his sleep to stand up in a very strange way, as if they were tired of having been fastened for so long to that pate, whose bareness they were trying to cover. And a thin stream of saliva ran from the corner of his half-opened mouth.

At last daylight appeared through the drawn blinds. She got up and dressed herself without making any noise, and had already half opened the door, when she made the lock creak, and he woke up and rubbed his eyes. He was some moments before he quite came to himself, and then, when he remembered all that had happened, he said:

“What! Are you going already?”

She remained standing, in some confusion, and then said, in a hesitating voice:

“Yes, of course; it is morning.”

Then he sat up, and said: “Look here, I have something to ask you, in my turn.” And as she did not reply, he went on: “You have surprised me most confoundedly since yesterday. Be open, and tell me why you did it all, for upon my word I cannot understand it in the least.”

She went close up to him, blushing like as if she had been a virgin, and said: “I wanted to know⁠—what⁠—what vice⁠—really was, and⁠—well⁠—well, it is not at all funny.”

And she ran out of the room, and downstairs into the street.

A number of sweepers were busy in the streets, brushing the pavements, the roadway, and sweeping everything on one side. With the same regular motion, the motion of mowers in a meadow, they pushed the mud in front of them in a semicircle. She met them in every street, like dancing puppets, walking automatically with a swaying motion, and it seemed to her as if something had been swept out of her; as if her overexcited dreams had been pushed into the gutter, or into the drain. So she went home, out of breath and very cold, and all that she could remember was the sensation of the motion of those brooms sweeping the streets of Paris in the early morning.

When she got into her room, she threw herself on to her bed, and cried.

A Christmas Eve Festival

I do not remember exactly what year it was.

For a whole month I had been hunting with the concentrated, savage joy that one has in a new passion.

I was in Normandy, at the house of a bachelor relative, Jules de Banneville, alone with him, a servant, a valet and a gamekeeper, in his manorial château.

The castle, an old, grey building surrounded with moaning pines and avenues of oak-trees, in which the wind howled, looked as if it had been deserted for centuries. The antique furniture was the only inhabitant of the spacious rooms and halls now closed, in which the people, whose portraits hung in a corridor as windy as avenues, used to receive their noble neighbours in solemn state.

We had taken shelter in the only habitable room, the kitchen, an immense kitchen, whose dim shadows were lit up when fresh wood was thrown into the vast fireplace. Then, every evening, after a cosy sleep in front of the fire, when our wet boots had steamed for some time, and our dogs, lying curled up between our legs, had dreamt of game and barked in their sleep, we used to go up to our room.

It was the only room that had been floored and plastered all over to keep out the mice. But it remained bare, having been simply whitewashed, with guns, whips, and hunting-horns hanging on the walls. And we used to slip into our beds shivering, in the two corners of that glacial chamber.

A mile away in front of the house precipitous cliffs fell down to the sea, and the powerful breath of the ocean day and night, made the great trees bend and sigh, made the roof and the weathercocks creak, and the whole building groan, as the wind entered through its loose slates, its wide chimneys, and its windows that would not shut.

It had been freezing hard that day and evening had come. We were going to sit down to dinner in front of the big fire where a hare and two partridges that smelt good, were roasting.

“It will be awfully cold going to bed tonight,” said my cousin, looking up.

“Yes, but there will be plenty of ducks tomorrow morning,” I replied indifferently.

The servant had set our plates at one end of the table and those of the servants at the other.

“Gentlemen, do you know it is Christmas Eve?” she asked.

We certainly did not; we never looked at the calendar.

“That accounts for the bells ringing all day,” said my companion. “There is midnight service tonight.”

“Yes, sir; but they also rang because old Fournel is dead.”

Fournel was an old shepherd, well known in the country. He was ninety-six years old and had never known a day’s sickness until a month ago, when he had taken cold by falling into a pool on a dark night. The next day he took to his bed, and had been declining ever since.

“If you like,” said my cousin, turning to me, “we will go and see these poor people after dinner.”

He referred to the old man’s family, consisting of his grandson, fifty-eight years old, and the latter’s wife, one year younger. His children had died years ago. They lived in a miserable hut on the right hand side, at the entrance of the village.

Perhaps it was the thought of Christmas in this solitude which put us in the humour for talking. As we sat alone we told each other stories of old Christmas Eves, of adventures on that joyful night, of past good fortunes, and of the surprises of the morning after, when one awoke to find oneself not alone, and made surprising discoveries.

In this fashion dinner was prolonged. We smoked innumerable pipes, and, seized by that cheerfulness of lonely men, that infectious gaiety which suddenly comes upon intimate friends, we talked without ceasing, searching for those memories, those confidences of the heart, which escape in such moments of expansion.

The servant, who had left us a long time, reappeared and said: “I’m going to Mass, sir.”

“So soon!” exclaimed my cousin.

“It is a quarter to twelve.”

“Let us go to church, too,” said Jules. “Midnight service in the country is very interesting.”

I agreed, and we set off, wrapped in our fur-lined hunting coats.

A biting cold stung our faces and made our eyes water. The sharp air cut one’s lungs and dried up one’s throat. The deep, clear, hard sky was teeming with stars which seemed paler in the frost. They did not shine like fire, but like stars of ice, shining icicles. In the distance on the hard, crisp earth we could hear the peasants’ clogs, and the little village bells ringing everywhere in the neighbourhood, throwing out their slender notes into the cold immensity of the night. The countryside was not asleep. Deceived by the noise cocks were crowing, and as we passed the stables we could hear the cattle moving, disturbed by the sounds of life.

As we neared the village Jules remembered the Fournels. “Here is their cabin,” he said; “let us go in.” He knocked repeatedly, but in vain. A neighbour who was going to church told us they had gone to Mass to pray for the old man.

“We shall see them on our way back,” said my cousin.

The waning moon stood on the edge of the horizon, like a sickle in the midst of innumerable seeds of light scattered into space. From every direction the dark countryside was dotted with dancing lights, all moving towards the pointed spire whose bell rang incessantly. In the farm yards planted with trees, in the shadowy fields these lights glimmered close to the ground. They were the lanterns with which the peasants lit the way for their wives, who were dressed in white bonnets and long black cloaks, and were followed by children whose eyes were still heavy with sleep as they walked hand in hand ahead through the night.

Through the open church door the lighted choir was visible. Around the simple nave stood a row of penny candles, and on the floor of a chapel to the left a plump Christ-child was represented in pink wax, lying on real straw, in the midst of pine branches.

The service began. The peasants bowed their heads, the women praying on their knees, and these simple folk, who had got up in the cold night, gazed deeply moved at this rudely painted image. They clasped their hands, impressed as well as frightened by the modest splendour of this puerile picture.

The cold air made the candles flicker. Jules said to me: “Let us leave. It is better outside.” While the prostrate peasants shivered through their devotions we went along the deserted road, and resumed our conversation. We had talked so long that the service was over when we came back to the village. A small ray of light filtered through the Fournels’ door.

“They are watching their dead. Let us go in and see these poor people,” said Jules. “They will be pleased.”

Some embers were dying out in the fireplace. The dark room, coated with dirt, its mouldy rafters brown with age, was filled with a stiffling smell of grilled blood pudding. In the centre of the large table, beneath which a bread bin had been built, taking up the whole length of it, a candle in a twisted iron candlestick sent up its acrid smoke to the ceiling from a mushroom-shaped wick. There the two Fournels were celebrating Christmas Eve alone. With the gloomy, sad, stupid expression of peasants, they were eating in solemn silence. In one dish, placed between them, was a huge piece of black pudding, giving forth a powerful odour. From time to time they cut a piece off, spread it on their bread and munched it slowly. When the man’s glass was empty, the woman would fill it out of an earthen jar containing cider.

They asked us to be seated and to “join them,” but at our refusal they continued to munch. After a few minutes’ silence Jules said:

“Well, Anthime, so your grandfather is dead!”

“Yes, sir, he died this afternoon.”

The woman snuffed the candle in silence and I for the want of something to say, added:

“He was quite old, was he not?”

“Oh, his time was up,” she answered; “he was no earthly use here.”

An invincible desire to see the corpse of this centenarian took possession of me and I asked to see him.

The two peasants suddenly became agitated and exchanged questioning glances. Jules noticed this and insisted. Then the man with a sly, suspicious look, asked:

“What good would it do you?”

“No good,” said Jules; “but why will you not let us see him?”

“I am willing,” said the man, shrugging his shoulders, “but it is kind of inconvenient just now.”

We conjectured all sorts of things. Neither of them stirred. They sat there with eyes lowered, a sullen expression on their faces seeming to say: “Go away.”

“Come, Anthime, take us to his room,” said Jules with authority.

“It’s no use, sir, he isn’t there any more,” said the man sullenly.

“Where is he?” said Jules.

The woman interrupted, saying:

“You see, sir, we had no other place to put him so we put him in the bin until morning.” And having taken the top of the table off, she leaned over with the candle to light up the inside of the huge box, at the bottom of which we saw something grey, a kind of long package, from one end of which emerged a thin face with tousled grey hair, and from the other two bare feet. It was the old man, all shrivelled up, with closed eyes, rolled up in his shepherd’s cloak, and sleeping his last sleep among crusts of bread as ancient as himself.

His grandchildren had used as a table the bin which held his body!

Jules was indignant, and pale with anger, said:

“You scoundrels! Why did you not leave him in his bed?”

The woman burst into tears and speaking rapidly:

“You see, my good gentlemen, it’s just this way. We have but one bed, and being only three we slept together; but since he’s been so sick we slept on the floor. The floor is awful hard and cold these days, my good gentlemen, so when he died this afternoon we said to ourselves: ‘As long as he is dead he doesn’t feel anything and what’s the use of leaving him in bed? We can leave him in the bin until tomorrow, and get our bed back for this cold night.’ We can’t sleep with a dead man, my good gentlemen!⁠—now can we?”

Jules was exasperated and went out banging the door, and I followed him, laughing until my sides ached.

The Cake

We will call her Madame Anserre though it was not her real name.

She was one of those Parisian comets who leave a sort of trail of fire behind them. She wrote poetry and short stories, was sentimental and ravishingly beautiful. Her circle was small and consisted only of exceptional people⁠—those generally known as the kings of this, that, or the other. To be invited to her receptions stamped one as a person of intelligence; let us say that her invitations were appreciated for this reason. Her husband played the part of an obscure satellite: to be married to a star is no easy role. This husband had, however, a brilliant idea, that of creating a State within a State, of possessing some value in himself although only of secondary importance: he received on the same day as his wife did and had his special set who listened to him and appreciated his qualities, paying much more attention to him than they did to his brilliant companion.

He had devoted himself to agriculture, “armchair” agriculture, just as we have “armchair” generals⁠—all those who are born, live, and die in the comfortable surroundings of the War Office⁠—or “armchair” sailors⁠—look at the Admiralty⁠—or “armchair” colonisers, etc., etc. So he had studied agriculture seriously in its relation to the other sciences, with political economy and with the fine arts; we call everything art, even the horrible railway bridges are “works of art.” He had finally reached the stage when he was known as a clever man, he was quoted in the technical reviews, and his wife had succeeded in getting him appointed a member of a Commission at the Ministry of Agriculture.

He was satisfied with this modest glory. On the pretext of economy he invited his friends the same day his wife received hers, so that they all met each other, or rather they did not⁠—they formed two groups. Madame’s group of artists, academicians and Ministers gathered together in a kind of gallery which was furnished and decorated in Empire style. Monsieur generally retired with his “labourers” into a small room used as a smoking-room which Madame Anserre ironically described as the Salon of Agriculture.

The two camps were quite distinct. Monsieur, without any feeling of jealousy, sometimes ventured into the Academy, when cordial greetings were exchanged; but the Academy disdained intercourse with the Salon of Agriculture; it was indeed rare that one of the kings of science, of philosophy, of this, that, or the other mingled with the “labourers.”

These receptions were quite simple: nothing but tea and brioches were handed round. At first Monsieur had asked for two brioches, one for the Academy and one for the “labourers,” but, Madame having quite rightly suggested that that would be a recognition of two different camps, two receptions, two groups, Monsieur did not press the matter, so there was only one brioche, which Madame Anserre distributed first to the Academy, after which it passed into the Salon of Agriculture.

Now the brioche became a subject of strange and unexpected proceedings in the Academy. Madame Anserre never cut it herself. That task always fell to the lot of one or other of the illustrious guests. This particular function, much sought after and considered a special honour, was a privilege that might last for some time or might soon be over: it might last three months, for instance, but scarcely every longer, and it was noticed that the privilege of “cutting the brioche” carried with it other marks of superiority; it was a form of royalty, or, rather, very accentuated viceroyalty. The officiating cutter spoke with no uncertain voice, with a tone of marked command; and all the hostess’s favours were bestowed upon him, all.

These happy beings were described in intimate circles as “the favourites of the brioche,” and every change of favourite caused a sort of revolution in the Academy. The knife was a sceptre, the cake an emblem, and the elect received the congratulations of other members. The brioche was never cut by the “labourers,” Monsieur himself being always excluded, although he ate his share.

The cake was cut in succession by poets, by painters, and by novelists. A great musician measured out the portions for some time, and was succeeded by an Ambassador. Occasionally a guest of minor importance but distinguished and much sought after, one of those who are called, in different epochs, “real gentleman,” “perfect knight,” or “dandy,” and so forth, took his turn to cut the symbolic cake. Each one, during his short reign, showed the greatest consideration towards the lady’s husband, then when came the hour of his dismissal he passed the knife on to another and mingled again with the crowd of followers and admirers of the “beautiful Madame Anserre.”

This lasted a very long time, but comets do not always shine with the same brilliance. Everything in the world grows old, and it gradually looked as if the eagerness of the cutters were growing weaker; they seemed to hesitate when the cake was held out to them; this office once so much coveted became less sought after; it was held a shorter time and was considered with less pride by the holder. Madame Anserre was prodigal of smiles and amiability, but, alas! the cake was no longer willingly cut. Newcomers seemed to decline the honour, and old favourites reappeared one by one like dethroned kings temporarily replaced in power. Then the elected became very scarce indeed, and for a month, marvelous to relate, Monsieur Anserre cut the cake, then he looked as if he were getting tired of it, and one evening Madame Anserre, the beautiful Madame Anserre, was seen cutting it herself. But she seemed bored and the next day she insisted with such vehemence that the chosen guest dared not refuse.

However, the symbol was too well known; the guests stared at each other furtively with scared, anxious faces. To cut the brioche was nothing, but the privileges that accompanied this distinction now filled the chosen ones with terror, so that the minute the cake-dish appeared, the academicians made a rush for the Salon of Agriculture as it to shelter behind the husband, who was always smiling, and when Madame Anserre, in a state of anxiety, showed herself at the door, carrying the knife in one hand and the brioche in the other, they all gathered round her husband as if they were seeking his protection.

Some years passed and no one cut up the cake, but the old habit persisted and she who was still politely called “the beautiful Madame Anserre” looked out each evening for some devotee to take the knife, and each time the same stampede took place: there was a general flight, cleverly arranged and full of combined and skilful manoeuvres to avoid the offer that was rising to her lips.

But, one evening, a boy⁠—ignorant of the ways of the world and quite unsophisticated⁠—was introduced to the house. He knew nothing about the mystery of the brioche; therefore when it appeared and when the rest had all fled, and when Madame Anserre took the cake from the footman, he remained quietly by her side.

She may have thought that he knew all about it; she smiled and said in a voice full of feeling: “Will you be so kind as to cut this brioche, dear Monsieur?”

Flattered at the honour, he replied: “Certainly, Madame, with the greatest pleasure.”

In the distance⁠—in the corners of the gallery, in the open doorway of the Salon of Agriculture⁠—amazed faces were looking at him. Then, when the spectators saw the newcomer cutting the cake, they quickly came forward. An old poet jokingly slapped the neophyte on the shoulder and whispered: “Bravo, young man!”

The others gazed at him with curiosity and even Monsieur appeared surprised. As for the young man, he was astonished at the consideration he met with; above all, he failed to understand the marked attentions, the conspicuous favour, and the speechless gratitude of the mistress of the house.

Nevertheless, he eventually found out, though no one knew at what moment, in what place the revelation came to him, but when he appeared at the next reception he seemed preoccupied and half ashamed, and looked anxiously round the room. When the bell rang for tea and the footman appeared, Madame Anserre, with a smile, took the dish and looked round for her young friend, but he fled so precipitately that no trace of him could be found. Then she went off to look for him and discovered him at the end of the Salon of “labourers” holding her husband’s arm tightly and consulting him in an agonised manner as to the best method of destroying phylloxera.

“My dear Monsieur, will you be so kind as to cut up this brioche?” she said.

He blushed to the roots of his hair, stammered, and completely lost his head. Thereupon Monsieur Anserre took pity on him and, turning to his wife, said:

“My dear, it would be kind of you not to disturb us. We are discussing agriculture. Let Baptiste cut up the cake.”

Since that day no one has ever cut Madame Anserre’s brioche.

The Log

It was a small drawing room, with thick hangings, and with a faint aromatic smell of scent in the air. A large fire was burning in the grate, and one lamp, covered with a shade of old lace, on the corner of the mantelpiece threw a soft light on to the two persons who were talking.

She, the mistress of the house, was an old lady with white hair, one of those adorable old ladies whose unwrinkled skin is as smooth as the finest paper, and is scented, impregnated with perfume, the delicate essences used in the bath for so many years having penetrated through the epidermis. An old lady who, when one kisses her hand, smells of the delicate perfume which greets the nostrils, when a box of Florentine iris powder is opened.

He was a very old friend, who had never married, a constant friend, a companion in the journey of life, but nothing else.

They had not spoken for about a minute, and were both looking at the fire, dreaming of nothing in particular. It was one of those moments of sympathetic silence between people who have no need to be constantly talking in order to be happy together. Suddenly a large log, a stump covered with burning roots, fell out. It fell over the firedogs on to the drawing room floor, scattering great sparks all round. The old lady sprang up with a little scream, as if to run away, but he kicked the log back on to the hearth and trod out the burning sparks with his boots.

When the disaster was repaired, there was a strong smell of burning. Sitting down opposite to his friend, the man looked at her with a smile, and said, as he pointed to the log:

“That accident recalls the reason I never married.”

She looked at him in astonishment, with the inquisitive gaze of women who wish to know everything, eying him as women do who are no longer young, with intense and malicious curiosity. Then she asked:

“How so?”

“Oh! it is a long story,” he replied; “a rather sad and unpleasant story.

“My old friends were often surprised at the coldness which suddenly sprang up between one of my best friends, whose Christian name was Julien, and myself. They could not understand how two such intimate and inseparable friends as we had been could suddenly become almost strangers to one another. This is why we parted company.

“He and I used to live together at one time. We were never apart, and the friendship that united us seemed so strong that nothing could break it.

“One evening when he came home, he told me that he was going to be married, and it gave me a shock just as if he had robbed me or betrayed me. When a man’s friend marries, all is over between them. The jealous affection of a woman, a suspicious, uneasy, and carnal affection, will not tolerate that sturdy and frank attachment, that attachment of the mind and of the heart, and the mutual confidence which exist between two men.

“However great the love may be that unites them, a man and a woman are always strangers in mind and intellect; they remain belligerents, they belong to different races. There must always be a conqueror and a conquered, a master and a slave; now the one, now the other⁠—they are never equal. They press each other’s hands, hands trembling with amorous passion; but they never press them with a long, strong, loyal pressure, a pressure which seems to open hearts and to lay them bare in a burst of sincere, strong, manly affection. Wise men instead of marrying and bringing into the world, as a consolation for their old age, children who will abandon them, ought to seek a good, staunch friend, and grow old with him in that community of ideas which can exist only between two men.

“Well, my friend Julien married. His wife was pretty, charming, a light, curly-haired, plump, bright little woman, who seemed to worship him. At first I went but rarely to their house, as I was afraid of interfering with their affection, and averse to being in their way. But somehow they attracted me to their house; they were constantly inviting me, and seemed very fond of me. Consequently, by degrees I allowed myself to be allured by the charm of life with them. I often dined with them, and frequently, when I returned home at night, thought that I would do as he had done, and get married, as I found my empty house very dull. They seemed very much in love with one another, and were never apart.

“Well, one evening Julien wrote and asked me to go to dinner, and I went.

“ ‘My dear fellow,’ he said, ‘I must go out directly afterwards on business, and I shall not be back until eleven o’clock, but I shall not be later. Can I depend on you to keep Bertha company?’

“The young woman smiled.

“ ‘It was my idea,’ she said, ‘to send for you.’

“I held out my hand to her.

“ ‘You are as nice as ever,’ I said, and I felt a long, friendly pressure of my fingers, but I paid no attention to it. We sat down to dinner, and at eight o’clock Julien went out.

“As soon as he had gone, a kind of strange embarrassment immediately seemed to come over his wife and me. We had never been alone together yet, and in spite of our daily increasing intimacy, this tête-à-tête placed us in a new position. At first I spoke vaguely of those indifferent matters with which one fills up an embarrassing silence, but she did not reply, and remained opposite to me looking down in an undecided manner, as if thinking over some difficult subject. As I was at a loss for more commonplaces, I remained silent. It is surprising how hard it is at times to find anything to say. And then, again, I felt in the air, in my bones, so to speak, something which is impossible for me to express, that mysterious premonition which tells you beforehand of the secret intentions, be they good or evil, of another person with respect to yourself.

“The painful silence lasted some time, and then Bertha said to me:

“ ‘Will you kindly put a log on the fire, for it is going out.’

“So I opened the box where the wood was kept, which was placed just where yours is, took out the largest log, and put it on the top of the others, which were three-parts burned, and then silence reigned in the room again.

“In a few minutes the log was burning so brightly that it scorched our faces, and the young woman raised her eyes to me⁠—eyes that had a strange look to me.

“ ‘It is too hot now,’ she said; ‘let us go and sit on the sofa over there.’

“So we went and sat on the sofa, and then she said suddenly, looking me full in the face:

“ ‘What should you do if a woman were to tell you that she was in love with you?’

“ ‘Upon my word,’ I replied, very much at a loss for an answer, ‘I cannot imagine such a case; but it would very much depend upon the woman.’

“She gave a hard, nervous, vibrating laugh; one of those false laughs which seem as if they would break thin glasses, and then she added: ‘Men are never either audacious or clever.’ And after a moment’s silence, she continued: ‘Have you ever been in love, Monsieur Paul?’ I was obliged to acknowledge that I certainly had been, and she asked me to tell her all about it, whereupon I made up some story or other. She listened to me attentively with frequent signs of approbation or contempt, and then suddenly she said:

“ ‘No, you understand nothing about the subject. It seems to me that real love must unsettle the mind, upset the nerves, and distract the head; that it must⁠—how shall I express it?⁠—be dangerous, even terrible, almost criminal and sacrilegious; that it must be a kind of treason; I mean to say that it is almost bound to break laws, fraternal bonds, sacred obstacles; when love is tranquil, easy, lawful, and without danger, is it really love?’

“I did not know what answer to give her, and this philosophical reflection occurred to me: ‘Oh! female brain, here indeed you show yourself!’

“While speaking, she had assumed a demure, saintly air; and resting on the cushions, she stretched herself out at full length, with her head on my shoulder and her dress pulled up a little, so as to show her red silk stockings, which looked still brighter in the firelight. In a minute or two she continued:

“ ‘I suppose I have frightened you?’ I protested against such a notion, and she leaned against my breast altogether, and without looking at me she said: ‘If I were to tell you that I love you, what would you do?’

“And before I could think of an answer, she had thrown her arms round my neck, had quickly drawn my head down and put her lips to mine.

“My dear friend, I can tell you that I did not feel at all happy! What! deceive Julien?⁠—become the lover of this little, silly, wrongheaded, cunning woman, who was no doubt terribly sensual, and for whom her husband was already not sufficient! To betray him continually, to deceive him, to play at being in love merely because I was attracted by forbidden fruit, danger incurred and friendship betrayed! No, that did not suit me, but what was I to do? To imitate Joseph would be acting a very stupid and, moreover, difficult part, for this woman was maddening in her perfidy, inflamed by audacity, palpitating, and excited. Let the man who has never felt on his lips the warm kiss of a woman who is ready to give herself to him throw the first stone at me!

“Well, a minute more⁠—you understand what I mean? A minute more and⁠—I should have been⁠—no, she would have been⁠—I beg your pardon, he would have been⁠—when a loud noise made us both jump up. The log had fallen into the room, knocking over the fire-irons and the fender, as quick as a hurricane of flame, and was setting fire to the carpet. It came to a stop under an armchair which would certainly have caught fire.

“I jumped up like a madman, and as I was replacing the log on the fire, the door opened hastily, and Julien came in.

“ ‘I have done,’ he said, in evident pleasure. ‘The business was over two hours sooner than I expected!’

“Yes, my dear friend, without that log, I should have been caught in the very act, and you know what the consequences would have been! You may be sure that I took good care never to be caught again in a similar situation; never, never. Soon afterward I saw that Julien was giving me the ‘cold shoulder,’ as they say. His wife was evidently undermining our friendship; by degrees he got rid of me, and we have altogether ceased to meet.

“That is why I have not got married; it ought not to surprise you.”

Words of Love

“Sunday, ⸻

“My dear, big Darling:

“You do not write to me, I never see you, you never come. Have you ceased to love me? But why? What have I done? Pray tell me, my own dear love. I love you so much, so dearly! I should like always to have you near me, to kiss you all day while I call you every tender name that I could think of. I adore you, I adore you, I adore you, my beautiful cock.

“Your affectionate hen.

“Sophie.”

“Monday.

“My Dear Friend:

“You will understand absolutely nothing of what I am going to say to you, but that does not matter, and if my letter happens to be read by another woman, it may be profitable to her.

“Had you been deaf and dumb, I should no doubt have loved you for a very long time, and the cause of what has happened is that you can talk; that is all. As the poet says:

“ ‘Tu n’as jamais été dans tes jours les plus rares
Qu’un banal instrument sous mon archet vainqueur
Et comme un air qui sonne au bois creux des guitares,
J’ai fait chanter mon rêve au vide de ton coeur.’

“In love, you see, dreams are always made to sing, but in order that they may do so, they must not be interrupted, and when one talks between two kisses, one always interrupts that frenzied dream which our souls indulge in, that is, unless one utter sublime phrases; and sublime phrases do not come out of the little heads of pretty girls.

“You do not understand me at all, do you? So much the better; I will go on. You are certainly one of the most charming and adorable women I have ever seen.

“Are there any eyes on earth that contain more dreams than yours, more unknown promises, greater depths of love? I do not think so. And when that mouth of yours, with its two curved lips, smiles and shows your beautiful shining teeth, one is tempted to say that from this ravishing mouth will come ineffable music, something inexpressibly delicate, a sweetness which provokes tears.

“It is then that you calmly call me ‘my big sweetheart.’ And suddenly I can see right inside your head, can see your soul, the little soul of a pretty little woman⁠ ⁠… and that embarrasses me, you know; it embarrasses me very much. I would prefer not to see it.

“You still do not understand, do you? I thought you would not.

“Do you remember the first time you came to see me at my house? You stepped inside quickly in a cloud of perfume of violets from your clothes. We looked at each other, for ever so long, without uttering a word, after which we embraced madly⁠ ⁠… then⁠ ⁠… we did not speak until morning.

“But when we separated, our trembling hands and our eyes said many things, things which cannot be expressed in any language. At least, I thought so; and when you went away, you murmured:

“ ‘We shall meet again soon!’

“That was all you said, and you will never guess what delightful dreams you left me, all that I, as it were, caught a glimpse of, all that I fancied I could guess in your thoughts.

“You see, my poor child, for men who are not stupid, who are rather refined and somewhat superior, love is such a complicated instrument that the merest trifle puts it out of order. You women never perceive the ridiculous side of certain things when you love, and you fail to see the grotesqueness of some expressions.

“Why does a word which sounds quite right in the mouth of a small, dark woman seem quite wrong and funny in the mouth of a fat, light-haired woman? Why are the wheedling ways of the one altogether out of place in the other?

“Why is it that certain caresses which are delightful from the one should be wearisome from the other? Why? Because in everything, and especially in love, perfect harmony⁠—absolute agreement in motion, voice, words, and in demonstrations of tenderness, is necessary in the person who moves, speaks, and manifests affection; harmony is necessary in age, in height, in the colour of the hair, and in the style of beauty.

“If a woman of thirty-five, who has arrived at the age of violent tempestuous passion, were to preserve the slightest traces of the roguish playfulness of her love affairs at twenty, were not to understand that she ought to express herself differently, look at her lover differently and kiss him differently, were not to see that she ought to be a Dido and not a Juliet, she would infallibly disgust nine lovers out of ten, even if they could not account to themselves for their estrangement. Do you understand me? No? I hoped so.

“From the time that you gave rein to your tenderness, it was all over for me, my dear friend. Sometimes we would embrace for five minutes, in one interminable kiss, one of those kisses which make lovers close their eyes, lest part of it should escape through their looks, as if to preserve it entire in the clouded soul which it is ravaging. And then, when our lips separated, you would say to me:

“ ‘That was nice, you dear old duck.’

“At such moments, I could have beaten you; for you gave me successively all the names of animals and vegetables which you doubtless found in La Cuisinière bourgeoise, La Parfait jardinier, and Les Éléments d’histoire naturalle à l’usage des classes inférieures. But even that did not matter.

“The caresses of love are brutal, bestial, and if one comes to think of it, grotesque!

“Musset says:

“ ‘Je me souviens encor de ces spasmes terribles,
De ces baisers muets de ces muscles ardents,
De cet être absorbé, blême et serrant les dents.
S’ils ne sont pas divins, ces moments sont horribles.7

“Oh! My poor child, what joking elf, what perverse sprite could have prompted your words⁠ ⁠… afterwards? I have made a collection of them, but out of love for you, I will not show them to you.

“And sometimes you really said things which were quite inopportune. For instance you managed now and then to let out an exalted I love you! on such singular occasions that I was obliged to restrain a strong desire to laugh. There are times when the words I love you! are so out of place that they become indecorous; let me tell you that.

“But you do not understand me, and many other women also will not understand me, but think me stupid, though that matters very little to me. Hungry men eat like gluttons, but people of refinement are disgusted at it and often feel an invincible dislike for a dish, on account of a mere trifle. It is the same with love, as with cookery.

“What I cannot comprehend for example is that certain women who fully understand the irresistible attraction of fine, embroidered silk stockings, the exquisite charm of shades, the witchery of valuable lace concealed in the depths of their most intimate garments, the exciting savour of hidden luxury, of the flimsiest and most delicate underclothing, and all the subtle delicacies of female elegance, never understand the invincible disgust with which words that are out of place, or foolishly tender, inspire us.

“At times coarse and brutal expressions work wonders, as they excite the senses and make the heart beat, and they are allowable at the hours of combat. Is not that word of Cambronne’s sublime?

“Nothing shocks us that comes at the right time; but then, we must also know how to hold our tongue, and to avoid phrases in the manner of Paul de Kock, at certain moments.

“And I embrace you passionately, on the condition that you say nothing.

“René.”

Marroca

You ask me, my dear friend, to send you my impressions, and an account of my love affairs in this Africa to which I have so long been attracted. You laughed a great deal beforehand at my dusky sweethearts, as you called them, and you could see me returning to France followed by a tall, ebony-coloured woman, with a yellow silk handkerchief round her head, and wearing voluminous bright-coloured clothes.

No doubt the Moorish dames will have their turn, for I have seen several who made me feel very much inclined to fall in love with them. But by way of making a beginning, I came across something better, and very original.

In your last letter to me, you say: “When I know how people love in a country, I know that country well enough to describe it, although I may never have seen it.” Let me tell you, then, that here they love furiously. From the very first moment one feels a sort of trembling ardour, an excitement, a sudden tension of desire, a thrill running down to the very tips of the fingers, which overexcites one’s amorous powers and faculties of physical sensation, from the simple contact of the hands down to that unmentionable need which makes us commit so many follies.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not know whether what you call love of the heart, love of the soul, whether sentimental idealism, Platonic love, in a word, can exist on this earth; I doubt it, myself. But that other love, sensual love, which has something good, a great deal of good in it, is really terrible in this climate. The heat, the burning atmosphere which makes you feverish, the suffocating blasts of wind from the south, waves of fire from the desert which is so near us, that oppressive sirocco which is more destructive and withering than fire, a perpetual conflagration of an entire continent, burned even to its stones by a fierce and devouring sun, inflame the blood, excite the flesh, and make brutes of us.

But to come to my story. I shall not dwell on the beginning of my stay in Algeria. After visiting Bona, Constantine, Biskra, and Setif, I went to Bougie through the defiles of Chabet, by a wonderful road through Kabyle forests, which follows the sea at a height of six hundred feet above it and leads to that wonderful bay of Bougie, which is as beautiful as that of Naples, of Ajaccio, or of Douarnenez, which are the most lovely I know. I except from my comparison that incredible Bay of Oporto, enclosed with red granite, the dwelling place of those fantastic and sanguinary stone giants, called the Calanchas of Piana, on the western coast of Corsica.

Far away in the distance, before one rounds the large inlet where the water is perfectly calm, one sees Bougie. It is built on the steep sides of a high hill covered with trees, and forms a white spot on that green slope; it might almost be taken for the foam of a cascade falling into the sea.

I had no sooner set foot in that small, delightful town, than I knew that I should stay for a long time. In all directions the eye rests on rugged, strangely shaped hilltops, so close together that you can hardly see the open sea, so that the gulf looks like a lake. The milky blue water is wonderfully transparent, and the azure sky, a deep azure, as if it had received two coats of colour, expands its wonderful beauty above it. They seem to be looking at themselves in a glass, a veritable reflection of each other.

Bougie is a town of ruins, and on the quay is such a magnificent ruin that you might imagine you were at the opera. It is the old Saracen Gate, overgrown with ivy, and there are ruins in all directions on the hills round the town, fragments of Roman walls, bits of Saracen monuments, and remains of Arabic buildings.

I had taken a small, Moorish house, in the upper town. You know those dwellings, which have been described so often. They have no windows on the outside; but they are lighted from top to bottom by an inner court. On the first floor, they have a large, cool room, in which one spends the days, and terrace on the roof, on which one spends the nights.

I at once fell in with the custom of all hot countries, that is to say, of taking a siesta after lunch. That is the hottest time in Africa, the time when one can scarcely breathe; when the streets, the fields, and the long, dazzling, white roads are deserted, when everyone is asleep, or at any rate, trying to sleep, attired as scantily as possible.

In my drawing room, which had columns of Arabic architecture, I had placed a large, soft couch, covered with a carpet from Djebel Amour. There, very nearly in the costume of Assan, I sought to rest, but I could not sleep, as I was tortured by continence. There are two forms of torture on this earth which I hope you will never know: the want of water, and the want of women, and I do not know which is the worse. In the desert, men would commit any infamy for the sake of a glass of clean, cold water, and what would one not do in some of the towns of the littoral for a nice fresh, healthy, woman? There is no lack of girls in Africa; on the contrary, they abound, but, to continue my comparison, they are as unwholesome as the muddy water in the pools of Sahara.

Well, one day, when I was feeling more enervated than usual, I was trying in vain to close my eyes. My legs twitched as if they were being pricked, and I tossed about uneasily on my couch. At last, unable to bear it any longer, I got up and went out. It was a terribly hot day, in the middle of July, and the pavement was hot enough to bake bread on. My shirt, which immediately became soaked with perspiration, clung to my body; and all along the horizon there was a slight, white vapour, the burning mist of the sirocco which looked like palpable heat.

I went down to the sea, and circling the port, walked along the shore of the pretty bay where the baths are. The rugged mountain, covered with brushwood, with tall aromatic plants with a powerful perfume, encloses this creek, and all along the water’s edge rise huge brown rocks. There was nobody about, and nothing was stirring; not a sound of bird or of beast was to be heard, the very waves did not lap, and the sea appeared to be asleep in the sun. But in the burning air I thought I heard a noise like the roar of a fire.

Suddenly, behind one of the rocks, which were half covered by the silent water, I heard a slight movement. Turning round, I saw a tall, naked girl, sitting up to her bosom in the water, taking a bath; no doubt she reckoned on being alone at that hot period of the day. Her head was turned toward the sea, and she was moving gently up and down, without seeing me.

Nothing could be more surprising than that picture of a beautiful woman in the water, which was as clear as crystal, under a blaze of light. She was a marvellously beautiful woman, tall, and modelled like a statue. She turned round, uttered a cry, and half swimming, half walking, hid herself altogether behind her rock. I knew she must necessarily come out, so I sat down on the beach and waited. Presently, she just showed her head, which was covered with thick black plaits of hair. She had a rather large mouth, with full lips, large, bold eyes, and her skin, which was tanned by the climate, looked like a piece of old, hard, polished ivory, the lovely skin of a white woman tinted by the Negroes’ sun.

She called out to me: “Go away!” and her full voice, which corresponded to her strong build, had a guttural accent. As I did not move, she added: “It is not right of you to stop there, Monsieur.” Her r’s rolled in her mouth like chariot wheels. I did not move, however, and her head disappeared. Ten minutes passed, and then her hair, then her forehead, and then her eyes reappeared, but slowly and prudently, as if she were playing at hide-and-seek, and were looking to see who was near. This time she was furious, and called out: “You will make me catch a chill, for I shall not come out as long as you are there.” Thereupon, I got up and went away, but not without looking round several times. When she thought I was far enough off, she came out of the water. Bending down and turning her back to me, she disappeared in a cavity of the rock, behind a skirt that was hanging up in front of it.

I went back the next day. She was bathing again, but she had a bathing costume and she began to laugh, and showed her white teeth. A week later we were friends, and in another week we were more than that. Her name was Marroca, and she pronounced it as if there were a dozen r’s in it. She was the daughter of Spanish colonists, and had married a Frenchman, whose name was Pontabèze. He was a civil servant, though I never exactly knew what his functions were. I found out that he was always very busy, and I did not care for anything else.

She then altered her bathing hour, and came to my house every day, to take her siesta there. What a siesta! It could hardly be called resting! She was a splendid girl, of a somewhat animal but superb type. Her eyes were always glowing with passion; her half-open mouth, her sharp teeth, and even her smiles, had something ferociously loving about them; and her curious, long rigid breasts, like pointed pears of flesh, and as supple as though a steel spring controlled them, gave her whole body something of the animal, made her a sort of inferior yet magnificent being, a creature destined for unbridled love, and roused in me the idea of those ancient deities who gave expression to their tenderness on the grass and under the trees.

Never was a woman consumed by such insatiable passion. Her ecstatic ardours, and delirious embraces, in which she clenched her teeth, bit, and quivered convulsively, were followed immediately by lassitude as profound as death. But she would suddenly awake in my arms, eager for further kisses, her bosom swelling with desire.

Her mind, however, was as simple as two and two are four, and a sonorous laugh served her instead of thought.

Instinctively proud of her beauty, she hated the slightest covering, and ran and frisked about my house with daring and unconscious immodesty. When she was at last satiated with love, and worn out by her cries and movements, she used to sleep soundly and peacefully by my side on the couch, while the overwhelming heat brought out minute spots of perspiration on her brown skin and brought out from beneath her arms, thrown backwards under her head, and from all the secret corners of her body, that feminine odour which the male loves.

Sometimes she returned in the evening, when her husband was on duty somewhere, and we used to lie on the terrace, scarcely covered by some fine, gauzy, Oriental fabric. When the full bright moon of the tropics lit up the town and the gulf, with its surrounding frame of hills, we saw on all the other terraces a recumbent army of silent phantoms, who would occasionally get up, change their places, and lie down again, in the languorous warmth of the starry night.

In spite of the brightness of African nights, Marroca would insist upon stripping herself almost naked in the clear rays of the moon; she did not trouble herself much about anybody who might see us, and often, in spite of my fears and entreaties, she uttered long, resounding cries, which made the dogs in the distance howl.

One night, when I was sleeping under the starry sky, she came and kneeled down on my carpet, and putting her lips, which curled slightly, close to my face, she said:

“You must come and sleep at my house.”

I did not understand her, and asked:

“What do you mean?”

“Yes, when my husband has gone away you must come and take his place.”

I could not help laughing, and said: “Why, since you come here?”

And she went on, almost talking into my mouth, sending her hot breath into my throat, and moistening my moustache with her lips:

“I want it as a remembrance.”

Still I did not grasp her meaning. Then she put her arms round my neck and said: “When you are no longer here, I shall think of it and when I kiss my husband I shall fancy it is you.” As she spoke, her r’s rolled their familiar thunder.

I was touched and amused at the same time and replied: “You must be mad. I would much rather stop here.”

As a matter of fact, I have no liking for assignations under the conjugal roof; they are mousetraps, in which the unwary are always caught. But she begged and prayed, and even cried, and at last said: “You shall see how I will love you there.”

And those r’s sounded like the rattle of a drum sounding a charge.

Her wish seemed so strange that I could not explain it to myself; but on thinking it over, I thought I could discern a profound hatred for her husband, the secret vengeance of a woman who takes a pleasure in deceiving him, and who, moreover, wishes to deceive him in his own house, between his own sheets, in his own bed.

“Is your husband very unkind to you?” I asked her. She looked vexed, and said:

“Oh, no, he is very kind.”

“But you are not fond of him?”

She looked at me with astonishment in her large eyes. “Indeed, I am very fond of him, very; but not so fond as I am of you, my darling.”

I could not understand it at all, and while I was trying to get at her meaning, she pressed one of those kisses, whose power she knew so well, on to my lips, and whispered: “But you will come, will come, will you not?”

I resisted, however, and so she got up immediately, and went away; nor did she come back for a week. On the eighth day she came back, stopped gravely on the threshold of my room, and said: “Are you coming to my house tonight? If you refuse, I shall go away.”

Eight days is a very long time, my friend, and in Africa those eight days are as good as a month. “Yes,” I said, and opened my arms, and she threw herself into them.

At night she waited for me in a neighbouring street, and took me to their house, which was very small, and near the harbour. I first of all went through the kitchen, where they had their meals, and then into a very tidy, whitewashed room, with photographs on the walls and paper flowers under a glass case. Marroca seemed beside herself with pleasure, and she jumped about and said: “There, you are at home, now.” And I certainly acted as though I were. I felt rather embarrassed, I admit, and somewhat uneasy.

As I was hesitating, in this strange house, to divest myself of a certain garment, without which a man, when he is taken unawares, looks as awkward as he is ridiculous and incapable of action, she snatched it off, and carried off into another room the cloak of my modesty, along with all my other clothes.

I recovered my courage in the end, and proved it to the best of my ability, with such success that, when two hours had passed, we still had no thoughts of sleep, when suddenly a loud knocking at the door made us start, and a man’s voice called out: “Marroca, it is I.”

She started: “My husband! Here, hide under the bed, quickly.”

I was distractedly looking for my trousers, but she gave me a push, and panted out: “Go on, go on.”

I lay down flat on my stomach, and without a word crept under the bed where I had been so comfortable, while she went into the kitchen. I heard her open a cupboard and then shut it again, and she came back into the room carrying some object which I could not see, but which she quickly put down. Then, as her husband was getting impatient, she said, calmly: “I cannot find the matches.” Suddenly she added: “Oh, here they are; I will come and let you in.”

The man came in, and I could see nothing of him but his feet, which were enormous. If the rest of him was in proportion, he must have been a giant.

I heard kisses, a little pat on her naked flesh, and a laugh, and he said, in a strong Marseilles accent: “I forgot my purse, so I was obliged to come back; you were sound asleep, I suppose.”

He went to the cupboard, and was a long time in finding what he wanted; and as Marroca had thrown herself on to the bed, as if she were tired out, he went up to her, and no doubt tried to caress her, for she flung a volley of angry r’s at him. His feet were so close to me that I felt a stupid, inexplicable longing to catch hold of them, but I restrained myself. When he saw that he could not succeed in his wish, he got angry, and said: “You are not at all nice, tonight. Goodbye, dear.”

I heard another kiss, then the big feet turned, and I saw the nails in the soles of his shoes as he went into the next room, the front door was shut, and I was saved!

I came slowly out of my retreat, feeling rather humiliated and miserable, and while Marroca, who was still undressed, danced a jig round me, shouting with laughter, and clapping her hands, I threw myself heavily into a chair. But I jumped up with a bound, for I had sat down on something cold, and as I was no more dressed than my accomplice was, the contact made me start. I looked round. I had sat down on a small hatchet, used for cutting wood, and as sharp as a knife. How had it got there? I had certainly not seen it when I went in; but Marroca seeing me jump up, nearly choked with laughter, and coughed with both hands on her sides.

I thought her amusement rather out of place; we had risked our lives stupidly, I still felt a cold shiver down my back, and I was rather hurt at her foolish laughter.

“Supposing your husband had seen me?” I said.

“There was no danger of that,” she replied.

“What do you mean? No danger? That is a good joke! If he had stooped down, he would have seen me.”

She did not laugh any more, she only looked at me with her large eyes, which were bright with merriment.

“He would not have stooped.”

“Why?” I persisted. “Just suppose that he had let his hat fall, he would have been sure to pick it up, and then⁠—I was well prepared to defend myself, in this costume!”

She put her two strong, round arms about my neck, and, lowering her voice, as she did when she said “I adorre you,” she whispered:

“Then he would never have got up again.”

I did not understand her, and said: “What do you mean?”

She gave me a cunning wink, and put out her hand towards the chair on which I had sat down, and her outstretched hands, her smile, her half-open lips, her white, sharp, and ferocious teeth, all drew my attention to the little hatchet, the sharp blade of which was glistening. While she put out her hand as if she were going to take it, she put her left arm round me, and drawing me to her, and pressing her thigh against mine, with her right arm she made a motion as if she were cutting off the head of a kneeling man!

This, my friend, is the manner in which people here understand conjugal duties, love, and hospitality!

The Shepherd’s Leap

High cliffs, perpendicular as a wall, skirt the seafront between Dieppe and Havre. In a depression in the cliffs, here and there, one sees a little narrow gulch with steep sides covered with short grass and gorse, which descends from the cultivated tableland toward a shingly beach, where it ends in a depression like the bed of a torrent. Nature made those valleys; the rainstorms created those depressions in which they terminate, wearing away what remained of the cliff, and channeling as far as the sea the bed of the stream.

Sometimes a village lies concealed in these gulches, into which the wind rushes straight from the open sea.

I spent a summer in one of these coast valleys with a peasant, whose house, facing the waves, enabled me to see from my window a huge triangular sweep of blue water framed by the green slopes of the valley, and lighted up in places by white sails passing in the distance in the sunlight.

The road leading towards the sea ran through the further end of the defile, abruptly passed between two chalk cliffs, became a sort of deep gulley before opening on a beautiful carpet of smooth pebbles, rounded and polished by the immemorial caress of the waves.

This steep gorge was called the “Shepherd’s Leap.”

Here is the drama which originated this name.

The story goes that this village was at one time ruled by an austere and violent young priest. He left the seminary filled with hatred toward those who lived according to natural laws, and did not follow the laws of his God. Inflexibly severe on himself, he displayed merciless intolerance toward others. One thing above all stirred him up with rage and disgust⁠—love. If he had lived in cities in the midst of the civilized and the refined, who conceal the brutal dictates of nature behind delicate veils of sentiment and tenderness, if he had heard the confessions of perfumed sinners in some vast cathedral nave, in which their guilt was softened by the grace of their fall and the idealism surrounding material kisses, he would not perhaps have felt those fierce revolts, those inordinate outbursts of anger that took possession of him when he witnessed the vulgar misconduct of some rustic pair in a ditch or in a barn.

He likened them to brutes, these people who knew nothing of love and who simply paired like animals; and he hated them for the coarseness of their souls, for the foul way in which they appeased their instincts, for the repulsive merriment exhibited even by old men when they happened to talk about these unclean pleasures.

Perhaps, too, he was tortured, in spite of himself, by the pangs of appetites which he had refrained from satiating, and secretly troubled by the struggle of his body in its revolt against a spirit despotic and chaste. But everything that had reference to the flesh filled him with indignation, made him furious; and his violent sermons, full of threats and indignant allusions, caused the girls to titter and the young fellows to cast sly glances at them across the church; while the farmers in their blue blouses and their wives in their black mantles, said to each other on their way home from Mass before entering their houses, from the chimney of each of which ascended a thin blue film of smoke:

“He does not joke abont the matter, Mo’sieu’ the Curé!”

On one occasion, and for very slight cause, he flew into such a passion that he lost his reason. He went to see a sick woman. As soon as he reached the farmyard, he saw a crowd of children, those of the house as well and some of their friends, gathered around a dog’s kennel. They were staring curiously at something, standing there motionless, with concentrated, silent attention. The priest walked towards them. It was a dog and her litter of puppies. In front of the kennel five little puppies were swarming around their mother, who was affectionately licking them, and at the moment when the curé stretched forward his head above the heads of the children, a sixth tiny pup was born. All the brats, seized with joy at the sight of it, began to bawl out, clapping their hands: “Here’s another of them! Here’s another of them!”

To them it was a pleasure, a natural pleasure, into which nothing impure entered; they gazed at the birth of the puppies just as they would have looked at apples falling from trees. But the man with the black robe was quivering with indignation, and, losing his head, he lifted up his big blue umbrella and began to beat the youngsters. They retreated at full speed. Then, finding himself left alone with the animal, he proceeded to beat her also. As in her condition she was unable to run way she moaned while she struggled against his attack, and jumping on top of her, he crushed her under his feet, and with a few kicks with his heel finished her off. Then he left the body bleeding in the midst of the newborn animals, whining and helpless and instinctively making efforts to get at the mother’s teats.

He would take long walks, all alone, with a frown on his face. Now, one evening in May, as he was returning from a place some distance away, and going along by the cliff to get back to the village, a fierce shower of rain impeded his progress. He could see no house in sight, only the bare coast on every side riddled by the pelting downpour.

The rough sea dashed against him in masses of foam; and thick black clouds gathering at the horizon redoubled the rain. The wind whistled, blew great guns, battered down the growing crops, and the dripping Abbé; filling his ears with noises, and exciting his heart with its tumult.

He took off his hat, exposing his forehead to the storm, and by degrees approached the descent towards the lowland. But he had such a rattling in his throat that he could not advance farther, and, all of a sudden, he espied near a sheep pasture, a shepherd’s hut, a kind of movable box on wheels that the shepherds can drag in summer from pasture to pasture.

Above a wooden stool, a low door was open, affording a view of the straw inside.

The priest was on the point of entering to take shelter when he saw a loving couple embracing each other in the shadow. Thereupon, he abruptly closed the door and fastened it; then, getting the shafts, he bent his lean back and dragged the hut after him, like a horse. And thus he ran along in his drenched cassock toward the steep incline, the fatal incline, with the young couple he had caught together, who were banging their fists against the door of the hut, believing probably that the whole thing was only the practical joke of a passerby.

When he got to the top of the descent, he let go of the frail structure, which began to roll over the sloping side of the cliff. It then rolled down precipitately, carried along blindly, ever increasing in the speed of its course, leaping, stumbling like an animal, striking the ground with its shafts.

An old beggar, cuddled up in a gap near the cliff, saw it passing, with a rush above his head, and he heard dreadful cries coming from the interior of this wooden box.

Suddenly a wheel fell off from a collision with some stone; and then the hut, falling on one side, began to topple downward like a ball, like a house torn from its foundations, and tumbling down from the top of a mountain; and then, having reached the edge of the last depression it turned over, describing a curve in its fall, and was broken like an egg, at the bottom of the cliff.

The pair of lovers were picked up, bruised, battered, with all their limbs fractured, but still clasped in each other’s arms, but now through terror.

The curé refused to admit their corpses into the church or to pronounce a benediction over their coffins. And on the following Sunday in his sermon he spoke vehemently about the Seventh Commandment, threatening the lovers with an avenging and mysterious arm, and citing the terrible example of the two wretches killed in the midst of their sin.

As he was leaving the church, two gendarmes arrested him.

A coastguard who was in a sentry-box had seen him.

The priest was sentenced to a term of penal servitude.

And the peasant who told me the story added gravely:

“I knew him, Monsieur. He was a rough man, that’s a fact, but he did not like fooling.”

The Bed

On a stifling afternoon during last summer, the large auction rooms seemed asleep, and the auctioneers were knocking down the various lots in a listless manner. In a back room, on the first floor, two or three lots of all silk ecclesiastical vestments were lying in a corner.

They were copes for solemn occasions, and graceful chasubles on which embroidered flowers surrounded symbolic letters on a yellowish ground, which had originally been white. Some secondhand dealers were there, two or three men with dirty beards, and a fat woman with a big stomach, one of those women who deal in secondhand finery and manage illicit love affairs, women who are brokers in old and young human flesh, just as much as they are in new and old clothes.

Presently, a beautiful Louis XV chasuble, as pretty as the dress of a marquise, was put up for sale. It had retained all its colours, and was embroidered with lilies of the valley round the cross, and long blue irises, which came up to the foot of the sacred emblem, and with wreaths of roses in the corners. When I had bought it, I noticed that there was a faint scent about it, as if it were permeated with the remains of incense, or still pervaded by those delicate, sweet scents of bygone years, which we like, the memory of a perfume, the soul of an evaporated essence.

When I got it home, I wished to have a small chair of the same charming period covered with it; and as I was handling it in order to take the necessary measures, I felt some paper beneath my fingers.

When I cut the lining, some letters fell at my feet. They were yellow with age, and the faint ink was the colour of rust; outside the sheets, which were folded in the fashion of long ago, it was addressed in a delicate hand “To Monsieur l’Abbé d’Argence.”

The first three letters merely settled places of meeting, but here is the third:

“My Friend⁠—I am very unwell, ill in fact, and I cannot leave my bed. The rain is beating against my windows, and I lie dreaming comfortably and warmly under my eiderdown coverlet. I have a book of which I am very fond, that seems as if a little of myself were in it. Shall I tell you what it is? No, for you would only scold me. Then, when I have read a little, I think, and will tell you what about.

“They have put behind me pillows which keep me up and I am writing you on the lovely little desk you gave me.

“Having been in bed for three days, I think about my bed, and even in my sleep I meditate on it still. I have come to the conclusion that the bed encircles our whole life; for we are born in it, we live in it and we shall die in it. If, therefore, I had Monsieur de Crébillon’s pen, I should write the history of a bed, and what exciting and terrible, as well as delightful and moving adventures would not such a book contain! What lessons and what subjects for moralising could not one draw from it, for everyone?

“You know my bed, my friend, but you will never guess how many things I have discovered in it within the last three days, and how much more I love it, in consequence. It seems to me to be inhabited, haunted, if I may say so, by a number of people I never thought of, who, nevertheless, have left something of themselves in that couch.

“Ah! I cannot understand people who buy new beds, beds to which no memories or cares are attached. Mine, ours, which is so shabby, and so spacious, must have held many existences in it, from birth to the grave. Think of that, my friend; think of it all; review all those lives, a great part of which was spent between these four posts, surrounded by these hangings embroidered by human figures, which have seen so many things. What have they seen during the three centuries since they were first put up?

“Here is a young woman lying in this bed.

“From time to time she sighs, and then she groans and cries out; her mother is with her, and presently a little creature that makes a noise like a cat mewing, and which is all shriveled and wrinkled, appears. It is a male child to which she has given birth, and the young mother feels happy in spite of her pain; she is nearly suffocated with joy at that first cry, and stretches out her arms, and those around her shed tears of pleasure. For that little morsel of humanity which has come from her means the continuation of the family, the perpetuation of the blood, of the heart, and of the soul of the old people, who are looking on, trembling with excitement.

“And then, here are two lovers, who for the first time are together in that tabernacle of life. They tremble; but transported with delight, they have the delicious sensation of being close together, and by degrees their lips meet. That divine kiss makes them one, that kiss which is the gate of a terrestrial heaven, that kiss which speaks of human delights, which continually promises them, announces them, and precedes them. And their bed is agitated like the tempestuous sea, it bends and murmurs, and itself seems to become animated and joyous, for the maddening mystery of love is being accomplished on it. What is there sweeter, what more perfect in this world than those embraces which make one single being out of two, and which give to both of them at the same moment the same thought, the same expectation, and the same maddening pleasure, a joy which descends upon them like a celestial and devouring fire?

“Do you remember those lines which you read to me last year, from some old poet, I know not whom, perhaps it was gentle Ronsard?

Et quand au lit nous serons
Entrelacés, nous ferons
Les lascifs, selon les guises
Des amants qui librement
Pratiquent folâtrement
Sous les draps cent mignardises.8

I should like to have them embroidered on the top of my bed, where Pyramus and Thisbe are continually looking at me out of their tapestried eyes.

“And think of death, my friend, of all those who have breathed out their last sigh to God in this bed. For it is also the tomb of hopes ended, the door which closes everything, after having been the entrance to the world. What cries, what anguish, what sufferings, what groans; how many arms stretched out toward the past; what appeals to a happiness that has vanished forever; what convulsions, what death-rattles, what gaping lips and distorted eyes, have there not been in this bed from which I am writing to you, during the three centuries that it has sheltered human beings!

“The bed, you must remember, is the symbol of life; I have discovered this within the last three days. There is nothing good except the bed, and are not some of our best moments spent in sleep?

“But then, again, we suffer in bed! it is the refuge of those who are ill and suffering; a place of repose and comfort for worn-out bodies.

“The bed is man himself. Our Lord Jesus proved that he was superhuman by never needing a bed. He was born on straw and died on the Cross, leaving to us weak human creatures our soft bed of repose.

“Many other thoughts have struck me, but I have no time to note them down for you, and then, should I remember them all? Besides that I am so tired that I mean to shake up my pillows, stretch myself out at full length, and sleep a little. But be sure and come to see me at three o’clock tomorrow; perhaps I may be better, and able to prove it to you.

“Goodbye, my friend; here are my hands for you to kiss, and I also offer you my lips.”

Mademoiselle Fifi

Major, Count von Farlsberg, the Prussian commandant, had nearly finished reading his letters, lying back in a huge, tapestry-covered armchair, with his booted feet on the beautiful marble fireplace, where his spurs had made two holes, which grew deeper every day, during the three months that he had been in the château of Uville.

A cup of coffee was smoking on a small, inlaid table, which was stained with liqueurs, burnt by cigars, notched by the penknife of the victorious officer, who occasionally would stop while sharpening a pencil, to cut figures, make a drawing on the charming piece of furniture, just as it took his fancy.

When he had read his letters and run through the German newspapers, which his orderly had brought him, he got up, and after throwing three or four enormous pieces of green wood on to the fire, for these gentlemen were gradually cutting down the park for firewood⁠—he went to the window. The rain was descending in torrents, that Normandy rain, which looked as if it were being poured out by some furious hand, a slanting rain, thick as a curtain, which formed a sort of wall with diagonal stripes, and deluged everything, a regular rain, such as one frequently experiences in the neighbourhood of Rouen, which is the watering-pot of France.

For a long time the officer looked at the sodden lawns and at the swollen Andelle beyond, overflowing its banks; and he was drumming a Rhineland waltz on the windowpanes, with his fingers, when a noise made him turn round; it was his second in command, Baron von Kelweinstein, now holding the rank of captain.

The major was a giant, with broad shoulders, and a long, fair-like beard, that spread fan-shaped on his chest. His whole, tall person suggested the idea of a military peacock, a peacock who was carrying his tail spread out from his chin. He had cold, gentle, blue eyes, and one cheek had been slashed by a sabre in the war with Austria; he was said to be a good sort and a brave officer.

The captain, a short, red-faced man, with a big tight-belted stomach, had his fair hair cropped quite close to his head, and in certain lights he almost looked as if he had been rubbed over with phosphorus. He had lost two front teeth one festive night, though he could not quite remember how, and this made his speech so thick that he could not always be understood, and he had a bald patch on the top of his head, tonsured like a monk, with a fringe of curly, bright, golden hair round the circle of bare skin.

The commandant shook hands with him, and gulped down his cup of coffee (the sixth that morning), while he listened to his subordinate’s report of what had occurred; and then they both went to the window, and declared that things were not very lively. The major, who was a quiet man, with a wife at home, put up with everything; but the captain, a regular rake, a frequenter of low resorts, and very partial to women, was mad at having been shut up for three months in the compulsory chastity of that wretched hole.

There was a knock at the door, and when the commandant said: “Come in,” one of their automatons appeared, and his mere presence announced that lunch was ready. In the dining room, they met three junior officers: a lieutenant, Otto von Grossling, and two second lieutenants, Fritz Scheuneburg, and Marquis von Eyrick, a very short, fair-haired man, who was proud and brutal towards his men, harsh towards the conquered, and as explosive as a rifle.

Since their arrival in France, his comrades had called him nothing but Mademoiselle Fifi. They had given him that nickname on account of his dandified style and small waist, which looked as if he wore stays, of his pale face, on which his budding moustache scarcely showed, and on account of the habit he had acquired of employing the French expression, fi, fi donc, which he pronounced with a slight whistle, when he wished to express his sovereign contempt for persons or things.

The dining room of the château d’Uville was a magnificent long room, whose fine old mirrors, that were cracked by pistol bullets, and whose Flemish tapestry, which was cut to ribbons, and hanging in rags in places, from sword-cuts, told too well what Mademoiselle Fifi’s occupation was during his spare time.

There were three family portraits on the walls: a steel-clad knight, a cardinal, and a judge, who were all smoking long porcelain pipes, which had been inserted into holes in the canvas, while in her ancient, faded-gold frame, a noble dame, very tightly laced, proudly exhibited an enormous moustache, drawn with a piece of charcoal. The officers ate their lunch almost in silence in that mutilated room, which looked dull in the rain, and melancholy under its vanquished appearance, although its old, oak floor had become as solid as the stone floor of a tavern.

When they had finished eating, and were smoking and drinking they began, as usual, to talk about the dull life they were leading. The bottles of brandy and liqueurs passed from hand to hand, and all sat back in their chairs and took repeated sips from their glasses, scarcely removing from their mouths the long, bent stems with egg-shaped china bowls, that were painted in a manner to delight a Hottentot.

As soon as their glasses were empty, they filled them again, with a gesture of resigned weariness, but Mademoiselle Fifi broke his each time, and a soldier immediately gave him another. They were enveloped in a thick cloud of strong tobacco smoke, and they seemed to be sunk in a state of drowsy, stupid intoxication, in that dreary drunkenness of men who have nothing to do. Suddenly, the baron, stirred to revolt, sat up, and said: “By heavens! This cannot go on; we must think of something to do.” And on hearing this, lieutenant Otto and second lieutenant Fritz, who preeminently possessed the grave, heavy German countenance, said: “What, captain?”

He thought for a few moments, and then replied: “What? Well, we must get up a spree, if the commandant will allow us.” “What sort of a spree, captain?” the major asked, taking his pipe out of his mouth. “I will arrange all that, commandant,” the baron said. “I will send old ‘Duty’ to Rouen, to bring out some girls here. I know where they can be found. We will have supper here, as all the materials are at hand, and, at least, we shall have a jolly evening.”

Count von Farlsberg shrugged his shoulders with a smile: “You’re mad, my dear fellow.”

But all the other officers got up, and came crowding round their chief, with entreaties: “Do let him, sir! it is terribly dull here.” Finally the major yielded. “Very well,” he replied, and the baron immediately sent for “Duty.” He was an old noncommissioned officer, who had never been seen to smile, but who carried out all the orders of his superiors to the letter, no matter what they might be. He stood there, with an impassive face, while he received the baron’s instructions, and then went out. Five minutes later a large military wagon, with a hooped tarpaulin cover, galloped off as fast as four horses could take it, under the pouring rain. At once a revivifying thrill seemed to run through their minds; they stopped lounging, their faces brightened, and they began to talk.

Although it was raining as hard as ever, the major declared that it was not so dull, and Lieutenant von Grossling said with conviction, that the sky was clearing up, while Mademoiselle Fifi did not seem to be able to keep still. He got up, and sat down again, and his bright eyes seemed to be looking for something to destroy. Suddenly, looking at the lady with the moustache, the young fellow pulled out his revolver, and said: “You shall not see it.” And without leaving his seat he aimed, and with two successive bullets cut out both the eyes of the portrait.

“Let us make a mine!” he then exclaimed, and the conversation was suddenly interrupted, as if they had found some fresh and powerful subject of interest. The mine was his invention, his method of destruction, and his favorite amusement.

When he left the château, the lawful owner, Count Fernand d’Amoys d’Uville, had not had time to carry away or to hide anything, except the plate, which had been stowed away in a hole made in one of the walls, so that, as he was very rich and had good taste, the large drawing room, which opened into the dining room, had looked like the gallery in a museum, before his precipitate flight.

Expensive oil-paintings, water colours, and drawings hung against the walls, while on the tables, on the hanging shelves, and in elegant cabinets, there were a thousand knickknacks; small vases, statuettes, groups in Dresden china, and grotesque Chinese figures, old ivory, and Venetian glass, which filled the large room with their precious and fantastical array.

Scarcely anything was left now; not that the things had been stolen, for the major would not have allowed that, but Mademoiselle Fifi from time to time “made a mine,” and on those occasions all the officers thoroughly enjoyed themselves for five minutes. The little marquis went into the drawing room to get what he wanted, and he brought back a small, delicate and very valuable Chinese teapot, which he filled with gunpowder, and carefully introduced a piece of tinder into the spout. Then he lighted it, and took this infernal machine into the next room; but he came back immediately, and shut the door. The Germans all stood expectantly, their faces full of childish, smiling curiosity, and as soon as the explosion had shaken the château, they all rushed in at once.

Mademoiselle Fifi, who got in first, clapped his hands in delight at the sight of a terra-cotta Venus, whose head had been blown off at last, and each picked up pieces of porcelain, and wondered at the strange shape of the fragments, examining the latest damage, and disputing as to whether some of the havoc was not due to a previous explosion; while the major was looking with a paternal eye at the large drawing room, which had been wrecked in this Neronic fashion, and was strewn with the fragments of works of art. He went out first, and said, with a smile: “This time it was a great success!”

But there was such a cloud of smoke in the dining room, mingled with the tobacco smoke, that they could not breathe, so the commandant opened the window, and all the officers, who had gone into the room for a glass of cognac, went up to it.

The moist air blew into the room, with a scent of flooded country, and a powdering of rain that sprinkled their beards. They looked at the tall trees, which were dripping with the rain, at the broad valley, which was covered with a mist of dark, low-hanging clouds, and at the church spire in the distance, which rose up like a grey point in the beating rain.

The bells had not rung since their arrival. That was the only resistance which the invaders had met with in the neighbourhood. The parish priest had not refused to take in and to feed the Prussian soldiers; he had several times even drunk a bottle of beer or claret with the hostile commandant, who often employed him as a friendly intermediary; but it was no use to ask him for a single stroke of the bells; he would sooner have allowed himself to be shot. That was his way of protesting against the invasion, a peaceful and silent protest, the only one, he said, which was suitable to a priest, who was a man of peace, not war; and everyone, for ten miles around, praised the Abbé Chantavoine’s firmness and heroism, in venturing to proclaim the public mourning by the obstinate silence of his church bells.

The whole village grew enthusiastic over his resistance, and was ready to back up their pastor and to risk anything, as they looked upon that silent protest as the safeguard of the national honour. It seemed to the peasants that thus they had deserved better of their country than Belfort and Strasbourg, that they had set an equally valuable example, and that the name of their little village would become immortalized by that; but with that exception, they refused their Prussian conquerors nothing.

The commandant and his officers laughed among themselves at that inoffensive courage, and as the people in the whole country round showed themselves obliging and compliant towards them, they willingly tolerated their silent patriotism. Only the little Marquis Wilhelm would have liked to make the bell ring. He was very angry at his superior’s politic compliance with the priest’s scruples, and every day he begged the commandant to allow him to sound “ding-dong, ding-dong,” just once, only just once, just by way of a joke. And he asked it like a wheedling woman, in the tender voice of some mistress who wishes to obtain something, but the commandant would not yield, and to console himself Mademoiselle Fifi used to make a “mine” in the château d’Uville.

The five men stood there together for some minutes, inhaling the moist air, and at last, Lieutenant Fritz said, with a thick laugh: “The ladies will certainly not have fine weather for their drive.” Then they separated, each to his own duties, while the captain had plenty to do in seeing about the dinner.

When they met again, as it was growing dark, they began to laugh at seeing each other as dandified and smart as on the day of a grand review. The commandant’s hair did not look so grey as it was in the morning, and the captain had shaved, and had only kept his moustache on, which made him look as if he had a streak of fire under his nose.

In spite of the rain, they left the window open, and one of them went to listen from time to time, and at a quarter past six the baron said he heard a rumbling in the distance. They all rushed down, and soon the wagon drove up at a gallop with its four horses, which were splashed up to their backs, steaming and panting, and five women got out at the bottom of the steps, five handsome girls whom a comrade of the captain, to whom old “Duty” had taken his card, had selected with care.

They had not required much pressing, as they were sure of being well paid, for they had got to know the Prussians in the three months during which they had had to do with them, and so they resigned themselves to the men as they did the state of affairs. “It is all in the day’s work,” they said as they drove along; no doubt to allay some secret scruples of conscience which remained.

They went into the dining room immediately, which looked still more dismal in its dilapidated state, when it was lighted up; while the table, covered with choice dishes, the beautiful china and glass, and the plate, which had been found in the hole in the wall where its owner had hidden it, gave the look of a bandit’s inn, where they were supping after committing a robbery, to the place. The captain was radiant, and took hold of the women as if he were familiar with them; appraising them, kissing them, sniffing them, appraising their value as ladies of pleasure; and when the three young men wanted to appropriate one each, he opposed them authoritatively, reserving to himself the right to apportion them justly, according to their several ranks, so as not to violate the laws of precedence. Therefore, so as to avoid all discussion, jarring, and suspicion of partiality, he placed them all in a line according to height, and addressing the tallest, he said in a voice of command:

“What is your name?” “Pamela,” she replied, raising her voice. And then he said: “Number one, called Pamela, is adjudged to the commandant.” Then, having kissed Blondine, the second, as a sign of proprietorship, he proffered stout Amanda to Lieutenant Otto, Eva La Tomate, to Second Lieutenant Fritz, and Rachel the shortest of them all, a very young, dark girl, with eyes as black as ink, a Jewess, whose snub nose confirmed the rule which allots hooked noses to all her race, to the youngest officer, frail Count Wilhelm von Eyrick.

They were all pretty and plump, without any distinctive features, and all were very much alike in look and person, from their daily practice of love, and their life in common in brothels.

The three younger men wished to carry off their women immediately, under the pretext of finding them brushes and soap; but the captain wisely opposed this, for he said they were quite fit to sit down to dinner, and that those who went up would wish for a change when they came down, and so would disturb the other couples, and his experience in such matters carried the day. They contented themselves with many kisses, kisses of anticipation.

Suddenly Rachel choked, and began to cough until the tears came into her eyes, while smoke came through her nostrils. Under pretence of kissing her, the count had blown a whiff of tobacco into her mouth. She did not fly into a rage, and did not say a word, but she looked at her possessor with latent hatred in her dark eyes.

They sat down to dinner. The commandant seemed delighted; he made Pamela sit on his right, and Blondine on his left, and said, as he unfolded his table napkin: “That was a delightful idea of yours, Captain.”

Lieutenants Otto and Fritz, who were as polite as if they had been with fashionable ladies, rather intimidated their neighbours, but Baron von Kelweingstein gave rein to all his vicious propensities, beamed, made obscene remarks, and seemed on fire with his crown of red hair. He made gallant phrases in French from the other side of the Rhine, and his pothouse compliments sputtered out through the gap made by his broken teeth, reached the girls amid a volley of saliva.

They did not understand him, however, and their intelligence did not seem to be awakened until he uttered nasty words and broad expressions, which were mangled by his accent. Then they all began to shriek with laughter, falling into the laps of their neighbours and repeating the words, which the baron then began to say all wrong, in order that he might have the pleasure of hearing them say dirty things. They gave him as much of that stuff as he wanted, for they were drunk after the first bottle of wine, and, becoming themselves once more, and opening the door to their usual habits, they kissed the moustaches on the right and left of them, pinched the men’s arms, uttered furious cries, drank out of every glass, and sang French couplets, and bits of German songs, which they had picked up in their daily intercourse with the enemy.

Soon the men themselves, intoxicated by that female flesh which was displayed to their sight and touch, grew very amorous, shouted and broke the plates and dishes, while the soldiers behind them waited on them stolidly. The commandant was the only one who put any restraint upon himself.

Mademoiselle Fifi had taken Rachel on to his knees, and, getting deliberately excited, at one moment kissed the little black curls on her neck, inhaling the pleasant warmth of her body, and all the savour of her person, through the slight space there was between her dress and her skin, and at another he pinched her furiously through her dress, and made her scream, for he was seized by a species of ferocity, and tormented by his desire to hurt. He often held her close to him, as if to make her part of himself, and pressed his lips in a long kiss on the Jewess’s rosy mouth, until she lost her breath; but suddenly he bit her until a stream of blood ran down her chin and on to her bodice.

For the second time, she looked him full in the face, and as she bathed the wound, she said: “You will have to pay for that!” But he merely laughed a hard laugh, and said: “I will pay.”

At dessert, champagne was served, and the commandant rose, and in the same voice in which he would have drunk to the health of the Empress Augusta, he drank: “To our ladies!” And a series of toasts began, toasts worthy of the lowest soldiers and of drunkards, mingled with obscene jokes, which were made still more brutal by their ignorance of the language. They got up, one after another, trying to say something witty, forcing themselves to be funny, and the women, who were so drunk that they almost fell off their chairs, with vacant looks and clammy tongues, applauded madly each time.

The captain, who no doubt wished to impart an appearance of gallantry to the orgy, raised his glass again, and said: “To our victories over hearts!” And thereupon Lieutenant Otto, who as a species of bear from the Black Forest, jumped up, inflamed and saturated with drink, and suddenly seized by an excess of alcoholic patriotism, he cried: “To our victories over France!”

Drunk as they were, the women were silent, and Rachel turned round with a shudder, and said: “Look here, I know some Frenchmen, in whose presence you would not dare to say that.” But the little count, still holding her on his knee, began to laugh, for the wine had made him very merry, and said: “Ha! ha! ha! I have never met any of them, myself. As soon as we show ourselves, they run away!” The girl, who was in a terrible rage, shouted into his face: “You are lying, you dirty scoundrel!”

For a moment, he looked at her steadily with his bright eyes upon her, as he had looked at the portrait before he destroyed it with revolver bullets, and then he began to laugh: “Ah! yes, talk about them, my dear! Should we be here now, if they were brave?” And getting excited, he exclaimed: “We are the masters! France belongs to us!”

She jumped off his knees with a bound, and threw herself into her chair, while he rose, held out his glass over the table, and repeated: “France and the French, the woods, the fields, and the houses of France belong to us!”

The others, who were quite drunk, and who were suddenly seized by military enthusiasm, the enthusiasm of brutes, seized their glasses, and shouting: “Long live Prussia!” they emptied them at a draught.

The girls did not protest, for they were reduced to silence, and were afraid. Even Rachel did not say a word, as she had no reply to make, and then, the little marquis put his champagne glass, which had just been refilled, on to the head of the Jewess, and exclaimed: “All the women in France belong to us, also!”

At that, she got up so quickly that the glass upset and poured the amber-coloured wine on to her black hair as if to baptise her, and broke into a hundred fragments, as it fell on to the floor. With trembling lips, she defied the looks of the officer who was still laughing, and she stammered out, in a voice choked with rage: “That⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠… is not true⁠ ⁠… for you shall certainly not have any French women.”

He sat down again, so as to laugh at his ease, and trying ineffectually to speak with a Parisian accent, he said: “That is good, very good! Then, what did you come here for, my dear?” She was thunderstruck, and made no reply for a moment, for in her agitation she did not understand him at first; but as soon as she grasped his meaning, she said to him indignantly and vehemently: “I! I! I am not a woman; I am only a strumpet, and that is all that Prussians want.”

Almost before she had finished, he slapped her full in the face; but as he was raising his hand again, as if he would strike her, she, almost mad with passion, took up a small dessert knife with a silver blade from the table, and stabbed him in the neck, just above the breast bone. Something that he was going to say was cut short in his throat, and he sat there, with his mouth half open, and a terrible look in his eyes.

All the officers shouted in horror, and leaped up noisily; but throwing her chair between Lieutenant Otto’s legs, who fell down at full length, she ran to the window, opened it before they could seize her, and jumped out into the night and pouring rain.

In two minutes, Mademoiselle Fifi was dead, and Fritz and Otto drew their swords and wanted to kill the women, who threw themselves at their feet and clung to their knees. With some difficulty the major stopped the slaughter, and had the four terrified girls locked up in a room under the care of two soldiers, and then he organised the pursuit of the fugitive, as carefully as if they were about to engage in a skirmish, feeling quite sure that she would be caught. Fifty men, spurred on by threats, were sent to search the park. Two hundred more scoured the woods, and all the houses in the valley.

The table, which had been cleared immediately, now served as a deathbed, and the four officers stood at the windows, rigid and sobered, with the stern faces of soldiers on duty, and tried to pierce through the darkness of the night, amid the steady torrent of rain. Suddenly, a shot was heard, and then another, a long way off; and for four hours they heard from time to time near or distant reports and rallying cries strange words uttered as a call, in guttural voices.

In the morning they all returned. Two soldiers had been killed, and three others wounded by their comrades in the ardour of that chase, and in the confusion of that night pursuit, but they had not caught Rachel.

Then the inhabitants of the district were terrorised, the houses were turned topsy-turvy, the country was scoured and beaten up, over and over again, but the Jewess did not seem to have left a single trace of her passage behind her.

When the general was told of it, he gave orders to hush up the affair, so as not to set a bad example to the army, but he severely censured the commandant, who in turn punished his inferiors. The general had said: “One does not go to war in order to amuse oneself, and to caress prostitutes.” And Count von Farlsberg, in his exasperation, made up his mind to have his revenge on the district, but as he required a pretext for showing severity, he sent for the priest, and ordered him to have the bell tolled at the funeral of the Marquis von Eyrick.

Contrary to all expectation, the priest showed himself humble and most respectful, and when Mademoiselle Fifi’s body left the Château d’Uville on its way to the cemetery, carried by soldiers, preceded, surrounded, and followed by soldiers, who marched with loaded rifles, for the first time, the bell sounded its funereal knell in a lively manner, as if a friendly hand were caressing it. At night it sounded again, and the next day, and every day; it rang as much as anyone could desire. Sometimes even, it would start at night, and sound gently through the darkness, seized by strange joy, awakened, one could not tell why. All the peasants in the neighbourhood declared that it was bewitched, and nobody, except the priest and the sacristan, would now go near the church tower, and they went because a poor girl was living there in grief and solitude, and secretly nourished by those two men.

She remained there until the German troops departed, and then one evening the priest borrowed the baker’s cart, and himself drove his prisoner to Rouen. When they got there, he embraced her, and she quickly went back on foot to the establishment from which she had come, where the proprietress, who thought that she was dead, was very glad to see her.

A short time afterwards, a patriot who had no prejudices, and who liked her because of her bold deed, and who afterwards loved her for herself, married her, and made a lady of her, who was quite as good as many others.

Relics of the Past

My dear Colette⁠—I do not know whether you remember a verse of M. Sainte-Beuve which we have read together, and which has remained fixed in my memory; for me this verse speaks eloquently; and it has very often reassured my poor heart, especially for some time past. Here it is:

“To be born, to live, and die in the same house.”

I am now all alone in this house where I was born, where I have lived, and where I hope to die. It is not gay every day, but it is pleasant; for there I have souvenirs all around me.

My son Henri is a barrister; he comes to see me twice a year. Jeanne is living with her husband at the other end of France, and it is I who go to see her each autumn. So here I am, all, all alone, but surrounded by familiar objects which incessantly speak to me about my own people, the dead, and the living separated from me by distance.

I no longer read much; I am too old for that; but I am constantly thinking, or rather dreaming. I do not dream as I used to do long ago. You may recall to mind any wild fancies, the adventures our brains concocted when we were twenty, and all the horizons of happiness that dawned upon us!

Nothing out of all our dreaming has been realized, or rather it is quite a different thing that has happened, less charming, less poetic, but sufficient for those who know how to accept their lot in this world bravely.

Do you know why we women are so often unhappy? It is because we are taught in our youth to believe too much in happiness! We are never brought up with the idea of fighting, of striving, of suffering. And, at the first shock, our hearts are broken; we look forward, with blind faith, to cascades of fortunate events. What does happen is at best but a partial happiness, and thereupon we burst out sobbing. Happiness, the real happiness that we dream of, I have come to know what that is. It does not consist in the arrival of great bliss, for any great bliss that falls to our share is to be found in the infinite expectation of a succession of joys to which we never attain. Happiness is happy expectation; it is the horizon of hope; it is, therefore, endless illusion; and, old as I am, I create illusions for myself still, in fact, every day I live; only their object is changed, my desires being no longer the same. I have told you that I spend my brightest hours in dreaming. What else should I do?

I have two ways of doing this. I am going to tell you what they are; they may perhaps prove useful to you.

Oh! the first is very simple; it consists in sitting down before my fire in a low armchair made soft for my old bones, and looking back at the things that have been put aside.

One life is so short, especially a life entirely spent in the same spot:

“To be born, to live, and die in the same house.”

The things that bring back the past to our recollection are heaped, pressed together; and, we are old, it sometimes seems no more than ten days since we were young. Yes; everything slips away from us, as if life itself were but a single day: morning, evening, and then comes night⁠—a night without a dawn!

When I gaze into the fire, for hours and hours, the past rises up before me as though it were but yesterday. I no longer think of my present existence; reverie carries me away; once more I pass through all the changes of my life.

And I often am possessed by the illusion that I am a young girl, so many breaths of bygone days are wafted back to me, so many youthful sensations and even impulses, so many throbbings of my young heart⁠—all the passionate ardor of eighteen; and I have clear, as fresh realities, visions of forgotten things. Oh! how vividly, above all, do the memories of my walks as a young girl come back to me! There, in the armchair of mine, before the fire, I saw once more, a few nights since, a sunset on Mont Saint-Michel, and immediately afterwards I was riding on horseback through the forest of Uville with the odors of the damp sand and of the flowers steeped in dew, and the evening star sending its burning reflection through the water and bathing my face in its rays as I galloped through the copse. And all I thought of then, my poetic enthusiasm at the sight of the boundless sea, my keen delight at the rustling of the branches as I passed, my most trivial impressions, every fragment of thought, desire, or feeling, all, all came back to me as if I were there still, as if fifty years had not glided by since then, to chill my blood and moderate my hopes. But my other way of reviving the long ago is much better.

You know, or you do not know, my dear Colette, that we destroy nothing in the house. We have upstairs, under the roof, a large room for cast-off things which we call “the lumber-room.” Everything which is no longer used is thrown there. I often go up there, and gaze around me. Then I find once more a heap of nothings that I had ceased to think about, and that recalled a heap of things to my mind. They are not those beloved articles of furniture which we have known since our childhood and to which are attached recollections of events of joys or sorrows, dates in our history, which, from the fact of being intermingled with our lives, have assumed a kind of personality, a physiognomy, which are the companions of our pleasant or gloomy house, the only companions, alas! that we are sure not to lose, the only ones that will not die, like the others⁠—those whose features, whose loving eyes, whose lips, whose voices, have vanished forever. But I find instead among the medley of worn-out gewgaws those little old insignificant objects which have hung on by our side for forty years without ever having been noticed by us, and which, when we suddenly lay eyes on them again, have somehow the importance, the significance of relics of the past. They produce on my mind the effect of those people⁠—whom we have known for a very long time without ever having seen them as they really are, and who, all of a sudden, some evening, quite unexpectedly, break out into a stream of interminable talk, and tell us all about themselves down to their most hidden secrets, of which we had never even suspected the existence.

And I move about from one object to the other with a little thrill in my heart every time something fixes my attention. I say to myself: “See there! I broke that the night Paul started for Lyons”; or else, “Ah! there is mamma’s little lantern, which she used to carry with her going to her evening devotions on dark winter nights.” There are even things in this room which have no story to tell me, which have come down from my grandparents, things therefore, whose history and adventures are utterly unknown to those who are living today, and whose very owners nobody knows now. Nobody has seen the hands that used to touch them or the eyes that used to gaze at them. These are the things that make me have long, long dreams. They represent to my mind desolate people whose last remaining friend is dead. You, my dear Colette, can scarcely comprehend all this, and you will smile at my simplicity, my childish, sentimental whims. You are a Parisian, and you Parisians do not understand this interior life, those eternal echoes of one’s own heart. You live in the outer world, with all your thoughts in the open. Living alone as I do, I can only speak about myself. When you are answering this letter, tell me a little about yourself, that I may also be able to put myself in your place, as you will be able to put yourself in mine tomorrow.

But you will never completely understand M. de Sainte Beuve’s verse:

“To be born, to live, and to die in one house.”

A thousand kisses, my old friend,

Adélaide.

The Blind Man

Why is the first sunshine so delightful? Why does the light falling upon the earth fill us so with the happiness of living? The sky is all blue, the country all green, the houses all white; and our charmed eyes drink in these living colours, wherewith they fashion joy for our souls. And we feel impulsive desires to dance, to run, to sing, a happy lightness of the spirit, a kind of broadened, liberated tenderness; we feel as if we would like to embrace the sun.

The blind men in the doorways, impassive in their eternal darkness, remain calm as ever in the midst of this new gaiety of life and, incomprehending, they keep on quieting their dogs who long to gambol.

When they go home, at the end of the day, on the arm of a young brother or little sister, if the child says: “It has been a lovely day!” they will reply: “Yes, I knew very well it was a fine day, Loulou would not keep still.”

I knew one of these men, whose life was one of the most cruel martyrdoms that can be dreamt of.

He was a peasant, the son of a Norman farmer. As long as his father and mother were alive, fairly good care was taken of him; he hardly suffered except from his horrible infirmity; but as soon as the old people were gone, his appalling existence began. Taken in by a sister, he was treated by everyone on the farm as a beggar who ate the bread of others. At every meal his food was grudged him; he was called sluggard and booby; and although his brother-in-law had got possession of his share of the inheritance, his broth was given him with reluctance, and only in just sufficient quantity to keep him from death.

His face was very pale, and his two eyes were large and white like sealing-wafers; he remained impassive under all insults, so walled up in himself that no one knew whether he felt them. And he had never known any affection, his mother having always been a trifle harsh with him, loving him very little; for in the country the useless are nuisances, and peasants would gladly copy the fowls, that kill off the weakly among themselves.

As soon as his soup was swallowed, he would go and sit before the door in summer, beside the fire in winter, and would not move till evening. He made no gesture, no movement; only his eyelids, shaken by a kind of nervous affliction, would occasionally fall over the white spots of his eyes. Had he a spirit, a mind, a clear consciousness of his life? No one wondered.

For a few years things went on like this. But his inability to do anything, as much as his imperturbability, ended by exasperating his relations, and he became a scapegoat, a sort of buffoon-martyr, a kind of prey sacrificed to the natural ferocity and savage merriment of the brutes around him.

They thought of all the cruel jests which his blindness inspired. And, in order to pay themselves for what he ate, they turned his meals into hours of pleasure for the neighbours and of torture for the helpless wretch.

The peasants of the neighbouring houses came to this entertainment; stories of it ran from door to door, and the farm kitchen was full every day. Sometimes a cat or a dog was put on the table, in front of the plate from which he was beginning to take his soup. Instinctively the animal would realise the man’s infirmity and would very softly draw near, eating without a sound, lapping it up delicately; and when a rather noisy splashing of the tongue had aroused the poor wretch’s attention, it would prudently draw away to avoid the random blow from the spoon that followed.

Then there was much laughter, nudging, and stamping from the spectators crowded along the walls. And without saying a word he would begin to eat again, with his right hand, while, with his outstretched left arm, he protected and defended his plate.

Sometimes they made him eat corks, wood, leaves, or even filth, which he could not distinguish.

Then they even wearied of their pleasantries; and the brother-in-law, growing angry at always having to feed him, struck him, and constantly boxed his ears, laughing at his victim’s futile efforts to ward off the blows or return them. This became a new game: the slap game. The ploughboys, the labourer, and the maids were constantly thrusting their hands at his face, and this produced a hurried twitching in his eyelids. He did not know where to hide, and kept his arms constantly extended to avoid their assaults.

At last they forced him to beg. They placed him on the roads on market days, and, as soon as he heard a sound of footsteps or the rattle of a carriage, he would hold out his hat, faltering: “Charity, if you please.”

But the peasant is not free with his money, and, during entire weeks, he did not bring home a halfpenny.

Then their real hatred was unchained, pitiless. And this is how he died:

One winter, the earth was covered with snow, and it froze appallingly hard. His brother-in-law, one morning, led him a long way off to a high road to make him beg for alms. He left him there all day, and when night was come, he told his household that he had not been able to find him. “But there!” he added, “we mustn’t bother, someone will have taken him off because he was cold. Of course he isn’t lost. He’ll come back tomorrow to eat his broth all right.”

The next day he did not come back.

After long hours of waiting, gripped by the cold, feeling that he was dying, the blind man had begun to walk. Unable to make out the road, which was buried under this froth of ice, he had wandered at random, falling into ditches and rising again, always silent, searching for a house.

But the numbness of the snows had gradually taken hold on him, and, his weak limbs unable to carry him farther, he had sat down in the middle of a field. He never got up again.

The white flakes fell steadily and buried him. His stiffened body disappeared under the ceaseless accumulation of the infinite multitude of them; and nothing indicated the spot where the corpse lay.

His relatives made a show of inquiring and searching for him for eight days. They even cried.

The winter was a hard one, and the thaw did not come soon. But one Sunday, on their way to Mass, the farmers noticed a great flock of crows hovering continually over the field, then swooping down like a black shower of rain, in troops, to the same spot, constantly rising from it again and returning to it.

The following week the dark birds were still there. The sky bore a cloud of them, as though they had assembled from every corner of the horizon; and they dropped down with a great clamour to the dazzling snow, making a strange-looking pattern of spots upon it, and obstinately searching in it.

A boy went to see what they were doing, and found the body of the blind man, already half-eaten, torn to shreds. His pale eyes had vanished, pricked out by the long, ravenous beaks.

And I can never feel the vivid gaiety of days of sunshine without a sad remembrance and a melancholy thought of the poor wretch, so robbed of all things in life that his horrible death was a relief to all who had known him.

Magnetism

The dinner was ended and the bachelors were sitting over their cigars and liqueurs, feeling comfortably quiescent as a result of good food and drink, when someone started a discussion of magnetism: Donato’s tricks and Charcot’s experiments. These sceptical, easygoing men who cared nothing about religion, unexpectedly began to tell stories of strange happenings, incredible things that nevertheless had really occurred, so they said; suddenly converted to the mysteries of magnetism which they supported in the name of science, they fell back into superstitious beliefs clinging like a burr to this last remnant of magic.

One of the party⁠—a man full of vigour, a follower of young girls and hunter of women⁠—smiled in his convinced incredulity: as he did not believe in anything, all discussion seemed to him to be futile.

He repeated with a sneer: “Humbug! humbug! humbug! We need not discuss Donato, who is simply a smart juggler. Monsieur Charcot, who is said to be a great scholar, seems to me like a storyteller of the Edgar Poe type who ends in a madhouse through concentrating on queer cases of insanity. He had proved the existence of unexplained and still inexplicable nervous phenomena, he deals with unknown forces that are now being investigated, and as he cannot always understand what he sees he probably remembers the ecclesiastical interpretation of these mysteries. I would like to hear what he himself has to say, quite a different thing to listening to your version of his conclusions.”

The rest of the party rather pitied the unbeliever; they felt as an assembly of monks would do towards a blasphemer. One of them exclaimed: “Still there were miracles in olden times!” to which he replied: “That I deny. Why are there none in our days?”

Then each one mentioned some fact, some weird presentiment, some instance of telegraphic communication from a distance or some case of one being’s secret influence over another. They asserted and maintained that these things had really happened, while the obstinate sceptic repeated: “Humbug! humbug! humbug!” At last he got up, threw away his cigar, and, with hands in his pockets, said: “Well, I will tell you two stories which I will explain afterwards. Here they are:

“In the little village of Étretat all the men, sailors every man of them, go off to the Newfoundland cod fisheries every year. Well, one night the child of one of the fishermen woke up with a start, crying out that ‘his father had died at sea.’ The child fell asleep again, but woke up again, screaming that ‘his father was drowned.’ A month later the news came that the father had, indeed, been swept off the deck by a wave. The widow remembered the child’s dream, everyone declared it to be a miracle, and the affair caused a great sensation. When dates were compared it was found that the accident and the dream coincided pretty closely, so it was concluded that they had happened at the same time on the same night. Here you have a mystery of magnetism.”

The speaker stopped and one of the party, visibly affected, asked:

“And you say you can explain that?”

“Certainly, I discovered the secret. The incident had astonished and even worried me, but you see I disbelieve on principle. Just as others always begin by believing, I begin by doubting, and when I fail to understand I still deny all telepathic communication between two souls, convinced that my own intelligence will find a solution. Well, I turned the matter over in my mind, and after questioning the wives of the absent fishermen I discovered that hardly a week passed without someone, either wife or child, dreaming and announcing that ‘the father had died at sea.’ The terrible, haunting dread of accidents makes them a constant subject of conversation, and fills the thoughts of the women and children. If, by any chance, one of these predictions coincides with a death, at once it is said to be a miracle, for they forget all the dreams, the omens, the sinister forebodings that are not fulfilled. I have myself known fifty cases which were completely forgotten within a week. But if the man had indeed died, the dream was remembered at once and the coincidence attributed to the intervention of the Almighty by some, while others declared it to be due to magnetism.”

One of the party said: “Well, all that is true enough; now for your second story?”

“Oh, the second is rather awkward to tell. 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, at whom I had never even looked with any interest, of whom I had taken no notice, as the saying goes.

“I classed her as an insignificant woman, though she was not bad-looking; I simply knew that she had eyes, a nose, a mouth and some kind of hair, in fact that she was a colourless type. She was one of those beings who only attract passing attention by pure luck: a woman that men do not desire.

“Well, one night as I was writing letters by the fireside before going to bed, I was conscious, in the midst of a riot of ideas, of a series of those mental pictures that sometimes glide through one’s brain in moments of idle dreaming, of a kind of faint breath blowing through me⁠—a slight flutter of the heart⁠—and immediately, without cause, without any logical connection of ideas, I saw as distinctly as if I were touching her the unclothed, full-length vision of the woman to whom I had never given more than a passing thought at any time. And I suddenly discovered in her a hitherto unsuspected attraction, a gentle charm, a languorous fascination. She kindled in me that amorous yearning which makes a man run after a woman. But I soon forgot all about it, I went to bed and fell asleep. Then I dreamed.

“You have probably all dreamt strange dreams in which nothing is impossible, which open every sealed door for you, which reveal unhoped-for joy and provide a master key that uncloses tightly folded arms.

“Which of us in those troubled, exciting, breathless slumbers has not held, embraced, fondled and possessed, with an extraordinary intensity of rapture, the woman who filled his thoughts? And have you ever noticed the exquisite delight these happy dreams give us? The mad intoxication, the throbbing paroxysms; the infinitely caressing, absorbing tenderness that fills your heart for the woman swooning in your arms in that adorable yet brutal illusion that seems so real.

“I felt all this with so fierce a passion that I can never forget. The woman was mine, so much mine that the sweet warmth of her skin clung to my fingers, the smell of her skin clung to my nostrils, the flavour of her kisses to my lips, the sound of her voice to my ears, the soft touch of her arms clung round my body, and the enchantment of her tenderness clung to my whole being long after the delight and disillusion of my awakening.

“I dreamt the same dream three times that night.

“When day dawned I was obsessed by her, she took possession of me, haunting my very soul with such intensity that my every thought was hers.

“At last in despair I dressed and went to see her. As I went up the staircase I trembled all over, my heart beat riotously and my body was filled with yearning.

“I entered the flat. Directly she heard my name she got up and suddenly our eyes met in a long, fixed gaze. I sat down, and stammered out some commonplaces which she apparently did not hear. I knew neither what to say nor what to do. Then, abruptly I seized hold of her and clasped her in my arms, and my dream was realised so quickly, so easily, so feverishly, that I began to doubt whether I was really awake.⁠ ⁠… She was my mistress for two years⁠ ⁠…”

“What do you make of it?” asked a voice.

“I think⁠ ⁠… I think it was just a coincidence! But then, who knows? Perhaps some glance of hers, unnoticed at the time, came back to me that night through one of those mysterious, unconscious promptings which often recall things neglected by our consciousness, unperceived by our minds!”

“Whatever name you like to give it,” said one of the party, “if you do not believe in magnetism after that, old man, you are an ungrateful wretch!”

Guillemot Rock

This is the season for guillemots.

From April until the end of May, before the bathers arrive from Paris, one may observe, at the little watering-place called Étretat, the sudden appearance of certain old gentlemen in top-boots and tight shooting-coats. They spend four or five days at the Hôtel Hanville, disappear, come again three weeks later; then, after a second stay, depart for good.

The following spring, they appear again.

They are the last hunters of the guillemot, the survivors of those of the old days; for thirty or forty years ago there were some twenty of these fanatics, but now they are but a few fanatical sportsmen.

The guillemot is a rare migrant whose habits are strange. For almost the whole of the year it lives in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland, and of the islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon; but at the nesting-season a band of emigrants crosses the Atlantic and, every year, comes to lay its eggs and hatch them out on the same spot, the rock called Guillemot Rock, near Étretat. They are never to be found in any other spot than this. They have always come thither, they have always been shot, and they still keep coming back; they always will come back. As soon as the young birds have been raised, they go away again, and disappear for a year.

Why do they never go elsewhere, choose some other point in the long white cliff, which runs unchanged from the Pas de Calais to Le Havre? What force, what unconquerable instinct, what age-long custom impels these birds to return to this spot? What was the manner of their first emigration, or the nature of the tempest which may long since have cast their sires upon this rock? And why have the children, the grandchildren, all the descendants of the first comers always returned thither?

They are not numerous; a hundred at the most, as though a solitary family possessed this tradition, performed this annual pilgrimage.

And every spring, as soon as the little wandering tribe is reinstalled upon its rock, the same hunters reappear in the village. Once, as young men, they were familiar to the inhabitants; today they are old, but still faithful to the regular meeting-place that for the past thirty or forty years they have appointed for their gathering.

For nothing in the world would they fail to keep the appointment.

It was an April evening in one of the last years. Three of the old guillemot-shooters had just arrived; one of them was missing, Monsieur d’Arnelles.

He had written to no one, given no news! But he was not dead, like so many others; it would have been known. At last, weary of waiting, the first comers sat down to table; dinner was nearly over when a carriage rolled into the yard of the hostelry; and soon the late arrival entered.

He sat down, in excellent spirits, rubbing his hands, ate with a good appetite, and, as one of his companions expressed surprise at his wearing a frock-coat, replied calmly:

“Yes, I had not time to change.”

They went to bed as soon as they rose from the table, for, in order to surprise the birds, it is necessary to start well before daybreak.

Nothing is pleasanter than this sport, this early morning expedition.

At three in the morning the sailors wake the sportsmen by throwing gravel at their window panes. In a few minutes all are ready and down on the shingle beach. Although no twilight is yet visible, the stars have paled a little; the sea screams over the pebbles, the breeze is so cold that they shiver a little, despite their thick clothes.

Soon the two boats, pushed out by the men, rush down the slope of rounded pebbles, with a noise as of tearing canvas; then they are swaying upon the first waves. The brown sails are hoisted up the masts, swell slightly, tremble, hesitate, and, bulging once more, round-bellied, sweep the tarred hulls away towards the wide opening down the river, dimly visible in the gloom.

The sky grows clear; the darkness seems to melt away; the coastline appears, still veiled in mist, the long white coastline, straight as a wall. They pass the Manne-Porte, an enormous arch through which a ship could go, double the point of La Courtine, run past the vale of Antifer and the cape of the same name; and suddenly there rushes into sight a beach on which are hundreds of gulls. It is Guillemot Rock.

It is merely a small hump of cliff, and on the narrow ledges of rock the heads of birds are visible, watching the boats.

They are there, motionless, waiting, not daring as yet to fly away. Some, settled upon the extreme edges, look as though they are sitting on their hind parts, upright like bottles, for their legs are so short that, when they walk, they appear to be gliding on wheels, and, when they want to fly away, they are unable to start with a run, and are obliged to let themselves fall like stones, almost on top of the men spying upon them.

They are aware of their weakness and the danger it entails, and do not readily decide to fly.

But the sailors begin to shout and beat the gunwales with the wooden tholepins, and the birds, terrified, one by one launch out into the void, and drop to the very level of the waves; then, their wings beating with swift strokes, they gather way, dart off, and reach the open spaces, unless a hail of shot casts them into the water.

For an hour they are slaughtered thus, one after another being forced to make off; and sometimes the females on their nests, utterly devoted to the business of hatching, refuse to leave, and ever and anon receive a volley which splashes their white plumage with spots of rosy blood, and the bird dies, still faithfully guarding her eggs.

On the first day, Monsieur d’Anelles shot with his customary enthusiasm; but, when they went off home at about ten o’clock, beneath the high and radiant sun which threw great triangles of light into the white clefts in the cliffs, he appeared somewhat distracted, and now and then he seemed lost in thought, unlike his usual self.

As soon as they were back on land, some sort of servant, clad in black, came and whispered with him. He appeared to reflect, to hesitate; then he replied:

“No, tomorrow.”

And, next day, the shooting was resumed. This time Monsieur d’Anelles often missed his birds, though they let themselves fall almost on to the end of his gun-barrel, and his friends, laughing, asked him if he was in love, if any secret trouble were tormenting his heart and brain. At last he admitted it.

“Yes, as a matter of fact I must be off directly, and I find it annoying.”

“What, you’re going away? Why?”

“Oh, urgent business. I can’t stay any longer.”

Then they began to talk of other things.

As soon as lunch was over, the servant in black reappeared. Monsieur d’Anelles ordered him to harness the horses, and the fellow was on the point of going out when the three other sportsmen intervened, insisting on an explanation, with many entreaties and demands that their friend should stay.

At last one of them said:

“But, look here, this business of yours can’t be so very serious, if you’ve already waited two days.”

The fourth, altogether perplexed, reflected, plainly a prey to conflicting ideas, torn between pleasure and duty, unhappy and ill at ease.

After a long period of meditation, he murmured with some hesitation:

“You see⁠ ⁠… you see, I am not alone here; I have my son-in-law with me.”

There were cries and exclamations.

“Your son-in-law?⁠ ⁠… But where is he?”

At that he appeared suddenly confounded, and blushed.

“What? Didn’t you know? Why⁠ ⁠… why⁠ ⁠… he is out in the barn. He’s dead.”

Stupefied silence reigned.

More and more distressed, Monsieur d’Anelles continued:

“I have had the misfortune to lose him; and, as I was taking the body to my home at Briseville, I made a slight detour just to keep our appointment here. But you will realise that I can delay no longer.”

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

“But⁠ ⁠… since he is dead⁠ ⁠… it seems to me⁠ ⁠… that he might very well wait one more day.”

The two others hesitated no longer.

“You can’t deny that,” they said.

Monsieur d’Arnelles seemed relieved of a great weight, but, still somewhat uneasy, he inquired:

“You⁠ ⁠… you honestly think⁠ ⁠… ?”

As one man, the three others replied:

“Dash it all! dear boy, two days more or less won’t make any difference to him in his condition.”

Thereupon, perfectly at ease, the father-in-law turned round to the undertaker.

“Very well, my good man, let it be the day after tomorrow.”

A Son

The two old friends were walking in the garden all in bloom, where life was stirred by the gay springtime.

One was a senator and the other a member of the French Academy, grave, both of them, full of reason and logic, but solemn⁠—people of note and reputation.

At first they chattered about politics, exchanging thoughts, not upon ideas but men: personalities, which in such matters, always take precedence over reasoned argument. Then they awoke old memories; then they were silent, continuing to walk side by side, both relaxed by the sweetness of the air.

A great cluster of wallflowers sent forth their sweet and delicate perfume. A heap of flowers, of every kind and colour, threw their sweetness into the air, while a laburnum tree, covered with yellow flowers, scattered to the wind its fine powder, a golden smoke which reminded one of honey, and which carried, like the caressing powder of the perfumer, its embalmed seed across space.

The senator stopped, inhaled the fertile cloud that was floating by him, looked at the blossoming tree, resplendent as a sun, from which the pollen was now escaping. And he said:

“When one thinks that these imperceptible atoms, which smell so nice, can bring in to existence in a hundred places, miles from here, plants of their own kind, can start the sap and fibre of the female trees, and produce creatures with roots, which are born from a germ, as we are, mortal as we are, and which will be replaced by other beings of the same essence, just like us!”

Then, standing in front of the radiant laburnum tree, whose vivifying perfume permeated every breath of air, the senator added:

“Ah! my fine fellow, if you were to count your children you would be woefully embarrassed. Here is one who brings them easily into the world, abandons them without remorse and worries little about them afterward.”

The Academician replied: “We do the same, my friend.”

The senator answered: “Yes, I do not deny that; we do abandon them sometimes, but we know it, at least, and that constitutes our superiority.”

The other man shook his head: “No, that is not what I mean; you see, my dear fellow, there is scarcely a man who does not possess some unknown children, those children labeled father unknown, whom he has created, as this tree reproduces itself, almost unconsciously.

“If we had to establish the count of the women we have had, we should be, should we not, as embarrassed as this laburnum tree which you are addressing, if it were called upon to enumerate its descendants?

“From eighteen to forty, counting all our passing encounters and contacts of an hour, it may easily be granted that we have had intimate relations with two or three hundred women. Ah, well! my friend, among this number are you sure that you have not made fruitful at least one, and that you have not, upon the streets or in prison, some blackguard son, who robs and assassinates honest people, that is to say, people like us? or perhaps a daughter, in some house of ill-fame? or perhaps, if she chanced to be abandoned by her mother, a cook in somebody’s kitchen?

“Remember further that nearly all women that we call ‘public’ possess one or two children whose father they do not know, children caught in the hazard of their embraces at ten or twenty francs. In every trade, there is profit and loss. This offspring constitutes the ‘loss’ of their profession. Who were their progenitors? You⁠—I⁠—all of us, respectable men! These are the results of our gay dinner parties, of our amusing evenings, of the hours when our well-fed bodies drive us to chance love encounters.

“Robbers, tramps, all such wretches, in short, are our children. And how much better that is for us than if we were theirs, for they reproduce also, these ruffians!

“Listen: I, for my part, have an ugly story on my conscience, which I would like to tell you. It brings me incessant remorse, and more than that, continual doubt and an unappeasable uncertainty which at times tortures me horribly.

“At the age of twenty-five I had undertaken, with one of my friends, now a conseiller d’État, a journey through Brittany, on foot.

“After fifteen or twenty days of rapid walking, after having visited the Côtes-du-Nord, and a part of Finisterre, we arrived at Douarnenez; from there, in a day’s march, we reached the wild Pointe du Raz, via the Baie des Trépassés, where we slept in some village whose name ends in of. When the morning came a strange fatigue held my comrade in bed. I say ‘bed’ from habit, since our bed was composed simply of two bundles of straw.

“It was impossible to be sick in such a place. I forced him to get up, and we reached Audierne about four or five o’clock in the evening. The next day he was a little better. We set out again, but on the way he was taken with intolerable pains and it was with great difficulty that we were able to reach Pont-Labbé.

“There at least there was an inn. My friend went to bed, and the doctor, whom we called from Quimper, found a high fever, without quite determining the nature of it.

“Do you know Pont-Labbé? No. Well, it is the most characteristic Breton town from Pointe du Raz to Morbihan⁠—a region which contains the essence of Breton morals, and legends, and customs. Today, even, this corner of the country has scarcely changed at all. I say ‘today, even,’ because I return there now every year, alas!

“An old castle bathes the foot of its towers in a sad, dismal pond, peopled by flights of wild birds. Out of it flows a river, deep enough for coasting vessels to come up to the town. In the narrow streets, with the old houses, the men wear wide hats and embroidered waistcoats and four coats, one above the other; the first, about the size of the hand, covers only the shoulder-blades, while the last stops just above the seat of the breeches.

“The girls, who are tall, beautiful, and fresh looking, wear a bodice of thick cloth which forms a breastplate and corset, constraining and leaving scarcely a suspicion of their swelling, martyrized busts. Their headdresses are also strange: over the temples two embroidered bands in colour frame the face, binding the hair, which falls loose behind the head and is then carried up to the crown of the head under a curious bonnet often woven of gold or silver.

“The servant at our inn was eighteen years old at the most, with blue eyes, a pale blue, which were pierced with the two little black dots of the pupils; and with short closely set teeth, which she constantly showed in laughing and which seemed made for biting granite.

“She did not know a word of French, speaking only the Breton patois, as do most of her compatriots.

“Well, my friend was no better, and, although no disease was diagnosed, the doctor forbade his setting out, ordering complete rest. I spent the days with him, the little maid coming in frequently, bringing perhaps my dinner or some drink for him.

“I teased her a little, which seemed to amuse her, but we did not talk, naturally, since we could not understand each other.

“Well, one night, having remained with the sick man very late, when going to my room, I met the girl going to hers. It was just opposite my open door. Then suddenly, without reflecting upon what I was doing, and more by way of a joke than anything, I seized her around the waist, and before she was over her astonishment I had thrown her and shut her in my room. She looked at me, startled, frightened, terrified, not daring to cry out for fear of scandal, and of being driven out by her master at first and her father afterwards.

“I had done this as a joke; but when I saw her there, I was filled by the desire to possess her. There was a long and silent struggle, a struggle of body against body after the fashion of athletes, with arms tense, contracted, twisted; rapid breathing, skin moist with perspiration. Oh! she fought valiantly; and sometimes we would hit a piece of furniture, a partition, or a chair; then, still clutching each other, we would remain motionless for some seconds in fear lest the noise had awakened someone; then we would commence again our desperate battle, I attacking, she resisting. Exhausted, finally, she fell; and I took her brutally, upon the ground, upon the floor.

“As soon as she was released, she ran to the door, drew the bolts, and fled. I scarcely met her during the following days. She would not allow me to go near her. Then, when my comrade was better and we were to continue our journey, on the eve of our departure, she came barefooted, in her chemise, to the room where I had just retired.

“She threw herself into my arms, drew me to her passionately, and, until daylight, embraced me, caressed me, weeping and sobbing, giving me all the assurances of tenderness and despair that a woman can give when she does not know a word of our language.

“A week later I had forgotten this adventure, so common and frequent when one is travelling, the servants of the inns being generally destined to entertain travellers in this manner.

“Thirty years passed without my thinking of, or returning to, Pont-Labbé. Then, in 1876, I happened to go there, in the course of an excursion into Brittany which I had undertaken to get material for a book and to make myself familiar with the landscape.

“Nothing seemed to have changed. The castle still soaked its grey walls in the pond at the entrance of the little town; the inn was there, too, although repaired, remodelled, with a modern air. On entering I was received by two young Breton girls of about eighteen, fresh and pretty, enlaced in their narrow cloth bodices, with their silver headdress and large embroidered ear caps.

“It was about six o’clock in the evening. I sat down to dine and as the host was serving me himself, fate, without doubt, led me to ask him: ‘Did you know the former master of this house? I spent a fortnight here once, thirty years ago. I am speaking of very far-off times.’

“He answered: ‘Those were my parents, sir.’

“Then I told him the occasion of my stopping there, recalling my being detained by the illness of my comrade. He did not allow me to finish:

“ ‘Oh! I remember that perfectly,’ said he; ‘I was fifteen or sixteen then. You slept in the room at the end of the hall and your friend in the one that is now mine, looking on to the street.’

“Then for the first time, a vivid recollection of the pretty maid came back to me. I asked: ‘Do you recall a nice little servant that your father had, who had, if I remember, pretty blue eyes and fine teeth?’

“He replied: ‘Yes, sir; she died in childbirth some time after.’

“And pointing toward the courtyard where a thin lame man was turning over some manure, he added: ‘That is her son.’

“I began to laugh. ‘He is not beautiful, and does not resemble his mother at all. Takes after his father, no doubt.’

“The innkeeper replied: ‘It may be; but they never knew who his father was. She died without telling, and no one here knew she had a lover. It was a tremendous surprise when we found it out. No one would believe it.’

“A kind of disagreeable shiver went over me, one of those painful suggestions that touch the heart, like the approach of a heavy sorrow. I looked at the man in the yard. He came now to draw some water for the horses and carried two pails, limping, making grievous efforts with the leg that was shorter. He was ragged and hideously dirty, with long yellow hair, so matted that it hung in strings down his cheeks.

“The innkeeper added: ‘He is not up to much, and has only been kept here out of charity. Perhaps he would have turned out better if he had been brought up properly. But, you see how it is, sir?

“ ‘No father, no mother, no money! My parents took pity on him as a child, but after all⁠—he was not theirs, you see.’

“I said nothing.

“I went to bed in my old room, and all night I could think of nothing but that frightful stable boy, repeating to myself: ‘What if that were my son! Could I have killed that girl and brought that creature into existence?’

“It was possible, of course. I resolved to speak to this man and to find out exactly the date of his birth. A difference of two months would set my doubts at rest.

“I had him come to me the next day. But he could not speak French either. He seemed not to understand anything. Besides, he was absolutely ignorant of his age, which one of the maids asked him for me. And he stood in front of me like an idiot, rolling his cap in his knotty and disgusting paws, laughing stupidly, with something of the old laugh of the mother in the corners of his mouth and eyes.

“But the host came along, and went to look up the birth certificate of the poor wretch. He entered this life eight months and twenty-six days after my departure from Pont-Labbé, because I recalled perfectly arriving at Lorient on the fifteenth of August. The record said: ‘Father unknown.’ The mother was called Jeanne Karradec.

“Then my heart began to beat rapidly. I could not speak, I felt so choked with emotion. And I looked at that brute, whose long yellow hair seemed a more sordid dung heap than that of beasts. And the wretch, embarrassed by my look, ceased to laugh, turned his head, and tried to get away.

“Every day I would wander along the little river, sadly reflecting. But what was the use? Nothing could give me any certainty. For hours and hours I would weigh all the reasons, good and bad, for and against the chances of my paternity, worrying myself with intricate suppositions, only to return again to the horrible suspicion, then to the conviction, more atrocious still, that this man was my son.

“I could not dine and I retired to my room. It was a long time before I could sleep. Then sleep came, a sleep haunted with insupportable visions. I could see this ninny laughing in my face and calling me ‘Papa.’ Then he would change into a dog and bite me in the calf of my leg. In vain I tried to free myself, he would follow me always, and, instead of barking he would speak, abusing me. Then he would appear before my colleagues at the Academy, called together for the purpose of deciding whether I was his father. And one of them cried: ‘It is indubitable! See how he resembles him!’

“And in fact, I perceived that the monster did resemble me. And I awoke with this idea fixed in my mind, and with a mad desire to see the man again and decide whether he did or did not have features in common with my own.

“I joined him as he was going to Mass (it was on Sunday) and gave him a franc, scanning his face anxiously. He began to laugh in an ignoble fashion, took the money, then, again constrained by my eye, he fled, after having blurted out a word, almost inarticulate, which meant to say ‘Thank you,’ without doubt.

“That day passed for me in the same agony as the preceding. Toward evening I sent for the proprietor and, with great caution, precautions, and finesse, I told him that I had become interested in this poor being so abandoned by everybody and so deprived of everything, and that I wished to do something for him.

“The man replied: ‘Oh, don’t worry about him, sir. He wants nothing; you will only make trouble for yourself. I employ him to clean the stable, and it is all that he can do. For that, I feed him and he sleeps with the horses. He needs nothing more. If you have an old pair of trousers, give them to him, but they will be in pieces in a week.’

“I did not insist, but waited to see.

“The fellow returned that evening, horribly drunk, almost setting fire to the house, striking one of the horses a blow with a pickax, and finally went to sleep in the mud out in the rain, thanks to my generosity. They begged me, the next day, not to give him any more money. Liquor made him furious, and when he had two sous in his pocket he drank it. The innkeeper added: ‘To give him money is to kill him.’ This man had absolutely never had any money, save a few centimes thrown to him by travellers, and he knew no other destination for it but the alehouse.

“Then I passed some hours in my room with an open book which I made a pretence of reading, but without accomplishing anything except to look at this brute. My son! my son! I was trying to discover if he was anything like me. By dint of searching I believed I recognized some similar lines in the brow and about the nose. And I was immediately convinced of a resemblance which only different clothing and the hideous mane of the man disguised.

“I could not stay there very long without being suspected, and I set out with breaking heart, after having left with the innkeeper some money to ease the existence of his stable-boy.

“For six years I have lived with this thought, this horrible uncertainty, this abominable doubt, and each year an irresistible force drags me back to Pont-Labbé. Each year I condemn myself to the torture of seeing this brute wallow in his filth, imagining that he resembles me, and of seeking, always in vain, to be helpful to him. And each year I come back more undecided, more tortured, more anxious.

“I have tried to have him educated, but he is an incurable idiot. I have tried to render life less painful to him, but he is an incurable drunkard and uses all the money that is given him for drink. And he knows very well how to sell his new clothes to get cognac.

“I have tried to arouse pity in his employer for him, that he might treat him more gently, always offering him money. The innkeeper, astonished, finally remarked very wisely: ‘Everything you do for him, sir, will only ruin him. He must be kept like a prisoner. As soon as he has time given him or favours shown, he becomes vicious. If you wish to do good there are plenty of abandoned children. Choose one that will be worth your trouble.’

“What could I say to that?

“And if I should disclose a suspicion of the doubts which torture me, this brute would certainly turn rogue and exploit me, compromise me, ruin me. He would cry out to me: ‘Papa,’ as in my dream.

“And I tell myself that I have killed the mother and ruined this atrophied being, larva of the stable, born and bred on a dunghill, this man who, if he had been brought up as others are, might have been like others.

“And you cannot imagine the strange, confused, intolerable sensation I feel in his presence, as I think that this has come from me, that he belongs to me by that intimate bond which binds father to son, that, thanks to the terrible laws of heredity, he is a part of me in a thousand things, by his blood and his flesh, and that he has the same germs of sickness and the same ferments of passion.

“And I have always an unappeasable and painful desire to see him, and the sight of him makes me suffer horribly; and from my window down there I look at him for hours as he pitchforks and carts away the dung of the beasts, repeating to myself: ‘That is my son!’

“And I feel, sometimes, an intolerable desire to embrace him. But I have never even touched his filthy hand.”

The Academician was silent. And his companion, the politician, murmured: “Yes, indeed; we ought to think a little more about the children who have no father.”

Then a breath of wind came up, and the great tree shook its clusters, and enveloped with a fine, odorous cloud the two old men, who took long draughts of the sweet perfume.

And the senator added: “It is fine to be twenty-five years old, and even to become a father like that.”

Travelling

Saint-Agnès, 6th May.

My Dear Friend,

You asked me to write to you often, and particularly to tell you what I had seen. You also asked me to search through my memories of travel and find some of those short anecdotes which one hears from a peasant met by the way, from some hotelkeeper, or some passing stranger, and which remain in the memory like the key to a country. You believe that a landscape sketched in a few lines, or a short story told in a few words, reveals the true character of a country, makes it live, visibly and dramatically. I shall try to do as you wish. From time to time I will send you letters, in which I shall not mention ourselves, but only the horizon and the people who move on it. Now I begin.

Spring, it seems to me, is a season when one should eat and drink landscapes. It is the season for sensations, as the autumn is the season for thought. In spring the country stirs the body; in autumn it penetrates the mind.

This year I wanted to inhale orange-blossoms, and I set out for the South at the time when everybody comes back from there. I passed through Monaco, the town of pilgrims, the rival of Mecca and Jerusalem, without leaving my money in anybody else’s pocket, and I ascended the high hills beneath a canopy of lemon, orange and olive trees.

Did you ever sleep in a field of orange trees in bloom? The air which one inhales deliciously is a quintessence of perfumes. This powerful and sweet smell, as savoury as a sweetmeat, seems to penetrate one, to impregnate, to intoxicate, to induce languor, to bring about a dreamy and somnolent torpor. It is like opium prepared by fairy hands and not by chemists.

This is a country of gorges. The sides of the mountains are seamed and slashed all over, and in these winding crevices grow veritable forests of lemon trees. At intervals, where the abrupt ravine stops at a sort of ledge, man has fashioned reservoirs which catch the water from the rain storms. They are great holes with smooth walls, which offer no projection to catch the hand of those who fall.

I was walking slowly through one of these rising valleys, looking through the leaves at the bright fruit still remaining on the branches. The narrow gorge made the heavy perfumes of the flowers more penetrating; in there the air seemed dense because of them. I felt tired and wanted to sit down. A few drops of water rolled on the grass, I thought a spring must be near, and I climbed higher to find it. But I reached the edge of one of these huge, deep reservoirs. I sat down cross-legged and remained dreaming in front of the hole, which seemed to be full of ink, so black and stagnant was the water in it. Down below, through the branches, I could see, like splashes, bits of the Mediterranean, blindingly dazzling. But my glance constantly returned to this vast and sombre hole which seemed uninhabited by any form of water life, its surface was so still.

Suddenly a voice made me start. An old gentleman, looking for flowers (for this country is the richest in Europe for botanists), asked me:

“Are you a relative of those poor children?”

I looked at him in astonishment.

“What children?”

Then he seemed embarrassed and answered with a bow:

“I beg your pardon. Seeing you so absorbed in that reservoir I imagined you were thinking of the awful drama which took place there.”

I wanted to know all about it, and I asked him to tell me the story.

It is a very gloomy and heartbreaking story, my dear, and very commonplace, at the same time. It is simply like an incident from the daily papers. I do not know whether my emotion is to be attributed to the dramatic way in which it was told to me, to the mountain background, or to the contrast between the joyous flowers and sunshine and this dark, murderous hole. My heart was torn and my nerves shaken by this story, which may not seem so terribly poignant to you, perhaps, as you read it in your room, without seeing the scene in which the drama is laid.

It was in the spring a few years back. Two little boys often used to play on the edge of this cistern, while their tutor read a book, lying under a tree. Now, one hot afternoon, a piercing cry aroused the man, who was dozing, and the noise of water splashing after a fall caused him to get up immediately. The younger of the two children, aged eleven years, was yelling, standing near the reservoir, whose troubled, rippling surface had closed over the elder, who had just fallen in while running along the stone ledge.

The distracted tutor, without waiting, without thinking, jumped into the depths, and did not appear again, having struck his head against the bottom. At the same moment, the little boy, who had come to the surface, was waving his arms to his brother. Then the child who was on dry land lay down and stretched out, while the other tried to swim, to reach the wall, and soon four little hands seized and held each other, clutching in a convulsive grip. Both felt the keen joy of being restored to life, the thrill of a peril that has passed. The elder tried to climb up, but could not, the wall being steep, and the younger, being too weak, was slowly slipping towards the hole. Then they remained motionless, seized again with terror, and waited.

The smaller boy grasped the hand of the older with all his might, and wept nervously, saying: “I can’t pull you up. I can’t pull you up.” Then, suddenly he began to shout: “Help! Help!” But his piping voice hardly pierced the dome of foliage above their heads. They remained there for a long time, for hours and hours, face to face, these two children, with the same thought, the same fear, the awful dread lest one of them, becoming exhausted, should loosen his weakened grip. And they kept on calling in vain. At length, the elder, who was shaking with cold, said to the younger: “I can’t go on. I am going to fall. Goodbye, little brother.” And the other repeated, with heaving breath: “Not yet, not yet; wait!” Evening came on, quiet evening, its stars reflected in the water. The elder boy, who was fainting, said: “Let go one hand, I want to give you my watch.” He had received it as a present a few days before, and since then it had been the chief care of his heart. He succeeded in getting it, handed it up, and the younger, who was sobbing, placed it on the grass beside him.

It was now completely dark. The two unfortunate creatures were overcome and could scarcely hold out much longer. The bigger boy, feeling that his hour had come, murmured again: “Goodbye, little brother. Kiss papa and mamma.” His paralysed fingers relaxed. He sank and did not come up again.⁠ ⁠…

The younger, who was left alone, began to cry madly: “Paul! Paul!” but his brother never returned. Then he dashed away, falling over stones, shaken by the most terrible anguish that can wring the heart of a child, and arrived in the drawing room where his parents were waiting. He lost his way again when taking them to the reservoir. He could not find the way. Finally he recognised the place. “It is there; yes, it is there.” The cistern had to be emptied, and the owner would not allow this, as he needed the water for his lemon trees. In the end the two bodies were recovered, but not until the next day.

You see, my dear, that this is just a common newspaper story. But if you had seen the hole, you would have been moved to the bottom of your heart at the thought of this child’s agony, hanging on to his brother’s arm, of this interminable struggle on the part of two children accustomed only to laugh and play, and by that simple little detail: the giving over of the watch. I said to myself: “Fate preserve me from ever receiving such a relic!” I do not know of anything more terrible than the memory that clings to a familiar object that one cannot get rid of. Think that every time he touches this sacred watch, the survivor will see the horrible scene again, the cistern, the wall, the calm water, and the distorted face of his brother, still alive but as surely lost as though he were already dead. During his whole life, at every moment that vision will be there, evoked the moment the tip of his finger touches his watch pocket.

I felt sad until evening. I went off, still going higher, leaving the region of orange trees for the regions of olive trees only, and the latter for the pine-tree region. Then I entered a valley of stones, reaching the ruins of an old castle, built, they say, in the tenth century, by a Saracen chief, a wise man, who got baptised for love of a girl.

Mountains everywhere around me, and in front of me the sea, the sea on which there is a scarcely visible patch: Corsica, or rather the shadow of Corsica.

But on the mountain tops reddened by the setting sun, in the vast heavens, and on the sea, on the whole superb horizon I had come to admire, I saw only two poor children, one lying along the edge of a hole filled with black water, the other sunk up to his neck, held together by their hands, weeping face to face, distracted. And all the time I seemed to hear a feeble voice saying: “Goodbye, little brother. I give you my watch.”

This letter will seem very lugubrious to you, my dear friend. Another time I shall try to be more cheerful.

A Corsican Bandit

The road followed a gentle slope through the middle of the forest of Aïtone. Enormous pines spread out in an arch above our heads, making their sad, continuous, moaning complaint, while to our right and our left the thin straight trunks of the trees formed, as it were, a group of organ-pipes from which the monotonous music of the wind in the treetops seemed to issue.

After a three hours’ tramp there was a clearance in the tangled mass of long reeds: here and there a gigantic umbrella-pine, separated from the rest and looking like a huge sunshade, spread out its dull green canopy; then suddenly we reached the border of the forest some three hundred feet above the gorge that led to the wild valley of Niolo.

A few old, deformed trees seemed to have climbed painfully up the two lofty summits that dominated the pass, like pioneers in advance of the multitude crowding behind. As we turned round we saw the whole of the forest stretching out beneath us like an immense bowl of verdure, the edge of which seemed to touch the sky and was composed of bare rocks that formed a high wall all round.

We started off again and reached the gorge ten minutes later. There I saw an amazing sight. There was a valley beyond another forest, such as I had never seen before: ten miles of petrified solitude hollowed out between two mountains seven thousand feet high, and never a field or a tree to be seen. This was Niolo, the house of Corsican liberty, the inaccessible citadel from which the invader has never been able to eject the mountain-dwellers.

My companion said: “All our bandits take refuge there, too.” We soon reached the bottom of the wild, rugged slit whose beauty no words could express.

Not a blade of grass, not a single plant; granite, nothing but granite. So far as the eye could reach stretched a desert of sparkling granite heated as hot as an oven by the fierce sun that seemed purposely suspended over this gorge of stone. The sight of the crests of the mountains brought one up at a sharp turn, thrilled to the marrow. They looked red and jagged like festoons of coral (for the summits are of porphyry), and the sky overhead seemed violet, lilac, faded by the proximity of those strange-looking mountains. Lower down, the granite was of sparkling grey, and under our feet it was like grated, crushed powder, we were walking on gleaming dust. To the right a roaring torrent rushed along, scolding, as it followed its long and winding course. You cannot avoid stumbling in the heat, the blinding light of that dry, burning, rugged valley, divided by the turbulent stream hurriedly trying to escape, unable to fertilise the rocks, lost in a furnace that licks it up greedily without ever being refreshed or moistened.

Suddenly on our right we saw a little wooden cross stuck in a heap of stones. A man had been killed there and I said to my companion: “Tell me about your bandits.”

He continued: “I knew the most celebrated, the most terrible one, Sainte-Lucie; I will tell you about him.

“His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the same district, so it was said, and Sainte-Lucie was left with an only sister. He was a little chap, weak and fainthearted; he was often ill and had no energy whatever, and he did not declare a vendetta against his father’s assassin. And though his relations came and begged him to avenge his loss, he was deaf to their threats and pleading.

“According to an old Corsican custom, his indignant sister took away his black clothes so that he might not wear mourning for the unavenged dead. To this insult he remained indifferent, and rather than take down his father’s still-loaded gun he shut himself up and never went out, afraid to face the contemptuous glances of his comrades.

“Months went by and he seemed to have entirely forgotten the crime, he went on living with his sister in their own house. Well, a day came when the suspected assassin was to be married, but even this news did not seem to trouble Sainte-Lucie, and the fiancé, probably out of bravado, passed the house of the two orphans on his way to church.

“Seated by the window, the brother and sister were eating little fried cakes when the young man noticed the wedding procession. Seized with a fit of trembling, he got up without saying a word, took down the gun, and left the house. Talking about what happened later, he said: ‘I don’t know what was the matter with me. I felt my blood boiling; I felt it had to be, that, in spite of everything, I could not resist the inevitable, and I went and hid the gun in the thicket on the Corte road.’

“An hour later he came back without the gun, looking tired and sad, as usual. His sister thought he had forgotten all about his father, but at nightfall he disappeared.

“The enemy, with his two groomsmen, was going to Corte that evening. As they were walking along, singing gaily, suddenly Sainte-Lucie rose up in front of them and, staring at the murderer, shouted: ‘The time has come!’ and shot him point-blank through the lungs.

“One of the groomsmen fled; the other, looking at Sainte-Lucie, said: ‘What is the matter with you?’ and as he was going for help Saint-Lucie shouted: ‘If you move another step I will break your leg.’ The other, knowing how cowardly he had always been, said: ‘You dare not!’ and started off, but fell to the ground immediately with a bullet through his leg.

“Sainte-Lucie went up to him and said: ‘I am going to look at the wound; if it is not serious I will leave you here, if mortal I will finish you off.’ He looked at the wound and decided it to be mortal, then slowly reloaded his gun, told the man to say a prayer, and shot him through the head.

“The next day he went up into the mountains.

“And what do you think Sainte-Lucie did afterwards?

“His relations were all arrested: his uncle, the priest who was suspected of inciting him to vengeance, was sent to prison on a charge made by the dead fiancé’s relations, but he escaped and with a gun joined his nephew in the forest.

“One after the other, Sainte-Lucie killed his uncle’s accusers, and plucked out their eyes, to teach others never to swear to anything they had not seen themselves.

“He killed all his enemy’s relatives and their friends, he murdered fourteen policemen, and burnt down the houses of his opponents, and until his death was the most terrible of all the bandits known.”

The sun was disappearing behind Monte Cinto, and the broad shadow of the granite mountain lay over the granite of the valley. We hurried along so as to reach the little village of Albertace⁠—a heap of stones riveted to the granite sides of the wild gorge. I said, thinking of the bandit: “Your vendetta is a dreadful thing!”

My companion replied mildly: “It can’t be helped, a man must do his duty!”

A Dead Woman’s Secret

She had died painlessly, tranquilly, like a woman whose life was irreproachable, and she now lay on her back in bed, with closed eyes, calm features, her long white hair carefully arranged as if she had again made her toilet ten minutes before her death, all her pale physiognomy so composed, now that she had passed away, so resigned that one felt sure a sweet soul had dwelt in that body, that this serene grandmother had spent an untroubled existence, that this virtuous woman had ended her life without any shock, without any remorse.

On his knees, beside the bed, her son, a magistrate of inflexible principles, and her daughter Marguerite, in religion, Sister Eulalie, were weeping distractedly. She had from the time of their infancy armed them with an inflexible code of morality, teaching them a religion without weakness and a sense of duty without any compromise. He, the son, had become a magistrate, and, wielding the weapon of the law, he struck down without pity the feeble and the erring. She, the daughter, quite penetrated with the virtue that had bathed her in this austere family, had become the spouse of God through disgust with men.

They had scarcely known their father; all they knew was that he had made their mother unhappy without learning any further details. The nun passionately kissed one hand of her dead mother, which hung down, a hand of ivory like that of Christ in the large crucifix which lay on the bed. At the opposite side of the prostrate body, the other hand seemed still to grasp the rumpled sheet with that wandering movement which is called the fold of the dying, and the lines had retained little wavy creases as a memento of those last motions which precede the eternal motionlessness. A few light taps at the door caused the two sobbing heads to rise up, and the priest who had just dined, entered the apartment. He was flushed, a little puffed, from the effects of the process of digestion which had just commenced; for he had put a good dash of brandy into his coffee in order to counteract the fatigue caused by the last nights he had remained up and that which he anticipated from the night that was still in store for him. He had put on a look of sadness, that simulated sadness of the priest to whom death is a means of livelihood. He made the sign of the cross, and coming over to them with his professional gesture said:

“Well, my poor children, I have come to help you to pass these mournful hours.”

But Sister Eulalie suddenly rose up.

“Thanks, father, but my brother and I would like to be left alone with her. These are the last moments that we now have for seeing her; so we want to feel ourselves once more, the three of us, just as we were years ago when we⁠—we⁠—we were only children, and our poor⁠—poor mother⁠—”

She was unable to finish with the flood of tears that gushed from her eyes, and the sobs that were choking her.

But the priest bowed, with a more serene look on his face, for he was thinking of his bed. “Just as you please, my children.”

Then, he knelt down, again crossed himself, prayed, rose up, and softly stole away murmuring as he went: “She was a saint.”

They were left alone, the dead woman and her children. A hidden timepiece kept regularly ticking in its dark corner, and through the open window the soft odors of hay and of woods penetrated with faint gleams of moonlight. No sound in the fields outside, save the wandering notes of toads and now and then the humming of some nocturnal insect darting into like a ball, and knocking itself against the wall.

An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent serenity surrounded this dead woman, seemed to emanate from her, to evaporate from her into the atmosphere outside and to calm Nature itself.

Then the magistrate, still on his knees, his head pressed against the bedclothes, in a far-off, heartbroken voice that pierced through the sheets and the coverlet, exclaimed:

“Mamma, mamma, mamma!” And the sister, sinking down on the floor, striking the wood with her forehead fanatically, twisting herself about and quivering like a person in an epileptic fit, groaned: “Jesus, Jesus⁠—mamma⁠—Jesus!”

And both of them shaken by a hurricane of grief panted with a rattling in their throats.

Then the fit gradually subsided, and they now wept in a less violent fashion, like the rainy calm that follows a squall on a storm-beaten sea. Then, after some time, they rose, and fixed their glances on the beloved corpse. And memories, those memories of the past, so sweet, so torturing today, came back to their minds with all those little forgotten details, those little details so intimate and familiar, which make the being who is no more live over again. They recalled circumstances, words, smiles, certain intonations of voice which belonged to one whom they should hear speaking to them again. They saw her once more happy and calm, and phrases she used in ordinary conversation rose to their lips. They even remembered a little movement of the hand peculiar to her, as if she were keeping time when she was saying something of importance.

And they loved her as they had never before loved her. And by the depth of their despair they realized how strongly they had been attached to her, and how desolate they would find themselves now.

She had been their mainstay, their guide, the best part of their youth, of that happy portion of their lives which had vanished; she had been the bond that united them to existence, the mother, the mamma, the creative flesh, the tie that bound them to their ancestors. They would henceforth be solitary, isolated; they would have nothing on earth to look back upon.

The nun said to her brother:

“You know how mamma used always to read over her old letters. They are all there in her drawer. Suppose we read them in our turn, and so revive all her life this night by her side? It would be like a kind of road of the cross, like making the acquaintance of her mother, of grandparents whom we never knew, whose letters are there, and of whom she has so often talked to us, you remember?”

And they drew forth from the drawer a dozen little packets of yellow paper, carefully tied up and placed close to one another. They flung these relics on the bed, and selecting one of them on which the word “Father” was written, they opened and read what was in it.

It consisted of those very old letters which are to be found in old family writing-desks, those letters which have the flavor of another century. The first said, “My darling,” another “My beautiful little girl,” then others “My dear child,” and then again “My dear daughter.” And suddenly the nun began reading aloud, reading for the dead her own history, all her tender souvenirs. And the magistrate listened, while he leaned on the bed, with his eyes on his mother’s face. And the motionless corpse seemed happy.

Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said: “We ought to put them into the grave with her, to make a winding-sheet of them, and bury them with her.”

And then she took up another packet, on which the descriptive word did not appear.

And in a loud tone she began: “My adored one, I love you to distraction. Since yesterday I have been suffering like a damned soul burned by the recollection of you. I feel your lips on mine, your eyes under my eyes, your flesh under my flesh. I love you! I love you! You have made me mad! My arms open! I pant with an immense desire to possess you again. My whole body calls out to you, wants you. I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses.”

The magistrate rose up; the nun stopped reading. He snatched the letter from her, and sought for the signature. There was none, save under the words, “He who adores you,” the name “Henry.” Their father’s name was René. So then he was not the man.

Then, the son, with rapid fingers, fumbled in the packet of letters took another of them, and read: “I can do without your caresses no longer.”

And, standing up, with the severity of a judge passing sentence, he gazed at the impassive face of the dead woman.

The nun, straight as a statue, with teardrops standing at each corner of her eyes, looked at her brother, waiting to see what he meant to do. Then he crossed the room, slowly reached the window, and looked out thoughtfully into the night.

When he turned back, Sister Eulalie, her eyes now quite dry, still remained standing near the bed, with a downcast look.

He went over to the drawer and flung in the letters which he had picked up from the floor. Then he drew the curtains round the bed.

And when the dawn made the candles on the table look pale, the son rose from his armchair, and without even a parting glance at the mother whom he had separated from them and condemned, he said slowly:

“Now, my sister, let us leave the room.”

Dreams

Five old friends had been dining together, an author, a doctor, and three wealthy bachelors of independent means.

All available topics of conversation had been exhausted, and that feeling of weariness which heralds the breaking up of such a gathering was already settling upon those present. One of the party, who for five minutes had been silently contemplating the lighted Boulevard, with its noise and bustle, suddenly remarked:

“The days seem long when one has nothing to do from morning till night.”

“And the nights also,” added his neighbour. “I hardly sleep at all, amusements bore me and conversation is always the same. I never come across a new idea, and before talking to anybody I always have to struggle with a violent desire to remain quite silent and not listen to anyone. I don’t know what to do in the evenings.”

“I would give anything,” the third idler said, “for some means of spending even two pleasant hours every day.”

The author, who had just thrown his overcoat over his arm, came towards them and said:

“Anybody who could find a new vice and could pass it on to his fellow-creatures, even though it might shorten life by half, would do a far greater service to humanity than anyone who might discover a means of securing perpetual health and youth.”

The doctor began to laugh, and, biting off the end of his cigar, he said:

“Yes, but it is not found so easily as that. Ever since the beginning of the world the problem has been vigorously attacked. Primitive man instantly attained perfection in that line, but we can scarcely equal him.”

One of the three idlers murmured:

“What a pity!”

A moment later he added:

“If only one could sleep, could sleep well, without feeling too warm or too cold, sleep with that exhaustion which comes from an evening of intense fatigue, sleep without dreaming!”

“Why without dreaming?” inquired his neighbour.

“Because dreams are not always pleasant,” the other replied, “because they are always strange, improbable and incoherent, and while asleep we cannot even enjoy the best ones to the full. You must dream while awake.”

“Who prevents you from doing so?” asked the author.

The doctor threw away his cigar.

“My dear fellow, daydreaming requires the exercise of great willpower, and therefore leaves one very tired. Now one of the most delightful things in the world is a real dream⁠—the mind wandering through pleasant visions⁠—but it must come naturally, not under painful stimulation, and it should be accompanied by complete physical comfort. That kind of dream I can offer you, if you will promise not to abuse it.”

The author shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I know all about that; hashish, opium, green jain, the Paradis Artificiels. I have read Baudelaire’s books and I have even tasted his famous drug, which made me very ill.”

The doctor sat down again.

“No, I mean ether, simply ether; and I might add that you literary men ought to use it sometimes.”

The three rich men came nearer, and one of them asked him to explain its effect.

“Let us come down to facts,” the doctor replied; “I am leaving medicine and morality out of the question; I am only concerned at the moment with pleasure. You are indulging every day in excesses which are shortening your lives. I will bring a new sensation to your notice, possibly only for men of intelligence⁠—that is to say, of considerable intelligence⁠—dangerous, like everything which overexcites us, but none the less exquisite. I should add that a certain amount of preparation is required, that is to say, it is necessary to become accustomed to it, in order to experience to the full the singular effects of ether.

“They are different from the effects of hashish, opium and morphine, and they cease as soon as you stop inhaling it, while the other dream-producers continue their action for hours.

“I will try to analyse as clearly as possible the feelings experienced by the use of ether, but so delicate and fleeting are those sensations that it is not an easy task.

“I first tried this remedy when I was suffering from violent neuralgia, and I have perhaps rather abused it since. I had sharp pains in the head and neck, and my skin became unbearably hot and feverish. I took a large flask of ether, and lying down, I began slowly to inhale it. After a few minutes, I thought I heard a vague murmur, which soon became a kind of drone, and it seemed to me that the inside of my body was getting lighter⁠—as light as air⁠—and dissolving in vapour.

“Then came a sort of stupor, a drowsy feeling of comfort, in spite of the pains which were still present, but were no longer acute. They were pains such as one could endure with resignation, and no longer that terrible excruciating agony against which the whole tortured body protests.

“Soon that curious and delightful feeling of buoyancy spread from my body to my limbs, which in turn became light as a feather, as if the flesh and bones had disappeared and had left only the skin to enable me to feel the pleasure of living and resting in such comfort. I then realised that I was no longer in agony, the pain had vanished, melted away. I heard four voices, as if two conversations were going on at the same time, but I could not understand a single word; sometimes there was a confused jumble of sounds; sometimes I could distinguish words; but it was evident that what I heard was nothing but the intensified drumming in my ears. Far from being asleep, I was very much awake; my ideas, my sensations and my thoughts were marvellously clear and strong, aided by a feeling of exhilaration, a curious intoxication arising from a tenfold increase in my mental powers.

“It was not like the dreams produced by hashish, or the morbid illusions of opium; it was a wonderful clearness of thought, a new way of regarding and appreciating the important things in life, with the absolute certainty that this way was the right one.

“And I suddenly remembered the old Biblical idea. It seemed to me that I had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge and that all mysteries were solved, so powerful and irrefutable was this strange new logic. Arguments, reasons and proofs crowded upon me, only to be upset by still stronger ones. My brain became a battlefield of ideas; I saw myself as a superior being, armed with an invincible intelligence, and I experienced a fierce joy in the discovery of my power.

“All this lasted a very long time, while I continued to inhale the ether in my flask. Suddenly I realised that it was empty, and felt most terribly grieved.”

The four men spoke together:

“Doctor, give me a prescription for a pint of ether!”

But the doctor put on his hat and retorted:

“Certainly not! Go and be poisoned by somebody else!”

And he went out.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you feel inclined to try?⁠—

A True Story

A gale was blowing out of doors; the autumn wind moaned and careered round the house, one of those winds which kill the last leaves and carry them off into the clouds.

The shooting-party were finishing their dinner, still in their boots, flushed, animated, and inflamed. They were Normans, of a class between the nobles and the yeomen, half country-squires, half peasants, rich and strong, capable of breaking the horns of the bulls when they catch hold of them at fairs.

All day long they had been shooting over the land of Maître Blondel, the mayor of Éparville, and were now at their meal round the large table, in the sort of half farmhouse, half country-seat owned by their host.

They spoke as ordinary men shout, laughed like wild beasts roaring, and drank like cisterns, their legs outstretched, their elbows on the tablecloth, their eyes shining beneath the flame of the lamps, warmed by a huge fire which cast blood-coloured gleams over the ceiling; they were talking of shooting and of dogs. But they had reached the period when other ideas come into the heads of half-drunk men, and all eyes were turned on a sturdy, plump-cheeked girl who was carrying the great dishes of food in her red hands.

Suddenly a hefty fellow, named Séjour, who, after studying for the Church, had become a veterinary surgeon, and looked after all the animals in the locality, exclaimed:

“By Gad, Blundel, there’s no flies on that filly you’ve got there!”

There was a resounding laugh. Then an old nobleman, Monsieur de Vernetot, who had lost caste through taking to drink, lifted up his voice:

“Once upon a time I had a funny affair with a girl like that. I really must tell you the tale. Whenever I think of it, it reminds me of Mirza, the bitch I sold to the Comte d’Haussonnel: she returned every day as soon as she was unchained, she found it so hard to leave me. In the end I grew angry, and asked the comte to keep her chained up. Well, do you know what the poor beast did? She died of grief.

“But, to return to my maid, here’s the story.

“I was twenty-five at the time, and was living a bachelor life on my Villebon estate. When a man’s young, you know, and has money, and bores himself to tears every evening after dinner, he keeps his eyes open on every side.

“I soon discovered a young thing in service with Déboultot of Canville. You knew Déboultot, Blondel, didn’t you? In short, the hussy took my fancy to such an extent that one day I went off to see her master, and suggested a bit of business to him. He was to let me have his servant, and I was to sell him my black mare, Cocote, which he’d been wanting for close on two years. He gave me his hand, with a ‘Put it there, Monsieur de Varnetot.’ The bargain was struck, the little girl came to my house, and I myself took my mare to Canville and let her go for three hundred crowns.

“At first everything went swimmingly. No one suspected anything; the only thing was that Rose loved me a little too much for my liking. She wasn’t of the common stock, I tell you. There was no ordinary blood in her veins; it must have come from some other girl who went wrong with her master.

“In short, she adored me. It was all coaxing and billing and cooing, and calling me pet names as if I were her little dog; so many pretty loving ways that I began to think rather seriously.

“I said to myself: ‘This musn’t go on, or I’ll let myself be caught.’ But I’m not easily caught, I’m not. I’m not the sort of fellow to be wheedled with a couple of kisses. In fact, my eyes were very much open, when she told me that she was in the family way.

“Crash! Bang! It was as though someone had fired a couple of shots into my chest. And she kissed me, kissed me and laughed and danced, fairly off her head with delight! I said nothing the first day, but I reasoned it out at night. ‘Well, that’s that,’ I thought, ‘but I must avoid the worst and cut her adrift; it’s high time.’ You see, my father and mother were at Barneville, and my sister, who was the wife of the Marquis d’Yspare, at Rollebec, two leagues from Villebon. I couldn’t take any chances.

“But how was I to extricate myself? If she left the house, suspicions would be aroused, and people would talk. If I kept her, the cat would soon be out of the bag; and besides, I could not let her go like that.

“I spoke about it to my uncle, the Baron de Créteuil, an old buck who had had more than one such experience, and asked him for a word of advice. He replied calmly:

“ ‘You must get her married, my boy.’

“I jumped.

“ ‘Get her married, Uncle! But to whom?’

“He quietly shrugged his shoulders:

“ ‘Anyone you like; that’s your business, and not mine. If you’re not a fool, you can always find someone.’

“I thought over this advice for a good week, and ended by saying to myself: ‘My uncle’s quite right.’

“So I began to rack my brains and search for a man; when one evening the justice of the peace, with whom I had been dining, told me:

“ ‘Old Mother Paumelle’s son has just been up to his larks again; he’ll come to a bad end, will that boy. It’s true enough that like father like son.’

“This Mother Paumelle was a sly old thing whose own youth had left something to be desired. For a crown she would assuredly have sold her soul, and her lout of a son into the bargain.

“I went to find her, and, very carefully, I made her understand the situation.

“As I was becoming embarrassed in my explanations, she suddenly asked me:

“ ‘And what are you going to give the girl?’

“She was a cunning old thing, but I was no fool, and had made all my preparations.

“I had just three little bits of land away out near Sasseville, which were let out from my three Villebon farms. The farmers were always complaining that they were a long way off; to make a long story short, I had taken back these three fields, six acres in all, and, as my peasants were making an outcry about it, I let them all off their dues in poultry until the end of each lease. By this means I put the business through all right. Then I bought a strip of land from my neighbour, Monsieur d’Aumonté, and had a cottage built on it, all for fifteen hundred francs. In this way I made a little bit of property which did not cost me much, and I gave it to the girl as a dowry.

“The old woman protested: this was not enough; but I held to it, and we parted without settling anything.

“Early next morning the lad came to see me. I had almost forgotten what he looked like. When I saw him, I was reassured; he wasn’t so bad for a peasant; but he looked a pretty dirty scoundrel.

“He took a detached view of the affair, as though he had come to buy a cow. When we had come to terms, he wanted to see the property, and off we went across the fields. The rascal kept me out there a good three hours; he surveyed the land, measured it, and took up sods and crushed them in his hands, as though he were afraid of being cheated over the goods. The cottage was not yet roofed, and he insisted on slate instead of thatch, because it required less upkeep!

“Then he said to me:

“ ‘But what about the furniture? You’re giving that!’

“ ‘Certainly not,’ I protested; ‘it’s very good of me to give you the farm.’

“ ‘Not half,’ he sniggered; ‘a farm and a baby.’

“I blushed in spite of myself.

“ ‘Come,’ he continued, ‘you’ll give the bed, a table, the dresser, three chairs, and the crockery, or there’s nothing doing.’

“I consented.

“And back we went. He had not yet said a word about the girl. But suddenly he asked, with a cunning, worried air:

“ ‘But if she died, who would the stuff go to?’

“ ‘Why, to you, of course,’ I replied.

“That was all he had wanted to find out that morning. He promptly offered me his hand with a gesture of satisfaction. We were agreed.

“But, oh! I had some trouble to convince Rose, I can tell you. She grovelled at my feet, sobbed and repeated: ‘It’s you who suggest this, you! you!’ She held out for more than a week, in spite of my reasoning and my entreaties. Women are silly things; once love gets into their heads, they can’t understand anything. Common sense means nothing to them: love before all, all for love!

“At last I grew angry and threatened to turn her out. At that she gradually yielded, on condition that I allowed her to come and see me from time to time.

“I myself led her to the altar, paid for the ceremony, and gave the wedding breakfast. I did the thing in style. Then it was: ‘Good night, children!’ I went and spent six months with my brother in Touraine.

“When I returned, I learnt that she had come to the house every week and asked for me. I hadn’t been back an hour when I saw her coming with a brat in her arms. Believe me or not, as you like, but it meant something to me to see that little mite. I believe I even kissed it.

“As for the mother, she was a ruin, a skeleton, a shadow. Thin, and grown old. By God, marriage didn’t suit her!

“ ‘Are you happy?’ I inquired mechanically.

“At that she began to cry like a fountain, hiccuping and sobbing, and exclaimed:

“ ‘I can’t, I can’t do without you, now! I’d rather die! I can’t!’

“She made the devil of a noise. I consoled her as best I could, and led her back to the gate.

“I found out that her husband beat her, and that the old harpy of a mother-in-law made life hard for her.

“Two days later she came back again; she took me in her arms and grovelled on the ground.

“ ‘Kill me, but I won’t go back there any more,’ she implored. Exactly what Mirza would have said if she had spoken!

“All this fuss was beginning to get on my nerves, and I cleared out for another six months. When I returned⁠ ⁠… when I returned, I learnt that she had died three weeks before, after having come back to the house every Sunday⁠ ⁠… still just like Mirza. The child too had died eight days later.

“As for the husband, the cunning rascal, he came into the inheritance. He’s done well for himself since, so it seems; he’s a town councillor now.”

Then Monsieur de Varnetot added with a laugh:

“Anyhow, I made his fortune for him.”

And Monsieur Séjour, the veterinary surgeon, raising a glass of brandy to his lips, gravely concluded the story with:

“Say what you like, but there’s no place in this world for that sort of woman!”

The Burglar

“I tell you, you will not believe it.”

“Well, tell it anyhow.”

“All right, here goes. But first I must tell you that my story is absolutely true in every respect; even if it does sound improbable. The only ones who will not be surprised are the artists, who remember that time of mad pranks, when the habit of practical joking had reached a point where we could not get rid of it even in the most serious circumstances.” The old artist seated himself astride on a chair. We were in the dining room of a hotel at Barbizon.

“Well, we had dined that night at poor Sorieul’s, who is now dead, and who was the worst of us all. There were just three of us, Sorieul, myself, and Le Poittevin, I think, but I am not sure if it was he. I mean, of course, the marine painter, Eugène Le Poittevin, who is also dead, not the landscape painter, who is still alive and full of talent.

“When I say we had dined at Sorieul’s, that means we were tipsy. Le Poittevin alone had kept his head, somewhat light, but still fairly clear. Those were the days when we were young. We had stretched ourselves on the floor of the little room adjoining the studio and were talking extravagantly. Sorieul lay flat on his back, with his feet propped up on a chair, discussing war and the uniforms of the Empire, when, suddenly, he got up, took out of the big wardrobe where he kept his accessories a complete hussar’s uniform and put it on. He then took out a grenadier’s uniform and told Le Poittevin to put it on; but he objected, so we seized him, undressed him, and forced him into an immense uniform in which he was completely lost. I arrayed myself as a cuirassier. After we were ready, Sorieul made us go through a complicated drill. Then he exclaimed: ‘As long as we are troopers let us drink like troopers.’

“We brewed one bowl of punch, drank it, and lit the flame a second time beneath the bowl filled with rum. We were bawling some old camp songs at the top of our voice, when Le Poittevin, who in spite of all the punch had retained his self-control, held up his hand and said: ‘Hush! I am sure I heard someone walking in the studio.’

“ ‘A burglar!’ said Sorieul, staggering to his feet, ‘Good luck!’ And he began the ‘Marseillaise’:

“ ‘Aux armes, citoyens!’

“Then he seized several weapons from the wall and equipped us according to our uniforms. I received a musket and a sabre. Le Poittevin was handed an enormous gun with a bayonet attached. Sorieul, not finding just what he wanted, seized a horse-pistol, stuck it in his belt, and brandishing a battle-axe in one hand, he opened the studio door cautiously. The army advanced into the suspected territory.

“When we were in the middle of the immense room, littered with huge canvases, furniture, and strange, unexpected objects, Sorieul said: ‘I appoint myself general. Let us hold a council of war. You, the cuirassiers, will keep the enemy from retreating⁠—that is, lock the door. You, the grenadiers, will be my escort.’

“I executed my orders and rejoined the troops, who were behind a large screen reconnoitring. Just as I reached it I heard a terrible noise. I rushed up with the candle to investigate the cause of it and this is what I saw. Le Poittevin was piercing the dummy’s breast with his bayonet and Sorieul was splitting his head open with his axe! When the mistake had been discovered the General commanded: ‘Be cautious!’ and operations were resumed.

“We had explored every nook and corner of the studio for the past twenty minutes without success, when Le Poittevin thought he would look in the cupboard. As it was quite deep and very dark, I advanced with the candle and looked in. I drew back stupefied. A man, a real live man this time, stood there looking at me! I quickly recovered myself, however, and locked the cupboard door. We then retired a few paces to hold a council.

“Opinions were divided. Sorieul wanted to smoke the burglar out; Le Poittevin suggested starvation, and I proposed to blow him up with dynamite. Le Poittevin’s idea being finally accepted as the best, we proceeded to bring the punch and pipes into the studio, while Le Poittevin kept guard with his big gun on his shoulder, and settling ourselves in front of the cupboard we drank the prisoner’s health. We had done this repeatedly, when Sorieul suggested that we bring out the prisoner and take a look at him.

“ ‘Hooray!’ cried I. We picked up our weapons and made a mad rush for the cupboard door. It was finally opened, and Sorieul, cocking his pistol, which was not loaded, rushed in first. Le Poittevin and I followed yelling like lunatics and, after a mad scramble in the dark, we at last brought out the burglar. He was a haggard-looking, white-haired old bandit, with shabby, ragged clothes. We bound him hand and foot and dropped him in an armchair. He said nothing.

“ ‘We will try this wretch,’ said Sorieul, whom the punch had made very solemn. I was so far gone that it seemed to me quite a natural thing. Le Poittevin was named for the defence and I for the prosecution. The prisoner was condemned to death by all except his counsel.

“ ‘We will now execute him,’ said Sorieul. ‘Still, this man cannot die without repenting,’ he added, feeling somewhat scrupulous. ‘Let us send for a priest.’

“I objected that it was too late, so he proposed that I officiate and forthwith told the prisoner to confess his sins to me. For the past five minutes the old man was rolling his eyes in terror, wondering what kind of wretches we were and for the first time he spoke. His voice was hollow and husky with drink:

“ ‘You don’t mean it, do you?’

“Sorieul forced him to his knees, and for fear he had not been baptised, poured a glass of rum over his head, saying: ‘Confess your sins; your last hour has come!’

“Terrified, the old ruffian began to shout: ‘Help! Help!’ so loudly that we had to gag him, lest he should wake the neighbours.

“Then he rolled on the floor, kicking and twisting, upsetting the furniture, and smashing the canvases. Finally, Sorieul lost his patience, and shouted: ‘Come, let us end this.’ He pointed his pistol at the old man and pressed the trigger, which fell with a sharp click. Carried away by his example, I fired in my turn. My gun, which was a flintlock, gave out a spark, to my surprise. Then Le Poittevin said gravely:

“ ‘Have we really the right to kill this man?’

“ ‘We have condemned him to death!’ said Sorieul, astounded.

“ ‘Yes, but we have no right to shoot a civilian. Let us take him to the police-station. He must be delivered to the executioner.’

“We agreed with him, and as the old man could not walk we tied him to a board, and Le Poittevin and I carried him, while Sorieul, armed to the teeth, kept guard in the rear. At the gate the guard stopped us. The chief, who knew us and was well acquainted with our manner of joking, thought it was a great lark and laughingly refused to take our prisoner in. Sorieul insisted, but the chief told us very sternly to go home and be quiet. The army resumed its march, and we returned to the studio.

“ ‘What are we going to do with him?’ I asked.

“ ‘The poor man must be awfully tired!’ said Le Poittevin, sympathetically.

“He did look half dead, gagged and tied to the plank, and in my turn I felt a sudden pity for him (the punch, no doubt), and I relieved him of his gag.

“ ‘How do you feel, old man?’ I asked.

“ ‘By Jingo! I have enough of this,’ he groaned.

“Then Sorieul became fatherly. He unbound him and made him take a seat, and treated him as a long-lost friend. The three of us immediately brewed a fresh bowl of punch, and the burglar watched us quietly from his armchair. As soon as it was ready we handed a glass to the prisoner, and we would gladly have held up his head. Toast followed toast. The old man could drink more than the three of us put together; but as daylight appeared, he got up and calmly said: ‘I shall be obliged to leave you; I must get home now.’

“We begged him not to go, but he positively refused to stay any longer. So we shook hands with him, and took him to the door, and Sorieul held the candle to light him through the hall, saying: ‘Look out for the step under the outer door.’ ”

Everybody round the storyteller laughed heartily. He got up, lit his pipe, and added, standing straight before us, “The funniest part of my story is that it really happened.”

A Woman’s Confession

You ask me to tell you about the most vivid recollections of my life. I am very old and have neither children nor relatives, and am therefore free to confide in you. Only promise that you will never reveal my name. As you know, I have been very much loved and have myself often loved in return. I was very beautiful; I may say so now that nothing remains of my beauty. To me love was the life of the soul just as air is the life of the body. I would rather have died than lived without affection, without being the constant subject of someone’s thought. Women often pretend that they only love once with all the strength of their feelings; I have often been so desperately in love that it was impossible to think that it could ever end, but the feeling always died out quite naturally, like a fire that lacks fuel. Today I will tell you my first adventure, a quite innocent one so far as I was concerned, but it led to others. The terrible revenge of that dreadful chemist of Pecq reminds me of the appalling drama I witnessed much against my will.

I had been married a year to a rich man, the Count Hervé de Ker, a member of an old Breton family, whom of course I did not love. Real love requires, at least so it seems to me, both freedom and opposition. Can that which is imposed upon one from the outside, sanctioned by law and blessed by the priest, be love? A legal kiss is never as good as a kiss that is stolen. My husband was tall, elegant, and quite the aristocrat in appearance. But he lacked intelligence. He spoke sharply and expressed opinions calculated to wound his hearers. One felt his mind to be full of ready-made thoughts transmitted by his father and mother, who had themselves got them from their ancestors. He never hesitated a moment, but gave directly his narrow-minded opinions about everything, without embarrassment and without realising that there might be other points of view. You felt that his mind was closed to all outer influences, that it contained none of those ideas that renew and cleanse the mind, like a breath of fresh air passing through a house with open doors and windows.

The country house we occupied was situated in a very lonely part of the country. It was a big, sad-looking building, surrounded by enormous trees with tufts of moss that reminded one of the white beards of old men. The park, a real forest, was enclosed by a deep ditch called a ha-ha; at its extremity, near the moors, were two big ponds full of reeds and floating grass; by the side of a stream which joined the two lakes my husband had built a little hut from which he could shoot wild duck.

In addition to our ordinary staff of servants we had a keeper, a brutish individual who would have died for my husband, and a lady’s maid, one might say a friend, passionately attached to me, whom I had brought back from Spain five years before. She was a foundling and might have been taken for a gipsy with her dark complexion, sombre eyes, and hair dense as a forest, which sprang up in waves from her brow; she was sixteen and looked twenty.

Autumn had just set in, and a great deal of shooting was going on, either over our neighbours’ land or over our own, and I noticed among the guns a young man, the Baron de C⁠⸺, who was always coming to the château. Then his visits ceased and I thought no more about, but perceived that my husband’s manner to me had changed. He seemed taciturn and preoccupied, he never kissed me; and although he rarely came to my room⁠—I insisted upon separate rooms so as to enjoy a little liberty⁠—I often heard in the night a stealthy footstep approach my door, stay a few minutes, and then go away again.

My window being on the ground floor, I often thought I heard someone wandering about round the château in the dark. When I told my husband he looked at me steadily for a second or two, and then said:

“It is nothing, it is the keeper.”

Well, one evening, just as dinner was over, Hervé, who seemed in wonderful spirits, which was most unusual, though his cheerfulness had a touch of cunning about it, said to me:

“Would you like to spend three hours on the lookout for a fox who comes every night and eats the chickens?”

I was surprised and hesitated, but as he was gazing at me with curious obstinacy I finally replied: “Certainly, dear.” I must explain that I hunted both wolf and wild boar as well as any man, so that there was nothing unnatural in the suggestion. But suddenly my husband began to look very excited, and during the whole evening he could not keep still, but was always getting up and sitting down again.

Suddenly, about ten o’clock, he said to me:

“Are you ready?” I got up and as he brought me my gun I asked: “Must I load with bullets or buckshot?” He seemed surprised and said: “Oh, only with shot, that’s quite enough, you may be sure!” Then, after a few seconds, he added in a curious voice: “You may pride yourself on possessing amazing presence of mind!” I laughed, saying: “Me? Why? Presence of mind to kill a fox? Whatever are you thinking about, my friend?” So off we went without a sound, through the park. Everyone in the house was asleep. The full moon turned the dark old building with its shining roof yellow. The pinnaces of the two turrets, one on either side, were splotched with light, and no sound disturbed the deathlike stillness of the clear, sad, sweet, heavy night. There was no movement in the air, not a frog croaked, not an owl called; a dreary listlessness was weighing on everything.

When we reached the trees in the park the air was fresh and I could smell the fallen leaves. My husband never said a word, but he was listening, watching, he seemed to be scenting his prey in the dark, entirely carried away by the passion of the chase. We soon reached the bank of the ponds where the jungle of reeds lay perfectly still, unstirred by any breeze; but there was a faint pulsation of the water, occasional specks ruffled its surface, which spread in hardly perceptible circles, growing wider and wider, like luminous ripples.

When we reached the hut in which we were to wait, my husband made me go in first and then very deliberately loaded his gun, the sharp click of the hammer affecting me in a curious way. He knew I was trembling, and said:

“Perhaps this has been enough for you? If so, go!”

Very surprised, I answered:

“Not at all, I did not come here just to go back again. You are very queer tonight!”

He murmured: “Do as you like,” after which neither of us stirred.

In about half an hour, as nothing happened to disturb the heavy, clear calm of the autumn night, I whispered:

“Are you quite sure it goes this way?”

Hervé started as if I had bitten him, and with his lips to my ears hissed: “I tell you I am quite sure.”

And again there was silence.

I think I must have begun to doze when my husband squeezed my arm and hissed: “Do you see it down there under the trees?” I looked, but could see nothing, then, staring me straight in the eyes, Hervé raised his gun slowly. I was ready to shoot too, when suddenly thirty steps in front of us a man appeared in the full moonlight, he was walking quickly with body bent as if he were in flight.

I was so overcome with astonishment that I gave a loud cry, but before I had time to turn, there was a flash, the report of the gun stunned me, and I saw the man rolling on the ground like a wolf.

Shrill moans fell from my lips and I was alarmed and crazy with horror until an angry hand, Hervé’s, seized me by the throat. First he knocked me down and then he picked me up in his strong arms, and, holding me up in the air, ran towards the body lying on the grass, and threw me upon it with such violence that he might have wanted to break my head.

I felt done for; he was going to kill me; he had just raised his foot to crush my head when he was seized and thrown down before I could make out what had happened.

I sat up quickly and saw Paquita, my maid, kneeling upon him, crouching over him like a wild cat, convulsed with rage, tearing away at his beard and his moustache, and scratching his face.

Then, as if possessed by another idea, she hurriedly got up and threw herself on the dead body, which she took in her arms, kissing it on the eyes and mouth, opening the lips of the dead man with her own lips, seeking for a sign of life and the unfathomable embrace of passionate lovers. My husband, sitting up, looked on. At last he understood and, dropping at my feet, said:

“Oh! forgive me, darling. I suspected you and I have killed this girl’s lover; my keeper deceived me.”

As for me, I was looking on at the unnatural kisses exchanged between the dead and the living, at the sobs of the woman and her wild spasms of despairing love.

From that moment I knew that I should be unfaithful to my husband.

Moonlight

Madame Julie Roubère was expecting her elder sister, Madame Henriette Létoré, who was returning from Switzerland.

The Létorés had been away about five weeks and Madame Henriette’s husband had gone back alone to their estate in Calvados, where his presence was required, and she was coming to spend a few days in Paris with her sister.

Night was falling and Madame Roubère was absentmindedly reading in the little middle-class drawing room in the twilight, looking up at every sound.

At last the bell rang and her sister appeared, wrapped in her travelling-coat. They were immediately locked in a tight embrace, kissing each other again and again.

Then they started to talk, asking after each other’s health, after their respective families, and a thousand other questions, chattering away jerking out hurried, broken sentences, fluttering around each other while Madame Henriette took off her hat.

Night had fallen. Madame Roubère rang for the lamp and as soon as it was brought in she looked at her sister before giving her another hug, but was filled with dismay and astonishment at her appearance, for Madame Létoré had two large locks of white hair over the temples. All the rest was jet-black, but on both sides of her head ran, as it were, two silver streams lost in the surrounding black mass. She was only twenty-four and this change had happened since she left for Switzerland! Stopping short, Madame Roubère gazed at her aghast, on the verge of tears because she thought that some terrible, unknown misfortune must have befallen her sister. She said: “What is the matter, Henriette?”

Smiling a sad, stricken smile, the sister replied:

“Nothing at all, I assure you. Were you looking at my white hair?”

But Madame Roubère impetuously seized her by the shoulders, and with a searching glance repeated: “What is the matter? Tell me. I shall know if you don’t tell the truth.”

Madame Henriette, who had turned deathly pale, returned her sister’s glance with tears in her downcast eyes.

Her sister repeated: “What has happened? What is the matter? You must answer!”

In a subdued voice she murmured: “I have⁠ ⁠… I have a lover,” and, putting her head on her younger sister’s shoulder, she sobbed aloud.

When she was a little quieter and the heaving of her body had died down, she began to unbosom herself as if to cast forth the secret, to empty her distress into a sympathetic heart.

Hand in hand they clung to each other in silence and then sank on to a sofa in a dark corner of the room, and the younger sister, putting her arm round the elder one’s neck and holding her tight, listened to the story.

“Oh! I know that there was no excuse; I don’t understand myself, but I feel quite frantic ever since. Take care, darling, take care; if you only knew how weak we are, how quickly we yield, how soon we fall! It takes so little, so little, a mere nothing, a moment of tenderness, a sudden fit of melancholy, a longing to open your arms wide, to cherish, to fondle someone: we all feel like that sometimes.

“You know my husband, and you know how much I love him; but he is middle-aged and sensible and has no understanding of the tender other emotions that sway a woman’s heart. He is always, always the same, always kind, always smiling, always amiable, always perfect. Oh! how sometimes I have wanted him to clasp me roughly in his arms, to give me one of those slow, sweet kisses in which two beings intermingle, which are like silent avowals! How I have wanted him to be foolish, to be weak, to need me, to need my caresses, and my tears!

“All this is very silly, but we women are like that. We can’t help it.

“And yet I had never the faintest intention of being unfaithful. Now, I have done it, without love, without any reason whatever, without anything, simply because the moon was shining one night on the Lake of Lucerne.

“During the month that we were travelling together, my husband, with his calm indifference, damped all my enthusiasm, and dashed all my hopes. As the four coach-horses galloped down the mountainside at sunrise, the view of the transparent morning haze, the long valleys, the woods, the streams and the villages made me clap my hands with delight and I said: ‘How beautiful, how beautiful it is, my darling, please kiss me!’ He only replied with a smile of chilly kindliness and a slight shrug of the shoulders: ‘Because you like the landscape is no reason why we should kiss each other.’ That cut me to the heart.

“I do think that when people love each other they ought to want to love each other in the presence of things so beautiful that one’s whole being is set ablaze. In fact I was bubbling over with poetry which his presence forced me to suppress. How can I explain it? I was almost like a boiler filled with steam and hermetically sealed.

“One evening (we had been four days at an hotel at Fluelen) Robert, who had a headache, went to bed as soon as dinner was over, and I went for a walk by the lake alone.

“The night was like fairyland. The round moon hung in the middle of the heavens: the crests of the tall mountains, covered with snow, looked as if they were wearing silver crowns, and the rippling water of the lake was alive with little streaks of light. The air was soft and sweet with that penetrating warmth that destroys all power of resistance and fills one with unexpected weakness. Under this influence one’s feelings are hypersensitive and over-responsive; they are aflame in a second, and passionately active! I sat on the grass and gazed at the vast, melancholy, profoundly lovely lake, and was suddenly aware that what I so keenly desired was love. I was in revolt against the gloomy dullness of my life. What! would it never be my lot to wander along a moonbathed bank with a man I loved? Was I never to feel the ecstasy of those soul-stirring, delicious, intoxicating kisses which lovers exchanged in the sweetness of a night that seems to have been made for love? Was I never to be feverishly embraced in longing arms, in the moonlit shadow of a summer’s night? And I burst into tears like a crazy woman! Then a sound came from somewhere behind and I looked up to see a man gazing at me. He recognised me as I turned my head, and, coming forward, said: ‘You are crying, Madame?’

“It was a young barrister who was travelling with his mother and whom we had met occasionally. His eyes had often followed me.

“I was too upset to find any answer, so I got up at once and said I felt ill.

“He talked about our journey, walking by my side, quite naturally and simply. He expressed in words all that I felt: he understood all the things that left me breathless with delight, only much better than I did myself, and then suddenly he recited some of de Musset’s poetry. I gasped for breath; I felt that the mountains themselves, the lake, the moonlight, all were singing of things ineffably sweet.⁠ ⁠…

“And then it happened, I can’t say how or why, in a kind of hallucination. As for him⁠ ⁠… I only saw him again the next day as we were leaving.

“He gave me his card!⁠ ⁠…”

And Madame Létoré fell back into her sister’s arms, moaning piteously.

Then Madame Roubère, dignified and serious, gently said: “You see, my dear, there are times when we are in love, not with any man, but with love itself. That night the moonlight was your real lover.”

A Cock Crowed

Madame Berthe d’Avancelles up to that time had resisted all the prayers of her despairing admirer, Baron Joseph de Croissard. In Paris during the winter he had pursued her ardently, and now he was giving fêtes and shooting parties in her honour at his château at Carville, in Normandy.

Monsieur d’Avancelles, her husband, saw nothing and knew nothing, as usual. It was said that he lived apart from his wife on account of physical weakness, for which Madame d’Avancelles would not pardon him. He was a stout, bald little man, with short arms, legs, neck, nose and everything else, while Madame d’Avancelles, on the contrary, was a tall, dark and determined young woman, who laughed loudly in her husband’s face, while he called her openly “Mrs. Housewife,” and who looked at the broad shoulders, strong build and fair moustaches of her recognized admirer, Baron Joseph de Croissard, with a certain amount of tenderness.

She had not, however, granted him anything as yet. The Baron was ruining himself for her, and there was a constant round of fêtes, hunting parties and new pleasures, to which he invited the neighbouring nobility. All day long the hounds bayed in the woods, as they followed the fox or the wild boar, and every night dazzling fireworks mingled their burning plumes with the stars, while the illuminated windows of the drawing room cast long rays of light on the wide lawns, where shadows were moving to and fro.

It was autumn, the russet-coloured season, and the leaves were whirling about on the grass like flights of birds. One noticed the smell of damp earth in the air, of the naked earth, as one smells the odour of naked flesh, when a woman’s dress falls from her, after a ball.

One evening in the previous spring, during an entertainment, Madame d’Avancelles had said to Monsieur de Croissard, who was worrying her by his importunities: “If I do succumb to you, my friend, it will not be before the fall of the leaf. I have too many things to do this summer to have any time for it.” He had not forgotten that bold and amusing speech, and every day he became more pressing, every day he advanced in his approaches, and gained a step in the heart of the fair, audacious woman, who seemed only to be resisting for form’s sake.

It was the eve of a great wild-boar hunt, and Madame Berthe said to the Baron with a laugh: “Baron, if you kill the brute, I shall have something for you.” And so, at dawn he was up and out, to try to discover where the wild animal had its lair. He accompanied his beaters, settled the places for the relays, and organized everything personally to insure his triumph, and when the horns gave the signal for setting out, he appeared in a closely-fitting coat of scarlet and gold, with his waist drawn in tight, his chest expanded, his eyes radiant, and as fresh and strong as if he had just got out of bed. They set out, and the wild boar started off through the underwood as soon as he was dislodged, followed by the hounds in full cry, while the horses set off at a gallop through the narrow paths of the forest, and the carriages, which followed the chase at a distance, drove noiselessly along the soft roads.

Out of mischief, Madame d’Avancelles kept the Baron by her side, lagging behind at a walk in an interminably long and straight alley, over which four rows of oaks hung, so as to form almost an arch, while he, trembling with love and anxiety, listened with one ear to the young woman’s bantering chatter, while with the other he listened to the blast of the horns and to the cry of the hounds as they receded in the distance.

“So you do not love me any longer?” she observed. “How can you say such things?” he replied. And she continued: “But you seem to be paying more attention to the sport than to me.” He groaned, and said: “Did you not order me to kill the animal myself?” And she replied gravely: “Of course I am counting on that. You must kill it before my eyes.”

Then he trembled in his saddle, spurred his horse until it reared, and, losing all patience, exclaimed: “But, by Jove, Madame, that is impossible if we remain here.” And she retorted laughingly: “But it must be done or⁠ ⁠… so much the worse for you.” Then she spoke tenderly to him, laying her hand on his arm, or stroking his horse’s mane, as if by mistake.

Just then they turned to the right, into a narrow path which was overhung by trees, and suddenly, to avoid a branch which barred their way, she leaned towards him so closely, that he felt her hair tickling his neck, and he suddenly threw his arms brutally round her and, pressing her forehead with his thick moustache, he gave her a furious kiss.

At first she did not move, and remained motionless under that mad caress; then she turned her head with a jerk, and either by accident or design her little lips met his, under their tuft of fair hair, and a moment afterwards, either from confusion or remorse, she struck her horse with her riding-whip, and went off at full gallop, and they rode on like that for a time, without even exchanging a look.

The noise of the hunt came nearer, the thickets seemed to tremble, and suddenly the wild boar broke through the bushes, covered with blood, and trying to shake off the hounds which had fastened upon him, and the Baron, uttering a shout of triumph, exclaimed: “Let him who loves me follow me!” And he disappeared in the copse, as if the wood had swallowed him up.

When she reached an open glade a few minutes later, he was just getting up, covered with mud, his coat torn, and his hands bloody, while the brute was lying stretched out at full length, with the Baron’s hunting knife driven into its shoulder up to the hilt.

The quarry was cut by torchlight on a night that was wild and melancholy. The moon threw a yellow light on the torches, which made the night misty with their resinous smoke. The hounds devoured the wild boar’s stinking entrails, and snarled and fought for them, while the beaters and the gentlemen, standing in a circle round the spoil, blew their horns’ as loud as they could. The flourish of the hunting-horns resounded beyond the woods on that still night and was repeated by the echoes of the distant valleys, awaking the timid stags, rousing the yelping foxes, and disturbing the little grey rabbits in their gambols at the edge of the glades.

The frightened night-birds flew over the eager pack of hounds, while the women, who were moved by all these gentle and violent things, leaned rather heavily on the men’s arms; and turned aside into the pathways, before the hounds had finished their meal. Madame d’Avancelles, feeling languid after that day of fatigue and tenderness, said to the Baron: “Will you take a turn in the park, my friend?” And without replying, but trembling and nervous, he put his arm around her, and immediately they kissed each other. They walked slowly under the almost leafless trees through which the moonbeams filtered, and their love, their desires, their longing for a closer embrace became so vehement, that they almost sank down at the foot of a tree.

The horns were silent, and the tired hounds were sleeping in the kennels. “Let us return,” the young woman said, and they went back.

When they got to the château and before they went in, she said in a weak voice: “I am so tired that I shall go to bed, my friend.” And as he opened his arms for a last kiss, she ran away, saying as a last goodbye: “No.⁠ ⁠… I am going to sleep.⁠ ⁠… Let him who loves me follow me!”

An hour later, when the whole silent château seemed dead, the Baron crept stealthily out of his room, and went and scratched at her door, and as she did not reply, he tried to open it, and found that it was not locked.

She was dreaming as she leaned upon the window-ledge, and he threw himself at her knees, which he kissed madly, through her nightdress. She said nothing, but buried her delicate fingers caressingly in his hair, and suddenly, as if she had formed some great resolution, she whispered with a bold glance: “I shall come back, wait for me.” And stretching out her hand, she pointed with her finger to an indistinct white spot at the end of the room; it was her bed.

Then, in the dark with trembling hands and scarcely knowing what he was doing, he quickly undressed, got into the cool sheets, and stretching himself out comfortably, he almost forgot his love in the pleasure of feeling the linen caress his tired body. She did not return, however, no doubt finding amusement in straining his patience. He closed his eyes with a feeling of exquisite comfort, and reflected peaceably while waiting for what he so ardently desired. But by degrees his limbs grew languid and his thoughts became indistinct and fleeting, until his great fatigue overcame him and he fell asleep.

He slept that unconquerable, heavy sleep of the worn-out hunter, and he slept until daylight; and then, as the window had remained half open, the crowing of a cock suddenly woke him, and the Baron opened his eyes, and feeling a woman’s body against his, finding himself, much to his surprise, in a strange bed, and remembering nothing for a moment, he stammered:

“What? Where am I? What is the matter?”

Then she, who had not been asleep at all, looking at this unkempt man, with red eyes and thick lips, replied in the haughty tone of voice in which she spoke to her husband:

“It is nothing; it is only a cock crowing. Go to sleep again, Monsieur, it has nothing to do with you.”

The Child

After dinner we were talking about an abortion which had recently been committed in the parish. The Baroness grew indignant: “How are such things possible! The girl, seduced by a butcher’s boy, had thrown her child into a pickling vat! Horrible! It had even been proved that the poor little thing was not killed outright.”

The doctor, who was dining at the house that evening, gave us ghastly details with an air of imperturbable calm. Apparently he was amazed at the courage of the wretched mother who, having given birth to the child all alone, had then walked nearly two miles to kill it. “This woman,” he repeated, “has a will of iron! What savage strength she needed to go through the wood at night with her baby crying in her arms! Such moral suffering impresses me. Think of the terror in her soul, of the torture of her heart! How hateful and vile life is! Infamous prejudices, yes, infamous, I say; a false notion of honour which is worse than the crime itself, a whole host of artificial feelings, odious respectability and revolting virtuousness⁠—these are the things that drive to murder and infanticide poor girls who have surrendered to the imperative call of life. What a shame for humanity to have established such morality, and to have made a crime of the natural union of two human beings!”

The Baroness had grown pale with indignation. “Ah, Doctor,” she replied, “so you put vice above virtue, the prostitute above the honest woman! A woman who abandons herself to her shameful instincts is in your eyes the equal of the irreproachable wife who fulfills her duty in the integrity of her conscience!”

The doctor, who had seen many of life’s sores in his long career, stood up and said with emphasis:

“You are talking, Madame, about matters of which you are ignorant, since you have never felt an invincible passion. Let me tell you of a recent adventure, of which I was a witness. Ah, Madame, you should be kind, indulgent, and full of pity, for you do not understand. Wretched, indeed, are those whom perfidious nature has endowed with strong passions. Quiet people, born without violent instincts, live respectably of necessity. Those who are never tortured by frenzied desires have no difficulty in being good. I see cold-blooded little middle-class women, of rigid morals, of moderate intelligence, and limited affections, who cry out indignantly when they hear of the sins of fallen women. You sleep calmly in a peaceful bed haunted by no desperate dreams. Everyone about you is like you, acts like you, and is protected by the instinctive moderation of their senses. You have a slight struggle with the phantoms of temptation, but it is only your mind which sometimes plays with evil thoughts. Your body does not immediately respond to the slightest whisper of a tempting idea.

“In people whom chance has made passionate the senses are invincible. Can you command the winds, or a stormy sea? Can you thwart the forces of nature? No. The senses are also forces of nature, as invincible as wind and sea. They arouse men and sweep them off their feet, impelling them towards pleasure with a desire whose vehemence they cannot resist. Women who are above reproach are women without temperament, and there are many of them. I do not thank them for their virtue, for they have no struggle. But never, I tell you, never will the Messalinas and Catherines of Russia be virtuous. They cannot be. They are born for wild caresses. Their organs are not like yours, their flesh is different, more sensitive, more easily maddened by the contact of another, and their nerves drive, disturb and conquer them when yours have felt nothing whatever. Just try to feed a hawk, on the little seeds which you give to a parrot! Yet, they are both birds with a crooked beak. But their instincts are different.

“Ah, if you only knew the power of the senses! How they keep you on the rack for whole nights, with burning skin and beating heart, your mind tortured by maddening visions! You see, people of inflexible principles are simply cold natures desperately jealous of others, without knowing it. Listen to this story:

“A woman whom I shall call Madame Hélène had a sensual temperament, even when she was a little girl, for her senses were awakened as soon as she was learning to talk. You will argue that her case was pathological. Why? Is it not even more arguable that you are weaklings? When she was twelve years old I was consulted, and I discovered that she was already a woman and constantly torn by sexual desire. Her very appearance showed this. She had thick, pouting lips, as ripe as full-blown flowers, a powerful neck, warm skin, a large nose with rather wide, sensitive nostrils, and great blue eyes whose glance fired the senses of men. Who could calm the blood of this ardent animal? She spent her nights weeping for no discernible reason. She was suffering agonies for want of a man. Finally, when she was fifteen her parents married her. Two years later her husband died of consumption. She had exhausted him. The same fate overtook her second husband eighteen months after. The third held out for four years, and then left her. It was high time.

“When she was left alone she tried to remain virtuous. She shared all your prejudices. One day, however, she sent for me, as she had had nervous attacks which alarmed her. I saw at once that her widowhood was going to kill her, and I told her so. She was a respectable woman, and in spite of the tortures she suffered, she would not take my advice and find a lover. The countryside said she was mad. She used to go out at night and go off on wild excursions to tire out her rebellious body. Then she would fall into fainting fits followed by horrible cramps. She lived alone in her château, near the home of her mother and relatives. I used to go to see her from time to time, at a loss to know what to do against the obstinate will of nature and her own will.

“One evening, about eight o’clock, she called at my house just as I was finishing dinner. No sooner were we alone than she said:

“ ‘I am lost. I am pregnant!’

“I started in my chair.

“ ‘What!’

“ ‘I am pregnant.’

“ ‘You?’

“ ‘Yes, I.’

“Then suddenly, looking me straight in the face, she said in agitated tones:

“ ‘Pregnant by my gardener, Doctor. I felt rather faint while walking in the park. The man, seeing me fall, ran up and caught me in his arms to carry me in. What did I do? I cannot remember. Did I embrace and kiss him? Perhaps. You know my shameful affliction. To make a long story short, he had me. I am guilty, because I gave myself to him again the next day, and on other occasions afterwards. It was useless, I could no longer hold out⁠ ⁠…’

“She stifled a sob, and continued defiantly:

“ ‘I paid him, for I preferred that to the lover whom you advised me to take. He has made me pregnant. I will confess to you without reserve or hesitation. I tried to procure an abortion. I took boiling hot baths. I rode horses that were not properly broken in. I did gymnastic exercises. I took drugs, absinthe, saffron, and others, but I did not succeed. You know my father, my brothers; I am lost. My sister is married to a respectable man. My disgrace will reflect upon them. Then, think of all our friends, our neighbours, our good name⁠ ⁠… my mother⁠ ⁠…’

“She began to sob. I took her hands in mine and began to question her. Then I advised her to go off on a long journey and have her child away from home. She said: ‘Yes⁠ ⁠… Yes⁠ ⁠… Yes⁠ ⁠… all right⁠ ⁠…’ without listening to what I was saying. Then she left.

“I went to see her several times. She was going mad. The idea of this child growing in her womb, of this living shame, had penetrated her brain like a sharp arrow. She thought of it incessantly, and was afraid to go out in the daytime, or see anybody, lest her abominable secret should be discovered. Every night she would undress in front of her wardrobe mirror and examine her misshapen abdomen; then she would throw herself on the ground, stifling her cries by thrusting a towel into her mouth. Twenty times in the night she got out of bed, lit her candle and returned to that large mirror, which showed her the reflection of her deformed naked body. In a frenzy she would strike her belly with her fists, trying to kill the life which threatened hers. The struggle between the two was terrible, but the child did not die. It moved constantly as though it were defending itself. She rolled on the floor in an effort to crush it, and tried to sleep with a weight on her body to choke it. She hated it with the hatred one has for a stubborn enemy that threatens one’s life.

“After these vain struggles, these impotent efforts to get rid of her child, she dashed out madly into the fields, running in a frenzy of misery and fear. One morning she was found, with her feet in a stream, and a look of madness in her eyes. People thought she had had an attack of delirium, but did not notice what was really the matter with her. She was pursued by an obsession, to remove this accursed child from her body.

“One evening her mother said to her laughingly: ‘How stout you are getting, Hélène. If you were married I would think you were going to have a baby.’

“These words must have been like a deadly blow to her. She left immediately, and returned to her own home. What happened then? Probably she looked again at her swollen belly, struck it, bruised it, and knocked it against the corners of the furniture, as she used to do every night. Then she went downstairs in her bare feet to the kitchen, opened the cupboard and took out the big carving-knife. She went upstairs again, lit four candles, and sat down in front of her mirror on a wicker chair. Then, exasperated with hatred of this unknown and redoubtable embryo, desiring to tear it out and kill it at last, to take it in her hands, strangle it and cast it away from her, she felt for the place where it was stirring, and, with a single stroke of the knife, she ripped open her abdomen from top to bottom.

“She performed her task very well, indeed, and very quickly, for she caught hold of this enemy which had hitherto eluded her grasp. She took it by one leg, tore it out and tried to throw it into the fireplace. But it was held by bonds which she had not been able to cut, and perhaps before she had realized what still remained to be done, in order to separate herself and her child, she fell dead on its body, drowned in a pool of blood.

“Do you think she was very wicked, Madame?”

The doctor was silent and waited, but the Baroness made no reply.

The Lock

The four glasses which were standing in front of the diners were still nearly half full, which is a sign, as a general rule, that the guests are quite so. They were beginning to speak without waiting for an answer; no one took any notice of anything except what was going on inside him; voices grew louder, gestures more animated, eyes brighter.

It was a bachelors’ dinner of confirmed old celibates. They had instituted this regular banquet twenty years before, christening it “The Celibate,” and at the time there were fourteen of them, all fully determined never to marry. Now there were only four of them left; three were dead and the other seven were married.

These four stuck firmly to it, and, as far as lay in their power, they scrupulously observed the rules which had been laid down at the beginning of their curious association. They had sworn, hand-in-hand, to turn aside every woman they could from the right path, and their friends’ wives for choice, and more especially those of their most intimate friends. For this reason, as soon as any of them left the society, in order to set up in domestic life for himself, he took care to quarrel definitely with all his former companions.

Besides this, they were pledged at every dinner to relate most minutely their last adventures, which had given rise to this familiar phrase among them: “To lie like an old bachelor.”

They professed, moreover, the most profound contempt for woman, whom they talked of as an animal made solely for their pleasure. Every moment they quoted Schopenhauer, who was their god, and his well-known essay “On Women”; they wished that harems and towers might be reintroduced, and had the ancient maxim: “Mulier, perpetuus infans,” woven into their table-linen, and below it, the line of Alfred de Vigny: “La femme, enfant malade et douze fois impure.” So that by dint of despising women they lived only for them, while all their efforts and all their desires were directed toward them. Those of them who had married called them old fops, made fun of them, and⁠—feared them.

When they began to feel the exhilarating effects of the champagne, the tales of their old bachelor experiences began.

On the day in question, these old fellows, for they were old by this time, and the older they grew the more extraordinary strokes of luck in the way of love affairs they had to relate, were quite talkative. For the last month, according to their own accounts, each of them had seduced at least one woman a day. And what women! the youngest, the noblest, the richest, and the most beautiful!

After they had finished their stories, one of them, he who had spoken first and had therefore been obliged to listen to all the others, rose and said:

“Now that we have finished drawing the longbow, I should like to tell you, not my last, but my first adventure⁠—I mean the first adventure of my life, my first fall⁠—for it is a moral fall after all, in the arms of Venus. Oh! I am not going to tell you my first⁠—what shall I call it?⁠—my first appearance; certainly not. The leap over the first ditch (I am speaking figuratively) has nothing interesting about it. It is generally rather a muddy one, and one picks oneself up rather abashed, with one charming illusion the less, with a vague feeling of disappointment and sadness. That realization of love the first time one experiences it is rather repugnant; we had dreamed of it as being so different, so delicate, so refined. It leaves a physical and moral sense of disgust behind it, just as when one has happened to put one’s hand on a toad. You may rub your hand as hard as you like, but the moral feeling remains.

“Yes! one very soon gets quite used to it; there is no doubt about that. For my part, however, I am very sorry it was not in my power to give the Creator the benefit of my advice when He was arranging these little matters. I wonder what I should have done? I am not quite sure, but I think, with the English savant, John Stuart Mill, I should have managed differently; I should have found some more convenient and more poetical combination, yes⁠—more poetical.

“I really think that the Creator showed Himself to be too naturalistic⁠—too⁠—what shall I say? His invention lacks poetry.

“However, what I am going to tell you is about my first woman of the world, the first woman in society I ever made love to. I beg your pardon, I ought to say the first woman of the world that ever triumphed over me. For at first it is we who allow ourselves to be taken, while, later on⁠—it is the⁠ ⁠… same thing!

“She was a friend of my mother, a charming woman in every way. When such women are chaste, it is generally from sheer stupidity, and when they are in love they are furiously so. And then⁠—we are accused of corrupting them! Yes, yes, of course! With them it is always the rabbit that begins and never the sportsman. I know all about it; they don’t seem to lure us, but they do it all the same, and do what they like with us, without it being noticed, and then they actually accuse us of having ruined them, dishonoured them, degraded them, and all the rest of it.

“The woman in question certainly had a great desire to be ‘degraded’ by me. She may have been about thirty-five, while I was scarcely two-and-twenty. I no more thought of seducing her than I did of turning Trappist. Well, one day when I was calling on her, and while I was looking at her dress with considerable astonishment, for she had on a morning wrapper which was open as wide as a church-door when the bells are ringing for Mass, she took my hand and squeezed it⁠—squeezed it, you know, as they will do at such moments⁠—and said, with a deep sigh, one of those sighs, you know, which come right from the bottom of the chest: ‘Oh! don’t look at me like that, child!’ I got as red as a tomato, and felt more nervous than usual, naturally. I was very much inclined to bolt, but she held my hand tightly, and putting it on her well-developed bust, she said: ‘Just feel how my heart beats!’ Of course it was beating, and I began to understand what was the matter, but I did not know what to do. I have changed considerably since then.

“As I remained standing there, with one hand on the soft covering of her heart, while I held my hat in the other, and continued to look at her with a confused, silly smile⁠—a timid frightened smile⁠—she suddenly drew back, and said in an irritated voice:

“ ‘Young man, what are you doing? You are indecent and badly brought up.’

“You may be sure I took my hand away quickly, stopped smiling, and stammering out some excuse, got up and took my leave as if I had lost my head.

“But I was caught, and dreamed of her. I thought her charming, adorable; I fancied that I loved her, that I had always loved her, and I determined to see her again. I decided to be enterprising, to be more than that even.

“When I saw her again she gave me a shy smile. Oh, how that little smile upset me! And she shook hands with a long, significant pressure.

“From that day it seems that I made love to her; at least, she declared afterward that I had ruined her, captured her, dishonoured her, with rare Machiavellism, with consummate cleverness, with the calculations of a mathematician, and the cunning of an Apache Indian.

“But one thing troubled me strangely: where was my triumph to be accomplished? I lived with my family, and on this point my family was most particular. I was not bold enough to venture into a hotel in broad daylight with a woman on my arm, and I did not know whom to ask for advice.

“Now, my fair friend had often said in joke that every young man ought to have a room for himself somewhere or other from home. We lived in Paris, and this was a sort of inspiration. I took a room, and she came. She came one day in November; I should have liked to put off her visit because I had no fire, and I had no fire because the chimney smoked. The very evening before I had spoken to my landlord, a retired shopkeeper, about it, and he had promised that he would come himself with the chimney-expert in a day or two to see what could be done.

“As soon as she came in, I said:

“ ‘There is no fire because my chimney smokes.’

“She did not even appear to hear me, but stammered: ‘That does not matter, I have plenty of fire’; and when I looked surprised, she stopped short in confusion, and went on: ‘I don’t know what I am saying; I am mad. I have lost my head. Oh! what am I doing? Why did I come? How unhappy I am! What a disgrace, what a disgrace!’ And she threw herself sobbing into my arms.

“I thought that she really felt remorse, and swore that I would respect her. Then, however, she sank down at my knees, sighing: ‘But don’t you see that I love you, that you have overcome me, that it seems as though you had thrown a charm over me?’

“Then I thought it was about time to show myself a man. But she trembled, got up, ran, and hid behind a wardrobe, crying out: ‘Oh! don’t look at me; no! no! If only you did not see me, if we were only in the dark! I am ashamed in the light. Cannot you imagine it? What a dreadful dream! Oh! this light, this light!’

“I rushed to the window; I closed the outside shutters, drew the curtains, and hung a coat over a ray of light that peeped in, and then, stretching out my hands so as not to fall over the chairs, with my heart beating, I groped for her, and found her.

“This was a fresh journey for the two of us then, feeling our way, with our hands united, toward the other corner where the alcove was. I don’t suppose we went straight, for first of all I knocked against the mantelpiece and then against a chest of drawers, before finding what we wanted. Then I forgot everything in a frantic ecstasy. It was an hour of folly, madness, superhuman joy, followed by a delicious lassitude, in which we slept in each other’s arms.

“I was half dreaming; but in my dream I fancied that someone was calling me and crying for help; then I received a violent blow, and opened my eyes.

“ ‘Oh‑h!’ The setting sun, magnificent and red, shone full into the room through the door, which was wide open. It seemed to look at us from the verge of the horizon, illuminating us both, especially my companion, who was screaming, struggling, and twisting, and trying with hands and feet to get hold of a corner of a sheet, a curtain or anything else, while in the middle of the room stood my landlord in a morning coat with the concierge by his side, and a chimney-sweep, as black as the devil, who were looking at us with stupid eyes.

“I sprang up in a rage, ready to jump at his throat, and shouted:

“ ‘What the deuce are you doing in my room?’

“The chimney-sweep laughed so that he let his brush fall on to the floor. The concierge seemed to have gone mad, and the landlord stammered:

“ ‘But, Monsieur, it was⁠—it was⁠—about the chimney⁠—the chimney, the chimney which⁠—’

“ ‘Go to the devil!’ I roared. So he took off his hat, which he had kept on in his confusion, and said, in a confused but very civil manner:

“ ‘I beg your pardon, Monsieur; if I had known, I should not have disturbed you; I should not have come. The concierge told me you had gone out. Pray excuse me.’ And they all went out.

“Ever since that time I never draw the curtains, but I am always very careful to lock the door first.”

A Normandy Joke

The procession came in sight in the hollow road shaded by the tall trees which grew on the slopes of the farm. The newly-married couple came first, then the relations, then the guests, and lastly the poor of the neighbourhood, while the village urchins who hovered about like flies, ran in and out of the ranks, or climbed up the trees to see it better.

The bridegroom was a fine young lad, Jean Patu, the richest farmer in the neighbourhood. Above all things, he was an ardent sportsman who seemed to lose all common sense in order to satisfy that passion, who spent large sums on his dogs, his keepers, his ferrets, and his guns. The bride, Rosalie Roussel, had been courted by all the likely young fellows in the district, as they all thought her prepossessing, and they knew that she would have a good dowry, but she had chosen Patu⁠—partly, perhaps, because she liked him better than she did the others, but still more, like a careful Normandy girl, because he had more crown pieces.

When they went in at the wide gateway of the husband’s farm, forty shots resounded without anyone seeing those who fired. The shooters were hidden in the ditches, and the noise seemed to please the men very much, who were sprawling about heavily in their best clothes. Patu left his wife, and running up to a farm servant whom he perceived behind a tree, he seized his gun, and fired a shot himself, kicking his heels about like a colt. Then they went on, beneath the apple trees heavy with fruit, through the high grass and through the herd of calves, who looked at them with their great eyes, got up slowly and remained standing with their muzzles turned toward the wedding party.

The men became serious when they came within measurable distance of the wedding-dinner. Some of them, the rich ones, had on tall, shining silk hats, which seemed altogether out of place there; others had old head-coverings with a long nap, which might have been taken for moleskin, while the humbler among them wore caps. All the women had on shawls, which they wore as loose wraps, holding the ends daintily under their arms. They were red, parti-coloured, flaming shawls, and their brightness seemed to astonish the black fowls on the dungheap, the ducks on the side of the pond, and the pigeons on the thatched roofs. All the green of the countryside, of the grass and the trees, seemed to be accentuated by these flaming colours, and the contrast between them was dazzling in the midday sun.

The extensive farm-buildings seemed to await the party at the end of that archway of apple trees, and a sort of vapour came out of open door and windows, an almost overwhelming smell of eatables, which permeated the vast building, issuing from its openings and even from its very walls. Like a serpent the string of guests extended through the yard; when the foremost of them reached the house, they broke the chain and dispersed, while behind they were still coming in at the open gate. The ditches were now lined with urchins and poor people filled with curiosity. The shots did not cease, but came from every side at once, injecting a cloud of smoke, and that powdery smell which has the same intoxicating effects as absinthe, into the atmosphere.

The women were shaking their dresses outside the door to get rid of the dust, were undoing their cap strings and folding their shawls over their arms. Then they went into the house to lay them aside altogether. The table was laid in the great kitchen, which could hold a hundred people; they sat down to dinner at two o’clock and at eight o’clock they were still eating; the men, in their shirt sleeves, with their waistcoats unbuttoned, and with red faces, were swallowing the food and drink as if they were insatiable. The yellow cider sparkled merrily, clear and golden in the large glasses, by the side of the dark, blood-coloured wine, and between every dish they made the trou, the Normandy trou, with a glass of brandy which inflamed the body, and put foolish notions into the head.

From time to time, one of the guests, being as full as a barrel, would go out to the nearest trees and relieve himself, and then return with redoubled appetite. The farmers’ wives, with scarlet faces and their corsets nearly bursting, did not like to follow their example, until one of them, feeling more uncomfortable than the others, went out. Then all the rest followed her example, and came back more cheerful, and the rough jokes began afresh. Broadsides of doubtful jokes were exchanged across the table, all about the wedding-night, until the whole arsenal of peasant wit was exhausted. For the last hundred years, the same broad jokes had served for similar occasions, and although everyone knew them, they still hit the mark, and made both rows of guests roar with laughter. An old grey-haired man shouted. “Those who are going to Mézidon get on here,” and everyone yelled with laughter.

At the bottom of the table four young fellows, who were neighbours, were preparing some practical jokes for the newly-married couple, and they seemed to have got hold of a good one, by the way they whispered and laughed. Suddenly, one of them taking advantage of a momentary silence, exclaimed: “The poachers will have a good time tonight with this moon! I say, Jean, you will not be looking at the moon, will you?” The bridegroom turned to him quickly and replied: “Only let them come, that’s all!” But the other young fellow began to laugh, and said: “I do not think you will neglect your duty for them!”

The whole table was convulsed with laughter, so that the glasses shook, but the bridegroom became furious at the thought that anybody should profit by his wedding to come and poach on his land, and repeated: “I only say: just let them come!”

Then there was a flood of talk with a double meaning which made the bride blush somewhat, although she was trembling with expectation, and when they had emptied the kegs of brandy they all went to bed. The young couple went into their own room, which was on the ground floor, as most rooms in farmhouses are. As it was very warm, they opened the window and closed the shutters. A small lamp in bad taste, a present from the bride’s father, was burning on the chest of drawers, and the bed stood ready to receive the young people, who did not stand upon all the ceremony which is usual among refined people.

The young woman had already taken off her wreath and her dress, and was in her petticoat, unlacing her boots, while Jean was finishing his cigar, and looking at her out of the corners of his eyes. It was an ardent look, more sensual than tender, for he felt more desire than love for her. Suddenly with a brusque movement, like a man who is going to set to work, he took off his coat. She had already taken off her boots, and was now pulling off her stockings; then she said to him: “Go and hide yourself behind the curtains while I get into bed.”

He seemed as if he were going to refuse, but with a cunning look went and hid himself with the exception of his head. She laughed and tried to cover up his eyes, and they romped in an amorous and happy manner, without shame or embarrassment. At last he did as she asked him, and in a moment she unfastened her petticoat which slipped down her legs, fell at her feet and lay on the floor in a circle. She left it there, stepped over it, naked with the exception of her floating chemise, and slipped into the bed, whose springs creaked beneath her weight. He immediately went up to her, without his shoes and in his trousers, and stooping over his wife sought her lips, which she hid beneath the pillow, when a shot was heard in the distance, in the direction of the forest of Râpées, as he thought.

He raised himself anxiously, and running to the window, with his heart beating, he opened the shutters. The full moon flooded the yard with yellow light, and the silhouettes of the apple trees made black shadows at his feet, while in the distance the fields gleamed, covered with the ripe corn. But as he was leaning out, listening to every sound in the still night, two bare arms were put round his neck, and his wife whispered, trying to pull him back: “Do leave them alone; it has nothing to do with you. Come to bed.”

He turned round, put his arms round her, and drew her toward him, feeling her warm skin through the thin material, and lifting her up in his vigorous arms, he carried her toward their couch, but just as he was laying her on the bed, which yielded beneath her weight, they heard another report, considerably nearer this time. Jean, giving way to his tumultuous rage, swore aloud: “God damn it! They think I shall not go out to see what it is, because of you! Let them wait, and see!” He put on his shoes again, took down his gun, which was always hanging within reach upon the wall, and, as his wife threw herself on her knees in her terror to implore him not to go, he hastily freed himself, ran to the window and jumped into the yard.

She waited one hour, two hours, until daybreak, but her husband did not return. Then she lost her head, aroused the house, related how angry Jean was, and said that he had gone after the poachers, and immediately all the male farm-servants, even the boys, went in search of their master. They found him two leagues from the farm, tied hand and foot, half dead with rage, his gun broken, his trousers turned inside out, three dead hares hanging round his neck, and a placard on his chest, with these words:

“Who goes on the chase, loses his place.”

And later on when he used to tell this story of his wedding-night, he generally added: “Ah! As far as a joke went, it was a good joke. They caught me in a snare, as if I had been a rabbit, the dirty brutes, and they shoved my head into a bag. But if I can only catch them some day, they had better look out for themselves!”

That is how they amuse themselves in Normandy, on a wedding day.

My Uncle Sosthène

My uncle Sosthène was a freethinker, like many others, a freethinker from sheer stupidity. People are very often religious for the same reason. The mere sight of a priest threw him into a violent rage; he would shake his fist and grimace at him, and touch a piece of iron when the priest’s back was turned, forgetting that the latter action showed a belief after all, the belief in the evil eye.

Now when beliefs are unreasonable, one should either have all or none at all. I myself am a freethinker; I revolt at all the dogmas which have invented the fear of death, but I feel no anger toward places of worship, be they Catholic Apostolic, Roman, Protestant, Greek, Russian, Buddhist, Jewish, or Mohammedan. I have a peculiar manner of looking at them and explaining them. A place of worship represents the homage paid by man to the unknown. The more extended our thoughts and our views become, the more the unknown diminishes, and the more places of worship will decay. I, however, instead of incense burners, would fit them up with telescopes, microscopes, and electrical machines; that is all.

My uncle and I differed on nearly every point. He was a patriot, while I was not⁠—for, after all, patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

My uncle was a Freemason, and I used to declare that they are stupider than the pious old ladies. That is my opinion, and I maintain it; if we must have any religion at all, the old one is good enough for me.

Those imbeciles simply imitate priests. Their symbol is a triangle instead of a cross. They have chapels which they call lodges, and a whole lot of different sects: the Scottish rite, the French rite, the Grand Orient, a collection of balderdash that would make a cat laugh.

What is their object? Mutual help to be obtained by tickling the palms of each other’s hands. I see no harm in it, for they put into practice the Christian precept: “Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.” The only difference consists in the tickling, but it does not seem worth while to make such a fuss about lending a poor devil five francs.

Convents whose duty and business it is to administer alms and help, put the letters “J.M.J.” at the head of their communications. The Masons put three periods in a row after their signature. It is six of one and half a dozen of the other.

My uncle’s reply used to be:

“We are raising up a religion against a religion; Freethought will kill clericalism. Freemasonry is the headquarters of those who are demolishing all deities.”

“Very well, my dear uncle,” I would reply (in my heart I felt inclined to say, “You old idiot!”); “it is just that which I am blaming you for. Instead of destroying, you are organizing competition; it is only a case of lowering the prices. And then, if you only admitted freethinkers among you I could understand it, but you admit anybody. You have a number of Catholics among you, even the leaders of the party. Pius IX is said to have been one of you before he became Pope. If you call a society with such an organization a bulwark against clericalism, I think it is an extremely weak one.”

“My dear boy,” my uncle would reply, with a wink, “our most formidable actions are political; slowly and surely we are everywhere undermining the monarchical spirit.”

Then I broke out: “Yes, you are very clever! If you tell me that freemasonry is an election-machine, I will grant it. I will never deny that it is used as a machine to control candidates of all shades; if you say that it is only used to hoodwink people, to drill them to go to the voting-urn as soldiers are sent under fire, I agree with you; if you declare that it is indispensable to all political ambitions because it changes all its members into electoral agents, I should say to you, ‘That is as clear as daylight.’ But when you tell me that it serves to undermine the monarchical spirit, I can only laugh in your face.

“Just consider that vast and democratic association which had Prince Napoleon for its Grand Master under the Empire; which has the Crown Prince for its Grand Master in Germany, the Czar’s brother in Russia, and to which the Prince of Wales and King Humbert and nearly all the royalists of the globe belong.”

“You are quite right,” my uncle said; “but all these persons are serving our projects without knowing it.”

“And vice versa, what?”

And I added, to myself, “pack of fools!”

It was, however, indeed a sight to see my uncle when he had a freemason to dinner.

On meeting they shook hands in a mysterious manner that was irresistibly funny; one could see that they were going through a series of secret mysterious pressures. When I wished to put my uncle in a rage, I had only to tell him that dogs also have a manner which savours very much of freemasonry, when they greet one another on meeting.

Then my uncle would take his friend into a corner to tell him something important, and at dinner they had a peculiar way of looking at each other, and of drinking to each other, in a manner as if to say: “We belong to it, don’t we?”

And to think that there are millions on the face of the globe who are amused at such monkey tricks! I would sooner be a Jesuit.

Now in our town there really was an old Jesuit who was my uncle’s pet aversion. Every time he met him, or if he only saw him at a distance, he used to say: “Dirty skunk!” And then, taking my arm, he would whisper to me:

“Look here, that fellow will play me a trick some day or other, I feel sure of it.”

My uncle spoke quite truly, and this was how it happened, through my fault moreover.

It was close on Holy Week, and my uncle made up his mind to give a dinner on Good Friday, a real dinner with chitterlings and saveloy sausage. I resisted as much as I could, and said:

“I shall eat meat on that day, but at home, quite by myself. Your manifesto, as you call it, is an idiotic idea. Why should you manifest? What does it matter to you if people do not eat any meat?”

But my uncle would not be persuaded. He asked three of his friends to dine with him at one of the best restaurants in the town, and as he was going to pay the bill, I had certainly, after all, no scruples about manifesting.

At four o’clock we took a conspicuous place in the Café Pénelope, the most frequented restaurant in the town, and my uncle in a loud voice described the menu.

We sat down at six o’clock, and at ten o’clock we had not finished. Five of us had drunk eighteen bottles of fine wines, and four of champagne. Then my uncle proposed what he was in the habit of calling: “The archbishop’s feat.” Each man put six small glasses in front of him, each of them filled with a different liqueur, and then they had all to be emptied at one gulp, one after another, while one of the waiters counted twenty. It was very stupid, but my uncle thought it was very suitable to the occasion.

At eleven o’clock he was as drunk as a fiddler, so we had to take him home in a cab and put him to bed, and one could easily foresee that his anticlerical demonstration would end in a terrible fit of indigestion.

As I was going back to my lodgings, being rather drunk myself, with a cheerful Machiavelian drunkenness which quite satisfied all my sceptical instincts, an idea struck me.

I arranged my necktie, put on a look of great distress, and went and rang loudly at the old Jesuit’s door. As he was deaf he made me wait a longish while, but at length he appeared at his window in a cotton nightcap and asked what I wanted.

I shouted out at the top of my voice:

“Make haste, reverend father, and open the door; a poor, despairing, sick man is in need of your spiritual ministrations.”

The good, kind man put on his trousers as quickly as he could and came down without his cassock. I told him in a breathless voice that my uncle, the freethinker, had been taken suddenly ill. Fearing it was going to be something serious he had been seized with a sudden fear of death, and wished to see a priest and talk to him; to have his advice and comfort, to make up with the Church, and to confess, so as to be able to cross the dreaded threshold at peace with himself; and I added in a mocking tone:

“At any rate, he wishes it, and if it does him no good it can do him no harm.”

The old Jesuit, who was startled, delighted, and almost trembling, said to me:

“Wait a moment, my son, I will come with you.”

But I replied: “Pardon me, Father, if I do not go with you; but my convictions will not allow me to do so. I even refused to come and fetch you, so I beg you not to say that you have seen me, but to declare that you had a presentiment⁠—a sort of revelation of his illness.”

The priest consented, and went off quickly, knocked at my uncle’s door, was soon let in, and I saw the black cassock disappear within that stronghold of Freethought.

I hid under a neighbouring gateway to wait for events. Had he been well, my uncle would have half murdered the Jesuit, but I knew that he would be unable to move an arm, and I asked myself, gleefully, what sort of a scene would take place between these antagonists⁠—what fight, what explanation would be given, and what would be the issue of this situation, which my uncle’s indignation would render more tragic still?

I laughed till I had to hold my sides, and said to myself, half aloud: “Oh! what a joke, what a joke!”

Meanwhile it was getting very cold. I noticed that the Jesuit stayed a long time, and thought: “They are having an explanation, I suppose.”

One, two, three hours passed, and still the reverend Father did not come out. What had happened? Had my uncle died in a fit when he saw him, or had he killed the cassocked gentleman? Perhaps they had mutually devoured each other? This last supposition appeared very unlikely, for I fancied that my uncle was quite incapable of swallowing a grain more nourishment at that moment.

At last the day dawned. I was very uneasy, and not venturing to go into the house myself, I went to one of my friends who lived opposite. I roused him, explained matters to him, much to his amusement and astonishment, and took possession of his window.

At nine o’clock he relieved me and I got a little sleep. At two o’clock I, in my turn, replaced him. We were utterly astonished.

At six o’clock the Jesuit left, with a very happy and satisfied look on his face, and we saw him go away with a quiet step.

Then, timid and ashamed, I went and knocked at my uncle’s door. When the servant opened it I did not dare to ask her any questions, but went upstairs without saying a word.

My uncle was lying pale, exhausted, with weary, sorrowful eyes and heavy arms, on his bed. A little religious picture was fastened to one of the bed-curtains with a pin.

“Why, uncle,” I said, “you in bed still? Are you not well?”

He replied in a feeble voice:

“Oh! my dear boy, I have been very ill; nearly dead.”

“How was that, uncle?”

“I don’t know; it was most surprising. But what is stranger still, is that the Jesuit priest who has just left⁠—you know, that excellent man whom I have made such fun of⁠—had a divine revelation of my state, and came to see me.”

I was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh, and with difficulty said: “Oh, really!”

“Yes, he came. He heard a Voice telling him to get up and come to me, because I was going to die. It was a revelation.”

I pretended to sneeze, so as not to burst out laughing; I felt inclined to roll on the ground with amusement.

In about a minute I managed to say, indignantly: “And you received him, uncle, you? You, a freethinker, a freemason? You did not have him thrown out?”

He seemed confused, and stammered:

“Listen a moment, it is so astonishing⁠—so astonishing and providential! He also spoke to me about my father; he knew him formerly.”

“Your father, uncle? But that is no reason for receiving a Jesuit.”

“I know that, but I was very ill, and he looked after me most devotedly all night long. He was perfect; no doubt he saved my life; those men are all more or less doctors.”

“Oh! he looked after you all night? But you said just now that he had only been gone a very short time.”

“That is quite true; I kept him to breakfast after all his kindness. He had it at a table by my bedside while I drank a cup of tea.”

“And he ate meat?”

My uncle looked vexed, as if I had said something very much out of place, and then added:

“Don’t joke, Gaston; such things are out of place at times. He has shown me more devotion than many a relation would have done and I expect you to respect his convictions.”

This rather upset me, but I answered, nevertheless: “Very well, uncle; and what did you do after breakfast?”

“We played a game of bezique, and then he repeated his breviary while I read a little book which he happened to have in his pocket, and which was not by any means badly written.”

“A religious book, uncle?”

“Yes, and no, or rather⁠—no. It is the history of their missions in Central Africa, and is rather a book of travels and adventures. What these men have done is very good.”

I began to feel that matters were going badly, so I got up. “Well, goodbye, uncle,” I said, “I see you are going to leave freemasonry for religion; you are a renegade.”

He was still rather confused, and stammered:

“Well, but religion is a sort of freemasonry.”

“When is your Jesuit coming back?” I asked.

“I don’t⁠—I don’t know exactly; tomorrow, perhaps; but it is not certain.”

I went out, altogether overwhelmed.

My joke turned out very badly for me! My uncle became radically converted, and if that had been all I should not have cared so much. Clerical or freemason, to me it is all the same; six of one and half a dozen of the other; but the worst of it is that he has just made his will⁠—yes, made his will⁠—and has disinherited me in favor of that holy Jesuit!

A Reckless Passion

The calm, glittering sea was scarcely stirred by the current of the tide. From the pier all Havre was watching the ships come in⁠—visible as they were from a great distance; some⁠—the big steamers⁠—wreathed in smoke, others⁠—the sailing-vessels⁠—tugged along by almost invisible steamboats, raising their bare masts, like stripped trees, to the sky. These monsters hurried from every quarter of the globe to the narrow entrance of the dock that swallowed them up; and they whistled, they groaned, they shrieked, while they spat up jets of steam like someone gasping for breath.

Two young officers were walking on the crowded mole, bowing and being bowed to, with an occasional stop for a chat. Suddenly the taller of the two, Paul d’Henricel, pressed the arm of his friend, Jean Renoldi, and whispered: “Why, here’s Madame Poinçot, take a good look at her, I’ll swear she’s making eyes at you.”

She was walking arm-in-arm with her husband, a rich shipowner. She was about forty, still beautiful, rather stout, but thanks to this fact she had retained the freshness of youth. Among her friends she was known as the Goddess on account of her proud carriage, big black eyes, and her aristocratic manner. No suspicion of anything wrong had ever smirched her life; she was still without reproach. She was quoted as an example of the simple, honourable woman, so upright that no man had dared to covet her. And now for the past month Paul d’Henricel kept on repeating to his friend Renoldi that Madame Poinçot looked upon him with tenderness. “I know I am not mistaken,” he would say. “I see quite clearly, she loves you, loves you passionately, after the fashion of a chaste woman who has never been in love. Forty is a terrible age for virtuous women when their senses are developed; they simply go mad and do mad things. This woman is moved, old man; she is dropping like a wounded bird and will drop into your arms. Just look at her!”

The tall woman, preceded by her two daughters aged twelve and fifteen, was coming towards them and turned suddenly pale when she noticed the officer. She gazed at him longingly, intently, she had eyes for no one around her, neither her children, her husband, nor the crowd. She returned the greeting of the two young men without lowering a glance so charged with passion that some suspicions did at last enter and tenant Renoldi’s mind. D’Henricel murmured: “I was sure of it. Did you notice this time? By gad, she’s a fine woman!”

But Jean Renoldi had no wish for a society intrigue. Caring little for love, he wanted more than anything else a quiet life and was quite content with the occasional amours which fall to the lot of every young man. He was bored by the sentimentality, the attentions, the tenderness exacted by a well-bred woman. He was afraid of the chain, however light, he would have to drag as a result of an adventure of this kind. He said:

“I shall be sick to death of it at the end of four weeks, and politeness will oblige me to wait patiently for six months.” Then again the thought of a rupture filled him with exasperation, with its scenes, its allusions, and the frenzied clinging of the woman who is being abandoned.

He avoided meeting Madame Poinçot.

But one evening he found himself seated beside her at a dinner-party and felt her passionate glance fixed on him the whole time; their hands met and, almost involuntarily, closed over each other. That was already the beginning of a love affair.

He met her again, always in spite of himself. He knew she loved him, and felt a softening towards her, moved by a kind of pitying vanity at the sight of the woman’s intense passion. So he allowed himself to be adored and was merely attentive, hoping that the matter would go no further.

Then she made an appointment with him, to meet and talk without outside interference, so she explained, and fell fainting into his arms. He had no alternative but to become her lover.

This lasted six months. She loved him with an unbridled, reckless love, forgetting everything in the clutches of her frenzied passion. She had given herself up entirely. Body, soul, reputation, position and happiness had all been cast into the red-hot fire of her love as one casts all one’s precious possessions on the altar of sacrifice.

He had had enough of it for some time and keenly regretted his easy conquest, but he was bound and held prisoner. She was always saying: “I have given you everything; what more do you want?” He would have liked to answer: “But I never asked for anything, if only you would take back what you have given me!” Quite indifferent as to whether anyone saw her, whether she was compromised, or her reputation ruined, she would come to see him every evening, growing more and more ardent as time went on. She would throw herself into his arms, press him to her bosom, swoon under feverish kisses which bored him horribly. He would say languidly: “Come, come, be sensible.” She would reply: “I love you!” and fall upon her knees and gaze at him in an attitude of devotion. This invariably ended by exasperating him, but when he tried to make her get up, saying: “Come, sit down. Let us have a chat,” she muttered: “No, leave me alone,” and remained on her knees in a state of ecstasy.

He said to his friend d’Henricel: “You know, I could beat her. I have had enough of it, enough of it. It must end; and that at once!” adding: “What do you advise me to do?” The friend replied: “Break it off.” Renoldi added with a shrug of the shoulders: “It’s easy enough to say that; you think it’s easy to break with a woman who persecutes you with her tenderness, whose only care is to please you, and whose only fault is to have given herself unasked?”

Then one morning they heard that the regiment was to change garrison, and Renoldi danced for joy. He was saved, saved without scenes, without tears! Saved!⁠—The only thing now required was two months’ patience!⁠—Saved!

In the evening she came to him more excited than ever. She had heard the dreadful news, and, without taking her hat off, she caught hold of his hands, pressing them nervously, her eyes fixed on his, her voice shaking but determined: “You are leaving; I know it,” she said; “I bring you the greatest proof of love that a woman can give; I am going to follow you. For you I am leaving my husband, my children, my family. It will be my ruin but I am happy; it seems as if I were giving myself to you over again. It is the last, the greatest sacrifice; I am yours forever!”

He broke out in a cold perspiration and was filled with a dull, furious rage⁠—the anger of weakness. Nevertheless he calmed down, and with a detached air and gentle voice refused her sacrifice, trying to pacify her, to reason with her, to make her see her folly: she listened silently, looking him straight in the face with her dark eyes, a smile of disdain on her lips. When he stopped, all she said was:

“Can you be a coward? Can you be the kind of man who seduces a woman and then deserts her for the first caprice?”

He paled and tried to reason with her again; he pointed out the inevitable consequences of such an action to both of them as long as they lived: how their lives would be ruined; how all doors would be closed to them. She only replied obstinately: “What does it matter when we love each other?”

Suddenly, he burst out: “Well, then, no! I won’t have it. Do you hear? I won’t, I forbid you to follow me,” and, carried away by his long-repressed grievances, he relieved his mind by saying: “Hang it all, you have loved me long enough, entirely against my wishes; it would be the last straw to take you with me. Thank you for nothing!”

She did not say a word, but her ghastly white face looked drawn and haggard as if every nerve had been twisted out of shape, and she left the house without saying goodbye.

That night she poisoned herself and for a week her life was despaired of. In the town, people gossiped: they pitied her, excusing her lapse because of the strength of her passion; for feelings that are heroic through their intensity always obtain forgiveness for the sin that is in them. A woman who kills herself is, so to speak, no longer an adulteress, and soon there was general disapproval of Lieutenant Renoldi’s behaviour in refusing to see her again⁠—a unanimous feeling that he was to blame.

People said he had deserted her, betrayed her and beaten her. The Colonel, full of pity, discreetly took his officer to task, and Paul d’Henricel called his friend and said: “Damn it all, old man, one can’t let a woman die; it’s a dirty trick!” Renoldi in a rage told his friend to shut up, and, d’Henricel having made use of the word “infamy,” a duel was fought in which Renoldi was wounded to everybody’s satisfaction, and confined to his bed for some time.

She heard about it and only loved him the more, believing he had fought the duel on her account, but as she was too ill to leave her room she did not see him before the regiment left.

When he had been in Lille about three months Madame Poinçot’s sister called upon him. After long suffering and an unconquerable feeling of despair, the end was near and she wished to see him for one minute, only one minute, before closing her eyes forever.

Absence and time had softened the young man’s anger; he was touched, moved to tears, and started at once for Havre. She seemed to be sinking fast. They were left alone together, and by the bedside of the dying woman for whose death he was responsible, he broke down completely. He sobbed, kissed her with gentle passionate kisses, such as he had never given her before, and stammered: “No, you shan’t die, you’ll get better, we’ll love each other⁠—we’ll love each other forever!”

“Is it true? You do love me?” she murmured, and he, in his grief, swore, promised to wait until she was better, and, full of pity, kissed the shrunken hands of the poor woman, whose heartbeat was ominous.

The following day he returned to the garrison, and six weeks later she joined him, terribly aged, unrecognisable, and more enamoured than ever.

With a feeling of desperation he took her back, and because they were living together like a legally married couple the very colonel who had been indignant when Renoldi had deserted the woman, was now scandalised at the irregularity of the situation as being incompatible with the good example that officers owe to their regiment. First he gave his junior a warning, and then he put on the screw, and Renoldi resigned.

They went to live on the shore of the Mediterranean, the classic sea of lovers.

Another three years passed by and Renoldi, now broken in, was a complete slave to the persistent tenderness of the white-haired woman. He looked upon himself as done for, gone under. For him there could be no hope, no ambition, no satisfaction, no pleasure in life.

Then, one morning, a card was brought in with the name, “Joseph Poinçot. Shipowner, Havre.” The husband! The husband who had said nothing, who realised that you cannot struggle against a woman’s desperate infatuation. What could he want?

Poinçot waited in the garden, since he would not go into the house. He bowed politely but refused to sit down, even on a bench in the avenue, and began slowly and clearly: “Monsieur, I have not come to reproach you, I know too well how it all happened. I have been the victim⁠—we have been the victims⁠—of a kind of⁠—of fatality. I would never have disturbed you in your retreat had there not been a change in the situation. I have two daughters. One of them, the elder, loves a young man who loves her. But the young man’s family object to the marriage on account of the irregular position of my daughter’s mother. I feel neither anger nor malice, but I adore my children. I have, therefore, come to ask you for my wife; I hope that she will now agree to come back to my home⁠—to her home. For my part, I will pretend to forget everything for⁠—for the sake of my daughters.”

Renoldi felt his heart give a wild leap: he was beside himself with joy, like a condemned man who is granted a reprieve. He stammered: “Why, yes⁠—certainly, Monsieur⁠—I myself⁠—believe me⁠—no doubt⁠—it is right, only too right!” He wanted to take hold of the man’s hands, hug him in his arms, kiss him on both cheeks. He continued: “Do come in. You will be more comfortable in the drawing room. I’ll go and fetch her.”

This time Monsieur Poinçot accepted the invitation. Renoldi rushed up the stairs; then, pausing before his mistress’s door, he calmed down and, looking very solemn, said: “You are wanted downstairs: it is something about your daughter.” She pulled herself up: “My daughters? What? What is it? They are not dead?” He replied: “No. But there is some complication which you alone can clear up.” She did not wait for more but went quickly downstairs.

Then, very excited, he sank back into a chair and waited.

He waited a long, long time, and as angry voices reached him from downstairs he decided to go down.

Very indignant, Madame Poinçot was standing up, ready to leave the room, while her husband was holding her by her dress, explaining: “But can’t you understand you are bringing ruin on your daughters, your daughters, our children!” She replied stubbornly: “I will not go back to your house.”

Renoldi realised what had happened and went in, his hopes dashed, and gasped: “What? She refuses?”

She turned towards him⁠—shamefacedly refraining from using the familiar “thou” in the presence of her legitimate spouse⁠—and said: “Do you know what he is asking me to do? He wants me to go back and live with him!” She sneered contemptuously at the man almost on his knees before her.

Then Renoldi, with the determination of a gambler playing his last stake, began to talk to her, pleading for them all in turn. And when he paused in the effort to find some fresh argument, Monsieur Poinçot, at his wit’s end, murmured⁠—instinctively speaking as he had spoken to her in the past: “Come, come, Delphine, think of your daughters!”

She swept them both into a glance of sovereign contempt and, making her escape, shouted: “You are a pair of wretches.”

Left alone, they gazed at each other, both equally crestfallen, equally stricken. Monsieur Poinçot picked up his hat, which had fallen on the floor, flicked the dust off his knees with his hand, then, while Renoldi was showing him to the door, with a gesture of despair he exclaimed, bowing:

“We are both very unhappy indeed, Monsieur.”

Then he left the house with a slow, heavy step.

Mad?

Am I mad or jealous? I know not which, but I suffer horribly. I committed a crime, it is true, a mad crime, but are not insane jealousy, passionate love, betrayed and lost, and the terrible pain I endure, enough to make anyone commit a crime, without actually being a criminal?

Oh! I have suffered, suffered continually, acutely, terribly. I have loved this woman to madness⁠—and yet, is it true? Did I love her? No, no! She owned me body and soul, I was, and am, her plaything, she ruled me by her smile, her look, the divine form of her body. I fight against the domination of her physical appearance, but the woman contained in that body, I despise, hate and execrate. I always have hated, despised and execrated her, for she is but an impure, perfidious, bestial, filthy creature, the woman of perdition, the treacherous sensual animal, in whom there is no soul; she is the human animal, even less than that, she is but a mass of soft flesh in which dwells infamy!

The first few months of our union were deliciously strange. In her arms I was exhausted by the frenzy of insatiable desire. Her eyes drew my lips as though they could quench my thirst. They were gray at noon, shaded green at twilight, and blue at sunrise. I am not mad. I swear they were of these three colours. In moments of love they were blue as though they had been bruised; the pupils dilated and nervous. Her lips trembled and often the tip of her pink moist tongue could be seen, quivering like that of a snake. Her heavy eyelids would be slowly raised, revealing that ardent, languorous look which used to madden me. When I took her in my arms I used to gaze into her eyes, trembling, seized not only with an unceasing desire to possess her, but also to kill this beast.

When she walked across the room each step resounded in my heart, and when she began to undress, her dress falling from her, and emerged infamous but radiant from the white mass of linen and lace, I felt in all my limbs, in my legs and arms, in my panting chest, an infinite and cowardly weakness.

One day I saw that she was tired of me. I saw it in her eyes on waking. Leaning over her I awaited this first look of hers every morning. I awaited it, filled with hatred, rage, and contempt for this sleeping brute whose slave I was. But when she fixed those pale, limpid blue eyes upon me, that languishing glance, tired with the lassitude of recent caresses, a rapid fire consumed me, exasperating my desires.

When she opened her eyes that day I saw a dull, indifferent look; a look devoid of desire, and I knew then she was tired of me. I saw it, knew it, felt it, and understood immediately that all was over, and each hour and minute proved to me that I was right. When I beckoned her with my arms and lips she shrank from me.

“Leave me alone,” she said. “You are horrid! Will you never leave me alone?”

Then I became jealous, slyly, suspiciously, secretly jealous, like a dog. I knew she would soon be aroused again, that another man would excite her passions. I was insanely jealous; but I am not insane, no indeed! I watched her and waited; not that she had betrayed me, but she was cold and indifferent.

At times she would say:

“Men disgust me!” Alas! it was too true.

Then I became jealous of her own existence, of her indifference, of her nights alone, of her actions, of her thoughts, which I knew to be impure, jealous of all that my imagination suspected; and when she awakened sometimes with that same look of lassitude which used to follow our ardent nights, as though some desire had haunted her mind and stirred her passions, I suffocated with anger, and an irresistible desire to choke her, to break her with my knee, to seize her by the throat, and make her confess the shameful secrets of her heart took hold of me.

Am I insane? No.

One night I saw that she was happy. I felt, in fact I was convinced, that a new passion ruled her. She was trembling as she used to do after my caresses, her eyes shone, she was feverish and her whole being gave out that odour of desire which used to drive me mad.

I feigned ignorance, but I watched her closely. I discovered nothing, however. I waited a week, a month, almost a year. She expanded in the joy of an inexplicable ardour, and was soothed by the happiness of some elusive caress.

At last I guessed. No, I am not insane, I swear I am not. How can I explain this inconceivable, horrible thing? How can I make myself understood? This is how I guessed.

She came in one night from a long ride on horseback and sank exhausted in a seat facing me. An unnatural flush tinted her cheeks, her breast was heaving, her legs trembling, and her eyes were swollen. I was not mistaken, I had seen her look like that; she loved! I almost lost my head, and so as not to look at her I turned to the window. A valet was leading her horse to the stable and she stood and watched the prancing, fiery animal disappear; then she fell asleep almost immediately. I thought and thought all night. My mind wandered through mysteries too deep to conceive. Who can fathom the perversity and strange caprices of a sensual woman? Who can understand their incredible caprices and strange satisfactions of the strangest fancies?

Every morning at dawn she set out at a gallop across the fields and through the woods and dales, and each time she came back languid; as though exhausted by love. At last I understood. It was of the horse I was jealous⁠—of the wind which caressed her face, of the drooping leaves and of the sunbeams which touched her forehead through the branches, of the saddle which carried her and felt the clasp of her thighs! It was all those things which made her so happy and brought her back to me satiated; exhausted! I resolved to be revenged. I became very attentive. Every time she came back from her ride I helped her down and the horse made a vicious rush at me. She would pat him on the neck, kiss his quivering nostrils, without even wiping her lips, and the perfume of her body, warmed as though she had been in bed, mingled in my nostrils with the strong animal smell of the horse.

I waited for chance. She used to take the same path every morning, through a little birch wood, which finally lost itself in the forest. I got up before dawn, took a rope in my hands, and hid my pistols in my breast, as if I were going to fight a duel. I ran to the path she loved so well, I drew the rope across, tied it to two trees, and then hid in the grass.

With my ear to the ground I heard her galloping in the distance, then under the trees like an arch I saw her coming at a furious pace; her cheeks flushed, an insane look in her eyes. She seemed enraptured; transported into another sphere. I was not mistaken! The rapid ride gave her senses a thrill of solitary pleasure.

The animal struck the rope with his forefeet and fell. I caught her in my arms, for I am strong enough to lift an ox, and then I approached the horse, who was watching us, and while he again tried to bite me, I put my pistol close to his ear, and shot him as I would a man.

She turned on me and dealt me two terrific blows across the face with her riding-whip which felled me, and as she rushed at me again, I shot her!

Tell me, Am I insane?

Correspondence

Madame de X to Madame de Z

Étretat, Friday.

My Dear Aunt,

I am slowly making my way down to you. I shall be at Fresnes on the 2nd of September, in time for the opening of the hunting season, which I am anxious not to miss, because I want to tease the menfolk. You are too indulgent, my dear Aunt, when you are alone with them, in allowing them to appear at dinner, on the plea of fatigue, without changing their clothes or shaving after they return.

So they are delighted when I am not there, but I shall be there, and I shall review them at dinnertime like a general; and if I find any one of them a little untidy, however little it is, I will send him to the kitchen to the servants.

Men today have so little consideration and breeding that one must be strict. We are indeed passing through a period of vulgarity. When they quarrel amongst themselves they abuse each other like pickpockets, and even in our presence they behave much worse than the servants. It is especially noticeable at the seaside. The men are there in large numbers, and one can judge them en masse. Oh! How coarse they are! Just think⁠—in a railway carriage, one of them, a gentleman who at first glance seemed all right⁠—thanks to his tailor⁠—had the exquisite taste to take off his boots and put on a pair of down-at-heel felt slippers. Another, an old man, who must have been one of the New Rich (for these have the worst manners), seated opposite to me, carefully placed both his feet on the seat just beside me. Everybody does it.

At the watering-places, vulgarity runs riot. I should add that perhaps my revulsion arises from the fact that I am not used to mixing with the class of people that one meets there; their ways would not shock me so much if I came across them more often.

In the hotel office I was almost knocked over by a young man who reached over my head for his key. Another, coming out from a ball at the Casino, ran against me with such violence, without apologising or raising his hat, that the blow gave me a pain in the chest. They are all like that. See how they greet women on the terrace; they hardly acknowledge them at all. They simply raise their hands to their hats. However, as they are all bald, it is better so.

But one thing which exasperates and offends me more than anything else is the freedom with which they discuss in public the most revolting intrigues, without any kind of precaution. When two men get together, they tell each other the most dreadful stories as coarsely and disgustingly as possible, without troubling in the least to see whether a woman is within earshot. Yesterday on the beach I was compelled to change my place to avoid hearing any more of a smutty anecdote, told in words so brutal that I felt humiliated, as well as indignant at having heard what I did. Should not the most elementary good taste lead them to speak in whispers of these things when near us?

Étretat is, moreover, a hotbed of scandal, and therefore the home of gossips. From five until seven o’clock you can see them wandering in search of titbits of scandal, which they retail from one group to another. As you told me, dear Aunt, tittle-tattle is the hallmark of mean people and petty minds. It is also the consolation of women who are neither loved nor courted. I have only to look to those who are recognised as the worst gossips to be convinced that you were quite right.

The other day I went to a musical evening at the Casino, given by a remarkable artiste, Madame Masson, whose singing is a delight. It gave me the opportunity of applauding the admirable Coquelin and two charming pensioners from the Vaudeville theatre, Monsieur and Madame Meillet. In these circumstances I was able to see all the bathers gathered together on the beach this year. Few of them have any distinction.

The following day I went to Yport to lunch. I noticed a bearded man coming out of a big house like a fortress. It was the painter Jean Paul Laurens. Apparently not satisfied with putting a wall round the figures he paints, he must wall himself in too.

Later on I was sitting on the shingle beside a young man with a gentle, refined face, and quiet manners, who was reading poetry. But he was reading with so much concentration⁠—so much passion, may I say?⁠—that he never even once looked at me. I felt rather shocked and asked the head of the bathing-tents the man’s name, as if it were a matter of no importance. I smiled to myself at this reader of rhymes who seemed⁠—for a man⁠—somewhat behind the times. There’s someone quite unsophisticated, I thought. Well, Aunt, at present I dote on my unknown friend. Just imagine, his name is Sully Prudhomme. I went and sat beside him again to study him in comfort. His face in particular bears the stamp of refinement and tranquillity, and as someone came up to speak I heard his voice, which was gentle and rather timid. It is obvious that this man is not shouting vulgarisms in public, that he is not knocking against women without apologising. He must be a fastidious soul. This winter I will see if I can manage to have him introduced to me.

There is nothing more, my dear Aunt, so I conclude in haste as it is about post time. I kiss your hands and both your cheeks.

Your Devoted Niece,

Berthe de X.

P.S. However, I must add, to justify French politeness, that when travelling our own people are models of good manners compared with the unspeakable English, who seem to have been brought up by stable-boys, so careful are they never to practise any self-restraint themselves, and always to make things uncomfortable for their neighbours.

Madame de Z to Madame de X

Les Fresnes, Saturday.

My Dear Child,

You say many things that are true enough but that does not prevent you from being wrong. Like you, formerly, I felt very indignant that the impoliteness of men I esteemed showed a want of respect towards me, but with age and reflection, and having passed the period of coquetry, and formed the habit of observing others in a self-detached manner, I have remarked that if men are not always polite, women on the other hand are always unjustifiably bad-mannered.

We think that we may do anything and everything, and at the same time we feel that we have a right to everything, and with a light heart we indulge in all those lapses of elementary good breeding of which you speak so passionately.

On the contrary, I consider that men are full of consideration for women in comparison with the attitude of women towards men. Besides, my darling, men must be, and are, what we make them. In a society where all the women were really gentlewomen, all the men would become gentlemen.

Watch, observe and reflect.

Watch two women meeting in the street; what affectation! What an air of disparagement, what contemptuous glances! With what a boldness they eye each other from head to foot and sit in judgment! If the pavement is a narrow one, do you think either will give way, or apologise? Never. If two men run into each other in a narrow street, they both raise their hats and make way, whereas we women, we rush ahead full tilt and gaze at each other insolently. Watch two women who know each other meeting on the staircase leading to the door of a friend’s flat to which one is going and from which the other is coming. They begin to talk and block up the way. If there happens to be anyone behind them, man or woman, do you think they will put themselves out in the least? Never! Never!

Last winter I waited twenty-two minutes, watch in hand, at the door of a drawing room. Behind me two men were also waiting without showing any sign of impatience, as I did, because they had long been accustomed to our insolent ways.

The other day before leaving Paris I went to dine⁠—as it happens, with your husband⁠—at a restaurant in the Champs Élysées so as to be in the open air. The waiter begged us to wait awhile. I caught sight of an old lady of distinguished appearance who had paid her bill and seemed about to leave. She saw me, eyed me from head to foot, and did not budge. For over fifteen minutes she stayed there, putting on her gloves, glancing at all the tables, observing with detachment all those who were waiting, as I was. Then two young men, who had just finished, saw me, and, hurriedly calling the waiter for their bill, offered me their place at once. I refused to remain seated while they waited for their change⁠—and remember, my dear, that I am no longer pretty like you, but old and white-haired.

There is no doubt that we are the ones who should be taught politeness; the task would be so great that Hercules himself would not succeed.

You talk about Étretat and the people who gossip on that delightful beach. The place is done for for me, although in the past I have enjoyed myself there. There were just a few of us who were on friendly terms, men and women in society⁠—the real thing⁠—and writers, artists and musicians. Nobody tittle-tattled in those days.

As there was no insipid Casino then where people pose, talk scandal under their breath, dance idiotically, and bore themselves to death, we tried to find some way of spending the evenings cheerfully. Well, guess what one of the husbands of the party thought of? To go and dance at one of the neighbouring farms every evening.

We all went off in a band with a hand-organ which the painter Le Poittevin, wearing a cotton nightcap, generally played. Two men carried lanterns and we followed in procession, laughing and chatting like madcaps.

We woke up the farmer, the servants and the men. We even had onion soup (horror!) made for us, we danced under the apple trees to the strains of the “Music-box.” The awakened cocks crowed in the distant outbuildings; the horses moved about in the stables, the fresh country breeze caressed our faces, full of the scent of herbs and grasses and of newly-mown crops.

How long ago all that happened! How long ago! Thirty years ago! I do not want you to come for the opening of the shooting season. Why spoil the pleasure of our friends by insisting on town dress on such an occasion, a day of real country pleasure and violent exercise? That is the way all men are spoilt, my dear.

I embrace you.

Your Old Aunt,

Geneviève de Z.

A Widow

It was during the hunting season, at the de Banville country seat. The autumn was rainy and dull. The red leaves, instead of crackling under foot, rotted in the hollows beneath the heavy showers.

The almost leafless forest was as humid as a bathroom. When you entered it beneath the huge trees shaken by the winds, a mouldy odour, a vapour from fallen rain, soaking grass and damp earth, enveloped you. And the hunters, bending beneath this continuous downpour, the dogs with their tails hanging and their coats matted, and the young huntswomen in their close-fitting habits drenched with rain, returned each evening depressed in body and spirit.

In the great drawing room, after dinner, they played lotto, but without enthusiasm, while the wind shook the shutters violently, and turned the old weathervanes into spinning-tops. Someone suggested telling stories, in the way we read of in books; but no one could invent anything very amusing. The hunters narrated some of their adventures with the gun, the slaughter of rabbits, for example; and the ladies racked their brains without finding anywhere the imagination of Scheherazade.

They were about to abandon this form of diversion, when a young lady, carelessly playing with the hand of her old, unmarried aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair, which she had often seen before but thought nothing about.

Moving it gently about the finger she said, suddenly: “Tell us the story of this ring, Auntie; it looks like the hair of a child⁠—”

The old maid reddened and then grew pale, and in a trembling voice she replied: “It is sad, so sad that I never care to speak about it. All the unhappiness of my life is centred in it. I was young then, but the memory of it remains so painful that I weep whenever I think of it.”

They wished very much to hear the story, but the aunt refused to tell it; finally, they urged so much that she at length consented.

“You have often heard me speak of the Santèze family, now extinct. I knew the last three men of this family. They all died within three months in the same manner. This hair belonged to the last one. He was thirteen years old, when he killed himself for me. That appears very strange to you, doesn’t it?

“They were an extraordinary race, a race of fools, if you will, but of charming fools, of fools for love. All, from father to son, had these violent passions, waves of emotion which drove them to most exalted deeds, to fanatical devotion, and even to crime. It was to them what ardent devotion is to certain souls. Those who become monks are not of the same nature as drawing room favourites. Their relatives used to say: ‘as amorous as a Santèze.’

“To see them was to divine this characteristic. They all had curly hair, growing low upon the brow, curly beards and large eyes, very large, whose rays seemed to penetrate and disturb you, without your knowing just why.

“The grandfather of the one of whom this is the only souvenir, after many adventures, and some duels on account of entanglements with women, when about sixty-five fell passionately in love with the daughter of his farmer. I knew them both. She was blond, pale, distinguished looking, with a soft voice and a sweet look, so sweet that she reminded one of a madonna. The old lord took her home with him, and immediately became so captivated that he could not do without her for a minute. His daughter and his daughter-in-law, who lived in the house, found this perfectly natural, so much was love a tradition of the family. When one was moved by a great passion, nothing surprised them, and, if anyone spoke in their presence of thwarted desires, of disunited lovers, or revenge upon some treachery, they would both say, in the same sad tones: ‘Oh! how he (or she) must have suffered before coming to that!’ Nothing more. They were moved with pity by all dramas of the heart and never spoke slightingly of them, even when they were criminal.

“One autumn, a young man, M. de Gradelle, invited for the hunting, eloped with the young woman.

“M. de Santèze remained calm, as if nothing had happened. But one morning they found him hanging in the kennel in the midst of the dogs.

“His son died in the same fashion, in a hotel in Paris, while on a journey in 1841, after having been deceived by an opera singer.

“He left a child twelve years old, and a widow, the sister of my mother. She came with the little boy to live at my father’s house, on our Bertillon estate. I was then seventeen.

“You could not imagine what an astonishing, precocious child this little Santèze was. One would have said that all the power of tenderness, all the exaltation of his race had fallen upon this one, the last. He was always dreaming and walking alone in a great avenue of elms that led from the house to the woods. I often watched this sentimental youngster from my window, as he walked up and down with his hands behind his back, with bowed head, sometimes stopping to look up, as if he saw and comprehended things beyond his age and experience.

“Often after dinner, on clear nights, he would say to me: ‘Let us go and dream, Cousin.’ And we would go together into the park. He would stop abruptly in the clear spaces, where the white vapour floats, that soft cotton with which the moon decorates the clearings in the woods, and say to me, seizing my hand: ‘Look! Look there! But you do not understand me, I feel it. If you understood me, you would be happy. In order to know, one must love.’ I would laugh and embrace him, this boy, who adored me so much as to die of love.

“Often, too, after dinner, he would seat himself upon my mother’s knee. ‘Come, Aunt,’ he would say to her, ‘tell us some love story.’ And my mother, as a joke, would tell him all the family legends, the passionate adventures of his fathers, for thousands of them were mentioned, true and false. It was their reputation that was the undoing of all these men. They got fancies, and then took pride in living up to the fame of their house.

“The little boy would get excited by these terrible or affecting tales, and sometimes he would clap his hands and cry out: ‘I, too; I, too, know how to love, better than any of them.’

“Then he began to pay me his court, so timidly, with such grave tenderness, that we laughed at it. Each morning I had flowers picked by him, and each evening, before going to his room, he would kiss my hand, murmuring: ‘I love you!’

“I was guilty, very guilty, and I have wept since, unceasingly, doing penance all my life, by remaining an old maid⁠—or rather, an affianced widow, his widow. I amused myself with this childish devotion, even inciting him. I was coquettish, and seductive, as if I were dealing with a grown man, caressing and deceiving. I excited this child. It was a joke to me, and a pleasing diversion to his mother and mine. He was twelve years old! Think of it! Who would have taken seriously this diminutive passion! I kissed him as much as he wished. I even wrote love letters to him that our mothers read. And he responded with letters of fire, that I still have. He thought our love intimacy was a secret, regarding himself as a man. We had forgotten that he was a Santèze!

“This lasted nearly a year. One evening, in the park, he threw himself down at my knees, kissing the hem of my dress, in a furious burst of passion, repeating: ‘I love you! I love you! I love you! I am dying of love for you. If you ever deceive me, understand, if you ever leave me for another, I shall do as my father did⁠—’ And he added in a low voice that gave one the shivers: ‘You know what he did!’

“Then, as I remained dumbfounded, he got up and, stretching himself on tiptoe, for I was much taller than he, he repeated in my ear, my name, my first name, ‘Geneviève!’ in a voice so sweet, so pretty, so tender that I trembled to my very feet.

“I stammered: ‘Let us return to the house!’ He said nothing further, but followed me. As we were going up the steps, he stopped me and said: ‘You know if you abandon me, I shall kill myself.’

“I understood now that I had gone too far, and immediately became more reserved. When he reproached me for it, one day, I answered him: ‘You are now too big for this kind of joking, and too young for serious love. I will wait.’

“I believed myself freed from him.

“He was sent away to school in the autumn. When he returned, the following summer, I had become engaged. He understood at once, and for over a week he looked so preoccupied that I was much disturbed.

“The ninth day, in the morning, I perceived, on rising, a little piece of paper slipped under my door. I seized it and read: ‘You have abandoned me, and you know what I said. You have ordered my death. As I do not wish to be found by anyone but you, come into the park, to the place where last year I said that I loved you, and look up.’

“I felt myself becoming mad. I dressed as quickly as possible, and ran, so that I nearly fell exhausted, to the designated spot. His little school cap was on the ground in the mud. It had rained all night. I raised my eyes and saw something swinging amongst the leaves, for there was a wind blowing, a strong wind.

“After that, I knew nothing of what I did. I must have shouted, fainted, perhaps, and fallen, then got up and run to the house. I came to my senses in bed, with my mother at my side.

“I at first believed that I had dreamed all this in a frightful delirium. I muttered: ‘And he, he⁠—Gontran?’ They did not answer.

“It was all true.

“I dared not look at him again, but I asked for a lock of his blond hair. Here⁠—it⁠—is⁠—” And the old lady held out her hand in a gesture of despair.

Then, she used her handkerchief several times, and dried her eyes, and continued: “I broke off my engagement without saying why⁠—and I⁠—have remained always the⁠—widow of this child thirteen years old.” Then her head fell upon her breast and she wept pensively for a long time.

And, as they dispersed to their rooms for the night, a burly huntsman, whose quiet she had disturbed somewhat, whispered in the ear of his neighbour:

“What a misfortune to be so sentimental! Don’t you think so?”

Rust

During his whole life, he had had only one insatiable passion, love of sport. He went out every day, from morning till night, with the greatest ardour, in summer and winter, spring and autumn, on the marshes, when it was close time on the plains and in the woods. He shot, he hunted, he coursed, he ferreted and trapped both birds and animals; he spoke of nothing but shooting and hunting, he dreamt of it, and continually repeated:

“How miserable any man must be who does not care for sport!”

And now that he was past fifty, he was well, robust, stout and vigorous, though rather bald, and he kept his moustache cut quite short, so that it might not cover his lips, and interfere with his blowing the horn.

He was never called by anything but his first Christian name, Monsieur Hector, but his full name was Baron Hector Gontran de Coutelier, and he lived in a small manor house which he had inherited, in the middle of the woods; and though he knew all the nobility of the department, and met its male representatives out shooting and hunting, he only regularly visited one family, the Courvilles, who were very pleasant neighbours, and had been allied to his race for centuries. In their house he was liked, and taken the greatest care of, and he used to say: “If I were not a sportsman, I should like to be here always.”

Monsieur de Courville had been his friend and comrade from childhood, and lived quietly as a gentleman farmer with his wife, daughter and son-in-law, Monsieur de Darnetot, who did nothing, under the pretext of being absorbed in historical research.

Baron de Coutelier often went and dined with his friends, as much with the object of telling them of the shots he had made, as of anything else. He had long stories about dogs and ferrets, of which he spoke as if they were persons of note, whom he knew very well. He analysed them, and explained their thoughts and intentions:

“When Médor saw that the corncrake was leading him such a dance, he said to himself: ‘Wait a bit, my friend, we will have a joke.’ And then, with a jerk of the head to me, to make me go into the corner of the clover field, he began to quarter the sloping ground, noisily brushing through the clover to drive the bird into a corner from which it could not escape.

“Everything happened as he had foreseen. Suddenly, the corncrake found itself on the edge of the wood, and it could not go any farther without showing itself; the corncrake thought to himself, ‘Caught by Jove’ and crouched down. Médor stood and pointed, looking round at me, but at a sign from me, he drew up to it, flushed the corncrake; bang! down it came, and Médor, as he brought it to me, wagged his tail, as much as to say: ‘How about that, Monsieur Hector?’ ”

Courville, Darnetot, and the two ladies laughed very heartily at those picturesque descriptions into which the Baron threw his whole heart. He grew animated, moved his arms about, and gesticulated with his whole body; and when he described the death of anything he had killed, he gave a formidable laugh, and said:

“Isn’t that a good one?”

As soon as they began to speak about anything else, he stopped listening, and sat by himself, humming a few notes to imitate a hunting horn. And when there was a pause between two sentences on those moments of sudden calm which come between the war of words, a hunting tune was heard, “Ta, ta, ta, ra, ra,” which the Baron sang, puffing his cheek as if he were blowing his horn.

He had only lived for field sports, and was growing old, without thinking about it, or guessing it, when he had a severe attack of rheumatism, and was confined to his bed for two months, and nearly died of grief and boredom.

As he kept no female servant, for an old footman did all the cooking, he could not get any hot poultices, nor could he have any of those little attentions, nor anything that an invalid requires. His gamekeeper was his sick nurse, and as the servant found the time hang just as heavily on his hands as it did on his master’s he slept nearly all day and all night in an easy chair, while the Baron was swearing and flying into a rage between the sheets. The ladies of the De Courville family came to see him occasionally, and those were hours of calm and comfort for him. They prepared his herb tea, attended to the fire, served him his breakfast up daintily, by the side of his bed, and when they were going again, he used to say:

“By Jove! You ought to come here altogether,” which made them laugh heartily.

When he was getting better, and was beginning to go out shooting again, he went to dine with his friends one evening; but he was not at all in his usual spirits. He was tormented by one continual fear⁠—that he might have another attack before shooting began, and when he was taking his leave at night, when the women were wrapping him up in a shawl, and tying a silk handkerchief round his neck, which he allowed to be done for the first time in his life, he said in a disconsolate voice:

“If it begins all over again, I shall be done for.”

As soon as he had gone, Madame Darnetot said to her mother:

“We ought to try and get the Baron married.”

They all raised their hands at the proposal. How was it that they had never thought of it before? And during all the rest of the evening they discussed the widows whom they knew, and their choice fell on a woman of forty, who was still pretty, fairly rich, very good-tempered and in excellent health, whose name was Madame Berthe Vilers, and, accordingly, she was invited to spend a month at the château. She was very bored at home, and was very glad to come; she was lively and active, and Monsieur de Coutelier took her fancy immediately. She amused herself with him as if he had been a living toy, and spent hours in asking him slyly about the sentiments of rabbits and the machinations of foxes, and he gravely distinguished between the various ways of looking at things which different animals had, and ascribed plans and subtle arguments to them, just as he did to men of his acquaintance.

The attention she paid him, delighted him, and one evening, to show his esteem for her, he asked her to go out shooting with him, which he had never done to any woman before, and the invitation appeared so funny to her that she accepted it.

It was quite an amusement for them to fit her out; everybody offered her something, and she came out in a sort of short riding habit, with boots and men’s breeches, a short petticoat, a velvet jacket, which was too tight for her across the chest, and a huntsman’s black velvet cap.

The Baron seemed as excited as if he were going to fire his first shot. He minutely explained to her the direction of the wind, and how different dogs worked. Then he took her into a field, and followed her as anxiously as a nurse does when her charge is trying to walk for the first time.

Médor soon made a point, and stopped with his tail out stiff and one paw up, and the Baron, standing behind his pupil, was trembling like a leaf, and whispered:

“Look out, they are par⁠ ⁠… par⁠ ⁠… partridges.” And almost before he had finished, there was a loud whirr⁠—whirr, and a covey of large birds flew up in the air, with a tremendous noise.

Madame Vilers was startled, shut her eyes, fired off both barrels and staggered at the recoil of the gun; but when she had recovered her self-possession, she saw that the Baron was dancing about like a madman, and that Médor was bringing back the two partridges which she had killed.

From that day, Monsieur de Coutelier was in love with her, and used to say, raising his eyes: “What a woman!” And he used to come every evening now, to talk about shooting.

One day, Monsieur de Courville, who was walking part of the way with him, asked him, suddenly:

“Why don’t you marry her?”

The Baron was altogether taken by surprise, and said:

“What? I? Marry her?⁠ ⁠… Well⁠ ⁠… really⁠ ⁠…”

And he said no more for a while, but then, suddenly shaking hands with his companion, he said: “Goodbye, my friend,” and quickly disappeared in the darkness.

He did not go again for three days, but when he reappeared, he was pale from thinking the matter over, and graver than usual. Taking Monsieur de Courville aside, he said:

“That was a capital idea of yours; try and persuade her to accept me. By Jove, a woman like that, you might say, was made for me. We shall be able to have some sort of sport together, all the year round.”

As Monsieur de Courville felt certain that his friend would not meet with a refusal, he replied:

“Propose to her immediately, my dear fellow, or would you rather that I did it for you?”

But the Baron grew suddenly nervous, and said, with some hesitation:

“No,⁠ ⁠… no.⁠ ⁠… I must go to Paris for⁠ ⁠… for a few days. As soon as I come back, I will give you a definite answer.” No other explanation was forthcoming, and he started the next morning.

He made a long stay. One, two, three weeks passed, but Monsieur de Coutelier did not return, and the Courvilles, who were surprised and uneasy, did not know what to say to their friend, whom they had informed of the Baron’s wishes. Every other day they sent to his house for news of him, but none of his servants had a line.

But one evening, while Madame Vilers was singing, and accompanying herself on the piano, a servant came with a mysterious air, and told Monsieur de Courville that a gentleman wanted to see him. It was the Baron, in a travelling suit, who looked much altered and older, and as soon as he saw his old friend, he seized both his hands, and said in a somewhat tired voice: “I have just returned, my dear friend, and I have come to you immediately; I am thoroughly knocked up.”

Then he hesitated in visible embarrassment, and presently said: “I wished to tell you⁠ ⁠… immediately⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠… that affair⁠ ⁠… you know what I mean⁠ ⁠… must come to nothing.”

Monsieur de Courville looked at him in stupefaction. “Must come to nothing?⁠ ⁠… Why?”

“Oh! Do not ask me, please; it would be too painful for me to tell you; but you may rest assured that I am acting like an honourable man. I cannot⁠ ⁠… I have no right⁠ ⁠… no right, you understand, to marry this lady, and I will wait until she has gone, to come here again; it would be too painful for me to see her. Goodbye.” And he absolutely ran away.

The whole family deliberated and discussed the matter, surmising a thousand things. The conclusion they came to was, that the Baron’s past life concealed some great mystery, that, perhaps, he had natural children, or some love affair of long standing. At any rate, the matter seemed serious, and so as to avoid any difficult complications, they tactfully informed Madame Vilers of the state of affairs, and she returned home just as much of a widow as she had come.

Three months more passed. One evening, when he had dined rather too well, and was rather unsteady on his legs, Monsieur de Coutelier, while he was smoking his pipe with Monsieur de Courville, said to him:

“You would really pity me, if you only knew how continually I am thinking about your friend.”

But the other, who had been rather vexed at the Baron’s behaviour in the circumstances, told him exactly what he thought of him:

“By Jove, my good friend, when a man has any secrets in his existence, like you have, he does not make advances to a woman, immediately, as you did, for you must surely have foreseen the reason why you had to draw back.”

The Baron left off smoking in some confusion.

“Yes, and no; at any rate, I could not have believed what actually happened.”

Whereupon, Monsieur de Courville lost his patience, and replied:

“One ought to foresee everything.”

But Monsieur de Coutelier replied in a low voice, in case anybody should be listening: “I see that I have hurt your feelings, and will tell you everything, so that you may forgive me. You know that for twenty years I have lived only for sport; I care for nothing else, and think about nothing else. Consequently, when I was on the point of undertaking certain obligations with regard to this lady, I felt some scruples of conscience. Since I have given up the habit of⁠ ⁠… of love, there! I have not known whether I was still capable of⁠ ⁠… of⁠ ⁠… you know what I mean⁠ ⁠… Just think! It is exactly sixteen years since⁠ ⁠… I for the last time⁠ ⁠… you understand what I mean. In this neighbourhood, it is not easy to⁠ ⁠… you know. And then, I had other things to do. I prefer to use my gun, and so before entering into an engagement before the Mayor and the Priest to⁠ ⁠… well, I was frightened. I said to myself: ‘Confound it; suppose I missed fire!’ An honourable man always keeps his engagements, and in this case, I was undertaking sacred duties with regard to this lady, and so, to make sure, I decided to go and spend a week in Paris.

“At the end of that time, nothing, absolutely nothing occurred. And it was not for want of trying. I went to the best there was, and they did everything they could. Yes⁠ ⁠… they certainly did their best!⁠ ⁠… And yet⁠ ⁠… they went away with nothing to show⁠ ⁠… nothing⁠ ⁠… nothing⁠ ⁠… I waited⁠ ⁠… I waited for a fortnight, three weeks, continually hoping. In the restaurants, I ate a number of highly seasoned dishes, which upset my stomach, and⁠ ⁠… and it was still the same thing⁠ ⁠… or rather, nothing. You will, therefore, understand, that, in such circumstances, and having assured myself of the fact, the only thing I could do was⁠ ⁠… was⁠ ⁠… to withdraw; and I did so.”

Monsieur de Courville had to struggle very hard not to laugh, and he shook hands with the Baron, saying: “I am very sorry for you,” and accompanied him halfway home.

When he got back, and was alone with his wife, he told her everything, nearly choking with laughter; she, however, did not laugh, but listened very attentively, and when her husband had finished, she said, very seriously:

“The Baron is a fool, my dear; he was frightened, that is all. I will write and ask Berthe to come back here as soon as possible.”

And when Monsieur de Courville observed that their friend had made such long and useless attempts, she merely said:

“Nonsense! When a man loves his wife, you know⁠ ⁠… that sort of thing always comes right in the end.”

And Monsieur de Courville made no reply, as he felt rather embarrassed himself.

The Chair Mender

It was at the end of the dinner opening the hunting season, at the house of Marquis de Bertrans. Eleven hunters, eight young women, and the doctor of the neighbourhood were seated around the large, well-lit table covered with fruits and flowers.

They came to speak of love, and a great discussion arose, the eternal discussion, as to whether one could love truly but once or many times. They cited examples of people who had never had but one serious love; they also cited other examples of others who had loved often, violently. The men, generally, pretended that passion, like a malady, could strike the same person many times, and strike to kill if an obstacle appeared in his path. Although the point of view was not contestable, the women, whose opinion depended upon literature rather than on observation, affirmed that love, true love, great love, could come only once upon a mortal; that it was like a thunderbolt, this love, and that a heart once touched by it remained ever after so vacant, ravaged, and burned out that no other powerful sentiment, even a dream, could again take root.

The Marquis, having loved much, combated this belief in lively fashion:

“I tell you that one can love many times with all one’s strength and all one’s soul. You cite to me people who have killed themselves for love as proof of the impossibility of a second passion. I answer that if they had not been guilty of this foolishness of suicide, which removed them from all chance of another fall, they would have been healed; and they would have recommenced, again and again, until their natural death. It is with lovers as it is with drunkards⁠—once a drunkard always a drunkard, once a lover, always a lover. It is simply a matter of temperament.”

They chose the doctor as arbitrator, an old Paris physician retired to the country, and begged him to give his opinion.

To be exact, he had none. As the Marquis had said, it is an affair of temperament.

“As for myself,” he continued, “I have known of one passion which lasted fifty-five years without a day of respite, and which was terminated only by death.”

The Marquis clapped his hands.

“This is beautiful,” said a lady. “And what a dream to be so loved! What happiness to live fifty-five years enveloped in a deep, living affection! How happy the person must be, how pleased with life, who was adored like that!”

The doctor smiled:

“In fact, Madame,” said he, “you are right on that point. The loved one was a man. You know him, it is Mr. Chouquet, the chemist of the village. And as for the woman, you knew her too, it is the old woman who put cane seats in chairs, and came every year to this house. But how can I make you understand the whole story?”

The enthusiasm of the women fell. On their faces a look of disgust said: “Pooh!”⁠—as if love could only strike those fine and distinguished creatures who were worthy of the interest of fashionable people.

The doctor continued:

“I was called, three months ago, to the bedside of this old woman. She was dying. She had come here in the old carriage that served her for a house, drawn by the nag that you have often seen, and accompanied by her two great black dogs, her friends and guard. The priest was already there. She made us the executors of her will, and in order to unveil the meaning of her testament, she related the story of her life. I have never heard anything more singular or more affecting.

“Her father made chair seats and so did her mother. She had never known a home in any one place upon the earth. As a little girl, she went around ragged, verminous and dirty. They would stop beside the road at the entrance to towns, unharness the horse and let him browse; the dog would go to sleep with his nose in his paws; the little one would play in the grass while the father and mother, under the shade of the elms bordering the roadside, would mend all the old chairs in the neighbourhood.

“No one ever talked in this moving dwelling. After the necessary words to decide who should make the tour of the houses and who should call out the well-known: ‘Chairs to mend!’ they would sit down to plait the straw, face to face or side by side.

“When the child went too far away or struck up an acquaintance with some urchin in the village, the angry voice of the father would call her: ‘You come back here, you brat!’ And these were the only words of tenderness she ever heard.

“When she grew bigger they sent her around to collect the worn-out chairs to be mended. Then she made some acquaintances from place to place among the street children. Then it would be the parents of her new friends who would call brutally to their children: ‘Will you come here, you scamp! Let me catch you talking to that barefoot again!’

“Often the boys would throw stones at her. When ladies gave her a few pence she kept them carefully.

“One day⁠—she was then eleven years old⁠—as they were passing through this place, she met the little Chouquet behind the cemetery, weeping because some comrade had stolen two sous from him. The tears of this little well-to-do citizen, one of those fortunate ones who in her queer noddle she had thought always content and joyous, quite upset her. She went up to him, and when she learned the cause of his trouble, she poured into his hands all her savings, seven sous, which he took quite naturally, drying his tears. Then, mad with joy, she had the audacity to kiss him. As he was counting the money attentively, he allowed her to do it. Seeing that she was not repulsed or beaten, she did the same thing again. She embraced him with all her strength and all her heart. Then she ran away.

“What could have taken place in her miserable head after that? Did she attach herself to this little boy, because she had sacrificed for him her beggar’s fortune, or because she had given to him her first tender kiss? The mystery is the same for the small as for the great.

“For months she dreamed of this corner of the cemetery and of this boy. In the hope of seeing him again, she robbed her parents, keeping back a sou here and there, either from a chair seat or upon the provisions which she was sent to buy.

“When she returned here she had two francs in her pocket, but she only saw the chemist’s son, very clean behind the big coloured bottles of his father’s shop, between a red decanter and a tapeworm. She loved him there still more, charmed, aroused to ecstasy by this glory of coloured water, this apotheosis of shining crystal.

“This picture became an ineffaceable memory, and when she saw him, the following year, playing marbles near the school with his comrades, she threw herself upon him, seized him in her arms, and kissed him with such violence that he began to howl with fear. Then, in order to appease him, she gave him all her money⁠—three francs and twenty centimes, a real treasure which he looked at with bulging eyes.

“He took it and let her caress him as much as she wished.

“During the next four years she turned into his hand all her surplus, which he pocketed with a clear conscience, in exchange for permitted kisses. Once it was thirty sous, sometimes forty, and once only twelve⁠—and she wept with grief and humiliation at this, but it had been a bad year. The last time there was a five-franc piece, a great round piece that made him laugh with content.

“She thought of nothing but him; and he waited her return with a certain impatience, running to meet her, which made the heart of the girl leap with joy.

“Then he disappeared. They had sent him away to college. She found it out by skilful questioning. Then she used her diplomacy to change her parents’ itinerary and make them pass through here during the holidays. She succeeded but only after two years of diplomacy. Then she had been two years without seeing him, and she scarcely recognized him, so much was he changed; he was so large and handsome in his coat with the brass buttons, and so imposing. He pretended not to see her and passed proudly by near her.

“She wept over it for two days, and after that she suffered without ceasing.

“Every year she returned here, passing him without daring to bow, and without his deigning to raise his eyes to her. She loved him passionately. She said to me: ‘Doctor, he is the only man I have seen on earth; I have not known that there are others existing.’

“Her parents died. She continued their trade, but took with her two dogs instead of one, two terrible dogs that no one would dare encounter.

“One day on entering this village, where her heart still remained, she perceived a young woman coming out of the Chouquet shop on the arm of her well-beloved. It was his wife. He was married.

“That evening she threw herself into the pond which is on the Town Hall square. A drunken man got her out and took her to the pharmacy. Chouquet, the son, came down in his dressing-gown, to care for her; and, without appearing to recognize her, loosed her clothing and rubbed her, then said, in a hard voice: ‘Why, you are mad! You must not do such foolish things.’

“That was sufficient to cure her. He had spoken to her! She was happy for a long time.

“He wanted no remuneration for his services, although she insisted upon paying him. And all her life was spent like this. She made chair seats and thought of Chouquet. Every year she saw him behind his large windows. She got into the habit of buying from him all her medical needs. In this way she could see him, speak to him, and still give him a little money.

“As I told you in the beginning, she died this spring. After having related her sad history, she begged me to give to him she had so patiently loved all the savings of her life, because she had worked only for him, she said, fasting even, in order to put aside, and to be sure that he would think of her at least once after she was dead.

“She then gave me two thousand three hundred and twenty-seven francs. I allowed the priest twenty-seven for burial, and carried off the rest when she had drawn her last breath.

“The next day, I took myself to the house of the Chouquets. They had just finished breakfast, sitting opposite each other, large and red, smelling of their pharmaceutical products, important and satisfied.

“They asked me to sit down; they offered me a kirsch which I accepted; then I commenced my discourse in an emotional voice, persuaded that they were going to weep.

“When he understood that he had been loved by this vagabond, this chair mender, this tramp, Chouquet bounced with indignation, as if she had robbed him of his reputation, of the esteem of honest people, of his honour, of something rare that was dearer to him than life.

“His wife, as exasperated as he, kept repeating: ‘The beggar! The beggar! The beggar!’ without being able to find any other word.

“He got up and walked around the table with long strides, his Greek cap tipped over his ear. He muttered: ‘Think of it, Doctor! This is a horrible thing to happen to a man! What is to be done? Oh! if I had known this while she was alive I would have had her arrested and shut up in prison. And she wouldn’t have got out, I can tell you!’

“I was stupefied at the result of my pious errand. I neither knew what to say nor what to do. But I had to end my mission. I said: ‘She has charged me to give you all her savings, which amount to two thousand three hundred francs. As what I have told you seems to be so very disagreeable to you, perhaps it would be better to give this money to the poor.’

“They looked at me, the man and the woman, unable to move from surprise. I drew the money from my pocket, miserable money from all countries, and of every denomination, gold and copper mixed. Then I asked: ‘What do you decide?’

“Madame Chouquet spoke first. She said: ‘Since it was the last wish of this woman⁠—it seems to me that it would be difficult to refuse it.’

“The husband, somewhat confused, answered: ‘We could always buy with that money something for our children.’

“I remarked, dryly: ‘As you wish.’

“He continued: ‘Yes, give it to us, since she told you to do so. We can always find means of using it in some good work.’

“I laid down the money, bowed, and went out.

“The next day Chouquet came to me and said brusquely: ‘She must have left a wagon here, that⁠—that woman. What are you going to do with that wagon?’

“ ‘Nothing,’ said I, ‘take it if you wish.’

“ ‘Exactly. Just what I want. I will make a shed of it for my kitchen-garden.’

“He was going, but I recalled him. ‘She also left an old horse and her two dogs. Do you want them?’

“He stopped, surprised: ‘Ah! no,’ he answered, ‘what could I do with them? Dispose of them as you wish.’

“Then he laughed and extended his hand which I took. What else could I do? In the country it will not do for the doctor and the chemist to be enemies.

“I have kept the dogs. The priest, who has a large yard, took the horse. The wagon serves Chouquet as a shed, and he has bought five railway shares with the money.

“This is the only profound love that I have met in my life.”

The doctor was silent. Then the Marquise, with tears in her eyes, sighed: “Decidedly, it is only women who know how to love.”

An Artifice

The old doctor and his young patient were talking by the side of the fire. There was nothing really the matter with her, except that she had one of those little feminine ailments from which pretty women frequently suffer⁠—slight anaemia, an attack of nerves, and a suspicion of fatigue, probably of that fatigue from which newly-married people often suffer at the end of the first month of their married life, when they have made a love match.

She was lying on the chaise longue and talking. “No, doctor,” she said; “I shall never be able to understand a woman deceiving her husband. Even allowing that she does not love him, that she pays no heed to her vows and promises, how can she give herself to another man? How can she conceal the intrigue from other people’s eyes? How can it be possible to love amid lies and treason?”

The doctor smiled, and replied: “It is perfectly easy, and I can assure you that a woman does not think of all those little subtle details, when she has made up her mind to go astray. I even feel certain that no woman is ripe for true love until she has passed through all the promiscuousness and all the irksomeness of married life, which, according to a celebrated man, is nothing but an exchange of ill tempered words by day and bad smells at night. Nothing is more true, for no woman can love passionately until after she has married.

“As for dissimulation, all women have plenty of it on hand for such occasions. The simplest of them are wonderful tacticians, and extricate themselves from the greatest dilemmas in an extraordinary way.”

The young woman, however, seemed incredulous. “No, doctor,” she said; “one never thinks, until after it has happened, of what one ought to have done in a dangerous affair, and women are certainly more liable than men to lose their head on such occasions.”

The doctor raised his hands: “After it has happened, you say! Now I will tell you something that happened to one of my female patients, in whose mouth, I thought butter would not melt, as the saying is.

“It happened in a provincial town. One night when I was sleeping profoundly, in that deep, first sleep from which it is so difficult to rouse oneself, it seemed to me in my dreams as if the bells in the town were sounding a fire alarm and I woke up with a start. It was my own bell which was ringing wildly, and as my servant did not seem to be answering the door, I in turn pulled the bell at the head of my bed. Soon I heard banging and steps in the silent house, and then Jean came into my room and handed me a letter which said: ‘Madame Lelièvre begs Dr. Siméon to come to her immediately.’

“I thought for a few moments, and then I said to myself: ‘A nervous attack, vapours, nonsense; I am too tired.’

“And so I replied: ‘As Doctor Siméon is not at all well, he must beg Madame Lelièvre to be kind enough to call in his colleague, Monsieur Bonnet.’

“I put the note into an envelope, and went to sleep again, but about half an hour later, the street bell rang again, and Jean came to me and said: ‘There is somebody downstairs⁠—I do not quite know whether it is a man or a woman, as the person is so wrapped up⁠—who wishes to speak to you immediately. He says it is a matter of life and death for two people.’ Whereupon, I sat up in bed and told him to show the person in.

“A kind of black phantom appeared, who raised her veil as soon as Jean had left the room. It was Madame Bertha Lelièvre, quite a young woman, who had been married for three years to a big merchant in the town, who was said to have married the prettiest girl in the neighbourhood.

“She was terribly pale, her face was contracted like the faces of excited people occasionally are, and her hands trembled violently. Twice she tried to speak without being able to utter a sound, but at last she stammered out:

“ ‘Come⁠—quick⁠—quick, doctor⁠—Come⁠—my⁠—my lover has just died in my bedroom.’ She stopped, half suffocated with emotion, and then went on: ‘My husband will⁠—be coming home from the club very soon.’

“I jumped out of bed, without even considering that I was only in my nightshirt, and dressed myself in a few moments. Then I said: ‘Did you come a short time ago?’

“ ‘No,’ she said, standing like a statue petrified with horror. ‘It was my servant⁠—she knows.’ And then, after a short silence, she went on: ‘I was there⁠—by his side.’ And she uttered a sort of cry of horror, and after a fit of choking, which made her gasp, she wept violently, shaking with spasmodic sobs for a minute or two. Then her tears suddenly ceased, as if dried by an internal fire, and with an air of tragic calmness, she said: ‘Let us make haste.’

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

“ ‘I have one,’ she said; ‘it is his, which was waiting for him!’ She wrapped herself up, so as to completely conceal her face, and we started.

“When she was by my side in the darkness of the carriage, she suddenly seized my hand, and crushing it in her delicate fingers she said, with a shaking voice, that proceeded from a distracted heart: ‘Oh! If you only knew, if you only knew what I am suffering! I loved him, I have loved him distractedly, like a mad woman, for the last six months.’

“ ‘Is anyone up in your house?’ I asked.

“ ‘No, nobody except Rose, who knows everything.’

“We stopped at the door. Evidently everybody was asleep, and we went in without making any noise, by means of her latchkey, and walked upstairs on tiptoe. The frightened servant was sitting at the top of the stairs, with a lighted candle by her side, as she was afraid to stop by the dead man. I went into the room, which was turned upside down, as if there had been a struggle in it. The bed, which was tumbled and open, seemed to be waiting for somebody; one of the sheets was thrown on to the floor, and wet napkins, with which they had bathed the young man’s temples, were lying by the side of a wash-hand basin and a glass, while a strong smell of vinegar mingled with Lubin water pervaded the room.

“The dead man, was lying at full length, on his back, in the middle of the room, and I went up to him, looked at him, and touched him. I opened his eyes, and felt his hands, and then, turning to the two women, who were shaking as if they were frozen, I said to them: ‘Help me to lift him on to the bed.’ When we had laid him gently on to it, I listened to his heart, put a looking-glass to his lips, and then said: ‘It is all over; let us make haste and dress him.’ It was a terrible sight!

“I took his limbs one by one, as if they had belonged to some enormous doll, and held them out to the clothes which the women brought, and they put on his socks, drawers, trousers, waistcoat, and lastly the coat; but it was a difficult matter to get the arms into the sleeves.

“When it came to buttoning his boots, the two women kneeled down, while I held the light. As his feet were rather swollen, it was very difficult, and as they could not find a button hook, they had to use their hairpins. When the terrible toilette was over, I looked at our work and said: ‘You ought to arrange his hair a little.’ The girl went and brought her mistress’s large-toothed comb and brush, but as she was trembling, and pulling out his long, tangled hair in doing it, Madame Lelièvre took the comb out of her hand, and arranged his hair as if she were caressing him. She parted it, brushed his beard, rolled his moustaches gently round her fingers, as she had no doubt been in the habit of doing, in the familiarities of their intrigue.

“Suddenly, however, letting go of what she held, she took her dead lover’s inert head in her hands, and looked for a long time in despair at the dead face, which no longer could smile at her. Then, throwing herself on to him, she took him into her arms and kissed him ardently. Her kisses fell like blows on to his closed mouth and eyes, on to his forehead and temples, and then, putting her lips to his ear, as if he could still hear her, and as if she were about to whisper something to him, to make their embraces still more ardent, she said several times, in a heartrending voice: ‘Adieu, my darling!’

“Just then the clock struck twelve, and I started up. ‘Twelve o’clock!’ I exclaimed. ‘That is the time when the club closes. Come, Madame, we have not a moment to lose!’

“She started up, and I said: ‘We must carry him into the drawing room.’ When we had done this, I placed him on a sofa, and lit the chandeliers, and just then the front door was opened and shut noisily. The husband had come back, and I said: ‘Rose, bring me the basin and the towels, and make the room look tidy. Make haste, for heaven’s sake! Monsieur Lelièvre is coming in.’

“I heard his steps on the stairs, and then his hands feeling along the walls. ‘Come here, my dear fellow,’ I said; ‘we have had an accident.’

“And the astonished husband appeared in the door with a cigar in his mouth, and said: ‘What is the matter? What is the meaning of this?’

“ ‘My dear friend,’ I said, going up to him; ‘you find us in a nice fix. I had remained late, chatting with your wife and our friend, who had brought me in his carriage, when he suddenly fainted, and in spite of all we have done, he has remained unconscious for two hours. I did not like to call in strangers, and if you will now help me downstairs with him, I shall be able to attend to him better at his own house.’

“The husband, who was surprised, but quite unsuspicious, took off his hat. Then he took his now inoffensive rival, under the arms. I got between his two legs, as if I had been a horse between the shafts, and we went downstairs, while his wife lit the way for us. When we got outside, I held the body up, so as to deceive the coachman, and said: ‘Come, my friend; it is nothing; you feel better already, I expect. Pluck up your courage, and make an effort. It will soon be over.’ But as I felt that he was slipping out of my hands, I gave him a slap on the shoulder, which sent him forward and made him fall into the carriage; then I got in after him.

“Monsieur Lelièvre, who was rather alarmed, said to me: ‘Do you think it is anything serious?’ To which I replied, ‘No,’ with a smile, as I looked at his wife, who had put her arm into that of her legitimate husband, and was trying to see into the dark carriage.

“I shook hands with them, and told my coachman to start, and during the whole drive the dead man kept falling against me. When we got to his house, I said that he had become unconscious on the way home, and helped to carry him upstairs, where I certified that he was dead, and acted another comedy to his distracted family. At last I got back to bed, not without swearing at lovers.”

The doctor ceased, though he was still smiling, and the young woman, who was in a very nervous state, said: “Why have you told me that terrible story?”

He gave her a gallant bow, and replied:

“So that I may offer you my services, if necessary.”

An Old Man

All the newspapers had carried the advertisement:

The new watering place of Rondelis offers all desired advantages for a long stay and even for permanent residence. Its ferruginous waters, recognized as the best in the world for counteracting all impurities of the blood, seem also to possess particular qualities calculated to prolong human life. This singular circumstance is perhaps due in part to the exceptional situation of the town, which lies surrounded by mountains and in the very center of a pine forest. For several centuries it has been celebrated for numerous cases of extraordinary longevity.

And the public came in droves.

One morning the doctor in charge of the springs was asked to call on a new arrival, Monsieur Daron, who had come to Rondelis only a few days before and had rented a charming villa on the edge of the forest. He was a little old man of eighty-six, still sprightly, wiry, healthy, active, who went to infinite pains to conceal his age.

He asked the doctor to be seated, and immediately questioned him: “Doctor, if I am well, it is thanks to hygienic living. I am not very old, but have reached a certain age, and I keep free of all illness, all indisposition, even the slightest discomfort, by means of hygiene. I am told that the climate of this place is very favorable for the health. I am very willing to believe it, but before establishing myself here I want proof. I am therefore going to ask you to call on me once a week, to give me, very exactly, the following information:

“I wish first of all to have a complete, utterly complete, list of all the inhabitants of the town and surroundings who are more than eighty years old. I also need a few physical and psychological details concerning each. I wish to know their professions, their kinds of life, their habits. Each time one of these people dies, you will inform me, indicating the precise cause of death, as well as the circumstances.”

Then he graciously added: “I hope, Doctor, that we may become good friends,” and he stretched out his wrinkled little hand. The doctor took it, promising his devoted cooperation.

M. Daron had always had a strange fear of death. He had deprived himself of almost all the pleasures because they are dangerous, and whenever anyone expressed surprise that he did not drink wine⁠—wine, that bringer of fancy and gaiety⁠—he replied in a voice containing a note of fear: “I value my life.” And he pronounced My, as if that life, His life, possessed some generally unknown value. He put into that My such a difference between his life and the life of others, that no answer was possible.

Indeed, he had a very particular way of accentuating the possessive pronouns designating all the parts of his person or even things belonging to him. When he said “My eyes, my legs, my arms, my hands,” it was clear that no mistake must be made: those organs did not belong to everyone. But this distinction was particularly noticeable when he spoke of his physician: “My doctor.” One would have said that this doctor was his, only his, destined for him alone, to take care of his illnesses and nobody else’s, and that he was superior to all the doctors in the universe, all, without exception.

He had never considered other men except as kinds of puppets, created as furniture for the natural world. He divided them into two classes: those whom he greeted because some chance had put him in contact with them, and those whom he did not greet. Both categories of individuals were to him equally insignificant.

But beginning with the day when the doctor of Rondelis brought him the list of the seventeen inhabitants of the town who were over eighty, he felt awaken in his heart a new interest, an unfamiliar solicitude for these old people whom he was going to see fall by the wayside one after the other.

He had no desire to make their acquaintance, but he had a very clear idea of their persons, and with the doctor, who dined with him every Thursday, he spoke only of them. “Well, doctor, how is Joseph Poinçot today? We left him a little ill last week.” And when the doctor had given him the patient’s bill of health M. Daron proposed modifications in diet, experiments, methods of treatment which he might later apply to himself if they succeeded with the others. The seventeen old people were an experimental field from which much was to be learned.

One evening the doctor came in and announced: “Rosalie Tournel is dead.” M. Daron shuddered and immediately demanded, “What of?” “Of an angina.” The little old man uttered an “ah” of relief. Then he declared: “She was too fat, too big; she must have eaten too much. When I get to be her age, I’ll be more careful.” (He was two years older than Rosalie, but never admitted to being over seventy.)

A few months later, it was the turn of Henry Brissot. M. Daron was very moved. This time it was a man⁠—thin, within three months of his own age, and very prudent. He dared ask for no details, but waited anxiously for the doctor to tell him. “Ah, he died suddenly, just like that? He was very well last week. He must have done something unwise, Doctor.” The doctor, who was enjoying himself, replied, “I believe not. His children tell me he was very careful.”

Then, no longer able to contain himself, M. Daron demanded, with anguish, “But⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… What did he die of, then?”

“Of pleurisy.”

That was joyful news, really joyful. The little old man clapped his dry hands. “I knew it! I told you had had done something unwise. Pleurisy doesn’t come just by itself. He took a breath of fresh air after his dinner, and the cold lodged on his chest. Pleurisy! That is an accident, not an illness. Only crazy men die of pleurisy.”

And he ate his dinner gaily, talking of those who remained. “There are only fifteen now, but they are all strong, aren’t they? All of life is like that, the weakest fall first; people who go beyond thirty have a good chance to reach sixty, those who pass sixty often get to eighty; and those who pass eighty almost always reach the century mark, because they are the most robust, the most careful, the most hardened.”

Still two others disappeared during the year, one of dysentery and the other of a choking fit. M. Daron derived a great deal of amusement from the death of the former, and concluded that he must have eaten something exciting the day before. “Dysentery is the disease of the imprudent; you should have watched over his hygiene, Doctor.” As for the choking fit, it could only have come from a heart condition, hitherto unrecognized.

But one evening the doctor announced the passing of Paul Timonet, a kind of mummy, of whom it had been hoped to make a centenarian, a living advertisement for the watering place. When M. Daron asked, as usual, “What did he die of?” the doctor replied, “Really, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know? One always knows. Wasn’t there some organic lesion?”

The doctor shook his head. “No. None.”

“Perhaps some infection of the liver or kidneys?”

“No⁠—they were perfectly sound.”

“Did you observe whether the stomach functioned regularly? A stroke is often caused by bad digestion.”

“There was no stroke.”

M. Daron, very perplexed, became excited. “But he certainly died of something! What is your opinion?”

The doctor raised his arms. “I absolutely do not know. He died because he died, that’s all.”

Then M. Daron, in a voice full of emotion, demanded: “Exactly how old was that one? I can’t remember.”

“Eighty-nine.”

And the little old man, with an air at once incredulous and reassured, cried, “Eighty-nine! So it wasn’t old age!⁠ ⁠…”

A Parricide

Counsel for the defence had pleaded insanity. How else was this strange crime to be accounted for?

One morning, in the reeds near Chaton, two bodies had been found locked in each other’s arms, those of a man and his wife. They were a couple well known in society, wealthy, no longer young, and only married the previous year, the woman having lost her first husband three years before.

They were not known to have any enemies, and they had not been robbed. They had apparently been thrown into the river from the bank, after having been struck, one after the other, with a long iron spike.

The inquest did not lead to any discovery. The watermen who were questioned knew nothing; the affair was on the point of being abandoned, when a young joiner from a neighbouring village, named Georges Louis, known as The Gentleman, gave himself up.

To all interrogation he refused to make any other answer than:

“I had known the man for two years, the woman for six months. They often came to me to have old furniture mended, because I am good at the work.”

And when he was asked: “Why did you kill them?” he would reply obstinately:

“I killed them because I wanted to kill them.”

Nothing more could be got out of him.

The man was doubtless an illegitimate child, formerly put out to nurse in the district and afterwards abandoned. He had no name except Georges Louis, but since, as he grew up, he had shown himself unusually intelligent, with tastes and a natural delicacy quite foreign to his comrades, he had been nicknamed “The Gentleman,” and was never called anything else. He was known to be remarkably clever as a joiner, the profession he had adopted. He even did a little carving in wood. He was also said to have ideas about his station, to be a follower of communistic doctrines, even of nihilism, a great reader of novels of adventure and bloodthirsty romances, an influential elector and a clever speaker at the workingmen’s or peasants’ debating-club.

Counsel for the defence had pleaded insanity.

How, in truth, could it be supposed that this workman should have killed his best clients, clients who were both rich and generous (he admitted this), who in two years had given him work which had brought in three thousand francs (his books testified to it)? There was only one explanation: insanity, the obsession of a man who has slipped out of his class and avenges himself on society as a whole by the murder of two gentlefolk; and counsel made a neat allusion to his nickname of “The Gentleman,” given to this outcast by the whole neighbourhood.

“Consider the irony of the situation!” he exclaimed. “Was it not capable of still more violently exciting this unhappy youth with no father nor mother? He is an ardent republican; nay, he even belongs to that political party whose members the State was once wont to shoot and deport, but which today she welcomes with open arms, the party to whom arson is a first principle and murder a perfectly simple expedient.

“These lamentable doctrines, nowadays acclaimed in debating-societies, have ruined this man. He has listened to men of the republican party, yes! and even women too, demanding the blood of Monsieur Gambetta, the blood of Monsieur Grévy; his diseased brain has succumbed, he has thirsted for blood, the blood of nobility!

“It is not this man, gentlemen, whom you should condemn, it is the Commune!”

Murmurs of approval ran to and fro. It was generally felt that counsel for the defence had won his case. The public prosecutor did not reply.

Then the judge asked the prisoner the customary question:

“Prisoner at the bar, have you nothing to add in your defence?”

The man rose.

He was small in stature, with flaxen hair and grey eyes, steady and bright. A strong, frank, sonorous voice came from the throat of this slender youth, and his very first words altered at once the view that had been formed of him.

He spoke loudly, in a declamatory tone, but so clearly that his slightest words carried to the ends of the large court:

“Your Worship, as I do not wish to go to a madhouse, and even prefer the guillotine, I will tell you all.

“I killed the man and the woman because they were my parents.

“Now hear me and judge me.

“A woman, having given birth to a son, sent him out to nurse. It had been well if she had known to what district her accomplice had carried the little creature, innocent, but condemned to lasting misery, to the shame of illegitimate birth, to worse than that: to death, since he was abandoned, since the nurse, no longer receiving the monthly allowance, might well have left him, as such women often do, to pine away, to suffer from hunger, to perish of neglect.

“The woman who suckled me was honest, more honest, more womanly, greater of soul, a better mother, than my own mother. She brought me up. She was wrong to do her duty. It is better to leave to their death the wretches who are flung out into provincial villages, as rubbish is flung out at the roadside.

“I grew up with the vague impression that I was the bearer of some dishonour. One day the other children called me ‘bastard.’ They did not know the meaning of the word, which one of them had heard at home. Neither did I know its meaning, but I sensed it.

“I was, I can honestly say, one of the most intelligent children in the school. I should have been an honest man, Your Worship, perhaps a remarkable man, if my parents had not committed the crime of abandoning me.

“And it was against me that this crime was committed. I was the victim, they were the guilty ones. I was defenceless, they were pitiless. They ought to have loved me: they cast me out.

“I owed my life to them⁠—but is life a gift? Mine, at any rate, was nothing but a misfortune. After their shameful desertion of me, I owed them nothing but revenge. They committed against me the most inhuman, the most shameful, the most monstrous crime that can be committed against a human being.

“A man insulted strikes; a man robbed takes back his goods by force. A man deceived, tricked, tormented, kills; a man whose face is slapped, kills; a man dishonoured, kills. I was more grievously robbed, deceived, tormented, morally slapped in the face, dishonoured, than all the men whose anger you condone.

“I have avenged myself, I have killed. It was my lawful right. I took their happy lives in exchange for the horrible life which they imposed on me.

“You will call it parricide! Were they my parents, those people to whom I was an abominable burden, a terror, a mark of infamy; to whom my birth was a calamity and my life a threat of shame? They sought their selfish pleasure; they brought forth the child they had not counted on. They suppressed that child. My turn has come to repay them in kind.

“And yet, even at the eleventh hour, I was prepared to love them.

“It is now two years, as I have already told you, since the man, my father, came to my house for the first time. I suspected nothing. He ordered two articles of furniture. I learnt later that he had obtained information from the village priest, under the seal of a secret compact.

“He often came; he gave me work and paid me well. Sometimes he even chatted with me on various subjects. I felt some affection for him.

“At the beginning of this year he brought his wife, my mother. When she came in she was trembling so violently that I thought she was the victim of a nervous disorder. Then she asked for a chair and a glass of water. She said nothing; she stared at my stock with the expression of a lunatic, and to all the questions he put to her she answered nothing but yes and no, quite at random! When she had gone, I thought her not quite right in the head.

“She came back the following month. She was calm, mistress of herself. They remained talking quite a long time that day, and gave me a big order. I saw her again three times without guessing anything; but one day, lo and behold! she began to talk to me about my life, my childhood, and my parents. I answered: ‘My parents, madame, were wretches who abandoned me.’ At that she set her hand to her heart and dropped senseless. I thought at once: ‘This is my mother!’ but was careful not to give myself away. I wanted her to go on coming.

“So I in my turn made inquiries. I learned that they had been married just the previous July, my mother having been only three years a widow. There had been rumours enough that they had been lovers during her first husband’s lifetime, but no proof had been forthcoming. I was the proof, the proof they had first hidden, and hoped ultimately to destroy.

“I waited. She reappeared one evening, accompanied, as always, by my father. She seemed to be in a very agitated state that day, I do not know why. Then, just as she was going, she said to me:

“ ‘I wish you well, because I believe you are an honest lad and a good worker; doubtless you will be thinking of getting married some day; I have come to make it possible for you to choose freely any woman you prefer. I myself married the first time against the desires of my heart, and I know how much suffering it brings. Now I am rich, childless, free, mistress of my fortune. Here is your marriage portion.’

“She held out to me a large envelope.

“I stared fixedly at her, then said:

“ ‘Are you my mother?’

“She drew back three paces and hid her eyes in her hand, so that she could see me no more. He, the man, my father, supported her in his arms and shouted at me:

“ ‘You are mad!’

“ ‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘I know very well that you are my parents. I am not to be deceived so easily. Admit it, and I will keep your secret; I will bear no malice, I will remain what I am now, a joiner.’

“He recoiled towards the door, still supporting his wife, who was beginning to sob. I ran and locked the door, put the key in my pocket, and continued:

“ ‘Look at her, then, and continue to deny that she is my mother!’

“At that he lost his self-control and turned very pale, terrified by the thought that the scandal hitherto avoided might suddenly come out; that their position, their good name, their honour would be lost at a blow.

“ ‘You’re a scoundrel,’ he stammered, ‘trying to get money out of us. And yet they tell us to be good to the common people, the louts, to help them and succour them!’

“My mother, bewildered, was repeating over and over again:

“ ‘Let us go. Let us go.’

“Then, as the door was locked, he exclaimed:

“ ‘If you don’t open the door immediately, I’ll have you jailed for blackmail and assault!’

“I had kept my self-control; I opened the door, and saw them disappear in the darkness.

“At that I felt suddenly as though I had just been orphaned, abandoned, cast into the gutter. A dreadful sadness, mingled with rage, hatred, and disgust overwhelmed me. I felt a swollen rush of emotion through my whole being, a rising tide of justice, righteousness, honour, and spurned affection. I set off running in order to catch them up on the bank of the Seine, which they must follow in order to reach Chaton station.

“I overtook them before long. The night became pitch-dark. I slunk along on the grass, so that they did not hear me. My mother was still crying. My father was saying:

“ ‘It is your own fault. Why did you insist on seeing him? It was madness, in our position. We might have done him kindness by stealth, without showing ourselves. Seeing that we could not hope to recognise him, what was the use of these perilous visits?’

“Then I threw myself in their path, a suppliant.

“ ‘Clearly you are my parents,’ I stammered. ‘You have already cast me off once; will you reject me second time?’

“At that, Your Worship, he raised his hand to me, I swear it on my honour, on the law, on the State. He struck me, and as I seized him by his coat-collar, he drew a revolver from his pocket.

“I saw red, I no longer knew what I did. I had my callipers in my pocket; I struck him, struck him with all my force.

“Then the woman began to cry: ‘Help! Murder!’ and tore at my beard. Apparently I killed her too. How can I know what I did at that moment?

“Then, when I saw them both lying on the ground, I threw them into the Seine, without thinking.

“That is all. Now judge me.”

The prisoner sat down again. After this revelation the trial was postponed until the following session. It will soon come on again. If you and I were the jury, what should we do with this parricide?

Pierrot

Madame LeFèvre was a country dame, a widow, one of these half peasants, who wear ribbons and bonnets with lots of trimming, one of those persons who clipped her words and put on great airs in public, concealing the soul of a pretentious animal beneath a comical and bedizened exterior, just as the country-folks hide their coarse red hands in écru silk gloves.

She had a servant, a good simple peasant, called Rose.

The two women lived in a little house with green shutters by the side of the high road in Normandy, in the centre of the country of Caux. As they had a narrow strip of garden in front of the house, they grew some vegetables.

One night someone stole twelve onions. As soon as Rose became aware of the theft, she ran to tell madame, who came downstairs in her woollen petticoat. It was a shame and a disgrace! They had robbed her, Madame Lefèvre! As there were thieves in the country, they might come back.

And the two frightened women examined the foot⁠—tracks, talking, and supposing all sorts of things.

“See, they went that way! They stepped on the wall, they jumped on to the flowerbed.”

And they became apprehensive for the future. How could they sleep in peace now!

The news of the theft spread. The neighbours came, making examinations and discussing the matter in their turn, while the two women explained to each newcomer what they had observed and their opinion.

A farmer who lived near said to them:

“You ought to have a dog.”

That is true, they ought to have a dog, if it were only to give the alarm. Not a big dog. Heavens! what would they do with a big dog? He would eat their heads off. But a little dog, a little puppy who would bark.

As soon as everyone had left, Madame Lefèvre discussed this idea of a dog for some time. On reflection she made a thousand objections, terrified at the idea of a bowl full of soup, for she belonged to that race of parsimonious country women who always carry centimes in their pocket to give alms in public to beggars on the road and to put in the Sunday collection plate.

Rose, who loved animals, gave her opinion and defended it shrewdly. So it was decided that they should have a dog, a very small dog.

They began to look for one, but could find nothing but big dogs, who would devour enough soup to make one shudder. The grocer of Rolleville had one, a tiny one, but he demanded two francs to cover the cost of sending it. Madame Lefèvre declared that she would feed a dog but would not buy one.

The baker, who knew all that occurred, brought in his wagon one morning a strange little yellow animal, almost without paws, with the body of a crocodile, the head of a fox, and a curly tail⁠—a true cockade, as big as all the rest of him. Madame Lefèvre thought this common cur that cost nothing was very handsome. Rose hugged it and asked what its name was.

“Pierrot,” replied the baker.

The dog was installed in an old soap box and they gave it some water which it drank. They then offered it a piece of bread. He ate it. Madame Lefèvre, uneasy, had an idea.

“When he is thoroughly accustomed to the house we can let him run. He can find something to eat, roaming about the country.”

They let him run, in fact, which did not prevent him from being famished. Also he never barked except to beg for food, and then he barked furiously. Anyone might come into the garden, and Pierrot would run up and fawn on each one in turn and not utter a bark.

Madame Lefèvre, however, had become accustomed to the animal. She even went so far as to like it and to give it from time to time pieces of bread soaked in the gravy on her plate.

But she had not once thought of the dog tax, and when they came to collect eight francs⁠—eight francs, madame⁠—for this puppy who never even barked, she almost fainted from the shock.

It was immediately decided that they must get rid of Pierrot. No one wanted him. Everyone declined to take him for ten leagues around. Then they resolved, not knowing what else to do, to make him “piquer du mas.”

“Piquer du mas” means to eat chalk. When one wants to get rid of a dog they make him “piquer du mas.”

In the midst of an immense plain one sees a kind of hut, or rather a very small roof standing above the ground. This is the entrance to the clay pit. A big perpendicular hole is sunk for twenty metres underground and ends in a series of long subterranean tunnels.

Once a year they go down into the quarry at the time they fertilize the ground. The rest of the year it serves as a cemetery for condemned dogs, and as one passes by this hole plaintive howls, furious or despairing barks and lamentable appeals reach one’s ear.

Sportsmen’s dogs and sheepdogs flee in terror from this mournful place, and when one leans over it one perceives a disgusting odour of putrefaction.

Frightful dramas are enacted in the darkness.

When an animal has suffered down there for ten or twelve days, nourished on the foul remains of his predecessors, another animal, larger and more vigorous, is thrown into the hole. There they are, alone, starving, with glittering eyes. They watch each other, follow each other, hesitate in doubt. But hunger impels them; they attack each other, fight desperately for some time, and the stronger eats the weaker, devours him alive.

When it was decided to make Pierrot “piquer du mas” they looked round for an executioner. The labourer who mended the road demanded six sous to take the dog there. That seemed wildly exorbitant to Madame Lefèvre. The neighbour’s hired boy wanted five sous; that was still too much. So Rose having observed that they had better carry it there themselves, as in that way it would not be brutally treated on the way and made to suspect its fate, they resolved to go together at twilight.

They offered the dog that evening a good dish of soup with a piece of butter in it. He swallowed every morsel of it, and as he wagged his tail with delight Rose put him in her apron.

They walked quickly, like thieves, across the plain. They soon perceived the chalk pit and walked up to it. Madame Lefèvre leaned over to hear if any animal was moaning. No, there were none there; Pierrot would be alone. Then Rose, who was crying, kissed the dog and threw him into the chalk pit, and they both leaned over, listening.

First they heard a dull sound, then the sharp, bitter, distracting cry of an animal in pain, then a succession of little mournful cries, then despairing appeals, the cries of a dog who is entreating, his head raised toward the opening of the pit.

He yelped, oh, how he yelped!

They were filled with remorse, with terror, with a wild, inexplicable fear, and ran away from the spot. As Rose went faster Madame Lefèvre cried: “Wait for me, Rose, wait for me!”

At night they were haunted by frightful nightmares.

Madame Lefèvre dreamed she was sitting down at table to eat her soup, but when she uncovered the tureen Pierrot was in it. He jumped out and bit her nose.

She awoke and thought she heard him yelping still. She listened, but she was mistaken.

She fell asleep again and found herself on a high road, an endless road, which she followed. Suddenly in the middle of the road she perceived a basket, a large farmer’s basket, lying there, and this basket frightened her.

She ended by opening it, and Pierrot, concealed in it, seized her hand and would not let go. She ran away in terror with the dog hanging to the end of her arm, which he held between his teeth.

At daybreak she arose, almost beside herself, and ran to the chalk pit.

He was yelping, yelping still; he had yelped all night. She began to sob and called him by all sorts of endearing names. He answered her with all the tender inflections of his dog’s voice.

Then she wanted to see him again, promising herself that she would give him a good home till he died.

She ran to the chalk digger, whose business it was to excavate for chalk, and told him the situation. The man listened, but said nothing. When she had finished he said:

“You want your dog? That will cost four francs.” She gave a jump. All her grief was at an end at once.

“Four francs!” she said. “The idea of it! Four francs!”

“Do you suppose I am going to bring my ropes, my windlass, and set it up, and go down there with my boy and let myself be bitten, perhaps, by your cursed dog for the pleasure of giving it back to you? You should not have thrown it down there.”

She walked away, indignant. Four francs!

As soon as she entered the house she called Rose and told her of the quarryman’s charges. Rose, always resigned, repeated:

“Four francs! That is a good deal of money, madame.” Then she added: “If we could throw him something to eat, the poor dog, so he will not die of hunger.”

Madame Lefèvre approved of this and was quite delighted. So they set out again with a big piece of bread and butter.

They cut it in mouthfuls, which they threw down one after the other, speaking by turns to Pierrot. As soon as the dog finished one piece he yelped for the next.

They returned that evening and the next day and every day. But they made only one more trip.

One morning as they were just letting fall the first mouthful they suddenly heard a tremendous barking in the pit. There were two dogs there. Another had been thrown in, a large dog.

“Pierrot!” cried Rose. And Pierrot yelped and yelped. Then they began to throw down some food. But each time they noticed distinctly a terrible struggle going on, then plaintive cries from Pierrot, who had been bitten by his companion, who ate up everything as he was the stronger.

It was in vain that they specified, saying:

“That is for you, Pierrot.” Pierrot evidently got nothing.

The two women, dumbfounded, looked at each other and Madame Lefèvre said in a sour tone:

“I could not feed all the dogs they throw in there! We must give it up.”

And, suffocating at the thought of all the dogs living at her expense, she went away, even carrying back what remained of the bread, which she ate as she walked along.

Rose followed her, wiping her eyes on the corner of her blue apron.

A Norman

We had just left Rouen, and were going along the road to Jumièges at a brisk trot. The light carriage spun along between the fields, then the horse slowed down to climb the hill of Canteleu.

At that point there is one of the most magnificent views in the world. Behind us Rouen, the town of churches, of Gothic belfries, carved like ornaments of ivory; in front, Saint-Sever, the suburb of factories, which raises its thousand smoking chimneys to the great sky, opposite the thousand sacred spires of the old city.

Here is the steeple of the cathedral, the highest of the human monuments; and down there the “Fire Pump” of “La Foudre,” its rival, almost as tall, which overtops by a metre the highest pyramid of Egypt.

Before us the undulating Seine winds along, sown with islands, bordered on the right by white cliffs, crowned by a forest, and on the left by immense level fields, with another forest on their edge, far away in the distance.

From place to place, great ships were anchored along the banks of the wide river. Three enormous steamers were going out, one after another, toward Havre; and a string of boats consisting of a three master, two schooners, and a brig, were coming up to Rouen, towed by a little tug, which vomited a cloud of black smoke.

My companion, born in the country, did not see this surprising landscape from the same point of view as I. But he smiled continually; he seemed to be laughing to himself. Suddenly he exclaimed: “Ah! you are about to see something funny⁠—the chapel of Father Matthew. That is something really good, my boy.”

I looked at him in astonishment. He continued:

“I am going to give you a flavour of Normandy that will remain in your nose. Father Matthew is the handsomest Norman in the province and his chapel is one of the wonders of the world, no more nor less. But I will give you first a few words of explanation. Father Matthew, or ‘Father Booze’ as they also call him, is an old sergeant-major, returned to his native village. He unites, in admirable proportions, the perfect humbug of the old soldier and the sly malice of the Norman. On his return to these parts, thanks to innumerable protectors and incredible trickeries, he was made the guardian of a miraculous chapel, a chapel protected by the Virgin, and frequented principally by pregnant girls. He baptized the marvelous statue there as: Notre Dame du Gros-Ventre, and he treats it with a certain mocking familiarity which does not exclude respect. He has himself composed and had printed a special prayer for his Good Virgin. This prayer is a masterpiece of unintentional irony, of Norman wit, where ridicule is mixed with fear of the saint, a superstitious fear of secret influence of some kind. He does not believe much in his patron saint; nevertheless, he believes in her a little and treats her gently as a matter of policy.

“Here is the beginning of this extraordinary prayer:

“ ‘Our good Lady, the Virgin Mary, natural Patroness of girl-mothers, in this country and in all the earth, protect your servant who has sinned in a moment of forgetfulness.’

“The supplication terminates thus:

“ ‘Especially, do not forget to speak for me to your sainted Husband, and intercede with God the Father that he may accord me a good husband like your own.’

“This prayer, forbidden by the clergy of the country, is sold by him privately, and is regarded as helpful by those who repeat it with unction. In fact, he speaks of the good Virgin as a valet might of his master, some redoubtable prince, knowing all his little intimate secrets. He knows a host of amusing stories about her which he whispers amongst friends after he has been drinking.

“But you must see for yourself.

“As the revenue furnished by the Patroness did not seem sufficient, he has added to his chief asset, the Virgin, a little trade in saints. He keeps them all, or nearly all. And, as room was lacking in the chapel, he stocked them in the woodshed, from which he gets them whenever the faithful ask for them. He has carved these wonderfully comical statuettes himself, out of wood, and painted them all green, a solid colour, one year when they painted his house. You know the saints heal maladies, but each has his specialty; and one must not run into error or confusion in these things. They are jealous one of the other, like playactors.

“So that they may not make any mistake, the poor old women come and consult Matthew.

“ ‘For bad ears, what saint is best?’ they say.

“ ‘Well, there is Saint Osymus who is good; and there is also Saint Pamphilius, who is not bad,’ he tells them.

“That is not all. When Matthew has time on his hands, he drinks. But he drinks like an artist, one that is sure of himself, so much so that he is tipsy regularly every evening. He is tipsy, but he knows it; he knows it so well that he notes each day the exact degree of his drunkenness. It is his principal occupation. The chapel comes afterward.

“And he has invented⁠—listen to this and prepare for a surprise⁠—he has invented the boozometer. The instrument does not yet exist, but Matthew’s observations are as precise as those of a mathematician. You will hear him say continually:

“ ‘Since Monday, I have not gone above forty-five.’ Or, ‘I was between fifty-two and fifty-eight,’ or ‘I had sixty-six to seventy,’ or, perhaps, ‘Ah! confound it, I believed I was in the fifties, when here I find I was at seventy-five!’

“He never makes a mistake. He says that he has not yet reached the hundredth degree, but, as he admits that his observations cease to be precise after he has passed ninety, one cannot absolutely rely upon this statement.

“When Matthew recognizes that he has passed ninety, you may be sure that he is really tipsy. On these occasions, his wife, Mélie, another marvel, works herself into great anger. She waits for him at the door when he enters, and shrieks: ‘Here you are, you nasty pig, you drunken good-for-nothing.’

“Then Matthew, no longer laughing, plants himself before her, and in severe tone says: ‘Be still, Mélie, this is no time to talk. Wait till tomorrow.’

“If she continues to vociferate, he approaches her, and with trembling voice says: ‘Shut your jaw; I am in the nineties; I can no longer measure; I am going to hurt someone; take care!’

“Then Mélie beats a retreat.

“If she tries the next day to return to the subject, he laughs in her face and answers: ‘Come, come! enough of that; that is all over. So long as I have not reached the hundredth degree, there is no harm done. But if I pass that, I will allow you to correct me, I give you my word!’ ”

We had reached the summit of the hill. The road lay through the wonderful forest of Roumare. The autumn, the marvelous autumn, mixed her gold and purple with the last green leaves, still vivid, as if some drops of sunlight had rained down from the sky into the thickest of the wood.

We crossed Duclair; then, instead of continuing toward Jumièges, my friend turned to the left, and, taking a shortcut, struck into the wood. And soon, from the summit of a green hill, we discovered anew the magnificent valley of the Seine and the tortuous river itself, winding along at our feet.

Upon the right, a little building, with a slate roof and a clock-tower as high as an umbrella, leaned against a pretty house with green shutters, all clothed in honeysuckle and roses.

A loud voice cried out: “Here are some friends!” And Matthew appeared upon the threshold. He was a man of sixty, thin, wearing a pointed beard and long, white mustaches. My companion shook hands with him and introduced me. Matthew made us enter a cool, clean kitchen, which also served as a living-room.

“I, sir,” said Matthew, “have no distinguished apartment. I like better not to get too far from the eatables. The pots and pans, you see, are company.” Then, turning toward my friend, he added:

“Why have you come on Thursday? You know well that it is My Lady’s consultation day. I cannot go out this afternoon.”

Then, running to the door, he uttered a terrible call: “Mé‑li‑ee!” which must have made the sailors raise their heads in the ships going up and down the river, at the bottom of the valley.

Mélie did not answer.

Then Matthew winked maliciously: “She is not pleased with me, you see, because yesterday I was up to ninety.”

My neighbour began to laugh. “Ninety, Matthew! How was that?”

Matthew answered: “I will tell you. I found last year only twenty rasières of cider apples. There were no more, but in order to make good cider these are the best. I made a barrelful and yesterday I tapped it. As for nectar, that is nectar; you will say so, too. I had Polyte here. We took a drink and then another drink without quenching our thirst, for one could drink it till tomorrow. I drank so much, one drink after another, that I felt a coolness in my stomach. I said to Polyte: ‘If we should take a glass of brandy, now, it would heat us up.’ He consented. But brandy, that put a fire in my body, so hot that it was necessary to return to the cider. So there it was! From coolness to heat and from heat to coolness, I perceived that I was in the nineties. Polyte was far beyond a hundred.”

The door opened. Mélie appeared, and immediately, before she said “Good day” to us, exclaimed: “Pigs! You were far beyond the hundred mark, both of you!”

Matthew was angry, but answered: “Say not so, Mélie, say not so; I have never been beyond a hundred.”

They gave us an exquisite breakfast, before the door under two lime-trees, at the side of the little chapel of Notre Dame du Gros-Ventre, with the beautiful landscape before us. And Matthew related to us, with raillery mingled with credulity, some unlikely stories of miracles.

We had drunk much of the adorable cider, pungent and sweet, cool and powerful, which he preferred to all liquids, and were smoking our pipes, sitting astride our chairs, when two good women presented themselves.

They were old, dried, and bent. After bowing, they asked for Saint Blanc. Matthew winked his eye toward us, and said:

“I will go and get him for you.” And he disappeared into his woodshed.

He remained there five minutes, then returned with face filled with consternation. Raising his arms, he declared:

“I don’t know at all where he is. I cannot find him. I am sure that I had him!” Then, making a horn of his hands, he called: “Mélie!”

From the foot of the garden his wife answered: “What is it?”

“Where is Saint Blanc? I can’t find him in the shed!”

Then Mélie threw back this explanation:

“Wasn’t it him you took to stop the hole in the rabbit hutch last week?”

Matthew started. “Good God. Maybe that’s so.”

Then he said to the two women: “Follow me.”

They followed. We almost suffocated with laughter. In fact, Saint Blanc, stuck in the earth like a common stake, stained with mud and filth, was being used to make one corner of the rabbit hutch.

When they perceived him, the two good women fell on their knees, crossed themselves, and began to murmur their oremus. Matthew hurried to them. “Wait,” said he, “you are kneeling in the dirt; I will bring you some straw.”

And he went to find some straw and made them a prayer cushion. Then, seeing that his saint was muddy, and believing, without doubt, that it would be bad for the trade, he added: “I am going to clean him up a bit.”

He took a pail of water and a brush and began to wash the wooden figure vigorously. Meantime the two old women continued to pray.

When he had finished, he said: “Now it is all right.” And then he brought us back for another drink.

As he raised the glass to his lips, he stopped and said, with an air of embarrassment: “Well, indeed, when I put Saint Blanc in the rabbit hutch, I was sure he would never earn me another penny. For two years there had been no demand for him. But the saints, you see, never die.”

He drank and continued:

“Come, let us have another. Amongst friends you must never go less than fifty, and we’re only at thirty-eight.”

The Pardon

She had been brought up in one of those families who live shut up in themselves, and seem to be remote from everything. They pay no attention to political events, although they chat about them at table, and changes in government seem so far, so very far away that they are spoken of only as a matter of history⁠—like the death of Louis XVI, or the landing of Napoleon.

Customs change, fashions succeed each other, but this is hardly perceptible in the family where old traditions are always followed. And if some impossible story arises in the neighbourhood, the scandal of it dies at the threshold of this house.

The father and mother, alone in the evening, sometimes exchange a few words on such a subject, but in an undertone, as if the walls had ears.

With great discretion, the father says: “Do you know about this terrible affair in the Rivoil family?”

And the mother replies: “Who would have believed it? It is frightful!”

The children have no suspicion of anything, but come to the age of living, in their turn, with a bandage over their eyes and minds, without ever suspecting any other kind of existence, without knowing that one does not always think as one speaks, nor speak as one acts, without knowing that it is necessary to live at war with the world, or at least in armed peace, without surmising that the ingenuous are frequently deceived, the sincere trifled with, and the good wronged.

Some go on until death in this blindness of probity, loyalty, and honour; so upright that nothing can open their eyes. Others, undeceived, without realizing why, are weighed down with despair, and die believing that they are the puppets of exceptional fate, the miserable victims of unlucky circumstance or particularly bad men.

The Savignols married their daughter Berthe when she was eighteen. Her husband was a young man from Paris, Georges Baron, whose business was on the Stock Exchange. He was an attractive youth, with a smooth tongue, and he observed all the outward proprieties necessary. But at the bottom of his heart he sneered a little at his guileless parents-in-law, calling them, among his friends, “My dear fossils.”

He belonged to a good family, and the young girl was rich. He took her to live in Paris.

She became one of the numerous race of provincials in Paris. She remained ignorant of the great city, of its elegant people, of its pleasures and its customs, as she had always been ignorant of the perfidy and mystery of life.

Shut up in her own household, she only knew the street she lived in, and when she ventured into another quarter, it seemed to her that she had journeyed far, into an unknown, strange city. She would say in the evening:

“I crossed the boulevards today.”

Two or three times a year, her husband took her to the theatre. These were great events not to be forgotten, which she recalled continually.

Sometimes at table, three months afterwards, she would suddenly burst out laughing and exclaim:

“Do you remember that ridiculous actor who imitated the cock’s crowing?”

All her interests were limited to two allied families, who represented the whole of humanity to her. She designated them by the distinguishing prefix “the,” calling them respectively “the Martinets,” or “the Michelints.”

Her husband lived according to his fancy, coming home at whatever hour he wished, sometimes at daybreak, pretending business, and feeling in no way constrained, so sure was he that no suspicion would ruffle this candid soul.

But one morning she received an anonymous letter. She was dismayed, being too upright to understand the infamous accusations, to scorn this letter, whose author declared himself to be moved by interest in her happiness, by hatred of all evil and love of truth.

But it revealed to her that her husband had had a mistress for two years, a young widow, Mme. Rosset, at whose house he spent all his evenings.

She knew neither how to pretend nor to dissimulate, to spy or to plan any sort of ruse. When he returned for luncheon, she threw him the letter, sobbing, and then fled from the room.

He had time to understand the matter and prepare his answer before he rapped at his wife’s door. She opened it immediately, without looking at him. He smiled, sat down, and drew her to his knee. In a sweet voice, and a little jocosely, he said:

“My dear little one, Mme. Rosset is a friend of mine. I have known her for ten years and like her very much. I may add that I know twenty other families of whom I have not spoken to you, knowing that you care nothing for the world or for forming new friendships. But in order to end, once for all, these infamous lies, I will ask you to dress yourself, after luncheon, and we will go to pay a visit to this young lady, who will become your friend at once, I am sure.”

She embraced her husband eagerly; and, from feminine curiosity, which never sleeps once it has been aroused, she did not refuse to go to see this unknown woman, of whom, in spite of everything, she was still suspicious. She felt by instinct that a known danger is sooner overcome.

They were ushered into a pretty little apartment on the fourth floor of a handsome house, full of bric-a-brac and artistically decorated. After about five minutes’ waiting, in a drawing room where the light was dimmed by draperies, hangings, and curtains tastefully arranged, a door opened and a young woman appeared. She was very dark, small, rather plump, and looked astonished, although she smiled. Georges presented them. “My wife, Madame Julie Rosset.”

The young widow uttered a little cry of astonishment and joy, and came forward with both hands extended. She had not hoped for this happiness, she said, knowing that Madame Baron saw no one. But she was so happy! She was so fond of Georges! (She said “Georges” quite naturally, with sisterly familiarity.) And she had had a great desire to know his young wife, and to love her, too.

At the end of a month these two friends were never apart from each other. They met every day, often twice a day, and nearly always dined together, either at one house or at the other. Georges scarcely ever went out now, no longer alleging business engagements, but he said he loved his own chimney corner.

And when finally an apartment was vacant in the house where Madame Rosset resided, Madame Baron hastened to take it in order to be nearer her new friend.

During two whole years there was a friendship between them without a cloud, a friendship of heart and soul, absolute, tender, devoted, and delightful. Berthe could not speak without mentioning Julie’s name, for to her Julie represented perfection. She was happy with a perfect happiness, calm and secure.

But Madame Rosset fell ill. Berthe never left her. She passed nights of despair; her husband, too, was brokenhearted.

One morning, on coming out from his visit the doctor took Georges and his wife aside, and announced that he found the condition of their friend very grave.

When he had gone out, the young people, stricken down, looked at each other and then began to weep. They both watched at night by the bedside. Every moment Berthe would embrace the sick woman tenderly, while Georges, standing silently at the foot of her couch, would look at them with dogged persistence. The next day she was worse.

Finally, toward evening, she declared herself better, and persuaded her friends to go home to dinner.

They were sitting sadly at table, scarcely eating anything, when the maid brought Georges an envelope. He opened it, turned pale, and rising, said to his wife, in a constrained way: “Excuse me, I must leave you for a moment. I will return in ten minutes. Please don’t go out.” And he ran into his room for his hat.

Berthe waited, tortured by a new fear. But, yielding in all things, she would not go up to her friend’s room again until he had returned.

As he did not reappear, the thought came to her to look in his room to see whether he had taken his gloves, which would show whether he had really gone somewhere.

She saw them there, at first glance. Near them lay a crumpled paper, where he had thrown it.

She recognized it immediately; it was the one that had just been given to Georges.

And a burning temptation took possession of her, the first of her life, to read⁠—to know. Her conscience struggled in revolt, but the itch of an exacerbated and cruel curiosity impelled her hand. She seized the paper, opened it, recognized at once the handwriting as that of Julie, a trembling hand, written in pencil. She read:

“Come alone and embrace me, my poor dear; I am going to die.”

She could not understand it all at once, but stood stupefied, struck especially by the thought of death. Then, suddenly, the familiarity of it seized upon her mind. This came like a great light, illuminating her whole life, showing her the infamous truth, all their treachery, all their perfidy. She saw now their prolonged cunning, their sly looks, her good faith abused, her confidence deceived. She saw them looking into each other’s face, under the shade of her lamp in the evening, reading from the same book, exchanging glances at the end of the pages.

And her heart, stirred with indignation, bruised with suffering, sank into an abyss of despair that had no boundaries.

When she heard steps, she fled and shut herself in her room.

Her husband called her: “Come quickly, Madame Rosset is dying!”

Berthe appeared at her door and said with trembling lip:

“Go alone to her; she has no need of me.”

He looked at her wildly, dazed with grief, and repeated:

“Quick, quick! She is dying!”

Berthe answered: “You would prefer if it were I.”

Then he understood, probably, and left her to herself, going up again to the dying woman.

There he wept without fear, or shame, indifferent to the grief of his wife, who would no longer speak to him, nor look at him, but who lived shut in with her disgust and angry revolt, praying to God morning and evening.

They lived together, nevertheless, eating together face to face, mute and hopeless.

After a time, he recovered his calm, but she would not pardon him. And so life continued hard for them both.

For a whole year they lived thus, strangers one to the other. Berthe almost became mad.

Then one morning, having set out at dawn, she returned about eight o’clock, carrying in both hands an enormous bouquet of roses, of white roses, all white.

She sent word to her husband that she would like to speak to him. He came in disturbed, troubled.

“Let us go out together,” she said to him. “Take these flowers, they are too heavy for me.”

He took the bouquet and followed his wife. A carriage awaited them, which started as soon as they were seated.

It stopped before the gate of a cemetery. Then Berthe, her eyes full of tears, said to Georges: “Take me to her grave.”

He trembled, without knowing why, but walked on in front, holding the flowers in his arms. Finally he stopped before a shaft of white marble and pointed to it without a word.

She took the bouquet from him, and, kneeling, placed it at the foot of the grave. Then she sank into an unfamiliar prayer of supplication.

Her husband stood behind her, weeping, haunted by memories.

She arose and put out her hands to him.

“If you wish, we will be friends,” she said.

The Relic

To the Abbé Louis d’Ennemare, at Soissons.

My Dear Abbé:

“My marriage with your cousin is broken off in the stupidest manner, on account of a stupid trick which I almost involuntarily played my intended, in my embarrassment, and I turn to you, my old schoolfellow, for you may be able to help me out of the difficulty. If you can, I shall be grateful to you until I die.

“You know Gilberte, or rather you think you know her, for do we ever understand women? All their opinions, their ideas, their creeds, are a surprise to us. They are all full of twists and turns, of the unforeseen, of unintelligible arguments, or defective logic and of obstinate ideas, which seem final, but which they alter because a little bird came and perched on the window ledge.

“I need not tell you that your cousin is very religious, as she was brought up by the White or Black Sisters at Nancy. You know that better than I do, but what you perhaps do not know, is, that she is just as excitable about other matters as she is about religion. Her head flies away, just like a leaf being whirled away by the wind; and she is a woman, or rather a girl, more so than many are, for she is moved, or made angry in a moment, starting off at a gallop after affection, just as she does after hatred, and returning in the same manner; and she is as pretty⁠ ⁠… as you know, and more charming than I can say⁠ ⁠… and in a way you can never know.

“Well, we became engaged, and I adored her, as I adore her still, and she appeared to love me.

“One evening, I received a telegram summoning me to Cologne for a consultation, which might be followed by a serious and difficult operation, and as I had to start the next morning, I went to wish Gilberte goodbye, and tell her why I could not dine with them on Wednesday, but on Friday, the day of my return. Ah! Take care of Fridays, for I assure you they are unlucky!

“When I spoke of going away, I saw that her eyes filled with tears, but when I said I should be back very soon, she clapped her hands, and said:

“ ‘I am very glad you are going, then! You must bring me back something; a mere trifle, just a souvenir, but a souvenir that you have chosen for me. You must find out what I should like best, do you hear? And then I shall see whether you have any imagination.’

“She thought for a few moments, and then added:

“ ‘I forbid you to spend more than twenty francs on it. I want it for the intention, and for the remembrance of your penetration, and not for its intrinsic value.’

“And then, after another moment’s silence she said, in low voice, and with downcast eyes:

“ ‘If it costs you nothing in money, and if it is something very ingenious and pretty, I will⁠ ⁠… I will kiss you.’

“The next day, I was in Cologne. It was the case of a terrible accident, which had thrown a whole family into despair, and a difficult amputation was necessary. They put me up; I might say, they almost locked me up, and I saw nobody but people in tears, who almost deafened me with their lamentaions; I operated on a dying man who nearly died under my hands, and with whom I remained two nights, and then, when I saw that there was a chance for his recovery, I drove to the station. I had, however, made a mistake in the trains, and I had an hour to wait, and so I wandered about the streets, still thinking of my poor patient, when a man accosted me. I do not know German, and he was totally ignorant of French, but at last I made out that he was offering me some relics. I thought of Gilberte, for I knew her fanatical devotion, and here was my present ready to hand, so I followed the man into a shop where religious objects were for sale, and I bought a small piece of a bone of one of the eleven thousand virgins.

“The pretended relic was enclosed in a charming, old silver box, and that determined my choice, and putting my purchase into my pocket, I went to the railway station, and so to Paris.

“As soon as I got home, I wished to examine my purchase again, and on taking hold of it, I found that the box was open, and the relic lost! It was no good to hunt in my pocket, and to turn it inside out; the small bit of bone, which was no bigger than half a pin, had disappeared.

“You know, my dear little Abbé, that my faith is not very great, but, as my friend, you are magnanimous enough to put up with my indifference, and to leave me alone, and to wait for the future, so you say. But I absolutely disbelieve in the relics of secondhand dealers in piety, and you share my doubts in that respect. Therefore, the loss of that bit of sheep’s carcass did not grieve me, and I easily procured a similar fragment, which I carefully fastened inside my jewel, and then I went to see my intended.

“As soon as she saw me, she ran up to me, smiling and anxious, and said to me:

“ ‘What have you brought me?’

“I pretended to have forgotten, but she did not believe me, and I made her beg me, and beseech me, even. But when I saw that she was devoured by curiosity, I gave her the sacred silver box. She appeared overjoyed.

“ ‘A relic! Oh! A relic!’

“And she kissed the box passionately, so that I was ashamed of my deception. She was not quite satisfied, however, and her uneasiness soon turned to terrible fear, and looking straight into my eyes, she said:

“ ‘Are you sure that it is authentic?’

“ ‘Absolutely certain.’

“ ‘How can you be so certain?’

“I was caught, for to say that I had bought it through a man in the streets, would be my destruction. What was I to say? A wild idea struck me, and I said, in a low, mysterious voice:

“ ‘I stole it for you.’

“She looked at me with astonishment and delight in her large eyes.

“ ‘Oh! You stole it? Where?’

“ ‘In the cathedral; in the very shrine of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.’

“Her heart beat with pleasure, and she murmured:

“ ‘Oh! Did you really do that⁠ ⁠… for me? Tell me⁠ ⁠… all about it!’

“There was no escape, I could not go back. I made up a fanciful story, with precise details. I had given the custodian of the building a hundred francs to be allowed to go about the building by myself; the shrine was being repaired, but I happened to be there just when the workmen and clergy were at lunch; by removing a small panel, I had been enabled to seize a small piece of bone (oh! so small), among a quantity of others (I said a quantity, as I thought of the amount that the remains of the skeletons of eleven thousand virgins must produce). Then I went to a goldsmith’s and bought a casket worthy of the relic; and I was not sorry to let her know that the silver box cost me five hundred francs.

“But she did not think of that; she listened to me, trembling; in an ecstasy, and whispering:

“ ‘How I love you!’ she threw herself into my arms.

“Just note this: I had committed sacrilege for her sake. I had committed a theft; I had violated a shrine; violated and stolen holy relics, and for that she adored me, thought me loving, tender, divine. Such is woman, my dear Abbé.

“For two months I was the best of fiancés. In her room, she had made a kind of magnificent chapel in which to keep this bit of mutton chop, which, as she thought, had made me commit that love-crime, and she worked up her religious enthusiasm in front of it every morning and evening. I had asked her to keep the matter secret, for fear, as I said, that I might be arrested, condemned and given over to Germany, and she kept her promise.

“Well, at the beginning of the summer, she was seized with an irresistible wish to see the scene of my exploit, and she begged her father so persistently (without telling him her secret reason), that he took her to Cologne, but without telling me of their trip, according to his daughter’s wish.

“I need not tell you that I had not seen the interior of the cathedral. I do not know where the tomb (if there be a tomb) of the Eleven Thousand Virgins is, and then, it appears that it is unapproachable, alas!

“A week afterwards, I received ten lines, breaking off our engagement, and then an explanatory letter from her father, whom she had, somewhat late, taken into her confidence.

“At the sight of the shrine, she had suddenly seen through my trickery and my lie, and had also found out that I was innocent of any other crime. Having asked the keeper of the relics whether any robbery had been committed, the man began to laugh, and pointed out to them how impossible such a crime was, but from the moment I had not burgled a sacred edifice, and plunged my profane hand into venerable relics, I was no longer worthy of my fair-haired and delicate betrothed.

“I was forbidden the house; I begged and prayed in vain, nothing could move the fair devotee, and I grew ill from grief. Well, last week, her cousin, Madame d’Arville, who is yours also, sent word to me that she should like to see me, and when I called, she told me on what conditions I might obtain my pardon, and here they are. I must bring her a relic, a real, authentic relic, certified to be such by Our Holy Father, the Pope, of some virgin and martyr, and I am going mad with worry and trouble.

“I will go to Rome, if needful, but I cannot call on the Pope unexpectedly, and tell him my stupid adventure; and, besides, I doubt whether they let private individuals have relics. Could not you give me an introduction to some cardinal, or only to some French prelate, who possesses some remains of a female saint? Or perhaps you may have the precious object she wants in your collection?

“Help me out of my difficulty, my dear Abbé, and I promise you that I will be converted ten years sooner than I otherwise should be!

“Madame d’Arville, who takes the matter seriously, said to me the other day:

“ ‘Poor Gilberte will never marry.’

“My dear old schoolfellow, will you allow your cousin to die the victim of stupid deception on my part? Pray prevent her from being the eleventh thousand and one virgin.

“Pardon me, I am unworthy, but I embrace you, and love you with all my heart.

“Your old friend,

“Henri Fontal.”

In the Moonlight

The Abbé Marignan well deserved to be named after that famous battle. He was a tall, thin, fanatical priest, always in a state of exaltation, but never unjust. All his beliefs were fixed, and they never wavered. He sincerely believed that he understood God, that he penetrated His designs, His wishes, His intentions.

As he walked up and down the garden path of his little country presbytery a question sometimes arose in his mind: “Why did God do that?” Then, imagining himself in God’s place, he searched obstinately, and he nearly always found the reason. He was not the man to murmur in transports of pious humility, “O Lord, thy designs are inscrutable!” What he said was: “I am the servant of God; I ought to know the reason for what he does, or to divine it if I do not.”

Everything in nature seemed to him created with an absolute and admirable logic. The “why” and the “wherefore” always balanced. The dawns were made to rejoice you on waking, the days to ripen the harvests, the rains to water them, the evenings to prepare for sleeping, and the nights dark for sleep.

The four seasons answered perfectly all the requirements of agriculture; and to him the suspicion could never have come that nature has no intention, and that everything that lives has accustomed itself, on the contrary, to the harsh necessities of different periods, of climates, and of matter.

But he hated women; he hated them unconsciously, and despised them by instinct. He often repeated the words of Christ, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” and he would add, “One would almost say that God himself was ill-pleased with that particular work of his hands.” Woman for him was indeed the “child twelve times impure” of whom the poet speaks. She was the temptress who had ensnared the first man, and who still continued her damnable work; she was the being who is feeble, dangerous, mysteriously disturbing. And even more than her fatal body, he hated her loving soul.

He had often felt women’s tenderness dwell in him, and though he knew himself to be unassailable, he grew exasperated at this need of loving which quivers continually in their hearts.

To his mind, God had only created woman to tempt man and to test him. Man should not approach her without defensive precautions, and such fears as one has of an ambush. Woman, indeed, was just like a trap, with her arms extended and her lips open toward a man.

He had toleration only for nuns, rendered harmless by their vows, but he treated them harshly notwithstanding, because, ever at the bottom of their locked hearts, their chastened hearts, he perceived the eternal tenderness that constantly went out even to him, although he was a priest. He felt that tenderness in their eyes more filled with the ecstasies of piety than those of the monks, in their ecstasies touched with sex, in their loving yearning for Christ, which made him indignant, because it was woman’s love, carnal love. He felt that accursed tenderness even in their submissiveness, in the softness of their voices as they spoke to him, in their downcast eyes, and in their tears of resignation when he harshly reproved them. And he would shake the skirts of his cassock on coming out of a convent, and would stride off rapidly, as if in flight from danger.

He had a niece who lived with her mother in a little house near by. He was bent on making her a sister of charity. She was pretty and harebrained, and a great tease. When the abbé sermonized, she laughed; when he was angry at her, she kissed him vehemently, pressing him to her heart, while he would seek involuntarily to free himself from her embrace, though it made him taste a certain sweet joy, awaking deep within him that sensation of fatherhood which slumbers in every man.

Often he talked to her of God, of his God, walking beside her along the footpaths through the fields. She hardly listened, but looked at the sky, the grass, the flowers, with a joy of living which could be seen in her eyes. Sometimes she rushed forward to catch some flying creature, and, bringing it back, would cry: “Look, uncle, how pretty it is; I should like to kiss it.” And this desire to “kiss flies” or bunches of lilac, worried, irritated, and revolted the priest, who saw, also in that, the ineradicable tenderness which ever springs in the hearts of women.

One day the sacristan’s wife, who kept house for the Abbé Marignan, told him, very cautiously, that his niece had a lover!

He experienced a dreadful emotion, and stood choking, with the soap all over his face, for he was shaving.

When he found himself able to think and speak once more, he cried: “It is not true; you are lying, Mélanie!”

But the peasant woman placed her hand on her heart: “May our Lord judge me if I am lying, Monsieur le Curé. I tell you she goes to him every evening as soon as your sister is in bed. They meet each other beside the river. You have only to go there between ten o’clock and midnight, and see for yourself.”

He ceased scraping his chin and began to pace the room rapidly, as he always did in his hours of serious meditation. When he tried to begin his shaving again, he cut himself three times from nose to ear.

All day long, he remained silent, filled with indignation and rage. To his priestly zeal against the mighty power of love was added the moral indignation of a father, of a teacher, of a keeper of souls, who has been deceived, robbed, outwitted by a child. He felt the egotistical sorrow that parents feel when their daughter announces that she has chosen a husband without them and in spite of their advice.

After his dinner, he tried to read a little, but he could not attune himself to it; and he grew more and more exasperated. When it struck ten, he took his walking-stick, a formidable oaken club which he always carried when he had to go out at night to visit the sick. Smilingly he regarded the enormous cudgel, holding it in his strong, countryman’s fist and cutting threatening circles with it in the air. Then, suddenly, he raised it, and grinding his teeth, he brought it down upon a chair, the back of which split in two, and fell to the ground.

He opened his door to go out; but he stopped upon the threshold, surprised by such a splendid moonlight as one seldom sees.

Endowed as he was with an exalted spirit, such a spirit as must have belonged to those dreamer-poets, the Fathers of the Church, he felt himself suddenly softened and moved by the grand and serene beauty of the pale night.

In his little garden, bathed in the soft brilliance, his fruit-trees, all in a row, were outlining upon the walk the shadows of their slender wooden limbs scarcely clothed with green; while the giant honeysuckle climbing up the wall of the house exhaled delicious breaths as sweet as sugar, which hovered through the warm, clear night like a perfumed soul.

He began to breathe deep, drinking in the air as drunkards drink their wine, and he walked slowly, delighted, surprised, almost forgetting his niece.

As he stepped into the open country he stopped to contemplate the whole plain, inundated by this caressing radiance, and drowned in the tender and languishing charm of the serene night. In chorus the frogs threw into the air their short, metallic notes, and to the seduction of the moonlight, distant nightingales added that fitful music of theirs which brings no thoughts but dreams, that light and vibrant music which seems attuned to kisses.

The abbé continued his walk, his courage failing, he knew not why. He felt, as it were, enfeebled, and suddenly exhausted; he had a great desire to sit down, to stop there and contemplate and admire God in all His works.

Below him, following the twists of the little river, wound a great line of poplars. Around and above the banks, wrapping all the tortuous watercourse in a kind of light, transparent wadding, hung suspended a fine mist, a white vapour, which the moon-rays crossed, and silvered, and caused to gleam.

The priest paused again, penetrated to the depths of his soul by a strong and growing emotion. And a doubt, a vague uneasiness, seized on him; he felt that one of those questions he sometimes put to himself was now arising within him.

Why had God done this? Since the night is destined for sleep, for unconsciousness, for repose, for forgetfulness of everything, why, then, make it more charming than the day, sweeter than dawns and sunsets? And this slow, seductive star, more poetical than the sun, and so discreet that it seems designed to light up things too delicate, too mysterious, for the great luminary⁠—why had it come to brighten all the shades?

Why did not the sweetest of all songsters go to rest like the others? Why set himself to singing in the disturbing shadows? Why this half-veil over the world? Why these quiverings of the heart, this emotion of the soul, this languor of the body? Why this display of seductions which mankind never sees, since men are asleep in their beds? For whom was this sublime spectacle intended, this flood of poetry poured from heaven to earth? The abbé did not understand it at all.

But then, down there along the edge of the pasture appeared two shadows walking side by side under the arched roof of the trees all soaked in glittering mist.

The man was the taller, and had his arm about his sweetheart’s neck; from time to time he kissed her on the forehead. They suddenly animated the lifeless landscape, which enveloped them like a divine frame made expressly for them. They seemed, these two, a single being, the being for whom this calm and silent night was destined; and they approached the priest like a living answer, the answer vouchsafed by his Master to his question.

He stood stock-still, overwhelmed, and with a beating heart. He fancied he was witnessing some Bible story, such as the loves of Ruth and Boaz, the accomplishment of the will of the Lord in one of those great scenes talked of in holy writ. Through his head ran the verses of the Song of Songs, the ardent cries, the calls of the body, all the passionate poetry of that poem burning with tenderness and love. And he said to himself, “God perhaps has made such nights as this to clothe with ideals the loves of men.”

He withdrew before the embracing couple, who went on arm in arm. And yet it was his niece; and now he wondered if he would not disobey the Lord. For does not God permit love, since He surrounds it visibly with splendour such as this?

And he fled, in distraction, almost ashamed, as if he had penetrated into a temple where he had no right to enter.

Fear

We went on deck after dinner. There was not a ripple on the whole Mediterranean, whose smooth surface shone like silver under the great moon. The big steamer glided along, throwing up a curling column of thick black smoke toward the starlit sky and in our wake the white water churned up by the screw and the rapid movement of the huge ship, foamed and twisted, gleaming with such phosphorus as though it were nothing but bubbling moonlight.

Our party consisted of six or eight men, all of whom were gazing admiringly and in rapt silence at the distant shores of Africa, whither we were bound. The captain, who was smoking an after-dinner cigar with us, suddenly took up the conversation where it had been left off during dinner.

“Yes,” he said, “that day I was badly frightened. My ship stayed on the rocks six hours beaten by the sea. Luckily, we were picked up toward evening by an English collier that saw our plight.”

Then a tall man with sunburned face and dignified bearing, one of those men who have been in strange lands and have braved terrible dangers and whose eyes seem to have retained in their depths something of the fantastic sights they have seen, spoke for the first time:

“Captain, you say that you were frightened. I do not believe it. You use a wrong word and the sensation you felt was not that of fear. An energetic man never feels afraid before actual danger. He may be anxious, he may be restless, but fear is something entirely different.”

Laughingly, the captain replied:

“Well, by Jove, I can tell you I was frightened.”

Then the man with the sunburned face said in a slow voice:

“Allow me to explain my meaning. Fear (and the bravest men can experience it) is sometimes terrible, a dreadful sensation; it can be compared to the decomposition of the soul, and is a frightful spasm of the heart and mind, the mere recollection of which sends shudders through our frame. But, if a man is courageous, that never happens in the face of certain death, nor in the face of any known form of peril; it only occurs in certain abnormal instances, when a person is labouring under some strange influence, or when in the face of vague and unknowable dangers. Real fear is like a reminiscence of the fantastic terrors of past ages. A man who believes in ghosts and who imagines that he sees one, must experience the sensation of fear in all its atrocious horror.

“As for myself, I got an idea of what it must be like, in broad daylight, about ten years ago, and I experienced the full sensation of it last winter, during a night in December.

“I’ve taken many chances in my life and have had any number of adventures that were desperate enough. I’ve had may duels, I’ve been attacked and almost beaten to death by robbers. In America, once, I was sentenced to be hanged as a rebel, while another time I was thrown overboard by mutineers off the Chinese coast. Each time I thought that my last hour had come, and I made up my mind quickly to face the inevitable. I scarcely felt any emotion or regret.

“But fear is something very different.

“I have had a presentiment of it in Africa, although it is the offspring of the North; the sun makes it vanish like mist. You know, gentlemen, that the Orientals place little value on life; if one of them has to die, he makes up his mind at once; their nights are as free and void of legends as their souls are void of the morbid anxieties which haunt the brains of northern men. A panic may occur in the East, but fear is unknown there!

“Well, this is what happened to me in that weird country of Africa:

“I was crossing the downs that lie to the south of Ouargla. It is one of the strangest places in the world. Of course you all know the smooth, flat sand of ocean beaches? Well, just imagine the ocean changed into sand during a hurricane; imagine a silent storm with motionless waves of yellow dust, as high as mountains, as irregular, varying, and tumultuous as real breakers, but larger and streaked like watered silk. The blazing southern sun sheds its full glare on this raging but silent and motionless sea. You have to climb up one side of these golden waves and slide down the other, without respite or protection of any kind from the sun. The horses groan and sink up to their knees in the soft sand and slide down the other side of these astounding hills.

“Our little party consisted of a friend and myself, with an escort of eight spahis and four camels, with their keepers. We spoke not a word, for we were well-nigh exhausted and our parched throats were as dry as the desert that stretched in front of us. Suddenly one of the men gave a sort of startled cry; we all stopped and remained motionless in our saddles from sheer amazement at a startling and unaccountable phenomenon known to all travellers in those wild regions.

“From somewhere in the immediate vicinity, we were unable to determine the exact location, came the sound of a beating drum, the mysterious drum of the downs. The sound was perfectly distinct. Sometimes it would increase or decrease in volume and then it would stop altogether, only to begin again after a little while.

“The Arabs, scared to death, exchanged terrified glances. One of them uttered in his own tongue: ‘Death is upon us.’ And all of a sudden my friend, who was as dear as a brother to me, toppled from his horse, stricken with sunstroke.

“And during the two mortal hours in which I tried everything I knew to save him, that drum filled my ears with its strange, monotonous, intermittent beatings. And I felt fear, genuine, horrible fear, creep over me at the sight of the corpse of my beloved friend in that dreadful African hole scorched by the sun and enclosed by four sand hills and where, at a distance of at least two hundred miles from any French village, the echo brought us the sound of a rapidly beating drum.

“That day I realized what it was to feel fear; I realized it even more fully another time⁠ ⁠…”

The captain interrupted the speaker to inquire:

“Excuse me, sir, but what was the drum, after all?”

The traveller resumed:

“I really cannot tell you. Nobody knows. Officers who have often heard the sound attribute it to the multiplied and magnified echo of sheets of sand hurled by the wind against clumps of dry grass; for it has been noticed that the phenomenon always takes place in the neighbourhood of small plants that the heat of the sun has rendered as dry as parchment.

“According to that, the drum would only be a sort of sound mirage. But I only learned that later.

“Now I will relate my second experience.

“It was last winter and I was in a forest in the northeastern part of France. Night came two hours before its time, so dark was the sky. My guide was a peasant, who walked alongside of me in the narrow path, under a dome of pine-trees that shook and groaned under the furious wind. Between the treetops I could see the clouds hurrying past like a scattered army and they looked as if they were fleeing from some unknown horror. At times, under a dreadful gale of wind, the whole forest would bend in one direction and utter a moan of distress. In spite of my heavy clothing and rapid motion, the cold was beginning to penetrate me to the marrow.

“We were to put up over night at a forester’s home, and we were rapidly approaching the cottage. I had planned to spend a few days in the forest for the shooting.

“From time to time the guide would raise his eyes and mutter: ‘Bad weather, this.’ Then he spoke to me of the people who were to be our hosts. The old man had killed a poacher two years ago, and since then he had grown morose, as if he were haunted by the recollection of his deed. His two married sons lived with him.

“The darkness was terrible. I could not distinguish a thing and the sighing trees filled the night with incessant rumours. At last I saw a light, and after a little while my companion knocked on a door. Several shrill women’s cries answered from within. Then a tremulous man’s voice demanded: ‘Who goes there?’ My guide gave his name. We were admitted and I was confronted by a scene that I shall never forget.

“An old, white-haired man, with staring eyes, was standing in the middle of the kitchen, his fingers closed in a convulsive clasp around a loaded rifle, while two sturdy young men with axes were guarding the door. Two women, their faces buried in their hands, were crouching in a dark corner of the room.

“When we explained that we wished to remain over night, the old man stood the rifle against the wall and ordered the women to prepare our sleeping quarters. But, as they made no move to carry out his command, he turned to me abruptly and said:

“ ‘You see, monsieur, I killed a man two years ago this very night. Last year he came back and called me, and I expect him tonight.’

“Then, in a voice that made me smile, he added:

“ ‘We don’t feel very comfortable, you understand.’

“I reassured him as best I could, although, in my heart, I was glad to have come that very night, so that I might witness the manifestation of that superstitious terror. I told stories and succeeded in quieting almost everyone present.

“Near the hearth an old and half-blind dog was dozing with his nose between his paws. He looked for all the world like some people I’ve seen.

“Outside the storm was raging with great violence and the little house shook under the furious wind. Through a narrow window set near the door I could see the trees sway and the lightning flash through the black clouds.

“In spite of my efforts to cheer them, I could feel that these people experienced a mysterious dread and each time that I ceased talking, they would strain their ears to catch any unwonted sound.

“Tired of witnessing such stupid fears, I was about to ask to be shown to my bed, when suddenly the old forester leaped to his feet, rushed for his gun and shouted wildly: ‘There he is now! I can hear him!’ The women fell on their knees and hid their faces and the two sons clutched their axes.

“I was going to try to quiet them once more, when, all at once, the sleeping dog awoke. He lifted his head, looked at the fire with his dim eyes and let out one of those mournful howls that so often startle travellers in the country at night.

“We all watched him. He arose and stood perfectly still on his four paws, as if haunted by some vision, and then he directed another howl at something invisible to us, unknown, but which must have been ghastly to look upon, for he bristled from end to end.

“The old man, turning as white as a sheet, yelled: ‘He smells him! he smells him! He was with me when I killed him!’ And both women, crazed with fear, began to moan in accompaniment to the dog.

“In spite of myself, a shudder ran down my spine. The vision that the animal saw at that time and place, and among those terrified people, was horrible beyond description.

“For one whole hour the dog howled without moving; he howled as if in the throes of a nightmare, and fear, horrible, stealthy fear, was slowly taking possession of me; fear of what? How can I tell? It was fear, and that’s all I know.

“We remained motionless and terror-stricken, with strained ears, throbbing hearts and trembling limbs, momentarily expecting some dreadful thing to happen. The dog began to wander about the room sniffing the walls. He was driving us mad! All of a sudden, the peasant who acted as my guide jumped up in a sort of paroxysm of frenzied terror, seized the animal by the throat, opened a little door leading into the yard and hurled it into the darkness outside.

“The dog stopped howling at once and we remained in a dead silence that was more terrifying than the noise.

“Suddenly we all gave a start; some creature was creeping along the outer wall, going in the direction of the woods; it passed the door and seemed to feel it with a hesitating hand; for two minutes, which almost made lunatics of us, we heard no sound; then the creeping creature returned and scratched slightly on the door as a child might do with its nail, and then, all of a sudden, a head appeared at the window. It was a white head and it had flaming eyes like a wild beast. And a murmur came from its lips, an indistinct sound that resembled a plaintive moan.

“A minute afterwards a terrific explosion shook the kitchen. The old forester had shot at the thing. Quick as a flash the two sons rushed to the window and barricaded it with a massive kitchen table and sideboard.

“And I swear to you that that shot, which was so absolutely unexpected, froze my blood in my veins and made me feel as if I were going to give up the ghost.

“We stayed in the kitchen until daybreak, for we were powerless to move or utter a sound, so completely unnerved were we.

“We did not dare open the door till a narrow ray of light pierced through the shutters.

“At the foot of the wall, near the door, lay the old dog, his jaw broken by a bullet.

“He had got out of the yard by digging a hole under the fence.”

The man with the sunburned face paused; then he added:

“That night I ran no danger whatever, but I would rather live over all the real perils I have faced than go through another minute like the one I passed when the old keeper shot at the bearded head peering through the cottage window.”

In the Country

The two cottages stood side by side at the foot of a hill near a little seaside resort. The two peasants laboured hard on the fertile soil to rear their little ones, of whom each family had four.

Before the adjoining doors a whole troop of brats swarmed from morning till night. The two eldest were six years old, and the youngest were about fifteen months; the marriages, and afterwards the births, having taken place nearly simultaneously in both families.

The two mothers could hardly distinguish their own offspring among the lot, and as for the fathers, they mixed them up completely. The eight names danced in their heads; they were always getting them mixed up; and when they wished to call one child, the men often called three names before getting the right one.

The first of the two cottages, as you came up from the watering-place, Rolleport, was occupied by the Tuvaches, who had three girls and one boy; the other house sheltered the Vallins, who had one girl and three boys.

They all subsisted frugally on soup, potatoes and fresh air. At seven o’clock in the morning, then at noon, then at six o’clock in the evening, the housewives got their broods together to give them their food, as the gooseherds collect their flocks. The children were seated, according to age, before the wooden table, polished by fifty years of use; the mouths of the youngest hardly reaching the level of the table. Before them was placed a bowl filled with bread, soaked in the water in which the potatoes had been boiled, half a cabbage and three onions; and the whole line ate until their hunger was appeased. The mother herself fed the smallest.

A little meat in the pot on Sundays was a feast for all; and the father on this day sat longer over the meal, repeating: “I wish we could have this every day.”

One afternoon, in the month of August, a phaeton unexpectedly stopped in front of the cottages, and a young woman, who was driving the horses, said to the gentleman sitting at her side:

“Oh, look at all those children, Henri! How pretty they are, tumbling about in the dust, like that!”

The man did not answer, accustomed to these outbursts of admiration, which were a pain and almost a reproach to him. The young woman continued:

“I must hug them! Oh, how I should like to have one of them⁠—that one there⁠—the little tiny one!”

Springing down from the carriage, she ran toward the children, took one of the two youngest⁠—a Tuvache child⁠—and lifting him up in her arms, she kissed him passionately on his dirty cheeks, on his tousled hair daubed with earth, and on his little hands, with which he fought vigorously to get away from the caresses, which displeased him.

Then she got into the carriage again, and drove off at a lively trot. But she returned the following week, and seating herself on the ground, took the youngster in her arms, stuffed him with cakes, gave sweets to all the others, and played with them like a young girl, while the husband waited patiently in the carriage.

She returned again; made the acquaintance of the parents, and reappeared every day with her pockets full of dainties and pennies.

Her name was Madame Henri d’Hubières.

One morning, on arriving, her husband alighted with her, and without stopping to talk to the children, who now knew her well, she entered the farmer’s cottage.

They were busy chopping wood for the fire. They rose to their feet in surprise, brought forward chairs, and waited expectantly.

Then the woman, in a broken, trembling voice, began:

“My good people, I have come to see you, because I should like⁠—I should like to take⁠—your little boy with me⁠—”

The country people, too bewildered to think, did not answer.

She recovered her breath, and continued: “We are alone, my husband and I. We would keep it. Are you willing?”

The peasant woman began to understand. She asked:

“You want to take Charlot from us? Oh, no, indeed!”

Then M. d’Hubières intervened:

“My wife has not made her meaning clear. We wish to adopt him, but he will come back to see you. If he turns out well, as there is every reason to expect, he will be our heir. If we, by any chance, should have children, he will share equally with them; but if he should not reward our care, we should give him, when he comes of age, a sum of twenty thousand francs, which will be deposited immediately in his name, with a lawyer. As we have thought also of you, we will pay you, until your death, a pension of one hundred francs a month. Do you understand me?”

The woman had risen to her feet, furious.

“You want me to sell you Charlot? Oh, no, that’s not the sort of thing to ask of a mother! Oh, no! That would be an abomination!”

The man, grave and deliberate, said nothing; but approved of what his wife said by a continued nodding of his head.

Madame d’Hubières, in dismay, began to weep; turning to her husband, with a voice full of tears, the voice of a child used to having all its wishes gratified, she stammered:

“They will not do it, Henri, they will not do it.”

Then he made a last attempt: “But, my friends, think of the child’s future, of his happiness, of⁠—”

The peasant woman, however, exasperated, cut him short:

“We know all about that! We’ve heard all that before! Get out of here, and don’t let me see you again⁠—the idea of wanting to take away a child like that!”

Madame d’Hubières remembered that there were two quite young children, and she asked, through her tears, with the tenacity of a wilful and spoiled woman:

“But is the other little one not yours?”

Father Tuvache answered: “No, it is our neighbours’. You can go to them if you wish.” And he went back into his house, whence could be heard the indignant voice of his wife.

The Vallins were at table, slowly eating slices of bread which they parsimoniously spread with a little rancid butter on a plate between the two.

M. d’Hubières recommenced his proposals, but with more insinuations, more oratorical precautions, more shrewdness.

The two country people shook their heads, in sign of refusal, but when they learned that they were to have a hundred francs a month, they considered the matter, consulting one another by glances, much disturbed. They kept silent for a long time, tortured, hesitating. At last the woman asked: “What do you say to it, father?” In a weighty tone he said: “I say that it’s not to be despised.”

Madame d’Hubières, trembling with anguish, spoke of the future of their child, of his happiness, and of the money which he could give them later.

The peasant asked: “This pension of twelve hundred francs, will it be promised before a lawyer?”

M. d’Hubières responded: “Why, certainly, beginning with tomorrow.”

The woman, who was thinking it over, continued:

“A hundred francs a month is not enough to pay for depriving us of the child. That child would be working in a few years; we must have a hundred and twenty francs.”

Tapping her foot with impatience, Madame d’Hubières granted it at once, and, as she wished to carry off the child with her, she gave a hundred francs extra, as a present, while her husband drew up a paper. And the young woman, radiant, carried off the howling brat, as one carries away a wished-for knickknack from a shop.

The Tuvaches, from their door, watched her departure, silent, serious, perhaps regretting their refusal.

Nothing more was heard of little Jean Vallin. The parents went to the lawyer every month to collect their hundred and twenty francs. They had quarrelled with their neighbours, because Mother Tuvache grossly insulted them, continually, repeating from door to door that one must be unnatural to sell one’s child; that it was horrible, disgusting bribery. Sometimes she would take her Charlot in her arms, ostentatiously exclaiming, as if he understood:

“I didn’t sell you, I didn’t! I didn’t sell you, my little one! I’m not rich, but I don’t sell my children!”

And this went on for years and years. Every day coarse jeers were shouted outside the door so that they could be heard in the neighbouring house. Mother Tuvache finally believed herself superior to the whole countryside because she had not sold Charlot. Those who spoke of her used to say:

“I know, of course, that it was a tempting offer; yet, she behaved like a real mother.”

She was cited as a model and Charlot, who was nearly eighteen, brought up with this idea, which was constantly repeated, thought himself superior to his comrades because he had not been sold.

The Vallins lived comfortably, thanks to the pension. That was the cause of the unappeasable fury of the Tuvaches, who had remained miserably poor. Their eldest went away to serve his time in the army; Charlot alone remained to labour with his old father, to support the mother and two younger sisters.

He had reached twenty-one years when, one morning, a brilliant carriage stopped before the two cottages. A young gentleman, with a gold watch-chain, got out, giving his hand to an aged, white-haired lady. The old lady said to him: “It is there, my child, at the second house.” And he entered the house of the Vallins as if he were at home.

The old mother was washing her aprons; the infirm father was asleep in the chimney-corner. Both raised their heads, and the young man said:

“Good morning, papa; good morning, mamma!”

They both stood up, frightened! In a flutter, the peasant woman dropped her soap into the water, and stammered:

“Is it you, my child? Is it you, my child?”

He took her in his arms and hugged her, repeating: “Good morning, mamma,” while the old man, all trembling, said, in the calm tone which he never lost: “Here you are, back again, Jean,” as if he had just seen him a month ago.

When they had recognized each other again, the parents wished to take their boy out in the neighbourhood, and show him. They took him to the mayor, to the deputy, to the priest, and to the schoolmaster.

Charlot, standing on the threshold of his cottage, watched him pass.

In the evening, at supper, he said to the old people: “You must have been stupid to let the Vallins’ boy be taken.”

The mother answered, obstinately: “I wouldn’t sell my child.”

The father remained silent. The son continued:

“It is unfortunate to be sacrificed like that.”

Then Father Tuvache, in an angry tone, said:

“Are you going to reproach us for having kept you?” And the young man said, brutally:

“Yes, I reproach you for having been such fools. Parents like you cause the misfortune of children. You deserve that I should leave you.”

The old woman wept over her plate. She moaned, as she swallowed the spoonfuls of soup, half of which she spilled: “One may kill oneself to bring up children!”

Then the boy said, roughly: “I’d rather not have been born than be what I am. When I saw the other fellow, my heart stood still. I said to myself: ‘See what I should have been now!’ ” He got up: “See here, I feel that I would do better not to stay here, because I would throw it in your faces from morning till night, and I would make your life miserable. I’ll never forgive you for that!”

The two old people were silent, downcast, in tears.

He continued: “No, the thought of that would be too much. I’d rather look for a living somewhere else.”

He opened the door. The sound of voices entered. The Vallins were celebrating the return of their child.

Then Charlot stamped with rage, and, turning to his parents, he shouted:

“You silly yokels!”

And he disappeared into the night.

A Million

It was a modest clerk’s household. The husband, who was employed in a Government office, was conventional and painstaking, and he always was very careful in the discharge of his duties. His name was Léopold Bonnin. He was a mediocre young man who held the right opinions about everything. He had been brought up a Christian, but he was inclined to be less religious since the country had begun to move in the direction of the separation of Church and State. He would say in loud tones at the office: “I am a believer, a true believer, but I believe in God, not in the clergy.” His greatest claim was that he was an honest man. He would strike his chest as he said so. And he was an honest man, in the most humdrum sense of the word. He arrived punctually at his office and left as punctually. He never idled and was always very straight in “money matters.” He had married the daughter of one of his poor colleagues, whose sister, however, was worth a million, having been married for love. She had had no children, which was a deep disappointment for her, and, consequently, she had no one to whom she could leave her money except her niece. This legacy was the constant preoccupation of the family. It haunted the house, and even the office. It was known that “the Bonnins would come in for a million.”

The young couple were also childless, a fact which did not distress them in the least, as they were perfectly satisfied with their humdrum, narrow life. Their home was well-kept, clean and thrifty; they were both very placid and moderate in all things, and they firmly believed that a child would upset their lives, and interfere with their habits.

They would not have endeavoured to remain without heirs; but, since Heaven had not blessed them in that particular respect, they thought it was no doubt for the best.

The wealthy aunt, however, was not to be consoled, and was profuse with practical advice. Years ago, she had vainly tried a number of methods recommended by clairvoyants and her women friends, and since she had reached the age where all thought of offspring had to be abandoned, she had heard of many more, which she supposed to be unfailing, and which she persisted in revealing to her niece. Every now and then she would inquire: “Well, have you tried what I told you about the other day?”

Finally she died. The young people experienced a delighted relief which they sought to conceal from themselves as well as from the outside world. Often one’s conscience is garbed in black while the soul sings with joy.

They were notified that a will had been deposited with a lawyer, and they went to the latter’s office immediately after leaving the church.

The aunt, faithful to her lifelong idea, had bequeathed her fortune to their firstborn child, with the provision that the income was to be used by the parents until their decease. Should the young couple have no offspring within three years, the money was to go to the poor and needy.

They were completely overwhelmed. The husband collapsed and stayed away from the office for a week. When he recovered, he resolved with sudden energy to become a parent.

He persisted in his endeavours for six months, until he was but the shadow of his former self. He remembered all the hints his aunt had given and put them into practice conscientiously, but without results. His desperate determination lent him a factitious strength, which, however, proved almost fatal.

He became hopelessly anaemic. His physician stood in dread of tuberculosis, and terrified him to such an extent that he forthwith resumed his peaceful habits, even more peaceful than before, and began a restorative treatment.

Broad rumours had begun to float around the office. All the clerks had heard about the disappointing will, and they made much fun over what they termed the “million franc deal.”

Some ventured to give Bonnin facetious advice; while others dared to offer themselves for the accomplishment of the distressing clause. One tall fellow, especially, who had the reputation of being quite a roué and whose many affairs were notorious throughout the office, teased him constantly with veiled allusions, broad hints and the boast that he, Morel, could make him, Bonnin, inherit in about twenty minutes.

However, one day, Léopold Bonnin became suddenly infuriated, and jumping out of his chair, his quill behind his ear, he shouted: “Sir, you are a cur; if I did not respect myself, I would spit in your face.”

Witnesses were despatched to the antagonists, and for days the whole department was in an uproar. They were to be found everywhere, in and out of the offices, meeting in the halls to discuss some important point and to exchange their views of the affair. Finally a document was drawn up by the four delegates and accepted by the interested parties, who gravely shook hands and mumbled a few words of apology in the presence of the department chief.

During the month that followed, the two men bowed ceremoniously and with affected courtesy, as became adversaries who had met on the field of honour. But one day, they happened to collide against each other in the hall, outside of the office, whereupon Monsieur Bonnin inquired with dignity: “I trust I did not hurt you?” And Monsieur Morel replied: “Not in the least.”

After that encounter, they saw fit to speak a few words whenever they met. And little by little they became more friendly, appreciated one another and grew to be inseparable.

But Léopold was unhappy. His wife kept taunting him with allusions, torturing him with thinly veiled sarcasm.

And the days were flitting by. One year had already elapsed since the aunt’s demise. The inheritance seemed lost to them.

When sitting down to dinner Madame Bonnin would remark: “We have not very much to eat; it would be different if we were well off.”

Or, when Léopold was ready to start for the office, his wife would hand him his walking-stick and observe: “If we had an income of fifty thousand francs, you would not have to kill yourself working, you poor quill-driver.”

When Madame Bonnin went out on a rainy day, she would invariably murmur: “If we had a carriage, I would not be compelled to ruin my clothes on a day like this.”

In fact, at all times, she seemed to blame her husband, rendering him alone responsible for the state of affairs and the loss of the fortune.

Finally, growing desperate, he took her to a well-known physician, who, after a lengthy consultation, expressed no opinion and declared he could discover nothing unusual; that similar cases were of frequent occurrence; that it was the same with bodies as with minds; that, after having seen so many couples separated through incompatibility of temper, it was not surprising to find some who were childless because of physical incompatibility. The consultation cost forty francs.

A year went by, and war was declared between the pair, incessant, bitter war, almost ferocious hatred. And Madame Bonnin never stopped saying over and over again: “Isn’t it dreadful to lose a fortune because one happens to have married a fool!” or “to think that if I had married another man, today I would have an income of forty thousand francs!” or again: “Some people are always in the way. They spoil everything.”

In the evening, after dinner, the tension became well-nigh insufferable. One night, fearing a terrible scene, and not knowing how to ward it off, Léopold brought his friend, Frédéric Morel, with whom he had almost had a duel, home with him. Soon Morel became the friend of the house, the counsellor of husband and wife.

The expiration of the delay stipulated in the will was drawing near; only six months more and the fortune would go to the poor and needy. And little by little Léopold’s attitude toward his wife changed. He, too, became aggressive, taunting, would make obscure insinuations, mentioning in a mysterious way wives of clerks who had built up their husbands’ careers.

Every little while he would bring up some story of promotion that had fallen to the luck of some obscure clerk. “Little Ravinot, who was only a temporary clerk, five years ago, has been made assistant chief clerk.” Then Madame Bonnin would reply: “It certainly is not you who could accomplish anything like that.”

Léopold would shrug his shoulders.

“As if he did more than anyone else! He has a bright wife, that is all. She captivated the head of the department and now gets everything she wants. In this life we have to look out that we are not fooled by circumstances.”

What did he really mean? What did she infer? What occurred? Each of them had a calendar on which the days which separated them from the fatal term were marked; and every week they were overcome by a sort of madness, a desperate rage, a wild exasperation, so that they felt capable of committing a crime if necessary.

And then one morning Madame Bonnin, with shining eyes and a radiant face, laid her hands on her husband’s shoulders, looked at him intently, joyfully, and whispered: “I believe that I am pregnant.” He experienced such a shock that he almost collapsed; and suddenly clasping his wife in his arms, he drew her down on his knee, kissed her like a beloved child and, overwhelmed by emotion, sobbed aloud.

Two months later, doubt was no longer possible. He went with her to a physician and had the latter make out a certificate which he handed to the executor of the will. The lawyer stated that, inasmuch as the child existed, whether born or unborn, he could do nothing but bow to circumstances, and would postpone the execution of the will until the birth of the heir.

A boy was born, whom they christened Dieudonné, in remembrance of the practice in royal households.

They were very rich.

One evening, when M. Bonnin came home⁠—his friend Frédéric Morel was to dine with them⁠—his wife remarked casually: “I have just requested our friend Frédéric never to enter this house again. He insulted me.” Léopold looked at her for a second with a light of gratitude in his eyes, and then he opened his arms; she flew to him and they kissed each other tenderly, like the good, united, upright little couple that they were.

And it is worth while to hear Madame Bonnin talk about women who have transgressed for love, and those whom a great passion has led to adultery.

The Will

I knew that tall young fellow, René de Bourneval. He was an agreeable companion, though rather melancholy, and disillusioned about everything, very sceptical, with a scepticism which was direct and devastating, and especially skilful in exposing social hypocrisies in a biting phrase. He often used to say:

“There are no honest men, or, at least, they only appear so in comparison with swine.”

He had two brothers, whom he shunned, the Messieurs de Courcils. I thought they were by another father, on account of the difference in the name. I had frequently heard that something strange had happened in the family, but no details were given.

As I took a great liking to him, we soon became intimate, and one evening, when I had been dining with him alone, I asked him by chance: “Are you by your mother’s first or second marriage?” He grew rather pale; then he flushed, and did not speak for a few moments; he was visibly embarrassed. Then he smiled in that melancholy and gentle manner peculiar to him, and said:

“My dear friend, if it will not bore you, I can tell you some very strange details about my life. I know you to be a sensible man, so I am not afraid that our friendship will suffer by my revelations, and if it did, I should not care about having you for my friend any longer.

“My mother, Madame de Courcils, was a poor, timid, little woman, whom her husband had married for the sake of her fortune. Her whole life was a martyrdom. Of an affectionate, timorous and sensitive nature, she was constantly ill-treated by the man who ought to have been my father, one of those boors called country gentlemen. A month after their marriage he was living with a servant, and besides that, the wives and daughters of his tenants were his mistresses, which did not prevent him from having two children by his wife, three, if you count me. My mother said nothing, and lived in that noisy house like one of those little mice which slip under the furniture. Self-effacing, retiring and nervous, she looked at people with bright, uneasy, restless eyes, the eyes of some terrified creature which can never shake off its fear. And yet she was pretty, very pretty and fair, a grey blonde, as if her hair had lost its colour through her constant fears.

“Among Monsieur de Courcils’s friends who constantly came to the château there was an ex-cavalry officer, a widower, a man to be feared, a man at the same time tender and violent, and capable of the most energetic resolution, Monsieur de Bourneval, whose name I bear. He was a tall, thin man, with a heavy black mustache, and I am very like him. He was a man who had read a great deal, and whose ideas were not like those of most of his class. His great-grandmother had been a friend of J. J. Rousseau, and it seemed as if he had inherited something from this connection of his ancestor’s. He knew the Contrat Social and the Nouvelle Héloïse by heart, and, indeed, all those philosophical books which led the way to the overthrow of our old usage, prejudices, superannuated laws, and imbecile morality.

“It seemed that he loved my mother, and she loved him, but their intrigue was carried on so secretly that no one guessed it. The poor, neglected, unhappy woman must have clung to him desperately, and in her intimacy with him must have imbibed all his ways of thinking, theories of free thought, audacious ideas of independent love. But as she was so timid that she never ventured to speak aloud, it was all driven back, condensed, and compressed in her heart, which never opened itself.

“My two brothers were very cruel to her, like their father, and never gave her a caress. Used to seeing her count for nothing in the house, they treated her rather like a servant, and so I was the only one of her sons who really loved her, and whom she loved.

“I was eighteen at the time she died. I must add, in order that you may understand what follows, that a trustee had been appointed to look after my father’s affairs, that a decision in favour of my mother had been pronounced, dividing the property they held in common. Thanks to the workings of the law and the intelligent devotion of a lawyer to her interests, she had preserved the right to make her will in favour of anyone she pleased.

“We were told that there was a will lying at the lawyer’s, and were invited to be present at the reading of it. I can remember it, as if it were yesterday. It was a grand, dramatic, yet burlesque and surprising scene, brought about by the posthumous revolt of the dead woman, by a cry for liberty from the depths of her tomb, on the part of a martyred woman who had been crushed by our customs during her life, and who, from her grave, uttered a despairing appeal for independence.

“The man who thought that he was my father, a stout, ruddy-faced man who looked like a butcher, and my brothers, two great fellows of twenty and twenty-two, were waiting quietly in their chairs. Monsieur de Bourneval, who had been invited to be present, came in and stood behind me. He was very pale, and bit his mustache, which was turning grey. No doubt he was prepared for what was going to happen. The lawyer double-locked the door, and began to read the will, after opening in our presence the envelope, which was sealed with red wax, and whose contents he did not know.”

My friend stopped suddenly and got up, and from his writing-table took an old paper, unfolded it, kissed it and continued:

“This is the will of my beloved mother:

“I, the undersigned, Anne-Catherine-Geneviève-Mathilde de Croixluce, the legitimate wife of Léopold-Joseph Gontran de Courcils, sound in body and mind, here express my last wishes:

“I first of all ask God, and then my dear son René, to pardon me for the act I am about to commit. I believe that my child’s heart is great enough to understand me, and to forgive me. I have suffered my whole life long. I was married for mercenary reasons, then despised, misunderstood, oppressed, and constantly deceived by my husband.

“I forgive him, but I owe him nothing.

“My eldest sons never loved me, never petted me, scarcely treated me as a mother. During my whole life I was everything that I ought to have been to them, and I owe them nothing more after my death. The ties of blood cannot exist without daily and constant affection. An ungrateful son is less than a stranger; he is a culprit, for he has no right to be indifferent toward his mother.

“I have always trembled before men, before their unjust laws, their inhuman customs, their shameful prejudices. Before God, I have no longer any fear. Dead, I fling aside disgraceful hypocrisy; I dare to speak my thoughts, and to avow and to sign the secret of my heart.

“I therefore leave that part of my fortune of which the law allows me to dispose, as a deposit with my dear lover Pierre-Gennes-Simon de Bourneval, to revert afterward to our dear son René.

“(This wish is, moreover, formulated more precisely in a notarial deed.)

“And I declare before the Supreme Judge who hears me, that I should have cursed Heaven and my own existence, if I had not met my lover’s deep, devoted, tender, unshaken affection, if I had not felt in his arms that the Creator made His creatures to love, sustain, and console each other, and to weep together in the hours of sadness.

“Monsieur de Courcils is the father of my two eldest sons; René alone owes his life to Monsieur de Bourneval. I pray to the Master of men and of their destinies to place father and son above social prejudices, to make them love each other until they die, and to love me also in my coffin.

“These are my last thoughts, and my last wish.

“Mathilde de Croixluce.

“Monsieur de Courcils had risen, and he cried:

“ ‘It is the will of a mad woman.’

“Then Monsieur de Bourneval stepped forward and said in a loud penetrating voice: ‘I, Simon de Bourneval, solemnly declare that this writing contains nothing but the strict truth, and I am ready to prove it by letters which I possess.’

“On hearing that, Monsieur de Courcils went up to him, and I thought that they were going to collar each other. There they stood, both of them tall, one stout and the other thin, both trembling. My mother’s husband stammered out:

“ ‘You are a worthless wretch!’

“And the other replied in a loud, dry voice:

“ ‘We will meet elsewhere, Monsieur. I should have slapped your ugly face, and challenged you long since, if I had not, before all else, thought of the peace of mind, during her lifetime, of that poor woman whom you made to suffer so much.’

“Then, turning to me, he said:

“ ‘You are my son; will you come with me? I have no right to take you away, but I shall assume it, if you will allow me.’ I shook his hand without replying, and we went out together; I was certainly three parts mad.

“Two days later Monsieur de Bourneval killed Monsieur de Courcils in a duel. My brothers, fearing the terrible scandal, held their tongues. I offered them, and they accepted, half the fortune which my mother had left me. I took my real father’s name, renouncing that which the law gave me, but which was not really mine. Monsieur de Bourneval has been dead for five years, and I am still mourning for him.”

He rose from his chair, took a few steps, and, standing in front of me, said:

“I hold that my mother’s will was one of the most beautiful and loyal, one of the greatest acts that a woman could accomplish. Do you not agree with me?”

I held out my two hands:

“Most certainly I do, my friend.”

The Wolf

This is what the old Marquis d’Arville told us after a dinner in honour of Saint-Hubert, at the house of Baron des Ravels. They had run down a stag that day. The Marquis was the only one of the guests who had not taken part in the chase. He never hunted.

During the whole of the long repast, they had talked of scarcely anything but the massacre of animals. Even the ladies interested themselves in the sanguinary and often unlikely stories, while the speakers mimicked the attacks and combats between man and beast, raising their arms and speaking in thunderous tones.

M. d’Arville talked well, with a certain poetical flourish that was full of effect. He must have repeated this story often, he told it so smoothly, never halting at a choice of words in which to clothe an image.

“Gentlemen, I never hunt, nor did my father, nor my grandfather, nor my great-grandfather. The last named was the son of a man who hunted more than all of you. He died in 1764. I will tell you how. He was named Jean, and was married, and became the father of the man who was my great-grandfather. He lived with his younger brother, François d’Arville, in our castle, in the midst of a deep forest in Lorraine.

“François d’Arville always remained a bachelor out of his love for hunting. They both hunted from one end of the year to the other without cessation or weariness. They loved nothing else, understood nothing else, talked only of this, and lived for this alone.

“They were possessed by this terrible, inexorable passion. It consumed them, having taken entire control of them, leaving no place for anything else. They had given orders that they were never to be disturbed when they were hunting, for any reason whatsoever. My great-grandfather was born while his father was following a fox, but Jean d’Arville did not interrupt his sport, and swore that the little beggar might have waited until after the death-cry! His brother François showed himself still more hotheaded than he. The first thing on rising, he would go to see the dogs, then the horses; then he would shoot some birds about the place, until it was time to set out hunting larger game.

“They were called in the country Monsieur le Marquis and Monsieur le Cadet: noblemen then did not act as do the interlopers of our time, who wish to establish in their titles a descending scale of rank, for the son of a marquis is no more a count, or the son of a viscount a baron, than the son of a general is a colonel by birth. But the petty vanity of our time finds profit in this arrangement.

“To return to my ancestors:

“They were, it appears, immoderately large, bony, hairy, violent, and vigorous. The younger one was even taller than the elder, and had such a voice that, according to a legend of which he was very proud, all the leaves of the forest moved when he shouted. When they were mounted, ready for the chase, it must have been a superb sight to see these two giants astride their great horses.

“Toward the middle of the winter of that year, 1764, the cold was excessive and the wolves became ferocious.

“They even attacked belated peasants, roamed around houses at night, howled from sunset to sunrise, and ravaged the barns.

“Very soon a rumour was circulated. It was said that a colossal wolf, of grayish-white colour, which had eaten two children, devoured the arm of a woman, strangled all the watchdogs of the country, was now coming without fear into the enclosures and smelling around the doors. Many inhabitants affirmed that they had felt his breath, which made the lights flicker. Shortly a panic ran through all the province. No one dared to go out after nightfall. The very shadows seemed haunted by the image of this beast.

“The brothers d’Arville resolved to find and slay him. So they called together all the gentlemen of the country for a big hunt.

“It was in vain. They beat the forests and scoured the thickets to no purpose; they saw nothing of him. They killed wolves, but not that one. And each night after the hunt, the beast, as if to avenge himself, attacked some traveller, or devoured some cattle, always far from the place where they had sought him.

“Finally, one night he found a way into the pigsty of the d’Arville castle and ate two beauties of the best breed.

“The two brothers were furious, interpreting the attack as one of bravado on the part of the monster⁠—a direct injury, a defiance. Therefore, taking all their best-trained hounds, accustomed to follow the most redoubtable quarry, they set out to run down the beast, their hearts filled with rage.

“From dawn until the sun descended behind the great leafless trees, they beat about the forests with no result.

“At last, both of them, angry and disheartened, turned their horses’ steps into a bypath bordered by brushwood, marvelling at the power of this wolf to baffle their knowledge, and suddenly seized with a mysterious fear.

“The elder said:

“ ‘This can be no ordinary beast. It almost looks as if he can reason like a man.’

“The younger replied:

“ ‘Perhaps we should get our cousin, the Bishop, to bless a bullet for him, or ask a priest to pronounce some words to help us.’

“Then they were silent.

“Jean continued: ‘Look at the sun; how red it is. The great wolf will do mischief tonight.’

“He had scarcely finished speaking when his horse reared. François’s horse started to run at the same time. A large bush covered with dead leaves rose before them, and a colossal beast, grayish-white, sprang out, scampering away through the wood.

“Both gave a grunt of satisfaction, and bending to the necks of their heavy horses, they urged them on with the weight of their bodies, driving them forward with such speed, exciting them, hastening them with voice and spur, that these strong riders seemed to carry the weight of their beasts between their knees, carrying them along as if they were flying.

“Thus they rode, at full speed, crashing through thickets, crossing ravines, climbing up the sides of hills, and plunging into gorges, sounding the horn with loud blasts, to arouse the people and the dogs of the neighbourhood.

“But suddenly, in the course of this breakneck ride, my ancestor struck his forehead against a large branch and fractured his skull. He fell to the ground as if dead, while his frightened horse disappeared into the shadows that were enveloping the woods.

“The younger d’Arville stopped short, sprang to the ground, seized his brother in his arms, and saw that his brains were coming out of the wound with his blood.

“He sat down beside him, took his disfigured and gory head upon his knees, looking earnestly at the lifeless face. Little by little a fear crept over him, a strange fear that he had never before felt, fear of the shadows, of the solitude, of the lonely woods, and also of the chimerical wolf, which had now avenged itself by killing his brother.

“The shadows deepened, the branches of the trees crackled in the sharp cold. François arose shivering, incapable of remaining there any longer, and already feeling his strength fail. There was nothing to be heard, neither the voice of the dogs nor the sound of the horns; all within this invisible horizon was mute. And in this gloomy silence and the chill of evening there was something strange and frightful.

“With his powerful hands he seized Jean’s huge body and laid it across the saddle to take it home; then he resumed his way slowly, his mind troubled by horrible, extraordinary images, as if he were intoxicated.

“Suddenly, along the path darkened by the night, a great form passed. It was the wolf. A violent fit of terror seized upon the hunter; something cold, like a stream of water, seemed to glide down his back, and he made the sign of the cross, like a monk haunted by devils, so dismayed was he by the reappearance of the frightful wanderer. Then, his eyes falling upon the inert body before him, his fear was quickly changed to anger, and he trembled with inordinate rage.

“He pricked his horse and darted after him.

“He followed him through copses, ravines, and great forests, traversing woods that he no longer recognized, his eyes fixed upon a white spot, which was ever flying from him as night covered the earth.

“His horse also seemed moved by an unknown force and ardour. He galloped on with neck extended, crashing over small trees and rocks, with the body of the dead man stretched across him on the saddle. Brambles caught in his hair; his head, where it struck the enormous tree trunks, spattered them with blood; his spurs tore off pieces of bark.

“Suddenly the animal and its rider came out of the forest, and rushed into a valley as the moon appeared above the hills. This valley was stony and shut in by enormous rocks, with no other outlet; and the wolf, caught in a corner, turned around.

“François gave a shout of joy and revenge which the echoes repeated like a roll of thunder. He leaped from his horse, knife in hand.

“The bristling beast, with rounded back, was awaiting him, his eyes shining like two stars. But before joining battle, the strong hunter, grasping his brother, seated him upon a rock, supporting his head, which was now but a mass of blood, with stones, and cried aloud to him, as to one deaf: ‘Look, Jean! Look here!’

“Then he threw himself upon the monster. He felt himself strong enough to overthrow a mountain, to crush the rocks in his hands. The beast tried to bite, and to rip up his stomach; but the man had seized it by the throat, without even making use of his weapon, and was strangling it gently, listening to its breath stopping in its throat, and its heart ceasing to beat. And he laughed with mad joy, clutching it more and more strongly with a terrible hold, and crying out in his delirium: ‘Look, Jean! Look!’ All resistance ceased. The body of the wolf was limp. He was dead.

“Then François, taking him in his arms, threw him down at the feet of his elder brother, crying out in expectant voice: ‘Here, here, Jean, dear, here he is!’

“Then he placed upon the saddle the two bodies, the one above the other, and started on his way.

“He returned to the castle laughing and weeping, like Gargantua at the birth of Pantagruel, shouting in triumph and stamping with delight in relating the death of the beast, and moaning and tearing at his beard in telling the death of his brother.

“Often, later, when he recalled that day, he would declare, with tears in his eyes: ‘If only poor Jean had seen me strangle the beast, he would have died happy, I am sure!’

“The widow of my ancestor inspired in her son a horror of hunting, which was transmitted from father to son down to myself.”

The Marquis d’Arville was silent. Someone asked: “That is a legendary tale, is it not?”

And the narrator replied:

“I swear to you it is true from beginning to end.”

Then a lady, in a sweet little voice, declared:

“Well, it is beautiful to have passions like that.”

The Kiss

My little darling: so you are crying from morning until night and from night until morning, because your husband leaves you; you do not know what to do and so you ask your old aunt for advice; you must consider her quite an expert. I don’t know as much as you think I do, and yet I am not entirely ignorant of the art of loving, or, rather, of making one’s self loved, in which you are a little lacking. I can admit that at my age.

You say that you are all attention, love, kisses and caresses for him. Perhaps that is the very trouble; I think you kiss him too much.

My dear, we have in our hands the most terrible power in the world: love.

Man is gifted with physical strength, and he exercises force. Woman is gifted with charm, and she rules with caresses. It is our weapon, formidable and invincible, but we should know how to use it.

We are the mistresses of the world you know. To tell the history of Love from the beginning of the world would be to tell the history of man himself. Everything springs from it, the arts, great events, customs, wars, the overthrow of empires.

In the Bible you find Delila, Judith; in fables we find Omphale, Helen; in history the Sabines, Cleopatra, and many others.

Therefore we reign supreme, all-powerful. But, like kings, we must make use of delicate diplomacy.

Love, my dear, is made up of imperceptible sensations. We know that it is as strong as death, but also as frail as glass. The slightest shock breaks it, our power crumbles, and we are never able to build it up again.

We have the power of making ourselves adored, but we lack one tiny thing, understanding of the various shades of caresses, the subtle feeling for what is excessive in the manifestations of our tender feelings. When we are embraced we lose the sentiment of delicacy, while the man over whom we rule remains master of himself, capable of judging the foolishness of certain words. Take care, my dear; that is the defect in our armour. It is our Achilles’ heel.

Do you know whence comes our real power? From the kiss, the kiss alone! When we know how to offer and give up our lips we can become queens.

The kiss is only a preface, however, but a charming preface. More charming than the realization itself. A preface which can always be read over again, whereas one cannot always read over the book.

Yes, the meeting of lips is the most perfect, the most divine sensation given to human beings, the supreme limit of happiness. It is in the kiss alone that one sometimes seems to feel this union of souls after which we strive, the intermingling of swooning hearts, as it were.

Do you remember the verses of Sully-Prudhomme:

Les caresses ne sont que d’inquiets transports,
Infructueux essais du pauvre Amour qui tente
L’impossible union des âmes par le corps.9

One caress alone gives this deep sensation of two beings welded into one⁠—it is the kiss. No violent delirium of complete possession equals this trembling approach of the lips, this first moist and fresh contact, and then the long, lingering, motionless rapture.

Therefore, my dear, the kiss is our strongest weapon, but we must take care not to dull it. Do not forget that its value is only relative, purely conventional. It continually changes according to circumstances, the state of expectancy and the ecstasy of the mind. I will call attention to one example.

Another poet, François Coppée, has written a line which we all remember, a line which we find delightful, which moves our very hearts.

After describing the expectancy of a lover, waiting in a room one winter’s evening, his anxiety, his nervous impatience, the terrible fear of not seeing her, he describes the arrival of the beloved woman, who at last enters hurriedly, out of breath, bringing with her a breath of winter, and he exclaims:

Oh! les premiers baisers à travers la voilette!10

Is that not a line of exquisite sentiment, a delicate and charming observation, a perfect truth? All those who have hastened to a clandestine meeting, whom passion has thrown into the arms of a man, well do they know these first delicious kisses through the veil; and they tremble at the memory of them. And yet their sole charm lies in the circumstances, from being late, from the anxious expectancy, but from the purely⁠—or, rather, impurely, if you prefer⁠—sensual point of view, they are detestable.

Think! Outside it is cold. The young woman has walked quickly; the veil is moist from her cold breath. Little drops of water shine in the lace. The lover seizes her and presses his burning lips to her liquid breath. The moist veil, which discolors and carries the dreadful odor of chemical dye, penetrates into the young man’s mouth, moistens his mustache. He does not taste the lips of his beloved, he tastes the dye of this lace moistened with cold breath. And yet, like the poet, we would all exclaim:

Oh! les premiers baisers à travers la voilette!

Therefore, the value of this caress being entirely a matter of convention, we must be careful not to abuse it.

Well, my dear, I have several times noticed that you are very clumsy. However, you are not alone in that fault; the majority of women lose their authority by abusing the kiss with untimely kisses. When they feel that their husband or their lover is a little tired, at those times when the heart as well as the body needs rest, instead of understanding what is going on within him, they persist in giving inopportune caresses, tire him by the obstinacy of begging lips and give caresses lavished with neither rhyme nor reason.

Trust my experience. First, never kiss your husband in public, in the train, at the restaurant. It is bad taste; do not give in to your desires. He would feel ridiculous and would never forgive you.

Beware of useless kisses lavished in intimacy. I am sure that you abuse them. For instance, I remember one day that you did something quite shocking. Probably you do not remember it.

All three of us were together in the drawing room, and, as you did not stand on ceremony before me, your husband was holding you on his knees and kissing you at great length on the neck, the lips and throat. Suddenly you exclaimed: “Oh! the fire!” You had been paying no attention to it, and it was almost out. A few lingering embers were glowing on the hearth. Then he rose, ran to the woodbox, from which he dragged two enormous logs with great difficulty, when you came to him with begging lips, murmuring:

“Kiss me!” He turned his head with difficulty and tried to hold up the logs at the same time. Then you gently and slowly placed your mouth on that of the poor fellow, who remained with his neck out of joint, his sides twisted, his arms almost dropping off, trembling with fatigue and tired from his desperate effort. And you kept drawing out this torturing kiss, without seeing or understanding. Then when you freed him, you began to grumble: “How badly you kiss!” No wonder!

Oh, take care of that! We all have this foolish habit, this stupid and inconsiderate impulse to choose the most inconvenient moments. When he is carrying a glass of water, when he is putting on his shoes, when he is tying his cravat⁠—in short, when he finds himself in any uncomfortable position⁠—then is the time which we choose for a caress which makes him stop for a whole minute in the middle of what he is doing, with the sole desire of getting rid of us!

Do not think that this criticism is insignificant. Love, my dear, is a delicate thing. The least little thing offends it: everything depends on the tact of our caresses. An ill-placed kiss may do any amount of harm.

Try following my advice.

Your old aunt,

Collette.

That Pig, Morin

I

“Look here,” I said to Labarbe, “you have again repeated those words, ‘That pig, Morin.’ Why on earth do I never hear Morin’s name mentioned without his being called a pig?”

Labarbe, who has since become a Deputy, blinked at me like an owl and said: “Do you mean to say that you do not know Morin’s story, and yet you come from La Rochelle?” I confessed that I did not know Morin’s story, and then Labarbe rubbed his hands, and began his narrative.

“You knew Morin, did you not, and you remember his large drapery shop on the Quai de la Rochelle?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Well, you must know that in 1862 or ’63 Morin went to spend a fortnight in Paris for pleasure, or for his pleasures, but under the pretext of renewing his stock, and you also know what a fortnight in Paris means for a country shopkeeper; it fires his blood. The theatre every evening, women brushing up against you, and a continual state of mental excitement; it drives one mad. One sees nothing but dancers in tights, actresses in very low dresses, round legs, plump shoulders, all nearly within reach of one’s hands, without daring or being able to touch them. It is rare for one to have even an affair or two with the commoner sort. And one leaves with heart still aflutter, and a mind still exhilarated by a sort of longing for kisses which tickle one’s lips.

“Morin was in that state when he took his ticket for La Rochelle by the 8:40 night express. Full of regrets and longings he was walking up and down the big waiting-room at the station, when he suddenly came to a halt in front of a young lady who was kissing an old one. She had her veil up, and Morin murmured with delight: ‘By Jove, what a beautiful woman!’

“When she had said ‘Goodbye’ to the old lady, she went into the waiting-room, and Morin followed her; then she went on to the platform and Morin still followed her; then she got into an empty carriage, and he again followed her. There were very few travellers by the express, the engine whistled, and the train started. They were alone. Morin devoured her with his eyes. She appeared to be about nineteen or twenty, and was fair, tall, and had an emancipated air. She wrapped a travelling rug round her legs and stretched herself on the seat to sleep.

“Morin wondered who she was. And a thousand conjectures, a thousand projects went through his mind. He said to himself: ‘So many stories are told of adventures on railway journeys, maybe I am going to have one. Who knows? An affair of this kind can take place so quickly. Perhaps all that I need is a little courage. Was it not Danton who said: “Audacity, more audacity, and always audacity”? If it was not Danton, it was Mirabeau. Anyhow, what does that matter? But then, I am lacking in courage, and that is the difficulty. Oh! if one only knew, if one could only read people’s minds! I will bet that every day one misses magnificent opportunities without knowing it. The slightest sign would be enough to let me know that she is perfectly agreeable⁠ ⁠…’

“Then he imagined combinations which led him to triumph. He pictured some chivalrous deed, or merely some slight service which he rendered her, a lively, gallant conversation which ended in a declaration, which ended in⁠—in what you can guess.

“But he could find no opening; he had no pretext, and he waited for some fortunate circumstance, with his heart wildly beating, and his mind topsy-turvy. The night passed, and the pretty girl still slept, while Morin was meditating her downfall. The day broke and soon the first ray of sunlight appeared in the sky, a long, clear ray which shone on the face of the sleeping girl, and woke her, so she sat up, looked at the country, then at Morin, and smiled. She smiled like a happy woman, with an engaging and bright look, and Morin trembled. Obviously that smile was intended for him, it was a discreet invitation, the signal which he was waiting for. That smile meant: ‘How stupid, what a ninny, what a dolt, what a donkey you are, to have sat there on your seat like a stick all night.

“ ‘Just look at me. Am I not charming? And you have sat like that for a whole night, alone with a pretty woman, without venturing to do anything, you great booby!’

“She was still smiling as she looked at him; she even began to laugh; and he was losing his head trying to find something suitable to say, no matter what. But he could think of nothing, nothing, and then, arming himself with Dutch courage, he said to himself: ‘It can’t be helped, I will risk everything,’ and suddenly without the slightest warning, he moved towards her, his arms extended, his lips protruding, and seizing her in his arms, kissed her.

“She sprang up with a bound, shouting: ‘Help! help!’ and screaming with terror; then she opened the carriage door, and waved her arm outside, mad with fear and trying to jump out, while Morin, who was almost distracted, and feeling sure that she would throw herself out, held her by her skirt and stammered: ‘Oh! Madame! Oh! Madame!’

“The train slackened speed, and then stopped. Two guards rushed up at the young woman’s frantic signals, and she threw herself into their arms, stammering: ‘That man tried⁠—tried⁠—to⁠—to⁠—’

“And then she fainted.

“They were at Mauzé station, and the gendarme on duty arrested Morin. When the victim of his brutality had regained her consciousness, she made her charge against him, and the police drew it up. The poor draper did not reach home till night, with a prosecution hanging over him for an outrage on morals in a public place.

II

“At that time I was editor-in-chief of the Fanal des Charentes, and I used to meet Morin every day at the Café du Commerce. The day after his adventure he came to see me, as he did not know what to do. I did not conceal my opinion from him. ‘You are no better than a pig. No decent man behaves like that.’

“He wept. His wife had given him a beating, and he foresaw his trade ruined, his name dragged through the mire and dishonoured, his friends outraged and cutting him in the street. In the end he excited my pity, and I sent for my colleague Rivet, a bantering but very sensible little man, to give us his advice.

“He advised me to see the Public Prosecutor, who was a friend of mine, and so I sent Morin home, and went to call on the magistrate. He told me that the woman who had been insulted was a young lady, Mademoiselle Henriette Bonnel, who had just received her certificate as a teacher in Paris, and who, being an orphan, spent her holidays with her uncle and aunt, who were very respectable lower middle-class people in Mauzé. What made Morin’s case all the more serious was, that the uncle had lodged a complaint. But the public official consented to let the matter drop if this complaint were withdrawn, so that we must try and get him to do this.

“I went back to Morin’s and found him in bed, ill with excitement and distress. His wife, a tall, rawboned woman with a beard, was abusing him continually, and she showed me into the room, shouting at me: ‘So you have come to see that pig, Morin. Well, there he is, the beauty!’ And she planted herself in front of the bed, with her hands on her hips. I told him how matters stood, and he begged me to go and see her uncle and aunt. It was a delicate mission, but I undertook it, and the poor devil never ceased repeating: ‘I assure you I did not even kiss her, no, not even that. I will take my oath on it!’

“I replied: ‘It doesn’t matter; you are nothing but a pig.’ And I took a thousand francs which he gave me, to employ them as I thought best, but as I did not care to venture to the house of her relations alone, I begged Rivet to go with me, which he agreed to do, on condition that we should go there at once, for he had some urgent business at La Rochelle the following afternoon. So two hours later we rang at the door of a nice country-house. A beautiful girl came and opened the door to us, who was assuredly the young lady in question, and I said to Rivet in a low voice: ‘Confound it! I begin to understand Morin!’

“The uncle, Monsieur Tonnelet, was, as it happened, a subscriber to the Fanal, and was a fervent political coreligionist of ours. He received us with open arms, and congratulated us and wished us joy; he was delighted at having the two editors of his favourite newspaper in his house, and Rivet whispered to me: ‘I think we shall be able to arrange the affair of that pig, Morin.’

“The niece had left the room, and I introduced the delicate subject. I invoked the spectre of scandal before his eyes; I emphasised the inevitable loss of esteem which the young lady would suffer if such an affair became known, for nobody would believe in a simple kiss. The good man seemed undecided, but could not make up his mind about anything without his wife, who would not be in until late that evening. But suddenly he uttered an exclamation of triumph: ‘Look here, I have an excellent idea. I shall not let you leave now that you are here. You can both dine here and spend the night, and when my wife comes home, I hope we shall be able to arrange matters.’

“Rivet resisted at first, but the wish to extricate that pig, Morin, decided him, and we accepted the invitation. So the uncle got up delighted, called his niece, and proposed that we should take a stroll in his grounds, saying: ‘We will leave serious matters until tonight.’ Rivet and he began to talk politics, and I soon found myself lagging a little behind with the girl, who was really charming! charming! and with infinite precautions I began to speak to her about her adventure, and try to make her my ally. She did not, however, appear in the least confused, and listened to me with an air of great amusement.

“I said to her: ‘Just think, Mademoiselle, how unpleasant it will be for you. You will have to appear in court, to encounter malicious glances, to speak before everybody, and to relate in public that unfortunate occurrence in the railway-carriage. Do you not think, between ourselves, that it would have been much better for you to have put that dirty scoundrel in his place without calling for assistance, and merely to have changed your carriage?’

“She began to laugh, and replied: ‘What you say is quite true! but what could I do? I was frightened, and when one is frightened, one does not stop to reason with oneself. As soon as I realized the situation, I was very sorry that I had called out, but then it was too late. You must also remember that the idiot threw himself upon me like a madman, without saying a word and looking like a lunatic. I did not even know what he wanted of me.’

“She looked me full in the face, without being nervous or intimidated, and I said to myself: ‘She is a girl with her wits about her: I can quite see how that pig, Morin, came to make a mistake,’ and I went on, jokingly: ‘Come, Mademoiselle, confess that he was excusable, for after all, a man cannot find himself opposite such a pretty girl as you are, without feeling a legitimate desire to kiss her.’

“She laughed more than ever, and showed her teeth, and said: ‘Between the desire and the act, Monsieur, there is room for respect.’ It was a curious expression to use, although not very clear. Abruptly I asked: ‘Well now, supposing I were to kiss you now, what would you do?’ She stopped, looked at me up and down, and then said calmly: ‘Oh! you? That is quite another matter.’

“I knew perfectly well, by Jove, that it was not the same thing at all, as everybody in the neighbourhood called me ‘Handsome Labarbe.’ I was thirty years old in those days, but I asked her: ‘And why, pray?’

“She shrugged her shoulders, and replied: ‘Well! because you are not so stupid as he is.’ And then she added, with a sidelong glance: ‘Nor so ugly, either.’

“Before she could make a movement to avoid me, I had planted a hearty kiss on her cheek. She sprang aside, but it was too late, and then she said: ‘Well, you are not very bashful, either! But don’t do that sort of thing again.’

“I put on a humble look and said in a low voice: ‘Oh! Mademoiselle, as for me, if I long for one thing more than another, it is to be summoned before a magistrate on the same charge as Morin.’

“ ‘Why?’ she asked.

“Looking steadily at her, I replied: ‘Because you are one of the most beautiful creatures living; because it would be an honour and a title to glory for me to have offered you violence, and because people would have said, after seeing you: “Well, Labarbe richly deserves what he has got, but he is a lucky fellow, all the same.” ’

“She began to laugh heartily again, and said: ‘How funny you are!’ And she had not finished the word funny, before I had her in my arms and was showering hungry kisses wherever I could find a place, on her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her mouth occasionally, on her cheeks, in fact, all over her head, some part of which she was obliged to leave exposed, in spite of herself, in order to defend the others. At last she managed to release herself, blushing and angry. ‘You are very ill-mannered, Monsieur,’ she said, ‘and I am sorry I listened to you.’

“I took her hand in some confusion, and stammered out: ‘I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle. I have offended you; I have acted like a brute! Do not be angry with me for what I have done. If you knew⁠—’

“I vainly sought for some excuse, and in a few moments she said: ‘There is nothing for me to know, Monsieur.’ But I had found something to say, and I cried: ‘Mademoiselle, I have been in love with you for a whole year!’

“She was really surprised, and raised her eyes to look at me, and I went on: ‘Yes, Mademoiselle, listen to me. I do not know Morin, and I do not care anything about him. It does not matter to me in the least if he is committed for trial and locked up meanwhile. I saw you here last year; you were down there at the gate, and I was so taken with you, that the thought of you has never left me since, and it does not matter to me whether you believe me or not. I thought you adorable, and the remembrance of you took such a hold on me that I longed to see you again, and so I made use of that fool, Morin, as a pretext, and here I am. Circumstances have made me exceed the due limits of respect, and I can only beg you to pardon me.’

“She was trying to read the truth in my eyes, and was ready to smile again; then she murmured: ‘You humbug!’ But I raised my hand, and said in a sincere voice (and I really believe that I was sincere): ‘I swear to you that I am speaking the truth.’ She replied quite simply: ‘Really?’

“We were alone, quite alone, as Rivet and her uncle had disappeared in a side walk, and I made her a real declaration of love, prolonged and gentle, while I squeezed and kissed her fingers, and she listened to it as to something new and agreeable, without exactly knowing how much of it she was to believe, while in the end I felt agitated, and at last really myself believed what I said. I was pale, anxious, and trembling, and I gently put my arm round her waist, and spoke to her softly, whispering into the little curls over her ears. She seemed dead, so absorbed in thought was she.

“Then her hand touched mine, and she pressed it, and I gently circled her waist with a trembling, and gradually a firmer, grasp. She did not move now, and I touched her cheeks with my lips, and suddenly, without seeking them, mine met hers. It was a long, long kiss, and it would have lasted longer still, if I had not heard ‘Ahem, ahem’ just behind me. She made her escape through the bushes, and I, turning round, saw Rivet coming toward me. He stopped in the middle of the path and said without even smiling: ‘So that is the way in which you settle the affair of that pig, Morin.’

“I replied, conceitedly: ‘One does what one can, my dear fellow. But what about the uncle? How have you got on with him? I will answer for the niece.’

“ ‘I have not been so fortunate with him,’ he replied. Whereupon I took his arm, and we went indoors.

III

“Dinner made me lose my head altogether. I sat beside her, and my hand continually met hers under the tablecloth, my foot touched hers, and our glances met and melted together.

“After dinner we took a walk by moonlight, and I whispered to her all the tender things that rose in my heart. I held her close to me, embracing her every moment, and pressing my lips against hers. Her uncle and Rivet were arguing as they walked in front of us, their shadows following solemnly behind them on the sandy paths. We went in, and soon a messenger brought a telegram from her aunt, saying that she would not return until the first train the next morning, at seven o’clock.

“ ‘Very well, Henriette,’ her uncle said, ‘go and show the gentlemen their rooms.’ She showed Rivet his first, and he whispered to me: ‘There was no danger of her taking us into yours first.’ Then she took me to my room, and as soon as she was alone with me, I took her in my arms again and tried to excite her senses and overcome her resistance, but when she felt that she was near succumbing, she escaped out of the room, and I got between the sheets, very much put out and excited, and feeling rather foolish, for I knew that I should not sleep much. I was wondering how I could have committed such a mistake, when there was a gentle knock at my door, and on my asking who was there, a low voice replied: ‘I.’

“I dressed myself quickly and opened the door, and she came in. ‘I forgot to ask you what you take in the morning,’ she said, ‘chocolate, tea, or coffee?’ I put my arms around her impetuously and said, devouring her with kisses: ‘I will take⁠—I will take⁠—’ But she freed herself from my arms, blew out my candle, and disappeared, and left me alone in the dark, furious, trying to find some matches and not able to do so. At last I got some and I went into the passage, feeling half mad, with my candlestick in my hand.

“What was I going to do? I did not stop to think, I only wanted to find her, and I would. I went a few steps without reflecting, but then I suddenly thought to myself: ‘Suppose I should go into the uncle’s room, what should I say?’ And I stood still, with my head a void, and my heart beating.

“But in a few moments, I thought of an answer: ‘Of course, I shall say that I was looking for Rivet’s room, to speak to him about an important matter,’ and I began to inspect all the doors, trying to find hers. At random I took hold of a key, turned it, the door opened and I went in. There was Henriette, sitting on her bed and looking at me in terror. So I gently pushed the bolt, and going up to her on tiptoe, I said: ‘I forgot to ask you for something to read, Mademoiselle.’ She struggled, but I soon opened the book I was looking for. I will not tell you its title, but it is the most wonderful of romances, the divinest of poems. And when once I had turned the first page, she let me turn over as many leaves as I liked, and I got through so many chapters that our candles were quite burned out.

“Then, after thanking her, I was stealthily returning to my room, when a rough hand seized me, and a voice⁠—it was Rivet’s⁠—whispered in my ear: ‘Are you still settling the affair of that pig, Morin?’

“At seven o’clock the next morning, she herself brought me a cup of chocolate. I have never drunk anything like it, soft, velvety, perfumed, intoxicating, a chocolate to make one swoon with pleasure. I could scarcely take away my mouth from the delicious lips of her cup. She had hardly left the room when Rivet came in. He seemed nervous and irritable like a man who had not slept, and he said to me crossly: ‘If you go on like this, you will end by spoiling the affair of that pig, Morin!’

“At eight o’clock the aunt arrived. Our discussion was very short, the good people withdrew their complaint, and I left five hundred francs for the poor of the town. They wanted to keep us for the day, and they arranged an excursion to go and see some ruins. Henriette made signs to me to stay, behind her uncle’s back, and I accepted, but Rivet was determined to go. I took him aside, and begged and prayed him: ‘Come on, old man, do it for my sake.’ He appeared quite exasperated and kept saying to me: ‘I have had enough of that pig Morin’s affair, do you hear?’

“Of course I was obliged to go also, and it was one of the hardest moments of my life. I could have gone on settling that business as long as I lived, and when we were in the railway carriage, after shaking hands with her in silence, I said to Rivet: ‘You are a mere brute!’ And he replied: ‘My dear fellow, you were beginning to get on my nerves confoundedly.’

“On getting to the Fanal office, I saw a crowd waiting for us, and as soon as they saw us, they all exclaimed: ‘Well, have you settled the affair of that pig, Morin?’ All La Rochelle was excited about it, and Rivet, who had got over his ill humour on the journey, had great difficulty in keeping himself from laughing as he said: ‘Yes, we have managed it, thanks to Labarbe.’ And we went to Morin’s.

“He was sitting in an armchair, with mustard plasters on his legs, and cold bandages on his head, nearly dead with misery. He was coughing incessantly with the short cough of a dying man, without anyone knowing how he had caught this cold, and his wife seemed like a tigress ready to eat him. As soon as he saw us he trembled so violently as to make his hands and knees shake, so I said to him immediately: ‘It is all settled, you dirty scamp, but don’t do such a thing again.’

“He got up, choking, took my hands and kissed them as if they had belonged to a prince, cried, nearly fainted, embraced Rivet, and even kissed Madame Morin, who gave him a push that sent him staggering back into his armchair. But he never got over the blow: his mind had been too upset. In all the country round, moreover, he was called nothing but ‘that pig, Morin,’ and the epithet went through him like a sword-thrust every time he heard it. When a street-boy called after him: ‘Pig!’ he turned his head instinctively. His friends also overwhelmed him with horrible jokes, and used to chaff him, whenever they were eating ham, by saying: ‘Is this a bit of you?’ He died two years later.

“As for myself, when I was a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies in 1875, I called on the new notary at Tousserre, Monsieur Belloncle, to solicit his vote, and a tall, handsome, richly-dressed woman received me. ‘Don’t you remember me?’ she said.

“I stammered out: ‘No⁠ ⁠… No⁠ ⁠… Madame.’

“ ‘Henriette Bonnel?’

“ ‘Ah!’ And I felt myself turning pale, while she seemed perfectly at her ease, and looked at me with a smile.

“As soon as she had left me alone with her husband, he took both of my hands, and squeezing them as if he meant to crush them, he said: ‘I have been intending to go and see you for a long time, my dear sir, for my wife has very often talked to me about you. I know under what painful circumstances you made her acquaintance, and I know also how perfectly you behaved, how full of delicacy, tact, and devotion you showed yourself in the affair⁠—’ He hesitated, and then said in a lower tone, as if he had been saying something low and coarse: ‘In the affair of that pig, Morin.’ ”

Madame Baptiste

When I went into the waiting-room at the station at Loubain, the first thing I did was to look at the clock, and I found that I had two hours and ten minutes to wait for the Paris express.

I felt suddenly tired, as if I had walked twenty miles. Then I looked about me, as if I could find some means of killing the time on the station walls. At last I went out again, and halted outside the gates of the station, racking my brains to find something to do. The street, which was a kind of boulevard planted with stunted laburnum-trees, between two rows of houses of unequal shape and different styles of architecture, houses such as one sees in only small towns, ascended a slight hill, and at the extreme end of it there were some trees, as if it ended in a park.

From time to time a cat crossed the street, and jumped over the gutters, carefully. A cur sniffed impatiently at every tree, and hunted for fragments from the kitchens, but I did not see a single human being. I felt listless and disheartened. What could I do with myself? I was already thinking of the inevitable and interminable visit to the small café at the railway station, where I should have to sit over a glass of undrinkable beer, and an unreadable local newspaper, when I saw a funeral procession coming out of a side street into the one in which I was, and the sight of the hearse was a relief to me. It would, at any rate, give me something to do for ten minutes.

Suddenly, however, my attention was redoubled. The corpse was followed by only eight gentlemen, one of whom was weeping, while the others were chatting together. But there was no priest, and I thought to myself: “This is a non-religious funeral,” but then I reflected that a town like Loubain must contain at least a hundred freethinkers, who would have made a point of making a manifestation. What could it be, then? The rapid pace of the procession clearly proved that the body was to be buried without ceremony, and, consequently, without the intervention of religion.

My idle curiosity played with the most complicated suppositions, and, as the hearse passed, a strange idea struck me, namely, to follow it with the eight gentlemen. That would take up my time for an hour, at least, and I, accordingly, walked with the others, with a sad look on my face, and on seeing this, the two last turned round in surprise, and then spoke to each other in a low voice.

No doubt, they were asking each other whether I belonged to the town, and then they consulted the two in front of them, who stared at me in turn. The close attention they paid me annoyed me, and to put an end to it, I went up to them, and after bowing, said:

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for interrupting your conversation, but seeing a civil funeral, I have followed it, although I did not know the deceased gentleman whom you are accompanying.”

“It is a woman,” one of them said.

I was much surprised at hearing this, and asked:

“But it is a civil funeral, is it not?”

The other gentleman, who evidently wished to tell me all about it, then said: “Yes and no. The clergy have refused to allow us the use of the church.”

On hearing that, I uttered a prolonged A‑h! of astonishment. I could not understand it at all, but my obliging neighbour continued:

“It is rather a long story. This young woman committed suicide, and that is the reason why she cannot be buried with any religious ceremony. The gentleman who is walking first, and who is crying, is her husband.”

I replied, with some hestitation:

“You surprise and interest me very much, Monsieur. Shall I be indiscreet if I ask you to tell me the facts of the case? If I am troubling you, consider these words unsaid.”

The gentleman took my arm familiarly.

“Not at all, not at all. Let us stop a little behind the others, and I will tell you, although it is a very sad story. We have plenty of time before getting to the cemetery, whose trees you see up yonder, for it is a stiff pull up this hill.”

And he began:

“This young woman, Madame Paul Hamot, was the daughter of Monsieur Fontanelle, a wealthy merchant in the neighbourhood. When she was a mere child of eleven, she had a terrible adventure; a footman violated her. She nearly died, in consequence, for she was injured by this wretch, whose brutality betrayed him. A terrible criminal case was the result, and as it was proved that for three months the poor young martyr had been the victim of that brute’s disgraceful practices, he was sentenced to penal servitude for life.

“The little girl grew up, stigmatised by her disgrace, isolated, without any companions, and grown-up people would scarcely kiss her, for they thought they would soil their lips if they touched her forehead. She became a sort of monster, a phenomenon to all the town. People said to each other in a whisper: ‘You know little Fontanelle,’ and everybody turned away in the streets when she passed. Her parents could not even get a maid to take her out for a walk, and the other servants held aloof from her, as if contact with her would poison everybody who came near her.

“It was pitiable to see the poor child on the playground where the kids amuse themselves every afternoon. She remained all alone, standing beside her maid, and looking at the other children amusing themselves. Sometimes, yielding to an irresistible desire to mix with the other children, she advanced, timidly, with nervous gestures, and mingled with a group, with furtive steps, as if conscious of her own infamy. And immediately the mothers, aunts, and nurses used to come running from every seat, taking the children entrusted to their care by the hand and dragging them brutally away.

“Little Fontanelle would remain isolated, wretched, without understanding what it meant, and then would begin to cry, heartbroken with grief, and run and hide her head in her nurse’s lap, sobbing.

“As she grew up, it was worse still. They kept the girls from her, as if she were stricken with the plague. Remember that she had nothing to learn, nothing; that she no longer had the right to the symbolical wreath of orange-flowers; that almost before she could read, she had penetrated that redoubtable mystery which mothers scarcely allow their daughters to guess, trembling as they enlighten them on the night of their marriage.

“When she went through the streets, always accompanied by a governess⁠—as if her parents feared some fresh, terrible adventure⁠—with her eyes cast down under the load of that mysterious disgrace which she felt was always weighing upon her, the other girls, who were not nearly so innocent as people thought, whispered and giggled as they looked at her knowingly, and immediately turned their heads absently if she happened to look at them. People scarcely greeted her; only a few men bowed to her, and the mothers pretended not to see her, while some young blackguards called her ‘Madame Baptiste,’ after the name of the footman who had outraged and ruined her.

“Nobody knew the secret torture of her mind, for she hardly ever spoke and never laughed; her parents themselves appeared uncomfortable in her presence, as if they bore her a constant grudge for some irreparable fault.

“An honest man would not willingly give his hand to a liberated convict, would he, even if that convict were his own son? And Monsieur and Madame Fontanelle looked on their daughter as they would have done on a son who had just been released from the hulks. She was pretty and pale, tall, slender, distinguished-looking, and she would have pleased me very much, Monsieur, but for that unfortunate affair.

“Well, when a new subprefect was appointed here eighteen months ago, he brought his private secretary with him. He was a queer sort of fellow, who had lived in the Latin Quarter, it appears. He saw Mademoiselle Fontanelle, and fell in love with her, and when told of what occurred, he merely said: ‘Bah! That is just a guarantee for the future, and I would rather it should have happened before I married her, than afterward. I shall sleep tranquilly with that woman.’

“He paid his addresses to her, asked for her hand, and married her, and then, not being deficient in boldness, he paid wedding-calls, as if nothing had happened. Some people returned them, others did not, but at last the affair began to be forgotten and she took her proper place in society.

“She adored her husband as if he had been a god, for you must remember that he had restored her to honour and to social life, that he had braved public opinion, faced insults, and, in a word, performed a courageous act, such as few men would accomplish, and she felt the most exalted and unceasing love for him.

“When she became pregnant, and it was known, the most particular people and the greatest sticklers opened their doors to her, as if she had been definitely purified by maternity.

“It is funny, but true, and thus everything was going on as well as possible, when, the other day, occurred the feast of the patron saint of our town. The prefect, surrounded by his staff and the authorities, presided at the musical competition, and when he had finished his speech, the distribution of medals began, which Paul Hamot, his private secretary, handed to those who were entitled to them.

“As you know, there are always jealousies and rivalries, which make people forget all propriety. All the ladies of the town were there on the platform, and, in his proper turn, the bandmaster from the village of Mourmillon came up. This band was only to receive a second-class medal, for you cannot give first-class medals to everybody, can you? But when the private secretary handed him his badge, the man threw it in his face and exclaimed:

“ ‘You may keep your medal for Baptiste. You owe him a first-class one, also, just as you do me.’

“There were a number of people there who began to laugh. The common herd are neither charitable nor refined, and every eye was turned toward that poor lady. Have you ever seen a woman going mad, Monsieur? Well, we were present at the sight! She got up, and fell back on her chair three times in succession, as if she wished to make her escape, but saw that she could not make her way through the crowd. Then another voice in the crowd exclaimed:

“ ‘Oh! Oh! Madame Baptiste!’

“And a great uproar, partly laughter and partly indignation, arose. The word was repeated over and over again; people stood on tiptoe to see the unhappy woman’s face; husbands lifted their wives up in their arms so that they might see her, and people asked:

“ ‘Which is she? The one in blue?’

“The boys crowed like cocks and laughter was heard all over the place.

“She did not move now on her state chair, just as if she had been put there for the crowd to look at. She could not move, nor disappear, nor hide her face. Her eyelids blinked quickly, as if a vivid light were shining in her face, and she panted like a horse that is going up a steep hill, so that it almost broke one’s heart to see it. Meanwhile, however, Monsieur Hamot had seized the ruffian by the throat, and they were rolling on the ground together, amid a scene of indescribable confusion, and the ceremony was interrupted.

“An hour later, as the Hamots were returning home, the young woman, who had not uttered a word since the insult, but who was trembling as if all her nerves had been set in motion by springs, suddenly sprang on the parapet of the bridge, and threw herself into the river, before her husband could prevent it. The water is very deep under the arches, and it was two hours before her body was recovered. Of course, she was dead.”

The narrator stopped, and then added:

“It was, perhaps, the best thing she could do in her position. There are some things which cannot be wiped out, and now you understand why the clergy refused to have her taken into church. Ah! If it had been a religious funeral, the whole town would have been present, but you can understand that her suicide, added to the other affair, made families abstain from attending her funeral. And then, it is not an easy matter, here, to attend a funeral which is performed without religious rites.”

We passed through the cemetery gates, and I waited, much moved by what I had heard, until the coffin had been lowered into the grave before I went up to the poor husband, who was sobbing violently, to press his hand vigorously. He looked at me in surprise through his tears, and said:

“Thank you, Monsieur.”

I was not sorry that I had followed the funeral.

My Wife

It was at the close of a dinner party consisting of men, married men, old friends, who sometimes met together without their wives, like bachelors, as in former days. They had eaten for a long while, and had drunk a great deal, talked on every subject and renewed happy memories of days gone by, those glowing memories that cause the lips to smile and the heart to tremble in spite of oneself.

Someone said:

“Do you remember, George, our excursion to Saint-Germain with those two young girls from Montmartre?”

“Certainly! Of course I do.”

And they brought up details, this and that, a thousand little things, the thoughts of which gave them pleasure even now.

They happened to speak about marriage, and everyone said in a serious voice: “Oh! if I had it to do over again!⁠ ⁠…” George Duportin added: “It is strange how easily you drop into it. You make up your mind never to take a wife, and then in the spring you go away into the country; the weather is warm; the summer promises well; everything is in bloom; you meet a young girl at a friend’s house⁠ ⁠… presto! it is done. You come home married.”

Pierre Létoile cried out: “Just so! that’s my story, only in my case the circumstances were peculiar⁠ ⁠…”

His friend interrupted him: “As for you, you have nothing to complain of. You surely have the most charming wife in the world, she is pretty, amiable, in fact, perfect; certainly you are the happiest of us all.”

The former replied:

“I’m not responsible for that.”

“Why not?”

“It is true that I have a perfect wife, but I married her in spite of myself.”

“Nonsense.”

“Yes⁠—This is the story: I was thirty years old, and I thought no more of marrying than of hanging myself. Young girls always seemed to me insipid, and I was exceedingly fond of pleasure.

“In the month of May I was invited to the wedding of my cousin Simon d’Erabel, in Normandy. It was a real Norman wedding. The people sat down at table at five o’clock in the afternoon; and at eleven o’clock they were still eating. On this occasion my partner was a Miss Dumoulin, the daughter of a retired colonel, a blonde young woman with a military air, well-built, fearless and loquacious. She monopolized me completely all day long, took me walking in the park, made me dance whether I wanted to or not, and bored me.

“I said to myself: ‘I’ll bear it today, but tomorrow I’ll escape. I’ve had enough.’

“About eleven o’clock at night the women retired to their rooms and the men remained to smoke while drinking, or to drink while smoking if you prefer.

“Through the open window could be seen the rustic ball. Country lads and lasses skipped in a circle while they sang in a loud voice the tune of a wild dance feebly accompanied by two violinists and a clarinettist who used the top of a large kitchen table as a platform. The tumultuous song of the country people sometimes completely drowned the sound of the instruments; and the feeble music, torn to pieces by their uncontrolled voices, seemed to fall from the sky in shreds, in small fragments of scattered notes. From two huge casks surrounded by flaming torches there poured drink for the crowd. Two men were busy rinsing the glasses, or bowls, in a tub so as to have them ready as quickly as possible to place under the faucets from which ran the red thread of wine or the golden thread of pure cider; and the thirsty dancers, the sedate elderly people, the perspiring girls, came there extending their arms to take, in their turn, whatever kind of cup they could find, and throwing back their heads took copious draughts of whichever drink they preferred. On one table was bread, butter, cheeses and sausages. Everybody swallowed a mouthful from time to time; and on the starlit field this healthy and energetic fête was a pleasure to behold and made me want to drink to the health of those huge casks, and eat hard bread with butter and a raw onion.

“A foolish desire took possession of me to take part in their festivities and I left my companions.

“I must acknowledge that I was then somewhat tipsy, and soon became quite drunk.

“I seized the hand of a strong peasant girl who was out of breath, and I made her skip around wildly until I was breathless. After drinking some more wine I seized another jolly girl and, to refresh myself, I swallowed a full bowl of cider, and I began to jump about like one possessed.

“I was supple, the lads were delighted, and watched me as they tried to imitate me; all the girls wanted to dance with me and they skipped about heavily, with cow-like grace.

“At last after many dances and glass after glass of wine and cider, I became so tipsy about two o’clock in the morning, that I could hardly stand up.

“I was conscious of my condition and I wanted to go to my bedroom. The château was asleep, silent, and sombre.

“I had no matches and everyone had gone to bed. As soon as I was inside the vestibule I was seized with dizziness: I had great difficulty in finding the banister; at last I came across it by chance, as I was groping about, and I sat down on the first step of the staircase trying to collect my ideas.

“My bedroom was on the second floor, the third door to the left. Happily I had not forgotten that. Confident that I remembered correctly, I got up again, but not without difficulty, and I began to go upstairs, step by step, my hands glued to the iron railing to prevent myself from falling, and trying my best not to make any noise.

“Three or four times my foot missed the following step, and I fell on my knees, but thanks to the strength of my arms and my great determination, I avoided rolling downstairs.

“At last I reached the second story, and ventured down the corridor, groping along the walls. Here was one door: I counted ‘One’; but a sudden dizziness made me let go the wall and turn round in an erratic circle that threw me against the other partition. I tried to return in a straight line. The passage was long and difficult, but at last I came up against the side wall and I once more carefully felt my way along it until I came to another door. To make certain that I was not mistaken, I again counted aloud: ‘Two’; and I continued walking. After some time I found the third, and I said: ‘Three, that’s mine,’ and as I turned the key in the lock the door opened. In spite of my confusion I thought, ‘as the door opens it must be my room,’ and I advanced in the darkness after closing the door softly.

“I came up against something soft, my couch, and I stretched myself out on it.

“In my condition I did not try to find my night table, my candlestick, or my matches. It would have taken me two hours or so. It would have taken me as long again to undress, and perhaps even then I would not have succeeded, so I did not attempt it.

“I took off my shoes, unbuttoned my vest which felt uncomfortably tight, and loosening my trousers, slept most soundly.

“I must have been sleeping a long while, when I was suddenly awakened by a penetrating voice calling out quite near me: ‘What, you lazy girl, still asleep? Do you know that it is ten o’clock?’

“A woman’s voice replied: ‘Already! I was so tired yesterday.’

“Half asleep, I asked myself what this conversation meant.

“Where was I? What had I done?

“My mind wandered, as it was still wrapped in a thick cloud. The first voice replied: ‘I will open your curtains.’

“And I heard steps approaching. I sat up completely bewildered. Then a hand was placed upon my head. I made a quick movement. The voice demanded emphatically: ‘Who’s there?’ I took good care not to answer. Two angry hands caught hold of me. In my turn I seized someone, and a terrible struggle began. We fought, overturning the furniture and striking against the walls.

“The woman’s voice cried out in a frightened tone: ‘Help, help!’

“The servants, the neighbours, and the frightened ladies all hurried to the scene. They opened the shutters, and drew back the curtains. I was grappling with Colonel Dumoulin!

“I had slept beside his daughter’s bed.

“As soon as we had been separated I fled to my room, stupefied with fright. I locked myself in and sat down, placing my feet on a chair, for my shoes were in the young woman’s room.

“I heard a great commotion throughout the château, doors opening and shutting, whispering, and rapid steps.

“After half an hour someone knocked at my door. I cried, ‘Who’s there?’ It was my uncle, the father of the young man who had been married the previous evening, and I let him in.

“He was pale and furiously angry, and he was very severe with me. ‘You have conducted yourself in my house like a cad, do you hear?’ Then in a softer tone he added: ‘What a damned idiot you are to let them catch you there at ten o’clock in the morning! You slept like a log in that room instead of going as soon after as possible.

“I exclaimed: ‘But uncle, I assure you that there was nothing amiss, I mistook my door because I was tipsy.’

“He shrugged his shoulders: ‘Go along, don’t tell me any such nonsense.’ I raised my hand. ‘I swear to you on my honour.’ My uncle continued: ‘Yes, that’s all right, you are in duty bound to say that.’

“I became angry in my turn, and I told him all about my mishap. He gazed at me in astonishment, not knowing what he ought to believe.

“Then he went out to confer with the colonel. I also learned that a kind of court composed of mothers had been formed, and that the different phases of the situation had been submitted to them.

“An hour later he returned, sat down with the air of a judge, and began: ‘Whichever way it is, I see only one way out of it for you and that is to marry Miss Dumoulin.’

“I was so frightened that I jumped up.

“ ‘Do that! never in the world!’

“He gravely asked: ‘What do you intend to do then?’

“I artlessly replied: ‘Well⁠—I shall leave as soon as my boots are returned.’ My uncle replied: ‘No joking if you please. The colonel has resolved to blow out your brains as soon as he sees you, and you may be sure it is not a vain threat. I suggested a duel, but he replied: “No, I tell you I will blow his brains out.”

“ ‘Let us now look at this question from another standpoint.

“ ‘Either you ruined this child⁠—so much the worse for you, my boy, young girls should not be treated thus⁠—or else you made a mistake because you were tipsy, as you say. Then so much the worse for you. You should not have placed yourself in such a foolish position. Whichever way it is the young girl has lost her reputation, for the explanations of a drunkard are never believed. In this case she is the real victim, the only victim. Think it over.’

“And he departed while I cried after him: ‘Say what you like, I won’t marry her.’

“After this I remained alone for an hour.

“Then my aunt came in her turn. She was weeping. She tried every way of reasoning with me. No one believed in my mistake. No one could believe that this young girl had forgotten to lock her door in a house full of people. The colonel had struck her and she had been sobbing all the morning. It was a terrible scandal that could not be effaced.

“And my good aunt added: ‘All the same, ask her hand in marriage; perhaps you may find means of escape while discussing the marriage contract.’ This view comforted me. And I consented to write my offer. An hour later I left for Paris.

“The next day I was advised that my suit had been accepted. So, in three weeks’ time, as I could not find an excuse, or evade it in any way, the banns were published, the invitations sent out, the contract signed, and one Monday morning I found myself in the chancel of a lighted church, by the side of a weeping young girl, having previously sworn to the mayor that I consented to take her as my companion⁠—until the death of one of us.

“I had not seen her since, and I glanced sideways at her with a certain hostile astonishment. Well, she was not ugly; no, not in the least ugly. I said to myself, ‘There’s a woman who will not be very amusing every day.’

“She did not look at me once until evening, and never addressed a word to me.

“Toward the middle of the night I entered the nuptial chamber intending to tell her what I had decided to do, for I was master now.

“I found her seated in an armchair, dressed in her day clothes, her eyes red, and face pale. She arose as soon as I entered and came toward me with a serious air.

“ ‘Sir,’ said she to me, ‘I am willing to do what you order me. I will kill myself if you wish.’

“She looked so pretty in this heroic part, the daughter of the colonel, that I embraced her as I had a right to, and soon saw that I had not been cheated.

“I have been married five years, and I have never regretted it in the least.”

Pierre Létoile stopped speaking. His companions laughed. One of them said: “Marriage is a lottery; one should never choose numbers, those drawn at haphazard are the best.”

And the other added in conclusion: “Yes, but do not forget that it was the Providence that watches over drunkards, who chose for Pierre.”

The Snipe

For forty years old Baron des Ravots had been the champion sportsman of his province. But a stroke of paralysis had kept him in his chair for the last five or six years. He could now only shoot pigeons from the window of his drawing room or from the top of the great flight of steps in front of his house. He spent the rest of his time in reading.

He was a good-natured business man, who had much of the literary spirit of the past century. He loved anecdotes, little risqué anecdotes, true stories of events that happened in his neighbourhood. As soon as a friend came to see him he would ask:

“Well, anything new?”

And he knew how to cross-examine like a lawyer.

On sunny days he had his large armchair, which was like a bed, wheeled to the hall door. A servant behind him held his guns, loaded them and handed them to his master. Another valet, hidden in the bushes, let fly a pigeon from time to time at irregular intervals, so that the baron should be unprepared and be always on the watch.

And from morning till night he fired at the birds, much annoyed if he were taken by surprise and laughing till he cried when the animal fell straight to the earth or turned over in some comical and unexpected manner. He would turn to the man who was loading the gun and say, almost choking with laughter:

“Did that get him, Joseph? Did you see how he fell?” Joseph invariably replied:

“Oh, Monsieur le Baron never misses them.”

In autumn, when the shooting season opened, he invited his friends as he had done formerly, and loved to hear them firing in the distance. He counted the shots and was pleased when they followed each other rapidly. And in the evening he made each guest give a faithful account of his day. They remained three hours at table telling about their sport.

They were strange and improbable adventures in which the loquacious temper of the sportsmen delighted. Some of them were already historical stories and were repeated regularly. The story of a rabbit that little Vicomte de Bourril had missed in his hall convulsed them with laughter each year anew. Every five minutes a fresh speaker would say:

“I heard birr! birr! and a magnificent covey rose at ten paces from me. I aimed. Bang! Bang! and I saw a shower, a veritable shower of birds. There were seven of them!”

And they all went into raptures, amazed, but reciprocally credulous.

But there was an old custom in the house called “The Story of the Snipe.”

Whenever this queen of birds was in season the same ceremony took place at each dinner. As they loved this incomparable bird, each guest ate one every evening, but the heads were all left in the dish.

Then the baron, acting the part of a bishop, had a plate brought to him containing a little fat, and he carefully anointed the precious heads, holding them by the tip of their slender, needle-like beaks. A lighted candle was placed beside him and everyone was silent in an anxiety of expectation.

Then he took one of the heads thus prepared, stuck a pin through it and stuck the pin on a cork, keeping the whole contrivance steady by means of little crossed sticks, and carefully balanced this object on the neck of a bottle like a sort of turnstile.

All the guests counted simultaneously in a loud tone:

“One⁠—two⁠—three.”

And the baron with a flip of his finger made this toy whirl round.

The guest at whom the long beak pointed when the head stopped became the possessor of all the heads, a feast fit for a king, which made his neighbours look envious.

He took them one by one and toasted them over the candle. The grease sputtered, the roasting flesh smoked and the lucky winner ate the head, holding it by the beak and uttering exclamations of enjoyment.

And at each head the diners, raising their glasses, drank to his health.

When he had finished the last head he was obliged, at the baron’s orders, to tell an anecdote to compensate the disappointed ones.

Here are some of the stories.

The Mad Woman

That reminds me of a terrible story of the Franco-Prussian war (said Monsieur d’Endolin). You know my house in the faubourg de Cormeil. I was living there when the Prussians came, and I had for a neighbour a kind of mad woman, who had lost her senses in consequence of a series of misfortunes, as at the age of twenty-five she had lost her father, her husband and her newly born child, all in the space of a month.

When death has once entered a house, it almost invariably returns immediately, as if it knew the way, and the young woman, overwhelmed with grief, took to her bed and was delirious for six weeks. Then, a species of calm lassitude succeeded that violent crisis, and she remained motionless, eating next to nothing, and only moving her eyes. Every time they tried to make her get up, she screamed as if they were about to kill her, and so they ended by leaving her continually in bed, and only taking her out to wash her, to change her linen and to turn her mattress.

An old servant remained with her, who gave her something to drink, or a little cold meat, from time to time. What was happening in that anguished mind? No one ever knew, for she never spoke again. Was she thinking of the dead? Was she dreaming sadly, without any precise recollection of anything that had happened? Or was her stunned memory as still as stagnant water? For fifteen years she remained thus inert and secluded.

The war broke out, and in the beginning of December the Germans came to Cormeil. I can remember it as if it were but yesterday. It was freezing hard enough to split the stones, and I, myself, was lying back in an armchair, being unable to move on account of the gout, when I heard their heavy and regular tread; I could see them pass, from my window.

They marched past interminably, with that peculiar motion of a puppet on wires which is peculiar to them. Then the officers billeted their men on the inhabitants, and I had seventeen of them. My neighbour, the mad woman, had a dozen, one of whom was a major, a regular, violent, surly swashbuckler.

During the first few days everything went on swimmingly. The officer next door had been told that the lady was ill, and he did not pay any attention to that in the least, but soon this woman, whom they never saw, irritated him. He asked what her illness was, and was told that she had been in bed for fifteen years, in consequence of terrible grief. No doubt he did not believe it, and thought that the poor mad creature would not leave her bed out of pride, so that she might not come near the Prussians, nor speak to them, nor even see them.

He insisted upon her receiving him, and he was shown into the room, and said to her roughly: “I must beg you to get up, Madame, and to come downstairs so that we may all see you,” but she merely turned her vague eyes on him, without replying, and so he continued: “I do not intend to tolerate any insolence, and if you do not get up of your own accord, I can easily find means to make you walk without any assistance.”

But she did not give any signs of having heard him, and remained quite motionless, and then he got furious, as he took that calm silence for a mark of supreme contempt, and so he added: “If you do not come downstairs tomorrow⁠ ⁠…” And then he left the room.

The next day the terrified old servant tried to dress her, but the mad woman began to scream violently, and resisted with all her might. The officer ran upstairs quickly, and the servant threw herself at his feet and cried: “She will not come down, monsieur, she will not. Forgive her, for she is so unhappy.”

The soldier was embarrassed, as in spite of his anger, he did not venture to order his soldiers to drag her out, but suddenly he began to laugh, and gave some orders in German, and soon a party of soldiers was seen coming out supporting a mattress as if they were carrying a wounded man. On that bed, which had not been unmade, the mad woman, who was still silent, was lying quietly, for she was quite indifferent to anything that went on, as long as they let her lie. Behind her, a soldier was carrying a bundle of feminine attire, and the officer said, rubbing his hands: “We will just see whether you cannot dress yourself alone, and take a little walk.”

And then the procession went off in the direction of the forest of Imauville; in two hours the soldiers came back alone, and nothing more was seen of the mad woman. What had they done with her? Where had they taken her to? No one ever knew.

The snow was falling was falling day and night, and enveloped the plain and the woods in a shroud of frozen foam, and the wolves came and howled at our very doors.

The thought of that poor lost woman haunted me, and I made several applications to the Prussian authorities in order to obtain some information, and was nearly shot for doing so. When spring returned, the army of occupation withdrew, but my neighbour’s house remained closed; the grass grew thick in the garden walks. The old servant had died during the winter, and nobody troubled any longer about that affair; I alone thought about it constantly. What had they done with the woman? Had she escaped through the forest? Had somebody found her, and taken her to a hospital, without being able to obtain any information from her? Nothing happened to relieve my doubts; but, by degrees, time assuaged my anxiety.

Well, in the following autumn the woodcock were very plentiful, and as I had some respite from my gout, I dragged myself as far as the forest. I had already killed four or five of the long-billed birds, when I knocked over one which fell into a ditch full of branches, and I was obliged to get into it, in order to pick it up, and I found that it had fallen beside a human skull, and immediately the recollection of the mad woman struck me, like a blow in the chest. Many other people had perhaps died in the wood during that disastrous year. I do not know why, yet I was sure, sure, I tell you, that I had stumbled upon the head of that wretched maniac.

And suddenly I understood, I guessed everything. They had abandoned her on that mattress in the cold, deserted wood; and, faithful to her obsession, she had allowed herself to perish under that thick and light counterpane of snow, without moving an arm or a leg.

Then the wolves had devoured her, and the birds had built their nests with the wool from her torn bed. I took charge of her remains, and I only pray that our sons may never see war again.

Artfulness

“Women?

“Well, what then? Women?

“Well, there are no such schemers in the world for landing you into trouble on every opportunity, with or without a reason, often for the sole pleasure of playing you. They cheat with incredible simplicity, amazing audacity, and invincible cunning. They cheat from morning to night, every one of them, the best of them, the most straightforward, the most sensible.

“Let us grant that they are sometimes almost driven to it. Man is always giving way to idiotic fits of obstinacy and tyrannical desires. In the home a husband is always insisting upon his own ridiculous way. He is full of crazes which his wife encourages while she turns them to account. She makes him believe that a thing costs so much because he would make a fuss if it were worth more. She always manages to extricate herself cleverly by methods so simple and wily that we cannot believe our senses when we do happen to notice what is happening. We say to ourselves, spellbound: ‘Why did we not notice this before?’ ”

The man who spoke was an ex-minister of the Empire, the Count of L⁠⸺, a real rake, and very intelligent. A group of young men were listening to him.

He continued: “I was victimised by an ordinary little bourgeoise in a most brazen and amusing manner. I will tell you about it that you may profit thereby.

“I was then at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I used to go for a long walk in the Champs Élysées every morning. It was May, and as I walked I inhaled greedily the sweet odour of the budding leaves.

“I soon noticed that I met an adorable little woman every day, one of those surprising, graceful creatures with the stamp of Paris upon them. Pretty? Yes and no. A good figure? No, better than that. I admit that her waist was too small, her shoulders too straight, her chest too curved, but I prefer these exquisite human dolls with their graceful curves to the big carcass of the Venus de Milo.

“Besides, they trip along in a way peculiar to themselves; the mere sight of their fluttering movements fills the very marrow of your bones with desire. She seemed to look at me as we passed each other. But these women are apparently capable of anything; one never knows.⁠ ⁠… One morning I saw her sitting on a bench holding an open book. I promptly sat down beside her, and five minutes later we were friends. Then, every day, after the smiling greeting: ‘Good morning, Madame’⁠—‘Good morning, Monsieur,’ we chatted. She told me she was the wife of a clerk, that her life was sad, that her pleasures were few and that cares were numerous, and a thousand other things. I told her who I was, partly through thoughtlessness and partly perhaps through vanity: she made a very good pretence at being surprised. The following day she came to the Ministry to see me, and returned so often that the ushers soon got to know her and whispered to each other ‘Madame Léon’ (the name they had given her) whenever they saw her; Léon happens to be my Christian name.

“For three months I saw her every morning without growing tired of her for a second, so thoroughly skilled was she in the art of varying and intensifying her demonstrations of affection. But one day I noticed that her eyes were haggard and shining with suppressed tears, that she could scarcely speak, she was so preoccupied.

“I begged, I implored her to tell me the cause of her distress, and she ended by stammering: ‘I am⁠—I am enceinte,’ with a shiver of apprehension. And she burst out sobbing. Oh! I made a horrible face, and I doubtless turned pale as men do at news of that kind. You cannot conceive what a shock it is to hear you are to be a father when you don’t expect it. But you will all know in time. All I could say was: ‘But⁠—but⁠—you are married, aren’t you?’ She answered: ‘Yes, but my husband has been in Italy for two months and will not return for some time.’

“I was determined at any cost to get out of my responsibility, and said: ‘You must join him immediately.’

“She blushed to her eyebrows and, looking down, replied: ‘Yes⁠—but⁠—,’ not daring or not wishing to finish the sentence.

“I had understood, and discreetly handed her an envelope containing the expenses of the journey.

“A week later she wrote to me from Genoa, the following week I received a letter from Florence, then from Leghorn, Rome, Naples. She said: ‘I am quite well, my dear love, but I am hideous. I am not going to let you see me till it is all over; you would cease to love me. My husband suspects nothing. As his business will keep him in this country for a long time still, I will only come back to France after my confinement.’ And after about eight months I received from Venice these few words: ‘It is a boy.’

“Some time after, she suddenly entered my study one morning, fresher and prettier than ever, and threw herself into my arms.

“And our old relations of intimacy were resumed.

“I left the Ministry and she came to my house in the Rue de Grenelle. She often talked to me about the child, but I paid very little attention: it did not concern me. Occasionally I gave her a considerable sum of money, saying: ‘Invest that for him.’

“Two more years passed by and she became more and more determined to give me news of the youngster, ‘of Léon.’ Sometimes she would say with tears in her eyes: ‘You don’t care about him; you won’t even see him; if you knew how miserable you make me!’

“Finally she worried me to such an extent that I promised to go the next morning to the Champs Élysées when she was taking him for his walk.

“But as I was leaving the house I was stopped by a feeling of dread. Man is weak and foolish; there was no knowing what might happen. Supposing I were to love this little mite, this small being who owed his life to me! my son!

“My hat was on my head, and my gloves were in my hands. I threw the gloves on my desk, and my hat on a chair: ‘No, I will certainly not go, it is wiser not.’

“The door opened and my brother entered the room, holding out an anonymous letter received that morning.

“ ‘Warn your brother, the Count of L⁠⸺, that the little woman of the Rue Cassette is making game of him in the most shameless manner. Tell him to make inquiries about her.’

“I had never said a word to anybody about this long-standing intrigue. I was surprised, and told my brother the whole story from beginning to end. I added: ‘Personally, I don’t want to be bothered, but it would be kind of you to find out what you can.’

“When my brother had gone, I said to myself: ‘How can she be deceiving me? She has other lovers? What do I care? She is young, fresh and pretty: I ask no more. She seems to love me and, after all, does not cost me much. Really, I don’t understand what it’s all about.’

“My brother soon returned. The police had given him accurate information about the husband: ‘A clerk at the Home Office, correct and well reported upon, with the correct official views, but married to a very pretty woman whose expenses seemed rather high for her modest position.’ That was all.

“Now, my brother having sought for her at her house and having learned that she had gone out, succeeded in making the concierge gossip, with the assistance of a large tip.

“ ‘Madame D. is an excellent woman, and her husband a most worthy man; they are neither rich nor proud, but they are generous.’

“For the sake of saying something, my brother asked: ‘How old is the little boy now?’

“ ‘But she has no little boy, sir.’

“ ‘What? Little Léon?’

“ ‘No, sir, you are making a mistake.’

“ ‘I mean the child she had when she was in Italy, about two years ago.’

“ ‘She has never been to Italy, sir, she has never once left this house during the five years she has been living here.’

“Surprised, my brother continued his questions, carrying his investigations as far as possible. No child! No journey! I was astounded, but was far from understanding what would come of it.

“ ‘I want,’ said I, ‘to have a clear conscience on the subject. I will beg her to come and see me tomorrow. You must see her for me. If she has played a trick upon me, you will hand over to her this ten thousand francs and I will never see her again. In fact I am beginning to have enough of her.’

“Would you believe it? The night before, I was distressed because I had a child by that woman, and now I was ashamed, hurt and irritable because there was no child. I found myself free from all obligations and from all anxiety, and yet I felt indignant. The next day my brother awaited her in my study. She came in quickly, as usual, rushing towards him with arms outstretched, and stopped dead when she saw who it was.

“He bowed and apologised.

“ ‘I beg your pardon, Madame, for being here instead of my brother; but he has authorised me to ask you for an explanation, which it would have been painful for him to do himself.’

“Then, looking her straight in the face, he said abruptly: ‘We know you have not had a child by him.’

“After the first moment of surprise, she recovered her composure, took a seat, and gazed smilingly at the man who was sitting in judgment on her.

“ ‘No; I have no child.’

“ ‘We also know that you have never been to Italy.’

“This time she laughed outright:

“ ‘No, I have never been in Italy.’

“Aghast, my brother continued:

“ ‘The Count has requested me to hand you this money and to tell you that the affair is ended.’

“At that she became serious, calmly put the money into her pocket, and said ingenuously: ‘So⁠—I shall never see the Count again?’

“ ‘No, Madame.’

“She seemed upset and added quietly: ‘It can’t be helped, I was very fond of him.’

“Seeing that she had decided to make the best of things as they were, my brother smilingly asked her:

“ ‘Now, tell me why you invented this long and complicated falsehood of the journey and the child.’

“She looked at my brother, amazed, as if he had asked a very stupid question, and replied:

“ ‘Well, you are queer! Do you think a poor little insignificant bourgeoise like me could have kept the Count of L⁠⸺, a minister, a great nobleman, a popular man in society, wealthy and attractive, for three years if she had not given him something to think about? Now it’s over. It can’t be helped, it could not last forever. Nevertheless I have been successful for three years. Do not forget to remember me kindly to him.’

“She got up to go. My brother went on with his questions:

“ ‘But⁠—the child? You had one to show him?’

“ ‘Certainly, my sister’s child. She lent it to me. I bet it was she who warned you.’

“ ‘Good! And the letters from Italy?’

“She sat down again to laugh with comfort.

“ ‘Oh! the letters, well, that’s a real poem. The Count was not at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for nothing.’

“ ‘But⁠—the rest.’

“ ‘The rest is my secret. I am not going to compromise anyone.’ And bowing to him with a slightly mocking smile, she made her exit, like an actress whose part is ended, without showing any feeling.”

And the Count of L⁠⸺ added by way of moral: “Don’t put your trust in birds of that feather.”

The Legend of Mont Saint-Michel

I had first seen it from Cancale, this fairy castle planted in the sea. I had seen it dimly, like a gray shadow rising in the foggy sky. I saw it again from Avranches at sunset. The immense stretch of sand was red, the horizon was red, the whole boundless bay was red; alone, the Abbey, growing out there in the distance like a fantastic manor, like a dream palace, incredibly strange and beautiful this alone remained almost black in the purple of the dying day.

The following morning at dawn I went towards it across the sands. My eyes fastened on this gigantic jewel, as big as a mountain, cut like a cameo, and as dainty as lace. The nearer I approached the greater my admiration grew, for perhaps nothing in the world is more wonderful or more perfect.

As surprised as if I had discovered the habitation of a god, I wandered through those halls supported by frail or massive columns, through those corridors open to the sky, raising my eyes in wonder to those spires which looked like rockets starting for the sky, and to that incredible crowd of towers, of gargoyles, of slender and charming ornaments, fire works of stone, granite lace, a masterpiece of colossal and delicate architecture.

As I was looking up in ecstasy, a Lower Normandy peasant came up to me and told me the story of the great quarrel between Saint Michel and the Devil.

A sceptical genius has said: “God made man in His image; man has returned the compliment.”

This saying is an eternal truth, and it would be very curious to write the history of the local divinity on every continent, as well as the history of the patron saints in each one of our provinces. The Negro has his ferocious man-eating idols; the polygamous Muhammadan fills his paradise with women; the Greeks, like a practical people, have deified all the passions.

Every village in France is under the influence of some protecting saint, modified according to the characteristics of the inhabitants.

Saint Michel watches over Lower Normandy, Saint Michel, the radiant and victorious angel, the sword-carrier, the hero of Heaven, the victorious, the conqueror of Satan.

But this is how the Lower Normandy peasant, cunning, underhand, and tricky, understands and tells of the struggle between the great Saint and the Devil:⁠—

To escape from the malice of his neighbour the Demon, Saint Michel built himself, in the open ocean, this habitation worthy of an archangel; and only such a saint could build a residence of such magnificence.

But, as he still feared the approaches of the Evil One, he surrounded his domain with quicksands, more treacherous even than the sea.

The Devil lived in a humble cottage on the hill; but he owned all the pastures surrounded by the sea, the rich lands where grow the finest crops, the prosperous valleys, and all the fertile hills of the country; but the Saint ruled only over the sands. So Satan was rich, whereas Saint Michel was as poor as a beggar.

After a few years of fasting the Saint grew tired of this state of affairs, and began to think of some compromise with the Devil; but the matter was by no means easy, as Satan kept a good hold on his crops.

He thought the thing over for about six months; then one morning he set out for land. The Demon was eating his soup in front of his door when he saw the Saint; he immediately rushed toward him, kissed the hem of his sleeve, invited him in, and offered him refreshments.

Saint Michel drank a bowl of milk and then began: “I have come here to propose to you a good bargain.”

The Devil, candid and trustful, answered: “Very well.”

“Here it is. Give me all your lands.”

Satan, growing alarmed, tried to speak: “But⁠—”

The Saint continued: “Listen first. Give me all your lands. I will take care of all the work, the plowing, the sowing, the fertilizing, everything, and we will share the crops equally. Do you agree?”

The Devil, who was naturally lazy, accepted. He only asked in addition for a few of those delicious red mullet which are caught around the lonely hill. Saint Michel promised the fish.

They shook hands and spat on one side to show that it was a bargain, and the Saint continued: “Here, so that you will have nothing to complain of, choose whatever you prefer: that part of the harvest which will be above ground, or in the ground.” Satan cried out: “I choose all that will be above ground.”

“It’s a bargain!” said the Saint. And he went away.

Six months later, all over the immense domain of the Devil, one could see nothing but carrots, turnips, onions, salsify, all the plants whose juicy roots are good and savoury, and whose useless leaves are good for nothing but for feeding animals.

Satan got nothing and wished to break the contract, calling Saint Michel a swindler.

But the Saint, who had developed quite a taste for agriculture, went back to see the Devil, and said: “Really, I hadn’t thought of that at all; it was just an accident; no fault of mine. And to make things fair with you, this year I’ll let you take everything that is under the ground.”

“Very well,” answered Satan.

The following spring, all the Evil Spirit’s lands were covered with heavy corn, oats as big as beans, linseed, magnificent colzas, red clover, peas, cabbage, artichokes, everything that blossoms into grains or fruit in the sunlight.

Once more Satan received nothing, and this time he completely lost his temper. He took back his fields and remained deaf to all the new overtures of his neighbour.

A whole year rolled by. From the top of his lonely manor, Saint Michel looked at the distant and fertile lands, and watched the Devil direct the work, take in his crops, and thresh the corn. And he grew angry, exasperated at his powerlessness. As he was no longer able to deceive Satan, he decided to wreak vengeance on him, and he went out to invite him to dinner for the following Monday.

“You have been very unfortunate in your dealings with me,” he said; “I know it; but I don’t want any ill feeling between us, and I expect you to dine with me. I’ll give you some good things to eat.”

Satan, who was as greedy as he was lazy, accepted eagerly. On the day which had been decided on, he donned his finest clothes and set out for the mount.

Saint Michel sat him down to a magnificent meal. First there was a vol-au-vent, full of cocks’ crests and kidneys, with meatballs, then two big red mullet with cream sauce, a turkey stuffed with chestnuts soaked in wine, some salt-marsh lamb as tender as possible, vegetables which melted in the mouth, and nice warm galette which was brought on smoking and gave out a delicious odour of butter.

They drank pure cider, sparkling and sweet, and powerful red wine, and after each course more room was made with some old apple brandy.

The Devil drank and ate to his heart’s content; in fact, he took so much that he found himself uncomfortable.

Then Saint Michel arose in anger, and cried, in a voice like thunder: “What! before me, rascal! you dare⁠—before me⁠—”

Satan, terrified, ran away, and the Saint, seizing a stick, pursued him. They ran around through the halls, turning around the pillars, running up the staircases, galloping along the cornices, jumping from gargoyle to gargoyle. The poor Demon, who was terribly ill, was running about madly and soiling the Saint’s home. At last he found himself at the top of the last terrace, from which could be seen the immense bay, with its distant cities, sands, and pastures. He could no longer escape, and the Saint came up behind him and gave him a furious kick, which shot him through space like a cannonball.

He shot through the air like a javelin and fell down heavily in front of the town of Mortain. His horns and claws stuck deep into the rock, which keeps through eternity the traces of this fall of Satan’s.

He stood up again, limping, crippled until the end of time, and as he looked at the fatal Abbey in the distance, standing out against the setting sun, he understood well that he would always be vanquished in this unequal struggle; and he went away limping, heading for distant countries, leaving to his enemy his fields, his hills, his valleys, and his pastures.

And this is how Saint Michel, the patron saint of Normandy, vanquished the Devil.

Another people would have dreamed of this battle in an entirely different manner.

Minuet

Great misfortunes do not affect me very much, said Jean Bridelle, an old bachelor who passed for a sceptic. I have seen war at quite close quarters; I walked across corpses without any feeling of pity. The great brutal facts of nature, or of humanity, may call forth cries of horror or indignation, but do not cause us that tightening of the heart, that shudder that goes down your spine at sight of certain little heartrending episodes.

The greatest sorrow that anyone can experience is certainly the loss of a child, to a mother; and the loss of his mother, to a man. It is intense, terrible, it rends your heart and upsets your mind; but one is healed of these shocks, just as large, bleeding wounds become healed. Certain meetings, certain things half perceived, or surmised, certain secret sorrows, certain tricks of fate which awake in us a whole world of painful thoughts, which suddenly unclose to us the mysterious door of moral suffering, complicated, incurable; all the deeper because they appear benign, all the more bitter because they are intangible, all the more tenacious because they appear almost factitious, leave in our souls a sort of trail of sadness, a taste of bitterness, a feeling of disenchantment, from which it takes a long time to free ourselves.

I have always present to my mind two or three things that others would surely not have noticed, but which penetrated my being like fine, sharp, incurable stings.

You might not perhaps understand the emotion that I retained from these hasty impressions. I will tell you one of them. It is very old, but as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday. It may be that my imagination alone is responsible for my emotion.

I am fifty. I was young then and studying law. I was rather sad, somewhat of a dreamer, full of a pessimistic philosophy and did not care much for noisy cafés, boisterous companions, or stupid girls. I rose early and one of my chief enjoyments was to walk alone about eight o’clock in the morning in the nursery garden of the Luxembourg.

You people never knew that nursery garden. It was like a forgotten garden of the last century, as pretty as the gentle smile of an old lady. Thick hedges divided the narrow regular paths, peaceful paths between two walls of carefully trimmed foliage. The gardener’s great shears were pruning unceasingly these leafy partitions, and here and there one came across beds of flowers, lines of little trees looking like schoolboys out for a walk, companies of magnificent rose bushes, or regiments of fruit trees.

An entire corner of this charming spot was inhabited by bees. Their straw hives skilfully arranged at distances on boards had their entrances⁠—as large as the opening of a thimble⁠—turned towards the sun, and all along the paths one encountered these humming and gilded flies, the true masters of this peaceful spot, the real promenaders of these quiet paths.

I came there almost every morning. I sat down on a bench and read. Sometimes I let my book fall on my knees, to dream, to listen to the life of Paris around me, and to enjoy the infinite repose of these old-fashioned hedges.

But I soon perceived that I was not the only one to frequent this spot as soon as the gates were opened, and I occasionally met face to face, at a turn in the path, a strange little old man.

He wore shoes with silver buckles, knee-breeches, a snuff-coloured frock coat, a lace jabot, and an outlandish grey hat with wide brim and long-haired surface that might have come out of the ark.

He was thin, very thin, angular, grimacing and smiling. His bright eyes were restless beneath his eyelids which blinked continuously. He always carried in his hand a superb cane with a gold knob, which must have been for him some glorious souvenir.

This good man astonished me at first, then caused me the intensest interest. I watched him through the leafy walls, I followed him at a distance, stopping at a turn in the hedge so as not to be seen.

And one morning when he thought he was quite alone, he began to make the most remarkable motions. First he would give some little springs, then make a bow; then, with his slim legs, he would give a lively spring in the air, clapping his feet as he did so, and then turn round cleverly, skipping and frisking about in a comical manner, smiling as if he had an audience, making elegant gestures, and curving his arms, twisting his poor little puppet-like body, bowing pathetic and ridiculous little greetings into the empty air. He was dancing.

I stood petrified with amazement, asking myself which of us was crazy, he or I.

He stopped suddenly, advanced as actors do on the stage, then bowed and retreated with gracious smiles, and kissing his hand as actors do, his trembling hand, to the two rows of trimmed bushes.

Then he continued his walk with a solemn demeanour.

After that I never lost sight of him, and each morning he began anew his incredible exercises.

I was wildly anxious to speak to him. I decided to risk it, and one day, after greeting him, I said:

“It is a beautiful day, monsieur.”

He bowed.

“Yes, sir, the weather is just as it used to be.”

A week later we were friends and I knew his history. He had been a dancing master at the opera, in the time of Louis XV. His beautiful cane was a present from the Comte de Clermont. And when we spoke about dancing he never stopping talking.

One day he said to me:

“I married La Castris, monsieur. I will introduce you to her if you wish it, but she does not get here till later. This garden, you see, is our delight and our life. It is all that remains of former days. It seems as though we could not exist if we did not have it. It is old and distingué, is it not? I seem to breathe an air here that has not changed since I was young. My wife and I pass all our afternoons here, but I come in the morning because I get up early.”

As soon as I had finished luncheon I returned to the Luxembourg, and presently perceived my friend offering his arm ceremoniously to a very old little lady dressed in black, to whom he introduced me. It was La Castris, the great dancer, beloved by princes, beloved by the king, beloved by all that century of gallantry that seems to have left behind it in the world an atmosphere of love.

We sat down on a bench. It was the month of May. An odour of flowers floated in the neat paths; a hot sun glided its rays between the branches and covered us with patches of light. The black dress of La Castris seemed to be saturated with sunlight.

The garden was empty. We heard the rattling of vehicles in the distance.

“Tell me,” I said to the old dancer, “what was the minuet?”

He gave a start.

“The minuet, monsieur, is the queen of dances, and the dance of queens, do you understand? Since there is no longer any royalty, there is no longer any minuet.”

And he began in a pompous manner a long dithyrambic eulogy which I could not understand. I wanted to have the steps, the movements, the positions, explained to me. He became confused, was amazed at his inability to make me understand, became nervous and worried.

Then suddenly, turning to his old companion, who had remained silent and serious, he said:

“Élise, would you like⁠—say⁠—would you like, it would be very nice of you, would you like to show this gentleman what it was?”

She turned her eyes uneasily in all directions, then rose without saying a word and took her position opposite him.

Then I witnessed an unforgettable thing.

They advanced and retreated with childlike grimaces, smiling, balancing, bowing, skipping about like two automaton dolls moved by some old mechanical contrivance, somewhat damaged, but made by a clever workman according to the fashion of his time.

And I looked at them, my heart filled with extraordinary emotions, my soul touched with an indescribable melancholy. I seemed to see before me a pathetic and comical apparition, the out-of-date ghost of a former century.

They suddenly stopped. They had finished all the figures of the dance. For some seconds they stood opposite each other, smiling in an astonishing manner. Then they fell on each other’s necks sobbing.

I left for the provinces three days later. I never saw them again. When I returned to Paris, two years later, the nursery had been destroyed. What became of them, deprived of the dear garden of former days, with its mazes, its odour of the past, and the graceful windings of its hedges?

Are they dead? Are they wandering among modern streets like hopeless exiles? Are they dancing⁠—pale spectres⁠—a fantastic minuet in the moonlight, amid the cypresses of a cemetery, along the pathways bordered by graves?

Their memory haunts me, obsesses me, torments me, remains with me like a wound. Why? I do not know.

No doubt you think that very absurd?

Mother and Daughter

“The Comtesse Samoris.”

“That lady in black over there?”

“The very one. She’s wearing mourning for her daughter, whom she killed.”

“Come now! You don’t mean that seriously?”

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

“Then what really happened?”

“Almost nothing. Many courtesans were born to be virtuous women, they say; and many women called virtuous were born to be courtesans⁠—is that not so? Now, Madame Samoris, who was born a courtesan, had a daughter born a virtuous woman, that’s all.”

“I don’t quite understand you.”

“I’ll explain what I mean. The Comtesse Samoris is one of those tinsel foreign women hundreds of whom are rained down every year on Paris. A Hungarian or Wallachian countess, or I know not what, she appeared one winter in apartments she had taken in the Champs Élysées, that quarter for adventurers and adventuresses, and opened her drawing room to the first comer or to anyone that turned up.

“I went there. Why? you will say. I really can’t tell you. I went there, as everyone goes to such places because the women are facile and the men are dishonest. You know that set composed of filibusters with varied decorations, all noble, all titled, all unknown at the embassies, with the exception of those who are spies. All talk of their honor without the slightest occasion for doing so, boast of their ancestors, tell you about their lives, braggarts, liars, sharpers, as dangerous as the false cards they have up their sleeves, as delusive as their name⁠—in short, the aristocracy of the bagnio.

“I adore these people. They are interesting to study, interesting to know, amusing to understand, often clever, never commonplace like public functionaries. Their wives are always pretty, with a slight flavor of foreign roguery, with the mystery of their existence, half of it perhaps spent in a house of correction. They have, as a rule, magnificent eyes and incredible hair. I adore them also.

“Madame Samoris is the type of these adventuresses, elegant, mature, and still beautiful. Charming feline creatures, you feel that they are vicious to the marrow of their bones. You find them very amusing when you visit them; they give card-parties; they have dances and suppers; in short, they offer you all the pleasures of social life.

“And she had a daughter⁠—a tall, fine-looking girl, always ready for entertainments, always full of laughter and reckless gayety⁠—a true adventuress’s daughter⁠—but, at the same time, an innocent, unsophisticated, artless girl, who saw nothing, knew nothing, understood nothing of all the things that happened in her father’s house.”

“How do you know about him?”

“How do I know? That’s the funniest part of the business! One morning, there was a ring at my door, and my valet came up to tell me that M. Joseph Bonenthal wanted to speak to me. I said directly: ‘And who is this gentleman?’ My valet replied: ‘I don’t know, monsieur; perhaps ’tis someone that wants employment.’ And so it was. The man wanted me to take him as a servant. I asked him where he had been last. He answered: ‘With the Comtesse Samoris.’ ‘Ah!’ said I, ‘but my house is not a bit like hers.’ ‘I know that well, monsieur,’ he said, ‘and that’s the very reason I want to take service with monsieur. I’ve had enough of these people: a man may stay a little while with them, but he won’t remain long with them.’ I required an additional man servant at the time, and so I took him.

“A month later, Mademoiselle Yveline Samoris died mysteriously, and here are all the details of her death I could gather from Joseph, who got them from his sweetheart, the Comtesse’s chambermaid:

“It was a ball-night, and two newly-arrived guests were chatting behind a door. Mademoiselle Yveline, who had just been dancing, leaned against this door to get a little air.

“They did not see her approaching; but she heard what they were saying. And this was what they said:

“ ‘But who is the father of the girl?’

“ ‘A Russian, it appears, Count Rouvaloff. He never comes near the mother now.’

“ ‘And who is the reigning prince today?’

“ ‘That English prince standing near the window; Madame Samoris adores him. But her adoration of anyone never lasts longer than a month or six weeks. Nevertheless, as you see, she has a large circle of admirers. All are called⁠—and nearly all are chosen. That kind of thing costs a good deal, but⁠—hang it, what can you expect?’

“ ‘And where did she get this name of Samoris?’

“ ‘From the only man perhaps that she ever loved⁠—a Jewish banker from Berlin who goes by the name of Samuel Morris.’

“ ‘Good. Thanks. Now that I know all about her, and see her sort, I’m off!’

“What a start there was in the brain of the young girl endowed with all the instincts of a virtuous woman! What despair overwhelmed that simple soul! What mental tortures quenched her endless gayety, her delightful laughter, her exulting satisfaction with life! What a conflict took place in that youthful heart up to the moment when the last guest had left! Those were things that Joseph could not tell me. But, the same night, Yveline abruptly entered her mother’s room just as the Comtesse was getting into bed, sent out the waiting-maid, who was close to the door, and, standing erect and pale, and with great staring eyes, she said:

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

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

“The Comtesse was so stupefied that she did not know what to say in reply, at first. When she recovered her self-possession, she denied everything, and called God to witness that there was no truth in the story.

“The young girl went away, distracted but not convinced. And she watched her mother.

“I remember distinctly the strange alteration that then took place in her. She was always grave and melancholy. She used to fix on us her great earnest eyes as if she wanted to read what was at the bottom of our hearts. We did not know what to think of her, and we used to maintain that she was looking out for a husband.

“One evening her doubts were dispelled. She caught her mother with a lover. Thereupon she said coldly, like a man of business laying down the terms of an agreement:

“ ‘Here is what I have determined to do, mamma: We will both go away to some little town⁠—or rather into the country. We will live there quietly as well as we can. Your jewelry alone may be called a fortune. If you wish to marry some honest man, so much the better; still better will it be if I can find one. If you don’t consent to do this, I will kill myself.’

“This time, the Comtesse ordered her daughter to go to bed, and never to administer again this lecture so unbecoming in the mouth of a child towards her mother.

“Yveline’s answer to this was: ‘I give you a month to reflect. If, at the end of that month, we have not changed our way of living, I will kill myself, since there is no other honorable issue left to my life.’

“Then she took herself off.

“At the end of a month, the Comtesse Samoris was giving balls and suppers just the same as ever. Yveline then, under the pretext that she had a bad toothache purchased a few drops of chloroform from a neighboring chemist. The next day she purchased more; and, every time she went out, she managed to procure small doses of the narcotic. She filled a bottle with it.

“One morning she was found in bed, lifeless, and already quite cold, with a cotton mask over her face.

“Her coffin was covered with flowers, the church was hung in white. There was a large crowd at the funeral ceremony.

“Ah! well, if I had known⁠—but you never can know⁠—I would have married that girl, for she was infernally pretty.”

“And what became of the mother?”

“Oh! she shed a lot of tears over it. She has only begun to receive visits again for the past week.”

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

“Oh! ’tis pretended that it was an accident caused by a new stove, the mechanism of which got out of order. As a good many such accidents have happened, the thing looks probable enough.”

A Christmas Tale

Doctor Bonenfant was searching his memory, saying, half aloud: “A Christmas story⁠—some remembrance of Christmas?”

Suddenly he cried: “Yes, I have one, and a strange one too; it is a fantastic story. I have seen a miracle! yes, ladies, a miracle, and on Christmas night.”

You are astonished to hear me speak thus, a man who does not believe in much. Nevertheless, I have seen a miracle! I have seen it, I tell you, seen with my own eyes, that is what I call seeing.

Was I very much surprised, you ask? Not at all; because if I do not believe in your beliefs, I believe in faith, and I know that it can remove mountains. I could cite many examples; but I might make you indignant, and I should run the chance of lessening the effect of my story.

In the first place, I must confess that, if I have not been convinced and converted by what I have seen, I have at least been strongly moved; and I am going to strive to tell it to you naively, as if I had the credulity of an Auvergnat.

I was then a country doctor, living in the town of Rolleville, in the centre of Normandy. The winter that year was terrible. By the end of November the snow came after a week of frost. One could see from afar the great snow clouds coming from the north, and then the white flakes began to fall. In one night the whole plain was buried. Farms, isolated in their square enclosures, behind their curtains of great trees powdered with hoarfrost, seemed to sleep under the accumulation of this thick, light covering.

No noise was heard in the still countryside. The crows alone in large flocks outlined long festoons in the sky, seeking their livelihood to no purpose, swooping down upon the pale fields and picking at the snow with their great beaks. There was nothing to be heard but the vague, continuous rustle of this white powder as it persistently fell. This lasted for eight full days and then stopped. The earth had on its back a mantle five feet in thickness. And, during the next three weeks, a sky as clear as blue crystal by day spread itself out over this smooth, white mass, hard and glistening with frost, and at night all studded with stars, that looked as if they were made of hoarfrost.

The plain, the hedges, the elms of the enclosures, all seemed dead, killed by the cold. Neither man nor beast went out. Only the chimneys of the cottages, clothed in a white shift, revealed concealed life by the fine threads of smoke which mounted straight into the frosty air. From time to time one heard the trees crack, as if their wooden limbs were breaking under the bark; and sometimes a great branch would detach itself and fall, the resistless cold petrifying the sap and breaking the fibres. Dwellings set here and there in fields seemed a hundred miles away from one another. One lived as one could. I alone endeavoured to go to my nearest patients, constantly exposing myself to the danger of remaining buried in some hole.

I soon perceived that a mysterious terror had spread over the country. Such a plague, they thought, was not natural. They pretended that they heard voices at night, sharp whistling and passing cries. These cries and the whistling came, without doubt, from migratory birds which travelled at twilight and flew in flocks toward the south. But it was impossible to make frightened people listen to reason. Fear had taken possession of their minds, and they were expecting some extraordinary event.

The forge of old Vatinel was situated at the end of the hamlet of Épivent, on the main road, now invisible and deserted. As the people needed bread, the blacksmith resolved to go to the village. He remained some hours chattering with the inhabitants of the six houses which formed the centre of the district, took his bread and his news and a little of the fear which had spread over the region and set out before night.

Suddenly, in skirting a hedge, he believed he saw an egg on the snow; yes, an egg was lying there, all white like the rest of the world. He bent over it, and in fact it was an egg. Where did it come from? What hen could have gone out there and laid an egg in that spot? The smith was astonished; he could not understand it; but he picked it up and took it to his wife.

“See, wife, here is an egg that I found on the road.”

The woman shook her head:

“An egg on the road? In this kind of weather! You must be drunk, surely.”

“No, no, woman, it certainly was at the foot of the hedge, and not frozen but still warm. Take it; I put it in my bosom so that it wouldn’t cool off. You shall have it for your dinner.”

The egg was soon shining in the iron pot where the soup was simmering, and the smith began to relate what he had heard around the country. The woman listened, pale with excitement.

“Of course I have heard some whistling,” said she, “but it seemed to come from the chimney.”

They sat down to table, ate their soup first and then, while the husband was spreading the butter on his bread, the woman took the egg and examined it with suspicious eye.

“And if there should be something in this egg,” said she.

“What could there be in it?”

“How do I know?”

“Go ahead and eat it. Don’t be a fool.”

She opened the egg. It was like all eggs, and very fresh. She started to eat it but hesitated, tasting, then leaving, then tasting it again. The husband said:

“Well, how does that egg taste?”

She did not answer, but finished swallowing it. Then, suddenly, she stared at her husband, with fixed, haggard, terrified eyes, raised her arms, turned and twisted them, convulsed from head to foot, and rolled on the floor, sending forth horrible shrieks. All night she struggled in these frightful spasms, trembling with fright, deformed by hideous convulsions. The smith, unable to restrain her, was obliged to bind her. And she screamed without ceasing, untiringly:

“I have it in my body! I have it in my body!”

I was called the next day. I ordered all the sedatives known, but without effect. She was mad. Then, with incredible swiftness, in spite of the obstacle of deep snow, the news, the strange news ran from farm to farm: “The smith’s wife is possessed!” And they came from everywhere around, not daring to go into the house; from a safe distance they listened to the cries of the frightened woman, whose voice was so strong that one could scarcely believe it belonged to a human creature.

The village priest was sent for. He was a simple old man. He came in surplice, as if to administer comfort to the dying, and pronounced with extended hands some formulae of exorcism, while four men held the foaming, writhing woman on the bed. But the spirit was not driven out.

Christmas came without any change in the weather. On Christmas Eve morning the priest came for me.

“I wish,” said he, “to have this unfortunate woman at Mass, tonight. Perhaps God will work a miracle in her favour at the same hour that he was born of a woman.”

I replied: “I approve heartily. If she can be touched by the sacred service (and nothing could be more likely to move her), she can be saved without other remedies.”

The old priest murmured: “You are not a believer, Doctor, but you will help me, will you not?” I promised him my help.

The evening came, and then the night. The bell of the church was ringing, throwing its plaintive voice across the dreary waste, the vast extent of white, frozen snow. Some black figures were wending their way slowly in groups, obedient to the call from the bell. The full moon shone with a strong, pale light on the horizon, rendering more visible the desolation of the fields. I had taken four robust men with me, and with them repaired to the forge.

The possessed woman was bound to her bed, and was shouting continually. They clothed her properly, in spite of her violent resistance, and carried her out. The church, illuminated but cold, was now full of people, the choir chanted their monotonous notes; the serpent hummed; the little bell of the acolyte tinkled, regulating the movements of the faithful.

I had shut the woman and her guards into the kitchen of the parish house and awaited the moment that I believed favourable.

I chose the time immediately following communion. All the peasants, men and women, had received their God, to soften His rigour. A great silence prevailed while the priest finished the divine mystery. Upon my order, the door opened and the four men brought in the mad woman.

When she saw the lights, the crowd on their knees, the choir illuminated, and the gilded tabernacle, she struggled with such vigour that she almost escaped from us, and she gave forth cries so piercing that a shiver of fright ran through the church. All bowed their heads; some fled. She had no longer the form of a woman, as she writhed and twisted in our grasp, her countenance drawn, her eyes mad. They dragged her up to the steps of the choir, and then she was firmly held squatting on the floor.

The priest arose; he was waiting. When there was a moment of quiet, he took in his hands the monstrance, bound with bands of gold, in the middle of which was the white wafer, and, advancing some steps, extended both arms above his head and presented it to the frightened stare of the maniac. She continued to howl, with eyes fixed upon the shining object. And the priest remained so motionless that he looked like a statue.

This lasted a long, long time. The woman seemed seized with fear, fascinated; she looked fixedly at the monstrance; she was still seized with terrible shivering fits, but they did not last so long, and she cried out incessantly, but with a less piercing voice. And this lasted again for some time.

It looked as if she could no longer lower her eyes; as if they were riveted on the Host; she did nothing but groan; her rigid body relaxed, and she sank down exhausted. The crowd was prostrate, with foreheads pressed to the ground.

The possessed woman was now lowering her eyelids rapidly, then raising them again, as if powerless to endure the sight of her God. She was silent. And then I suddenly perceived that her eyes were closed. She was sleeping like a somnambulist, hypnotized⁠—pardon! conquered by the prolonged contemplation of the monstrance with its shining rays of gold, overcome by Christ victorious.

They carried her out, inert, while the priest went up to the altar. The congregation, thrown into wonderment, intoned a Te Deum of gratitude.

The smith’s wife slept for forty hours uninterruptedly, then she awoke without any remembrance either of the possession or of the deliverance. That, ladies, is the miracle which I witnessed.

Doctor Bonenfant remained silent, then he added, in rather vexed tones:

“I could not refuse to swear to it in writing.”

Christmas Eve

“Christmas Eve! Oh! no, I shall never celebrate that again!” Stout Henri Templier said that in a furious voice, as if someone had proposed some crime to him, while the others laughed and said:

“What are you flying into a rage about?”

“Because a Christmas-Eve supper played me the dirtiest trick in the world, and ever since I have felt an insurmountable horror for that night of imbecile gaiety.”

“Tell us what it is?”

“You want to know what it was? Very well, then, listen.

“You remember how cold it was two years ago at Christmas; cold enough to kill poor people in the streets. The Seine was freezing; the pavements froze one’s feet through the soles of one’s boots, and everybody seemed nearly dead.

“I had a big piece of work on, and so I refused every invitation to supper, as I preferred to spend the night at my writing table. I dined alone and then began to work. But about ten o’clock I grew restless at the thought of the gay life all over Paris, at the noise in the streets which reached me in spite of everything, at my neighbours’ preparations for supper, which I heard through the walls. I hardly knew any longer what I was doing; I was writing nonsense, and at last I came to the conclusion that I had better give up all hope of producing any good work that night.

“I walked up and down my room; I sat down and got up again. I was certainly under the mysterious influence of the enjoyment outside, and I resigned myself to it. So I rang for my servant, and said to her:

“ ‘Angela, go and get a good supper for two; some oysters, a cold partridge, some crayfish, ham and some cakes. Put out two bottles of champagne, lay the table and go to bed.’

“She obeyed in some surprise, and when all was ready, I put on my overcoat and went out. A great question was to be solved: ‘With whom was I going to celebrate Christmas Eve?’ My female friends had all been invited elsewhere, and if I had wished to have one, I ought to have seen about it beforehand, so I thought that I would do a good action at the same time, and I said to myself:

“ ‘Paris is full of poor and beautiful girls who will have nothing on their table tonight, and who are on the lookout for some generous fellow. I will act the part of Providence to one of them this evening; and I will find one if I have to go into every pleasure resort, and have to question them and hunt for one till I find one to my choice.’ And I started off on my search.

“I certainly found many poor girls, who were on the lookout for some adventure, but they were ugly enough to give any man a fit of indigestion, or thin enough to freeze as they stood, if they had stopped, and you all know that I have a weakness for plump women. The more flesh they have, the better I like them, and a female colossus would drive me out of my senses with pleasure.

“Suddenly, opposite the Théâtre des Variétés, I saw a face to my liking. A good head, and then two protuberances, a very beautiful bosom, and below that, a surprising stomach, the stomach of a fat goose. I trembled with pleasure, and said:

“ ‘By Jove! What a fine girl!’

“It only remained for me to see her face. A woman’s face is the dessert, while the rest is⁠ ⁠… the joint.

“I hastened on, and overtook her, and turned round suddenly under a gas lamp. She was charming, quite young, dark, with large, black eyes, and I immediately made my proposal, which she accepted without any hesitation, and a quarter of an hour later, we were sitting at supper in my lodgings. ‘Oh! how comfortable it is here,’ she said as she came in, and she looked about her with evident satisfaction at having found a supper and a bed, on that bitter night. She was superb; so beautiful that she astonished me, and so stout that she fairly captivated me.

“She took off her cloak and hat, sat down and began to eat; but she seemed in low spirits, and sometimes her pale face twitched as if she were suffering from some hidden sorrow.

“ ‘Have you anything troubling you?’ I asked her.

“ ‘Bah! Don’t let us think of troubles!’

“And she began to drink. She emptied her champagne glass at a draught, filled it again, and emptied it again, without stopping, and soon a little colour came into her cheeks, and she began to laugh.

“I adored her already, kissed her continually, and discovered that she was neither stupid, nor common, nor coarse as ordinary streetwalkers are. I asked her for some details about her life, but she replied:

“ ‘Young man, that is no business of yours!’ Alas! an hour later.⁠ ⁠…

“At last it was time to go to bed, and while I was clearing the table, which had been laid in front of the fire, she undressed herself quickly, and got in. My neighbours were making a terrible din, singing and laughing like lunatics, and so I said to myself:

“ ‘I was quite right to go out and bring in this beautiful girl; I should never have been able to do any work.’

“At that moment, however, a deep groan made me look round, and I said:

“ ‘What is the matter with you, my dear?’

“She did not reply, but continued to utter painful sighs, as if she were suffering horribly, and I continued:

“ ‘Do you feel ill?’ And suddenly she uttered a cry, a heartrending cry, and I rushed up to the bed, with a candle in my hand.

“Her face was distorted with pain, and she was wringing her hands, panting and uttering long, deep groans, which sounded like a rattle in the throat, and which are so painful to hear, and I asked her in consternation:

“ ‘What is the matter with you? Do tell me what is the matter.’ She did not reply, but began to scream.

“ ‘Oh! my stomach! my stomach!’ she said. I pulled up the bedclothes, and I saw⁠ ⁠… My friends, she was in labour.

“Then I lost my head, and I ran and knocked at the wall with my fists, shouting: ‘Help! help!’

“My door was opened almost immediately, and a crowd of people came in, men in evening dress, women in low necks, pierrots, Turks, Musketeers, and this invasion startled me so, that I could not explain myself, and they, who had thought that some accident had happened, or that a crime had been committed, could not understand what was the matter. At last, however, I managed to say:

“ ‘This⁠ ⁠… this⁠ ⁠… woman⁠ ⁠… is being confined.’

“Then they looked at her, and gave their opinion, and a Friar, especially, declared that he knew all about it, and wished to assist nature, but as they were all as drunk as pigs, I was afraid that they would kill her, and I rushed downstairs without my hat, to fetch an old doctor, who lived in the next street. When I came back with him, the whole house was up; the gas on the stairs had been relighted, the lodgers from every floor were in my room, while four boatmen were finishing my champagne and lobsters.

“As soon as they saw me they raised a loud shout, and a milkmaid presented me with a horrible little wrinkled specimen of humanity, that was mewing like a cat, and said to me:

“ ‘It is a girl.’

“The doctor examined the woman, declared that she was in a dangerous state, as the event had occurred immediately after supper, and he took his leave, saying he would immediately send a sick nurse and a wet nurse, and an hour later, the two women came, bringing all that was requisite with them.

“ ‘I spent the night in an armchair, too distracted to be able to think of the consequences, and almost as soon as it was light, the doctor came again. He found his patient very ill, and said to me:

“ ‘Your wife, Monsieur⁠ ⁠…’

“ ‘She is not my wife,’ I interrupted him.

“ ‘Very well then, your mistress; it does not matter to me.’

“He told me what must be done for her, what her diet must be, and then wrote a prescription.

“What was I to do? Could I send the poor creature to the hospital? I should have been looked upon as a brute in the house and in all the neighbourhood, and so I kept her in my rooms, and she had my bed for six weeks.

“I sent the child to some peasants at Poissy to be taken care of, and she still costs me fifty francs a month, for as I had paid at first, I shall be obliged to go on paying as long as I live, and later on, she will believe that I am her father. But to crown my misfortunes, when the girl had recovered⁠ ⁠… I found that she was in love with me, madly in love with me, the baggage!”

“Well?”

“Well, she had grown as thin as a homeless cat, and I turned the skeleton out of doors, but she watches for me in the streets, hides herself, so that she may see me pass, stops me in the evening when I go out, in order to kiss my hand, and, in fact, worries me enough to drive me mad; and that is why I never keep Christmas Eve now.”

The Substitute

“Madame Bonderoi?”

“Yes, Madame Bonderoi.”

“Impossible.”

“I tell you it is.”

“Madame Bonderoi, the old lady in a lace cap, the devout, the holy, the honourable Madame Bonderoi, whose little false curls look as if they were glued round her head.”

“That is the very woman.”

“Oh! Come, you must be mad.”

“I swear to you that it is Madame Bonderoi.”

“Then please give me the details.”

“Here they are: During the life of Monsieur Bonderoi, the lawyer, people said that she utilized his clerks for her own particular service. She is one of these respectable middle-class women, with secret vices and inflexible principles, of whom there are so many. She liked good-looking young fellows, and I should like to know what is more natural than that? Do not we all like pretty girls?

“As soon as old Bonderoi was dead, his widow began to live the peaceful and irreproachable life of a woman with a fair, fixed income. She went to church assiduously, and spoke disdainfully of her neighbours, and gave no chance to anyone to speak ill of her, and when she grew old she became the little wizened, sour-faced mischievous woman whom you know. Well, this adventure, which you would scarcely believe, happened last Thursday.

“My friend, Jean d’Anglemare, is, as you know, a captain in a dragoon regiment, which is quartered in the barracks in the Rue de la Rivette. When he got to his quarters the other morning, he found that two men of his squadron had had a terrible quarrel. The rules about military honour are very severe, and so a duel took place between them. After the duel they became reconciled, and when their officer questioned them, they told him what their quarrel had been about. They had fought on Madame Bonderoi’s account.”

“Oh!”

“Yes, my dear fellow, about Madame Bonderoi. But I will let trooper Siballe speak:”

“ ‘This is how it was, Captain. About a year and a half ago, I was strolling along the promenade between six and seven o’clock in the evening, when a woman came up and spoke to me, and said, just as if she had been asking her way: “Soldier, would you like to earn ten francs a week, honestly?” I answered heartily: “At your service, Madame.” And so she said: “Come and see me at twelve o’clock tomorrow morning. I am Madame Bonderoi, and my address is No. 6, Rue de la Tranchée.”

“ ‘ “You may rely upon my being there, Madame.” And then she went away, looking very pleased, and added: “I am very much obliged to you, soldier.”

“ ‘ “I am obliged to you, Madame,” I replied. But I plagued my head about the matter, until the time came, all the same.

“ ‘At twelve o’clock, exactly, I rang the bell, and she let me in herself. She had a lot of ribbons on her head.

“ ‘ “We must make haste,” she said; “as my servant might come in.”

“ ‘ “I am quite willing to make haste,” I replied, “but what am I to do?”

“ ‘But she only laughed, and replied: “Don’t you understand, you great stupid?”

“ ‘I was no nearer her meaning, I give you my word of honour, Captain, but she came and sat down by me, and said:

“ ‘ “If you mention this to anyone, I will have you put in prison, so swear that you will never open your lips about it.”

“ ‘I swore whatever she liked, though I did not at all understand what she meant. My forehead was covered with perspiration, so I took my pocket-handkerchief out of my helmet. She took it and wiped my brow with it; then she kissed me, and whispered: “Then you will?”

“ ‘ “I will do anything you like, Madame,” I replied; “as that is what I came for.”

“ ‘Then she made herself clearly understood by her actions, and when I saw what it was, I put my helmet on a chair and showed her that in the dragoons a man never retreats, Captain.

“ ‘Not that I cared much about it, for she was certainly not in her prime, but it is no good being too particular in such a matter, as francs are scarce, and then I have relations whom I like to help. I said to myself: “There will be five francs for my father, out of that.”

“ ‘When I had finished my allotted task, Captain, I got ready to go, though she wanted me to stop longer, but I said to her:

“ ‘ “To everyone their due, Madame. A small glass of brandy costs two sous, and two glasses cost four.”

“ ‘She understood my meaning, and put a gold ten-franc piece into my hand. I do not like that coin. It is so small that it gets lost in your pockets, and if they open at the seams one is apt to find it in one’s boots, or not to find it at all, and so, while I was looking at it, she was looking at me. She got red in the face, as she had misunderstood my looks, and said: “Is not that enough?”

“ ‘ “I did not mean that, Madame,” I replied; “but if it is all the same to you, I would rather have two five-franc pieces.” And she gave them to me and I took my leave.

“ ‘This has been going on for a year and a half, Captain. I go every Tuesday evening, when you give me leave to go out of barracks; she prefers that, as her servant has gone to bed then, but last week I was not well, and I had to go into the infirmary. When Tuesday came I could not get out, and I was very vexed, because of the ten francs which I had been receiving every week, and I said to myself:

“ ‘ “If anybody goes there, I shall be done for; and she will be sure to take an artilleryman,” and that made me very angry. So I sent for Paumelle, who comes from my part of the country, and I told him how matters stood:

“ ‘ “There will be five francs for you, and five for me,” I said. He agreed, and went, as I had given him full instructions. She opened the door as soon as he knocked, and let him in, and as she did not look at his face, she did not perceive that it was not I, for you know, Captain, one dragoon is very like another with a helmet on.

“ ‘Suddenly, however, she noticed the change, and she asked, angrily: “Who are you? What do you want? I do not know you.”

“ ‘Then Paumelle explained matters; he told her that I was not well, and that I had sent him as my substitute; so she looked at him, made him also swear to keep the matter secret, and then she accepted him, as you may suppose, for Paumelle is not a bad-looking fellow, either. But when he came back, Captain, he would not give me my five francs. If they had been for myself, I should not have said a word, but they were for my father, and on that score I would stand no nonsense, and said to him:

“ ‘ “You are not particular in what you do, for a dragoon; you are a discredit to your uniform.”

“ ‘He raised his fist, Captain, saying that fatigue duty like that was worth double. Of course, everybody has his own ideas, and he ought not to have accepted it. You know the rest.’

“Captain d’Anglemare laughed until he cried as he told me the story, but he also made me promise to keep the matter a secret, just as he had promised the two soldiers. So, above all, do not betray me, but promise to keep it to yourself.”

“Oh! You may be quite easy about that. But how was it all arranged in the end?”

“How? It is a joke in a thousand! Mother Bonderoi keeps her two dragoons, and reserves his own particular day for each of them, and in that way, everybody is satisfied.”

“Oh! That is capital! Really capital!”

“And the aged parents have their crust of bread, and thus morality is satisfied.”

On Horseback

The poor people lived miserably on the husband’s salary. Since their marriage two children had been born, and their previous lack of means had developed into that frightened, timid, shamefaced poverty peculiar to families of good position who try to keep up appearances in spite of everything.

Hector de Gribelin had been brought up in the country, in the paternal manor, by an old Abbé who acted as his tutor. They were not rich, but pulled the devil by the tail and kept up their position. When he was twenty he had gone into the ministry of marine, as a clerk at fifteen hundred francs a year. He had landed there like all those who have not been prepared in early years for the harsh struggle for life, those who see this world through a haze, knowing neither how to get on nor how to meet difficulties, people in whom no special aptitudes or talents have been developed from childhood, no keen energy for the struggle; in whose hands neither a weapon nor a tool has been placed. His first three years at the office were horrible.

He had renewed acquaintance with some friends of his family, old people, behind the times and poor like himself, who lived in select streets, the depressing streets of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and he had made a circle of friends.

Unfamiliar with modern life, humble but proud, these needy aristocrats lived on the top floors of sleepy old houses. From top to bottom these houses were inhabited by titled tenants, but money was as scarce on the second as on the top floor. Their eternal prejudices, preoccupation with their rank, the dread of descending in the scale, haunted these erstwhile brilliant families, ruined by the inaction of their men folk. It was in these circles that Hector de Gribelin met and married a titled but penniless young girl like himself. Two children had been born to them in four years and for the past four years the household, harassed by poverty, had known no other distractions than a walk on Sunday to the Champs-Élysées, and a few evenings at the theatre, one or two each winter, thanks to free tickets received from a friend.

But, as spring approached, his chief entrusted him with some extra work and he received the extra compensation of three hundred francs. Coming home that night he said to his wife:

“My dear Henriette, we ought to do something with this money; a little outing in the country for the children, for instance.”

They had a lengthy discussion, and finally decided on a family picnic.

“We have had so very few outings,” said Hector, “that we may as well do things right. We will hire a break for you and the little ones, and I will hire a horse; it will do me good.”

They talked of nothing else all week. Each night, when he came home from his office he would dance his elder son up and down on his knee and say:

“This is the way papa will ride next Sunday.” And the boy would ride chairs all day screaming:

“This is papa on horseback.” Even the servant looked at the master in wonder, as she thought of his riding beside the carriage on horseback, and at every meal she heard him tell of his feats in horsemanship when he was home. Oh, he had been well trained. Once he felt a horse between his legs, he was afraid of nothing, absolutely nothing.

He would say to his wife, rubbing his hands: “If they could give me a frisky animal I would like it all the better. You will see how I ride, and, if you like, we can come back by the Champs-Élysées when everybody is coming home. We shall cut quite a figure, and I should not be sorry to meet someone from the office; there is nothing like it to inspire respect.”

On the appointed day the carriage and the horse arrived together at the door, and Hector came down immediately, to look the horse over. He had had straps sewn to his trousers, and was playing with a riding-whip purchased the day before. He raised and felt, one after the other, the animals four legs, felt its neck, its ribs, its hocks, tested its back with his hands, opened its mouth, and told its age, and as the family was coming out at that moment, he discoursed on horses in general and that one in particular, which he declared to be an excellent animal.

When everyone was comfortably placed in the carriage, Hector examined the saddle, and mounting with a spring, dropped on the horse with such force that he immediately set up a dance which almost threw his rider. Hector became flustered and tried to calm him, saying: “Come, old fellow, be quiet.” And when they both had calmed down a little he asked:

“Is everybody ready?”

Everybody said they were and the party proceeded. All eyes were turned on Hector, who affected the English seat and leaped up and down on his saddle in an exaggerated manner. He often looked as if he were going to fall forward on the horse’s mane, but he kept his eyes fixed ahead of him, contracting his brow and looking very pale. His wife and the servant each held one of the boys on their lap and every minute they would say:

“Look at papa!” And the boys, excited by the movement, the fresh air, and their delight, uttered piercing screams.

The horse, frightened at so much noise, started off at a gallop and while Hector tried to stop him his hat fell off. The driver had to come down and pick it up, and having recovered it, Hector shouted to his wife:

“Make the children stop screaming, will you? They will make the horse run away.”

They lunched on the grass in the woods of Vésinet, having brought their food in baskets. Although the driver looked after the horses, Hector went every minute to see if his horse wanted anything. He patted it and fed it with bread, cake, and sugar.

“He is a great trotter,” he said to his wife. “He shook me at first, but you saw how quick I subdued him. He knows his master now.”

They came back by the Champs-Élysées as agreed. The huge avenue was crowded with carriages and the sidewalks lined with so many pedestrians, that they looked like two long black ribbons unrolling from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde. A sun shower was falling on the crowd, making the varnish of the carriages, the steel of the harness and the door handles glitter. The whole mass seemed to be seized by a frenzy of motion, an intoxication of life. In the distance the Obelisk arose in a golden mist. As soon as they passed the Arc de Triomphe Hector’s horse was suddenly possessed by a new ardour. It dashed at a rapid trot between the carriages in the direction of the stables, and the rider’s efforts to stop him were unavailing. The carriage containing his family was far behind. In front of the Palais de l’Industrie, the horse turned to the right at a gallop. An old woman was at that moment leisurely crossing the street, and Hector, who was unable to stop the horse, shouted: “Hey there, hey!” But the old woman was deaf, perhaps, for she slowly kept on until the horse struck her with such force that she turned a triple somersault and landed ten feet away. Several people shouted: “Stop him.”

Hector was distracted and held on desperately to the horse’s mane, crying: “Help, help!” A terrible shock sent him over the horse’s head like a bomb, and he landed in the arms of a policeman who was running toward him. An angry crowd gathered. An old gentleman wearing a decoration was especially angry.

“Confound it, sir!” he said, “if you cannot ride a horse why do you not stay at home instead of running over people!”

Four men appeared carrying the old woman, who to all appearances was dead, with her yellow face, and her bonnet awry and covered with dust.

“Take this woman to a chemist’s,” said the old gentlemen, “and let us go to the station-house.”

A crowd followed Hector, who walked between two policemen, while a third led his horse. At that moment the carriage appeared, and his wife, taking in the situation at a glance, ran toward him; the servant and the children came behind crying. He explained that his horse had knocked a woman down, but it was nothing, he would be home very soon. And his frightened family went away.

At the station-house, the explanation was brief. He gave his name, his place of employment, and awaited news of the injured woman. A policeman came back with the information that the woman’s name was Mme. Simon, and that she was a charwoman sixty-five years old. She had regained consciousness, but she suffered internally, she claimed. When Hector found that she was not dead, he recovered his spirits and promised to defray the expenses of her illness. He went to the drugstore where they had taken the old woman. An immense crowd blocked the doorway. The old woman was whining and groaning pitifully. Two doctors were examining her.

“There are no bones broken,” they said, “but we are afraid she is hurt internally.”

“Do you suffer much?” asked Hector.

“Oh, yes.”

“Where?”

“I feel as if my inside was on fire.”

“Then you are the cause of the accident?” said a doctor approaching.

“Yes, sir,” said Hector.

“This woman must go to a convalescent home. I know one where they will take her for six francs a day; shall I arrange this for you?”

Hector thanked him gratefully and went home relieved. He found his wife in tears, and he comforted her, saying:

“Don’t worry, she is much better already. I sent her to a convalescent home, and in three days she will be all right.”

After his work the next day he went to see Mme. Simon. She was eating some beef soup which she seemed to relish.

“Well,” said Hector, “how do you feel?”

“No better,” she answered. “I feel as good as dead. I don’t feel any better.”

The doctor advised waiting; complications might arise. He waited three days, then went to see the old woman again. Her skin was clear, her eyes bright, but as soon as she saw Hector she commenced to whine:

“I can’t move any more; l’ll be like this for the rest of my days!”

Hector felt a shiver running up and down his back. He asked for the doctor and inquired about the patient.

“I am puzzled,” the doctor said. “Every time we try to lift her up, or even change the position of her chair, she utters heartrending screams; still, I am forced to believe her. I cannot say that she shams until I have seen her walk.”

The old woman listened attentively; a sly look on her face. A week passed, then two, then a month, and still Mme. Simon did not leave her chair. Her appetite was excellent, she gained flesh and joked with the other patients. She seemed to accept her lot as a well-earned rest after fifty years of labour as a charwoman.

Hector came every day and found her the same; always repeating:

“I can’t move, I can’t!”

When Hector came home, his wife would ask with anxiety:

“How is Mme. Simon?”

“Just the same; absolutely no change,” answered Hector dejectedly.

They dismissed the servant, whose wages became too much of a strain, and economized more than ever. The money received from his chief had been spent. Then Hector called four doctors to hold a consultation on Mme. Simon. She let them press and poke her, while she watched them slyly.

“We must make her walk,” said one of the doctors.

“I can’t, gentlemen; I can’t!”

They took hold of her and dragged her a few steps, but she freed herself, and sank to the floor emitting such piercing screams, that they carried her back to her chair very gently.

They reserved their opinion, but concluded, however, that she was incapacitated for work.

When Hector brought the news to his wife, she collapsed.

“We had much better take her here, it would cost us less.”

“In our own house! What are you thinking of?”

“What else can we do, dear? I am sure it is no fault of mine!”

The Wooden Shoes

The old priest was mumbling the last words of his sermon over the white caps of the peasant women, and the rough or greasy heads of the men. The large baskets of the farmers’ wives who had come from a distance to attend Mass were on the ground beside them, and the heavy heat of a July day caused them all to exhale a smell like that of cattle, or of a flock of sheep, and the cocks could be heard crowing through the large open door, as well as the lowing of the cows in a neighbouring field. From time to time a breath of wind, charged with the perfume of the fields, swept in through the main entrance, fluttered the ribbons in the women’s hats, and made the little yellow candle flames on the altar tremble.

“As God wishes. Amen!” the priest said. Then he ceased, opened a book, and, as he did every week, began to give notice to his flock of all the small parish events for the following week. He was an old man with white hair who had been in the parish for over forty years, and from the pulpit was in the habit of discoursing familiarly to them all; so he went on: “I recommend Désiré Vallin, who is very ill, to your prayers, and also La Paumelle, who is recovering very slowly from her confinement.”

He had forgotten the rest, and so he looked for the slips of paper which were put away in a breviary. At last he found two and continued: “I will not have the lads and the girls come into the church yard in the evening, as they do; otherwise I shall inform the rural policeman. Monsieur Césaire Omont would like to find a respectable girl as servant.” He thought for a few moments, and then added: “That is all, my brethren, and I wish that all of you may find the Divine mercy.” And he came down from the pulpit, to finish Mass.

When the Malandains had returned to their thatched cottage, which was the last in the village of La Sablière, on the road to Fourville, the father, a thin, wrinkled old peasant, sat down at the table, while his wife took the saucepan off the fire, and Adélaïde, the daughter, took the glasses and plates out of the sideboard. Then the father said: “I think that place at Maître Omont’s ought to be a good one, as he is a widower and his daughter-in-law does not like him. He is all alone and has money. I think it would be a good thing to send Adélaïde there.”

His wife put the black saucepan on to the table, took the lid off, and while the steam, which smelled strongly of cabbage, rose into the air she pondered on the suggestion. Presently the old man continued: “He has got some money, that is certain, but anyone going there ought to be very sharp, and Adélaïde is not that at all.”

His wife replied: “I might go and see, all the same,” and turning to her daughter, a strapping, silly looking girl with yellow hair and fat, red cheeks like apples, she said: “Do you hear, you great silly? You are to go to Maître Omont’s and offer yourself as his servant, and you will do whatever he tells you.”

The girl began to laugh in a foolish manner, without replying, and then the three began their dinner. In a few minutes, the father continued: “Listen to me, girl, and try not to make a mistake about what I am going to say to you.” And slowly and minutely he laid down for her her line of conduct, anticipating the minutest details, and preparing her for the conquest of an old widower who was on unfriendly terms with his family. The mother ceased eating to listen to him, and she sat there, with her fork in her hand, looking at her husband and her daughter by turns, and following every word with concentrated and silent attention, while Adélaïde remained listless, docile, and stupid, with vague and wandering eyes.

As soon as their meal was over, her mother made her put her cap on, and they both started off to see Monsieur Césaire Omont. He lived in a small, brick house adjoining his tenants’ cottages, for he had retired, and was living by subdividing and letting his land.

He was about fifty-five years old, and was stout, jovial, and rough-mannered, as rich men often are. He laughed and shouted loud enough to make the walls fall down, drank brandy and cider by the glassful, and was said to be still of an amorous disposition, in spite of his age. He liked to walk about his fields with his hands behind his back, digging his wooden shoes into the fat soil, looking at the sprouting corn or the flowering colza with the eye of a retired farmer, at his ease, who likes to see the crops but does not trouble himself about them any longer. People used to say of him: “There is a Mr. Merry-man, who does not get up in a good temper every day.”

He received the two women, as he was finishing his coffee, with his fat stomach against the table, and turning round said: “What do you want?”

The mother was spokeswoman. “This is our girl Adélaïde, and I have come to ask you to take her as servant, as Monsieur le Curé told us you wanted one.”

Maître Omont looked at the girl, and then he said roughly: “How old is the great she-goat?”

“Twenty last Michaelmas-Day, Monsieur Omont.”

“That is settled, she will have fifteen francs a month and her food. I shall expect her tomorrow, to make my soup in the morning.” And he dismissed the two women.

The next day Adélaïde entered upon her duties, and began to work hard, without saying a word, as she was in the habit of doing at home. About nine o’clock, as she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, Monsieur Omont called her: “Adélaïde!”

She came immediately saying: “Here I am, sir.” As soon as she was opposite him, with her red and neglected hands, and her troubled looks, he said, “Now just listen to me, so that there may be no mistake between us. You are my servant, but nothing else; you understand what I mean. We shall keep our shoes apart.”

“Yes, master.”

“Each in our own place, my girl, you in your kitchen, I in my dining room; and with that exception, everything will be for you just as it is for me. Is that settled?”

“Yes, master.”

“Very well; that is all right, and now go to your work.”

And she went out, to attend to her duties, and at midday she served up her master’s dinner in the little sitting-room with the flowered paper on the walls, and then, when the soup was on the table, she went to tell him. “Dinner is ready, master.”

He went in and sat down, looked round, unfolded his table napkin, hesitated for a moment and then in a voice of thunder he shouted: “Adélaïde!”

She rushed in, terribly frightened, for he had shouted as if he meant to murder her.

“Well, in heaven’s name, where is your place?”

“But, master!”

“I do not like to eat alone,” he roared; “you will sit there, or go to the devil, if you don’t choose to do so. Go and get your plate and glass.”

She brought them in, feeling very frightened, and stammered: “Here I am, master,” and then sat down opposite to him. He grew jovial; clinked glasses with her, rapped the table, and told her stories to which she listened with downcast eyes, without daring to say a word, and from time to time she got up to fetch some bread, cider, or plates. When she brought in the coffee she only put one cup before him, and then he grew angry again, and growled: “Well, what about yourself?”

“I never take any, master.”

“Why not?”

“Because I do not like it.”

Then he burst out afresh: “I am not fond of having my coffee by myself, confound it! If you will not take it here, you can go to the devil. Go and get a cup, and make haste about it.”

So she went and fetched a cup, sat down again, tasted the black liquor and made faces over it, but swallowed it to the last drop, under her master’s furious looks. Then he made her also drink her first glass of brandy as an extra drop, the second as a livener, and the third as a kick behind, and then he told her to go and wash up her plates and dishes, adding, that she was “a good sort of girl.”

It was the same at supper, after which she had to play dominoes with him. Then he sent her to bed, saying that he should come upstairs soon. So she went to her room, a garret under the roof, and after saying her prayers, undressed and got into bed. But very soon she sprang up in a fright, for a furious shout had shaken the house. “Adélaïde!” She opened her door, and replied from her attic: “Here I am, master.”

“Where are you?”

“In bed, of course, master.”

Then he roared out: “Will you come downstairs, in heaven’s name? I do not like to sleep alone, and, by God, if you object, you can just get to the devil out of this.”

Then in her terror she replied from upstairs: “I will come, master.” She looked for her candle, and he soon heard her small clogs pattering down the stairs. When she had got to the bottom steps, he seized her by the arm, and as soon as she had left her light wooden shoes by the side of her master’s heavy boots, he pushed her into his room, growling out: “Quicker than that, confound it!”

And without knowing what she was saying she answered: “Here I am, here I am, master.”

Six months later, when she went to see her parents one Sunday, her father looked at her curiously, and then said: “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

She remained thunderstruck, and looked at her waist, and then said: “No, I do not think so.”

Then he asked her, for he wanted to know everything: “Just tell me, didn’t you mix your clogs together, one night?”

“Yes, I mixed them the first night, and then every other night.”

“Well, then, you are pregnant, you great fool!”

On hearing that, she began to sob, and stammered: “How could I know? How was I to know?” Old Malandain looked at her knowingly, and appeared very pleased, and then he asked: “What did you not know?” And amid tears she replied: “How was I to know how children were made?” And when her mother came back, the man said, without any anger: “There, she is pregnant, now.”

But the woman was furious, her finer instinct revolted, and she called her daughter, who was in tears, every name she could think of⁠—a “trollop” and a “strumpet.” Then, however, the old man made her hold her tongue, and as he took up his cap to go and talk the matter over with Master Césaire Omont, he remarked: “She is actually more stupid than I thought she was; she did not even know what he was doing, the fool!”

On the next Sunday, after the sermon, the old Curé published the banns between Monsieur Onufre-Césaire Omont and Céleste-Adélaïde Malandain.

Monsieur Jocaste

Madame, do you recollect our great quarrel one evening in the little Japanese drawing room, about the father who committed incest? Do you recollect how indignant you were, the violent words you flung at me, and how angry you became, and do you also remember all I said in defence of that man? You blamed me. I appeal against you.

No one in the world, you declared, no one could uphold the infamous deed which I defended. Today I am going to tell this tale to the public.

Perhaps someone might be found who, although not excusing the brutal deed, would understand that one cannot struggle against certain fatalities that seem to be horrible fantasies of all-powerful nature.

When sixteen years old she had been married to a hard-hearted old man, a business man who married her for her money. She was a darling blonde creature, gay and dreamy at the same time, and yearning for an ideal happiness. Disillusion fell on her heart and broke it. Suddenly she understood life⁠—no future, the destruction of her hopes, and one wish alone took possession of her soul, and that was to have a child to claim her love.

But she did not have one. Two years passed. She fell in love with a young man twenty-three years old, who was wildly in love with her. For some time she firmly resisted his advances. He was called Pierre Martel.

But one winter’s evening they found themselves alone, at her house. He had come to drink a cup of tea. Then they sat down near the fire, on a low seat. They scarcely spoke. They were passionately in love with each other, stung with desire their lips thirsted wildly for other lips, their arms trembled with a desire to open and embrace someone.

The lamp, draped with lace, shed a cosy light in the silent drawing room.

Although they were both embarrassed they occasionally exchanged a few words, but when their eyes met their hearts trembled.

How can acquired sentiments withstand the violence of instinct? How can the appearance of reserve withstand the irresistible desires of nature?

It happened that their fingers touched. And that was enough. They were overcome by passion. They embraced, and she yielded.

She became pregnant. By her husband, or by her lover. How did she know? Doubtless by her lover.

Then she became very much frightened and felt sure that she would die in her confinement, and she insisted on the man who was the cause of her being in this condition to swear over and over again to watch over the child during its whole life, to refuse it nothing, to be everything to it, yes, everything, and, if necessary, even to commit a crime in order to insure its happiness.

She carried this to an absurd extent. She became more and more worked up as her confinement drew near.

She died giving birth to a girl.

The young man was in the depths of despair, in fact his despair was so great that he could not hide it; perhaps the husband suspected something; perhaps he knew that he could not have been the father of the girl! He forbade the house to the man who thought himself the real father, hid the child from him, and had it brought up in seclusion.

Many years passed.

Pierre Martel forgot all about it, as one forgets everything. He became rich, but he could not love anyone now, and he had not married. His life was ordinary; that of a happy, quiet man. He had never heard a word about the husband he had deceived, nor about the young girl he thought was his.

Well, one morning he received a letter from a comparative stranger, who happened to mention the death of his old rival, and he was somewhat disturbed, and filled with remorse. What had become of this child, his child? Could he do nothing for her? He inquired about her. She had been brought up by an aunt, and she was poor, miserably poor.

He wanted to see her and to help her. He called on the only relation of the orphan.

Even his name awoke no memory. He was forty years old and still looked like a young man. He was received, but he did not dare to say that he had known her mother, fearing it would give rise to suspicion later on.

Well, as soon as she entered the little sitting-room where he anxiously awaited her coming, he trembled for he was all but overcome by surprise. It was she, the other woman! the woman who was dead!

She was the same age, had the same eyes, the same hair, the same figure, the same smile, the same voice. The illusion was so real that it maddened him; all the tumultuous love of days gone by sprang up from the depths of his heart. She likewise was both gay and unaffected. At once they became friends and shook hands.

On returning home he found that the old wound had been opened again, and he wept desperately; he held his head in his hands and wept for the woman who had died, haunted by memories and by the familiar words she used to say; he was plunged in despair from which there was no escape.

He visited the house in which the young girl resided. He could no longer live without her, without her merry talk, the rustle of her gown, the intonation of her voice. And now in his thoughts and in his heart he confounded the two women, the one gone before and the living one, forgetting distance, the time that had elapsed, and death; always loving that one in this one, and this one in memory of the other, not trying to understand why, to know why, never even asking himself if she could be his daughter.

Occasionally, when he noticed the discomfort in which the woman lived, whom he adored with this double passion, which he, himself, could not understand, he felt terribly about it.

What could he do? Could he offer money? How could he do it? What right had he? Could he play the role of guardian? He seemed scarcely older than she; everyone would take him for her lover. Should he get a husband for her? This thought suddenly surged up in his soul and frightened him. Then he became calmer. Who would ask her hand in marriage? She had nothing, not a cent.

Her aunt noticed how often he came; and saw quite plainly that he was in love with this child. And what was he waiting for? Did he know?

One evening they were alone. They were talking softly side by side on the sofa in the little sitting-room. Suddenly he took her hand in a paternal manner. He held it, and his heart and senses were awakened against his will, he did not dare to reject the hand which she had given him, and yet he felt himself growing weaker as he held it. Suddenly she threw herself in his arms. For she loved him ardently as her mother had done, just as though she had inherited this fatal passion.

Completely beside himself, he put his lips to her blonde hair and, as she raised her head to escape, their mouths met.

People become mad at times. They were so now.

When he reached the street he walked straight ahead, not knowing what he would do.

I recollect, madam, your indignant exclamation: “He had no choice but to commit suicide!”

I answered you: “And as for her? Should he have killed her also?”

The child loved him to distraction, madly, with the fatal and hereditary passion which had thrown her, a virgin, ignorant and distracted, on the breast of this man. She had acted in this manner owing to the irresistible intoxication of her entire being, which made her lose control of herself, which made her give herself, carried away by tumultuous instinct, and throw herself into the arms of her lover.

If he were to kill himself what would become of her?⁠ ⁠… She would die!⁠ ⁠… She would die dishonoured, in despair, suffering terrible tortures.

What should he do?

Leave her, give her a marriage portion, marry her to someone else?⁠ ⁠… In that case she would die; she would die from grief, without accepting his money or another husband, for she had given herself to him. He had ruined her life, destroyed every possibility of happiness for her; he had condemned her to everlasting misery, to everlasting despair, to everlasting fire, to everlasting solitude, or to death.

Besides he loved her himself also! He revolted at the thought that he loved her extravagantly. She was his own daughter, be it so. The hazard of impregnation, a contact of a second had made⁠—of that being allied to him by no legal bond⁠—his daughter, whom he cherished as he had her mother, and even more, as though he were possessed of two passions.

Besides was she really his daughter? What did that matter anyhow? Who would know it?

Ardent memories brought back the vow made to the dying woman. “He had promised to give his entire life to the child, to commit a crime if necessary to insure her happiness.”

And he loved her so that he plunged headlong into this abominable and pleasing crime, tortured by pain, and ravaged by desire.

Who will know about it? the other man, the father, being dead!

“So be it!” said he; “this secret sin may break my heart. As she does not suspect it, I alone will carry its weight.”

He asked for her hand, and he married her.

I don’t know if they were happy, but I should have done as he did, madam.

Beside a Dead Man

He was dying rapidly, as people die who have tuberculosis. Every day I saw him sit down, at about two o’clock, under the hotel windows, facing the calm sea, on a bench on the terrace. For some time he would remain motionless in the warmth of the sun, gazing at the Mediterranean with mournful eyes. Sometimes he would glance towards the lofty mountain, with its misty heights, that encloses Mentone; then, with a very deliberate movement, he would cross his long legs, so thin that they looked like two bones, about which the cloth of his trousers flapped loosely, and he would open a book, always the same one.

Then he would stir no more, but would read, read with all his eyes and mind; the whole of his poor expiring body looked to be reading; his whole soul would bury itself in the book, losing itself and disappearing in it, until the hour when the cooler air made him cough a little. Then he would rise and go indoors.

He was a tall German with a fair beard; he lunched and dined in his own room, and spoke to no one.

A vague feeling of curiosity drew me towards him. I sat down one day beside him, having brought with me, for the sake of appearances, a volume of de Musset’s poetry.

I began to glance through “Rolla.”

“Do you know German, monsieur?” said my neighbour, suddenly, in good French.

“Not a word of it, monsieur.”

“I am sorry. Since chance has placed us side by side, I would have lent you, I would have shown you a priceless treasure: the book I have here.”

“What is it?”

“It is a copy of my master Schopenhauer, annotated by his own hand. All the margins, as you see, are covered with his writing.”

I took the book with respect and contemplated these shapes, incomprehensible to me, but revealing the immortal mind of the greatest destroyer of dreams who has ever passed through the world.

And the lines of de Musset broke forth in my memory:

“Dors-tu content, Voltaire, et ton hideux sourire
Voltige-t-il encor sur tes os decharnes?”11

Involuntarily I compared the childish, religious sarcasm of Voltaire with the irresistible irony of the German philosopher whose influence is henceforth ineradicable.

One may protest and lose one’s temper, one may be indignant or loftily disdainful, but Schopenhauer has stamped humanity with the seal of his contempt and disenchantment.

A disillusioned hedonist, he has overturned beliefs, hopes, poetry, and idle fancies, has destroyed the aspirations and laid waste the trust of souls, has killed love, has abolished the idealised worship of woman, has exploded the illusions of the heart, and has accomplished the most gigantic labour of scepticism that has ever been achieved. His mocking spirit has traversed all things, and drained them all dry. And, even today, those who execrate him bear in their spirits, despite themselves, fragments of his mind.

“So you were a personal friend of Schopenhauer’s?” I said to the German.

He smiled sadly.

“Till his death, monsieur.”

And he spoke to me of him, telling me of the almost supernatural impression which that strange being made on all who came near him.

He told me of the old demolisher’s interview with a French politician, a doctrinaire republican, who was eager to see the man and found him in a noisy beerhouse, seated in the midst of his disciples, dry, wrinkled, smiling his unforgettable smile, rending and tearing ideas and beliefs with a single sentence, as a dog with one bite tears to ribbons the stuffs he is playing with.

He repeated to me the remark of the Frenchman, as he went away bewildered and scared, exclaiming: “It was like spending an hour with the devil.”

Then he added:

“He had, in truth, monsieur, a terrifying smile which frightened us, even after his death. It is an almost unknown anecdote, and I will tell it you if it interests you.”

And he began, in a tired voice, occasionally interrupted by violent fits of coughing:

“Schopenhauer had just died, and it was decided that we should watch by the deathbed in turns, two and two, till morning.

“He lay in a large, very plain room, vast and sombre. Two candles burned on the night table.

“It was midnight when I took up my watch, with one of our comrades. The two friends whom we were replacing walked out, and we went in and sat down at the foot of the bed.

“The face had not altered at all. It was laughing. The hollow crease we knew so well ran past the corner of the lips, and we fancied that he was about to open his eyes, move, and speak. His mind, or rather his thoughts, enveloped us; we felt ourselves to be more than ever in the atmosphere of his genius, invaded and possessed by him. His domination seemed to us even more sovereign now that he was dead. A mystery mingled with the power of that incomparable mind.

“The bodies of such men vanish, but the men themselves remain; and, on the night which follows the stopping of their hearts, I assure you, monsieur, they are terrifying.

“Softly we spoke together of him, recalling speeches and formula of his, and those amazing maxims which are like rays of light thrown, in a few words, on the darkness of the unknown Life.

“ ‘He looks as though he were going to speak,’ said my companion.

“And we gazed, with an uneasiness bordering on terror, at the motionless, still smiling countenance.

“Little by little we felt more ill at ease, oppressed, almost swooning.

“ ‘I don’t know what is the matter with me,’ I stammered, ‘but I can assure you that I am not well.’

“Then we perceived that the body had begun to smell.

“Thereupon my friend proposed that we should go into the next room, leaving the door open, and I consented.

“I took one of the candles burning on the night table and left the other, and we went and sat at the other end of the room, in such a position that we could see from it the bed and the dead man, full in the light.

“But he still obsessed us; it was as though his immaterial, detached, free nature, all-powerful and dominant, were prowling all round us. And occasionally, too, the filthy odour of the decomposing body reached us, soaking right through us, as it were, vague and sickening.

“Suddenly a shiver ran through our bones; a sound, a tiny sound had come from the room of the dead man. Our eyes were instantly turned upon him, and we saw, yes, monsieur, we saw as plainly as possible, both of us, something white run over the bedclothes, drop down on to the carpet, and disappear under a chair.

“We were on our feet before we had time to think, wild with senseless terror, on the point of flight. Then we looked at each other. We were horribly pale. Our hearts were beating furiously enough to move the folds of our coats. I was the first to speak.

“ ‘Did you see?’

“ ‘Yes, I saw.’

“ ‘Is he not dead?’

“ ‘But if he is beginning to putrefy!’

“ ‘What shall we do?’

“My companion replied, hesitating:

“ ‘We must go and see.’

“I took our candle and went in first, and my eyes roved all round the big room with its dark corners. There was no more movement, and I went to the bed. But I stood paralysed with amazement and terror: Schopenhauer was no longer smiling! He was grimacing in a horrible way, his mouth tight shut, with deep hollows in the cheeks.

“ ‘He is not dead!’ I stammered.

“But the awful smell rose to my nostrils, choking me. I did not stir, but gazed fixedly at him, terror-struck, as though in the presence of a ghost.

“Then my companion, taking the other candle, bent down. Then he touched my arm without speaking. I followed his gaze, and saw on the ground, under the chair at the bedside, quite white on the dark carpet, open as though to bite, Schopenhauer’s false teeth.

“The process of decomposition, loosening the jaws, had caused them to spring out of his mouth.

“I was really afraid that day, monsieur.”

And, as the sun was drawing close to the sparkling sea, the consumptive German rose, bowed to me, and went into the hotel.

Two Friends

Paris was blockaded, famished, at the last gasp. Sparrows were getting scarce on the roofs, and the sewers were depleted of their rats. People were eating anything.

As he was strolling sadly along the outer boulevard on a fine January morning, with his hands in the pockets of his military trousers, and his stomach empty, Monsieur Morissot, a watchmaker by profession, and a man of his ease when he had the chance, came face to face with a brother in arms whom he recognized as a friend, and stopped. It was Monsieur Sauvage, an acquaintance he had met on the river.

Before the war Morissot had been in the habit of starting out at dawn every Sunday, rod in hand, and a tin box on his back. He would take the train to Argenteuil, get out at Colombes, then go on foot as far as the Island of Marante. The moment he reached this place of his dreams he would begin to fish, and fish till nightfall. Every Sunday he met there a little round and jovial man, Monsieur Sauvage, a draper of the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, also an ardent fisherman. They would often pass half the day side by side, rod in hand, feet dangling above the stream, and in this manner had become fast friends. Some days they did not talk, other days they did. But they understood each other admirably without words, for their taste and feelings were identical.

On spring mornings, about ten o’clock, when the young sun was raising a faint mist above the quiet-flowing river, and blessing the backs of those two passionate fishermen with the pleasant warmth of a new season, Morissot would sometimes say to his neighbour: “I say, isn’t it heavenly?” and Monsieur Sauvage would reply: “Couldn’t be jollier!” which was quite enough to make them understand and like each other.

In autumn, as the day was declining, when the sky, reddened by the glow of the setting sun, and crimson clouds were reflected in the water, the whole river stained with colour, the horizon flaming, when our two friends looked as red at fire, and the trees, already russet and shivering as the touch of winter, were turned to gold, Monsieur Sauvage would look smilingly at Morissot, and remark: “What a sight!” and Morissot, not taking his eyes off his float, would reply ecstatically: “It beats the boulevard, eh?”

As soon as they recognized each other, they shook hands heartily, quite moved at meeting again in such different circumstances. With a sigh Monsieur Sauvage murmured: “Nice state of things!” Morissot, very gloomy, groaned: “And what weather! Today’s the first fine day this year!”

The sky was indeed quite blue and full of light.

They moved on, side by side, ruminative, sad. Morissot pursued his thought: “And fishing, eh? What jolly times we used to have!”

“When shall we go fishing again?” asked Monsieur Sauvage.

They entered a little café, took an absinthe together, and started off once more, strolling along the pavement.

Suddenly Morissot halted: “Another absinthe?” he said.

“I’m with you!” responded Monsieur Sauvage. And in they went to another wine-shop. They came out rather lightheaded, affected as people are by alcohol on empty stomachs. The day was mild, and a soft breeze caressed their faces.

Monsieur Sauvage, whose lightheadedness was completed by the fresh air, stopped short: “I say⁠—suppose we go!”

“What d’you mean?”

“Fishing!”

“Where?”

“Why, at our island. The French outposts are close to Colombes. I know Colonel Dumoulin; he’ll be sure to let us pass.”

Morissot answered, quivering with eagerness: “All right; I’m on!” And they parted, to get their fishing gear.

An hour later they were marching along the high road. They came presently to the villa occupied by the Colonel, who, much amused by their whim, gave them leave. And furnished with his permit, they set off again.

They soon passed the outposts, and, traversing the abandoned village of Colombes, found them selves at the edge of the little vineyard fields that run down to the Seine. It was about eleven o’clock.

The village of Argenteuil, opposite, seemed quite deserted. The heights of Orgemont and Sannois commanded the whole countryside; the great plain stretching to Nanterre was empty, utterly empty of all but its naked cherry-trees and its grey earth.

Monsieur Sauvage jerking his thumb towards the heights, muttered: “The Prussians are up there!” And disquietude stole into the hearts of the two friends, looking at that deserted country. The Prussians! They had never seen any, but they had felt them there for months, all round Paris, bringing ruin to France, bringing famine; pillaging, massacring; invisible, yet invincible. And a sort of superstitious terror was added to their hatred for this unknown and victorious race.

Morissot stammered: “I say⁠—suppose we were to meet some?”

With that Parisian jocularity which nothing can repress Monsieur Sauvage replied: “We’d give ’em some fried fish.”

None the less, daunted by the silence all round, they hesitated to go farther.

At last Monsieur Sauvage took the plunge. “Come on! But be careful!”

They got down into a vineyard, where they crept along, all eyes and ears, bent double, taking cover behind every bush.

There was still a strip of open ground to cross before they could get to the riverside; they took it at the double, and the moment they reached the bank plumped down amongst some dry rushes.

Morissot glued his ear to the ground for any sound of footsteps. Nothing! They were alone, utterly alone.

They plucked up spirit again, and began to fish.

In front of them the Island of Marante, uninhabited, hid them from the far bank. The little island restaurant was closed, and looked as if it had been abandoned for years.

Monsieur Sauvage caught the first gudgeon, Morissot the second, and every minute they kept pulling in their lines with a little silvery creature wriggling at the end. Truly a miraculous draught of fishes!

They placed their spoil carefully in a very fine-meshed net suspended in the water at their feet, and were filled by the delicious joy that visits those who know once more a pleasure of which they have been deprived too long.

The good sun warmed their shoulders; they heard nothing, thought of nothing, were lost to the world. They fished.

But suddenly a dull boom, which seemed to come from underground, made the earth tremble. The bombardment had begun again.

Morissot turned his head. Away above the bank he could see on the left the great silhouette of Mont Valérien, showing a white plume in its cap, a puff of smoke just belched forth. Then a second spurt of smoke shot up from the fort’s summit, and some seconds afterwards was heard the roar of the gun.

Then more and more. Every minute the hill breathed out death, sending forth clouds of white smoke, which rose slowly to the calm heaven, and made a crown of cloud.

Monsieur Sauvage shrugged his shoulders. “At it again!” he said.

Morissot, who was anxiously watching the bobbing of his float, was seized with the sudden fury of a man of peace against these maniacs battering at each other, and he growled out: “Idiots I call them, killing each other like that!”

“Worse than the beasts!” said Monsieur Sauvage.

And Morissot, busy with a fish, added: “It’ll always be like that, in my opinion, so long as we have governments.”

Monsieur Sauvage cut him short. “The Republic would never have declared war⁠—”

Morissot broke in: “Under a monarchy you get war against your neighbours; under a republic⁠—war amongst yourselves.”

And they began tranquilly discussing and unravelling momentous political problems with the sweet reasonableness of peaceable, ignorant men, who agreed at any rate on one point, that Man would never be free.

And Mont Valérien thundered without ceasing, shattering with its shells the homes of France, pounding out life, crushing human beings, putting an end to many a dream, to many an expected joy, to many a hope of happiness; opening everywhere, too, in the hearts of wives, of girls, of mothers, wounds that would never heal.

“Such is life!” declared Monsieur Sauvage.

“You mean ‘such is death,’ ” said Morissot, and laughed.

They both gave a sudden start; there was surely someone coming up behind them. Turning their eyes they saw, standing close to their very elbows, four men, four big bearded men, dressed in a sort of servant’s livery, with flat caps on their heads, pointing rifles at them.

The rods fell from their hands and floated off downstream.

In a few seconds they were seized, bound, thrown into a boat, and taken over to the island.

Behind the house that they had thought deserted they perceived some twenty German soldiers.

A sort of hairy giant, smoking a great porcelain pipe, and sitting astride of a chair, said in excellent French: “Well, gentlemen, what luck fishing?”

Whereupon a soldier laid at his officer’s feet the net full of fish, which he had carefully brought along.

The Prussian smiled. “I see⁠—not bad. But we’ve other fish to fry. Now listen to me, and keep cool. I regard you two as spies sent to watch me. I take you, and I shoot you. You were pretending to fish, the better to disguise your plans. You’ve fallen into my hands; so much the worse for you. That’s war. But, seeing that you passed through your outposts, you must assuredly have been given the password to get back again. Give it me, and I’ll let you go.”

Livid, side by side, the two friends were silent, but their hands kept jerking with little nervous movements.

The officer continued: “No one will ever know; it will be all right; you can go home quite easy in your minds. If you refuse, it’s death⁠—instant death. Choose.”

They remained motionless, without a word.

The Prussian, calm as ever, stretched out his hands towards the water, and said: “Think! In five minutes you’ll be at the bottom of that river. In five minutes. You’ve got families, I suppose?”

Mont Valérien went on thundering. The two fishermen stood there silent.

The German gave an order in his own language. Then he moved his chair so as not to be too near his prisoners. Twelve men came forward, took their stand twenty paces away, and grounded arms.

The officer said: “I give you one minute; not a second more.”

And, getting up abruptly, he approached the two Frenchmen, took Morissot by the arm, and, drawing him aside, whispered: “Quick, that password. Your friend need never know. It will only look as if I’d relented.” Morissot made no answer.

Then the Prussian took Monsieur Sauvage apart, and asked him the same question.

Monsieur Sauvage did not reply.

Once again they were side by side. The officer gave a word of command. The soldiers raised their rifles.

At that moment Morissot’s glance alighted on the net full of gudgeons lying on the grass a few paces from him. The sunshine was falling on that glittering heap of fishes, still full of life. His spirit sank. In spite of all effort his eyes filled with tears.

“Goodbye, Monsieur Sauvage!” he stammered out.

Monsieur Sauvage answered: “Goodbye, Monsieur Morissot.”

They grasped each other’s hands, shaken from head to foot by a trembling that they could not control.

“Fire!” cried the officer.

Twelve shots rang out as one.

Monsieur Sauvage fell forward like a log. Morissot, the taller, wavered, spun around, and came down across his comrade, his face upturned to the sky; blood spurted from his tunic, torn across the chest.

The German gave another order. His men dispersed. They came back with ropes and stones, which they fastened to the feet of the two dead friends, whom they carried to the river bank. And Mont Valérien never ceased rumbling, crowned now with piled-up clouds of smoke.

Two of the soldiers took Morissot by the head and heels, two others laid hold of Monsieur Sauvage in the same manner. The bodies, swung violently to and fro, were hurled forward, described a curve, then plunged upright into the river, where the stones dragged them down feet first.

The water splashed up, foamed, and rippled, then fell calm again, and tiny waves rolled out towards the banks.

A few bloodstains floated away.

The officer, calm as ever, said quietly: “Now it is the fishes’ turn!” and went back towards the house.

But suddenly catching sight of the net full of gudgeons on the grass, he took it up, looked it over, smiled, and called out: “Wilhelm!”

A soldier in a white apron came running up. The Prussian threw him the spoil of the two dead fishermen.

“Get these little things fried at once while they’re still alive. They will be delicious.”

And he went back to his pipe.

At Sea

The following lines recently appeared in the press:

“Boulogne-sur-Mer, January 22.

“From our correspondent.

“A frightful disaster has occurred which throws into consternation our maritime population, so grievously afflicted for the last two years. The fishing boat, commanded by Captain Javel, entering into port, was carried to the west, and broken upon the rocks of the breakwater near the pier. In spite of the efforts of the lifeboat, and of lifelines shot out to them, four men and a cabin boy perished. The bad weather continues. Further wrecks are feared.”

Who is this Captain Javel? Is he the brother of the one-armed Javel? If this poor man tossed by the waves, and dead perhaps, under the debris of his boat cut in pieces, is the one I think he is, he witnessed, eighteen years ago, another drama, terrible and simple as are all the formidable dramas of the sea.

Javel senior was then master of a smack. The smack is the fishing boat par excellence. Solid, fearing no kind of weather, with round body, rolled incessantly by the waves, like a cork, always lashed by the harsh, salty winds of the Channel, it travels the sea indefatigably, with sail filled, carrying in its wake a net which reaches the bottom of the ocean, detaching all the sleeping creatures from the rocks, the flat fishes glued to the sand, the heavy crabs with their hooked claws, and the lobster with his pointed mustaches.

When the breeze is fresh and the waves choppy, the boat puts about to fish. A rope is fastened to the end of a great wooden shank tipped with iron, which is let down by means of two cables slipping over two spools at the extreme end of the craft. And the boat, driving under wind and current, drags after her this apparatus, which ravages and devastates the bottom of the sea.

Javel had on board his younger brother, four men, and a cabin boy. He had set out from Boulogne in fair weather to cast the nets. Then, suddenly, the wind arose and a squall drove the boat before the wind. It reached the coast of England; but a tremendous sea was beating against the cliffs and the shore so that it was impossible to enter port. The little boat put to sea again and returned to the coast of France. The storm continued to make the piers unapproachable, enveloping with foam, noise and danger every place of refuge.

The fishing boat set out again, running along the tops of the billows, tossed about, shaken up, streaming, buffeted by mountains of water, but game in spite of all, accustomed to heavy weather, which sometimes kept it wandering for five or six days between the two countries, unable to land in the one or the other.

Finally, the hurricane ceased, when they came out into open sea, and although the sea was still high, the Old Man ordered them to cast the net. Then the great fishing tackle was thrown overboard, and two men at one side and two at the other began to unwind from windlasses the cable which held it. Suddenly it touched the bottom, but a high wave tipped the boat forward. Javel junior, who was in the prow directing the casting of the net, tottered and found his arm caught between the cable, slackened an instant by the motion, and the wood on which it was turning. He made a desperate effort with his other hand to lift the cable, but the net was dragging again and the taut cable would not yield.

Rigid with pain, he called. Everyone ran to him. His brother left the helm. They threw their full force upon the rope, forcing it away from the arm it was grinding. It was in vain. “We must cut it,” said a sailor, and he drew from his pocket a large knife which could, in two blows, save young Javel’s arm. But to cut was to lose the net, and the net meant money, much money⁠—fifteen hundred francs; it belonged to the elder Javel, who was keen on his property.

In anguish he cried out: “No, don’t cut; I’ll luff the ship.” And he ran to the wheel, putting the helm about. The boat scarcely obeyed, paralyzed by the net, which counteracted its power, and driven besides by the force of the leeway and the wind.

Young Javel fell to his knees with set teeth and haggard eyes. He said nothing. His brother returned, still anxious about the sailor’s knife.

“Wait! wait!” he said, “don’t cut; we must cast anchor.”

The anchor was thrown overboard, all the chain paid out, and they then tried to take a turn around the capstan with the cables in order to loosen them from the weight of the net. The cables finally relaxed, and they released the arm, which hung inert under a sleeve of bloody woolen cloth.

Young Javel seemed to have lost his mind. They removed his jersey, and then saw something horrible; a mass of bruised flesh, from which the blood was gushing, as if it were forced by a pump. The man himself looked at his arm and murmured: “Done for.”

Then, as the haemorrhage made a pool on the deck of the boat, the sailors cried: “He’ll lose all his blood. We must bind the artery!”

They then took some twine, thick, black, tarred twine, and, twisting it around the limb above the wound, bound it with all their strength. Little by little the jets of blood stopped, and finally ceased altogether.

Young Javel arose, his arm hanging by his side. He took it by the other hand, raised it, turned it, shook it. Everything was broken; the bones were crushed completely; only the muscles held it to his body. He looked at it thoughtfully, with sad eyes. Then he seated himself on a folded sail, and his comrades came around him, advising him to soak it continually to prevent gangrene.

They put a bucket near him and every moment he would dip into it with a glass and bathe the horrible wound by letting a thin stream of clear water fall upon it.

“You would be better down below,” said his brother. He went down, but after an hour he came up again, feeling better not to be alone. And then, he preferred the open air. He sat down again upon the sail and continued bathing his arm.

The fishing was good. The huge fish with white bodies were lying beside him, shaken by the spasms of death. He looked at them without ceasing to sprinkle the mangled flesh.

When they started to return to Boulogne, another gale of wind began to blow. The little boat resumed its mad course, bounding, and tumbling, shaking the poor wounded man.

Night came on. The weather was heavy until daybreak. At sunrise, they could see England again, but as the sea was a little less rough, they turned toward France, beating against the wind.

Toward evening, young Javel called his comrades and showed them black traces and the hideous signs of decay around that part of his arm which was no longer joined to his body.

The sailors looked at it, giving advice: “That must be gangrene,” said one.

“It must have salt water on it,” said another.

Then they brought salt water and poured it on the wound. The wounded man became livid, grinding his teeth, and twisting with pain; but he uttered no cry.

When the burning grew less, he said to his brother: “Give me your knife.” The brother gave it to him.

“Hold this arm up for me, and pull it.”

His brother did as he was asked.

Then he began to cut. He cut gently, with caution, severing the last tendons with the blade as sharp as a razor. Soon he had only a stump. He heaved a deep sigh and said: “That had to be done. Otherwise, it would be all up.”

He seemed relieved and breathed energetically. He continued to pour water on the part of his arm remaining to him.

The night was still bad and they could not land. When the day appeared, young Javel took his severed arm and examined it carefully. Putrefaction had begun. His comrades came also and examined it, passing it from hand to hand, touching it, turning it over, and smelling it.

His brother said: “It’s about time to throw that into the sea.”

Young Javel was angry; he replied: “No, oh! no! I will not. It is mine, isn’t it? Since it is my arm⁠—” He took it and held it between his legs.

“It won’t grow any less putrid,” said the elder.

Then an idea came to the wounded man. In order to keep the fish when they remained a long time at sea, they had with them barrels of salt. “Couldn’t I put it in there in the brine?” he asked.

“That’s so,” declared the others.

Then they emptied one of the barrels, already full of fish from the last few days, and, at the bottom, they deposited the arm. Then they turned salt upon it and replaced the fishes, one by one.

One of the sailors made a little joke: “Take care we don’t happen to sell it at the fish market.”

And everybody laughed except the Javel brothers.

The wind still blew. They beat about in sight of Boulogne until the next day at ten o’clock. The wounded man still poured water on his arm. From time to time he would get up and walk from one end of the boat to the other. His brother, who was at the wheel, shook his head and followed him with his eye.

Finally, they came into port.

The doctor examined the wound and declared it was doing well. He dressed it properly and ordered rest. But Javel could not go to bed without having his arm again, and went quickly back to the dock to find the barrel, which he had marked with a cross.

They emptied it in front of him, and he found his arm well preserved in the salt, wrinkled and in good condition. He wrapped it in a napkin brought for this purpose, and took it home.

His wife and children examined carefully this fragment of their father, touching the fingers, taking up the grains of salt that had lodged under the nails. Then they sent for the carpenter, who measured it for a little coffin.

The next day the complete crew of the fishing smack followed the funeral of the severed arm. The two brothers, side by side, conducted the ceremony. The parish beadle held the coffin under his arm.

Javel junior gave up going to sea. He obtained a small position in port, and, later, whenever he spoke of the accident, he would say to his auditor, in a low tone: “If my brother had been willing to cut the net, I should still have my arm, for certain. But he was thinking of his valuable property.”

The Necklace

She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself besides be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education.

Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family. Their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heartbroken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large armchairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman’s envious longings.

When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup tureen, exclaiming delightedly: “Aha! Scotch broth! There’s nothing better,” she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.

She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.

She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand.

“Here’s something for you,” he said.

Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:

“The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th.”

Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring:

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“Why, darling, I thought you’d be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Everyone wants one; it’s very select, and very few go to the clerks. You’ll see all the really big people there.”

She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently:

“And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?”

He had not thought about it; he stammered:

“Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me.⁠ ⁠…”

He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.

“What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with you?” he faltered.

But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:

“Nothing. Only I haven’t a dress and so I can’t go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall.”

He was heartbroken.

“Look here, Mathilde,” he persisted. “What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?”

She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the careful-minded clerk.

At last she replied with some hesitation:

“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs.”

He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.

Nevertheless he said: “Very well. I’ll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the money.”

The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:

“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been very odd for the last three days.”

“I’m utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear,” she replied. “I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party.”

“Wear flowers,” he said. “They’re very smart at this time of year. For ten francs you could get two or three gorgeous roses.”

She was not convinced.

“No⁠ ⁠… there’s nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.”

“How stupid you are!” exclaimed her husband. “Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that.”

She uttered a cry of delight.

“That’s true. I never thought of it.”

Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.

Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said:

“Choose, my dear.”

First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking:

“Haven’t you anything else?”

“Yes. Look for yourself. I don’t know what you would like best.”

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.

Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:

“Could you lend me this, just this alone?”

“Yes, of course.”

She flung herself on her friend’s breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her treasure.

The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the undersecretaries of state were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.

She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.

She left about four o’clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time.

He threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes, whose poorness clashed with the beauty of the ball dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she would not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs.

Loisel restrained her.

“Wait a little. You’ll catch cold in the open. I’m going to fetch a cab.”

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the staircase. When they were out in the street they could not find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.

They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they found on the quay one of those old night-prowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.

It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked up to their own apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the office at ten.

She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer round her neck!

“What’s the matter with you?” asked her husband, already half undressed.

She turned towards him in the utmost distress.

“I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I’ve no longer got Madame Forestier’s necklace.⁠ ⁠…”

He started with astonishment.

“What!⁠ ⁠… Impossible!”

They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They could not find it.

“Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?” he asked.

“Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry.”

“But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall.”

“Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?”

“No. You didn’t notice it, did you?”

“No.”

They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again.

“I’ll go over all the ground we walked,” he said, “and see if I can’t find it.”

And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought.

Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.

He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.

She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful catastrophe.

Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered nothing.

“You must write to your friend,” he said, “and tell her that you’ve broken the clasp of her necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to look about us.”

She wrote at his dictation.

By the end of a week they had lost all hope.

Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

“We must see about replacing the diamonds.”

Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the jewellers whose name was inside. He consulted his books.

“It was not I who sold this necklace, madame; I must have merely supplied the clasp.”

Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace like the first, consulting their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of mind.

In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand.

They begged the jeweller not to sell it for three days. And they arranged matters on the understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first one were found before the end of February.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He intended to borrow the rest.

He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole race of moneylenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the necklace and put down upon the jeweller’s counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice: “You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it.”

She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. Right from the start she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was under dismissed. They changed their apartment; they took a garret under the roof.

She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dishcloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.

Every month notes had to be paid off, others to be renewed, time to be gained.

Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant’s accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopence halfpenny a page.

And this life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer’s charges and the accumulation of superimposed interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which she had been so beautiful and so much admired.

What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels? Who knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!

One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Élysées to freshen herself after the labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive.

Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up to her.

“Good morning, Jeanne.”

The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly addressed by a poor woman.

“But⁠ ⁠… madame⁠ ⁠…” she stammered. “I don’t know⁠ ⁠… you must be making a mistake.”

“No⁠ ⁠… I am Mathilde Loisel.”

Her friend uttered a cry.

“Oh!⁠ ⁠… my poor Mathilde, how you have changed!⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, I’ve had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows⁠ ⁠… and all on your account.”

“On my account!⁠ ⁠… How was that?”

“You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the Ministry?”

“Yes. Well?”

“Well, I lost it.”

“How could you? Why, you brought it back.”

“I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You realise it wasn’t easy for us; we had no money⁠ ⁠… Well, it’s paid for at last, and I’m mighty glad.”

Madame Forestier had halted.

“You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?”

“Yes. You hadn’t noticed it? They were very much alike.”

And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.

“Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most only five hundred francs!⁠ ⁠…”

The Awakening

During the three years that she had been married, she had not left the Val de Ciré, where her husband possessed two cotton-mills. She led a quiet life, and, although without children, she was quite happy in her house among the trees, which the work-people called the “château.”

Although Monsieur Vasseur was considerably older than she was, he was very kind. She loved him, and no guilty thought had ever entered her mind.

Her mother came and spent every summer at Ciré, and then returned to Paris for the winter, as soon as the leaves began to fall.

Jeanne coughed a little every autumn, for the narrow valley through which the river wound was very foggy for five months in the year. First of all, slight mists hung over the meadows, making all the low-lying ground look like a large pond, out of which the roofs of the houses rose. Then a white vapour, which rose like a tide, enveloped everything, turning the valley into a phantom land, through which men moved like ghosts, without recognizing each other ten yards off, and the trees, wreathed in mist and dripping with moisture, rose up through it.

But the people who went along the neighbouring hills, and looked down upon the deep, white depression of the valley, saw the two huge chimneys of Monsieur Vasseur’s factories rising above the mist below. Day and night they vomited forth two long trails of black smoke, the sole indication that people were living in the hollow, which looked as if it were filled with a cloud of cotton.

That year, when October came, the medical men advised the young woman to go and spend the winter in Paris with her mother, as the air of the valley was dangerous for her weak chest, and she went. For a month or so, she thought continually of the house which she had left, the home to which she seemed rooted, the well-known furniture and quiet ways of which she loved so much. But by degrees she grew accustomed to her new life, and got to like entertainments, dinner and evening parties, and balls.

Till then she had retained her girlish manners, had been undecided and rather sluggish, walked languidly, and had a tired smile, but now she became animated and merry, and was always ready for pleasure. Men paid her marked attentions, and she was amused at their talk and made fun of their gallantries, as she felt sure that she could resist them, for she was rather disgusted with love from what she had learned of it in marriage.

The idea of giving up her body to the coarse caresses of such bearded creatures made her laugh with pity and give a slight shudder of repugnance.

She asked herself how women could consent to degrading contacts with strangers, the more so as they were already obliged to endure them with their legitimate husbands. She would have loved her husband much more if they had lived together like two friends, and had restricted themselves to chaste kisses, which are the caresses of the soul.

But she was much amused by their compliments, by the desire which showed itself in their eyes, a desire she did not share, by declarations of love whispered into her ear as they were returning to the drawing room after some grand dinner, by words murmured so low that she almost had to guess them, words which left her blood quite cool, and her heart untouched, while gratifying her unconscious coquetry, kindling a flame of pleasure within her, making her lips open, her eyes grow bright, and her woman’s heart, to which homage was due, quiver with delight.

She was fond of those tête-à-tête in the dusk when a man grows pressing, hesitates, trembles and falls on his knees. It was a delicious and new pleasure to her to know that they felt a passion which left her quite unmoved, able to say no by a shake of the head and by pursing her lips, able to withdraw her hands, to get up and calmly ring for lights, and to see the man who had been trembling at her feet get up, confused and furious when he heard the footman coming.

She often uttered a hard laugh, which froze the most burning words, and said harsh things, which fell like a jet of icy water on the most ardent protestations, while the intonations of her voice were enough to make any man who really loved her kill himself. There were two especially who made obstinate love to her.

They did not at all resemble one another. One of them, Paul Péronel, was tall, a man of the world, gallant and enterprising, one who was accustomed to successful love affairs, knew how to wait, and when to seize his opportunity.

The other, Monsieur d’Avancelle, quivered when he came near her, scarcely ventured to express his love, but followed her like a shadow, and gave utterance to his hopeless desire by distracted looks, and the assiduity of his attentions to her. She called the former “Captain Fracasse,” and the latter “Faithful Sheep,” and in the end made him a kind of servant and treated him as if he had been her slave.

She would have been much amused if anybody had told her that she would love him, and yet she did love him, after a singular fashion. As she saw him continually, she had grown accustomed to his voice, to his gestures, and to his manner, just as one grows accustomed to those with whom one meets continually. Often his face haunted her in her dreams, and she saw him as he really was; gentle, delicate in all his actions, humble, but passionately in love. She would awake full of these dreams, fancying that she still heard him and felt him near her, until one night (most likely she was feverish) she saw herself alone with him in a small wood, where they were both sitting on the grass. He was saying charming things to her, while he pressed and kissed her hands. She could feel the warmth of his skin and of his breath and she was stroking his hair in a very natural manner.

We are quite different in our dreams to what we are in real life. She felt full of love for him, full of calm and deep love, and was happy in stroking his forehead and in holding him against her. Gradually he put his arms around her, kissed her eyes and her cheeks without her attempting to get away from him; their lips met, and she yielded. It was a moment of intense and superhuman happiness, ideal yet sensual, maddening and unforgettable, such ecstasies are unknown in real life. She awoke thrilled and confused, and she could not go asleep again, she felt so obsessed and possessed by him.

When she saw him again, unconscious of the agitation that he had caused her, she felt that she grew red, and while he was telling her of his love, she was continually recalling to mind their previous meeting, without being able to get rid of the recollection of their delicious embrace in her dream.

She loved him, loved him with a strange tenderness, refined but sensual, chiefly from the remembrance of her dream, although she dreaded the accomplishment of the desires which had arisen in her mind.

At last he perceived it, and then she told him everything, even to the dread of his kisses, and she made him swear that he would respect her, and he did so. They spent long hours of transcendental love together, during which their souls alone embraced, and when they separated, they were enervated, weak, and feverish.

Sometimes their lips met, and with closed eyes they revelled in that long, yet chaste caress. She felt, however, that he could not resist much longer, and as she did not wish to yield, she wrote and told her husband that she wanted to come to him, and to return to her tranquil, solitary life. But in reply, he wrote her a very kind letter, and strongly advised her not to return in the middle of the winter, and so expose herself to the sudden change of climate, and to the icy mists of the valley, and she was thunderstruck and angry with that confiding man, who did not guess, who did not understand, the struggles of her heart.

February was a warm, bright month, and although she now avoided being alone with Monsieur d’Avancelle, she sometimes accepted his invitation to drive round the lake in the Bois de Boulogne with him, when it was dusk.

On one of those evenings, it was so warm that it seemed as if the sap in every tree and plant were rising. Their cab was going at a slow pace; it was growing dusk, and they were sitting close together, holding each other’s hands, and she said to herself:

“It is all over, I am lost!” for she felt her desires rising in her again, the imperious demand for that supreme embrace which she had undergone in her dream. Every moment their lips sought each other, clung together, and separated, only to meet again immediately.

He did not venture to go into the house with her, but left her at the door; more in love with her than ever, and half fainting.

Monsieur Paul Péronel was waiting for her in the little drawing room, without a light, and when he shook hands with her, he felt how feverish she was. He began to talk in a low, tender voice, lulling her tired mind with the charm of amorous words.

She listened to him without replying, for she was thinking of the other; she fancied she was listening to the other, and thought she felt him leaning against her, in a kind of hallucination. She saw only him, and did not remember that any other man existed on earth, and when her ears trembled at those three syllables: “I love you,” it was he, the other man, who uttered them, who kissed her hands, who strained her to his breast, like the other had done shortly before in the cab. It was he who pressed victorious kisses on her lips, it was he whom she held in her arms and embraced, to whom she was calling, with all the longings of her heart, with all the overwrought ardour of her body.

When she awoke from her dream, she uttered a terrible cry. Paul Péronel was kneeling by her and was thanking her passionately, while he covered her dishevelled hair with kisses, and she almost screamed out: “Go away! go away! go away!”

And as he did not understand what she meant, and tried to put his arm round her waist again, she writhed, as she stammered out:

“You are a wretch, and I hate you! Go away! go away!” And he got up in great surprise, took up his hat, and went.

The next day she returned to Val de Ciré, and her husband, who had not expected her for some time, blamed her for her whim.

“I could not live away from you any longer,” she said.

He found her altered in character and sadder than formerly, but when he said to her: “What is the matter with you? You seem unhappy. What do you want?” she replied:

“Nothing. Happiness exists only in our dreams in this world.”

Avancelle came to see her the next summer, and she received him without any emotion and without regret, for she suddenly perceived that she had never loved him, except in a dream, from which Paul Péronel had brutally roused her.

But the young man, who still adored her, thought as he returned to Paris:

“Women are really very strange, complicated, and inexplicable beings.”

Father Judas

The whole of this district was amazing, marked with a character of almost religious grandeur and sinister desolation.

In the centre of a quiet ring of bare hills, where nothing grew but whins and a rare, freakish oak twisted by the wind, there lay a vast wild tarn, in whose black and stagnant waters shivered thousands of reeds.

A solitary house stood on the banks of this gloomy lake, a small low house inhabited by an old boatman, Father Joseph, who lived on the proceeds of his fishing. Every week he carried his fish down to the neighbouring villages, and returned with the simple provisions necessary to his existence.

I had the whim to visit this hermit, and he offered to go and raise his nets for me.

I accepted.

His boat was a worm-eaten old tub. Thin and bony, he rowed with a quiet monotonous movement which soothed my spirit, already caught up in the melancholy of the enclosing sky.

Amid this ancient landscape, sitting in this primitive boat, steered by this man from another age, I imagined myself transported to one of the early epochs of the world.

He raised his nets, and threw the fish down at his feet with the gestures of a biblical fisherman. Then he consented to take me to the end of the marsh, and suddenly I saw, on the other bank, a ruin, a gutted hovel, on the wall of which was a cross, a huge red cross: under the last gleams of the setting sun it looked as if it were traced in blood.

“What is that?” I asked.

Instantly the man crossed himself, and answered:

“That is where Judas died.”

I was not surprised; I felt as though I might have expected this strange reply.

But I persisted:

“Judas? What Judas?”

He added: “The Wandering Jew, sir.”

I begged him to tell me this legend.

But it was better than a legend, it was a piece of history, of almost contemporary history, for Father Joseph had known the man.

Once upon a time the hut was occupied by a tall woman, a beggar of sorts, who lived on public charity.

From whom she had got this hovel, Father Joseph no longer remembered. One night an old man with a white beard, so old that he looked a centenarian twice over, and could hardly drag one foot after the other, passed by and asked this poor old woman for alms.

She answered:

“Sit down, Father, all here is for all the world, for it comes from all the world.”

He sat down on a stone in front of the house. He shared the woman’s bread, her bed of leaves, and her house.

He never left her. He had finished his travels.

Father Joseph added:

“It was our Lady the Virgin who permitted that, sir, seeing that a woman had opened her door to Judas.”

For this old vagabond was the Wandering Jew.

The countryside did not know this at once, but soon suspected it from the fact that he was always walking, the habit was so strong in him.

Another thing had roused their suspicions. The woman who sheltered the unknown man in her house passed for a Jewess, since she had never been seen at church.

For ten leagues around no one called her anything but “the Jewess.”

When the little children of the district saw her coming to beg, they cried out:

“Mother, mother, it’s the Jewess!”

She and the old man began to wander round the neighbourhood, holding their hands out at every door, babbling entreaties after every passerby. They were seen at all hours of the day, on lonely paths, in village streets, or eating a piece of bread in the shade of a solitary tree, in the fierce heat of noon.

And they began to call the beggar “Father Judas.”

One day he brought back in his sack two little live pigs which had been given him at a farm because he had cured the farmer of a sickness.

And soon he stopped begging, wholly occupied in leading his pigs about in search of food, guiding them along the tarn, under the solitary oak-trees, and in the little valleys near by. The woman, on the contrary, wandered ceaselessly in quest of alms, but joined him again every evening.

No more than she he went to church, and had never been seen to make the sign of the cross at the wayside shrines. All this caused a deal of gossip.

One night his companion was taken ill with a fever, and began to shake like a rag in the wind. He went to the town to get medicine, then shut himself up with her, and for six days no one saw him.

But the curé, having heard that “the Jewess” was about to pass away, came to bring the dying woman the consolations of his religion, and to offer her the last sacrament. Was she a Jewess? He did not know. In any event, he wished to try and save her soul.

He had scarcely knocked at the door when Father Judas appeared on the threshold, panting, his eyes blazing, all his long white beard quivering like running water: he screamed words of blasphemy in an unknown tongue, stretching out his thin arms to hinder the priest’s entry.

The curé tried to speak, offered him money and assistance, but the old man continued to revile him, making the gesture of stoning him.

And the priest retreated, pursued by the beggar’s curses.

Next day, Father Judas’s companion died. He buried her himself in front of the doorway. They were so poor that no one interfered with them.

Once more the man was seen leading his pigs along the tarn and on the hillsides. And several times he began begging for food again. But now he got next to nothing, so many stories were going round about him. And everyone knew in what a fashion he had welcomed the curé.

He disappeared. It was during Holy Week. No uneasiness was felt.

But on Easter Monday some boys and girls who had gone for a walk up to the tarn, heard a great noise in the hut. The door was shut; the boys broke it open and the two pigs escaped, leaping like deer. They were never seen again.

They all entered, and saw on the ground a few old rags, the beggar’s hat, some bones, some dried blood and remains of flesh in the hollow of a skull.

His pigs had eaten him.

And Father Joseph added:

“It had happened on Good Friday, at three in the afternoon.”

I asked him: “How do you know?”

He replied: “It cannot be doubted.”

I did not try to make him understand how natural it was for the famished beasts to eat their suffering master if he had died suddenly in his hut.

As for the cross on the wall, it appeared one morning, and no one knew what hand had painted it that strange colour.

After that, none doubted that the Wandering Jew had died in that place.

I believed it myself for an hour.

Feminine Men

How often we hear people say, “That man is charming, but he is a woman, a regular girl.” They are alluding to the feminine men, the bane of our country.

For all we men in France are feminine, that is, fickle, fanciful, innocently treacherous, without consistency in our convictions or our will, violent and weak, as women are.

But the most irritating of the species is assuredly the Parisian and the boulevardier, in whom the appearance of intelligence is more marked, and who combines in himself all the attractions and all the faults of charming harlots to an exaggerated degree in virtue of his masculine temperament.

Our Chamber of Deputies is full of feminine men. They form the greater number of the amiable opportunists whom one might call “The Charmers.” It is they who control by soft words and deceitful promises, who know how to shake hands in such a manner as to win hearts, how to say “My dear friend” in a certain tactful way to the people they know the least, to change their minds without suspecting it, to be carried away by each new idea, to be sincere in their weathercock convictions, to let themselves be deceived as they deceive others, to forget the next morning what they affirmed the day before.

The newspapers are full of male prostitutes. That is probably where one finds them most, but it is also where they are most needed. Certain papers, like the Journal des Débats and the Gazette de France, are exceptions.

Assuredly, every good journalist must be something of a prostitute⁠—that is, at the command of the public, supple in following unconsciously the shades of public opinion, wavering and varying, sceptical and credulous, wicked and devout, a braggart and a true man, enthusiastic and ironical, and always convinced while believing in nothing.

Foreigners, our antitypes, as Mme. Abel called them, the stubborn English and the heavy Germans, regard us with a certain amazement mingled with contempt, and will continue so to regard us till the end of time. They consider us frivolous. It is not that, we are feminine. And that is why people love us in spite of our faults, why they come back to us despite the evil spoken of us; these are lovers’ quarrels!⁠ ⁠…

The effeminate man, as one meets him in this world, is so charming that he captivates you after five minutes’ chat. His smile seems made for you; you cannot believe that his voice does not assume specially tender intonations on your account. When he leaves you it seems as if you had known him for twenty years. One is quite ready to lend him money if he asks for it. He has enchanted you, like a woman.

If he does not act quite straight with you, you cannot bear any malice, he is so nice when you next meet him. If he asks your pardon you long to ask pardon of him. Does he tell lies? You cannot believe it. Does he put you off indefinitely with promises that he does not keep? You lay as much store by his promises as though he had moved heaven and earth to render you a service.

When he admires anything he goes into such raptures that he convinces you. He once adored Victor Hugo, whom he now treats as a back number. He pretends that he fought for Zola, whom he has abandoned for Barbey d’Aurevilly. And when he admires, he permits no qualifications, he would slap your face for a word. But when he becomes scornful, his contempt is unbounded and allows of no protest.

In short, he understands nothing.

Listen to two girls talking.

“Then you are angry with Julia?” “I should say so. I slapped her face.” “What had she done?” “She told Pauline that I was broke thirteen months out of twelve, and Pauline told Gontran⁠—you understand.” “You were living together in the Rue Clanzel?” “We lived together four years in the Rue Bréda; we quarrelled about a pair of stockings that she said I had worn⁠—it wasn’t true⁠—silk stockings that she had bought at Mother Martin’s. Then I gave her a pounding and she left me at once. I met her six months ago and she asked me to come and live with her, as she has rented a flat that is twice too large.”

One goes on one’s way and hears no more. But on the following Sunday as one is on the way to Saint Germain two young women get into the same railway carriage. One recognizes one of them at once, it is Julia’s enemy. The other is⁠—Julia!

And there are endearments, caresses, plans. “Tell me, Julia⁠—listen, Julia,” etc.

The man of the species has his friendships of this kind. For three months he cannot bear to leave his old Jack, his dear Jack. There is no one but Jack in the world. He is the only one who has any intelligence, any sense, any talent. He alone is somebody in Paris. One meets them everywhere together, they dine together, walk about in company, and every evening see each other home, walking back and forth without being able to part.

Three months later, if Jack is mentioned:

“There is a cad, a bounder, a scoundrel for you. I know him well, you may be sure. And he is not even honest, and ill-bred,” etc., etc.

Three months later, and they are living together.

But one morning one hears that they have fought a duel, then embraced each other, amid tears, on the duelling ground.

For the rest, they are the dearest friends in the world, furious with each other half the year, abusing and loving each other by turns, squeezing each other’s hands till they almost crush the bones, and ready to run each other through the body for a misunderstanding.

For the relations of these feminine men are uncertain. Their temper is governed by fits and starts, their enthusiasms unexpected, their affection subject to sudden revulsions, their excitement is liable to eclipse. One day they love you, the next day they will hardly look at you, for they have, in fact, a harlot’s nature, a harlot’s charm, a harlot’s temperament, and all their sentiments are like the affections of harlots.

They treat their friends as kept women treat their pet dogs.

Their friends are like the little doggie which they hug, feed with sugar, and allow to sleep on the pillow, but which they would throw out of a window in a moment of impatience; which they swing round, holding it by the tail, squeeze in their arms till they almost strangle it, and plunge, without any reason, in a pail of cold water.

Then, what a strange thing it is when a feminine man falls in love with a real harlot! He beats her, she scratches him, they execrate each other, cannot bear the sight of each other and yet cannot part, linked together by no one knows what mysterious bonds of the heart. She deceives him, he knows it, sobs and forgives her. He sleeps in the bed which another man is paying for, and firmly believes his conduct is irreproachable. He despises and adores her without seeing that she would be justified in despising him. They are both atrociously unhappy and yet cannot separate. They cast invectives, reproaches and abominable accusations at each other from morning till night, and when they have reached the climax and are vibrating with rage and hatred, they fall into each other’s arms and kiss each other ardently, their souls and bodies of strumpets united.

The feminine man is brave and a coward at the same time. He has, more than another, the exalted sentiment of honour, but is lacking in the sense of simple honesty, and, circumstances favouring him, he would defalcate and commit infamies which do not trouble his conscience, for he obeys without questioning the oscillations of his ideas, which are always impulsive.

To him it seems permissible and almost right to cheat a shopkeeper. He considers it honourable not to pay his debts, unless they are gambling debts⁠—that is, somewhat shady. He dupes people whenever the laws of society admit of his doing so. When he is short of money he borrows in all ways, not always being scrupulous as to tricking the lenders, but he would, with sincere indignation, run his sword through anyone who would even suspect him of lacking in delicacy.

Mademoiselle Cocotte

We were about to leave the asylum when I noticed in a corner of the courtyard a tall, thin man, obstinately going through the motions of calling an imaginary dog. He would call out, in sweet, tender tones: “Cocotte, my little Cocotte, come here, Cocotte, come here, my beauty,” striking his leg, as one does to attract the attention of an animal. I said to the doctor:

“What is the matter with him?”

He replied:

“Oh, that is not an interesting case. He is a coachman called François, who went mad after drowning his dog.”

I insisted:

“Do tell me his story. The most simple and humble things sometimes strike most to our hearts.”

And here is the adventure of this man, which became known through a groom, his comrade.

In the suburbs of Paris lived a rich, middle-class family. They lived in a fashionable villa in the midst of a park, on the bank of the Seine. Their coachman was this François, a country boy, a little awkward, with a good heart, but simple and easily duped.

When he was returning one evening to his master’s house, a dog began to follow him. At first he took no notice of it, but the persistence of the beast walking at his heels caused him finally to turn around. He looked to see if he knew this dog. No, he had never seen it before.

The dog was frightfully thin and had great hanging dugs. She trotted behind the man with a woeful, famished look, her tail between her legs, her ears close to her head, and stopped when he stopped, starting again when he started.

He tried to drive away this skeleton of a beast: “Get out! Go away! Go, now! Hou! Hou!” She would run away a few steps and then sit down waiting; then, when the coachman started on again, she followed behind him.

He pretended to pick up stones. The animal fled a little way with a great shaking of the flabby dugs, but followed again as soon as the man turned his back.

Then the coachman took pity and called her. The dog approached timidly, her back bent in a circle, and all the ribs showing under the skin. The man stroked these protruding bones and, moved by the misery of the beast, said: “Come along, then!” Immediately she wagged her tail; she felt that she was welcome, adopted; and instead of staying at her new master’s heels, she began to run ahead of him.

He installed her on some straw in his stable, then ran to the kitchen in search of bread. When she had eaten her fill, she went to sleep, curled up in a ring.

The next day the coachman told his master, who allowed him to keep the animal. She was a good beast, intelligent and faithful, affectionate and gentle.

But soon they discovered in her a terrible fault. She was inflamed with love from one end of the year to the other. In a short time she had made the acquaintance of every dog about the country, and they roamed about the place day and night. With the indifference of a harlot, she shared her favours with them, feigning to like each one best, dragging behind her a veritable pack composed of many different models of the barking race, some as large as a fist, others as tall as an ass. She took them on interminable walks along the roads, and when she stopped to rest in the shade, they made a circle about her and looked at her with tongues hanging out.

The people of the country considered her a phenomenon; they had never seen anything like it. The veterinary could not understand it.

When she returned to the stable in the evening, the crowd of dogs besieged the house. They wormed their way through every crevice in the hedge which enclosed the park, devastated the flower beds, broke down the flowers, dug holes in the clumps of plants, exasperating the gardener. They would howl the whole night about the building where their friend lodged, and nothing could persuade them to go away.

In the daytime, they even entered the house. It was an invasion, a plague, a calamity. At every moment the people of the house met on the staircase, and even in the rooms, little yellow pug dogs with bushy tails, hunting dogs, bulldogs, wandering Pomeranians with dirty skins, homeless vagabonds, and enormous Newfoundland dogs, which frightened the children.

All the unknown dogs for ten miles around came, from one knew not where, and lived, no one knew how, and then disappeared.

Nevertheless, François adored Cocotte. He had called her Cocotte, without malice, although she well deserved the name. And he repeated over and over again: “That dog is human. It only lacks speech.”

He had a magnificent collar in red leather made for her, which bore these words, engraved on a copper plate: “Mademoiselle Cocotte, the property of François, the coachman.”

She became enormous. She was now as fat as she had once been thin, her body puffed out, under it still hung the long, swaying dugs. She had fattened suddenly and walked with difficulty, her paws wide apart, after the fashion of people that are too stout, her mouth open for breath, and she became exhausted as soon as she tried to run.

She showed a phenomenal fecundity, producing, four times a year, a litter of little animals, belonging to all varieties of the canine race. François, after having chosen the one he would leave her “to take the milk,” would pick up the others in his stable apron and pitilessly throw them into the river.

Soon the cook joined her complaints to those of the gardener. She found dogs under her kitchen range, in the cupboards, and in the coal bin, and they stole everything they could see.

The master lost his patience and ordered François to get rid of Cocotte. The man was inconsolable, and tried to place her somewhere. No one wanted her. Then he resolved to lose her, and put her in charge of a car driver who was to leave her in the country the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.

That same evening Cocotte was back.

It became necessary to take stern measures. For the sum of five francs, they persuaded the guard on a train to Havre to take her. He was to let her loose when they arrived.

At the end of three days, she appeared again in her stable, harassed, emaciated, torn and exhausted.

The master took pity on her, and did not insist.

But the dogs soon returned in greater numbers than ever, and were more provoking. And as a great dinner was being given one evening, a truffled fowl was carried off by a dog, under the nose of the cook, who did not dare to take it away.

This time the master was angry, and calling François, said to him hotly: “If you don’t drown this beast before tomorrow morning, I shall fire you out, do you understand?”

The man was thunderstruck, but he went up to his room to pack his trunk, preferring to leave his job. Then he thought that he would not be likely to get in anywhere else, dragging this unwelcome beast behind him; he remembered that he was in a good house, well paid and well fed; and he said to himself that it was not worth while giving up all this for a dog. He thought of his own interests and ended by resolving to get rid of Cocotte at dawn the next day.

However, he slept badly. At daybreak he was up; and, taking a strong rope, he went in search of the dog. She arose slowly, shook herself, stretched her limbs, and came to greet her master. Then his courage failed and he began to stroke her tenderly, smoothing her long ears, kissing her on the muzzle, lavishing upon her all the loving names that he could think of.

A neighbouring clock struck six; he could delay no longer. He opened the door; “Come,” said he. The beast wagged her tail, understanding only that she was going out.

They reached the bank and he chose a place where the water seemed deepest. Then he tied one end of the cord to the beautiful leather collar, and taking a great stone, attached it to the other end. Then he seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her furiously, as one does when taking leave of a person. Then he held her tight around the neck, fondling her and calling her “My pretty Cocotte, my little Cocotte,” and she responded as best she could, growling with pleasure.

Ten times he tried to throw her in, and each time his courage failed him.

Then, abruptly, he decided to do it, and, with all his force, hurled her as far as possible. She tried at first to swim, as she did when taking a bath, but her head, dragged by the stone, went under again and again. She threw her master a look of despair, a human look, battling, as a person does when drowning. Then, the whole front part of the body sank while the hind paws kicked madly out of the water; then they disappeared also.

For five minutes bubbles of air came to the surface, as if the river had begun to boil. And François, haggard, and at his wits’ end, with palpitating heart, believed he saw Cocotte writhing in the slime. And he said to himself, with the simplicity of a peasant: “What does she think of me now, the poor beast?”

He almost became mad. He was sick for a month, and each night saw the dog again. He felt her licking his hands; he heard her bark.

They had to call a physician. Finally he grew better; and his master and mistress took him to their estate at Biessard, near Rouen.

There he was still on the bank of the Seine. He began to go bathing. Every morning he went down with the groom to swim across the river.

One day, as they were amusing themselves splashing in the water, François suddenly cried out to his companion:

“Look at what is coming towards us. I am going to make you taste a cutlet.”

It was an enormous carcass, swelled and stripped of its hair, its paws moving forward in the air, following the current.

François approached it, and continued to joke:

“By God, it is rather high! What a catch, my boy, there is plenty of meat on it!”

And he turned around it, keeping at a distance from the great, putrefying body.

Then, suddenly, he was silent, and looked at it in strange fashion. He approached it again, this time as if he were going to touch it. He carefully examined the collar, then put out his hand and grasped the neck, twirled it around, drew it towards him, and read upon the green copper that still adhered to the discoloured leather: “Mademoiselle Cocotte, the property of François, the coachman.” The dead dog had found her master, sixty miles from their home!

He uttered a fearful cry, and began to swim with all his might towards the bank, shouting all the way. And when he reached the land, he ran off wildly, stark naked, through the country. He was mad!

The Jewels

Monsieur Lantin having met the young woman at a soirée, at the home of the assistant of his department, had fallen head over ears in love with her. She was the daughter of a country tax collector who had died some years previously. She had come to live in Paris, with her mother, who visited a few families in the neighbourhood in the hope of finding a husband for the young lady. They were poor and honest, gentle and quiet.

The young girl was a perfect type of the virtuous woman to whom every sensible young man dreams of one day entrusting his life. Her simple beauty had the charm of angelic modesty, and the imperceptible smile which constantly hovered about her lips seemed to be the reflection of her soul. Everybody sang her praises. People were never tired of saying: “Happy the man who wins her. He could not find a better wife.”

M. Lantin, at the time Chief Clerk in the Ministry of the Interior, with a yearly salary of three thousand five hundred francs, proposed for her hand and married her.

He was unspeakably happy with her; she governed his household so cleverly and economically that they seemed to live in luxury. She was full of attentions for her husband, spoiling and coaxing him, and the charm of her person was so great that six years after their marriage M. Lantin discovered that he loved his wife even more than during the first days when he knew her.

He found fault with only two of her tastes: her love for the theatre, and for false jewelry. Her friends (she was acquainted with some petty officials’ wives) frequently procured for her a box at the theatre for popular plays, and even for the first nights; and she dragged her husband, whether he liked it or not, to these amusements, which tired him excessively after his day’s work.

So he begged his wife to go to the theatre with some lady of her acquaintance, who would bring her home afterwards. It was a long time before she gave in, as she thought this arrangement was not quite respectable. But finally, to please him, she consented, and he was very grateful.

Now, this love for the theatre soon aroused in her the desire to adorn her person. True, her costumes remained quite simple, and always in good taste, but unpretentious; and her tender grace, her irresistible, humble, smiling charm, seemed to be enhanced by the simplicity of her dresses. But she soon began to ornament her ears with huge rhinestones, which glittered and sparkled like real diamonds. She wore strings of false pearls, bracelets of imitation gold, and combs ornamented with glass made up to look like real stones.

Her husband, who was rather shocked by this love of show, frequently used to say:

“My dear, as you cannot afford to buy real gems, you ought to appear adorned with your beauty and modesty alone, those are the rarest ornaments of your sex.”

But she would smile sweetly, and say:

“What can I do? I like it. It is my only weakness. I know you are right but we cannot change our natures. I should love to have jewelry.”

Then she would roll the pearl necklaces around her fingers, and make the cut glass flash, saying:

“Look, are they not lovely? One would swear they were real.”

He would then answer, smilingly:

“You have the tastes of a gipsy, my dear.”

Often in the evening, when they were enjoying a tête-à-tête by the fireside, she would place on the tea table the leather box containing the “trash,” as M. Lantin called it. She would examine the false gems with a passionate attention as though she were tasting a deep and secret joy; and she often insisted on passing a necklace around her husband’s neck, and then, laughing heartily, she would exclaim: “How funny you look!” Then she would throw herself into his arms and kiss him passionately.

One evening in winter when she went to the opera, she returned chilled through and through. The next morning she coughed, and eight days later she died of inflammation of the lungs.

Lantin nearly followed her to the grave. His despair was so great that his hair became white in one month. He wept from morning to night, his heart torn with intolerable grief, and his mind haunted by the remembrance, the smile, the voice⁠—by every charm of his dead wife.

Time did not assuage his grief. Often during office hours, while his colleagues were discussing the topics of the day, his face would begin to twitch, his eyes would suddenly fill with tears, and with distorted features he would begin to sob. He had kept his wife’s room untouched, and here he would seclude himself daily and think of her, while all the furniture, even her clothes, remained as they were the last day she was alive.

But life soon became a struggle. His income, which in the hands of his wife had covered all household expenses, was now no longer sufficient for his own immediate wants; and he wondered how she could have managed to buy such excellent wines, and such rare delicacies, things which he could no longer procure with his modest resources.

He incurred some debts and he pursued money as people do who are reduced to expedients. One morning, finding himself without a cent in his pocket, a whole week before the end of the month, he resolved to sell something, and, immediately, the thought occurred to him of disposing of his wife’s paste jewels. He cherished in his heart a sort of rancour against the false gems, which had always irritated him in the past. The very sight of them spoiled somewhat the memory of his lost darling.

He searched for a long time in the heap of glittering things, for to the last days of her life she had continued obstinately to make purchases, bringing home new gems almost every evening. He decided to sell the heavy necklace which she seemed to prefer, and which, he thought, ought to be worth about six or seven francs; for although paste, it was, nevertheless, of very fine workmanship.

He put it in his pocket and started out for the Ministry, following the Boulevards in search of a jeweler’s shop. He entered the first one he saw; feeling a little ashamed to expose his poverty, and also to offer such a worthless article for sale.

“Sir,” said he to the merchant, “I would like to know what this is worth.”

The man took the necklace, examined it, turned it over, weighed it, used his magnifying glass, called his clerk and made some remarks in an undertone; then he put the ornament back on the counter, and looked at it from a distance to judge of the effect.

M. Lantin was annoyed by all this ritual and was on the point of saying: “Oh! I know well enough it is not worth anything,” when the jeweler said: “Sir, that necklace is worth from twelve to fifteen thousand francs; but I could not buy it unless you tell me exactly where it comes from.”

The widower opened his eyes wide and remained gaping, unable to grasp the merchant’s meaning. Finally he stammered: “You say⁠—are you sure?” The other replied dryly: “You can look elsewhere and see if anyone will offer you more. I consider it worth fifteen thousand at the most. Come back here if you cannot do better.”

M. Lantin, gaping with astonishment, took up the necklace and went out, in obedience to a vague desire to be alone and to think.

Once outside, he felt inclined to laugh, and said to himself: “The idiot! Had I only taken him at his word! That jeweler cannot distinguish real diamonds from paste.”

A few minutes after, he entered another store in the Rue de la Paix. As soon as the proprietor glanced at the necklace, he cried out:

“Ah, parbleu! I know it well; it was bought here.”

M. Lantin was disturbed, and asked:

“How much is it worth?”

“Well, I sold it for twenty-five thousand francs. I am willing to take it back for eighteen thousand when you inform me, according to our legal formality, how it comes to be in your possession.”

This time M. Lantin sat down, paralysed with astonishment. He replied:

“But⁠—but⁠—examine it well. Until this moment I was under the impression that it was paste.”

Said the jeweler:

“What is your name, sir?”

“Lantin⁠—I am a clerk in the Ministry of the Interior. I live at No. 16 Rue des Martyrs.”

The merchant opened his books, looked through them and said: “That necklace was sent to Mme. Lantin’s address, 16 Rue des Martyrs, July 20, 1876.”

The two men looked into each other’s eyes⁠—the widower speechless with astonishment, the jeweler scenting a thief. The latter broke the silence by saying:

“Will you leave this necklace here for twenty-four hours? I will give you a receipt.”

“Certainly,” answered M. Lantin, hastily. Then, putting the ticket in his pocket, he went out.

He crossed the street, walked up it again, saw that he had taken the wrong way, went down again to the Tuileries Gardens, crossed the Seine, noticed he had again gone wrong, and returned to the Champs Élysées, his mind a complete blank. He tried to argue it out, to understand. His wife could not afford to purchase such a costly ornament. Certainly not. But, then, it must have been a present!⁠—a present!⁠—a present from whom? Why was it given her?

He stopped and remained standing in the middle of the avenue. A horrible doubt entered his mind⁠—she? Then all the other gems must have been presents, too! The earth seemed to tremble beneath him⁠—the tree before him was falling⁠—throwing up his arms, he fell to the ground, unconscious. He recovered his senses in a pharmacy into which the passersby had taken him.

He told them to take him home, where he shut himself up in his room. He wept until nightfall, biting a handkerchief so as not to shriek. Finally, overcome with grief and fatigue, he threw himself on the bed, where he slept heavily.

A ray of sunlight awoke him and he arose and prepared to go to the office. It was hard to work after such a shock. He sent a letter to his chief requesting to be excused. Then he remembered that he had to return to the jeweler’s. He was filled with shame, and remained sunk in thought for a long time, but he could not leave the necklace with that man. So he dressed and went out.

It was a lovely day; a clear blue sky spread over the smiling city. Strollers with nothing to do were walking about with their hands in their pockets.

Observing them, Lantin said to himself: “The rich, indeed, are happy. With money it is possible to forget even the deepest sorrow. One can go where one pleases; one can travel and forget. Oh! if I were only rich!”

He began to feel hungry, but his pocket was empty. He again remembered the necklace. Eighteen thousand francs! Eighteen thousand francs! What a sum!

He soon arrived in the Rue de la Paix, and walked up and down opposite the jeweler’s. Eighteen thousand francs! Twenty times he almost went in, but shame kept him back. He was hungry, however⁠—very hungry, and had not a cent in his pocket. He decided quickly, ran across the street in order not to have time for reflection, and entered the shop.

As soon as he saw him the proprietor came forward, and politely offered him a chair; even the clerks came and looked in his direction, with a knowing smile about their eyes and lips.

“I have made inquiries,” said the jeweler, “and if you are still resolved to dispose of the gems, I am ready to pay you the price I offered.”

“Certainly,” stammered M. Lantin.

Whereupon the proprietor took from a drawer eighteen large bills, counted and handed them to Lantin, who signed a receipt and with a trembling hand put the money into his pocket.

As he was about to leave the store, he turned toward the merchant, who still wore the same smile, and lowering his eyes, said:

“I have⁠—I have other gems which I have inherited from the same person. Will you buy them also?”

The merchant bowed: “Certainly, sir.”

One of the clerks retired, unable to contain his laughter. Another blew his nose violently.

Lantin, impassive, blushing and serious, replied: “I will bring them to you.”

He took a cab to go and fetch the jewels. An hour later, when he returned to the shop, he had not yet breakfasted. They began to examine each item separately, estimating the value of every one. Almost all of them had been bought there. Lantin now began to argue about the valuations, lost his temper, and insisted upon seeing the records of the sales. He became more domineering as the figures increased.

The large diamond earrings were worth twenty thousand francs; the bracelets, thirty-five thousand; the rings, brooches and medallions, sixteen thousand; a set of emeralds and sapphires, fourteen thousand; a gold chain with solitaire pendant, in the form of a necklace, forty thousand⁠—making a total sum of one hundred and ninety-six thousand francs.

The jeweler remarked jokingly:

“These come from someone who invested all her savings in precious stones.”

M. Lantin replied, seriously:

“It is as good a way as any other of investing one’s money.”

And he went off after having arranged with the purchaser to have another expert’s opinion the next day.

When he got to the street he looked at the Colonne Vendôme and felt tempted to climb it, as if it were a greasy pole. He felt so happy he could have played leapfrog with the statue of the Emperor, perched up there in the sky.

He lunched at Voisin’s and drank wine at twenty francs a bottle. Then he hired a carriage and drove around the Bois, and as he scanned the various turnouts with a contemptuous air he could hardly refrain from crying out to the passersby:

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

Suddenly he thought of the Ministry. He drove up to the office, and deliberately entered the office of his chief, saying:

“Sir, I have come to resign my position. I have just inherited three hundred thousand francs.”

He shook hands with his former colleagues and confided to them some of his projects for his new life; then he went off to dine at the Café Anglais.

Finding himself beside a gentleman of aristocratic bearing, he could not resist the desire to inform him, with some pride, that he had just inherited a fortune of four hundred thousand francs.

For the first time in his life he was not bored at the theatre, and spent the rest of the night with some women.

Six months afterwards he married again. His second wife was a very virtuous woman, but very cantankerous. She made him suffer a great deal.

Saint Anthony

He was called Saint Anthony, because his name was Anthony, and also, perhaps, because he was a good fellow, jovial, a lover of practical jokes, a tremendous eater and a heavy drinker and a great man for the servant girls, although he was sixty years old.

He was a big peasant of the district of Caux, with a red face, large chest and stomach, and perched on two long legs that seemed too slight for the bulk of his body.

He was a widower and lived alone with his two menservants and a maid on his farm, which he ran with shrewd economy. He was careful of his own interests, understood business and the raising of cattle, and farming. His two sons and his three daughters, who had married well, were living in the neighbourhood and came to dine with their father once a month. His vigour of body was famous in all the countryside. “He is as strong as Saint Anthony,” had become a kind of proverb.

At the time of the Prussian invasion Saint Anthony, at the wine shop, promised to eat an army, for he was a braggart, like a true Norman, and a bit of a coward and a blusterer. He banged his fist on the wooden table, making the cups and the brandy glasses dance, and cried with the exaggerated truculence of the good fellow, his face flushed and a sly look in his eye: “I shall have to eat some of them, nom de Dieu!” He reckoned that the Prussians would not come as far as Tanneville, but when he heard they were at Rautôt he never went out of the house, and constantly watched the road from the little window of his kitchen, expecting at any moment to see the bayonets go by.

One morning, as he was eating his midday meal with the servants, the door opened and the mayor of the commune, Maître Chicot, appeared, followed by a soldier wearing a black helmet with a copper spike. Saint Anthony bounded to his feet and all his household looked at him, expecting to see him slash the Prussian. But he merely shook hands with the mayor, who said:

“Here is one for you, Saint Anthony. They came last night. Don’t do anything foolish, above all things, for they talk of shooting and burning everything if there is the slightest unpleasantness. I have given you warning. Give him something to eat; he looks like a good fellow. Good day. I am going to call on the rest. There are enough for all.” And he went out.

Old Anthony, who had turned pale, looked at the Prussian. He was a big, young fellow, plump and fair-skinned, with blue eyes, fair hair, and hair on his face to his cheek bones, who looked stupid, timid and good humoured. The shrewd Norman read him at once, and, reassured, he made him a sign to sit down. Then he said: “Will you have some soup?”

The stranger did not understand. Anthony then became bolder, and pushing a plateful of soup right under his nose, he said: “Here, swallow that, you big pig!”

The soldier answered “Ya,” and began to eat greedily, while the farmer, triumphant, feeling he had regained his reputation, winked his eye at the servants, who were making strange grimaces, what with their terror and their desire to laugh.

When the Prussian had devoured his plateful, Saint Anthony gave him another, which disappeared in like manner; but he flinched at the third which the farmer tried to insist on his eating, saying: “Come, put that into your stomach; we will fatten you or we’ll know the reason why, you pig!”

The soldier, understanding only that they wanted to make him eat all his soup, laughed in a contented manner, making a sign to show that he could not hold any more.

Then Saint Anthony, become quite familiar, tapped him on the stomach, saying: “My, there is plenty in my pig’s belly!” But suddenly he began to writhe with laughter, unable to speak. An idea had struck him which made him choke with mirth. “That’s it, that’s it, Saint Anthony and his pig. There’s my pig!” And the three servants burst out laughing in their turn.

The old fellow was so pleased that he had the brandy brought in, good stuff, fil en dix, and treated everyone. They clinked glasses with the Prussian, who clacked his tongue by way of flattery to show that he enjoyed it. And Saint Anthony exclaimed in his face: “Eh, is not that superfine? You don’t get anything like that in your home, pig!”

From that time Father Anthony never went out without his Prussian. He had got what he wanted. This was his vengeance, the vengeance of an old humbug. And the whole countryside, which was in terror, laughed to split its sides at Saint Anthony’s joke. Truly, there was no one like him when it came to humour. No one but he would have thought of a thing like that. He was a born joker!

He went to see his neighbours every day, arm in arm with his German, whom he introduced in a jovial manner, tapping him on the shoulder: “See, here is my pig; look and see if he is not growing fat, the animal!”

And the peasants would beam with smiles. “He is so comical, that fellow, Antoine!”

“I will sell him to you, Césaire, for thirty francs.”

“I will take him, Antoine, and I invite you to eat some black pudding.”

“What I want is his feet.”

“Feel his belly; you will see that it is all fat.”

And they all winked at each other, but dared not laugh too loud, for fear the Prussian might finally suspect they were laughing at him. Anthony, alone growing bolder every day, pinched his thighs, exclaiming, “Nothing but fat”; tapped his hips, shouting, “That is all bacon”; lifted him up in his arms like those of an old Colossus who could have lifted an anvil, declaring, “He weighs six hundred and no waste.”

He had got into the habit of making people offer his “pig” something to eat wherever they went together. This was the chief pleasure, the great diversion every day. “Give him whatever you please, he will swallow everything.” And they offered the man bread and butter, potatoes, cold meat, chitterlings, which caused the remark, “Some of your own, and choice ones.”

The soldier, stupid and gentle, ate from politeness, charmed at these attentions, making himself ill rather than refuse, and he was actually growing fat and his uniform becoming tight for him. This delighted Saint Anthony, who said: “You know, my pig, that we shall have to have another cage made for you.”

They had, however, become the best friends in the world, and when the old fellow went to attend to his business in the neighbourhood the Prussian accompanied him for the simple pleasure of being with him.

The weather was severe; it was freezing hard. The terrible winter of 1870 seemed to bring all the plagues upon France at the same time.

Father Antoine, who made provision beforehand, and took advantage of every opportunity, foreseeing that manure would be scarce for the spring farming, bought from a neighbour who happened to be in need of money all that he had, and it was agreed that he should go every evening with his cart to get a load.

So every day at twilight he set out for the farm of Haules, half a league distant, always accompanied by his “pig.” And each time it was great fun to feed the animal. All the neighbours ran over there as they would go to High Mass on Sunday.

But the soldier began to suspect something, and when they laughed too loud he would roll his eyes uneasily, and sometimes they lighted up with anger.

One evening when he had eaten his fill he refused to swallow another morsel, and attempted to rise to leave the table. But Saint Anthony stopped him by a turn of the wrist and, placing his two powerful hands on his shoulders, he sat him down again so roughly that the chair smashed under him.

A wild burst of laughter broke forth, and Anthony, beaming, picked up his pig, acted as though he were dressing his wounds, and exclaimed: “Since you will not eat, you shall drink, nom de Dieu!” And they went to the tavern to get some brandy.

The soldier rolled his wicked eyes, but he drank, nevertheless; he drank as long as they wanted him, and Saint Anthony kept up with him, to the great delight of his companions.

The Norman, red as a tomato, his eyes ablaze, filled up the glasses and clinked, saying: “Here’s to you!” And the Prussian, without speaking a word, poured down one after another glassfuls of cognac.

It was a contest, a battle, a revenge! Who would drink the most, by God! They could neither of them stand any more when the bottle was emptied. But neither was conquered. They had tied, that was all. They would have to begin again the next day.

They went out staggering and started for home, walking beside the dung-cart, which was drawn along slowly by two horses.

Snow began to fall and the moonless night was sadly lighted by this dead whiteness on the plain. The men began to feel the cold, and this aggravated their intoxication. Saint Anthony, annoyed at not being the victor, amused himself by shoving his companion so as to make him fall over into the ditch. The other would dodge backwards, and each time he did he uttered some German expression in an angry tone, which made the peasant roar with laughter. Finally the Prussian lost his temper, and just as Anthony was rolling towards him he responded with such a terrific blow with his fist that the colossus staggered.

Then, excited by the brandy, the old man seized the young one round the waist, shook him for a few moments as he would have done with a little child, and pitched him at random to the other side of the road. Then, satisfied with this piece of work, he crossed his arms and began to laugh afresh.

But the soldier picked himself up quickly, his head bare, his helmet having rolled off, and drawing his sword he rushed over to Father Anthony.

When he saw him coming the peasant seized his whip by the top of the handle, his big hollywood whip, straight, strong and supple as the sinew of an ox.

The Prussian approached, his head down, making a lunge with his sword, sure of killing his adversary. But the old fellow, squarely hitting the blade, the point of which would have pierced his stomach, turned it aside, and with the butt end of the whip struck the soldier a sharp blow on the temple and he fell to the ground.

Then he gazed aghast, stupefied with amazement, at the body, twitching convulsively at first and then lying prone and motionless. He bent over it, turned it on its back, and gazed at it for some time. The man’s eyes were closed, and blood trickled from a wound at the side of his forehead. Although it was night, Father Anthony could distinguish the bloodstain on the white snow.

He remained there, at his wit’s end, while his cart continued slowly on its way.

What was he to do? He would be shot! They would burn his farm, ruin his district! What should he do? What should he do? How could he hide the body, conceal the fact of his death, deceive the Prussians? He heard voices in the distance, amid the utter stillness of the snow. All at once he roused himself, and picking up the helmet he placed it on his victim’s head. Then, seizing him round the body, he lifted him up in his arms, and thus running with him, he overtook his team, and threw the body on top of the manure. Once in his own house he would think up some plan.

He walked slowly, racking his brain, but without result. He saw, he felt, that he was lost. He entered his courtyard. A light was shining in one of the attic windows; his servant was not asleep. He hastily backed his wagon to the edge of the manure hollow. He thought that by overturning the manure the body lying on top of it would fall into the ditch and be buried beneath it, and he dumped the cart.

As he had foreseen, the man was buried beneath the manure. Anthony evened it down with his fork, which he stuck in the ground beside it. He called his stableman, told him to put up the horses, and went to his room.

He went to bed, still thinking of what he had best do, but no ideas came to him. His apprehension increased in the quiet of his room. They would shoot him! He was bathed in perspiration from fear, his teeth chattered, he rose shivering, not being able to stay in bed.

He went downstairs to the kitchen, took the bottle of brandy from the sideboard and carried it upstairs. He drank two large glasses, one after another, adding a fresh intoxication to the late one, without quieting his mental anguish. He had done a pretty stroke of work, by God! Idiot that he was!

He paced up and down, trying to think of some stratagem, some explanations, some cunning trick, and from time to time he rinsed his mouth with a swallow of fil en dix to give him courage.

But no ideas came to him, not one.

Towards midnight his watch dog, a kind of half wolf called “Dévorant,” began to howl frantically. Father Anthony shuddered to the marrow of his bones, and each time the beast began his long and lugubrious wail the old man’s skin turned to gooseflesh.

He had sunk into a chair, his legs weak, stupefied, done up, waiting anxiously for Dévorant to set up another howl, and starting convulsively from nervousness caused by terror.

The clock downstairs struck five. The dog was still howling. The peasant was almost insane. He rose to go and let the dog loose, so that he should not hear him. He went downstairs, opened the hall door, and stepped out into the darkness. The snow was still falling. The earth was all white, the farm buildings standing out like black patches. He approached the kennel. The dog was dragging at his chain. He unfastened it. Dévorant gave a bound, then stopped short, his hair bristling, his legs rigid, his muzzle in the air, his nose pointed towards the manure heap.

Saint Anthony, trembling from head to foot, faltered:

“What’s the matter with you, you dirty hound?” and he walked a few steps forward, gazing at the indistinct outlines, the sombre shadow of the courtyard.

Then he saw a form, the form of a man sitting on the manure heap!

He gazed at it, paralyzed by fear, and breathing hard. But all at once he saw, close by, the handle of the manure fork which was sticking in the ground. He snatched it up and in one of those transports of fear that will make the greatest coward brave he rushed forward to see what it was.

It was he, his Prussian, come to life, covered with filth from his bed of manure, which had kept him warm. He had sat down mechanically, and remained there in the snow which sprinkled down, all covered with dirt and blood as he was, and still stupid from drinking, dazed by the blow and exhausted from his wound.

He perceived Anthony, and too sodden to understand anything, he made an attempt to rise. But the moment the old man recognized him, he foamed with rage like a wild animal.

“Ah, pig! pig!” he sputtered. “You are not dead! You are going to denounce me now⁠—wait⁠—wait!”

And rushing on the German with all the strength of his arms he flung the raised fork like a lance and buried the four prongs full length in his breast.

The soldier fell over on his back, uttering a long death moan, while the old peasant, drawing the fork out of his breast, plunged it over and over again into his abdomen, his stomach, his throat, like a madman, piercing the body from head to foot, as it still quivered, and the blood gushed out in streams.

Finally he stopped, exhausted by the violence of his labours, swallowing great mouthfuls of air, calmed down by the completion of the murder.

As the cocks were beginning to crow in the poultry yard and it was near daybreak, he set to work to bury the man.

He dug a hole in the manure till he reached the earth, dug down further, working wildly, in a frenzy of strength with frantic motions of his arms and body.

When the pit was deep enough he rolled the corpse into it with the fork, covered it with earth, which he stamped down for some time, and then put back the manure, and he smiled as he saw the thick snow finishing his work and covering up its traces with a white sheet.

He then stuck the fork in the manure and went into the house. His bottle, still half full of brandy, stood on the table. He emptied it at a draught, threw himself on his bed and slept heavily.

He woke up sober, his mind calm and clear, capable of judgment and forethought.

At the end of an hour he was going about the country making inquiries everywhere for his soldier. He went to see the Prussian officer to find out why they had taken away his man.

As everyone knew what good friends they were, no one suspected him. He even directed the search, declaring that the Prussian went to see the girls every evening.

An old retired gendarme who had an inn in the next village, and a pretty daughter, was arrested and shot.

An Apparition

We were speaking of sequestration apropos of a recent lawsuit. It was at the close of an evening amongst friends, at an old house in the Rue de Grenelle, and each of us had a story to tell, a story alleged to be true. Then, the old Marquis de la Tour Samuel, who was eighty-two, rose, and, leaning on the mantelpiece, said, in somewhat shaky tones:

“I also know something strange, so strange that it has been an obsession all my life. It is now fifty-six years since the incident occurred, and yet not a month has passed in which I have not seen it again in a dream. The mark, the imprint of fear, if you can understand me, has remained with me ever since that day. For ten minutes I experienced such horrible fright that, ever since, a sort of constant terror is in my soul. Unexpected noises make me shudder to the bottom of my soul and objects half-seen in the gloom of night inspire me with a mad desire to take flight. In short, at night I am afraid.

“Ah, no! I would not have admitted that before having reached my present age! Now I can say anything. At eighty-two years of age, I do not feel compelled to be brave in the presence of imaginary dangers. I have never receded before real danger.

“The affair upset me so completely, and caused me such deep and mysterious and terrible distress, that I never spoke of it to anyone. I have kept it down in the depths of my being, in those depths where painful secrets are kept, the shameful secrets and all the unconfessed weaknesses of our lives. I will now tell it to you exactly as it happened, without any attempt at explanation. There is no doubt it can be explained, unless I was mad at the time. But I was not mad, and I will prove it. You may think what you like. Here are the simple facts:

“It was in 1827, in the month of July. I was stationed at Rouen. One day, as I was walking along the quay, I met a man whom I thought I recognized, without being able to recall exactly who he was. Instinctively, I made a movement to stop; the stranger perceived it, looked at me, and fell into my arms.

“He was a friend of my youth to whom I had been deeply attached. For five years I had not seen him, and he seemed to have aged half a century. His hair was quite white, and he walked with a stoop as though completely worn out. He understood my surprise, and told me his life. A misfortune had shattered it.

“Having fallen madly in love with a young girl, he had married her, but, after a year of superhuman happiness and of passionate love, she died suddenly of heart failure, of love, very probably. He had left his château on the very day of her burial and had come to live in his house at Rouen. There he lived, desperate and solitary, consumed by grief, and so miserable that he thought only of suicide.

“ ‘Now that I have found you again,’ said he, ‘I will ask you to render me an important service, to go to my old home and get for me, from the desk of my bedroom⁠—our bedroom⁠—some papers which I greatly need. I cannot send a servant or a lawyer, as complete discretion and absolute silence are necessary. As for myself, nothing on earth would induce me to reenter that house. I will give you the key of the room, which I myself locked on leaving, and the key of my desk⁠—also a note to my gardener, telling him to open the château for you. But come and breakfast with me tomorrow, and we will arrange all that.’

“I promised to do him the slight favour he asked. For that matter, it was nothing of a trip, his property being but a few miles distant from Rouen and easily reached in an hour on horseback.

“At ten o’clock the following day I was at his house, and we breakfasted alone together, but he scarcely spoke.

“He begged me to pardon him; the thought of the visit I was about to make to that room, the scene of his dead happiness, overwhelmed him, he said. He, indeed, seemed singularly agitated and preoccupied, as though some mysterious struggle were taking place in his soul.

“At last, he explained to me exactly what I had to do. It was very simple. I was to take two packages of letters and a roll of papers from the first drawer on the right of the desk of which I had the key. He added, ‘I need not beg you to refrain from glancing at them.’

“I was wounded at that remark, and told him so somewhat sharply. He stammered, ‘Forgive me, I suffer so,’ and he began to weep.

“I took leave of him about one o’clock to accomplish my mission.

“The weather was glorious, and I cantered over the fields, listening to the songs of the larks and the rhythmical striking of my sword against my boot. Then I entered the forest and walked my horse. Branches of trees caressed my face as I passed, and, now and then, I caught a leaf with my teeth, and chewed it greedily, from that sheer joy of living which inexplicably fills one with a sense of tumultuous, impalpable happiness, a sort of intoxication of strength.

“As I approached the château, I looked in my pocket for the letter I had for the gardener, and was astonished at finding it sealed. I was so surprised and irritated that I was about to turn back without having fulfilled my promise but thought that I should thereby display undue susceptibility. My friend might easily have closed the envelope without noticing that he did so, in his troubled state of mind.

“The manor seemed to have been abandoned for twenty years. The gate was open and in such a state of decay that one wondered how it stood upright; the paths were overgrown with grass, and the flower beds were no longer distinguishable from the lawn.

“The noise I made by tapping loudly on a shutter brought an old man from a side door, who seemed stunned with astonishment at seeing me. On receiving my letter, he read it, reread it, turned it over and over, looked me up and down, put the paper in his pocket, and finally asked:

“ ‘Well! what is it you want?’

“I replied shortly: ‘You ought to know, since you have just read your master’s orders. I wish to enter the château.’

“He seemed overcome. ‘Then you are going into⁠ ⁠… into her room?’

“I began to lose patience: ‘See here! Do you propose to cross-examine me?’

“He stammered in confusion: ‘No⁠—sir⁠—but it is because⁠—that is, it has not been opened since⁠—since the⁠—death. If you will be kind enough to wait for five minutes, I will go to⁠—to see if⁠—’

“I interrupted him, angrily: ‘Look here, what are you driving at? You cannot enter the room, since I have the key!’

“He had no more to say. ‘Then, sir, I will show you the way.’

“ ‘Show me the staircase and leave me. I’ll find my way without you.’

“ ‘But⁠—sir⁠—indeed⁠—’

“This time I became really angry: ‘Now be quiet or you’ll know the reason why.’ I pushed him aside, and went into the house.

“I first went through the kitchen; then two rooms occupied by the servant and his wife; next, by a wide hall, I reached the stairs, which I mounted, and recognized the door indicated by my friend.

“I easily opened it and entered. The apartment was so dark that, at first, I could distinguish nothing. I stopped short, my nostrils penetrated by the disagreeable, mouldy odour of unoccupied rooms, of dead rooms. Then, as my eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness, I saw plainly enough, a large and disordered bedroom, the bed without sheets, but still retaining its mattresses and pillows, on one of which was a deep impression of an elbow or a head, as though someone had recently rested there.

“The chairs all seemed out of place. I noticed that a door, doubtless that of a closet, had remained half open.

“I first went to the window, which I opened to let in the light; but the fastenings of the shutters had grown so rusty that I could not move them. I even tried to break them with my sword, but without success. As I was growing irritated over my useless efforts, and could now see fairly well in the semi-obscurity, I renounced the idea of getting more light and went over to the writing-table.

“I sat down in an armchair, let down the lid of the desk and opened the drawer that had been indicated. It was full to the top. I needed only three packages, which I knew how to recognize, and began searching for them.

“I was straining my eyes in the effort to read the superscriptions, when I seemed to hear, or rather feel, something rustle behind me. I paid no attention, believing that a draught from the window was moving some drapery. But, in a minute or so, another movement, almost imperceptible, sent a strangely disagreeable little shiver over my skin. It was so stupid to be affected, even slightly, that self-respect prevented my turning around. I had then found the second packet I needed and was about to lay my hand on the third when a long and painful sigh, uttered just over my shoulder, made me bound like a madman from my seat and land several feet away. As I jumped I had turned about, my hand on the hilt of my sword, and, truly, had I not felt it at my side, I should have taken to my heels like a coward.

“A tall woman, dressed in white, stood gazing at me from the back of the chair where I had been sitting an instant before.

“Such a shudder ran through all my limbs that I nearly fell backward. No one can understand unless he has felt it, that frightful, unreasoning terror! The mind becomes vague; the heart ceases to beat; the entire body grows as limp as a sponge, as if one’s life were ebbing away.

“I do not believe in ghosts, nevertheless I completely gave way to a hideous fear of the dead; and I suffered more in those few moments than in all the rest of my life, from the irresistible anguish of supernatural fright. If she had not spoken, I should have died, perhaps! But she spoke, she spoke in a sweet, sad voice, that set my nerves vibrating. I dare not say that I became master of myself and recovered my reason. No! I was so frightened that I scarcely knew what I was doing; but a certain innate pride, a remnant of soldierly instinct, made me, almost in spite of myself, maintain a creditable countenance. I was posing to myself, I suppose, and to her, whoever she was, woman or ghost. Afterwards I realized all this, for I assure you that, at the time of the apparition, I thought of nothing. I was afraid.

“She said: ‘Oh! sir, you can render me a great service.’

“I tried to reply, but it was impossible for me to pronounce a word. Only a vague sound came from my throat.

“She continued: ‘Will you? You can save me, cure me. I suffer frightfully. I suffer, oh! how I suffer!’ and she slowly seated herself in my armchair.

“ ‘Will you?’ she said, looking at me.

“I replied ‘Yes’ by a nod, my voice still being paralysed.

“Then she held out to me a tortoiseshell comb, and murmured:

“ ‘Comb my hair, oh! comb my hair; that will cure me; it must be combed. Look at my head⁠—how I suffer; and my hair hurts me so!’

“Her hair, unbound, very long and very black, it seemed to me, hung over the back of the chair and touched the floor.

“Why did I receive that comb with a shudder, and why did I take in my hands the long, black hair which gave to my skin a gruesome, cold sensation, as though I were handling snakes? I cannot tell.

“That sensation has remained in my fingers and I still tremble when I think of it.

“I combed her hair. I handled, I know not how, those icy locks. I twisted, knotted, and loosened them. She sighed and bowed her head, seeming to be happy. Suddenly she said: ‘Thank you!’ snatched the comb from my hands, and fled by the door that I had noticed ajar.

“Left alone, I experienced for several seconds the frightened agitation of one who awakens from a nightmare. At length I regained my full senses; I ran to the window, and with a mighty effort burst open the shutters, letting a flood of light into the room. Immediately I sprang to the door by which she had departed. I found it closed and immovable!

“Then a mad desire to flee came on me like a panic, the panic which soldiers know in battle. I seized the three packets of letters on the open desk; ran from the room, dashed down the stairs four steps at a time, found myself outside, I know not how, and seeing my horse a few steps off, leaped into the saddle and galloped away.

“I stopped only when I reached Rouen and my own house. Throwing the bridle to my orderly, I fled to my room, where I shut myself in to think.

“For an hour I anxiously wondered whether I had not been the victim of a hallucination. Surely I had had one of those incomprehensible nervous shocks, one of those mental frights which give rise to miracles, to which the Supernatural owes its power.

“I was about to believe I had seen a vision, had a hallucination, when I approached the window. My eyes fell, by chance, upon my breast. My military cape was covered with hairs; the long hairs of a woman, which had got caught in the buttons! One by one, with trembling fingers, I plucked them off and threw them away.

“I then called my orderly. I was too disturbed, too upset to go and see my friend that day, and I also wished to reflect more fully upon what I ought to tell him. I sent him his letters, for which he gave the soldier a receipt. He asked after me most particularly. He was told I was ill, that I had had sunstroke or something. He seemed to be exceedingly anxious. Next morning at dawn I went to him, determined to tell him the truth. He had gone out the evening before and had not yet returned. I called again during the day; my friend was still absent. I waited for a week. He did not appear. Then I notified the authorities. A search was instituted, but not the slightest trace of his whereabouts or manner of disappearance was discovered.

“A minute inspection was made of the abandoned château. Nothing of a suspicious character was discovered. There was no indication that a woman had been concealed there.

“The inquiry led to nothing, and the search was stopped, and for fifty-six years I have heard nothing; I know no more than before.”

Walter Schnaffs’ Adventure

Since his entrance into France, with the army of the invasion, Walter Schnaffs judged himself the most unfortunate of men. He was stout, walked with difficulty, puffed much, and suffered frightfully with his feet, which were very broad and fat. Outwardly, he seemed peaceful and benevolent, neither brave nor bloodthirsty, the father of four children whom he adored, and married to a young, blond woman whose caresses and cares and tenderness he desperately regretted every evening. He loved to rise late and go to bed early, to eat slowly of good things and drink beer in cafés. He felt that all that was sweet in existence disappeared with this life; and he had at heart a terrible fear and hatred, both instinctive and reasonable, of cannons, guns, revolvers, and swords, and especially of bayonets, feeling himself incapable of maneuvering rapidly enough to defend his great body with such a weapon.

And, when night had come and he had lain down to sleep upon the earth, wrapped in his blanket by the side of his comrades, who were snoring, he thought long of his home, left behind him in Germany, and of the dangers sown all along the route. “If I should be killed what would become of the little ones?” he thought. “Who would feed them and bring them up?” At that very moment they were not rich, in spite of the debts he had contracted before he started, in order to leave them a little money. And sometimes Walter Schnaffs wept.

At the beginning of a battle he felt his knees growing so weak that he would have fallen had he not known that the whole army would pass over his body. The whistling of the bullets made his hair stand on end. For some months he lived thus, in terror and in anguish.

His army corps was advancing toward Normandy. One day he was sent out to reconnoitre with a small detachment which was simply to explore a part of the country and report immediately. All seemed calm in the country; nothing indicated a prepared resistance.

The Prussians were descending quietly into a little valley divided by deep ravines, when a violent fusillade stopped them short, laying low one in twenty of their men; and a company of sharpshooters, coming out suddenly from a little wood, plunged forward with their bayonets fixed.

Walter Schnaffs remained motionless at first, so surprised and dismayed that he did not even think of fleeing. Then a foolish desire to run away seized him; but he thought immediately that he could run only like a tortoise in comparison with the thin Frenchmen, who were coming on in leaps and bounds, like a troop of goats. Then, perceiving but six steps before him a large ditch full of brushwood covered with dead leaves, he jumped in with both feet, without even thinking how deep it was, as one might jump from a bridge into a river. He went like a dart, through a thick layer of creepers and sharp twigs, which tore his face and hands as he fell, and found himself seated heavily on a bed of stones. Raising his eyes, he could see the sky through the hole that he had made. This hole might lead to his discovery, and he dragged himself along cautiously, on all fours, at the bottom of this ditch, under a roof of enlaced branches, going with all speed possible as far as he could from the combat. Then he stopped and seated himself, crouching like a hare in the midst of the tall dry grass.

For some time longer he heard the reports of the guns and the cries of the wounded, then the clamour of the struggle grew feebler and finally ceased. All became still and calm.

Suddenly something moved near him. He had a fearful shock. It was a little bird, which, standing upon a branch, had shaken the dry leaves. For nearly an hour, the man’s heart beat with heavy, rapid strokes.

Night came on, filling the ravine with shadows. The soldier began to think. What was he going to do? What would become of him? Should he rejoin his regiment? But how? But how? And where? Was it necessary to begin over again the life of anguish, of fear, of fatigue and suffering that he had led since the beginning of the war? No! He would never have the courage. He would never have the energy necessary to support the marches and confront the dangers of each minute.

But what was to be done? He could not remain in this ravine and conceal himself there until the end of hostilities. Certainly not. If he were not obliged to eat, this prospect might not have deterred him; but he must eat and eat every day.

Thus he found himself alone, under arms, in uniform, in the enemy’s territory, far from those able to defend him. Cold shivers ran through his body. Suddenly he thought: “If only I were a prisoner!” And his heart trembled with the desire, a violent, immoderate desire to be made prisoner by the French. He would be safely lodged and fed, under shelter from bullets and swords, without possible apprehension, in a good prison well guarded. A prisoner! What a dream!

His resolution was made immediately: “I will go and give myself up as a prisoner.” He got up resolved to execute his project without a minute’s delay. But he remained there, suddenly assailed by cowardly reflections and new fears.

Where should he go to give himself up? And how? On which side? And frightful images of death invaded his soul. He might run some terrible dangers in venturing out alone through the country in his metal-pointed helmet. If he should meet some country people? These peasants, seeing a Prussian soldier lost, a defenceless Prussian, would kill him like a stray dog! They would murder him, with their forks, their pickaxes, their scythes, their shovels! They would reduce him to pulp and make mincemeat of him with the savagery of exasperated conquerors.

And if he should meet some sharpshooters? These madmen, without law or discipline, would shoot him to amuse themselves, to pass away an hour, for the fun of seeing his face. And he could already imagine himself against a wall, facing a dozen gun barrels, whose little round, black holes seemed to be looking at him.

And if he should meet the French army? The advance guard would take him for a spy, for some brave and hardy rogue of a trooper sent out alone to reconnoitre, and would shoot him down at once. And he could already hear the irregular reports of the guns of soldiers concealed in the woods, while he, standing in the middle of a field, would be riddled with bullets like a strainer, and he could feel them entering his flesh. He sat down again in despair. His situation appeared to be hopeless.

Night had now come, night still and dark. He no longer moved and started at every unknown and slight noise which passed in the shadows. A rabbit, bobbing up and down on the edge of his burrow, almost put Walter Schnaffs to flight. The cries of the screech-owl tore his soul, rending it with sudden fear, as painful as wounds. He stared with his big eyes, trying to penetrate the shadows; and he imagined every moment that he heard someone walking near him.

After interminable hours and the anguish of the damned, he perceived through his ceiling of branches that the sky was becoming bright. Then immense relief came to him; his members relaxed in sudden repose; his heart was easy; his eyes closed. He fell asleep.

When he awoke, the sun seemed to him to be nearly in the middle of the sky; it should, therefore, be midday. No noise troubled the dull peace of the fields; and Walter Schnaffs perceived that he was seized with acute hunger. He yawned, his mouth watering at the thought of sausage, the good military sausage, and he got a pain in his stomach.

He stood up, took some steps, felt that his legs were feeble, and sat down again to think. For three or four hours more he argued for and against, changing his mind every moment, unhappy, drawn this way and that by the most contradictory arguments.

One idea seemed to him logical and practical: that was to watch until some villager passed, alone, without arms or dangerous tools, to run up to him and deliver himself into his hands, making him understand that he was giving himself up. Then he removed his helmet, the point of which might betray him, and put his head out of his hole with infinite precautions.

No single human being was in sight. Down there, to the right, a little village sent to the sky the smoke from its roofs, the smoke from its kitchens! To the left, he perceived at the end of an avenue of trees, a great castle flanked with turrets. He waited until evening, suffering frightfully, seeing nothing but flocks of crows, and hearing nothing but the dull rumbling of his stomach.

Again the night fell upon him. He stretched himself out at the bottom of his retreat and fell into a feverish sleep, haunted by nightmares, the sleep of a famished man. The dawn again rose upon him. He again set himself to watch, but the countryside was as empty as the day before. And a new fear entered the mind of Walter Schnaffs⁠—the fear of dying of hunger. He saw himself stretched at the bottom of that hole, on his back, his eyes closed. Then some animals, small animals of every sort, would come and begin to eat his dead body, attacking him everywhere simultaneously, slipping in under his garments to bite his cold flesh. And a great raven would pick his eyes out with its sharp beak.

Then he became mad, imagining that he was swooning from weakness and could no longer walk. And he prepared to start toward the village, resolved to dare all, to defy all; but he perceived three peasants going to the fields with their forks on their shoulders, and he plunged back into his hiding-place.

When evening darkened the plain again, he got out slowly from the ditch, and started on the way, crouching, fearful, his heart beating, towards the far-off castle, preferring to enter that rather than the village, which seemed to him as dangerous as a den of tigers.

The lower windows were brilliantly lighted, one of them being open; and a strong odour of food, cooked food, came from it, entering Walter Schnaffs’ nostrils and penetrating to the depths of his body, causing his body to become tense and his breath to come in gasps. It drew him irresistibly, inspiring his heart with desperate audacity. And suddenly, without thinking, he appeared at the window with his helmet on his head.

Eight servants were dining around a big table. Suddenly a maid sat still with her mouth open, letting her glass fall, her eyes staring. Then, every glance followed hers.

They perceived the enemy! My God! The Prussians are attacking the castle!

At first this was a single cry, made up of eight cries in eight different tones, a cry of horrible fear, then there was a tumultuous moving, a hustling, a melee, a general flight for the farthest door. Chairs fell, men knocked over the women to get ahead of them. In two seconds the room was empty, abandoned, with a table covered with eatables in front of Walter Schnaffs, who stood still in amazement outside the window.

After some moments of hesitation, he jumped over the windowsill, and advanced towards the plates. His keen hunger made him tremble like one in a fever; but terror still held him and paralyzed him. He listened. The whole house seemed to tremble; doors opened and shut, and rapid steps sounded on the floor above. The uneasy Prussian strained his ears to catch these confused noises; then he heard heavy sounds as if bodies were falling in the soft earth at the foot of the walls, human bodies jumping from the first story.

Then all movement, all agitation ceased, and the great castle became silent as a tomb.

Walter Schnaffs seated himself before a plate still intact, and began to eat. He ate with great mouthfuls as if he feared being interrupted too soon, before he had devoured enough. He threw the pieces with both hands into his mouth, opened like a trap; huge pieces of food descended into his stomach, one after the other, straining his throat in passing. Sometimes he interrupted himself, feeling ready to burst, like an overfilled pipe. He took the cider pitcher and poured its contents down his throat, as one washes out a stopped-up conduit.

He emptied all the plates, all the dishes, and all the bottles; then, full of liquid and eatables, besotted, red, shaking with hiccups, his mouth greasy, his mind troubled, he unbuttoned his uniform in order to breathe, incapable of taking another step. His eyes closed, his ideas became vague; he dropped his heavy head in his crossed arms on the table, and sweetly lost all consciousness of his surroundings.

The waning crescent lighted the horizon vaguely through the trees of the park. It was the cold hour which precedes the day. Sometimes a ray of the moon glittered like a point of steel among the shadows of the thicket.

The quiet castle appeared like a great, black silhouette against the clear sky. Two windows alone on the ground floor were still brilliantly lighted. Suddenly, a voice of thunder cried:

“Forward! To the assault! Come on, boys!”

Then, in an instant, the doors, shutters, even the windows, were broken down by the rush of men who dashed forward, breaking and overturning all in their way, invading the house. In an instant, fifty men, armed to the teeth, bounded into the kitchen where Walter Schnaffs was peacefully sleeping; and, presenting to his breast their loaded guns, they seized him, rolled him over, threw him down, and bound him hand and foot.

He was breathless with astonishment, too dazed to understand, beaten, battered and mad with terror.

Suddenly a fat military-looking man, covered with gold lace, planted his foot upon his body, calling out vociferously:

“You are my prisoner! Surrender!”

The Prussian understood only the single word “prisoner,” and groaned: “Ja, ja, ja!”

He was taken up, bound to a chair, and examined with a lively curiosity by his conquerors, who were puffing like porpoises. Many of them sat down, overcome by emotion and fatigue.

He smiled; he could smile now, sure at last of being a prisoner!

An officer entered and announced:

“Colonel, the enemy is put to flight. Many of them appear to have been wounded. We are now masters of the place.”

The fat officer, wiping his brow, shouted: “Victory!” And, drawing a little notebook from his pocket, he wrote:

“After a desperate struggle, the Prussians had to beat a retreat, taking their dead and wounded with them, estimated at about fifty men. Several remain in our hands.”

The young officer inquired: “Colonel, what measures are to be taken?”

The colonel replied: “We shall fall back in order to avoid a resumption of the offensive with artillery and superior forces.” And he gave the order to depart.

The column reformed in the shadow under the wall of the castle, and set off, surrounding, with great care, Walter Schnaffs, bound, and guarded by six warriors with revolvers in hand. Scouts were sent out to reconnoitre the route. They advanced with great care, halting from time to time. At daylight, they arrived at the Subprefect’s, in La Roche-Oysel, whose national guard had accomplished this feat of arms.

The people of the town, anxious and excited, awaited them. When they saw the prisoner’s helmet fearful shouts arose. Women lifted up their hands, old people wept, a grandfather threw his crutch at the Prussian and wounded the nose of one of his guards. The colonel shouted: “Look out for the safety of the prisoner!”

Finally, they came to the town hall. The prison was opened, and Walter Schnaffs was thrown in, freed from his fetters. Two hundred men, in arms, mounted guard on the building.

Then, in spite of the symptoms of indigestion which had been troubling him for some time, the Prussian, mad with joy, began to dance, to dance madly, raising his arms and legs and uttering frenzied cries, until he fell exhausted against the wall. He was a prisoner! He was saved.

And thus it was that the castle of Champignet was retaken from the enemy after only six hours of occupation.

Colonel Ratier, cloth merchant, who accomplished this feat at the head of the National Guards of La Roche-Oysel, was decorated for it.

Queen Hortense

They called her Queen Hortense in Argenteuil. No one ever knew why. Perhaps because she spoke firmly, like an officer giving orders. Perhaps because she was large, bony, and imperious. Perhaps because she governed a multitude of domestic animals, hens, dogs, cats, canaries, and parrots⁠—those animals so dear to old maids. But she neither spoiled these familiar subjects, nor addressed them with loving words, those tender puerilities which seem to slip from the lips of a woman to the velvety coat of a purring cat. She governed her beasts with authority. She ruled.

She was an old maid, one of those old maids with harsh voice, and awkward gesture, whose soul seems hard. She had always had young servants, because youth more easily adapts itself to strong wills. She never allowed contradiction from any person, nor argument, nor would she tolerate hesitation, or indifference, or idleness, or fatigue. No one ever heard her complain, or regret what was, or envy others. “To each one his share,” she would say, with fatalistic conviction. She never went to church, cared nothing for the priests, scarcely believed in God, and called all religious things “stuff for mourners.”

For thirty years she had lived in her little house, with its tiny garden in front, extending along the street, never modifying her way of living, changing only her maids, and that mercilessly, when they became twenty-one years old.

She replaced, without tears and without regrets, her dogs or cats or birds, when they died of old age, or by accident, and she buried the dead animals in a flowerbed, heaping the earth above them with a small spade and treading it down with perfect indifference.

She had in the town a few acquaintances, the families of clerks, whose men travelled to Paris every day. From time to time, they would invite her to spend the evening and drink a cup of tea with them. She inevitably fell asleep on these occasions, and they were obliged to wake her up so that she could go home. She never allowed anyone to accompany her, having no fear by night or day. She seemed to have no love for children.

She occupied her time with a thousand masculine cares, carpentry, gardening, cutting or sawing wood, repairing her old house, even doing mason’s work when it was necessary.

She had some relatives who came to see her twice a year. Her two sisters, Madame Cimme and Madame Columbel, were married, one to an herbalist, the other to a man with small private means. Madame Cimme had no children; Madame Columbel had three: Henri, Pauline, and Joseph. Henri was twenty-one, Pauline, seventeen, and Joseph only three, having come when one would have thought the mother past the age. No tenderness united this old maid to her kinsfolk.

In the spring of 1882, Queen Hortense became suddenly ill. The neighbours went for a doctor, whom she drove away. When the priest presented himself she got out of bed, half naked, and put him out. The little maid, weeping, made herb tea for her.

After three days in bed, the situation became so grave that the carpenter living next door, on the advice of the doctor, who had returned to the house on his own authority, took it upon himself to summon the two families.

They arrived by the same train, about ten o’clock in the morning; the Columbels having brought their little Joseph.

When they arrived at the garden gate, they saw the maid seated on a chair against the wall, weeping. The dog lay asleep on the mat before the front door, under a broiling sun; two cats, that looked dead, lay stretched out on the windowsills, with eyes closed and paws and tails extended at full length. A great clucking hen was promenading before the door, at the head of a flock of chicks covered with yellow down, and in a large cage hung against the wall, covered with chickweed, were several birds, singing themselves hoarse in the light of this hot spring morning.

Two others, inseparable, in a little cage in the form of a cottage, remained quiet, side by side on their perch.

M. Cimme, a large, wheezy personage, who always entered a room first, pushing aside men and women when it was necessary, remarked to the maid: “Well, Céleste! Is it so bad as that?”

The little maid sobbed through her tears:

“She doesn’t know me any more. The doctor says it is the end.”

They all looked at one another.

Madame Cimme and Madame Columbel embraced each other instantly, without saying a word.

They resembled each other very much, always wearing their hair parted in the middle, and shawls of red cashmere, as bright as hot coals.

Cimme turned toward his brother-in-law, a pale man, yellow and thin, tormented by indigestion, who limped badly, and said to him in a serious tone:

“Gad! It was time!”

But no one dared to go into the room of the dying woman, situated on the ground floor. Cimme himself let the others go before him. Columbel was the first to make up his mind; he entered, balancing himself like the mast of a ship, making a noise on the floor with the ferrule of his walking-stick.

The two women ventured to follow, and M. Cimme brought up the line.

Little Joseph remained outside, drawn by the sight of the dog.

A ray of sunlight fell on the bed, just lighting up the hands which moved nervously, opening and shutting without ceasing. The fingers moved as if a thought animated them, as if they would signify something, indicate some idea, obey some intelligence. The rest of the body remained motionless under the sheet. The angular figure gave no start. The eyes remained closed.

The relatives arranged themselves in a semicircle and, without saying a word, watched the heaving breast and the short breathing. The little maid had followed them, still shedding tears.

Finally, Cimme asked: “What did the doctor say exactly?”

The servant stammered: “He said we must leave her alone, that nothing more could be done.”

Suddenly the lips of the old maid began to move. She seemed to pronounce some silent words, concealed in her dying brain, and her hands quickened their singular movement.

Then she spoke in a little, thin voice, quite unlike her own, a voice that seemed to come from far off, perhaps from the bottom of that heart always closed.

Cimme walked upon tiptoe, finding this spectacle painful. Columbel, whose lame leg was growing tired, sat down.

The two women remained standing.

Queen Hortense muttered something quickly, which they were unable to understand. She pronounced some names, called tenderly some imaginary persons:

“Come here, my little Philippe, kiss your mother. You love mamma, don’t you, my child? You, Rose, you will watch your little sister while I am out. Above all, don’t leave her alone, do you hear? And I forbid you to touch matches.”

She was silent some seconds; then, in a loud tone, as if she was calling, she said: “Henriette!” She waited a little and continued: “Tell your father to come and speak to me before going to his office.” Then suddenly: “I am not very well today, dear; promise me you will not return late; you will tell your chief that I am ill. You know it is dangerous to leave the children alone when I am in bed. I am going to make you a dish of rice and sugar for dinner. The little ones like it so much. Claire will be so pleased!”

She began to laugh, a youthful and noisy laugh, as she had never laughed before. “Look at Jean,” she said, “how funny he looks. He has smeared himself with jam, the dirty little thing! Look! my dear, how funny he looks!”

Columbel, who kept changing the position of his lame leg every moment, murmured: “She is dreaming that she has children and a husband; the end is near.”

The two sisters did not move, but seemed surprised and stunned.

The little maid said: “Will you take off your hats and your shawls, and go into the other room?”

They went out without having said a word. And Columbel followed them limping, leaving the dying woman alone again.

When they were relieved of their outer garments, the women seated themselves. Then one of the cats left the window, stretched herself, jumped into the room, then upon the knees of Madame Cimme, who began to caress her.

They heard from the next room the voice of the dying woman, living, without doubt, in this last hour, the life she had wished for, pouring out her dreams at the very moment when all would be finished for her.

Cimme, in the garden, played with little Joseph and the dog, enjoying himself, with all the gaiety of a fat man in the country, without a thought for the dying woman.

But suddenly he entered, and addressed the maid: “I say, my girl, are you going to give us some lunch? What are you going to eat, ladies?”

They decided upon an omelet of fine herbs, a piece of fillet with new potatoes, cheese, and a cup of coffee.

And as Madame Columbel was fumbling in her pocket for her purse Cimme stopped her, and turning to the maid said, “You must have some money?” and she answered: “Yes, sir.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen francs.”

“That’s enough. Make haste, now, my girl, because I am getting hungry.”

Madame Cimme, looking out at the climbing flowers bathed in the sunlight, and at two pigeons making love on the roof opposite, said, with a heartbroken air: “It is unfortunate to have come for so sad an event. It would be nice in the country, today.”

Her sister sighed without answering, and Columbel murmured, moved perhaps by the thought of a walk:

“My leg plagues me awfully.”

Little Joseph and the dog made a terrible noise, one shouting with joy and the other barking violently. They played at hide-and-seek around the three flowerbeds, running after each other like mad.

The dying woman continued to call her children, chatting with each, imagining that she was dressing them, that she caressed them, that she was teaching them to read: “Come, Simon, repeat, A, B, C, D. You do not say it well; see, D, D, D, do you hear? Repeat, now⁠ ⁠…”

Cimme declared: “It is extraordinary the things one talks about at such times.”

Then said Madame Columbel: “It would be better, perhaps, to go in there.”

But Cimme dissuaded her from it:

“Why go in, since we are not able to do anything for her? Besides we are as well off here.”

No one insisted. Madame observed the two green birds called inseparable. She remarked pleasantly upon this singular fidelity, and blamed men for not imitating these little creatures. Cimme looked at his wife and laughed, singing with a bantering air, “Tra-la-la, Tra-la-la,” as if to say he could tell some things about his own fidelity.

Columbel, taken with cramps in his stomach, struck the floor with his cane. The other cat entered, its tail in the air. They did not sit down at table until one o’clock.

When he had tasted the wine, Columbel, who could drink only choice Bordeaux, called the servant:

“I say, is there nothing better than this in the cellar?”

“Yes, sir; there is some of the wine that was served when you used to come here.”

“Oh, well, go and bring three bottles.”

They tasted this wine, which seemed excellent. Not that it was of a remarkable vintage, but it had been fifteen years in the cellar. Cimme declared it was real wine for invalids.

Columbel, seized with a desire to possess this Bordeaux, asked of the maid: “How much is left of it, my girl?”

“Oh, nearly all, sir; Mademoiselle never drank any of it. It is at the bottom of the cellar.”

Then Columbel turned toward his brother-in-law: “If you wish, Cimme, I will take this wine in exchange for something else; it agrees with my stomach wonderfully.”

The hen, in her turn, had entered with her troop of chicks; the two women amused themselves by throwing crumbs to them. Joseph and the dog were sent back into the garden, as they had eaten enough.

Queen Hortense spoke continually, but in a whisper now, so that it was no longer possible to distinguish the words.

When they had finished the coffee, they all went in to learn the condition of the sick woman. She seemed calm.

They went out and seated themselves in a circle in the garden, to digest their food.

Presently the dog began to run around the chairs with all speed, carrying something in his mouth. The child ran wildly after him. Both disappeared into the house. Cimme fell asleep, with his stomach in the sun.

The dying woman began to speak loudly again. Then suddenly she shouted.

The two women and Columbel hastened in to see what had happened. Cimme awakened but did not move, as he did not care for such things.

The dying woman was sitting up, staring with haggard eyes. Her dog, to escape the pursuit of little Joseph, had jumped upon the bed, and across the dying woman. Entrenched behind the pillow, he was peeping at his comrade with eyes glistening, ready to jump again at the least movement. He held in his mouth one of the slippers of his mistress, all torn by his teeth, as he had been playing with it for an hour.

The child, intimidated by the woman rising so suddenly before him, stood motionless before the bed.

The hen, which had also entered, had jumped upon a chair, frightened by the noise, and was desperately calling to her chicks, which were peeping, frightened, from under the four legs of the chair.

Queen Hortense cried out in piercing tones: “No, no, I do not wish to die! I don’t want to! Who will bring up my children? Who will care for them? Who will love them? No I won’t!⁠ ⁠… I am not⁠ ⁠…”

She fell back. All was over.

The dog, much excited, jumped into the room and skipped about.

Columbel ran to the window and called his brother-in-law: “Come quickly! come quickly! I believe she is gone.”

Then Cimme got up and resolutely went into the room, muttering: “It did not take so long as I thought it would.”

On the Journey

I

The railway carriage was full as we left Cannes. We were chatting, for everybody was acquainted. As we passed Tarascon someone remarked: “Here’s the place where they assassinate people.”

And we began to talk of the mysterious and untraceable murderer, who for the last two years had taken, from time to time, the life of a traveller. Everyone made his guess, everyone gave his opinion; the women shudderingly gazed at the dark night through the car windows, fearing suddenly to see a man’s head at the door. We all began telling frightful stories of terrible encounters, meetings with madmen in a flying-express, of hours passed opposite a suspected individual.

Each man knew an anecdote to his credit, each one had intimidated, overpowered, and throttled some evildoer in most surprising circumstances, with an admirable presence of mind and audacity.

A physician, who spent every winter in the south, desired, in his turn, to tell an adventure:

“I,” said he, “never have had the luck to test my courage in an affair of this kind; but I knew a woman, now dead, one of my patients, to whom the most singular thing in the world happened, and also the most mysterious and pathetic.

“She was Russian, the Comtesse Marie Baranow, a very great lady, of exquisite beauty. You know how beautiful Russian women are, or at least how beautiful they seem to us, with their fine noses, their delicate mouths, their eyes of an indescribable colour, a blue grey, and their cold grace, a little hard! They have something about them, mischievous and seductive, haughty and sweet, tender and severe, altogether charming to a Frenchman. At the bottom, it is, perhaps, the difference of race and of type which makes me see so much in them.

“Her physician had seen for many years that she was threatened with a disease of the lungs, and had tried to persuade her to come to the south of France; but she obstinately refused to leave St. Petersburg. Finally, last autumn, deeming her lost, the doctor warned her husband, who directed his wife to start at once for Mentone.

“She took the train, alone in her car, her servants occupying another compartment. She sat by the door, a little sad, seeing the fields and villages pass, feeling very lonely, very desolate in life, without children, almost without relatives, with a husband whose love was dead and who cast her thus to the end of the world without coming with her, as they send a sick valet to the hospital.

“At each station her servant Ivan came to see if his mistress wanted anything. He was an old domestic, blindly devoted, ready to execute any order she might give him.

“Night fell, and the train rolled along at full speed. She could not sleep, being wearied and nervous.

“Suddenly the thought struck her to count the money which her husband had given her at the last minute, in French gold. She opened her little bag and emptied the shining flood of metal on her lap.

“But all at once a breath of cold air struck her face. Surprised, she raised her head. The door had just opened. The Comtesse Marie, in terror, hastily threw a shawl over the money spread upon her lap, and waited. Some seconds passed, then a man in evening dress appeared, bareheaded, wounded on the hand, and panting. He closed the door, sat down, looked at his neighbor with gleaming eyes, and then wrapped a handkerchief around his wrist, which was bleeding.

“The young woman felt herself fainting with fear. This man, surely, had seen her counting her money and had come to rob and kill her.

“He kept gazing at her, breathless, his features convulsed, doubtless ready to spring upon her.

“He suddenly said:

“ ‘Madame, don’t be afraid!’

“She made no response, being incapable of opening her mouth, hearing her heartbeats, and a buzzing in her ears.

“He continued:

“ ‘I am not a criminal, Madame.’

“She continued to be silent, but by a sudden movement which she made, her knees meeting, the gold coins began to run to the floor as water runs from a spout.

“The man, surprised, looked at this stream of metal, and he suddenly stooped to pick it up.

“Terrified, she rose, casting her whole fortune on the carpet and ran to the door to leap out on to the track.

“But he understood what she was going to do, and springing forward, seized her in his arms, seated her by force, and held her by the wrists.

“ ‘Listen to me, Madame,’ said he, ‘I am not a criminal; the proof of it is that I am going to gather up this gold and return it to you. But I am a lost man, a dead man, if you do not assist me to pass the frontier. I cannot tell you more. In an hour we shall be at the last Russian station; in an hour and twenty minutes we shall cross the boundary of the Empire. If you do not help me I am lost. And yet I have neither killed anyone, nor robbed, nor done anything contrary to honour. This I swear to you. I cannot tell you more.’

“And kneeling down he picked up the gold, even hunting under the seats for the last coins, which had rolled to a distance. Then, when the little leather bag was full again he gave it to his neighbour without saying a word, and returned to seat himself in the other corner of the compartment. Neither of them moved. She kept motionless and silent, still faint from terror, but gradually growing quieter. As for him, he did not make a gesture or a motion, but remained sitting erect, his eyes staring in front of him, very pale, as if he were dead. From time to time she threw a quick look at him, and as quickly turned her glance away. He appeared to be about thirty years of age, and was very handsome, with the air of a gentleman.

“The train ran through the darkness, giving at intervals its shrill signals, now slowing up in its progress, and again starting off at full speed. But suddenly its progress slackened, and after several sharp whistles it came to a full stop.

“Ivan appeared at the door for his orders.

“The Comtesse Marie, her voice trembling, gave one last look at her companion; then she said to her servant, in a quick tone:

“ ‘Ivan, you will return to the Comte; I do not need you any longer.’

“The man, bewildered, opened his enormous eyes. He stammered:

“ ‘But, my lady⁠—’

“She replied:

“ ‘No, you will not come with me; I have changed my mind. I wish you to stay in Russia. Here is some money for your return home. Give me your cap and cloak.’

“The old servant, frightened, took off his cap and cloak, obeying without question, accustomed to the sudden whims and caprices of his masters. And he went away, with tears in his eyes.

“The train started again, rushing toward the frontier.

“Then the Comtesse Marie said to her neighbour:

“ ‘These things are for you, Monsieur⁠—you are Ivan, my servant. I make only one condition to what I am doing: that is, that you shall not speak a word to me, neither to thank me, nor for anything whatsoever.’

“The unknown bowed without uttering a syllable.

“Soon the train stopped again, and officers in uniform visited the train.

“The Comtesse handed them her papers and, pointing to the man seated at the end of the compartment, said:

“ ‘That is my servant Ivan, whose passport is here.’

“The train again started.

“During the night they sat opposite each other, both silent.

“When morning came, as they stopped at a German station, the unknown man got out; then, standing at the door, he said:

“ ‘Pardon me, Madame, for breaking my promise, but as I have deprived you of a servant, it is proper that I should replace him. Have you need of anything?’

“She replied coldly:

“ ‘Go and find my maid.’

“He went to summon her. Then he disappeared.

“When she alighted at some station for luncheon she saw him at a distance looking at her. They finally arrived at Mentone.”

II

The doctor was silent for a second, and then resumed:

“One day, while I was receiving patients in my office, a tall young man entered. He said to me:

“ ‘Doctor, I have come to ask you news of the Comtesse Marie Baranow. I am a friend of her husband, although she does not know me.’

“I answered:

“ ‘She is lost. She will never return to Russia.’

“And suddenly this man began to sob, then he rose and went out, staggering like a drunken man.

“I told the Comtesse that evening that a stranger had come to make inquiries about her health. She seemed moved, and told me the story which I have just related to you. She added:

“ ‘That man, whom I do not know at all, follows me now like my shadow. I meet him every time I go out. He looks at me in a strange way, but he has never spoken to me!’

“She pondered a moment, then added:

“ ‘Come, I’ll wager that he is under the window now.’

“She left her reclining-chair, went to the window and drew back the curtain, and actually showed me the man who had come to see me, seated on a bench at the edge of the side wall with his eyes raised toward the house. He perceived us, rose, and went away without once turning around.

“Then I understood a sad and surprising thing, the silent love of these two beings, who were not acquainted with each other.

“He loved her with the devotion of a rescued animal, grateful and devoted to the death. He came every day to ask me, ‘How is she?’ understanding that I had guessed his feelings. And he wept frightfully when he saw her pass, weaker and paler every day.

“She said to me:

“ ‘I have never spoken but once to that singular man, and yet it seems as if I had known him for twenty years.’

“And when they met she returned his bow with a serious and charming smile. I felt that⁠—although she was given up, and knew herself lost⁠—she was happy to be loved thus, with this respect and constancy, with this exaggerated poetry, with this devotion, ready for anything.

“Nevertheless, faithful to her superexcited obstinacy, she absolutely refused to learn his name, to speak to him. She said:

“ ‘No, no, that would spoil this strange friendship. We must remain strangers to each other.’

“As for him, he was certainly a kind of Don Quixote, for he did nothing to bring himself closer to her. He intended to keep to the end the absurd promise never to speak to her which he had made in the railway carriage.

“Often, during her long hours of weakness, she rose from her reclining-chair and partly opened the curtain to see whether he were there, beneath the window. When she had seen him, always motionless upon his bench, she went back and lay down with a smile upon her lips.

“She died one day about ten o’clock. As I was leaving the hotel he came up to me with a distracted face; he had already heard the news.

“ ‘I should like to see her, for one second, in your presence,’ said he.

“I took him by the arm and went back into the house.

“When he was beside the couch of the dead woman he seized her hand and kissed it long and tenderly and then fled away like a madman.”

The doctor again was silent, then continued:

“This is certainly the strangest railway adventure that I know. It must also be said that men sometimes do the maddest things.”

A woman murmured, half aloud:

“Those two people were not so crazy as you think. They were⁠—they were⁠—”

But she could not continue, she was crying so. As we changed the conversation to calm her, we never knew what she had wished to say.

A Surprise

My brother and I were brought up by our uncle, the abbé Loisel⁠—the curé Loisel, as we called him. Our parents died when we were small, and he had taken us into his rectory and raised us.

For eighteen years he had had the parish of Join-le-Sault, not far from Yvetot. It was a small village, set in the very middle of the Norman plateau known as the pays de Caux, dotted with farms whose orchards rose up here and there amidst the fields.

The village, apart from the farm cottages scattered over the plain, consisted of a mere six houses fronting on both sides of the main road, with the church at one end and the new town hall at the other.

My brother and I passed our childhood playing in the cemetery. The place was sheltered from the wind, and there my uncle gave us our lessons, the three of us sitting side by side on the one stone tomb, that of my uncle’s predecessor, whose wealthy family had seen to it that he was buried sumptuously.

To train our memories, my uncle made us learn by heart the names of the deceased that were painted on the black wooden crosses; and to train us in observation as well he made us begin our odd recitation now from one end of the graveyard, now from the other, or sometimes from the middle. He would point abruptly to a grave, and say, “The one in the third row, with the cross leaning to the left: whose is that?” When a burial took place, we made haste to learn what was to be painted on the wooden symbol, and we often went to the carpenter’s shop, to see the epitaph before it was placed on the tomb. My uncle would ask, “Do you know the new one?” And we would reply in unison, “Yes, uncle,” and immediately begin to recite: “Here lies Joséphine Rosalie Gertrude Malandain, widow of Theodore Magloire Césaire, deceased at the age of seventy-two years, mourned by her family: a faithful daughter, faithful wife and faithful mother. Her soul is in heaven.”

My uncle was a tall, big-boned priest, square-built in his ideas as in his frame. His soul itself seemed hard and definite, like an answer in a catechism. He often spoke to us of God in thundering voice, always uttering the word as violently as though he were firing a pistol. His God was not God the good and just, but simply God. He seemed to think of Him as a burglar thinks of a policeman, or a prisoner of the judge.

He brought us up harshly, teaching us to tremble rather than to love.

When one of us was fourteen and the other fifteen, he sent us to board, at a special reduced rate, at the seminary in Yvetot. This was a large, dreary building, full of curés, whose pupils were almost without exception destined for the priesthood. I can never think of the place even now without a shudder. It smelled of prayers the way a fish-market smells of fish. Oh! That dreary school, with its eternal religious ceremonies, its freezing Mass every morning, its periods of meditation, its gospel-recitations, and the reading from pious books during meals! Oh! Those dreary days passed within those cloistering walls, where nothing was spoken of but God⁠—the explosive God of my uncle.

We lived there in narrow, contemplative, unnatural piety⁠—and also in a truly meritorious state of filth, for I well remember that the boys were made to wash their feet but three times a year, the night before each vacation. As for baths, they were as unknown as the name of Victor Hugo. Our masters apparently held them in the greatest contempt.

My brother and I graduated the same year, and with a few sous in our pockets we woke up one morning to find ourselves in Paris, working at eighteen hundred francs a year in a government office, thanks to the influence, exercised on our behalf, of the Archbishop of Rouen.

For a while we continued to be very good boys, my brother and I, living together in the little lodging we had rented, like two night-birds torn from their nest and cast out into the dazzling sunlight, blinded and bewildered.

But little by little the Paris air, new comrades, and the theaters took away a little of our numbness. Certain new desires, different from heavenly joys, began to awaken within us, and, on a certain evening⁠—the same evening⁠—after long hesitation and uneasiness and the fears of a soldier before his first battle, we allowed ourselves to⁠—how shall I put it⁠—allowed ourselves to be seduced by two little neighbors, two shopgirls, who worked and lived together.

Soon an exchange took place between our two establishments, a division. My brother took the girls’ flat and kept one of them to live with him. The other came to live with me. Mine was named Louise. She was twenty-two, perhaps. A good girl, fresh, gay and round⁠—especially round in a certain place. She moved in with me like a little wife taking possession of a man and of everything connected with that man. She organized the household, made everything neat, cooked, kept careful account of expenses, and in addition introduced me to many pleasant things with which I was unfamiliar.

My brother was also very happy. The four of us always had dinner together, one day in his rooms, the next day in mine, and there was never a cloud or a care.

For time to time I received a letter from my uncle, who continued to think that I was living with my brother, and who gave me news of the village, of his maid, of recent deaths, of the crops and harvests⁠—all mixed in with bits of advice on the dangers of life and the turpitudes of the world.

These letters arrived in the morning, by the eight o’clock mail. The concierge slipped them under the door, giving a knock with her broom handle to attract our attention. Louise would get out of bed, pick up the blue envelope, and sit down beside me and read me the letter from the “curé Loisel,” as she also came to call him.

For six months we were happy.

Then, one night, about one o’clock in the morning, a violent peal of the doorbell made us jump. We hadn’t been asleep⁠—far from it⁠—at that particular moment. Louise said, “What can that be?” And I answered, “I haven’t any idea. Probably a mistake.” And we stopped what we were doing and lay there pressed closely one against the other, our ears strained to catch any sound, very much on edge.

And then there was a second peal of the bell, and then a third, and then a fourth long peal filled our room with so much noise that we both sat up. This was no mistake: whoever it was, wanted us. I quickly pulled on my drawers and slippers and ran to the vestibule door, fearing some disaster. But before opening, I called, “Who is there? What do you want?”

A voice, a loud voice, the voice of my uncle, replied: “It’s me, Jean. Open your door, I don’t want to sleep on the stairs!”

I thought I would go crazy. But what was there to do? I rushed back into the bedroom and in a trembling voice said to Louise, “It’s my uncle. Hide!” Then I opened the outer door and the curé Loisel almost knocked me down with his carpetbag.

“What were you up to, you scamp? Why didn’t you open?”

I stammered that I had been asleep.

“Asleep at first, perhaps, but just now after you spoke to me⁠—what were you up to then?”

I stammered that I had left my key in my trousers, and to prevent further discussion I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him violently on both cheeks.

That calmed him, and he explained his presence. “I’m here for four days, scapegrace,” he announced. “I wanted to take a look at the hellhole of Paris, to give myself an idea of what the real hell is like.” He gave a laugh like a roaring storm, then continued: “Put me up any way you can. We can lay one of your mattresses on the floor. But where’s your brother? Asleep? Wake him up! Wake him up!”

I felt that I was rapidly losing my wits, but managed to say, “Jacques isn’t home yet. He had a lot of extra work, night work, at the office.”

My uncle accepted that, rubbed his hands, and asked me how my work was going. Then he made for the door of my bedroom. I almost seized him by the collar. “No, no, this way, uncle.” An idea came to me. “You must be hungry after your trip. Come and have a bite of something.”

He smiled. “You’re right. I am hungry. I wouldn’t mind a snack.” And I pushed him into the dining room.

Dinner had been at our house that night, and the cupboard was full. I took out a piece of cold beef, and the curé lit into it heartily. I kept urging him to eat, kept filling his glass and reminding him of wonderful meals we had had in Normandy, to stimulate his appetite. When he had finished he pushed away his plate and said, “That’s that: I’ve had all I can manage.” But I had other things in reserve⁠—I knew the good man’s weakness⁠—and I brought out a chicken paté, a potato salad, a pot of cream, and some excellent wine that was left over from dinner. He almost fell over backwards in astonishment at my scale of living, pulled his plate toward him, and began all over again. It was getting late, and as he kept eating I kept trying to think of a way out, but nothing practical occurred to me.

Finally he got up from the table, and I felt my knees weaken. I tried to keep him where we were. “Here, uncle⁠—some brandy. It’s old, it’s good.” But he declared, “No, this time I’m really through. Let’s see the rest of your quarters.”

I well knew that there was no holding him back, and shivers ran up and down my spine. What would happen? What kind of a scene and scandal? What violence, perhaps?

I followed him, filled with a wild desire to open the window and throw myself into the street. I followed him stupidly, not daring to say a word to restrain him, knowing myself lost, almost fainting with anguish, yet nevertheless hoping that some chance would come to my aid.

He entered the bedroom. One last hope lifted my heart: Louise, sweet thing, had drawn the bed curtains, and not a thing in the room betrayed the presence of a woman. Her dresses, her collars and cuffs, her stockings, her shoes, her gloves, her pins and rings⁠—everything had disappeared. I stammered: “Let’s not go to bed now, uncle. The sun is almost up.”

“You’re a good boy to be willing to sit talking with an old man,” he answered. “But I could do with an hour or two of sleep.”

And he approached the bed, candle in hand. I waited, breathless, frantic. With one gesture he pulled the curtains open! It was a warm June night, and Louise and I had taken off the blankets, and on the bed was only a sheet, which Louise, in her desperation, had pulled over her head. Doubtless to make herself feel more securely hidden, she had rolled herself into a ball, and pressed tight against the sheet her⁠—her contours were clearly visible.

I could hardly stand up.

My uncle turned to me, grinning so widely that I almost collapsed with astonishment. “So!” he cried, merrily. “Joking, were you! You didn’t want to wake your brother. Well⁠—I’ll wake him, and you’ll see how.” And I saw his hand, his big peasant’s hand, upraised; and as he choked with laughter it fell, with a terrific sound, on the⁠—contours before him.

There was a terrible cry in the bed; and then a furious tempest under the sheet. It heaved, billowed and shook: the poor girl couldn’t get out, so tightly had she rolled herself in.

Finally a leg appeared at one end, an arm at the other, then the head, then the bosom, naked and panting; and Louise, furious, sat up and looked at us with eyes shining like lanterns.

My uncle, speechless, started back, his mouth open, as though he had seen the devil himself. He was breathing like an ox.

I considered the situation too serious to cope with, and rushed madly out.

I didn’t return for two days. Louise had gone, leaving the key with the concierge. I never saw her again.

My uncle? He disinherited me in favor of my brother, who, warned by Louise, swore that he had refused to continue living with me because of my dissolute behavior, which he was unwilling to countenance.

I will never marry. Women are too dangerous.

Old Milon

For the past month the great sun had been casting its broiling heat over the fields. Nature is unfolding radiantly beneath this shower of fire; as far as the eye can reach, the earth is green. To the ends of the horizon, the sky is blue. The Norman farms scattered over the plain look, from the distance, like little woods, enclosed in their girdle of slender beeches. From near at hand, when the worm-eaten gate is opened, it is as though one were looking at a giant garden, for all the aged apple trees, bony of limb like country folk, are in flower. The rows of black, crooked, twisted old trunks in the farmyard display their dazzling white and pink domes under the sky. The sweet perfume of their blossoming mingles with the rich stenches of the open cowshed and the steam of the fermenting dungheap overrun with hens.

It is noon. The family is at dinner in the shade of the pear-tree by the door: the father, the mother, the four children, the two servants, and the three hired men. There is little speech. The soup is eaten, then the cover is taken off the dish full of potatoes cooked in fat.

From time to time a maid rises and goes down to the cellar to refill the pitcher of cider.

The man, a big fellow of forty, gazes at a vine, still bare of leaves, which grows up the front of his house, and runs, writhing like a snake, under the shutters, the whole length of the wall.

“The old man’s vine is budding early this year,” he remarks at last. “Maybe it will bear.”

The woman also turns round and looks at it, without speaking.

The vine is planted on the exact spot where the old man was shot.

It was during the war of 1870. The Prussians were occupying the entire district. General Faidherbe, with the Northern army, was putting up a stout resistance.

The Prussian staff was quartered at this farm. The old peasant who owned it, old Milon, Pierre Milon, had taken them in and installed them as comfortably as he could.

For a month the German advance-guard had remained in the village, reconnoitring. The French remained immovable ten leagues away; yet every night Uhlans kept disappearing.

All the detachments of scouts, those who were sent out on picket duty, when only two or three men set out together, never returned.

They were found dead in the morning, in a field, beside a farmyard, or in a ditch. Their horses lay at the roadside, with their throats cut with a sabre.

These murders all appeared to be committed by the same men, who could not be discovered.

The whole district was under a reign of terror. Peasants were shot on mere denunciation, and women imprisoned; an attempt was made to frighten the children into revealing the truth. Nothing was discovered.

But one morning old Milon was seen lying in his stable, with a slash cut across his face.

Two disembowelled Uhlans were found three kilometres from the farm. One still held his bloodstained weapon in his hand. He had fought, had defended himself.

A council of war was immediately established in the open, in front of the farm, and the old man was brought in.

He was sixty-eight. He was small, thin, and slightly crooked, with big hands like the claws of a crab. His faded, thin hair, light as a duckling’s down, concealed none of the flesh on his skull. The brown, creased skin on his neck showed veins which were lost under the jaws and reappeared at the temples. He was known throughout the neighbourhood as a miser and a hard man in business.

He was made to stand, between four soldiers, in front of the kitchen table, which had been carried out of doors. Five officers and the colonel sat facing him.

The colonel began speaking, in French:

“Father Milon, since we have been here, we have had nothing but praise for you. You have always been obliging, and even zealous, in our service. But today a terrible charge rests upon you, and the matter must be cleared up. How did you get the wound in your face?”

The peasant did not reply.

“Your silence condemns you, Milon,” continued the colonel. “But I will have an answer from you, do you hear? Do you know who killed the Uhlans who were found this morning near the Calvary?”

“It was me,” said the old man in a clear voice.

Amazed, the colonel remained silent for a second, staring fixedly at the prisoner. Old Milon remained impassive, with his besotted peasant expression, his eyes lowered as though he were talking to his priest. One thing only revealed his inner distress; again and again he kept swallowing his saliva, with a visible effort, as though his throat were tightly constricted.

The man’s family, his son Jean, his daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, stood ten paces back, in frightened consternation.

“Do you also know who killed all the scouts in our army corps, who have been found every morning, in the district, for the past month?” went on the colonel.

“It was me,” replied the old man, with the same brutish impassivity.

“You killed all of them?”

“Yes, all of them; it was me.”

“You alone?”

“Me alone.”

“Tell me how you set about it.”

This time the man seemed affected; the necessity of speaking at some length visibly embarrassed him.

“How do I know?” he stammered. “I just did it like it happened.”

“I warn you that you will have to tell me everything,” said the colonel. “So you will do well to make up your mind to it at once. How did you begin?”

The man flung an uneasy glance to his anxious family behind him. He hesitated for another instant, then suddenly made up his mind.

“I was coming home one night, maybe ten o’clock, the day after you got here. You and your men, you’d taken more than fifty crowns’ worth of my forage, with a cow and two sheep. I said to myself: ‘So many times as they take twenty crowns’ worth of stuff, so many times I’ll pay them out for it.’ And I’d other things on my mind, too; I’ll tell you about them later. And then I saw one of your troopers smoking his pipe in my ditch, behind my barn. I went and got down my scythe, and came up very softly behind him; he never heard a sound. And I cut off his head with one blow, with a single blow, like an ear of corn; he never so much as said ‘Oh!’ You’ve only to look in the pond: you’ll find him there in a coal sack, with a stone off the wall.

“I had my scheme. I took all his things, from boots to cap, and hid them in the cement-kiln in Martin wood, behind the yard.”

The old man was silent. The astounded officers gazed at one another. The questioning went on again; and this is what they learnt:

Once the murder had been done, the man had lived this idea: “Kill Prussians!” He hated them with the cunning, desperate hatred of a peasant at once avaricious and patriotic. He had his scheme, as he said. He waited for a few days.

He was left free to come and go, enter and depart at his will, so humble, submissive, and obliging had he shown himself to the conquerors. Every night he saw the vedettes go out; and he went out himself, one night, having heard the name of the village for which the troopers were bound, and having learnt, thanks to the constant presence of the soldiers, the few words of German he needed.

He walked out of his own farmyard, slipped into the wood, reached the cement-kiln, walked to the far end of the long gallery, and, finding the dead man’s clothes on the ground, he put them on.

Then he went prowling through the fields, crawling along, following the embankments so as to conceal himself, stopping to listen at the faintest sound, restless as a poacher.

When he judged that the time had come, he went near the road and hid in a hedge. He waited again. At last, at about midnight, he heard a horse’s hoof ring out on the hard road. He set his ear to the ground, to make sure that only one horseman was approaching; then made ready.

The Uhlan came up at a fast trot, carrying dispatches. His eyes were on the lookout, and his ears alert. When he was no more than ten paces distant, old Milon crawled across the road, groaning: “Hilfe! Hilfe! Help, help!” The horseman stopped, recognised a dismounted German, imagined that he was wounded, got off his horse, and went up to him, without suspecting anything. As he bent over the stranger, he received the long curved blade of the sabre clean through the stomach. He fell, without a death struggle, only quivering with a few final tremors.

Then the Norman, radiant with an old peasant’s silent pleasure, rose and, to please himself, cut the throat of the corpse. Then he dragged it to the ditch and threw it in.

The horse was quietly waiting for its master. Old Milon got into the saddle and galloped off across the plain.

An hour later he perceived two more Uhlans side by side, returning to their camp. He went straight towards them, again shouting: “Hilfe! Hilfe!” The Prussians let him come on, recognising the uniform, without any distrust. And the old man dashed between them like a cannonball, felling both, one with his sabre, the other with a revolver.

Then he cut the throats of the horses, German horses! Then he went quietly back to the cement-kiln and hid a horse at the end of the dark gallery. He took off his uniform, put on his mean clothes again, and, getting into bed, slept till morning.

For the next four days he did not go out, as he was waiting for the end of the inquiry which had been opened; but on the fifth day he went out again and killed two more soldiers by the same stratagem.

Thenceforward he never stopped. Every night he wandered away, prowling about at random, killing Prussians first in one place, then elsewhere, galloping over the deserted fields, in the moonlight, a lost Uhlan, a hunter of men. Then, his task over, leaving the bodies lying in the roads behind him, the old horseman returned to hide his horse and uniform in the cement-kiln.

At about midday he would go out, with an unconcerned air, to take oats and water to his mount, which remained in the underground passage. He fed the beast without stint, for he demanded a great deal of work from it.

But, on the previous night, one of the men he had attacked had been on his guard, and had slashed the old peasant’s face with his sabre.

Even so, he had killed both men! He had once more returned, hidden his horse, and put on his humble clothes again; but while walking home, he had been overtaken by faintness and had crawled to the stable, unable to reach the house.

He was found there, bleeding, in the straw.

When he had ended his tale, he suddenly raised his head and stared proudly at the Prussian officers.

“Have you nothing more to say?” asked the colonel, pulling his moustache.

“No, nothing more; the score is paid: I’ve killed sixteen of them, not one more and not one less.”

“You know that you are going to die?”

“I never asked you for mercy.”

“Have you been in the army?”

“Yes. I’ve been to the wars, in my time. And besides, it was you that killed my father, who was a soldier under the first Emperor. Not counting that you killed my youngest son, François, last month, near Evreux. I owed you for that, and I’ve paid. We’re quits.”

The officers looked at one another.

The old man continued:

“Eight for my father, eight for my son, we’re quits. I never sought a quarrel with you! I don’t know you! I don’t even know where you come from. And here you are at my house, ordering people about as though you were at home. I had my revenge on the others. I don’t regret it.”

And, drawing up his crippled body, the old man folded his arms in the attitude of a humble hero.

For a long time the Prussians whispered together. A captain, who had also lost his son, the month before, defended the greathearted old peasant.

Then the colonel rose and went up to old Milon, saying, in a low voice:

“Listen, gaffer, there may be a way of saving your life, if you⁠ ⁠…”

But the man was not listening. His eyes were fixed upon the conquering officer, and, while the wind stirred the wisps of hair on his head, he made a frightful grimace which distorted his thin face, all seamed as it was by the sabre-gash, and, swelling his chest, he spat, with all his might, full in the Prussian’s face.

The furious colonel raised his hand, and for a second time the peasant spat in his face.

All the officers had risen and were shouting orders at the same time.

In less than a minute the old man, still quite impassive, was put against the wall and shot, smiling to Jean, his eldest son, his daughter-in-law, and the two little children, who stood watching, distracted with horror.

The Accursed Bread

Old Taille had three daughters: Anna, the eldest, who was scarcely ever mentioned in the family; Rose, the second girl, who was eighteen; and Clara, the youngest, who was a girl of fifteen.

Old Taille was a widower, and a foreman in M. Lebrument’s button-factory. He was a very upright man, very well thought of, abstemious; in fact a sort of model workman. He lived at Havre, in the Rue d’Angoulême.

When Anna ran away the old man flew into a fearful rage. He threatened to kill the seducer, who was head of a department in a large draper’s establishment in that town. Then when he was told by various people that she was keeping very steady and investing money in government securities, that she was no gadabout, but was kept by a Monsieur Dubois, who was a judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, the father was appeased.

He even showed some anxiety as to how she was faring, asked some of her old friends who had been to see her how she was getting on; and when told that she had her own furniture, and that her mantelpiece was covered with vases and the walls with pictures, that there were clocks and carpets everywhere, he gave a broad, contented smile. He had been working for thirty years to get together a wretched five or six thousand francs. His little girl was evidently no fool.

One fine morning the son of Touchard, the cooper at the other end of the street, came and asked him for the hand of Rose, the second girl. The old man’s heart began to beat, for the Touchards were rich and in a good position. He was decidedly lucky with his girls.

The marriage was agreed upon. It was settled that it should be a grand affair, and the wedding dinner was to be held at Sainte-Adresse, at Mother Gusa’s restaurant. It would cost a lot certainly; but never mind, it did not matter just for once in a way.

But one morning, just as the old man was going home to breakfast with his two daughters, the door opened suddenly and Anna appeared. She was loudly dressed, wore rings and a very dressy hat. She looked undeniably pretty and nice. She threw her arms round her father’s neck before he could say a word, then fell into her sisters’ arms with many tears, and then asked for a plate, so that she might share the family soup. Old Taille was moved to tears in his turn and said several times:

“That is right, dear; that is right.”

Then she told them about herself. She did not wish Rose’s wedding to take place at Sainte-Adresse⁠—certainly not. It should take place at her house, and would cost her father nothing. She had settled everything and arranged everything, so it was “no good to say any more about it⁠—there!”

“Very well, my dear! very well!” the old man said, “we will leave it so.” But then he felt some doubt. Would the Touchards consent? But Rose, the bride-elect, was surprised, and asked, “Why should they object, I should like to know? Just leave that to me, I will talk to Philip about it.”

She mentioned it to her intended the very same day, and he declared that it would suit him exactly. Father and Mother Touchard were naturally delighted at the idea of a good dinner which would cost them nothing and said:

“You may be quite sure that everything will be in first-rate style, as M. Dubois is made of money.”

They asked to be allowed to bring a friend, Mme. Florence, the cook on the first floor, and Anna agreed to everything. The wedding was fixed for the last Tuesday of the month.

II

After the civil formalities and the religious ceremony the wedding party went to Anna’s house. Among those whom the Tailles had brought was a cousin of a certain age, a M. Sauvetanin, a man given to philosophical reflections, serious, and always very self-possessed, and Mme. Lamondois, an old aunt.

M. Sauvetanin had been told off to give Anna his arm, as they were looked upon as the two most important and most distinguished persons in the company.

As soon as they had arrived at the door of Anna’s house she let go her companion’s arm, and ran on ahead, saying, “I will show you the way,” while the invited guests followed more slowly. When they got upstairs, she stood on one side to let them pass, and they rolled their eyes and turned their heads in all directions to admire this mysterious and luxurious dwelling.

The table was laid in the drawing room as the dining room had been thought too small. Extra knives, forks, and spoons had been hired from a neighbouring restaurant, and decanters full of wine glittered under the rays of the sun, which shone in through the window.

The ladies went into the bedroom to take off their shawls and bonnets, and Old Touchard, who was standing at the door, squinted at the low, wide bed, and made funny signs to the men, with many a wink and nod. Old Taille, who thought a great deal of himself, looked with fatherly pride at his child’s well-furnished rooms, and went from one to the other holding his hat in his hand, making a mental inventory of everything, and walking like a verger in a church.

Anna went backward and forward, and ran about giving orders and hurrying on the wedding feast. Soon she appeared at the door of the dining room, and cried: “Come here, all of you, for a moment,” and when the twelve guests did as they were asked they saw twelve glasses of Madeira on a small table.

Rose and her husband had their arms round each other’s waists, and were kissing each other in every corner. M. Sauvetanin never took his eyes off Anna; he no doubt felt that ardour, that sort of expectation which all men, even if they are old and ugly, feel for women of easy virtue, as if their trade, their professional duty compelled them to give a little of themselves to every male.

They sat down, and the wedding breakfast began; the relatives sitting at one end of the table and the young people at the other. Mme. Touchard, the mother, presided on the right and the bride on the left. Anna looked after everybody, saw that the glasses were kept filled and the plates well supplied. The guests evidently felt a certain respectful embarrassment at the sight of the sumptuousness of the rooms and at the lavish manner in which they were treated. They all ate heartily of the good things provided, but there were no jokes such as are prevalent at weddings of that sort; it was all too grand, and it made them feel uncomfortable. Old Mme. Touchard, who was fond of a bit of fun, tried to enliven matters a little, and at the beginning of the dessert she exclaimed: “I say, Philip, do sing us something.” The neighbours in their street considered that he had the finest voice in all Havre.

The bridegroom got up, smiled, and turning to his sister-in-law, from politeness and gallantry, tried to think of something suitable for the occasion, something serious and correct, to harmonize with the seriousness of the repast.

Anna had a satisfied look on her face, and leaned back in her chair to listen, and all assumed looks of attention, though prepared to smile should smiles be called for.

The singer announced, “The Accursed Bread,” and extending his right arm, which made his coat ruck up into his neck, he began.

Il est un pain béni qu’à la terre économe
Il nous faut arracher d’un bras victorieux.
C’est le pain du travail, celui que l’honnête homme,
Le soir, à ses enfants, apporte tout joyeux.
Mais il en est un autre, à mine tentatrice,
Pain maudit que l’enfer pour nous damner sema, (bis)
Enfant, n’y touchez pas car c’est le pain du vice!
Chers enfants, gardez vous de toucher ce pain-là. (bis)

They all applauded frantically. Old Touchard declared the sentiments excellent. The cook, who was one of the guests, twisted in her hands a crust at which she gazed tenderly. M. Sauvetanin murmured, “Bravo!” Aunt Lamondois had already begun to wipe away her tears with her napkin.

The bridegroom announced: “Second verse,” and launched forth with renewed vigour:

Respect au malheureux qui, tout brisé par l’âge,
Nous implore en passant sur le bord du chemin,
Mais flétrissons celui qui, désertant l’ouvrage,
Alerte et bien portant, ose tendre la main.
Mendier sans besoin, c’est voler la vieillesse,
C’est voler l’ouvrier que le travail courba. (bis)
Honte à celui qui vit du pain de la paresse,
Chers enfants, gardez-vous de toucher ce pain-là. (bis)

They all yelled the refrain in chorus, even the two servants who were standing against the wall. The falsetto, piercing voices of the women put the deeper voices of the men out of tune.

The aunt and the bride wept outright. Old Taille blew his nose with the noise of a trombone, and old Touchard madly brandished a whole loaf over the centre of the table. The friendly cook dropped a few silent tears on the crust with which she was still fumbling.

Amid the general emotion M. Sauvetanin said:

“That is the right sort of song; very different from the usual smut.”

Anna, who was visibly affected, kissed her hand to her sister and pointed to her husband with an affectionate nod, as if to congratulate her.

Intoxicated by his success, the young man continued:

Dans ton simple réduit, ouvrière gentille,
Tu sembles écouter la voix du tentateur.
Pauvre enfant, va, crois-moi, ne quitte pas l’aiguille.
Tes parents n’ont que toi, toi seule es leur bonheur.
Dans un luxe honteux trouveras-tu des charmes.
Lorsque, te maudissant, ton père expirera. (bis)
Le pain du déshonneur se pétrit dans les larmes
Chers enfants, gardez-vous de toucher ce pain-là. (bis)

No one took up the refrain about this bread, supposed to be eaten with tears, except old Touchard and the two servants. Anna had grown deadly pale and cast down her eyes, while the bridegroom looked from one to the other without understanding the reason for this sudden coldness, and the cook hastily dropped the crust as if it were poisoned.

M. Sauvetanin said solemnly, in order to save the situation: “That last couplet is not at all necessary”; and Old Taille, who had got red up to his ears, looked round the table fiercely.

Then Anna, with her eyes swimming in tears, told the servants, in the faltering voice of a woman trying to stifle her sobs, to bring the champagne.

All the guests were suddenly seized with exuberant joy, and their faces became radiant again. Old Touchard, who had seen, felt, and understood nothing of what was going on, was still brandishing his loaf, and singing to himself, as he showed it to the guests:

Chers enfants, gardez-vous de toucher ce pain-là.

The whole party, electrified by the sight of the bottles with their silver foil, loudly took up the refrain:

Chers enfants, gardez-vous de toucher ce pain-là.

Friend Joseph

For a whole winter in Paris they had been great friends and after losing sight of each other, as is usual, on leaving college, they met again in society when they were both old and grey; the one a bachelor, the other a married man.

Monsieur de Méroul spent six months in Paris and six months in his little château at Tourbeville. Having married the daughter of a neighbouring squire, he had lived a quiet peaceful life, indolently, the life of a man who has nothing to do. He was calm, methodical by nature; he had no sudden flashes of intelligence, or fits of independence, he spent his time quietly regretting the past, deploring the habits and institutions of the day, and continually repeating to his wife, who raised her eyes and occasionally her hands in sign of complete agreement: “What a government we’ve got, to be sure!”

Intellectually, Monsieur and Madame de Méroul were as much alike as if they had been brother and sister. She knew, by tradition, that first and foremost, the Pope and the King must be respected. And she loved and respected them from the bottom of her heart⁠—not knowing them⁠—with romantic fervour, hereditary devotion, and the tenderness of a woman of good birth. She was kindness itself. She had no children and never ceased to regret the fact.

When Monsieur de Méroul met his old friend Joseph Mourador at a ball, he was filled with unaffected joy at the meeting, for they had been great friends in their youth. After the first ejaculations of surprise on the changes age had wrought in their appearance, each one wanted to know what kind of life the other had led. Joseph Mourador, a Southerner, was a District Councillor. Frank of aspect, he talked quickly and without reserve, saying exactly what he thought without any consideration for the feelings of others. He was a Republican, one of those good-natured Republicans who make a virtue of being casual, and who stand for that freedom of speech which borders on brutality.

He visited his friend’s house, where, in spite of his advanced ideas, he was very popular on account of his easy cordiality. Madame de Méroul would exclaim: “What a pity! Such a charming man!” Monsieur de Méroul would say to his friend, seriously and confidentially: “You have no idea of the harm you are doing to our country.” Nevertheless he loved him, for nothing is stronger than the ties of childhood renewed in old age. Joseph Mourador bantered the husband and wife and called them “my dear slowcoaches,” and sometimes he would hold forth against old-fashioned people, against prejudice, and against tradition.

When he was engaged in this flow of democratic eloquence the couple, ill at ease, would keep silent out of politeness and good manners; then the husband would try to change the conversation so as to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings. Joseph Mourador never went to formal receptions at the De Mérouls’.

Then summer came, when the Mérouls’ greatest pleasure was to have their friends on a visit to their country-house at Tourbeville. They were actuated by a simple friendly feeling, the pleasure of kindly disposed folk, country landowners. They would go to the nearest station to meet their guests and bring them back in the carriage, on the lookout for compliments about the country, its luxuriant vegetation, the departmental roads, the cleanliness of the peasants’ houses, the size of the cattle to be seen in the fields, in fact everything within sight.

They would call attention to the remarkable speed with which their horse trotted, remarkable for an animal employed in the fields part of the year; and they would anxiously await the newcomer’s opinion on their family estate, sensitive to the least word, and grateful for the slightest kindly appreciation.

Joseph Mourador had received an invitation and had written to announce his arrival.

Husband and wife had gone to meet the train, delighted to welcome him to their home. As soon as he caught sight of them, Joseph Mourador leaped from the carriage with an enthusiasm that increased their pleasure; he shook hands with them, congratulating them, and overwhelming them with compliments.

All the way home he was charming: he was surprised at the height of the trees, the richness of the crops, and the speed of the horse. When he set foot on the threshold of the house, Monsieur de Méroul said with a certain friendly solemnity: “You are at home, now,” and Joseph Mourador replied: “Thanks, my friend, I was expecting to be so. Anyhow I never stand on ceremony with my friends. That’s not my idea of hospitality.”

Then he went upstairs to his room to dress as a peasant, so he said, and came down in a blue linen suit, with a straw boater, yellow shoes, in fact in the getup of a Parisian on the spree. He seemed more vulgar, more jovial, more familiar, having apparently put on with his country clothes the free and easy manner which he considered the right thing. His new manners rather shocked Monsieur and Madame de Méroul, who were always serious and correct even in the country, as if compelled by the particle preceding their name to keep up a certain formality even in the friendliest intercourse.

After lunch they visited the farms, and the Parisian quite staggered the respectful peasants by his tone of hail-fellow-well-met. In the evening the priest came to dinner, an old, fat priest⁠—a regular Sunday guest⁠—who had been especially invited in honour of the new arrival.

As soon as he saw him, Joseph made a face, later he watched him with astonishment as if he were a rare creature of some peculiar race that he had never been able to observe at close quarters. During the meal he told some free and easy anecdotes permissible among friends but which to the Mérouls seemed out of place in the presence of a priest. He did not say “Monsieur l’Abbé” but simply “Monsieur”; and he made the priest uncomfortable by discussing the different superstitions current throughout the world. He said: “Your God is a God to be respected, but also one to be discussed. My god is called Reason and has always been the enemy of your God.”

The Mérouls, distressed, tried to change the conversation. The priest left very early.

The husband said very gently: “Perhaps you went a little too far with the priest.”

But Joseph burst out at once: “Well, that’s a good one, that is! As if I should put myself out for a sky-pilot! Moreover, you will be kind enough not to inflict his presence upon me at meals. You others can make as much use of him as you like, Sundays and weekdays, but don’t serve him up to your friends, hang it!”

“But, my dear fellow, think of his holy⁠—”

Joseph Mourador interrupted him: “Yes, I know, they must be treated like the Queen of the May! Everybody knows that, my dear man! Let them respect my convictions and I will respect theirs!”

That was all for that day.

When Madame Méroul went into the drawing room the next morning, she noticed in the middle of the table three newspapers that gave her a shock: the Voltaire, the République Française, and Justice. At the same time Joseph Mourador, still in blue, appeared at the door reading the Intransigeant attentively. He exclaimed: “There’s a great article by Rochefort in this! He is an amazing chap!” He read it out loud, emphasising the points, and was so full of enthusiasm that he did not notice his friend come into the room.

Monsieur de Méroul brought the Gaulois for himself and the Clairon for his wife.

The fiery prose of the great writer who was overturning the Empire, recited with violence, sung with a southern accent, rang through the peaceful drawing room, shaking the old curtains with their straight folds, seeming to fling itself in a storm of leaping, impudent, ironical and destructive words against the walls, the big tapestry chairs and the solemn furniture that had never been moved from its place for over a century.

Monsieur standing and Madame seated listened with amazement, so shocked that they were unable to make any protest.

Mourador made his last point like setting off fireworks, and declared with triumph: “Well? That’s slashing enough?”

Then he caught sight of the two papers his friend was carrying, and he in his turn was filled with surprise. With long strides he crossed the room and asked indignantly: “What are you going to do with those papers?”

Monsieur de Méroul replied hesitatingly: “But⁠—these are my⁠—my papers!”

“Your papers⁠—come, come, you’re making fun of me! You are going to read mine. They will broaden your ideas. As for your papers⁠—there, that’s how I treat them!”

Before his astonished host could prevent it, he had seized the two papers and thrown them out of the window. Then he gravely handed Justice to Madame de Méroul, the Voltaire to her husband, and sank into an armchair to finish the Intransigeant.

Out of politeness the couple made a pretence of reading some of the news, then returned the Republican papers to their friend, handling them very gingerly as if they were poisoned. He laughed and declared: “One week of this regime and you will be converted to my ideas.”

True enough, at the end of the week he was running the house. He had closed the door against the priest, whom Madame de Méroul secretly went to see; he would not allow the Gaulois and the Clairon to be brought to the house, but a servant went to the post office to fetch them every day and they were promptly hidden under the sofa cushions the minute Joseph appeared. He arranged everything according to his wishes, was always charming and good-natured; in fact, an all-powerful, jovial tyrant.

Other friends were expected, religious friends with Legitimist political opinions, but the hosts saw that a meeting with their old friend was impossible, and not knowing what to do, one evening they told him that they were obliged to go away on business for a few days, and begged him to stay on alone. He was not at all worried, and answered:

“Very well, I don’t mind. I will wait here as long as you like. I have already said that there should be no formality between friends. Hang it all! You are quite right to go and attend to your business affairs. I would never be offended at that; on the contrary, it makes me feel quite at home. Off you go, my friends, I will wait for you!”

Monsieur and Madame de Méroul left the following day. He is still waiting for their return.

The Mother of Monsters

I was reminded of this horrible story and this horrible woman on the seafront the other day, as I stood watching⁠—at a watering-place much frequented by the wealthy⁠—a lady well known in Paris, a young, elegant, and charming girl, loved and respected by all who know her.

My story is now many years old, but it is impossible to forget such things.

I had been invited by a friend to make a long stay with him in a small country town. In order to do the honours of the district, he took me about all over the place; made me see the most celebrated views, the manor houses and castles, the local industries, the ruins; he showed me the monuments, the churches, the old carved doors, the trees of specially large size or uncommon shape, the oak of St. Andrew and the Roqueboise yew.

When, with exclamations of gratified enthusiasm, I had inspected all the curiosities in the district, my friend confessed, with every sign of acute distress, that there was nothing more to visit. I breathed again. I should be able, at last, to enjoy a little rest under the shade of the trees. But suddenly he exclaimed:

“Why, no, there is one more. There’s the mother of monsters.”

“And who,” I asked, “is the mother of monsters?”

He answered: “She is a horrible woman, a perfect demon, a creature who every year deliberately produces deformed, hideous, frightful children, veritable monsters, and sells them to peepshow men.

“The men who follow this ghastly trade come from time to time to discover whether she has brought forth any fresh abortion, and if they like the look of the object, they pay the mother and take it away with them.

“She has eleven of these offspring. She is rich.

“You think I’m joking, making it all up, exaggerating. No, my friend, I’m only telling you the truth, the literal truth.

“Come and see this woman. I’ll tell you afterwards how she became a monster-factory.”

He took me off to the outskirts of the town.

She lived in a nice little house by the side of the road. It was pretty and well kept. The garden was full of flowers, and smelt delicious. Anyone would have taken it for the home of a retired lawyer.

A servant showed us into a little parlour, and the wretched creature appeared.

She was about forty, tall, hard-featured, but well built, vigorous, and wealthy, the true type of robust peasantry, half animal and half woman.

She was aware of the disapproval in which she was held, and seemed to receive us with malignant humility.

“What do the gentlemen want?” she inquired.

My friend replied: “We have been told that your last child is just like any other child, and not in the least like his brothers. I wanted to verify this. Is it true?”

She gave us a sly glance of anger and answered:

“Oh, no, sir, oh dear no! He’s even uglier, mebbe, than the others. I’ve no luck, no luck at all, they’re all that way, sir, all like that, it’s something cruel; how can the good Lord be so hard on a poor woman left all alone in the world!”

She spoke rapidly, keeping her eyes lowered, with a hypocritical air, like a sacred wild beast. She softened the harsh tone of her voice, and it was amazing to hear these tearful high-pitched words issuing from that great bony body, with its coarse angular strength, made for violent gesture and wolfish howling.

“We should like to see your child,” my friend asked.

She appeared to blush. Had I perhaps been mistaken? After some moments of silence she said, in a louder voice: “What would be the use of that?”

She had raised her head, and gave us a swift, burning glance.

“Why don’t you wish to show him to us?” answered my friend. “There are many people to whom you show him. You know whom I mean.”

She started up, letting loose the full fury of her voice.

“So that’s what you’ve come for, is it? Just to insult me? Because my bairns are like animals, eh? Well, you’ll not see them, no, no, no, you shan’t. Get out of here. I know you all, the whole pack of you, bullying me about like this!”

She advanced towards us, her hands on her hips. At the brutal sound of her voice, a sort of moan, or rather a mew, a wretched lunatic screech, issued from the next room. I shivered to the marrow. We drew back before her.

In a severe tone my friend warned her:

“Have a care, She-devil”⁠—the people all called her She-devil⁠—“have a care, one of these days this will bring you bad luck.”

She trembled with rage, waving her arms, mad with fury, and yelling:

“Get out of here, you! What’ll bring me bad luck? Get out of here, you pack of unbelieving dogs, you!”

She almost flew at our throats; we fled, our hearts contracted with horror.

When we were outside the door, my friend asked:

“Well, you’ve seen her; what do you say to her?”

I answered: “Tell me the history of the brute.”

And this is what he told me, as we walked slowly back along the white high road, bordered on either side by the ripe corn that rippled like a quiet sea under the caress of a small gentle wind.

The girl had once been a servant on a farm, a splendid worker, well-behaved and careful. She was not known to have a lover, and was not suspected of any weakness.

She fell, as they all do, one harvest night among the heaps of corn, under a stormy sky, when the still, heavy air is hot like a furnace, and the brown bodies of the lads and girls are drenched with sweat.

Feeling soon after that she was pregnant, she was tormented with shame and fear. Desirous at all costs of hiding her misfortune, she forcibly compressed her belly by a method she invented, a horrible corset made of wood and ropes. The more the growing child swelled her body, the more she tightened the instrument of torture, suffering agony, but bearing her pain with courage, always smiling and active, letting no one see or suspect anything.

She crippled the little creature inside her, held tightly in that terrible machine; she crushed him, deformed him, made a monster of him. The skull was squeezed almost flat and ran to a point, with the two great eyes jutting right out from the forehead. The limbs, crushed against the body, were twisted like the stem of a vine, and grew to an inordinate length, with the fingers and toes like spiders’ legs.

The trunk remained quite small and round like a nut.

She gave birth to it in the open fields one spring morning.

When the women weeders, who had run to her help, saw the beast which was appearing, they fled shrieking. And the story ran round the neighbourhood that she had brought a demon into the world. It was then that she got the name “She-Devil.”

She lost her place. She lived on charity, and perhaps on secret love, for she was a fine-looking girl, and not all men are afraid of hell.

She brought up her monster, which, by the way, she hated with a savage hatred, and which she would perhaps have strangled had not the curé, foreseeing the likelihood of such a crime, terrified her with threats of the law.

At last one day some passing showmen heard tell of the frightful abortion, and asked to see it, intending to take it away if they liked it. They did like it, and paid the mother five hundred francs down for it. Ashamed at first, she did not want to let them see a beast of this sort; but when she discovered that it was worth money, that these people wanted it, she began to bargain, to dispute it penny by penny, inflaming them with the tale of her child’s deformities, raising her prices with peasant tenacity.

In order not to be cheated, she made a contract with them. And they agreed to pay her four hundred francs a year as well, as though they had taken this beast into their service.

The unhoped-for good fortune crazed the mother, and after that she never lost the desire to give birth to another phenomenon, so that she would have a fixed income like the upper classes.

As she was very fertile, she succeeded in her ambition, and apparently became expert at varying the shapes of her monsters according to the pressure they were made to undergo during the period of her pregnancy.

She had them long and short, some like crabs and others like lizards. Several died, whereat she was deeply distressed.

The law attempted to intervene, but nothing could be proved. So she was left to manufacture her marvels in peace.

She now has eleven of them alive, which bring her in from five to six thousand francs, year in and year out. One only is not yet placed, the one she would not show us. But she will not keep it long, for she is known now to all the circus proprietors in the world, who come from time to time to see whether she has anything new.

She even arranges auctions between them, when the creature in question is worth it.

My friend was silent. A profound disgust surged in my heart, a furious anger, and regret that I had not strangled the brute when I had her in my hands.

“Then who is the father?” I asked.

“Nobody knows,” he replied. “He or they have a certain modesty. He, or they, remain concealed. Perhaps they share in the spoils.”

I had thought no more of that far-off adventure until the other day, at a fashionable watering-place, when I saw a charming elegant lady, the most skilful of coquettes, surrounded by several men who have the highest regard for her.

I walked along the front, arm in arm with my friend, the local doctor. Ten minutes later I noticed a nurse looking after three children who were rolling about on the sand.

A pathetic little pair of crutches lay on the ground. Then I saw that the three children were deformed, hunchbacked and lame; hideous little creatures.

The doctor said to me: “Those are the offspring of the charming lady you met just now.”

I felt a profound pity for her and for them.

“The poor mother!” I cried. “How does she still manage to laugh?”

“Don’t pity her, my dear fellow,” replied my friend. “It’s the poor children who are to be pitied. That’s the result of keeping the figure graceful right up to the last day. Those monsters are manufactured by corsets. She knows perfectly well that she’s risking her life at that game. What does she care, so long as she remains pretty and seductive?”

And I remembered the other, the peasant woman, the She-Devil, who sold hers.

The Orphan

Mademoiselle Source had adopted the boy under very sad circumstances. At the time, she was thirty-six years old, and her deformity (when a little girl she had slipped from her nurse’s knee into the fire, and her face had been horribly burnt and was a terrible sight) had determined her not to marry, for she did not want to be married for her money.

A neighbour, who was with child when she became a widow, died in her confinement, leaving no money at all. Mademoiselle Source looked after the baby, put it out to nurse, brought it up, sent it to school, and then took the boy home when he was fourteen that she might have someone to love her in the empty house, someone to look after her and to sweeten her old age.

She lived on a little country estate four miles from Rennes, and had given up keeping a servant, because her expenses had more than doubled since she had adopted the orphan, her income of three thousand francs not being sufficient for three people.

She did her own cooking and housework and sent the youngster, who looked after the garden, to do the errands. He was gentle, shy, quiet, and affectionate, and she felt a deep joy⁠—quite a new experience for her⁠—when he kissed her without being astonished at or afraid of her ugliness. He called her Auntie and treated her like a mother.

In the evenings they both sat by the fireside while she prepared something nice for him: hot wine and toasted bread, which made an enjoyable light supper before going to bed. She often took him on her knee and fondled him, murmuring words of passionate tenderness. She used to call him “my little flower, my cherub, my darling angel, my precious jewel,” to all of which he was gently submissive, laying his head on the old maid’s shoulder.

Although nearly fifteen now, he was still little and frail, and looked rather unhealthy. Sometimes Mademoiselle Source would take him into town to see the only two relations she had left⁠—distant cousins who were married and lived in one of the suburbs. The two women had a grievance against her for adopting the child, on account of her money, but they welcomed her nevertheless, still hoping for their share⁠—in all probability one-third⁠—if the inheritance were equally divided.

She was very, very happy, her time being fully occupied with her child; she bought him books to develop his mind, and he became a great reader.

He no longer sat on her knee in the evenings to fondle her, but would rush to his chair by the fire and get his book. The light from the lamp, placed on the table just above his head, was reflected on his curly hair and part of his forehead; he never moved, never raised his eyes, but went on reading, entirely absorbed in the adventures in print.

Seated on the opposite side of the fire, she would gaze at him with a fixed, loving gaze, surprised at his concentration, feeling jealous, and often ready to cry about it. Every now and then she would say: “You will overtire yourself, my treasure!” hoping that he would raise his head and come and kiss her, but he never answered; he never heard her; he had not understood; he was oblivious of everything except the book he was reading.

For two years he simply devoured a great number of books, and there was a change in his character. He began to ask Mademoiselle Source for money, which she gave him, but as his demands kept growing she ended by refusing to give any more, for she was energetic and methodical, and could be sensible when necessary.

After much pleading he did obtain a considerable sum one evening, but when a few days later he begged for more, she was quite determined, and, indeed, she never yielded to his pleadings again.

He was apparently reconciled to do without and returned to his former ways, sitting quietly for hours with downcast eyes, lost in daydreaming. He never talked to Mademoiselle Source, and only replied to short, sharp sentences. However, he was charming and considerate to her, but never kissed her.

He occasionally made her feel frightened as they sat opposite each other by the fireside, silent and still. She wanted to rouse him, to say something, anything, to him, to break the silence which was as terrifying as the gloom of a forest. But he never seemed to hear her, and she trembled with terror⁠—as poor weak women will⁠—when she received no reply after speaking five or six times.

What was the matter? What was passing in that impenetrable mind? After some two or three hours spent in this way, she felt she must be going mad, she wanted to go away, to escape from the house, not only to avoid this everlasting dumb tête-à-tête, but to avoid, too, a vague unknown danger that she felt threatening her. She would often weep in her loneliness. What was the matter with him? She had only to express a wish and he carried it out without a murmur. If she wanted anything in town, he would go off and fetch it at once. She certainly had no ground for complaint! And yet⁠—

A year passed by, and it struck her that there was another change in the young man. How had she noticed this, felt it, guessed it? No matter! She knew she was not mistaken, but she could not have put into words the change that had occurred in that strange youth’s unknown thoughts. To her it seemed that where he had been beset with hesitation, he was now quite resolute; this idea struck her one evening when she caught him staring at her curiously, with an expression she had never seen before.

After that he watched her continually until she felt as if she must hide herself to avoid the cold glance always fixed upon her. For whole evenings he would stare at her, only turning away his eyes when, reduced to helplessness, she said: “Don’t look at me like that, my child!” Then he would lower his head. But as soon as her back was turned she felt his eye upon her again. Wherever she went, he followed her with his tenacious gaze. Sometimes in the garden she would suddenly catch sight of him crouched among the shrubs as if he were hiding; or else when she was seated out of doors mending stockings, and he was digging in the vegetable garden, he would slyly and persistently watch her all the time he was at work. It was no use asking him: “What is the matter, my dear? You are so changed these last three years, I can’t recognise you. I implore you to tell me what’s wrong, what is filling your thoughts.”

He invariably answered, in a quiet, tired voice: “But nothing’s the matter, Auntie!” And when she insisted with: “Oh! my child, answer me, answer me when I speak to you. If you could know how you make me suffer, you would always answer, and you would not look at me in that way. Are you in trouble? Tell me, I will comfort you⁠—” he would go off wearily, muttering: “But I assure you nothing’s wrong with me.”

He had not grown much and still looked like a child though his features were those of a man. They were, however, hard and looked unfinished. He seemed somehow incomplete, unpleasant to the eye, only a sketch, so to speak, and as alarming as a mystery. He was quite closed to outer influences, impenetrable, a prey to some constant mental ferment, both active and dangerous.

Mademoiselle Source could not help feeling all this, and her anguish of mind prevented her from sleeping. She was assailed by appalling terror and horrible nightmares. She locked herself in her room and barricaded the door, tortured by a panic fear. Of what was she afraid?

She had no idea.

She was afraid of everything, the night, the walls, the shadows projected by the moon through the white curtains at the windows, and, above all, she was afraid of him.

Why?

What had she to fear? Did she know of anything? She could not go on living like that. She knew she was menaced by some misfortune, some appalling misfortune.

One morning, secretly, she went to town to see her relatives and breathlessly told them what she felt. The two women thought she was going mad and tried to reassure her. She said to them: “If you only knew how he looks at me from morning till night! He never takes his eyes off me! Sometimes I want to shout for help, call in the neighbours, I am so afraid! But what could I say to them? He does nothing but stare at me.”

The cousins said: “Does he ever treat you roughly, does he answer you rudely?”

She replied: “No, never; he does everything I wish, he works well and is very steady now; but I am beside myself with fright. He has some idea in his head, I know it, I know it. I won’t stay any longer in the country alone with him.”

The scared relatives told her that everyone would be surprised, that no one would understand, and advised her to put aside her fears and give up her plans, but they did not discourage her from coming to live in town, in the hope that the removal would secure all her property for the two of them. They even promised to help her to sell her house and to find another one near them.

Mademoiselle Source went back home but she was in such a state of nerves that she started at the least sound and her hands trembled at the merest trifle.

She visited her relatives again twice, now quite determined not to remain in her lonely country home, and at last she found a suitable little house in the suburb, which she secretly bought.

The contract was signed on a Tuesday morning, and the rest of the day was spent in arranging for the removal. Mademoiselle Source caught the eight o’clock p.m. coach which passed about a mile and a half from the house, and stopped at the spot where the driver usually set her down. As he whipped up his horses he shouted: “Good night, Mademoiselle Source, good night!” and she replied as she was moving away: “Good night, Father Joseph.”

At seven o’clock the next morning, the village postman noticed a big pool of fresh blood on the crossroad not far from the highway, and said to himself: “Halloa! Some drunken lout’s nose has been bleeding.” But a few steps farther on he picked up a fine cambric handkerchief stained with blood, and as he neared the ditch he thought he could see some strange object lying there.

Mademoiselle Source was lying at the bottom of the ditch with her throat cut. An hour later, the gendarmes, the magistrate and others in authority gathered round the corpse, all giving their opinion as to what had happened. The two relations, called as witnesses, came and told them of the old maid’s fears and of the arrangements she had just made.

The orphan was arrested. Since his adopted mother’s death he had done nothing but weep, plunged, at least to all appearances, in the deepest woe. He was able to prove that he had spent the evening up to eleven o’clock in a café; he had been seen by ten people who had been there until he left. As the coach-driver declared that he had set the murdered woman down between half past nine and ten o’clock, the crime could only have been committed on the road leading from the highway to the house, not later than ten o’clock. The prisoner was acquitted.

By a will drawn up years before and left with a notary of Rennes, he was made sole legatee, and got all the property.

For a long time the country folk kept him at a distance, still suspecting him of the murder. His house, the dead woman’s house, was looked upon as bearing a curse, and everybody avoided him in the street. But he was so companionable, so friendly, that the horrible suspicion about him was gradually forgotten. He was generous, considerate, and would chat at will with the humblest of his neighbours.

The notary, Maître Rameau, was one of the first to revise his opinions about him, being captivated by the young man’s bright conversation. One evening when dining with the Collector of Taxes he declared that “a man with his gift of words⁠—always good-humoured⁠—cannot have such a dreadful crime on his conscience.” Impressed by the argument, the guests thought the matter over. They remembered the long conversations held by this man, who would stop them at the corner of the road and make them listen to him, who forced them into his house as they passed by, who made a better joke than the Lieutenant of the Armed Police Force himself, and was so infectiously cheerful that one could not help laughing when with him in spite of the repugnance he inspired.

Once more all doors were opened to him. He is now mayor of his commune.

Old Boniface’s Crime

As Boniface the postman left the post office he discovered that his round that day would not take as long as usual, and felt a sharp pleasure in the knowledge. His task was the rural delivery outside the town of Vireville, and when he returned at night, with long weary strides, his legs had often more than forty kilometres behind them.

So his delivery would be quickly done! He could even loiter a little on the way and get home by about three in the afternoon. What luck!

He left the town by the Sennemare road and began his duties. It was June, the green and flowery month, the month when the meadows were looking their best.

Dressed in a blue blouse, and wearing a black cap with red braid, the postman took the narrow paths across fields of colza, oats, or wheat. The crops were shoulder-high, and his head, passing along above the ears, appeared to float on a calm green sea rippled gently by a little wind.

He entered the farms through wooden gates set in the hedgerows shaded by double rows of beeches, and greeting the peasant by name: “Good morning, Monsieur Chicot,” he would offer him his paper, the Petit Normand. The farmer would wipe his hand on the seat of his breeches, take the sheet of paper, and slip it into his pocket to read at his leisure after the midday meal. The dog, kennelled in a barrel, at the foot of a leaning apple tree, would bark furiously and tug at his chain, and the postman, without turning round, would set off again with his military gait, his long legs taking great strides, his left hand in his sack, his right swinging with a quick ceaseless gesture the stick that kept him company on his round.

He delivered his letters and circulars at the hamlet of Sennemare, and then went on across the fields to deliver his mail to the tax-collector, who lived in a little house half a mile from the village.

He was a new collector, Monsieur Chapatis, who had arrived the previous week and was but recently married.

He took in a Paris paper, and sometimes postman Boniface, when he had the time to spare, would glance at it before handing it over to its destined owner.

Accordingly he opened his sack, took out the newspaper, slipped off the band, unfolded it, and began to read it as he walked. The first page was of no interest to him; politics left him cold; he never looked at the financial news, but the news items enthralled him.

Today they were particularly rich in excitement. He was so strongly affected by the story of a crime committed in a gamekeeper’s cottage that he stopped in the middle of a patch of clover to read it slowly through again. The details were appalling. A woodcutter, passing the keeper’s cottage one morning, noticed a little blood on the doorstep, as though someone’s nose had been bleeding. “He killed a rabbit last night,” thought the woodcutter, but, drawing nearer, he observed that the door was ajar and that the lock had been smashed.

Then, seized with terror, he ran to the village to inform the mayor; the latter brought with him the constable and the schoolmaster as reinforcements, and the four men went back together. They found the keeper lying in front of the fireplace with his throat cut, his wife under the bed, strangled, and their little six-year-old daughter suffocated between two mattresses.

Boniface the postman was so deeply affected at the thought of this murder, the horrible details of which came home to him one by one, that he felt a weakness in his legs, and said out loud:

“Good Lord, there are some villains in this world!”

Then he slipped the journal back into its paper belt and set off again, his mind reeling with visions of the crime. Shortly, he reached Monsieur Chapatis’ dwelling; he opened the gate of the little garden and approached the house. It was a low building, consisting merely of a ground-floor surmounted by a mansard roof. It was at least five hundred yards from the nearest neighbouring house.

The postman mounted the two steps up to the entrance, set his hand to the knob, attempted to open the door, and found it locked. Then he saw that the shutters had not been opened, and that no one had left the house that day.

He was seized with a feeling of uneasiness, for ever since his arrival Monsieur Chapatis had been in the habit of rising early. Boniface pulled out his watch. It was only ten past seven, so that he was nearly an hour ahead of his usual time. Still, the tax-collector should have been up and about.

So he went round the building, walking with circumspection, as though he were in danger. He observed nothing suspicious, except a man’s footprints in a strawberry-bed.

But suddenly he paused, motionless, transfixed with horror, as he passed in front of a window. Groans were coming from inside the house.

He went towards it and, straddling across a border of thyme, set his ear to the penthouse-shed to hear the better; the sound of groans was unmistakable. He could hear plainly long sighs of pain, something like a death-rattle, the sound of a struggle. Then the groans became louder and more frequent, grew even more frenzied, and became screams.

Boniface, no longer in any doubt that a crime was being committed at that very moment in the tax-collector’s house, rushed off as fast as his legs could carry him. He fled back through the little garden and dashed across the meadows and cornfields. He ran breathlessly, shaking his sack so that it banged against his back, and arrived, exhausted, panting, and desperate, at the door of the police station.

Inspector Malautour was mending a broken chair with tin-tacks and a hammer. Constable Rantieux was gripping the broken piece of furniture between his legs and holding a nail at the edge of the break; the inspector, chewing his moustache, his eyes round and moist with concentration, hit his subordinate’s fingers at every stroke.

As soon as he saw them the postman cried out:

“Come quick, somebody’s murdering the tax-collector! Come quick, quick!”

The two men ceased their work and looked up, with the dumbfounded air of men suddenly and amazingly interrupted.

Boniface, seeing that their surprise was greater than their haste, said again:

“Quick! Quick! Thieves are in the house, I heard screams, there’s barely time!”

The inspector set down his hammer and asked:

“Who was it who informed you of this deed?”

The postman replied:

“I was going to deliver the paper and two letters when I noticed that the door was shut and that the tax-collector had not yet got up. I walked round the house to try and find out the reason, and heard someone groaning as though he were being strangled or had had his throat cut, so I came away to fetch you as fast as I could go. There’s barely time.”

The inspector drew himself up to his full height and said:

“You did not render assistance in person?”

“I was afraid that I was not present in sufficient strength,” replied the frightened postman.

At that the police official was convinced, and said:

“A moment, while I put my coat on, and I’ll follow you.”

He went into the police station, followed by his subordinate carrying back the chair.

They reappeared almost immediately and all three set off with vigorous strides for the scene of the crime.

Arriving near the house, they carefully slowed their pace, and the inspector drew his revolver. Very softly they penetrated into the garden and approached the wall of the house. There were no new signs indicating that the malefactors had departed. The door was still shut, the windows still closed.

“We’ve got them,” murmured the inspector.

Old Boniface, quivering with excitement, made him go round to the other side and, pointing to a lean-to shed, said:

“It’s in there.”

The inspector went forward alone, and set his ear to the boards. The two others waited, ready for anything, their eyes fixed upon him.

For a long time he remained motionless, listening. In order to apply his ear closer to the wooden shutter, he had taken off his cocked hat and was holding it in his right hand.

What was he hearing? His impassive face revealed nothing, but suddenly the tips of his moustache turned up, his cheeks were creased as though in silent laughter, and once more straddling across the box-tree border, he came back towards the two men, who stared at him amazed.

Then he signed to them to follow him on tiptoe and, having reached the entrance, bade Boniface slip the paper and letters under the door.

The postman, dumbfounded, obeyed meekly.

“And now off we go,” said the inspector.

But as soon as they had passed through the gate, he turned to Boniface, showed the whites of his eyes, gleaming with merriment, and spoke in a bantering tone, with a knowing flicker of his eyelids:

“You’re a sly dog, you are.”

“What do you mean?” replied the old man. “I heard it, I swear I heard it.”

But the policeman, unable to restrain himself any longer, burst into a roar of laughter. He laughed as if he would choke, bent double, his hands across his belly, his eyes filled with tears, the flesh on each side of his nose distorted into a frightful grimace. The two others stared at him in bewilderment.

But as he could neither speak nor stop laughing nor make them understand what was affecting him, he made a gesture, a quite vulgar and scandalous gesture.

As he still failed to make himself understood, he repeated the movement several times, nodding towards the house, still shuttered.

Suddenly his man understood, in his turn, and burst into formidable transports of merriment.

The old man stood stupidly between the other two, who rolled in agonies of mirth.

At last the inspector grew calm; he gave the old man a vigorous chaffing poke in the stomach, and exclaimed:

“Ah, you sly dog, you and your jokes! I shan’t forget old Boniface’s crime in a hurry.”

The postman, his large eyes wide open, said once more:

“I swear I heard it.”

The inspector began to laugh again. His constable had sat down on the grass at the roadside to have his laugh out in comfort.

“Ah, you heard it, did you? And is that how you murder your wife, eh, you dirty dog?”

“My wife?” He reflected at some length, then replied:

“My wife.⁠ ⁠… Yes, she hollers when I knock her about⁠ ⁠… but if she does, what’s a bit of noise, anyway? Was Monsieur Chapatis beating his?”

At that the inspector, in a delirium of mirth, turned him round like a puppet with his hands on his shoulders, and whispered into his ear something at which the postman was struck dumb with amazement.

At last the old man murmured thoughtfully:

“No.⁠ ⁠… Not like that.⁠ ⁠… Not like that.⁠ ⁠… Not a bit like that.⁠ ⁠… Mine doesn’t say anything.⁠ ⁠… I’d never have believed it⁠ ⁠… is it possible?⁠ ⁠… Anyone would have sworn that a murder was taking place.”

And filled with shame, confusion, and bewilderment, he went on his way across the fields, while the constable and the inspector, still laughing and shouting pungent barrack jests after him, watched his black cap recede into the distance above the quiet waves of the corn.

The Greenhouse

M. and Mme. Lerebour were the same age. But Monsieur seemed the younger, although he was the more infirm. They lived near Mantes in a pretty country place they had built, after making a fortune selling printed calicoes.

The house was surrounded by a fine garden containing a poultry-run, Chinese kiosks, and a little greenhouse at the far end of the grounds. M. Lerebour was short, fat, and jovial, with the manners of a convivial shopkeeper. His wife, thin, wilful, and always discontented, had not succeeded in conquering her husband’s good humour. She dyed her hair, and sometimes read novels which put dreams into her head, although she affected to despise books of that sort. She was declared to be a passionate woman, without ever having done anything to justify the opinion. But her husband sometimes said: “My wife’s hot stuff!” with a certain significant air which gave rise to conjectures.

But for some years she had been behaving unkindly to M. Lerebour, always irritable and harsh, as though she were tormented by a secret sorrow she could not confess. A sort of misunderstanding resulted. They hardly spoke to one another, and Madame, whose name was Palmyre, was constantly loading Monsieur, whose name was Gustave, with disagreeable remarks, wounding illusions, and sharp words, without apparent reason.

He bowed under it, worried, but still gay, blessed with such a fund of contentment that he could shoulder these intimate bickerings. Yet he wondered what unknown cause could be making his wife grow more and more bitter, for he felt sure that her irritation had a cause which was not only hidden, but so difficult to discover that all his efforts were wasted.

He often asked her:

“Look here, dear, do tell me what grievance you have against me. I can feel you are concealing something.”

“No, nothing, absolutely nothing,” she invariably replied. “And anyhow, if I had any reason for being unhappy, it would be your business to guess it. I don’t like men who never realise anything, men who are so slack and incapable that you have to go and help them understand the smallest trifle.”

“I see you don’t mean to tell me,” he would murmur, discouraged, and would go off, searching for the mystery.

The nights especially became very painful for him; for they still shared the same bed, as in happy and simple homes. At these times there were no vexations with which she did not harass him. She would choose the moment when they were lying side by side to load him with her cruelest sneers and insults. Principally, she reproached him for growing fat:

“You take up all the room, you’re getting so fat. And you perspire in the back like melted lard. Do you suppose I like it!”

She made him get up on the slightest pretexts, sending him downstairs to get a newspaper she had forgotten, or the bottle of orange-flower water, which he could not find because she had hidden it. And she would exclaim in a furious and sarcastic tone:

“But you ought to know where to find it, you great booby!”

And when he had prowled for an hour all over the sleeping house and returned empty-handed, all the thanks he would get was:

“Come on, get back into bed; a little walking will make you thinner; you’re getting as flabby as a sponge.”

She was always waking him up, saying she had cramp in the stomach and insisting on his rubbing her with flannel soaked in eau de cologne. And he would do his best to cure her, miserable at seeing her ill, and would suggest rousing Céleste, their maid. Then she would lose her temper, and shout:

“Is the dolt quite off his head! It’s all over, I’m all right now! Go to sleep again, you great ninny!”

“You’re quite sure you’re all right?” he would ask.

“Yes, keep quiet, and let me go to sleep,” she flung at him harshly. “Don’t bother me any more. You’re no good at anything, you can’t even rub a woman.”

“But⁠ ⁠… darling⁠ ⁠…” he would begin, desperately.

“No buts,” she would interrupt in exasperation. “That’s enough, isn’t it? Now do shut up⁠ ⁠…” and she would turn to the wall.

One night she shook him so abruptly that he started with fright and found himself sitting up with a rapidity unusual for him.

“What?⁠ ⁠… What is it?⁠ ⁠…” he stammered.

She was holding him by the arm and pinching hard enough to make him cry out.

“I heard a noise in the house,” she whispered in his ear.

Accustomed to Mme. Lerebour’s frequent alarms, he was not excessively uneasy, and asked calmly:

“What sort of noise, darling?”

She was trembling as though out of her wits, and replied:

“A noise⁠ ⁠… well, a noise⁠ ⁠… a noise of footsteps.⁠ ⁠… There is someone about.”

He was incredulous:

“Someone about? Do you think so? No; you must be mistaken. Who do you think it could be?”

She shook with rage:

“Who?⁠ ⁠… Who?⁠ ⁠… Why, thieves, you fool!”

He calmly snuggled under the sheets again.

“No, darling, there’s no one. You must have been dreaming.”

At this she threw back the coverlet and jumped out of bed, exasperated.

“So you’re as cowardly as you are useless! At all events, I won’t let myself be murdered in my bed on account of your cowardice.”

And snatching up the tongs from the fireplace, she settled herself at the bolted door in an attitude of combat.

Stirred by this example of valour, and perhaps ashamed, he rose sulkily and, without taking off his cotton nightcap, he took the shovel and placed himself opposite his better half.

For twenty minutes they waited in the deepest silence. No fresh sound disturbed the repose of the house. Then Madame, furious, went back to bed, declaring:

“But I was certain there was someone.”

To avoid any quarrel, he made no allusion during the day to her panic.

But the following night, Mme. Lerebour woke her husband with even more violence than on the previous night, and, gasping, faltered:

“Gustave, Gustave, someone has just opened the garden gate.”

Astonished at this persistence, he thought his wife a prey to somnambulism, and he was on the point of trying to break this dangerous slumber, when he fancied he really did hear a faint noise under the walls of the house.

He rose, ran to the window, and saw, yes, really saw a white shadow hurrying across a path.

“There is someone,” he murmured, with a sickening qualm.

Then he regained his senses, pulled himself together, and, suddenly exalted by the formidable fury of a landowner whose property is not being respected, said:

“Wait, wait, and you shall see.”

He rushed to the writing-table, opened it, grabbed his revolver, and dashed towards the stairs.

His frantic wife followed, screaming:

“Gustave, Gustave, don’t desert me, don’t leave me alone, Gustave! Gustave!”

But he paid no attention to her; his hand was already on the garden gate.

Thereupon she hastily went back upstairs and barricaded herself in the conjugal apartment.

She waited five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour. A wild panic attacked her. Without any doubt they had killed him, had seized him, garrotted him, and strangled him. She would have preferred to hear the six revolver shots ring out, to know that he was fighting, defending himself. But the utter silence, the terrifying silence of the country was too much for her.

She rang for Céleste. Céleste did not come, did not reply. She rang again, swooning, on the point of losing consciousness. The entire house remained dumb.

She pressed her burning brow against the windowpane, trying to penetrate the darkness outside. She could make out nothing but the blacker shadows of the copses beside the grey lines of the paths.

A clock struck half past twelve. Her husband had been gone three-quarters of an hour. She would never see him again! She would certainly never see him again! She fell on her knees, sobbing.

Two faint knocks on the door of the room made her leap up. M. Lerebour was calling:

“Open the door, Palmyre, it’s me.”

She ran to it and opened it, then stood in front of him, her hands on her hips, her eyes still filled with tears.

“Where have you been, you beast! Leaving me like this to die of fear all by myself! You take no more thought for me than if I didn’t exist.⁠ ⁠…”

He had closed the door, and was laughing, laughing like a madman, his two cheeks split by his wide-open mouth, his hands on his paunch, his eyes moist.

Mme. Lerebour, utterly bewildered, was silent.

He faltered:

“It was⁠ ⁠… it was⁠ ⁠… Céleste, who had a⁠ ⁠… a⁠ ⁠… an appointment in the greenhouse.⁠ ⁠… If you only knew what⁠ ⁠… what⁠ ⁠… what I saw⁠ ⁠…”

She had gone white, choking with indignation:

“What?⁠ ⁠… You mean to say⁠ ⁠… Céleste⁠ ⁠… in my house⁠ ⁠… my⁠ ⁠… my⁠ ⁠… my house⁠ ⁠… in my⁠ ⁠… my⁠ ⁠… in my greenhouse! And you never killed the man, her accomplice! You had a revolver and never killed him.⁠ ⁠… In my house⁠ ⁠… my house.⁠ ⁠…”

She sat down, at the end of her strength.

He cut a caper, snapped his fingers, clicked his tongue, and stammered, still laughing:

“If you knew⁠ ⁠… if you knew⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly, he kissed her.

She pushed him away, and, in a voice strangled with rage, said:

“I will not have that girl stay another day in the house, do you hear? Not one day⁠ ⁠… not one hour. When she comes in, we’ll throw her out.⁠ ⁠…”

M. Lerebour had grasped his wife by the waist and was planting rows of kisses on her neck, noisy kisses, as in the past. She fell silent again, dumbfounded and bewildered. And, holding her in his arms, he led her gently to the bed.⁠ ⁠…

At about half past nine next morning, Céleste, surprised at not having yet seen her master and mistress, who always rose early, came and knocked gently at their door.

They were in bed, and were chatting gaily side by side. She stood still in amazement, and asked:

“Madame, the coffee.”

“Bring it here, my girl,” said Mme. Lerebour in a very gentle voice; “we are rather tired; we slept very badly.”

The maid had barely withdrawn when M. Lerebour burst out laughing again, tickling his wife and repeating:

“If you knew! Oh! if you knew!”

But she took his hands:

“Now do keep quiet, darling; if you laugh as much as that, you’ll do yourself harm.”

And she kissed him, gently, on the eyes.

Mme. Lerebour has no more bad tempers. Sometimes, on clear nights, the two of them creep furtively past the thickets and flowerbeds to the little greenhouse at the far end of the garden. And they stay there, huddled close together against the panes as though they were gazing at some strange, absorbing thing inside.

They have raised Céleste’s wages.

M. Lerebour has grown thinner.

Denis

Monsieur Marambot opened the letter which his servant Denis gave him and smiled.

For twenty years Denis had been a servant in this house. He was a short, stout, jovial man, who was known throughout the countryside as a model servant. He asked:

“Is monsieur pleased? Has monsieur received good news?”

M. Marambot was not rich. He was an old village chemist, a bachelor, who lived on an income acquired with difficulty by selling drugs to the farmers. He answered:

“Yes, my boy. Old man Malois is afraid of the lawsuit with which I am threatening him. I shall get my money tomorrow. Five thousand francs will not hurt the account of an old bachelor.”

M. Marambot rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He was a man of quiet temperament, more sad than gay, incapable of any prolonged effort, careless in business.

He could undoubtedly have amassed a greater income had he taken advantage of the deaths of colleagues established in more important centres, by taking their places and carrying on their business. But the trouble of moving and the thought of all the preparations had always stopped him. After thinking the matter over for a few days, he would just say:

“Bah! I’ll wait until the next time. I’ll not lose anything by the delay. I may even find something better.”

Denis, on the contrary, was always urging his master to new enterprises. Of an energetic temperament, he would continually repeat:

“Oh! If I had only had the capital to start out with, I could have made a fortune! One thousand francs would do me.”

M. Marambot would smile without answering and would go out in his little garden, where, his hands behind his back, he would walk about dreaming.

All day long, Denis sang the joyful refrains of the folk-songs of the district. He even showed an unusual activity, for he cleaned all the windows of the house, energetically rubbing the glass, and singing at the top of his voice.

M. Marambot, surprised at his zeal, said to him several times, smiling:

“My boy, if you work like that there will be nothing left for you to do tomorrow.”

The following day, at about nine o’clock in the morning, the postman gave Denis four letters for his master, one of them very heavy. M. Marambot immediately shut himself up in his room until late in the afternoon. He then handed his servant four letters for the mail. One of them was addressed to M. Malois; it was undoubtedly a receipt for the money.

Denis asked his master no questions; he appeared to be as sad and gloomy that day as he had seemed joyful the day before.

Night came. M. Marambot went to bed as usual and slept.

He was awakened by a strange noise. He sat up in his bed and listened. Suddenly the door opened and Denis appeared, holding in one hand a candle and in the other a carving knife, his eyes staring, his face contracted as though moved by some deep emotion; he was as pale as a ghost.

In his astonishment M. Marambot thought that he was sleepwalking, and he was going to get out of bed and assist him when the servant blew out the light and rushed for the bed. His master stretched out his hands to receive the shock which knocked him over on his back; he was trying to seize the hands of his servant, whom he now thought to be crazy, in order to avoid the blows which the latter was aiming at him.

He was struck by the knife; once in the shoulder, once in the forehead and the third time in the chest. He fought wildly, waving his arms around in the darkness, kicking and crying:

“Denis! Are you mad? Listen, Denis!”

But the latter, gasping for breath, kept up his furious attack, always striking, always repulsed, sometimes with a kick, sometimes with a punch, and rushing forward again furiously.

M. Marambot was wounded twice more, once in the leg and once in the stomach. But, suddenly, a thought flashed across his mind, and he began to shriek:

“Stop, stop, Denis, I have not yet received my money!”

The man immediately ceased, and his master could hear his laboured breathing in the darkness. M. Marambot then went on:

“I have received nothing. M. Malois takes back what he said, the lawsuit will take place; that is why you carried the letters to the mail. Just read those on my desk.”

With a final effort, he reached for his matches and lit the candle.

He was covered with blood. His sheets, his curtains, and even the walls, were spattered with red. Denis, standing in the middle of the room, was also bloody from head to foot.

When he saw the blood M. Marambot thought himself dead, and fell unconscious.

At break of day he revived. It was some time, however, before he regained his senses, and was able to understand or remember. But, suddenly, the memory of the attack and of his wounds returned to him, and he was filled with such terror that he closed his eyes in order not to see anything. After a few minutes he grew calmer and began to think. He had not died immediately, therefore he might still recover. He felt weak, very weak; but he had no real pain, although he noticed an uncomfortable smarting sensation in several parts of his body. He also felt icy cold, and all wet, and as though wrapped up in bandages. He thought that this dampness came from the blood which he had lost; and he shivered at the dreadful thought of this red liquid which had come from his veins and covered his bed. The idea of seeing this terrible spectacle again so upset him that he kept his eyes closed with all his strength, as though they might open in spite of himself.

What had become of Denis? He had probably escaped.

But what could he, Marambot, do now? Get up? Call for help? But if he should make the slightest motions, his wounds would undoubtedly open up again and he would die from loss of blood.

Suddenly he heard the door of his room open. His heart almost stopped. It was certainly Denis who was coming to finish him up. He held his breath in order to make the murderer think that he had been successful.

He felt his sheet being lifted up, and then someone feeling his stomach. A sharp pain near his hip made him start. He was being very gently washed with cold water. Therefore, someone must have discovered the misdeed and he was being cared for. A wild joy seized him; but prudently, he did not wish to show that he was conscious. He opened one eye, just one, with the greatest precaution.

He recognised Denis standing beside him, Denis himself! Mercy! He hastily closed his eye again.

Denis. What could he be doing? What did he want? What awful scheme could he now be carrying out?

What was he doing? Well, he was washing him in order to hide the traces of his crime! And he would now bury him in the garden, under ten feet of earth, so that no one could discover him! Or perhaps in the wine cellar under the bottles of old wine! And M. Marambot began to tremble like a leaf. He kept saying to himself: “I am lost, lost!” He closed his eyes in order not to see the knife as it descended for the final stroke. It did not come. Denis was now lifting him up and bandaging him. Then he began carefully to dress the wound on his leg, as his master had taught him to do when he was a pharmacist.

There was no longer any doubt. His servant, after wishing to kill him, was trying to save him. Then M. Marambot, in a dying voice, gave him the practical piece of advice:

“Wash the wounds in a diluted solution of carbolic acid!”

Denis answered:

“This is what I am doing, monsieur.”

M. Marambot opened both his eyes. There was no sign of blood either on the bed, on the walls, or on the murderer. The wounded man was stretched out on clean white sheets.

The two men looked at each other.

Finally M. Marambot said calmly:

“You have been guilty of a great crime.”

Denis answered:

“I am trying to make up for it, monsieur. If you will not tell on me, I will serve you as faithfully as in the past.”

This was no time to anger his servant. M. Marambot murmured as he closed his eyes:

“I swear not to tell on you.”

Denis saved his master. He spent days and nights without sleep, never leaving the sick room, preparing drugs, broths, potions, feeling his pulse, anxiously counting the beats, attending him with the skill of a trained nurse and the devotions of a son.

He continually asked:

“Well, monsieur, how do you feel?”

M. Marambot would answer in a weak voice:

“A little better, my boy, thank you.”

And when the sick man would wake up at night, he would often see his servant seated in an armchair weeping silently.

Never had the old chemist been so cared for, so fondled, so spoiled. At first he had said to himself: “As soon as I am well I shall get rid of this rascal.”

He was now convalescing, and from day to day he would put off dismissing his murderer. He thought that no one would ever show him such care and attention, for he held this man through fear; and he warned him that he had left a document with a lawyer denouncing him to the law if any new accident should occur.

This precaution seemed to guarantee him against any future attack; and he then asked himself if it would not be wiser to keep this man near him, in order to watch him closely.

Just as formerly, when he would hesitate about taking some larger place of business, he could not make up his mind to any decision.

“There is plenty of time,” he would say to himself.

Denis continued to show himself an admirable servant. M. Marambot was well. He kept him.

One morning, just as he was finishing breakfast, he suddenly heard a great noise in the kitchen. He hastened in there. Denis was struggling with two gendarmes. An officer was taking notes on his pad.

As soon as he saw his master, the servant began to sob, exclaiming:

“You told on me, monsieur, that’s not right, after what you had promised me. You have broken your word of honour, Monsieur Marambot; that’s not right, that’s not right!”

M. Marambot, bewildered and distressed at being suspected, lifted his hand.

“I swear to you before God, my boy, that I did not tell on you. I haven’t the slightest idea how the police could have found out about your attack on me.”

The officer started:

“You say that he attacked you, M. Marambot?”

The bewildered chemist answered:

“Yes⁠—but I did not tell on him⁠—I haven’t said a word⁠—I swear it⁠—he has served me excellently from that time on⁠—”

The officer pronounced severely:

“I will take down your testimony. The law will take notice of this new action, of which it was ignorant, Monsieur Marambot. I was commissioned to arrest your servant for the theft of two ducks surreptitiously taken by him from M. Duhamel of which act there are witnesses. I shall make a note of your information.”

Then, turning toward his men, he ordered:

“Come on, let us start!”

The two gendarmes dragged Denis out.

The lawyer used the plea of insanity, contrasting the two misdeeds in order to strengthen his argument. He had clearly proved that the theft of the two ducks came from the same mental condition as the eight knife-wounds in the body of Marambot. He had cunningly analyzed all the phases of this transitory condition of mental aberration, which could, doubtless, be cured by a few months’ treatment in a reputable sanatorium. He had spoken in enthusiastic terms of the continued devotion of this faithful servant, of the care with which he had surrounded his master, wounded by him in a moment of alienation.

Touched by this memory, M. Marambot felt the tears rising to his eyes.

The lawyer noticed it, opened his arms with a broad gesture, spreading out the long black sleeves of his robe like the wings of a bat, and exclaimed:

“Look, look, gentlemen of the jury, look at those tears. What more can I say for my client? What speech, what argument, what reasoning would be worth these tears of his master? They speak louder than I do, louder than the law; they cry: ‘Mercy, for the poor wandering mind of a while ago!’ They implore, they pardon, they bless!”

He was silent and sat down.

Then the judge, turning to Marambot, whose testimony had been excellent for his servant, asked him:

“But, monsieur, even admitting that you consider this man insane, that does not explain why you should have kept him. He was none the less dangerous.”

Marambot, wiping his eyes, answered:

“Well, your honour, what can you expect? Nowadays it’s so hard to find good servants⁠—I could never have found a better one.”

Denis was acquitted and put in a sanatorium at his master’s expense.

He?

My dear friend, you can hardly believe it? I can see why. You think I have gone mad? It may be so, but not for the reasons which you suppose.

Yes, I am going to get married. That’s true.

My ideas and my convictions have not changed at all. I look upon all legalized cohabitation as utterly stupid, for I am certain that nine husbands out of ten are cuckolds; and they get no more than their deserts for having been idiotic enough to fetter their lives and renounce their freedom in love, the only happy and good thing in the world, and for having clipped the wings of fancy which continually drives us on toward all women. You know what I mean. More than ever I feel that I am incapable of loving one woman alone, because I shall always adore all the others too much. I should like to have a thousand arms, a thousand mouths, and a thousand-temperaments, to be able to strain an army of these charming creatures in my embrace at the same moment.

And yet I am going to get married!

I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife tomorrow; I have only seen her four or five times. I know that she is not distasteful to me, and that is enough for my purpose. She is small, fair, and stout; so of course the day after tomorrow I shall ardently wish for a tall, dark, thin, woman.

She is not rich, and belongs to the middle classes. She is a girl such as you may find by the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without any apparent faults, and with no particularly striking qualities. People say of her: “Mlle. Lajolle is a very nice girl,” and tomorrow they will say: “What a very nice woman Madame Raymon is.” She belongs, in a word, to that immense number of girls who make very good wives for us till the moment comes when we discover that we happen to prefer all other women to that particular woman we have married.

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

I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason that urged me on to this mad action. I am getting married in order not to be alone.

I don’t know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of mind is so wretched that you will pity me and despise me.

I do not want to be alone any longer at night; I want to feel that there is someone close to me touching me, a being who can speak and say something, no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able to ask some sudden question, a stupid question even, if I feel inclined, so that I may hear a human voice, to have somebody living in my house and feel that there is some waking soul close to me, someone whose reason is at work⁠—so that when I hastily light the candle I may see some human face by my side⁠—because⁠—because⁠—I am ashamed to confess it⁠—because when I am alone, I am afraid.

Oh! you don’t understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room I should kill him without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I believe in the total annihilation of every being that disappears from the face of this earth.

Well⁠—yes, well, then⁠ ⁠… I am afraid of myself, afraid of that horrible sensation of incomprehensible fear, afraid of the spasms of my terrified mind.

You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible and incurable. I am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects, which are animated, as far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above all, I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems as if it were about to leave me, driven away by a mysterious and invisible anguish.

At first I feel a vague uneasiness in my mind which causes a cold shiver to run all over me. I look round, and of course nothing is to be seen, and I wish there were something there, no matter what, as long as it were something tangible: I am frightened, merely because I cannot understand my own terror.

If I speak, I am afraid of my own voice. If I walk, I am afraid of I know not what, behind the door, behind the curtains, in the cupboard, or under my bed, and yet all the time I know there is nothing anywhere, and I turn round suddenly because I am afraid of what is behind me, although there is nothing there, and I know it.

I get agitated; I feel that my fear increases, and so I shut myself up in my own room, get into bed, and hide under the clothes, and there, cowering down, rolled into a ball, I close my eyes in despair and remain thus for a long time, remembering that my candle is alight on the table by my bedside, and that I ought to put it out, and yet⁠—I dare not do it!

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

Formerly I felt nothing of all that; I came home quite comfortably, and went up and down in my rooms without anything disturbing my calmness of mind. Had anyone told me that I should be attacked by a malady⁠—for I can call it nothing else⁠—of most improbable fear, such a stupid and terrible malady as it is, I should have laughed outright. I was certainly never afraid of opening the door in the dark; I used to go to bed slowly without locking it, and never got up in the middle of the night to make sure that everything was firmly closed.

It began last year in a very strange manner, on a damp autumn evening. When my servant had left the room, after I had dined, I asked myself what I was going to do. I walked up and down my room for some time, feeling tired without any reason for it, unable to work, and without enough energy to read. A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a prey to one of those fits of casual despondency which make us feel inclined to cry, or to talk, no matter to whom, so as to shake off our depressing thoughts.

I felt that I was alone and that my rooms seemed to me to be more empty that they had ever been before. I was surrounded by a sensation of infinite and overwhelming solitude. What was I to do? I sat down, but then a kind of nervous impatience seized my legs, so that I got up and began to walk about again. I was feverish, for I noticed my hands, which I had clasped behind me, as one often does when walking slowly, almost seemed to burn one another. Then suddenly a cold shiver ran down my back, and I thought the damp air might have penetrated into my room, so I lit the fire for the first time that year, and sat down again and looked at the flames. But soon I felt that I could not possibly remain quiet. So I got up again and determined to go out, to pull myself together, and to seek a friend to bear me company. I went out. I looked up three friends who were not at home, then I went on to the boulevards to try and meet some acquaintance or other there.

It was wretched everywhere. The wet pavement glistened in the gaslight, and a moist warmth, that kind of warmth that chills you with sudden shivers, the oppressive heat of impalpable rain, lay heavily over the streets and seemed to obscure the light from the lamps.

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

I glanced into several cafés from the Madeleine as far as the Faubourg Poissonnière, and saw many unhappy-looking individuals sitting at the tables, who did not seem even to have enough energy left to finish the refreshments they had ordered.

For a long time I wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I started off for home; I was very calm and very tired. My concierge, who goes to bed before eleven o’clock, opened the door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that another lodger had no doubt just come in.

When I go out I always turn the key twice. Now I found it merely closed, which surprised me; but I supposed that some letters had been brought up for me in the course of the evening.

I went in, and found my fire still burning so that it lighted up the room a little. I took up a candle to light it at the fire when looking in front of me I noticed somebody sitting in my armchair by the fire, warming his feet, with his back toward me.

I was not in the slightest degree frightened. I thought very naturally that some friend or other had come to see me. No doubt the concierge, who knew I had gone out, had said I was coming back and had lent him his own key. In a moment I remembered all the circumstances of my return, how the street door had been opened immediately and that my own door was only latched and not locked.

I could see nothing of my friend but his head. He had evidently gone to sleep while waiting for me, so I went up to him to rouse him. I saw him quite clearly; his right arm was hanging down and his feet were crossed, while his head, which was somewhat inclined to the left of the armchair, seemed to indicate that he was asleep. “Who can it be?” I asked myself. I could not see clearly, as the room was rather dark, so I put out my hand to touch him on the shoulder, and it came in contact with the back of the chair. There was nobody there; the armchair was empty.

Merciful heaven, what a start I gave! For a moment I drew back as if some terrible danger had suddenly appeared in my way; then I turned round again feeling there was somebody behind me, then, impelled by some imperious desire to look at the armchair again, I turned round once more. I remained standing up panting with fear, so upset that I could not collect my thoughts, and ready to drop.

But I am naturally a cool man, and soon recovered myself. I thought: “It is a mere hallucination, that is all,” and I immediately began to reflect about this phenomenon. Thoughts fly very quickly at such moments.

I had been suffering from an hallucination, that was an incontestable fact. My mind had been perfectly lucid and had acted regularly and logically, so there was nothing the matter with the brain. It was only my eyes that had been deceived; they had had a vision, one of those visions which lead simple folk to believe in miracles. It was a nervous accident to the optical apparatus, nothing more; the eyes were rather overwrought, perhaps.

I lit my candle, and when I stooped down to the fire in so doing, I noticed that I was trembling, and I raised myself up with a jump, as if somebody had touched me from behind.

I was not comfortable by any means.

I walked up and down a little, and hummed a tune or two. Then I double-locked my door, and felt rather reassured; now, at any rate, nobody could come in.

I sat down again, and thought over my adventure for a long time; then I went to bed, and put out my light.

For some minutes all went well; I lay quietly on my back. Then an irresistible desire seized me to look round the room, and I turned on to my side.

My fire was nearly out and the few glowing embers threw a faint light on to the floor by the chair, where I fancied I saw the man sitting again.

I quickly struck a match, but I had been mistaken, for there was nothing there; I got up, however, and hid the chair behind my bed, and tried to get to sleep as the room was now dark. But I had not been asleep for more than five minutes when in my dream I saw all the scene which I had witnessed as clearly as if it were reality. I woke up with a start, and, having lit the candle, sat up in bed, without venturing even to try and go to sleep again.

Twice, however, sleep overcame me for a few moments in spite of myself, and twice I saw the same thing again, till I fancied I was going mad. When day broke, however, I thought that I was cured, and slept peacefully till noon.

It was all past and gone. I had been feverish, had had nightmare; or something. I had been ill, in a word, but yet I thought that I was a great fool.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly that evening; I went and dined at a restaurant; afterward I went to the theatre, and then started home. But as I got near the house I was seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness once more; I was afraid of seeing him again. I was not afraid of him, not afraid of his presence, in which I did not believe; but I was afraid of being deceived again; I was afraid of some fresh hallucination, afraid lest fear should take possession of me.

For more than an hour I wandered up and down the pavement; then I thought that I was really too foolish, and returned home. I panted so that I could scarcely get upstairs, and remained standing on the landing outside my door for more than ten minutes; then suddenly I took courage and pulled myself together. I inserted my key into the lock, and went in with a candle in my hand. I kicked open my half-open bedroom door, and gave a frightened look toward the fireplace; there was nothing there. A‑h!

What a relief and what a delight! What a deliverance! I walked up and down briskly and boldly, but I was not altogether reassured, and kept turning round with a jump; the very shadows in the corners disquieted me.

I slept badly, and was constantly disturbed by imaginary noises, but I did not see him; no, that was all over.

Since that time I have been afraid of being alone at night. I feel that the spectre is there, close to me, around me; but it has not appeared to me again. And supposing it did, what would it matter, since I do not believe in it and know that it is nothing?

It still worries me, however, because I am constantly thinking of it: his right arm hanging down and his head inclined to the left like a man who was asleep⁠—Enough of that, in Heaven’s name! I don’t want to think about it!

Why, however, am I so persistently possessed with this idea? His feet were close to the fire!

He haunts me; it is very stupid, but so it is. Who and what is he? I know that he does not exist except in my cowardly imagination, in my fears, and in my anguish! There⁠—enough of that!

Yes, it is all very well for me to reason with myself, to brace myself up; I cannot remain alone at home, because I know he is there. I know I shall not see him again; he will not show himself again; that is all over. But he is there all the same in my thoughts. He remains invisible, but that does not prevent his being there. He is behind the doors, in the closed wardrobe, under the bed, in every dark corner. If I open the door or the wardrobe, if I take the candle to look under the bed and throw a light on the dark places, he is there no longer, but I feel that he is behind me. I turn round, certain that I shall not see him, that I shall never see him again; but he is, none the less, behind me.

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

But if there were two of us in the place, I feel certain that he would not be there any longer, for he is there just because I am alone, simply and solely because I am alone!

The Window

I made the acquaintance of Mme. de Jadelle at Paris this winter. She pleased me exceedingly at once. But you know her as well as I⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… pardon⁠ ⁠… almost as well as I.⁠ ⁠… You know her to be at once whimsical and romantic. Frank in manner and emotionally impressionable, wilful, unconventional, fearless, adventurous, audacious, contemptuous of all prejudice, and, in spite of that, sentimental, fastidious, easily offended, sensitive and modest.

She was a widow. I adore widows, because I am indolent. I was thinking of marrying her, and I paid court to her. The better I knew her, the better she pleased me; and I decided that the moment had come to venture my request. I was in love with her, and I was on the verge of being too much in love. When a man marries, he ought not to be too much in love with his wife, because that makes a blundering fool of him: he loses his self-possession, and becomes both stupid and crude. He must hold on to his self-control. If he loses his head the first night, he runs a great risk of having it antlered a year later.

So one day I presented myself at her house in a pair of light gloves and said to her:

“Madame, I am so happy as to love you, and I come to ask you whether I may hope to please you⁠—to do which I will use all my best endeavours⁠—and to give you my name.”

She answered placidly:

“As you like! I really don’t know whether you will please me sooner or later, but I ask nothing better than to put it to the test. As a man, I rather like you. It remains to discover what you are like in disposition and character, what sort of habits you have. Most marriages become stormy or immoral, because parties thereto did not know each other well enough when they married. The merest trifle, a deep-rooted obsession, a tenacious opinion on some point of ethics, religion or anything else, an annoying gesture, a bad habit, the least fault or even a disagreeable trait, is enough to make two irreconcilable enemies, implacably bitter and chained together until death, of the tenderest and most passionate lovers.

“I shall never marry unless I know intimately, in every crack and cranny of his nature, the man whose life I am about to share. I want to study him at leisure, and at close quarters, for months.

“This is what I suggest: You shall come to spend the summer with me on my estate at Lauville, and there in that quiet place we shall see whether we are fitted to live side by side.⁠ ⁠…

“I see you laughing. You’re thinking an evil thought. Oh, my dear man, if I were not sure of myself, I shouldn’t make the suggestion to you. I have such scorn and loathing for love, as you men understand it, that I should never be tempted to lose my head. Do you accept?”

I kissed her hand.

“When do we start, madame?”

“May the tenth. Is it a bargain?”

“It’s a bargain.”

A month later, I was installed in her house. She really was a singular woman. She studied me from morning till evening. As she adores horses, we spent hours riding in the woods every day, talking about everything under the sun, for she was bent on probing my most intimate thoughts as earnestly as she strove to observe my smallest actions.

As for me, I became madly in love with her and I troubled myself not a whit about the harmony of our natures. I soon became aware that even my slumbers were subject to surveillance. Someone slept in a little room next mine, never entering it until late at night, and with infinite precautions. At last I became impatient of this incessant spying. I wanted to hasten the issue, and one evening I became urgent. She dealt with me in such a way that I refrained from all further attempts; but I was seized with a violent desire to make her pay, somehow or other, for the surveillance to which I was subjected, and I pondered on ways and means.

You know Césarine, her maid, a pretty girl from Granville, where all the girls are beautiful⁠—but as fair as her mistress is dark.

One afternoon I drew the maid into my room, slipped five francs into her hand, and said to her:

“My dear child, I’m not going to ask you to do anything wrong, but I want to treat your mistress as she is treating me.”

The little maid smiled mockingly. I went on:

“I know I’m watched day and night. I’m watched eating, drinking, dressing, shaving, and putting on my socks, I know it.”

The young girl got out:

“Well, you see, sir⁠ ⁠…” She stopped. I continued:

“You sleep in the room next mine to listen if I snore, or if I dream aloud, don’t deny it.”

She began to laugh outright, and said:

“Well, you see, sir⁠ ⁠…” then stopped again.

I warmed to my theme:

“Well, you realise, my girl, that it’s not just that everything should be known about me and I know nothing about the lady who will be my wife. I love her with all my soul. She is my ideal in looks, mind and heart; so far as that goes, I’m the happiest of men. However, there are some things I would give a lot to know.⁠ ⁠…”

Césarine decided to thrust my banknote into her pocket. I understood that she had come to terms.

“Listen, my girl, we men, we think a lot of certain⁠ ⁠… certain⁠ ⁠… physical details, which don’t prevent a woman from being charming, but can alter her value in our eyes. I’m not asking you to speak ill of your mistress, nor even to confess her secret faults, if she has any. Only answer frankly four or five questions I’m going to put to you. You know Mme. de Jadelle as well as you know yourself, since you dress and undress her every day. Well, now, tell me this: Is she as plump as she seems to be?”

The little maid did not answer.

I went on:

“Come, my child, you’re not ignorant that some women put wadding, you know, wadding where, where⁠ ⁠… well, wadding in the place where babies are fed, and on the place where you sit down. Tell me, does she pad?”

Césarine had lowered her gaze. She said timidly:

“Ask all your questions, sir. I’ll answer them all at once.”

“Well, my girl, some women have knock-knees, too, so badly that they rub against each other with every step they take. Others have them so widely separated that their legs are like the arches of a bridge. You can see the countryside through them. Both fashions are very pretty. Tell me what your mistress’s legs are like.”

The little maid did not answer.

I continued:

“Some women have such a fine breast that it forms a deep fold underneath. Some have plump arms and a thin figure. Some are well shaped in front and have no shape at all behind; others are well shaped behind and have no shape in front. All these fashions are very pretty, very pretty; but I would dearly like to know how your mistress is shaped. Tell me frankly and I will give you still more money.”

Césarine looked at me searchingly and, laughing heartily, said:

“Except that she’s black, sir, madame is shaped just like me.” Then she ran away.

I was sold.

This time I felt a fool, and I determined that I would at least avenge myself on this impertinent maid.

An hour later, I cautiously entered the little room, where she listened to my slumbers, and unscrewed the bolts.

She arrived about midnight at her observation post. I followed her at once. When she saw me, she made as if to cry out; but I shut her mouth with my hand and convinced myself with very little trouble that, unless she was lying, Mme. de Jadelle must be very well made indeed.

I even took a great delight in this process of verification, which, moreover, pushed a little farther, did not seem any less pleasing to Césarine.

She was, upon my word, a ravishing specimen of the Bas-Normande race, at once sturdy and slender. She was innocent of certain delicate refinements that Henry IV would have scorned. I very soon taught her them, and as I adore perfumes, I made her a present that same evening of a flask of amber lavender.

We were soon more attached than I would have believed possible, almost friends. She became an exquisite mistress, naturally intelligent, made for the pleasures of love. In Paris she would have been a notable courtesan.

The delights she afforded me enabled me to wait patiently for the end of Mme. de Jadelle’s test. My behaviour became quite irreproachable, I was pliant, docile, complaisant.

As for my betrothed, she must have found me quite delightful, and I was aware from certain signs that I was soon to be fully accepted. I was certainly one of the happiest men in the world, placidly waiting for the lawful kiss of a woman I adored in the arms of a young and beautiful girl of whom I was uncommonly fond.

This, madame, is where you must turn away a little. I have come to the delicate point.

One evening, as we were coming back from our ride, Mme. de Jadelle complained bitterly that the grooms had not given her mount certain attentions upon which she insisted. She even repeated several times: “They’d better take care, they’d better take care. I know how to catch them out.”

I passed a quiet night, in my bed. I woke up early, full of life and energy. And I dressed.

I had formed the habit of going every morning to smoke a cigarette on a turret of the château that had a spiral staircase, lit by a large window at the height of the first floor.

I was advancing silently, my feet in felt-soled morocco slippers, to ascend the first steps, when I saw Césarine leaning out of the window looking out.

I did not see the whole of Césarine but only one-half of Césarine, the lower half of her. I preferred this half! I might have preferred the upper half of Mme. de Jadelle. The half presented to me was delightful so, clad in a little white petticoat that hardly covered it.

I approached so softly that the young girl heard nothing. I kneeled down; with infinite caution I took hold of the two edges of the petticoat and lifted it quickly. Immediately I recognised, round, fresh, plump and smooth, my mistress’s secret face, and I pressed on it⁠—pardon, madame⁠—I pressed on it a tender kiss, the kiss of a lover who dares do anything.

I was surprised. There was a fragrance of verbena. But I had no time to think about it. I received a terrific blow, or rather a push in the face, that almost broke my nose. I heard a cry that made my hair stand on end. The woman turned round⁠—it was Mme. de Jadelle.

She beat the air with her hands like a woman on the verge of fainting; for a few moments she stood gasping, lifted her hand as if to thrash me, then fled.

Ten minutes later, a dumbfounded Césarine brought me a letter. I read: “Mme. de Jadelle hopes that M. de Brives will relieve her of his company at once.”

I went.

Well, I am still disconsolate. I have tried by every means and every explanation to win pardon for my error. All my endeavours have been in vain.

Since that moment, do you know, I cherish in⁠ ⁠… in my heart⁠ ⁠… a faint fragrance of verbena that fills me with a wild longing to savour its sweetness again.

The Donkey

There was not a breath of air stirring; a heavy mist was lying over the river. It was like a layer of dull white cotton placed on the water. The banks themselves were indistinct, hidden behind strange fogs. But day was breaking and the hill was becoming visible. At its foot, in the dawning light of day, the plaster houses began to appear like white spots. Cocks were crowing in the barnyard.

On the other side of the river, hidden behind the fogs just opposite Frette, a slight noise from time to time broke the dead silence of the quiet morning. At times it was an indistinct plashing, like the cautious advance of a boat, then again a sharp noise like the rattle of an oar and then the sound of something dropping in the water. Then silence.

Sometimes whispered words, coming perhaps from a distance, perhaps from quite near, pierced through these opaque mists. They passed by like wild birds which have slept in the rushes and which fly away at the first light of day, crossing the mist and uttering a low and timid sound which wakes their brothers along the shores.

Suddenly along the bank, near the village, a barely perceptible shadow appeared on the water. Then it grew, became more distinct and, coming out of the foggy curtain which hung over the river, a flatboat, manned by two men, pushed up on the grass.

The one who was rowing rose and took a pailful of fish from the bottom of the boat, then he threw the dripping net over his shoulder. His companion, who had not made a motion, exclaimed: “Say, Mailloche, get your gun and see if we can’t land some rabbit along the shore.”

The other one answered: “All right. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Then he disappeared, in order to hide their catch.

The man who had stayed in the boat slowly filled his pipe and lighted it. His name was Labouise, but he was called Chicot, and was in partnership with Maillochon, commonly called Mailloche, practising the doubtful and undefined profession of junk-gatherers along the shore.

They were a low order of sailors and they navigated regularly only in the months of famine. The rest of the time they acted as junk-gatherers. Rowing about on the river day and night, watching for any prey, dead or alive, poachers on the water and nocturnal hunters, sometimes hunting deer in the Saint-Germain forests, sometimes looking for drowned people and searching their clothes, picking up floating rags and empty bottles; thus did Labouise and Maillochon live easily.

At times they would set out on foot about noon and stroll along straight ahead. They would dine in some inn on the shore and leave again side by side. They would remain away for a couple of days; then one morning they would be seen rowing about in the tub which they called their boat.

At Joinville or at Nogent some boatman would be looking for his boat, which had disappeared one night, probably stolen, while twenty or thirty miles from there, on the Oise, some shopkeeper would be rubbing his hands, congratulating himself on the bargain he had made when he bought a boat the day before for fifty francs, which two men offered him as they were passing.

Maillochon reappeared with his gun wrapped up in rags. He was a man of forty or fifty, tall and thin, with the restless eye of people who are worried by legitimate troubles, the eyes of hunted animals. His open shirt showed his hairy chest, but he seemed never to have had any more hair on his face than a short brush of a mustache and a few stiff hairs under his lower lip. He was bald around the temples. When he took off the dirty cap that he wore his scalp seemed to be covered with a fluffy down, like the body of a plucked chicken, ready for the spit.

Chicot, on the contrary, was red, fat, short and hairy. He looked like a raw beefsteak hidden in a fireman’s cap. He continually kept his left eye closed, as if he were aiming at something or at somebody, and when people jokingly cried to him: “Open your eye, Labouise!” he would answer quietly: “Never fear, kid, I open it when there’s cause to.”

He had a habit of calling everyone kid, even his scavenger companion.

He took up the oars again, and once more the boat disappeared in the heavy mist, which was now turned snowy white in the pink-tinted sky.

“What kind of lead did you take, Maillochon?” Labouise asked.

“Very small, number nine; that’s the best for rabbits.”

They were approaching the other shore so slowly, so quietly that no noise betrayed them. This bank belongs to the Saint-Germain forest and is the boundary line for rabbit hunting. It is covered with burrows hidden under the roots of trees, and the creatures at daybreak frisk about, running in and out of the holes.

Maillochon was kneeling in the bow, watching, his gun hidden on the floor. Suddenly he seized it, aimed, and the report echoed for some time throughout the quiet country.

Labouise, in a few strokes, touched the beach, and his companion, jumping to the ground, picked up a little gray rabbit, not yet dead.

Then the boat once more disappeared into the fog in order to get to the other side, where it could keep away from the game keepers.

The two men seemed to be riding easily on the water. The weapon had disappeared under the board which served as a hiding place and the rabbit was stuffed into Chicot’s loose shirt.

After about a quarter of an hour Labouise asked: “Well, kid, shall we get one more?”

“That will suit me,” Maillochon answered.

The boat started swiftly down the current. The mist, which was hiding both shores, was beginning to rise. The trees could be barely perceived, as through a veil, and the little clouds of fog were floating up from the water. When they drew near the island, the end of which is opposite Herblay, the two men slackened their pace and began to watch. Soon a second rabbit was killed.

Then they went down until they were halfway to Conflans. Here they stopped their boat, tied it to a tree and went to sleep in the bottom of it.

From time to time Labouise would sit up and look over the horizon with his open eye. The last of the morning mist had disappeared and the large summer sun was climbing in the blue sky.

On the other side of the river the vineyard-covered hill stretched out in a semicircle. One house stood out alone at the summit. Everything was silent.

Something was moving slowly along the towpath, advancing with difficulty. It was a woman dragging a donkey. The stubborn, stiff-jointed beast occasionally stretched out a leg in answer to its companion’s efforts, and it proceeded thus, with outstretched neck and ears lying flat, so slowly that one could not tell when it would ever be out of sight.

The woman, bent double, was pulling, turning round occasionally to strike the donkey with a stick.

As soon as he saw her, Labouise exclaimed: “Hey, Mailloche!”

Mailloche answered: “What’s the matter?”

“Want to have some fun?”

“Of course!”

“Then hurry, kid; we’re going to have a laugh.”

Chicot took the oars. When he had crossed the river he stopped opposite the woman and called: “Hey, sister!”

The woman stopped dragging her donkey and looked.

Labouise continued: “What are you doing⁠—going to the locomotive show?”

The woman made no reply. Chicot continued: “That nag must have won a prize at the races. Where are you taking him at that speed?”

At last the woman answered: “I’m going to Macquart, at Champioux, to have him killed. He’s worthless.”

Labouise answered: “You’re right. How much do you think Macquart will give you for him?”

The woman wiped her forehead on the back of her hand and hesitated, saying: “How do I know? Perhaps three francs, perhaps four.”

Chicot exclaimed: “I’ll give you five francs and your errand’s done! How’s that?”

The woman considered the matter for a second and then exclaimed: “Done!”

The two men landed. Labouise grasped the animal by the bridle. Maillochon asked in surprise: “What do you expect to do with that carcass?”

Chicot this time opened his other eye in order to express his gaiety. His whole red face was grinning with joy. He chuckled: “Don’t worry, kid. I’ve got my idea.”

He gave five francs to the woman, who then sat down by the road to see what was going to happen. Then Laboise, in great humour, got the gun and held it out to Maillochon, saying: “Each one in turn; we’re going after big game, kid. Don’t get so near or you’ll kill it right off! You must make the pleasure last a little.”

He placed his companion about forty paces from the victim. The ass, feeling itself free, was trying to get a little of the tall grass, but it was so exhausted that it swayed on its legs as if it were about to fall.

Maillochon aimed slowly and said: “A little pepper for the ears; watch, Chicot!” And he fired.

The tiny shot struck the donkey’s long ears and he began to shake them in order to get rid of the stinging sensation. The two men were doubled up with laughter and stamped their feet with joy. The woman, indignant, rushed forward; she did not want her donkey to be tortured, and she offered to return the five francs. Labouise threatened her with a thrashing and pretended to roll up his sleeves. He had paid, hadn’t he? Well, then, he would take a shot at her skirts, just to show that it didn’t hurt. She went away, threatening to call the police. They could hear her protesting indignantly and cursing as she went her way.

Maillochon held out the gun to his comrade, saying: “It’s your turn, Chicot.”

Labouise aimed and fired. The donkey received the charge in his thighs, but the shot was so small and came from such a distance that he thought he was being stung by flies, for he began to thrash himself with his tail.

Labouise sat down to laugh more comfortably, while Maillochon reloaded the weapon, so happy that he seemed to sneeze into the barrel. He stepped forward a few paces, and, aiming at the same place that his friend had shot at, he fired again. This time the beast started, tried to kick and turned its head. At last a little blood was running. It had been wounded and felt a sharp pain, for it tried to run away with a slow, limping, jerky gallop.

Both men darted after the beast, Maillochon with a long stride, Labouise with the short breathless trot of a little man. But the donkey, tired out, had stopped, and, with a bewildered look, was watching his two murderers approach. Suddenly he stretched his neck and began to bray.

Labouise, out of breath, had taken the gun. This time he walked right up close, as he did not wish to begin the chase over again.

When the poor beast had finished its mournful cry, like a last call for help, the man called: “Hey, Mailloche! Come here, kid; I’m going to give him some medicine.” And while the other man was forcing the animal’s mouth open, Chicot stuck the barrel of his gun down its throat, as if he were trying to make it drink a potion. Then he said: “Look out, kid, here she goes!”

He pressed the trigger. The donkey stumbled back a few steps, fell down, tried to get up again and finally lay on its side and closed its eyes. The whole body was trembling, its legs were kicking as if it were trying to run. A stream of blood was oozing through its teeth. Soon it stopped moving. It was dead.

The two men stopped laughing. It was over too quickly; they had not had their money’s worth. Maillochon asked: “Well, what are we going to do now?”

Labouise answered: “Don’t worry, kid. Get the thing on the boat; we’re going to have some fun when night comes.”

They went and got the boat. The animal’s body was placed on the bottom, covered with fresh grass, and the two men stretched out on it and went to sleep.

Toward noon Labouise drew a bottle of wine, some bread and butter and raw onions from a hiding place in their muddy, worm-eaten boat, and they began to eat.

When the meal was over they once more stretched out on the dead donkey and slept. At nightfall Labouise awoke and shook his comrade, who was snoring like a buzz-saw. “Come on, kid,” he ordered.

Maillochon began to row. As they had plenty of time they went up the Seine slowly. They coasted along the reaches covered with water-lilies, and the heavy, mud-covered boat slipped over the lily pads and bent the flowers, which stood up again as soon as they had passed.

When they reached the wall of the Éperon, which separates the Saint-Germain forest from the Maisons-Laffitte Park, Labouise stopped his companion and explained his idea to him. Maillochon was moved by a prolonged, silent laugh.

They threw into the water the grass which had covered the body, took the animal by the feet and hid it behind some bushes. Then they got into their boat again and went to Maisons-Laffitte.

The night was perfectly black when they reached the wine shop of old man Jules. As soon as the dealer saw them he came up, shook hands with them and sat down at their table. They began to talk of one thing and another. By eleven o’clock the last customer had left and old man Jules winked at Labouise and asked: “Well, have you got any?”

Labouise made a motion with his head and answered: “Perhaps so, perhaps not!”

The dealer insisted: “Perhaps you’ve got nothing but gray ones?”

Chicot dug his hands into his flannel shirt, drew out the ears of a rabbit and declared: “Three francs a pair!”

Then began a long discussion about the price. Two francs sixty-five and the two rabbits were delivered. As the two men were getting up to go, old man Jules, who had been watching them, exclaimed: “You have something else, but you won’t say what.”

Labouise answered: “Possibly, but it is not for you; you’re too stingy.”

The man, growing eager, kept asking: “What is it? Something big? Perhaps we might make a deal.”

Labouise, who seemed perplexed, pretended to consult Maillochon with a glance. Then he answered in a slow voice: “This is how it is. We were in the bushes at Éperon when something passed right near us, to the left, at the end of the wall. Mailloche takes a shot and it drops. We skipped on account of the game people. I can’t tell you what it is, because I don’t know. But it’s big enough. But what is it? If I told you I’d be lying, and you know, kid, between us everything’s aboveboard.”

Anxiously the man asked: “Think it’s a deer?”

Labouise answered: “Might be and then again it might not! Deer?⁠—uh! uh!⁠—might be a little big for that! Mind you, I don’t say it’s a doe, because I don’t know, but it might be.”

Still the dealer insisted: “Perhaps it’s a buck?” Labouise stretched out his hand, exclaiming: “No, it’s not that! It’s not a buck. I should have seen the horns. No, it’s not a buck!”

“Why didn’t you bring it with you?” asked the man.

“Because, kid, from now on I sell on the spot. Plenty of people will buy. All you have to do is to take a walk over there, find the thing and take it. No risk for me.”

The innkeeper, growing suspicious, exclaimed: “Supposing he wasn’t there!”

Labouise once more raised his hand and said: “He’s there, I swear!⁠—first bush to the left. What it is, I don’t know. But it’s not a buck, I’m positive. It’s for you to find out what it is. Twenty francs, cash down!”

Still the man hesitated: “Couldn’t you bring it?”

Maillochon then became spokesman:

“Then there is no bargain. If it is a buck, it will be fifty francs, if it is a doe, twenty-five; that’s our price.”

The dealer decided: “It’s a bargain for twenty francs!”

And they shook hands over the deal.

Then he took out four big five-francs pieces from the cash drawer, and the two friends pocketed the money. Labouise arose, emptied his glass and left. As he was disappearing in the shadows he turned round to explain: “It isn’t a buck. I don’t know what it is! but it’s there. I’ll give you back your money if you find nothing!”

And he disappeared in the darkness. Maillochon, who was following him, kept punching him in the back to express his delight.

André’s Disease

The lawyer’s house looked on to the Square. Behind it, there was a nice, well-kept garden, extending to the Passage des Piques, which was almost always deserted, and from which it was separated by a wall.

At the bottom of that garden Maître Moreau’s wife had promised, for the first time, to meet Captain Sommerive, who had been making love to her for a long time.

Her husband had gone to Paris for a week, so she was quite free for the time being. The Captain had begged so hard, and had used such loving words; she was certain that he loved her so ardently, and she felt so isolated, so misunderstood, so neglected amid all the law business which seemed to be her husband’s sole pleasure, that she had given away her heart without even asking herself whether she would give anything else some day.

Then, after some months of Platonic love, of pressing of hands, of quick kisses stolen behind a door, the Captain had declared that he would ask permission to exchange, and leave the town immediately, if she would not grant him a meeting, a real meeting in the shadow of the trees, during her husband’s absence. So she had yielded to his importunity, as she had promised.

Just then she was waiting, close against the wall, with a beating heart, trembling at the slightest sound, and when she heard somebody climbing up the wall, she very nearly ran away.

Suppose it were not he, but a thief? But no; someone called out softly, “Mathilde!” and when she replied, “Étienne!” a man jumped on to the path with a crash.

It was he! What a kiss!

For a long time they remained in each other’s arms, with united lips. But suddenly a fine rain began to fall, and the drops from the leaves fell on to her neck and made her start. Whereupon he said:

“Mathilde, my adored one, my darling, my angel, let us go indoors. It is twelve o’clock, we can have nothing to fear; please let us go in.”

“No, dearest; I am too frightened. Who knows what might happen?”

But he held her in his arms, and whispered in her ear:

“Your servants sleep on the third floor, looking on to the Square, and your room, on the first, looks on to the garden, so nobody can hear us. I love you so that I wish to love you entirely, from head to foot.” And he embraced her vehemently, maddening her with his kisses.

She resisted still, frightened and even ashamed. But he put his arms round her, lifted her up, and carried her off through the rain, which was by this time descending in torrents.

The door was open; they groped their way upstairs; and when they were in the room she bolted the door while he lit a match.

Then she fell, half fainting, into a chair, while he kneeled down beside her and slowly he undressed her, beginning with her shoes and stockings in order to kiss her feet.

At last, she said, panting:

“No! no! Étienne, please let me remain a virtuous woman; I should be too angry with you afterwards; and after all, it is so horrid, so common. Cannot we love each other with a spiritual love only? Oh! Étienne!”

With the skill of a lady’s maid and the speed of a man in a hurry, he unbuttoned, untied, unhooked and unlaced without stopping, and when she tried to get up and run away, she suddenly emerged from her dress, her petticoat and her underclothes as naked as a hand thrust from a muff. In her fright she ran to the bed in order to hide herself behind the curtains; but it was a dangerous place of refuge, and he followed her. But in haste he took off his sword too quickly, and it fell on to the floor with a crash. And then a prolonged, shrill child’s cry came from the next room, the door of which had remained open.

“You have awakened André,” she whispered, “and he won’t be able to go to sleep again.”

Her son was only fifteen months old and slept in a room opening out of hers, so that she might be able to watch over him all the time.

The Captain exclaimed ardently:

“What does it matter, Mathilde? How I love you; you must come to me, Mathilde.”

But she struggled and resisted in her fright.

“No! no! Just listen how he is crying; he will wake up the nurse, and what should we do if she were to come? We should be lost.

“Just listen to me, Étienne. When he screams at night his father always takes him into our bed, and he is quiet immediately; it is the only means of keeping him still. Do let me take him.”

The child roared, uttering shrill screams, which pierced the thickest walls and could be heard by passersby in the streets.

In his consternation the Captain got up, and Mathilde jumped out and took the child into her bed, when he was quiet at once.

Étienne sat astride on a chair, and rolled a cigarette, and in about five minutes André went to sleep again.

“I will take him back,” his mother said; and she took him back very carefully to his cradle.

When she returned, the Captain was waiting for her with open arms, and put his arms round her in a transport of love, while she, embracing him more closely, said, stammering:

“Oh! Étienne, my darling, if you only knew how I love you; how⁠—”

André began to cry again, and he, in a rage, exclaimed:

“Confound it all, won’t the little brat be quiet?”

No, the little brat would not be quiet, but howled all the louder, on the contrary.

She thought she heard a noise downstairs; no doubt the nurse was coming, so she jumped up and took the child into bed, and he grew quiet directly.

Three times she put him back, and three times she had to fetch him again, and an hour before daybreak the Captain had to go, swearing like the proverbial trooper; and, to calm his impatience, Mathilde promised to receive him again the next night. Of course he came, more impatient and ardent than ever, excited by the delay.

He took care to lay his sword carefully on the arms of a chair, he took off his boots like a thief, and spoke so low that Mathilde could hardly hear him. At last, he was just going to be really happy when the floor, or some piece of furniture, or perhaps the bed itself, creaked; it sounded as if something had broken; and in a moment a cry, feeble at first, but which grew louder, every moment, made itself heard. André was awake again.

He yapped like a fox, and there was not the slightest doubt that if he went on like that the whole house would awake; so his mother, not knowing what to do, got up and brought him. The Captain was more furious than ever, but did not move, and very carefully he put out his hand, took a small piece of the child’s flesh between his two fingers, no matter where it was, the thighs or elsewhere, and pinched it. The little one struggled and screamed in a deafening manner, but his tormentor pinched everywhere, furiously and more vigorously. He took a piece of flesh and twisted and turned it, and then let go, only to take hold of another piece, and then another and another.

The child screamed like a chicken having its throat cut, or a dog being mercilessly beaten. His mother caressed him, kissed him, and tried to stifle his cries by her tenderness; but André grew purple, as if he were going into convulsions, and kicked and struggled with his little arms and legs in an alarming manner.

The Captain said, softly:

“Try to take him back to his cradle; perhaps he will be quiet.”

And Mathilde went into the other room with the child in her arms. As soon as he was out of his mother’s bed he cried less loudly, and when he was in his own he was quiet, with the exception of a few broken sobs. The rest of the night was quiet and the Captain was happy.

The next night the Captain came again. As he happened to speak rather loudly, André awoke again and began to scream. His mother went and fetched him immediately, but the Captain pinched so hard and long that the child was nearly suffocated by its cries, its eyes turned in its head and it foamed at the mouth. As soon as it was back in its cradle it was quiet, and in four days André did not cry any more to come into his mother’s bed.

On Saturday evening the lawyer returned, and took his place again at the domestic hearth and in the conjugal chamber. As he was tired with his journey he went to bed early; but he had not long lain down when he said to his wife:

“Why, how is it that André is not crying? Just go and fetch him, Mathilde; I like to feel that he is between us.”

She got up and brought the child, but as soon as he saw that he was in that bed, in which he had been so fond of sleeping a few days before, he wriggled and screamed so violently in his fright that she had to take him back to his cradle.

M. Moreau could not get over his surprise. “What a very funny thing! What is the matter with him this evening? I suppose he is sleepy?”

“He has been like that all the time that you were away; I have never been able to have him in bed with me once.”

In the morning the child woke up and began to laugh and play with his toys.

The lawyer, who was an affectionate man, got up, kissed his offspring, and took him into his arms to carry him to their bed. André laughed, with that vacant laugh of little creatures whose ideas are still vague. He suddenly saw the bed and his mother in it, and his happy little face puckered up, till suddenly he began to scream furiously, and struggled as if he were going to be put to the torture.

In his astonishment his father said:

“There must be something the matter with the child,” and mechanically he lifted up his little nightshirt.

He uttered a prolonged “O‑o‑h!” of astonishment. The child’s calves, thighs, and buttocks were covered with blue spots as big as halfpennies.

“Just look, Mathilde!” the father exclaimed; “this is horrible!” And the mother rushed forward in a fright. It was horrible; no doubt the beginning of some sort of leprosy, of one of those strange affections of the skin which doctors are often at a loss to account for. The parents looked at one another in consternation.

“We must send for the doctor,” the father said.

But Mathilde, pale as death, was looking at her child, who was spotted like a leopard. Then suddenly uttering a violent cry as if she had seen something that filled her with horror, she exclaimed:

“Oh! the wretch!”

M. Moreau, surprised asked: “What? Whom are you speaking about? What wretch?”

She reddened up to the roots of her hair and stammered: “Nothing⁠ ⁠… it is⁠ ⁠… you see, I guess⁠ ⁠… It must be⁠ ⁠… Don’t let us get the doctor. It is surely that miserable nurse who pinches the little one to make him stop when he cries.” The notary, very angry, went to the nurse and nearly beat her. She denied the charges, but was discharged. Her conduct was denounced to the municipal authorities, and she could never get another situation.

The Moustache

Château de Solles, Monday, July 30, 1883.

My Dear Lucy:

I have no news. We live in the drawing room, looking out at the rain. We cannot go out in this frightful weather, so we have theatricals. My dear, how stupid these drawing room plays are nowadays! Everything is forced, coarse, heavy. The jokes are like cannon balls, smashing everything in their passage. No wit, nothing natural, no good humour, no elegance. These literary men, in truth, know nothing of society. They are perfectly ignorant of how people think and talk in our set. I do not mind if they despise our customs, our conventions, and our manners, but I do not forgive them for not knowing them. When they want to be humorous they make puns that would entertain a sergeants’ mess; when they try to be jolly, they give us jokes that they must have picked up on the outer boulevards, in those beer houses artists are supposed to frequent, where one has heard the same students’ jokes for fifty years.

So we have taken to theatricals. As we are only two women, my husband takes the part of a soubrette, and, in order to do that, he has shaved off his moustache. You cannot imagine, my dear Lucy, how it changes him! I no longer recognize him⁠—by day or at night. If he did not let it grow again I think I should no longer love him; he looks so horrid like this.

In fact, a man without a moustache is no longer a man. I do not care much for a beard; it almost always makes a man look untidy. But a moustache, oh, a moustache is indispensable to a manly face. No, you would never believe how pleasant these little hair bristles on the upper lip are to look at and⁠ ⁠… in other ways. I have thought over the matter a great deal, but hardly dare to write my thoughts. I would like to whisper them to you. Words look so different on paper and the subject is so difficult, so delicate, so dangerous that it requires infinite skill to tackle it.

Well, when my husband appeared, shaven, I understood at once that I never could fall in love with a strolling actor nor a preacher, even if it were Father Didon, the most charming of all! Later when I was alone with him (my husband) it was worse still. Oh, my dear Lucy, never let yourself be kissed by a man without a moustache; their kisses have no flavour, none whatever! They no longer have the charm, the mellowness and the snap⁠—yes, the snap⁠—of a real kiss. The moustache is the spice.

Imagine placing to your lips a piece of dry⁠—or moist⁠—parchment. That is the kiss of the man without a moustache. It is not worth while.

Whence comes this charm of the moustache, will you tell me? Do I know myself? It tickles your face, you feel it approaching your mouth and it sends a little shiver through you down to the tips of your toes.

And on your neck! Have you ever felt a moustache on your neck? It intoxicates you, makes you feel creepy, goes to the tips of your fingers. You wriggle, shake your shoulders, toss back your head. You wish to get away and at the same time to remain there; it is delightful, but irritating. But how good it is!

And then⁠ ⁠… really I am afraid to say it! A husband who loves you, absolutely, I mean, knows a lot of little corners to be kissed, places one never could think of alone. These kisses, without a moustache, also lose much of their flavour. In fact they become indecent. Can you explain this? I think I know why. A lip without a moustache is like a body without clothing; and one must wear clothes, very few, if you like, but still some clothing. The Creator (I dare not use any other word in speaking of such things) took care to cover all the parts of our body that were made for love. A shaven lip makes me think of trees that have been felled around a fountain where one hoped to quench one’s thirst and rest.

I recall a sentence (uttered by a politician) which has been running in my mind for three months. My husband, who keeps up with the newspapers, read me one evening a very singular speech by our Minister of Agriculture, who was called M. Méline. He may have been superseded by this time. I do not know.

I was paying no attention, but the name Méline struck me. It recalled, I do not exactly know why, the Scènes de la vie de bohème. I thought it was about some grisette. That shows how scraps of the speech entered my mind. This M. Méline was making this statement to the people of Amiens, I believe, and I have ever since been trying to understand what he meant: “There is no patriotism without agriculture!” Well, I have just discovered his meaning, and I affirm in my turn that there is no love without a moustache. When you say it that way it sounds comical, does it not?

There is no love without a moustache!

“There is no patriotism without agriculture,” said M. Méline, and he was right, that minister; I now understand why.

From a very different point of view the moustache is essential. It gives character to the face. It makes a man look gentle, tender, violent, a monster, a rake, enterprising! The hairy man, who does not shave off his whiskers, never has a refined look, for his features are concealed, and the shape of the jaw and the chin betrays a great deal to those who understand.

The man with a moustache retains his own peculiar expression and his refinement at the same time.

And how many different varieties of moustaches there are! Sometimes they are twisted, curled, coquettish. Those seem to be chiefly devoted to women.

Sometimes they are pointed, sharp as needles, and threatening. That kind prefers wine, horses and war.

Sometimes they are enormous, overhanging, frightful. These big ones generally conceal a fine disposition, a kindliness that borders on weakness and a gentleness that savours of timidity.

But what I adore above all in the moustache is that it is French, altogether French. It came from our ancestors, the Gauls, and has remained the insignia of our national character.

It is boastful, gallant and brave. It sips wine gracefully and knows how to laugh with refinement, while the broad-bearded jaws are clumsy in everything they do.

I recall something that made me cry my heart out, and also⁠—I see it now⁠—made me love a moustache on a man’s face.

It was during the war, when I was living with my father. I was a young girl then. One day there was a skirmish near the château. I had heard the firing of the cannon and of the artillery all the morning, and that evening a German colonel came and quartered himself in our house. He left the following day. My father was informed that there were a number of dead in the fields. He had them brought to our place so that they might be buried together. They were laid all along the great avenue of pines as fast as they brought them in, on both sides of the avenue, and as they began to smell, their bodies were covered with earth until the deep trench could be dug. Thus one saw only their heads, which seemed to protrude from the earth and were almost as yellow, with their closed eyes.

I wanted to see them. But when I saw those two rows of frightful faces, I thought I should faint. However, I began to look at them, one by one, trying to guess what kind of men these had been.

The uniforms were concealed beneath the earth, and yet immediately, yes, immediately, my dear, I recognized the Frenchmen by their moustache!

Some of them had shaved on the very day of the battle, as though they wished to be elegant up to the last; others seemed to have a week’s growth, but all wore the French moustache, very plain, the proud moustache that seems to say: “Do not take me for my bearded friend, dear; I am a brother.”

And I cried, oh, I cried a great deal more than I should if I had not recognized them, the poor dead fellows.

It was wrong of me to tell you this. Now I am sad and cannot chatter any longer. Well, goodbye, dear Lucy. I send you a hearty kiss. Long live the moustache!

Jeanne.

Timbuktu

The boulevard, that river of life, swarmed with people in the golden dust of the setting sun. The whole sky was a blinding red; and, behind the Madeleine, an immense blazing cloud flung along the great avenue an oblique shower of fire, quivering like the vapour above a brazier.

The gay, throbbing crowd went by under this flaming mist, and seemed transfigured. Faces were gilded, black hats and clothes took on purple gleams; the varnish on their shoes darted flames across the asphalt pavement.

In front of the cafés a throng of men were drinking gleaming, coloured beverages, which looked like precious stones melted into the crystal.

In this crowd of people with their thin and sombre clothes, sat two officers in full uniform, and the dazzling brilliance of their gold lace made every eye glance at them. They were talking gaily and aimlessly, in the midst of all this radiant vibrant life, in the glowing splendour of the evening; and they were watching the throng, the sauntering men and the hurrying women who left behind them a divine and disquieting perfume.

Suddenly an enormous Negro, dressed in black, potbellied, bedizened with trinkets on his waistcoat of ticking, his face shining as though it had been polished with blacking, passed in front of them with an air of triumph. He laughed at the passersby, he laughed at the newspaper-vendors, he laughed at the blazing sky, he laughed at the whole of Paris. He was so tall that his head overtopped all others; and, behind him, all the loungers turned round to stare at his back.

But suddenly he caught sight of the officers, and, jostling through the crowd of drinkers, he rushed up to them. As soon as he was in front of their table, he fixed his gleaming, delighted eyes upon them, and the corners of his mouth rose to his ears, disclosing his white teeth, bright as a crescent moon in a black sky. The two men, bewildered, stared at this ebony giant, unable to make head or tail of his merriment.

And he cried out, in a voice which drew a burst of laughter from every table:

“Mawnin’, Lieutenant.”

One of the officers was a battalion-commander, the other a colonel. The former said:

“I don’t know you, sir. I am quite unable to imagine what you want of me.”

The Negro replied:

“Me like you much, Lieutenant Védié, siege of Bézi, we hunt much grapes.”

The officer, quite at a loss, stared fixedly at the fellow, groping in the depths of his memory; and exclaimed abruptly:

“Timbuktu!”

The Negro, radiant, smacked his thigh, uttered a laugh of unbelievable violence, and roared:

“Ya, ya, my lieutenant, remember Timbuktu, ya, mawnin’!”

The major gave him his hand, laughing heartily himself. Then Timbuktu became serious again. He took the officer’s hand and, so swiftly that the other could not prevent him, he kissed it, according to the custom of the Negroes and the Arabs. The embarrassed officer said to him in a severe voice:

“Come, Timbuktu, we are not in Africa. Sit down there and tell me how it is that I find you here.”

Timbuktu stretched his paunch, and, speaking so fast that he stammered, announced:

“Make much money, very much, big rest’rant, good eat, Prussians, me, steal much, very much, F’ench cooking, me get hund’ed thousand f’ancs. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

And he writhed with laughter, bellowing with a gleam of mad merriment in his eyes.

When the officer, who understood his strange language, had questioned him for some time, he said to him:

“Well, goodbye, Timbuktu; see you again soon.”

The Negro promptly rose, shook, this time, the outstretched hand, and, still laughing, exclaimed:

“Mawnin’, mawnin’, Lieutenant!”

And he departed, so happy that he gesticulated as he walked, and the crowd took him for a lunatic.

“Who was that brute?” inquired the colonel.

“A good lad and a good soldier,” replied the major. “I will tell you what I know about him; it is funny enough.

“You know that at the beginning of the war of 1870 I was shut up in Bézières, the place the Negro calls Bézi. We were not besieged, but blockaded. The Prussian lines surrounded us on every side, out of range of cannon-shot, and not firing on us, but gradually starving us out.

“I was a lieutenant at the time. Our garrison was composed of troops of every sort, the remnants of decimated regiments, fugitives and marauders separated from their army corps. We even had eleven Turcos, who arrived one evening, no one knows how or whence. They had turned up at the gates of the town, worn out, ragged, starving, and drunk. They were entrusted to me.

“I very soon realised that they detested every form of discipline; they were always getting out of the town, and were always drunk. I tried the police station, even a dose of prison; nothing did any good. My men would disappear for whole days, as though they had burrowed underground, and then would reappear so tipsy that they could not stand. They had no money. Where did they drink? And how, and by what means?

“The problem began to fascinate me, especially as these savages interested me, with their perpetual laugh and their natures of overgrown, naughty boys.

“I noticed at last that they obeyed blindly the biggest of the lot; the one you have just seen. He ruled them absolutely as he chose, and prepared their mysterious enterprises with the undisputed authority of an omnipotent chief. I made him come and see me, and questioned him. Our conversation lasted a good three hours, so much trouble it took me to comprehend his surprising rigmarole. As for him, poor devil, he made the most extraordinary efforts to be understood, invented words, gesticulated, perspired with the effort, wiped his brow, panted, stopped, and abruptly began again when he fancied he had discovered a new means of explaining himself.

“Eventually I gathered that he was the son of a great chief, a sort of Negro king in the neighbourhood of Timbuktu. I asked him his name. He answered something like ‘Chavaharibouhalikhranafotapolara.’ I thought it simpler to give him the name of his country: ‘Timbuktu.’ And a week later the entire garrison knew him by no other name.

“But we were consumed by a frantic desire to know how this African ex-prince managed to get hold of drink. I discovered it in strange fashion.

“I was on the ramparts one morning, scanning the horizon, when I saw something moving in a vineyard. It was getting near the vintage season, and the grapes were ripe, but I never thought of that. I imagined that a spy was approaching the town, and I organised an entire expedition to seize the prowler. I took command myself, after getting permission from the general.

“I had sent out, through three different gates, three little bands which were to meet near the suspected vineyard and surround it. In order to cut off the spy’s retreat, one of the detachments had to march for a good hour. A man who remained on the watch upon the walls indicated to me by signs that the fellow I had noticed had not left the field. We went on our way in complete silence, crawling, almost lying flat in the ruts. At last we reached the appointed spot; swiftly I deployed my men, who dashed into the vineyard and found⁠ ⁠… Timbuktu, going on all fours through the middle of vines, and eating the grapes, or rather lapping them up like a dog lapping soup, taking them straight off the plants in large mouthfuls, tearing down the bunches with his teeth.

“I tried to make him stand up; it was not to be dreamed of, and I realised then why he was crawling thus on his hands and knees. Set on his legs, he tottered for a few seconds, threw out his arms, and fell flat on his nose. I have never seen a man so drunk as he was.

“He was carried home on two vine-poles. He never stopped laughing all the way back, and waved his arms and legs.

“That was the whole mystery. My rascals drank from the grape itself. Then, when they were so tight that they could not move, they went to sleep where they were.

“As for Timbuktu, his love of the vine passed all belief and measure. He lived among them like the thrushes, which, by the way, he hated with the hatred of a jealous rival. He repeated constantly:

“ ‘Th’ushes eat all the g’apes, d’unkards!’

“One evening I was sent for. Something was seen approaching us across the plain. I had not brought my spyglass, and could make out very little. It was like a great serpent uncoiling, a convoy, I don’t know what.

“I sent some men forward to meet this strange caravan, which soon made its triumphal entry. Timbuktu and nine of his comrades were carrying, upon a kind of altar made of rustic chairs, eight severed heads, bleeding and grimacing. The tenth Turco was leading a horse, to whose tail a second was attached, and six more animals followed, secured in the same fashion.

“This is what I learned. Setting off to the vineyards, my Africans had suddenly noticed a Prussian detachment drawing near to a village. Instead of fleeing, they hid; then, when the officers had dismounted in front of an inn, in search of refreshments, the gallant eleven charged, put to flight the Uhlans, who thought they were seriously attacked, and killed the two sentries, in addition to the colonel and the five officers with him.

“That day I embraced Timbuktu. But I noticed that he found difficulty in walking. I thought he was wounded; he burst out laughing, and told me:

“ ‘Me, p’ovisions for count’y.’

“For Timbuktu had no idea of going to war for glory; he did it for profit. Everything he found, everything which appeared to him to have any value, everything, especially, which sparkled, he thrust into his pocket. And what a pocket! It was a gulf which began at his hip and ended at his ankle. He had picked up a piece of army slang, and called it his ‘deep,’ and deep it was, in very truth!

“He had consequently stripped off the gilt from the Prussian uniforms, the brass from their helmets, the buttons, etc., and thrown the whole collection into his ‘deep,’ which was full to overflowing.

“Every day he cast into it every shining object which caught his eye, pieces of tin or silver coins; the outline of his figure became remarkably quaint.

“He was determined to carry it all back to the land of ostriches, whose brother this king’s son seemed to be in his devouring passion for acquiring glittering articles. If he had not had his ‘deep,’ what would he have done? Doubtless he would have swallowed them.

“Every morning his pocket was empty. He must have had a central dump where his riches were heaped together. But where was it? I was never able to find out.

“The general, informed of Timbuktu’s great feat, ordered the bodies which had been left in the neighbouring village to be buried at once, so that it might not be discovered that they had been decapitated. The Prussians returned thither the next day. The mayor and seven prominent residents were shot on the spot by way of reprisals, for having given away the presence of the Germans.

“Winter had come. We were worn out and desperate. We fought now every day. The famished men could no longer march. Only the eight Turcos (three had been killed) remained fat and glossy, vigorous and always ready for a fight.

“Timbuktu was positively growing fatter. One day he said to me:

“ ‘You, much hung’y, me good meat.’

“And, as a matter of fact, he did bring me an excellent steak. But of what? We had no more cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, or pigs. It was impossible to get horseflesh. I thought of all this after I had eaten the meat. It was then that a horrible thought came to me. These Negroes had been born very near the district where men are eaten! And every day so many soldiers were slain in the town. I questioned Timbuktu. He refused to answer. I did not insist, but from that time onward I refused his presents.

“He adored me. One night we were caught in a snowstorm out at the advanced pickets. We were sitting on the ground. I cast looks of pity on the poor Negroes shivering under the white, frozen dust. As I was very cold myself, I began to cough. I instantly felt something fall on me, like a large, warm covering. It was Timbuktu’s coat which he was throwing over my shoulders.

“I rose and, giving him back his garment, said:

“ ‘Keep that, my lad; you need it more than I do.’

“ ‘No,’ he replied, ‘for you, Lieutenant; me not need, me warm, warm.’

“And he looked at me with entreaty in his eyes.

“ ‘Come now, obey me,’ I went on. ‘Keep your coat; I wish you to.’

“Thereupon the Negro rose, drew his sabre, which he knew how to make as sharp as a scythe, and holding in his other hand the wide cloak which I would not take, declared:

“ ‘If you not keep coat, me cut; nobody have coat.’

“He would have done it. I gave in.

“Eight days later we had capitulated. Some of us had been able to escape. The rest were about to march out of the town and surrender to the victors.

“I directed my steps towards the Place d’Armes, where we were to muster, when I stopped, bewildered with amazement, in front of a gigantic Negro clad in white duck, and wearing a straw hat. It was Timbuktu. He looked radiant, and was walking to and fro with his hands in his pockets, in front of a small shop in whose window were displayed two plates and two glasses.

“ ‘What are you doing?’ I said to him.

“ ‘Me not gone,’ he replied. ‘Me good cook, me make eat colonel, Alge’ia; me eat P’ussians, steal much, much.’

“There were ten degrees of frost. I shivered at sight of this duck-clad Negro. Then he took my arm and made me go inside. I noticed an enormous sign, which he was going to hang up at his door as soon as we were gone, for he had some traces of shame.

“And I read, traced by the hand of some accomplice, the following announcement:

M. Timbuktu’s Military Kitchen

Late Cook to H.M. The Emperor

Parisian Artist⁠—Moderate Prices

“In spite of the despair gnawing at my heart, I could not help laughing, and I left my Negro to his new profession.

“Was it not better than having him taken prisoner?

“You have just seen that the rascal has succeeded.

“Today Bézières belongs to Germany. The Restaurant Timbuktu is the beginning of our revenge.”

My Uncle Jules

A poor old man with white hair begged us for alms. My companion, Joseph Davranche, gave him five francs. Noticing my surprised look, he said:

“That poor unfortunate reminds me of a story which I shall tell you, the memory of which continually pursues me. Here it is:

“My family, which came originally from Havre, was not rich. We just managed to make both ends meet. My father worked hard, came home late from the office, and earned very little. I had two sisters.

“My mother suffered a good deal from our reduced circumstances, and she often had harsh words for her husband, veiled and sly reproaches. The poor man then made a gesture which used to distress me. He would pass his open hand over his forehead, as if to wipe away perspiration which did not exist, and he would answer nothing. I felt his helpless suffering. We economized on everything and never would accept an invitation to dinner, so as not to have to return the courtesy. All our provisions were bought at reduced prices, whatever was left over in the shops. My sisters made their own gowns, and long discussions would arise on the price of a piece of braid worth fifteen centimes a yard. Our meals usually consisted of soup and beef prepared with every kind of sauce. They say it is wholesome and nourishing, but I should have preferred a change.

“I used to go through terrible scenes on account of lost buttons and torn trousers.

“Every Sunday, dressed in our best, we would take our walk along the pier. My father, in a frock coat, high hat and kid gloves, would offer his arm to my mother, decked out and beribboned like a ship on a holiday. My sisters, who were always ready first, would await the signal for leaving; but at the last minute someone always found a spot on my father’s frock coat, and it had to be wiped away quickly with a rag moistened with benzine.

“My father, in his shirt sleeves, his silk hat on his head, would await the completion of the operation, while my mother would make haste, putting on her spectacles, and taking off her gloves in order not to spoil them.

“Then we set out ceremoniously. My sisters marched on ahead, arm in arm. They were of marriageable age and had to be shown off. I walked on the left of my mother and my father on her right. I remember the pompous air of my poor parents in these Sunday walks, their stern expression, their stiff walk. They moved slowly, with a serious expression, their bodies straight, their legs stiff, as if something of extreme importance depended upon their appearance.

“Every Sunday, when the big steamers were returning from unknown and distant countries, my father would invariably utter the same words:

“ ‘What a surprise it would be if Jules were on that one! Eh?’

“My Uncle Jules, my father’s brother, was the only hope of the family, after being its only fear. I had heard about him since childhood, and it seemed to me that I should recognize him immediately, knowing as much about him as I did. I knew every detail of his life up to the day of his departure for America, although this period of his life was spoken of only in hushed tones.

“It seems that he had led a bad life, that is to say, he had squandered a little money, which action, in a poor family, is one of the greatest crimes. With rich people a man who amuses himself only sows his wild oats. He is what is generally called a sport. But among needy families a boy who forces his parents to break into the capital becomes a good-for-nothing, a rascal, a scamp. And this distinction is just, although the action be the same, for consequences alone determine the seriousness of the act.

“Well, Uncle Jules had visibly diminished the inheritance on which my father had counted, after he had swallowed his own to the last penny. Then, according to the custom of the times, he had been shipped off to America on a freighter going from Havre to New York.

“Once there, my uncle began to sell something or other, and he soon wrote that he was making a little money and that he shortly hoped to be able to indemnify my father for the harm he had done him. This letter caused a profound emotion in the family. Jules, who up to that time had not been worth his salt, suddenly became a good man, a kindhearted fellow, true and honest like all the Davranches.

“One of the captains told us that he had rented a large shop and was doing an important business.

“Two years later a second letter came, saying:

“ ‘My dear Philippe, I am writing to tell you not to worry about my health, which is excellent. Business is good. I leave tomorrow for a long trip to South America. I may be away for several years without sending you any news. If I shouldn’t write, don’t worry. When my fortune is made I shall return to Havre. I hope that it will not be too long, and that we shall all live happily together.⁠ ⁠…’

“This letter became the gospel of the family. It was read on the slightest provocation, and it was shown to everybody.

“For ten years nothing was heard from Uncle Jules; but as time went on my father’s hope grew, and my mother, also, often said:

“ ‘When that good Jules is here, our position will be different. There is one who knew how to get along!’

“And every Sunday, while watching the big steamers approaching from the horizon, pouring out a stream of smoke, my father would repeat his eternal question:

“ ‘What a surprise it would be if Jules were on that one! Eh?’

“We almost expected to see him waving his handkerchief and crying:

“ ‘Hey! Philippe!’

“Thousands of schemes had been planned on the strength of this expected return; we were even to buy a little house with my uncle’s money⁠—a little place in the country near Ingouville. In fact, I wouldn’t swear that my father had not already begun negotiations.

“The elder of my sisters was then twenty-eight, the other twenty-six. They were not yet married, and that was a great grief to everyone.

“At last a suitor presented himself for the younger one. He was a clerk, not rich, but honorable. I have always been morally certain that Uncle Jules’ letter, which was shown him one evening, had swept away the young man’s hesitation and definitely decided him.

“He was eagerly accepted, and it was decided that after the wedding the whole family should take a trip to Jersey.

“Jersey is the ideal trip for poor people. It is not far; one crosses a strip of sea in a steamer and lands on foreign soil, as this little island belongs to England. Thus, a Frenchman, in a two hours’ sail, can observe a neighbouring people at home and study their customs.

“This trip to Jersey completely absorbed our ideas, was our sole anticipation, the constant thought of our minds.

“At last we left. I see it as plainly as if it had happened yesterday. The boat was getting up steam against the quay at Granville; my father, bewildered, was superintending the loading of our three pieces of baggage; my mother, nervous, had taken the arm of my unmarried sister, who seemed lost since the departure of the other one, like the last chicken of a brood; behind us came the bride and groom, who always stayed behind, a thing that often made me turn round.

“The whistle sounded. We got on board, and the vessel, leaving the pier, forged ahead through a sea as flat as a marble table. We watched the coast disappear in the distance, happy and proud, like all who do not travel much.

“My father was swelling out his chest in the breeze, beneath his frock coat, which had that morning been very carefully cleaned; and he spread around him that odour of benzine which always made me recognize Sunday. Suddenly he noticed two elegantly dressed ladies to whom two gentlemen were offering oysters. An old, ragged sailor was opening them with his knife and passing them to the gentlemen, who would then offer them to the ladies. They ate them in a dainty manner, holding the shell on a fine handkerchief and advancing their mouths a little in order not to spot their dresses. Then they would drink the liquid with a rapid little motion and throw the shell overboard.

“My father was probably pleased with this delicate manner of eating oysters on a moving ship. He considered it good form, refined, and, going up to my mother and sisters, he asked:

“ ‘Would you like me to offer you some oysters?’

“My mother hesitated on account of the expense, but my two sisters immediately accepted. My mother said in a provoked manner:

“ ‘I am afraid that they will hurt my stomach. Offer the children some, but not too much, it would make them sick.’ Then, turning toward me, she added:

“ ‘As for Joseph, he doesn’t need any. Boys shouldn’t be spoiled.’

“However, I remained beside my mother, finding this discrimination unjust. I watched my father as he pompously conducted my two sisters and his son-in-law toward the ragged old sailor.

“The two ladies had just left, and my father showed my sisters how to eat them without spilling the liquor. He even tried to give them an example, and seized an oyster. He attempted to imitate the ladies, and immediately spilled all the liquid over his coat. I heard my mother mutter:

“ ‘He would do far better to keep quiet.’

“But, suddenly, my father appeared to be worried; he retreated a few steps, stared at his family gathered around the old shell opener, and quickly came toward us. He seemed very pale, with a peculiar look. In a low voice he said to my mother:

“ ‘It’s extraordinary how that man opening the oysters looks like Jules.’

“Astonished, my mother asked:

“ ‘What Jules?’

“My father continued:

“ ‘Why, my brother. If I did not know that he was well off in America, I should think it was he.’

“Bewildered, my mother stammered:

“ ‘You are mad! As long as you know that it is not he, why do you say such foolish things?’

“But my father insisted:

“ ‘Go on over and see, Clarisse! I would rather have you see with your own eyes.’

“She arose and walked to her daughters. I, too, was watching the man. He was old, dirty, wrinkled, and did not lift his eyes from his work.

“My mother returned. I noticed that she was trembling. She exclaimed quickly:

“ ‘I believe that it is he. Why don’t you ask the captain? But be very careful that we don’t have this rogue on our hands again!’

“My father walked away, but I followed him. I felt strangely moved.

“The captain, a tall, thin man, with blond whiskers, was walking along the bridge with an important air as if he were commanding the Indian mail steamer.

“My father addressed him ceremoniously, and questioned him about his profession, adding many compliments:

“ ‘What might be the importance of Jersey? What did it produce? What was the population? The customs? The nature of the soil?’ etc., etc.

“ ‘You have there an old shell opener who seems quite interesting. Do you know anything about him?’

“The captain, whom this conversation began to weary, answered dryly:

“ ‘He is some old French tramp whom I found last year in America, and I brought him back. It seems that he has some relatives in Havre, but that he doesn’t wish to return to them because he owes them money. His name is Jules⁠—Jules Darmanche or Darvanche or something like that. It seems that he was once rich over there, but you can see what’s left of him now.’

“My father turned ashy pale and muttered, his throat contracted, his eyes haggard:

“ ‘Ah! ah! very well, very well. I’m not in the least surprised. Thank you very much, captain.’

“He went away, and the astonished sailor watched him disappear. He returned to my mother so upset that she said to him:

“ ‘Sit down; someone will notice that something is the matter.’

“He sank down on a bench and stammered:

“ ‘It’s he! It’s he!’

“Then he asked:

“ ‘What are we going to do?’

“She answered quickly:

“ ‘We must get the children out of the way. Since Joseph knows everything, he can go and get them. We must take good care that our son-in-law doesn’t find out.’

“My father seemed absolutely bewildered. He murmured:

“ ‘What a catastrophe!’

“Suddenly growing furious, my mother exclaimed:

“ ‘I always thought that that thief never would do anything, and that he would drop down on us again! As if one could expect anything from a Davranche!’

“My father passed his hand over his forehead, as he always did when his wife reproached him. She added:

“ ‘Give Joseph some money so that he can pay for the oysters. All that it needed to cap the climax would be to be recognized by that beggar. That would be very pleasant! Let’s go down to the other end of the boat, and take care that that man doesn’t come near us!’

“They gave me five francs and walked away.

“Astonished, my sisters were awaiting their father. I said that mamma had felt a sudden attack of seasickness, and I asked the shell opener:

“ ‘How much do we owe you, monsieur?’

“I felt like laughing: he was my uncle! He answered:

“ ‘Two francs fifty.’

“I held out my five francs and he returned the change. I looked at his hand; it was a poor, wrinkled, sailor’s hand, and I looked at his face, an unhappy old face. I said to myself:

“ ‘That is my uncle, the brother of my father, my uncle!’

“I gave him a tip of one franc. He thanked me:

“ ‘God bless you, my young sir!’

“He spoke like a poor man receiving alms. I couldn’t help thinking that he must have begged over there! My sisters looked at me, surprised at my generosity. When I returned the two francs to my father, my mother asked me in surprise:

“ ‘Was there three francs’ worth? That is impossible.’

“I answered in a firm voice:

“ ‘I gave ten sous as a tip.’

“My mother started, and, staring at me, she exclaimed:

“ ‘You must be crazy! Give ten sous to that man, to that vagabond⁠—’

“She stopped at a look from my father, who was pointing at his son-in-law. Then everybody was silent.

“Before us, on the distant horizon, a purple shadow seemed to rise out of the sea. It was Jersey.

“As we approached the breakwater a violent desire seized me once more to see my Uncle Jules, to be near him, to say to him something consoling, something tender. But as no one was eating any more oysters, he had disappeared, having probably gone below to the dirty hold which was the home of the poor wretch.”

Hydrophobia?

My dear Geneviève, you ask me to tell you about my honeymoon. How do you think I dare? Sly wretch that you are, never to tell me anything, upon my word, not even the least hint. Just think, you’ve been married for eighteen months, you pretend to be my best friend, you never kept anything from me before, and you hadn’t the kindness to warn me. If you’d only given me a hint, if you’d put me on my guard about it, if you’d let the least suspicion penetrate to my mind, the very least, you would have saved me from making such a fool of myself that I still blush about it, and my husband will laugh about it till the day he dies, and no one but you is to blame for it.

I have made myself frightfully ridiculous forever, I have made one of those mistakes one never forgets, through your fault, your fault, you bad girl.⁠ ⁠… Oh, if I’d only known!

Well, I’m growing bolder as I write and I think I’ll tell you the whole story. But promise me you won’t laugh too much.

Don’t expect a comedy. It’s a drama.

You remember my wedding. I had to leave the same evening for my honeymoon. I was certainly not much like Paulette, whose story Gyp has so amusingly related in her witty novel, Autour du Mariage. And if my mother had said to me, as Madame d’Hautretan said to her daughter: “Your husband will take you in his arms⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠…” I should assuredly not have replied as Paulette did, shouting with laughter: “Don’t go too far, mamma⁠ ⁠… I know all that as well as you do.⁠ ⁠…”

I knew nothing at all, and mamma, poor mamma who is frightened of the least thing, had not even dared to approach this delicate subject.

Well, at five o’clock in the evening, after the luncheon, they announced that the carriage was waiting for me. The guests had gone, I was ready. I can remember still the sound of the trunks being brought down the staircase, and the nasal voice of papa, who did not want to show that he was crying. As he embraced me, the poor man said: “Be brave,” as though I were going to have a tooth out. As for mamma, she was a fountain. My husband was hurrying me away to escape these difficult farewells; I was in tears myself although I was very happy. I can’t explain that, but it’s none the less true. Suddenly I felt something tugging at my gown. It was Bijou, quite forgotten since the morning. The poor beast was saying goodbye to me after his fashion. It went to my heart a little, and I was wild to kiss my dog. I snatched him up (you know he’s the size of my fist) and began to cover him with kisses. I adore caressing animals. It pleases me so much, and somehow thrills me, it’s quite heavenly.

As for Bijou, he was like a mad thing, he pawed me, licked me and nibbled me as he does when he’s very happy. Suddenly he took hold of my nose with his teeth and I felt him hurt me. I gave a little cry and put the dog on the ground. He had given me a real bite in play. I was bleeding. Everybody was very distressed. They brought water, vinegar and bandages, and my husband wanted to look after me himself. It was nothing, however, two tiny holes like the pricks made by a needle. In five minutes the blood had stopped and I set off.

We had decided to travel in Normandy for about six weeks.

We reached Dieppe in the evening. When I say “evening” I mean midnight.

You know how I love the sea. I declared to my husband that I would not go to bed without having seen it. He seemed very amazed. I laughed and asked him:

“Are you sleepy?”

He answered:

“No, my dear, but surely you understand that I am longing to be alone with you.”

I was surprised.

“Alone with me? But we’ve been alone in the train all the way from Paris.”

He smiled.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… in the train, it’s not the same thing as being alone in our room.”

I would not give in:

“Well, we shall be alone on the seashore, and that’s that.”

That certainly did not please him. However, he said:

“Very well, since you wish it.”

It was a glorious night, one of those nights that fill the imaginative with vast dim ideas, felt rather than thought, a night to make one long to open one’s arms, spread one’s wings, embrace the whole sky⁠—I don’t know. But it seems as if one might be just on the verge of understanding strange mysteries.

There is a Dream in the air, and Romance that pierces the heart, and happiness that does not belong to this earth, a sort of divine intoxication born of stars, and moon, and moving silvered water. Life holds no better moments. They make one’s life seem different, touched to beauty, delicately rare; they are like a revelation of what might be⁠ ⁠… or what will be.

My husband, however, seemed impatient to return. “Are you cold?” I asked him. “No. Then look at that little boat over there: it seems asleep on the water. We couldn’t find a lovelier place than this, could we? I would gladly stay here until daylight. Tell me, wouldn’t you like us to wait for the dawn?”

He thought that I was making fun of him, and he dragged me back to the hotel almost by force. If I had only known! Oh, the wretch!

When we were alone I felt ashamed, awkward, without knowing why, I assure you. At last I sent him away into the drawing room and I got into bed. Oh, my dear, how can I tell you? But here it is. He must have taken my utter innocence for malice, my utter simplicity for depravity, my trustful and artless freedom for deliberate coquetry, and he did not trouble himself to be as delicately discreet and kind as he ought to have been to make such mysteries explicable, understandable and acceptable to an unsuspecting and absolutely unprepared mind.

And, all at once, I thought that he had lost his head. Then I was overcome with fear and I asked him if he wanted to kill me. When you are terror-stricken, you don’t reason, you don’t think at all, you just go mad. In an instant, I imagined the most frightful things. I thought of the news items in the newspapers, of mysterious crimes, of all the stories whispered about young girls who have married wicked men. Did I know this man? I struggled, repulsed him, mad with fear. I even tore out a handful of his hair, and one side of his moustache; the effort freed me, and I leaped up, shouting “Help.” I ran to the door, drew back the bolts and rushed out on to the staircase, almost naked.

Other doors opened. Men in nightshirts appeared, with lights in their hands. I fell into the arms of one of them, and implored him to protect me. He threw himself on my husband.

I don’t know what happened after that. They fought and shouted; then they laughed; I’ve never heard such laughter. The whole house laughed, from cellar to attic. I heard loud bursts of merriment in the corridors, and in the bedrooms above. The scullions were laughing in the garrets, and the porter writhed on his mattress in the hall.

Think of it, in a hotel!

When it was all over, I was left alone again with my husband, who gave me some brief explanations, much as he might have explained a chemical experiment before trying it. He was by no means pleased. I wept until it grew light, and we went away as soon as the hotel doors were opened.

That’s not all.

Next day, we arrived at Pourville, which is still only the beginnings of a seaside town. My husband overwhelmed me with little attentions and kindnesses. After his first annoyance he seemed altogether delighted. Ashamed and miserable as I was over the previous day’s adventure, I made myself as agreeable as anyone could, and as docile. But you can’t imagine the horror, the disgust, the hatred almost, with which Henry inspired me since I had learned the monstrous secret that is so carefully hidden from young girls. I felt desperate, so sad I wanted to die, disgusted with everything, tormented by longing to return to my poor parents. The following day, we arrived at Étretat. All the visitors were in a state of great excitement: a young woman, bitten by a little dog, had just died⁠—mad. A terrible shiver ran down my spine when I heard them talking about it at the hotel table. It suddenly struck me that my nose was paining me, and, I felt queer sensations all along my limbs.

I did not sleep that night: I had quite forgotten my husband. Suppose I too was going to die mad. The next day I asked the head waiter for details. He told me the most frightful story. I spent the day walking on the cliff. I said nothing, I was thinking. Madness! What a horrible death! Henry asked me: “What’s the matter? You seem sad.” “Nothing, nothing,” I answered. I stared distractedly at the sea, without seeing it at all: I stared at the farm and the fields, but I could not have said what I was looking at. Not for anything in the world would I have confessed to the thought that was torturing me. I had pains, genuine pains in my nose. I insisted on going back.

As soon as we returned to the hotel, I shut myself in my room to examine the wound. There was nothing to be seen now. There was no mistake about it, however, it was hurting me.

I wrote to my mother at once, a short letter that she must have thought very strange. I demanded an immediate reply to certain unimportant questions. After I had signed it, I added: “Above all, don’t forget to give me news of Bijou.”

The next day I could not eat, but I refused to see a doctor. I spent the day sitting on the beach watching the bathers in the water. They arrived, some fat, some thin, and all ugly in their frightful costumes; but I hardly had the heart to laugh. I was thinking: “They’re happy, those people. They haven’t been bitten. They’ll live, they will. They’re not living in fear of anything. They can amuse themselves in any way they like. How peaceful they are!”

I kept lifting my hand to my nose to feel it. Was it swelling up? As soon as I got back to the hotel, I shut myself in my room to look at it in the glass. Oh, if it had changed colour I should have died on the spot.

That evening, I felt suddenly something like affection for my husband, an affection born of despair. I felt that he was kind, I leaned on his arm. Twenty times I was on the verge of telling him my dreadful secret, but I held my tongue.

He took the most abominable advantage of my self-abandon and my utter exhaustion of spirit. I had not strength enough to resist him, nor even the will. I would have endured anything, suffered anything. The next day, I had a letter from mother. She answered my questions, but did not mention Bijou. I thought at once: “He’s dead and they’re hiding it from me.” Then I wanted to run to the telegraph office to send a wire. A thought stopped me: “If he is really dead, they won’t tell me.” So I resigned myself to another two days of agony. And I wrote again. I asked them to send me the dog to amuse me, because I was a little bored.

In the afternoon I was seized with a trembling fit. I could not lift a full glass without spilling half the contents. My mind was in a lamentable state. Towards dusk I escaped from my husband and hurried to the church. I prayed for a long time.

On the way back I felt fresh pains in my nose and I went into a chemist’s whose shop was lit up. I told him that a friend of mine had been bitten and I asked his advice. But I forgot everything as soon as he said it, my mind was so troubled. I remembered only one thing: “Purgings are often recommended.” I bought several bottles of goodness knows what, on the pretext of giving them to my friend.

The dogs I met filled me with horror and a wild desire to take to my heels and run away. Several times I thought that I felt an impulse to bite them too.

I had a horribly restless night. My husband profited thereby. First thing in the morning, I received a reply from my mother. Bijou, she said, was quite well. But it would be too risky to send him alone by rail like that. So they would not send him to me. He was dead!

I could not sleep again. As for Henry, he snored. He woke up several times. I was exhausted.

The following day, I bathed in the sea. I almost fainted on going into the water, I felt so terribly cold. I was still more distraught by this sensation of bitter cold. My legs shook dreadfully, but the worst pain of all was in my nose.

Someone happened to introduce the local medical inspector to me, a charming man. I led up to my subject very subtly. Then I told him that a few days ago my young dog had bitten me, and I asked him what would have to be done if inflammation set in. He began to laugh and answered:

“In your case, madame, I could think of only one course, which would be to operate on you.”

And as I did not understand, he added:

“And that would be your husband’s business.”

I was no farther on and no wiser when I left him.

Henry seemed very gay, and very happy this evening. We went to the Casino in the evening, but he did not wait for the end of the show before suggesting to me that we should go home. Nothing interested me any more now: I fell in with his wish.

But I could not rest in bed, my nerves were exhausted and on edge. Nor was he any the readier for sleep. He embraced me, caressed me, and was as gentle and tender as if he had at last guessed how I was suffering. I endured his caresses without even realising what he was doing, without thinking about it at all.

But all at once a sudden spasm seized me, the most extraordinary and awful spasm. I uttered one frightful cry, and repulsing my husband, who was holding me closely, I leaped out of bed and threw myself on my face near the door. It was madness, a dreadful madness. I was lost.

Henry, utterly distracted, lifted me up and begged me to tell him what was the matter. But I would not speak. I was resigned now. I waited for death. I knew that after a few hours’ respite, another spasm would seize me, then another, until the last one, which would be fatal.

I let him carry me back to bed. Towards daybreak, my husband’s irritating obsessions brought on a fresh attack, which lasted longer than the first. I felt a wild impulse to rend, bite, scream; it was terrible, but less disagreeable than I would have believed.

Towards eight o’clock in the morning, I fell asleep for the first time for four nights.

At eleven o’clock, a beloved voice woke me. It was mamma: my letter had alarmed her, and she had come hurrying to see me. She held a large hamper in her hand and suddenly I heard barks coming from it. I snatched it, quite distraught, and wild with hope. I opened it, and Bijou jumped on to the bed; he caressed me, and frisked about, and rolled on my pillow, quite mad with joy.

Well, my darling, believe me or not, as you like⁠ ⁠… I only understood next day.

What tricks our imagination can play us! To think what I imagined! Tell me, isn’t it too stupid?⁠ ⁠…

I have never, you understand, don’t you, confessed to anyone the tortures I suffered during those four days. Suppose my husband had known. He makes enough fun of me already over our Dieppe adventure. For the matter of that, his jests don’t trouble me much. I am used to them. One gets used to everything in this life.⁠ ⁠…

Caresses

No, my friend, do not think any more of it. What you ask of me revolts and disgusts me. It is as if God⁠—for I believe in God⁠—had wanted to spoil every good thing that He made by attaching some horrible thing to it. He had given us love, the divinest thing the world ever knew, but, finding it too lovely and too fine for us, He imagined our senses, shameful, vile, revolting, brutal senses, senses that He seems to have fashioned in malicious jest and linked with the excretions of our bodies; He has conceived them in such a way that we cannot think of it without blushing, can only speak of it in hushed voices. The dreadful thing they do is wrapped in shame. It hides away, disgusts our souls, offends our eyes; despised by morality, hounded down by law, it consummates itself in darkness, as if it were a criminal.

Never speak to me of it, never!

I do not know whether I love you, but I know that your nearness pleases me, that your glance is sweet to me and your voice caresses my heart. From the day you had of me the frailness you desire, you would become hateful to me. The delicate bond that holds us to each other would be broken. An infamous abyss would lie between us.

Let us stay as we are. And⁠ ⁠… love me if you will, I will let you.

Your friend,

Geneviève

Madame, will you allow me also to speak to you with brutal frankness, without polite euphemisms, as I would speak to a friend who was anxious to take on himself a lifelong vow?

Neither do I know whether I love you. I should be sure of it only after the thing that so revolts you.

Have you forgotten Musset’s poem:

Je me souviens encor de ces spasmes terribles,
De ces baisers muets, de ces muscles ardents,
De cet être absorbé, blême et serrant les dents.
S’ils ne sont pas divins, ces moments sont horribles.12

We experience that sense of horror and overwhelming disgust only when the madness of our blood has led us into casual adventures. But when a woman is the being we have chosen, entirely charming and infinitely desirable, as you are for me, the caress of love becomes the sharpest, most complete and supremest pleasure.

This caress, madame, is the proof of love. If our passion dies after that fierce embrace, we have been deceiving ourselves. If it grows, we love.

A philosopher, who did not practise his doctrines, has put us on our guard against this snare of nature’s. Nature desires new life, he says, and to compel us to create it, has set the double bait of love and pleasure round the snare. And he adds: “As soon as we have let ourselves be taken, as soon as the momentary madness has left us, we are filled with a profound sadness, understanding the trick that has deceived us, seeing, feeling, touching the secret hidden cause that has driven us in spite of ourselves.”

That is often true, very often. Then we go away, in utter revulsion. Nature has conquered us, has thrown us against our will into arms that were opened for us because she willed them to open.

Yes, I know the cold savage kisses pressed on strange lips, the fixed burning gaze into eyes that one has never seen before and will never see again, and all that I can’t tell, all that sears our mind with a bitter grief.

But if this hazy cloud of affection that we call love has closed round two human beings, if they never cease to think long of each other, and, when they are separated, to remember one another, all the time, day and night, hiding in their hearts the beloved’s features and his smile and the sound of his voice; if they have been obsessed, possessed by the absent form whose image never leaves them, is it not natural that arms open at last, that lips meet and bodies touch?

Have you never wanted to kiss anyone? Tell me whether lips do not call to lips, whether the bright glance that seems to pierce our veins does not rouse fierce and irresistible desires.

True, you say, that is the snare, the shameful snare. What matter?⁠—I know it, I fall in it and I love it. Nature gives us the caress of love to hide her cunning, to force us⁠—against our will⁠—to perpetuate the human race. Let us therefore will the caress, make it ours, refine it, change it, idealise it, if you like. Let us too deceive Nature, the arch deceiver. Let us do more than she has willed, more than she could or dared teach us. Think that the caress of love is a precious thing taken from the earth in its rough state, and let us take it and work over it and perfect it, careless of the original design, the hidden will of the being you call God. And since it is thought that idealises everything, let us idealise this thing, madame, even in all its terrible brutality, all its most impure forms, its most monstrous imaginings.

Let us love the caress that thrills as we love the heady vine, ripe fruit fragrant on the palate, and all the sharp pleasures of the body. Let us love flesh because it is beautiful, because it is white and firm, and round and sweet, delicious to lips and hands.

When artists seek the rarest and purest form for the chalice where art must drink to ecstasy they choose the curve of the breasts, whose bud is like a rose.

And in a learned book, called the Dictionnaire des Sciences Médicales, I read this definition of a woman’s bosom, which might have been imagined by M. Joseph Prudhomme turned medical man:

“The breast in woman may be considered as at one and the same time an object of use and of pleasure.”

Let us suppress, if you like it so, the usefulness and keep only the pleasure. Would it have been given this adorable form that calls aloud to be caressed, if it had been designed only to nourish babies?

Yes, madame, leave the moralists to preach modesty, and the doctors caution; leave poets, deceivers that are themselves always deceived, to sing the chaste union of souls and bodiless happiness; leave ugly woman to their duty and rational men to their futile needs; leave doctrinaires to their doctrines, priests to their commandments, and as for us, let us prize more than anything in the world the caress of love, that intoxicates and maddens us, makes us faint and exhausted, and gives us new life, that is sweeter than perfume, lighter than the light wind, sharper than wounds, swift and devouring, that makes men pray and weep and groan and shout and commit any crime and any heroic deed.

Let us love it, with no placid normal legal love; but violently, furiously, beyond all bounds of reason. Let us seek it as men seek gold and diamonds, for it is more precious than they, being beyond price and fleeting. Let us pursue it without faltering, let us die for it and through it.

And let me tell you, madame, a truth that you will not find, I think, in any book; the only happy women on this earth are those to whom no caresses are lacking. These live without anxiety, without torturing thoughts, desiring nothing save the next kiss, that shall be as delightful and satisfying as the last one was.

The other women, in whose lives caresses are few, or unsatisfying or raw, live tormented by a thousand wretched anxieties, by the friction of greed or vanity, and by all the things of life that turn to sorrow.

But women whose lives are filled with caresses, need nothing, desire nothing, regret nothing. They live in a dream, content and smiling, hardly ruffled by what for others would be irreparable disasters, since the caress of love pays all, cures all things, comforts for all.

I could say much more than this.⁠ ⁠…

Henri.

These two letters, written on Japanese rice paper, were found in a little Russian leather pocketbook under a prie-Dieu at the Madeleine, on Sunday, yesterday, after one o’clock Mass, by

Maufrigneuse.

A Duel

The war was over; the Germans were occupying France; the country lay quivering like a beaten wrestler fallen beneath the conqueror’s knee.

From frenzied, famished, desperate Paris the first trains were departing, going to new frontiers, slowly traversing the countryside and the villages. The first travellers gazed through the windows at the ruined fields and burnt hamlets. At the doors of the houses left standing, Prussian soldiers, wearing their black, brass-spiked helmets, were smoking their pipes, straddling across their chairs. Others were working or talking, as though they were part of the family. When the train went through town, whole regiments could be seen drilling in the squares, and despite the din of the wheels, the hoarse words of command occasionally reached the travellers’ ears.

M. Dubuis, who had been a member of the national guard of Paris throughout the duration of the siege, was on his way to Switzerland to join his wife and children, prudently sent abroad before the invasion.

Hunger and hardships had no whit diminished the rich and peaceable merchant’s stout paunch. He had endured the terrible events with miserable resignation and bitter phrases about the cruelty of man. Now that he was nearing the frontier, the war ended, he was seeing Prussians for the first time, although he had done his duty on the ramparts and mounted guard on many a cold night.

With angry terror he watched these armed and bearded men installed as though in their own homes on the soil of France, and felt in his heart a sort of fever of impotent patriotism, and with it that deep need and new instinct for prudence which has never left us since.

In his compartment two Englishmen, come to see things, stared with their calm, inquisitive eyes. They were both stout also, and chatted in their own language, occasionally looking through their guidebook, which they read out loud, trying to recognise the places mentioned in it.

Suddenly the train slowed and stopped at the station of a little town, and a Prussian officer mounted the double step of the carriage with a noisy clattering of his sabre. He was tall, tightly buttoned into his uniform, and bearded to the eyes. His ruddy skin looked as though it were on fire, and his long moustaches, of a paler tone, streamed out on either side of his face, bisecting it.

The English pair promptly began to stare at him with smiles of satisfied curiosity, while M. Dubuis pretended to read a paper. He sat huddled in his corner, like a thief in the presence of a policeman.

The train started again. The Englishmen continued to talk and look for the exact sites of the battles; and suddenly, as one of them was extending his arm towards the horizon in order to point out a village, the Prussian officer remarked in French, stretching out his long legs and lounging forward till he reclined on his back:

“I haf gilled ten Frenchmen in that fillage. I haf took more than von hondred brisoners.”

The Englishmen, deeply interested, at once asked:

“Oh! What is the name of the village?”

“Pharsbourg,” replied the Prussian, and continued:

“I took those rrascal Frenchmen by the ears.”

He stared at M. Dubuis, and laughed insolently in his beard.

The train ran on, still passing through occupied hamlets. The German soldiers were to be seen along the roads, at the side of the fields, standing at the corners of fences, or chatting in front of the inns. They covered the earth like locusts.

The officer stretched out his hand:

“If I had peen gommander, I vould haf taken Paris, and burnt eferything, and killed eferypody. No more France.”

The Englishmen, out of politeness, replied simply:

“Oh, yes.”

“In tventy years,” he went on, “all Europe, all, vill pelong to us. Prussia stronger than all!”

The Englishmen, uneasy, made no reply. Their faces, grown impassive, looked like wax between their long whiskers. Then the Prussian officer began to laugh. And, still reclining on his back, he bragged. He bragged of the crushing of France, he trod down his enemies to the ground; he bragged of the recent conquest of Austria; he bragged about the powerless yet frantic efforts of the provinces to defend themselves, about the transport and the useless artillery. He declared that Bismarck was going to build an iron town out of the captured cannon.

And suddenly he thrust his boots against the thigh of M. Dubuis, who turned away his eyes, scarlet to the ears.

The Englishmen appeared to have become uninterested in everything, as though they had found themselves suddenly shut up in their island, far from the noises of the world.

The officer took out his pipe and, gazing fixedly at the Frenchman, asked:

“You haf no tobacco?”

“No, monsieur,” replied M. Dubuis.

“Blease go and buy some when the drain stops.”

And he burst out laughing again.

“I vill gif you a tip.”

The train whistled and slowed down. It passed the burnt-out buildings of a station; then stopped altogether.

The German opened the door and took M. Dubuis by the arm:

“Go and do the errand for me, quickly!” he said.

A Prussian detachment occupied the station. Other soldiers stared, standing along the wooden fence. The engine was already whistling for dedeparture. Then, suddenly, M. Dubuis rushed out on to the platform, and, despite the violent gestures of the stationmaster, dashed into the next compartment.

He was alone! He unbuttoned his waistcoat, so violently was his heart beating, and wiped his forehead, panting.

The train stopped again at a station. And suddenly the officer appeared at the door and got in, soon followed by the two Englishmen, drawn by their curiosity. The German sat down opposite the Frenchman, and, still laughing, said:

“You did not vish to do my errand.”

“No, monsieur,” replied M. Dubuis.

The train had just started again.

“I vill gut off your moustache to fill my pipe,” said the officer, and thrust out his hand to his neighbour’s face.

The Englishmen, still impassive, watched with their steady eyes.

Already the German had grasped a pinch of hair and was tugging at it, when M. Dubuis knocked up his arm with a backhanded blow and, taking him by the neck, flung him back on to his seat. Then, mad with rage, his temples swelling and his eyes bloodshot, still strangling him with one hand, he set to striking him furious blows in the face with his closed fist. The Prussian struggled, trying to draw his sabre or get a grip on his adversary, who was lying on top of him. But M. Dubuis crushed him with the enormous weight of his paunch, and struck and struck without respite, without taking breath, without knowing where the blows were falling. Blood flowed; the throttled German choked, spat out teeth, and strove in vain to fling off the fat, exasperated man who was knocking him out.

The Englishmen had risen and drawn near to get a better view. They stood there, full of pleasure and curiosity, ready to bet on or against either of the combatants.

Suddenly M. Dubuis, exhausted by his monstrous effort, rose and sat back without saying a word.

The Prussian did not fling himself upon him, so bewildered did he remain, dazed with astonishment and pain. When he had recovered his breath, he said:

“If you do not gif me satisfaction vith the pistol, I vill kill you.”

“When you like,” replied M. Dubuis. “I am entirely at your service.”

“Here is the town of Strasbourg,” said the German; “I vill take two officers as vitnesses. I haf time before the train leafs.”

M. Dubuis, who was panting like the engine, asked the Englishmen:

“Will you be my witnesses?”

“Oh, yes!” they both replied simultaneously.

And the train stopped.

In a minute the Prussian had found two comrades, who brought pistols and they repaired to the ramparts.

The Englishmen kept on pulling out their watches, hurrying the pace, urging on the preliminary preparations, anxious about the time, determined not to miss their train.

M. Dubuis had never had a pistol in his hands in his life. He was placed twenty paces from his foe.

“Are you ready?” he was asked.

As he answered: “Yes, monsieur,” he noticed that one of the Englishmen had put up his umbrella, to keep off the sun.

“Fire!” commanded a voice.

M. Dubuis fired, at random, without waiting, and with amazement saw the Prussian standing before him totter, throw up his arms, and fall flat on his nose. He had killed him.

One of the Englishmen uttered an “oh,” quivering with pleasure, satisfied curiosity, and happy impatience. The other, still holding his watch in his hand, seized M. Dubuis’ arm and led him off, at the double, towards the station.

The first Englishman gave the time as he ran, his fists closed and his elbows tucked into his sides:

“One, two! One, two!”

And all three men trotted on, despite their paunches, like three clowns in a comic paper.

The train was just starting. They jumped into their compartment. Then the Englishmen took off their travelling-caps and waved them in the air, and, three times in succession, they shouted:

“Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!”

Then, one after the other, they gravely offered their right hands to M. Dubuis, and went back and sat down again side by side in their corner.

The Little One

Monsieur Lemonnier had remained a widower with one child. He had loved his wife madly, with a noble and tender love, that never failed, throughout the whole of their life together. He was a good, honest fellow, simple, very simple in fact, free from diffidence and malice.

Having fallen in love with a poor neighbour, he asked for her hand and married her. He was in a fairly prosperous drapery business, was making quite a good amount of money, and did not for one moment imagine that the girl might not have accepted him for himself alone.

At all events she made him happy. He had no eyes for anybody or anything but her, thought only of her, and looked at her continually in an abandon of adoration. During meals he would commit a thousand blunders rather than look away from the beloved face; he would pour the wine into his plate and the water into the saltcellar, and then would burst out laughing like a child, declaring:

“There, you see I love you too much; it makes me do such a lot of silly things.”

And she would smile, with an air of calm resignation, and then would turn away her eyes, as though embarrassed by her husband’s worship, and would try to make him talk, to chat on any subject; but he would reach across the table and take her hand, and, holding it in his, would murmur:

“My little Jeanne, my dear little Jeanne.”

She would end by growing vexed and exclaiming:

“Oh, do be reasonable; get on with your dinner, and let me get on with mine!”

He would utter a sigh and break off a mouthful of bread, which he would proceed slowly to munch.

For five years they had no children. Then suddenly she found herself with child. It was a delirious happiness for them. He would never leave her during the whole of her pregnancy; to such an extent, in fact, that her maid, an old nurse who had brought her up and was given to speaking her mind to them, would sometimes thrust him out of the house and lock the door, so as to force him to take the air.

He had formed an intimate friendship with a young man who had known his wife since her childhood, and who was second head clerk at the Prefecture. Monsieur Duretour dined three times a week at the Lemonniers’, brought flowers for Madame and sometimes a box at the theatre; and often, during dessert, the kind, affectionate Lemonnier would turn to his wife and exclaim:

“With a comrade like you and a friend like him, one is perfectly happy on earth.”

She died in childbed. He nearly died too. But the sight of the child gave him courage: a little shrivelled creature that moaned.

He loved the baby with a passionate and grief-stricken love, a morbid love, wherein remained the remembrance of death, but wherein survived something of his adoration of the dead woman. The boy was his wife’s flesh, her continued being, a quintessence of her, as it were. He was her very life poured into another body; she had disappeared that he might exist.⁠ ⁠… And the father embraced him frantically.⁠ ⁠…

But also the child had killed her, had taken, stolen that adored existence, had fed upon it, had drunk up her share of life.⁠ ⁠… And Monsieur Lemonnier replaced his son in the cradle and sat down beside him to contemplate him. He remained there for hours and hours, watching him, musing of a thousand sad or sweet things. Then, as the child was sleeping, he stooped over his face and wept into his coverings.

The child grew. The father could not forgo his presence for an hour; he would prowl about the nursery, take him out for walks, put on his clothes, wash him, give him his meals. His friend, Monsieur Duretour, also seemed to cherish the baby, and would embrace him with rapture, with those frenzies of affection which are a parent’s property. He would make him leap in his arms or ride a cockhorse for hours upon his leg, and suddenly, overturning him upon his knees, would raise his short frock and kiss the brat’s fat thighs and round little calves.

“Isn’t he a darling, isn’t he a darling!” would murmur Monsieur Lemonnier in delight, and Monsieur Duretour would clasp the child in his arms, tickling his neck with his moustache.

Only Céleste, the old nurse, seemed to have no affection for the little one. She was vexed at his pranks, and seemed exasperated by the cajolery of the two men.

“Is that any way to bring up a child?” she would exclaim. “You’ll make a perfect monkey of him.”

More years went by, and Jean attained the age of nine. He could scarcely read, he had been so spoilt, and he always did exactly as he liked. He had a stubborn will, a habit of obstinate resistance, and a violent temper. The father always gave way and granted him everything. Monsieur Duretour was perpetually buying and bringing for the little one the toys he coveted, and fed him on cakes and sweets.

On these occasions Céleste would lose her temper, and exclaim:

“It’s a shame, monsieur, a shame. You’ll be the ruin of the child, the ruin of him, do you hear! But it’s got to be stopped, and stopped it shall be, yes, I promise it shall, and before long, too.”

“Well, what about it, my good woman?” Monsieur Lemonnier would answer with a smile. “I’m too fond of him, I can’t go against his will. It’s up to you to take your share in his upbringing.”

Jean was weak and somewhat ailing. The doctor declared him to be anaemic, and ordered iron, red meat, and strong broth.

But the little one liked nothing but cakes, and refused all other nourishment; and his father, in despair, stuffed him with cream tarts and chocolate éclairs.

One evening, as the two sat down to table alone together, Céleste brought in the soup tureen with an assurance and an air of authority unusual in her. She abruptly took off the lid, plunged the ladle into the middle of it, and announced:

“There’s broth such as I’ve never made before; the little one really must have some, this time.”

Monsieur Lemonnier, terrified, lowered his head. He saw that this was not going down well.

Céleste took his plate, filled it herself, and placed it back in front of him.

He immediately tasted the soup and declared:

“Yes, it is excellent.”

Then the servant took the little boy’s plate and poured into it a whole ladleful of soup. She retired two paces and waited.

Jean sniffed it, pushed away the plate, and uttered a “pah” of disgust. Céleste, grown pale, went swiftly up to him and, seizing the spoon full of soup, thrust it forcibly into the child’s half-open mouth.

He choked, coughed, sneezed, and spat, and, yelling, grasped his glass in his fist and flung it at his nurse. It caught her full in the stomach. At that, exasperated, she took the brat’s head under her arm and began to ram spoonful after spoonful of soup down his gullet. He steadily vomited them back, stamping his feet with rage, writhing, choking, and beating the air with his hands, as red as though he were dying of suffocation.

At first the father remained in such stupefaction that he made no movement at all. Then suddenly he rushed forward with the wild rage of a madman, took the servant by the throat, and flung her against the wall.

“Get out!⁠ ⁠… out!⁠ ⁠… out!⁠ ⁠… brute!” he stammered.

But with a vigorous shake she repulsed him, and with dishevelled hair, her cap hanging down her back, her eyes blazing, cried:

“What’s come over you now? You want to beat me because I make the child eat his soup, when you’ll kill him with your spoiling!”

“Out!⁠ ⁠… be off with you⁠ ⁠… off with you, brute!” he repeated, trembling from head to foot.

Then in a rage she turned upon him, and facing him eye to eye, said in a trembling voice:

“Ah!⁠ ⁠… You think⁠ ⁠… you think⁠ ⁠… you’re going to treat me like that, me, me?⁠ ⁠… No, never.⁠ ⁠… And for whose sake, for whose sake?⁠ ⁠… For that snotty brat who isn’t even your own child! No⁠ ⁠… not yours!⁠ ⁠… No! not yours!⁠ ⁠… not yours!⁠ ⁠… not yours! Why, everybody knows it, by God, except you.⁠ ⁠… Ask the grocer, the butcher, the baker, everyone, everyone.⁠ ⁠…”

She faltered, choked with anger, then was silent and looked at him.

He did not stir; livid, his arms waving wildly. At the end of several seconds he stammered in a feeble, tremulous voice, in which strong emotion still quivered:

“You say?⁠ ⁠… you say?⁠ ⁠… What do you say?”

Then she answered in a calmer voice: “I say what I know, by God! What everyone knows.”

He raised his two hands and, flinging himself upon her with the fury of a brute beast, tried to fell her to the ground. But she was strong, in spite of her age, and agile too. She slipped through his arms and, running round the table, once more in a violent rage, screeched:

“Look at him, look at him, you fool, and see if he isn’t the living image of Monsieur Duretour; look at his nose and eyes, are your eyes like that? Or your nose? Or your hair? And were hers like that? I tell you everybody knows it, everybody, except you! It’s the laughingstock of the town! Look at him! Look at him!⁠ ⁠…”

She passed in front of the door, opened it, and disappeared.

Jean, terrified, remained motionless, staring at his soup plate.

At the end of an hour she returned, very softly, to see. The little one, after having devoured the cakes, a dish of custard, and a dish of pears in syrup, was now eating jam out of a pot with his soup spoon.

The father had gone out.

Céleste took the child, embraced him, and, with silent steps, carried him off to his room and put him to bed. And she returned to the dining room, cleared the table, and set everything in order, very uneasy in her mind.

No sound whatever was to be heard in the house. She went and set her ear to her master’s door. He was not moving about the room. She set her eye to the keyhole. He was writing and seemed calm.

Then she went back to sit in her kitchen, so as to be ready for any circumstance, for she realised that something was in the air.

She fell asleep in her chair, and did not wake until daybreak.

She did the household work, as was her custom every morning; she swept and dusted, and, at about eight o’clock, made Monsieur Lemonnier’s coffee.

But she dared not take it to her master, having very little idea how she would be received; and she waited for him to ring. He did not ring. Nine o’clock went by, then ten o’clock.

Céleste, alarmed, prepared the tray, and started off with a beating heart. In front of the door she stopped and listened. Nothing was stirring. She knocked, there was no answer. So, summoning up all her courage, she opened the door and went in; then, uttering a terrible shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray which she held in her hands.

Monsieur Lemonnier was hanging right in the middle of his room, suspended by the neck from a ring in the ceiling. His tongue protruded in ghastly fashion. The slipper had fallen off his right foot and lay on the floor; the other slipper had remained upon the foot. An overturned chair had rolled to the bedside.

Céleste, at her wit’s end, fled shrieking. All the neighbours ran up. The doctor discovered that death had taken place at midnight.

A letter, addressed to Monsieur Duretour, was found upon the suicide’s table. It contained this solitary line:

“I leave and entrust the little one to you.”

Madame Luneau’s Case

The fat Justice of the Peace, with one eye closed and the other half-open, is listening with evident displeasure to the plaintiffs. Once in a while he gives a sort of grunt that foretells his opinion, and in a thin voice resembling that of a child, he interrupts them to ask questions. He has just rendered judgment in the case of Monsieur Joly against Monsieur Petitpas, the contestants having come to court on account of the boundary line of a field which had been accidentally displaced by Monsieur Petitpas’s farmhand, while the latter was plowing.

Now he calls the case of Hippolyte Lacour, vestryman and ironmonger, against Madame Céleste Césarine Luneau, widow of Anthime Isidore Luneau.

Hippolyte Lacour is forty-five years old; he is tall and gaunt, with a clean-shaven face like a priest, long hair, and he speaks in a slow, singsong voice.

Madame Luneau appears to be about forty years of age. She is built like a prizefighter, and her narrow and clinging dress is stretched tightly over her portly form. Her enormous hips hold up her overflowing bosom in front, while in the back they support the great rolls of flesh that cover her shoulders. Her face, with strongly-cut features, rests on a short, fat neck, and her strong voice is pitched at a key that makes the windows and the eardrums of her auditors vibrate. She is about to become a mother and her huge form protrudes like a mountain.

The witnesses for the defense are waiting to be called.

The judge begins: Hippolyte Lacour, state your complaint.

The plaintiff speaks: Your Honour, it will be nine months on Saint-Michael’s day since the defendant came to me one evening, after I had rung the Angelus, and began an explanation relating to her barrenness.

The Justice of the Peace: Kindly be more explicit.

Hippolyte: Very well, your Honour. Well, she wanted to have a child and desired my participation. I didn’t raise any objection, and she promised to give me one hundred francs. The thing was all cut and dried, and now she refuses to acknowledge my claim, which I renew before your Honour.

The Justice: I don’t understand in the least. You say that she wanted a child! What kind of child? Did she wish to adopt one?

Hippolyte: No, your Honour, she wanted a new one.

The Justice: What do you mean by a new one?

Hippolyte: I mean a newborn child, one that we were to beget as if we were man and wife.

The Justice: You astonish me. To what end did she make this abnormal proposition?

Hippolyte: Your Honour, at first I could not make out her reasons, and was taken a little aback. But as I don’t do anything without thoroughly investigating beforehand, I called on her to explain matters to me, which she did. You see, her husband, Anthime Isidore, whom you knew as well as you know me, had died the week before, and his money reverted to his family. This greatly displeased her on account of the loss it meant, so she went to a lawyer who told her all about what might happen if a child should be born to her after ten months. I mean by this that if she gave birth to a child inside of the ten months following the death of Anthime Isidore, her offspring would be considered legitimate and would entitle her to the inheritance. She made up her mind at once to run the risk, and came to me after church, as I have already had the honour of telling you, seeing that I am the father of eight living children, the oldest of whom is a grocer in Caen, department of Calvados, and legitimately married to Victoire-Elisabeth Rabou⁠—

The Justice: These details are superfluous. Go back to the subject.

Hippolyte: I am getting there, your Honour. So she said to me: “If you succeed, I’ll give you one hundred francs as soon as I get the doctor’s report.” Well, your Honour, I made ready to give entire satisfaction, and after eight weeks or so I learned with pleasure that I had succeeded. But when I asked her for the hundred francs she refused to pay me. I renewed my demands several times, never getting so much as a pin. She even called me a liar and a weakling, a libel which can be destroyed by glancing at her.

The Justice: Defendant, what have you to say?

Madame Luneau: Your Honour, I say that this man is a liar.

The Justice: How can you prove this assertion?

Madame Luneau (red in the face, choking and stammering): How can I prove it? What proofs have I? I haven’t a single real proof that the child isn’t his. But, your Honour, it isn’t his, I swear it on the head of my dead husband.

The Justice: Well, whose is it, then?

Madame Luneau (stammering with rage): How do I know? How do⁠—do I know? Everybody’s I suppose. Here are my witnesses, your Honour, they’re all here, the six of them. Now make them testify, make them testify. They’ll tell⁠—

The Justice: Collect yourself, Madame Luneau, collect yourself and reply calmly to my questions. What reasons have you to doubt that this man is the father of the child you are carrying?

Madame Luneau: What reasons? I have a hundred to one, a hundred? No, two hundred, five hundred, ten thousand, a million and more reasons to believe he isn’t. After the proposal I made to him, with the promise of one hundred francs, didn’t I learn that he wasn’t the father of his own children, your Honour, not the father of one of ’em?

Hippolyte (calmly): That’s a lie.

Madame Luneau (exasperated): A lie! A lie, is it? I think his wife has been around with everybody around here. Call my witnesses, your Honour, and make them testify?

Hippolyte (calmly): It’s a lie.

Madame Luneau: It’s a lie, is it? How about the red-haired ones, then? I suppose they’re yours, too?

The Justice: Kindly refrain from personal attacks, or I shall be obliged to call you to order.

Madame Luneau: Well, your Honour, I had my doubts about him, and said I to myself, two precautions are better than one, so I explained my position to Césaire Lepic, the witness who is present. Says he to me, “At your disposal, Madame Luneau,” and he lent me his assistance in case Hippolyte should turn out to be unreliable. But as soon as the other witnesses heard that I wanted to make sure against any disappointment, I could have had more than a hundred, your Honour, if I had wanted them. That tall one over there, Lucas Chandelier, swore at the time that I oughn’t to give Hippolyte Lacour a cent, for he hadn’t done more than the rest of them who had obliged me for nothing.

Hippolyte: What did you promise for? I expected the money, your Honour. No mistake with me⁠—a promise given, a promise kept.

Madame Luneau (beside herself): One hundred francs! One hundred francs! One hundred francs for that, you liar! The others there didn’t ask a red cent! Look at ’em, all six of ’em! Make them testify, your Honour, they’ll tell you. (To Hippolyte.) Look at ’em, you liar! they’re as good as you. They’re only six, but I could have had one, two, three, five hundred of ’em for nothing, too, you robber!

Hippolyte: Well, even if you’d had a hundred thousand⁠—

Madame Luneau: I could, if I’d wanted them.

Hippolyte: I did my duty, so it doesn’t change our agreement.

Madame Luneau (slapping her protuberant form with both hands): Then prove that it’s you that did it, prove it, you robber! I defy you to prove it!

Hippolyte (calmly): Maybe I didn’t do any more than anybody else. But you promised me a hundred francs for it. What did you ask the others for, afterwards? You had no right to. I could have done it alone.

Madame Luneau: It is not true, robber! Call my witnesses, your Honour; they’ll answer, for certain.

The Justice calls the witnesses in behalf of the defense. Six individuals appeared blushing, awkward looking, with their arms swinging at their sides.

The Justice: Lucas Chandelier, have you any reason to suppose that you are the father of the child Madame Luneau is carrying.

Lucas Chandelier: Yes, sir.

The Justice: Célestin-Pierre Sidoine, have you any reason to suppose that you are the father of the child Madame Luneau is carrying?

Célestin-Pierre Sidoine: Yes, sir.

The four other witnesses testified to the same effect.

The Justice, after having thought for awhile pronounced judgment: Whereas the plaintiff has reasons to believe himself the father of the child which Madame Luneau desired, Lucas Chandelier, Célestin-Pierre Sidoine, and others, have similar, if not conclusive reasons to lay claim to the child.

But whereas Mme. Luneau had previously asked the assistance of Hippolyte Lacour for a duly stated consideration of one hundred francs:

And whereas one may not question the absolute good faith of Hippolyte Lacour, though it is questionable whether he had a perfect right to enter into such an agreement, seeing that the plaintiff is married, and compelled by the law to remain faithful to his lawful spouse: Whereas, farther, etc., etc.

Therefore the Court condemns Madame Luneau to pay an indemnity of twenty-five francs to Hippolyte Lacour for loss of time and seduction.

Friend Patience

“Do you know what ever became of Leremy?”

“He is captain in the Sixth Dragoons.”

“And Pinson?”

“He’s a Subprefect.”

“And Racollet?”

“Dead.”

We were trying to remember other names which would remind us of youthful faces under the caps of young officers. Later in life we had met some of these old comrades, bearded, bald, married, fathers of several children, and the realization of these changes had given us an unpleasant shudder, reminding us how short life is, how everything passes away, how everything changes. My friend asked me:

“And Patience, fat Patience?”

I almost howled:

“Oh! as for him, just listen to this. Four or five years ago I was in Limoges, on a tour of inspection, and I was waiting for dinner time. I was seated before the big café in the Place du Théâtre, bored to tears. The tradespeople were coming by twos, threes or fours, to take their absinthe or vermouth, talking all the time of their own or other people’s business, laughing loudly, or lowering their voices in order to impart some important or delicate piece of news.

“I was saying to myself: ‘What am I going to do after dinner?’ And I thought of the long evening in this provincial town, of the slow, uninteresting walk through unknown streets, of the overwhelming sadness inspired in the solitary traveller by the people who pass, strangers in all things, the cut of their provincial coats, their hats, their trousers, their customs, local accent, their houses, shops, and carriages of singular shape. And then the ordinary sounds to which one is not accustomed; the harassing sadness which makes you hasten your step gradually, until you feel as if you were lost in a dangerous country, which oppresses you and you wish yourself back at the hotel, the hideous hotel, where your room preserves a thousand suspicious odours, where the bed makes one hesitate, and the basin has a hair stuck in the dirt at the bottom.

“I thought about all this as I watched them light the gas, feeling my isolated distress increase as the shadows fell. What was I going to do after dinner? I was alone, entirely alone, and lamentably lonesome.

“A big man came in, seated himself at a neighbouring table, and commanded in a formidable voice:

“ ‘Waiter, my bitters.’

“The ‘my’ in the phrase sounded like the report of a cannon. I understood immediately that everything in existence was his, belonged to him and not to any other, that he had his character, and, by Jove! his appetite, his trousers, his no matter what, after his own fashion, absolutely, and more completely than anybody else in the world. He looked about him with a satisfied air. They brought him his bitters and he called:

“ ‘My paper.’

“I asked myself: ‘Which is his paper, I wonder?’ The name of that would certainly reveal to me his opinions, his theories, his hobbies, and his nature.

“The waiter brought the Temps. I was surprised. Why the Temps, a grave, dull, doctrinal, heavy paper? I thought:

“ ‘So he is a wise man, of serious ways, regular habits, in short, a good citizen.’

“He placed his gold eyeglasses on his nose, turned around and, before commencing to read, cast another glance all around the room. He noticed me and immediately began to look at me in a persistent, uneasy fashion. I was on the point of asking him the reason for his attention, when he cried out from where he sat:

“ ‘By Jove, if it is not Gontran Lardois!’

“I answered: ‘Yes, sir, you are not mistaken.’

“Then he got up brusquely and came towards me with outstretched hands.

“ ‘Ah! my old friend, how are you?’ asked he.

“My greeting was constrained, as I did not recognize him at all. Finally I stammered:

“ ‘Why⁠—very well⁠—and you?’

“He began to laugh: ‘I bet you do not know me.’

“ ‘No, not quite⁠—It seems to me⁠—however⁠—’

“He tapped me on the shoulder:

“ ‘There, there! Don’t try to fool me. I am Patience, Robert Patience, your chum, your comrade.’

“I recognized him. Yes, Robert Patience, my comrade at college. It was he. I pressed the hand he extended to me and said:

“ ‘Everything going well with you?’

“ ‘With me? Like a charm.’

“His laugh rang with triumph. He inquired:

“ ‘What has brought you here?’

“I explained to him that I was an inspector of finances, making the rounds.

“He replied, observing my badge: ‘Then you are successful?’

“I replied: ‘Yes, rather; and you?’

“ ‘Oh! I? Very, very!’

“ ‘What are you doing now?’

“ ‘I am in business.’

“ ‘Then you are making money?’

“ ‘Lots of it. I am rich. But, come to lunch with me tomorrow at noon, No. 17 Rue du Coqqui-chante; then you will see my place.’

“He appeared to hesitate a second, then continued:

“ ‘You are still the good pal you used to be?’

“ ‘Yes⁠—I hope so.’

“ ‘Not married?’

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘So much the better. And you are still fond of a little beer and skittles?’

“I commenced to find him deplorably commonplace. I answered, nevertheless: ‘Yes.’

“ ‘And pretty girls?’

“ ‘Yes, certainly.’

“He began to laugh, with a good, hearty laugh:

“ ‘So much the better, so much the better,’ said he. ‘You recall our first night out at Bordeaux, when we had supper at Roupie’s? Ha! what a night!’

“I did remember that spree; and the memory of it amused me. Other facts were brought to mind, and still others. One would say:

“ ‘Do you remember the time we shut up the fawn in old Latoque’s cellar?’

“And he would laugh, striking his fist upon the table, repeating:

“ ‘Yes⁠—yes⁠—yes⁠—and you remember the face of the professor of geography, M. Marin, when we sent off a cracker on the map of the world just as he was orating on the principal volcanoes of the earth?’

“Then suddenly, I asked him:

“ ‘And you, are you married?’

“He cried: ‘For ten years, my dear fellow, and I have four children, most astonishing kids; but you will see them and their mother.’

“We were talking loudly; the neighbours were looking around at us in astonishment. Suddenly my friend looked at his watch, a chronometer as large as a turnip, and cried out:

“ ‘Heavens! what a nuisance, but I shall have to leave you; I am not free this evening.’

“He rose, took both my hands and shook them as if he wished to break off my arms, and said: ‘Tomorrow at noon, you remember?’

“ ‘All right.’

“I passed the morning working at the General-Treasurer’s. He wished to keep me for luncheon, but I told him that I had an appointment with a friend. As he was going out, he accompanied me. I asked him:

“ ‘Do you know where the Rue du Coq-quichante is?’

“ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it is five minutes from here. As I have nothing to do, I will conduct you there.’

“And we set out. Soon, I noticed the street we were looking for. It was wide, pretty enough, on the extreme outskirts of the town. I looked at the houses and perceived number 17. It was a kind of hotel with a garden at the back. The front, ornamented with frescoes in the Italian fashion, appeared to me in bad taste. There were goddesses hanging to urns, and others whose secret beauties a cloud concealed. Two stone Cupids held up the number.

“I said to the Treasurer: ‘Here is where I am going.’

“And I extended my hand by way of leaving him. He made a brusque and singular gesture, but said nothing, pressing the hand I had held out to him. I rang. A maid appeared. I said:

“ ‘M. Patience, if you please. Is he at home?’

“She replied: ‘He is here, sir⁠—Do you wish to speak with him?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“The vestibule was ornamented with paintings from the brush of some local artist. Paul and Virginia were embracing under some palms drowned in a rosy light. A hideous Oriental lantern hung from the ceiling. There were many doors, masked by showy hangings. But that which struck me particularly was the odour⁠—a permeating, perfumed odour, recalling rice powder and the mouldiness of cellars⁠—an indefinable odour in a heavy atmosphere, as overwhelming and as stifling as the furnaces in which human bodies are burned. Following the maid, I went up a marble staircase which was covered by a carpet of some Oriental kind, and was led into a sumptuous drawing room.

“On being left alone, I looked about me.

“The room was richly furnished, but with the pretension of an ill-bred parvenu. The engravings of the last century were pretty enough, representing women with high, powdered hair and half naked, surprised by gallant gentlemen in interesting postures. Another lady, lying on a huge disordered bed, was teasing with her foot a little dog buried in the sheets. Another resisted her lover complacently, as his hand strayed under her petticoat. One sketch showed four feet whose bodies could be divined, although concealed behind a curtain. The vast room, surrounded by soft divans, was entirely impregnated with this enervating odour, which had already taken hold of me. There was something suspicious about these walls, these stuffs, this exaggerated luxury, in short, the whole place.

“I approached the window to look into the garden, of which I could see but the trees. It was large, shady, superb. A broad path circled the lawn, where a fountain was playing in the air, flowed under some bushes, and reappeared some distance off. And suddenly three women appeared, down at the end of the garden, between two hedges of shrubs. They were walking slowly, arm in arm, clad in long, white tea-gowns covered with lace. Two were blondes and the other was dark-haired. Almost immediately they disappeared again behind the trees. I stood there entranced, delighted with this short and charming apparition, which brought to my mind a whole world of poetry. They had scarcely allowed themselves to be seen, in just the proper light, in that frame of foliage, in the midst of that mysterious, delightful park. It seemed to me that I had suddenly seen before me the great ladies of the last century, who were depicted in the engravings on the wall. And I began to think of these happy, joyous, witty and amorous times when manners were so graceful and lips so approachable.

“A deep voice made me jump. Patience had come in, beaming, and held out his hands to me.

“He looked into my eyes with the sly look which one takes when divulging secrets of love, and, with a Napoleonic gesture, he showed me his sumptuous parlour, his park, the three women, who had reappeared in the background. Then, in a triumphant voice, in which the note of pride was discernible, he said:

“And to think that I began with nothing⁠—my wife and my sister-in-law!”

The Funeral Pile

Last Monday at Étretat the death occurred of an Indian prince, Bapu Sahib Khanderao Ghatgay, a relative of His Highness the Maharajah Gaikwar, Prince of Baroda, in the Province of Gujarath, Bombay Presidency.

For about three weeks previously a group of about ten young Indians had been noticed in the streets, small, lithe young fellows, completely black, and dressed in grey suits, with broad-peaked cloth caps. They were distinguished potentates who had come to Europe to study the military institutions of the principal Western nations. The group consisted of three princes, a friend of high caste, an interpreter and three servants.

It was the head of this mission who had died, an old man of forty-two, the father-in-law of Sampatrao Kashivao Gaikwar, brother of His Highness the Gaikwar of Baroda. His son-in-law was with him. The others were Ganpatrao Shavanrao Gaikwar, cousin of His Highness Khasherao Gadhav; Vasudev Madhav Samarth, secretary and interpreter, and the servants, Ramchandra Bajaji, Ganu bin Pukaram Kokate, Rhambhaji bin Favji.

When the deceased gentleman was leaving his country he was overcome by sorrow, convinced that he would never return, and he wanted to abandon the trip, but he had to submit to the will of his noble relative, the Prince of Baroda, so he set out.

They came to spend the last weeks of summer at Étretat, and the curious used to watch them bathing every morning at the Roches Blanches baths.

Five or six days ago Bapu Sahib Khanderao Ghatgay began to suffer from pains in his gums, then the inflammation spread to his throat, which became ulcerated. Gangrene set in, and on Monday the doctors informed his young friend that he would not recover. He sank almost immediately after that, and when the unfortunate man seemed on the point of breathing his last, his friends caught him in their arms, lifted him out of bed, and placed him on the tiled floor, so that he might die in contact with Mother Earth, according to the laws of Brahma.

On the same day they requested the permission of the Mayor, Monsieur Boissaye, to burn the corpse, also in accordance with the rites of their religion. The Mayor hesitated, then telegraphed to the Prefecture for instructions, stating, however, that, in the absence of any reply to the contrary, he would give his consent. As no reply had been received by nine o’clock in the evening, it was decided that, in view of the infectious character of the disease of which the Indian had died, his body would be cremated that very night on the shore beneath the cliffs, as the tide receded.

At present no objection has been raised against this decision of the Mayor’s, who acted as a man of intelligence and resolution, with broad-minded ideas, and who was supported, moreover, by the advice of the three doctors who had followed the case and issued the certificate of death.

There was a dance that night at the Casino. It was a premature autumn evening, and rather cold. A strong wind was blowing in from the ocean, though the sea was not rough, and ragged, torn clouds scudded across the sky. They came up from the distant horizon, and as they approached the moon they became white, covered it rapidly, and obscured it for a second or two without actually hiding it. The tall cliffs which enclose the rounded seashore of Étretat, terminating in the two celebrated arcades known as “The Gates,” remained hidden in the shadows, forming two huge black spots on the landscape under the tender light of the moon.

It had been raining all day.

The Casino orchestra was playing waltzes, polkas and quadrilles. Suddenly a rumour spread through the crowd. People were saying that an Indian prince had just died at the Hôtel des Bains, and that the authorities had been approached for permission to burn the body. Nobody believed the story; or at least nobody thought it was likely to happen soon, it seemed so contrary to our customs, and as the night advanced everybody went home.

At midnight the lamplighter went from street to street extinguishing one after the other the yellow gas jets which lit up the sleeping houses, the mud and the puddles of water. He waited, watching for the moment when the little town would be empty and still.

Ever since midday a carpenter had been cutting wood, wondering in his amazement what was going to be done with all these boards sawn into little pieces, and why so much good material was being wasted. This wood was loaded on to a cart and taken off by side streets to the shore without arousing the suspicions of the few late pedestrians who met it. The cart went along the shingle to the very foot of the cliffs, and when its load had been emptied, the three Indian servants began to build up a funeral pile, which was longer than it was broad. They did all the work alone, for no profane hand could help them in this solemn task. It was one o’clock in the morning when the relatives of the dead man were informed that they could carry out their wishes.

The door of the little house which they occupied was opened, and in the narrow hall, dimly lighted, we saw the corpse lying on trestles, and wrapped in white silk. The form could be seen distinctly beneath its white covering, lying on its back. The Indians stood, motionless and very solemn, at his feet while one of them went through the prescribed ritual, murmuring in a monotonous whisper words we could not understand. He moved around the corpse, sometimes touching it, then, taking an urn which hung from three chains, he sprinkled it for a long time with the holy water of the Ganges, which Indians must always carry with them, wherever they may go.

Then the trestles were raised by four of them, who set out slowly. The moon had disappeared leaving the muddy, empty streets in darkness, but the corpse on the trestles seemed luminous, the silk was so dazzling. It was an impressive sight to see the bright form of this body passing through the night, carried by men whose skin was so dark that one could not distinguish between their faces and hands and their clothes, in the shadows. Three Indians followed behind the corpse, then came the tall figure of an Englishman in a light grey overcoat, who stood head and shoulders above them, a charming and distinguished man, their guide, counsellor and friend in Europe.

Beneath the cold, foggy skies of this little Northern watering-place I felt as if I were witnessing a symbolical spectacle. It seemed to me as though the conquered genius of India were being borne in front of me, while in its wake, as in a funeral procession, followed the victorious genius of England, dressed in a grey ulster.

The four bearers stopped a moment on the rolling shingle to get their breath, then they went on, walking very slowly now, and staggering beneath their burden. At last they reached the funeral pile, which had been built in a cave at the very foot of the cliffs, which rose to a height of some three hundred feet, all white, but looking sombre in the night. The pile was about three feet high. The corpse was laid upon it, and one of the Indians asked in what direction lay the North Star. It was pointed out to him, and the dead Rajah was stretched out with his feet turned towards his native land. Twelve bottles of petroleum were then poured over him, and he was completely covered with fir planks. For another hour the relatives and servants kept adding to the pile, which looked like those heaps of wood which carpenters keep in their lofts. Then twenty bottles of oil were emptied on to the edifice, and right on the top a sack of shavings. A few feet away a light flickered in a little bronze spirit-lamp, which had been burning since the corpse arrived.

The moment had come. The relatives went to set a flame to the pile. As the lamp was not burning well they poured some oil into it, and suddenly the flame shot up, lighting the great wall of rocks from top to bottom. An Indian who was stooping over the lamp stood up, with his two hands raised and his elbows folded, and a colossal black shadow was suddenly thrown upon the immense white cliffs, the shadow of Buddha, in his traditional pose. The little pointed cap which the man was wearing suggested the god’s headdress. The effect was so striking and unexpected that I felt my heart beating as if some supernatural apparition had loomed up in front of me. It was indeed the ancient and sacred image, come from the heart of the Orient to this other end of Europe to watch over its child who was being burnt there.

The shadow disappeared. They approached with the lamp. The shavings at the top caught fire, then the flames spread to the wood, and a powerful light illuminated the shore, the shingle, and the foaming waves that broke on the sand. It grew larger every moment, till it lit up the dancing crests of the waves on the distant sea. The wind from the ocean blew in gusts, increasing the flames, which died down, twisted and shot up again, throwing out thousands of sparks. They ran along the cliffs with lightning speed, and were lost in the sky, where they mingled with the stars and added to the number. Some sea birds were aroused and uttered their plaintive cries, as they flew in wide curves, passing with outstretched wings through the brilliant light, and disappearing again into the darkness.

Very soon the funeral pile was one mass of burning wood, not red, but yellow, a dazzling yellow, a furnace lashed by the wind. Suddenly it shook beneath a gust stronger than the others, collapsed in part, falling towards the sea. The corpse was uncovered and was quite visible, a dark patch on a bed of fire, burning with long blue flames. When the pile collapsed on the right hand side the corpse turned like a man in his bed. It was at once covered up with fresh wood, and the flames roared more furiously than before.

Seated in a semicircle on the shingle the Indians looked on with sad and serious faces. The rest of us, as it was cold, came close enough to the fire to feel the sparks and the smoke on our faces. There was no smell but that of pine and petroleum.

Hours passed and dawn appeared. Towards five o’clock nothing remained but a heap of ashes. The relatives picked them up, threw some into the air, some into the sea, and kept a little in a brass jar to be taken back to India. Then they withdrew to weep for the dead at home. In this fashion these young princes and their servants, with only the most elementary material, succeeded in cremating their relative with singular skill and remarkable dignity. Everything was accomplished in accordance with the rites and laws of their religion. The dead man rests in peace.

The following day there was great excitement in Étretat. Some pretended that a man had been burnt alive, others that it was an attempt to conceal a crime. It was said that the Mayor would be imprisoned; while certain people asserted that the Indian prince had succumbed to an attack of cholera. The men were amazed and the women indignant. All day a crowd lingered at the site of the funeral pile, looking for pieces of bone amongst the still warm shingle. Enough bones were picked up to make ten whole skeletons, for the farmers of the neighborhood often throw their dead sheep into the sea. The gamblers carefully placed these different fragments in their purses. But not one of them has a genuine piece of the Indian prince.

That evening a representative of the government came to hold an inquiry. He seemed, however, to view this strange case like a man of reason and intelligence. But what will he say in his report? The Indians declared that if they had been prevented from cremating their dead in France, they would have taken the corpse to a freer country, where they could conform to their own customs.

So I have seen a man burned on a funeral pile, and it has given me a desire to end in the same fashion. Everything is over at once. The slow work of nature is thus hastened by man, rather than retarded by a hideous coffin in which decomposition goes on for months. The body is dead and the spirit has departed. The purifying fire scatters in a few hours what was a human being, casting it to the winds, turning to air and ashes, instead of unspeakable putrefaction.

That is a clean and healthy method. Under the clay, in that closed box in which the body becomes pulp, a black stinking pulp, the process of putrefaction becomes something repugnant and atrocious. The coffin which descends into a muddy hole makes the heart ache, but the funeral pile flaming up to heaven has an element of greatness, beauty and solemnity.

Miss Harriet

There were seven of us in the drag, four women and three men, one of whom was on the box seat beside the coachman. We were following, at a walking pace, the winding coast road up the hill.

Having set out from Étretat at daybreak, in order to visit the ruins of Tancarville, we were still half asleep, benumbed by the fresh air of the morning. The women, especially, who were little accustomed to early rising, let their eyelids fall every moment, nodding their heads or yawning, quite insensible to the glory of the dawn.

It was autumn. On both sides of the road the bare fields stretched out, yellowed by the corn and wheat stubble which covered the soil like a badly shaved beard. The misty earth looked as if it were steaming. Larks were singing in the air, while other birds piped in the bushes.

At length the sun rose in front of us, a bright red on the edge of the horizon; and as it ascended, growing clearer from minute to minute, the country seemed to awake, to smile, to shake and stretch itself, like a young girl leaving her bed in a white chemise of vapour. The Comte d’Étraille, who was seated on the box, cried:

“Look! look! a hare!” and he stretched out his arm to the left, pointing to a patch of clover. The animal scurried along, almost concealed by the field, only its large ears visible. Then it swerved across a deep furrow, stopped, started off again at top speed, changed its course, stopped anew, uneasy, spying out every danger, and undecided as to the route it should take. Suddenly it began to run, with great bounds from its hind legs, disappearing finally in a large patch of beetroot. All the men had wakened up to watch the animal’s movements.

René Lemanoir then exclaimed:

“We are not at all gallant this morning,” and looking at his neighbor, the little Baronne de Sérennes, who was struggling with drowsiness, he said to her in a subdued voice: “You are thinking of your husband, Baronne. Reassure yourself; he will not return before Saturday, so you still have four days.”

She replied, with a sleepy smile:

“How silly you are.” Then, shaking off her torpor, she added: “Now, let somebody say something that will make us all laugh. You, Monsieur Chenal, who have the reputation of possessing a larger fortune than the Duc de Richelieu, tell us a love story in which you have been involved, anything you like.”

Léon Chenal, an old painter, who had once been very handsome, very strong, who was very proud of his physique and very popular, took his long white beard in his hand and smiled; then, after a few moments’ reflection, he became suddenly grave.

“Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale; for I am going to relate to you the most lamentable love affair of my life, and I sincerely hope that none of my friends may ever inspire a similar passion.”

I

“At that time I was twenty-five years old, and I was daubing along the coast of Normandy. I call ‘daubing’ to wander about, with a knapsack on one’s back, from inn to inn, under the pretext of making studies and sketches from nature. I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free, without shackles of any kind, without a care, without a single preoccupation, without even a thought of tomorrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy, without any counselor save what pleases your eyes. You pull up, because a running brook seduces you, or because you are attracted, in front of an inn, by the smell of fried potatoes. Sometimes it is the perfume of clematis which decides you in your choice, or the glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise these rustic affections. These girls have souls as well as bodies, firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their hearty and willing kisses have the flavor of wild fruit. Love always has its savour, come whence it may. A heart that beats when you make your appearance, an eye that weeps when you go away, these are things so rare, so sweet, so precious, that they must never be despised.

“I have had rendezvous in ditches full of primroses, behind the stable in which the cattle slept, and among the straw in garrets still warm from the heat of the day. I have memories of course grey linen on supple strong bodies, and of hearty, fresh, free kisses, more delicate, in their sincere brutality, than the subtle attractions of charming and distinguished women.

“But what you love most in these pilgrimages of adventure are the country, the woods, the sunrises, the twilights, the light of the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You are alone with her in a long, quiet rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, beneath the bright sunset, you watch in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour of noon.

“You sit down by the side of a spring which gushes out from the foot of an oak, amid a covering of tall, fragile weeds, glistening with life. You go down on your knees, bend forward, and drink the cold and pellucid water, wetting your mustache and nose; you drink it with a physical pleasure, as though you were kissing the spring, lip to lip. Sometimes, when you encounter a deep hole, along the course of these tiny brooks, you plunge into it, quite naked, and on your skin, from head to foot, like an icy and delicious caress, you feel the lovely and gentle quivering of the current.

“You are gay on the hills, melancholy on the verge of pools, exalted when the sun is drowned in an ocean of bloodred shadows, and when it casts on the rivers its red reflection. And at night, under the moon, as it passes across the roof of heaven, you think of things, singular things, which would never have occurred to your mind under the brilliant light of day.

“So, in wandering through the same country where we are this year, I came to the little village of Bénouville, on the rocky coast, between Yport and Étretat. I came from Fécamp, following the coast, a high coast, perpendicular as a wall, with projecting and rugged rocks falling sheer down into the sea. I had walked since morning on the close-clipped grass, as smooth and as yielding as a carpet, which grows along the edge of the cliff, fanned by the salt breezes of the ocean. Singing lustily, I walked with long strides, looking sometimes at the slow and lazy flight of a gull, with its short, white wings, sailing in the blue heavens, sometimes at the green sea, or at the brown sails of a fishing bark. In short, I had passed a happy day, a day of liberty and freedom from care.

“I was shown a little farmhouse, where travellers were put up, a kind of inn, kept by a peasant, which stood in the centre of a Norman court, surrounded by a double row of beeches.

“Leaving the court, I reached the hamlet, which was shut in by great trees, and I presented myself at the house of Mother Lecacheur.

“She was an old country woman, wrinkled and austere, who always seemed to receive customers reluctantly, with a kind of contempt.

“It was the month of May: the flowering apple trees covered the court with a roof of perfumed flowers, with a whirling shower of blossoms which rained unceasingly both upon the people and upon the grass.

“I said:

“ ‘Well, Madame Lecacheur, have you a room for me?’

“Astonished to find that I knew her name, she answered:

“ ‘That depends; everything is let; but, all the same, there will be no harm in looking.’

“In five minutes we had come to an agreement, and I deposited my bag upon the earthen floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed, two chairs, a table, and a washstand. The room opened into the large and smoky kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with the people of the farm and with the woman herself, who was a widow.

“I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was making a chicken fricassee for dinner in a large fireplace, in which hung the stewpot, black with smoke.

“ ‘You have visitors, then, at the present time?’ said I to her.

“She answered in an offended tone of voice:

“ ‘I have a lady, an English lady, of a certain age. She is occupying the other room.’

“For an extra five sous a day, I obtained the privilege of dining out in the court when the weather was fine.

“My place was then set in front of the door, and I commenced to gnaw with hunger the lean limbs of the Normandy chicken, to drink the clear cider, and to munch the hunk of white bread, which, though four days old, was excellent.

“Suddenly, the wooden barrier which opened on to the highway was opened, and a strange person directed her steps toward the house. She was very thin, very tall, enveloped in a Scotch shawl with red checks. You would have believed that she had no arms, if you had not seen a long hand appear just above the hips, holding a white tourist’s umbrella. The face of a mummy, surrounded with sausage rolls of plaited grey hair, which bounded at every step she took, made me think, I know not why, of a pickled herring adorned with curling papers. Lowering her eyes, she passed quickly in front of me, and entered the house.

“This singular apparition made me curious. She undoubtedly was my neighbour, the aged English lady of whom our hostess had spoken.

“I did not see her again that day. The next day, when I had begun to paint at the end of that beautiful valley, which, you know, extends as far as Étretat, lifting my eyes suddenly, I perceived something singularly attired standing on the crest of the declivity; it looked like a pole decked out with flags. It was she. On seeing me, she suddenly disappeared. I returned to the house at midday for lunch, and took my seat at the common table, so as to make the acquaintance of this eccentric old creature. But she did not respond to my polite advances, was insensible even to my little attentions. I poured water out for her with great alacrity, I passed her the dishes with great eagerness. A slight, almost imperceptible movement of the head, and an English word, murmured so low that I did not understand it, were her only acknowledgments.

“I ceased taking any notice of her, although she had disturbed my thoughts. At the end of three days, I knew as much about her as did Madame Lecacheur herself.

“She was called Miss Harriet. Seeking out a secluded village in which to pass the summer, she had been attracted to Bénouville, some six months before, and did not seem disposed to leave it. She never spoke at table, ate rapidly, reading all the while a small book of Protestant propaganda. She gave a copy of it to everybody. The curé himself had received no less than four copies, at the hands of an urchin to whom she had paid two sous’ commission. She said sometimes to our hostess, abruptly, without the slightest preliminary leading up to this declaration:

“ ‘I love the Saviour above all; I worship him in all creation; I adore him in all nature; I carry him always in my heart.’

“And she would immediately present the old woman with one of her brochures which were destined to convert the universe.

“In the village she was not liked. In fact, the schoolmaster had declared that she was an atheist, and a kind of stigma attached to her. The curé, who had been consulted by Madame Lecacheur, responded:

“ ‘She is a heretic, but God does not wish the death of the sinner, and I believe her to be a person of pure morals.’

“These words, ‘atheist,’ ‘heretic,’ words which no one can precisely define, threw doubts into some minds. It was asserted, however, that this English woman was rich, and that she had passed her life in travelling through every country in the world, because her family had thrown her off. Why had her family thrown her off? Because of her natural impiety?

“She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles, one of those obstinate puritans of whom England produces so many, one of those good and insupportable old women who haunt the tables d’hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterannean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their petrified vestal manners, their indescribable toilettes, and a certain odour of india-rubber, which makes one believe that at night they slip themselves into a case of that material. When I meet one of these people in a hotel, I flee like the birds when they see a scarecrow in a field.

“This woman, however, appeared so singular that she did not displease me.

“Madame Lecacheur, hostile by instinct to everything that was not rural, felt in her narrow soul a kind of hatred for the ecstatic extravagances of the old girl. She had found a phrase by which to describe her, I know not how, but a phrase assuredly contemptuous, which had sprung to her lips, invented probably by some confused and mysterious travail of soul. She said: ‘That woman is a demoniac.’ This phrase, as uttered by that austere and sentimental creature, seemed to me irresistibly comic. I, myself, never called her now anything else but ‘the demoniac,’ feeling a singular pleasure in pronouncing this word on seeing her.

“I would ask Mother Lecacheur: ‘Well, what is our demoniac doing today?’ To which my rustic friend would respond, with an air of having been scandalized:

“ ‘What do you think, sir? She picked up a toad which had its leg battered, carried it to her room, put it in her washstand, and dressed its wound as if it were a human. If that is not profanation, I should like to know what is!’

“On another occasion, when walking along the shore, she had bought a large fish which had just been caught, simply to throw it back into the sea again. The sailor, from whom she had bought it, though paid handsomely, was greatly provoked at this act⁠—more exasperated, indeed, than if she had put her hand into his pocket and taken his money. For a whole month he could not speak of the circumstance without getting into a fury and denouncing it as an outrage. Oh yes! She was indeed a demoniac, this Miss Harriet, and Mother Lecacheur must have had an inspiration of genius in thus christening her.

“The stable-boy, who was called Sapeur, because he had served in Africa in his youth, entertained other aversions. He said, with a knowing air: ‘She is an old hag who has had her day.’ If the poor woman had but known.

“Céleste, the little servant, did not like waiting on her, but I was never able to understand why. Probably her only reason was that she was a stranger, of another race, of a different tongue, and of another religion. She was a demoniac in brief!

“She passed her time wandering about the country, adoring and searching for God in nature. I found her one evening on her knees in a cluster of bushes. Having discovered something red through the leaves, I brushed aside the branches, and Miss Harriet at once rose to her feet, confused at having been found thus, looking at me with eyes as frightened as those of an owl surprised in open day.

“Sometimes, when I was working among the rocks, I would suddenly see her on the edge of the cliff, standing like a semaphore signal. She gazed passionately at the vast sea, glittering in the sunlight, and the boundless sky empurpled with fire. Sometimes I would distinguish her at the bottom of a valley, walking quickly, with her elastic English step; and I would go towards her, mysteriously attracted, simply to see her visionary expression, her dried-up, ineffable features, full of an inward and profound happiness.

“Often I would encounter her in the corner of a field sitting on the grass, under the shadow of an apple tree, with her little Bible lying open on her knee, while she looked meditatively into the distance.

“I could no longer tear myself away from that quiet country neighbourhood, bound to it as I was by a thousand links of love for its soft and sweeping landscapes. I was happy at this farm, which was out of the world, far removed from everything, but in close proximity to the soil, the good, healthy, beautiful green soil, which we ourselves shall fertilise with our bodies some day. And, I must confess, there was perhaps a certain amount of curiosity which kept me at Mother Lecacheur’s. I wished to become acquainted a little with this strange Miss Harriet, and to learn what passes in the solitary souls of those wandering old, English dames.

II

“We became acquainted in a rather singular manner. I had just finished a study which seemed to me rather striking. It must have been, for it was sold for ten thousand francs, fifteen years later. It was as simple, however, as twice two make four, and had nothing to do with academic rules. The whole of the right side of my canvas represented a rock, an enormous jagged rock, covered with seawrack, brown, yellow, and red, across which the sun poured like a stream of oil. The light fell upon the stone, and gilded it as if with fire, but the sun itself was behind me and could not be seen. That was all. A foreground dazzling with light, blazing, superb.

“On the left was the sea, not the blue sea, the slate-coloured sea, but a sea of jade, greenish, milky, and hard under the overcast sky.

“I was so pleased with my work that I danced as I carried it back to the inn. I wished that the whole world could have seen it at one and the same moment. I can remember that I showed it to a cow, which was browsing by the wayside, exclaiming, at the same time: ‘Look at that, my old beauty; you will not often see its like again.’

“When I had reached the front of the house, I immediately called out to Mother Lecacheur, bawling with all my might:

“ ‘Hello, there, Landlady! Come here and look at this.’

“The woman came and looked at my work with stupid eyes, which distinguished nothing, and did not even recognize whether the picture represented an ox or a house.

“Miss Harriet was coming into the house, and she passed behind me just at the moment when, holding out my canvas at arm’s length, I was exhibiting it to the female innkeeper. The ‘demoniac’ could not help but see it, for I took care to exhibit the thing in such a way that it could not escape her notice. She stopped abruptly and stood motionless, stupefied. It was her rock which was depicted, the one which she usually climbed to dream away her time undisturbed.

“She uttered a British ‘Oh,’ which was at once so accentuated and so flattering, that I turned round to her, smiling, and said:

“ ‘This is my latest study, Mademoiselle.’

“She murmured ecstatically, comically, and tenderly:

“ ‘Oh! Monsieur, you understand nature in a most thrilling way!’

“I coloured up, of course, and was more excited by that compliment than if it had come from a queen. I was seduced, conquered, vanquished. I could have embraced her⁠—upon my honour.

“I took my seat at the table beside her, as I had always done. For the first time, she spoke, drawling out in a loud voice:

“ ‘Oh! I love nature so much.’

“I offered her some bread, some water, some wine. She now accepted these with the vacant smile of a mummy. I then began to converse with her about the scenery.

“After the meal, we rose from the table together and walked leisurely across the court; then, attracted by the fiery glow which the setting sun cast over the surface of the sea, I opened the outside gate which faced in the direction of the cliff, and we walked on side by side, as satisfied as any two persons could be who have just learned to understand and penetrate each other’s motives and feelings.

“It was a misty, relaxing evening, one of those enjoyable evenings which impart happiness to mind and body alike. All is joy, all is charm. The luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfume of grass, with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the odour of the wild flowers, caresses the nostrils with its wild perfume, the palate with its salty savour, the soul with a penetrating sweetness. We were going to the brink of the abyss which overlooked the vast sea, which rolled its little waves below us, at a distance of less than a hundred metres.

“We drank, with open mouth and expanded chest, that fresh breeze from the ocean which glides slowly over the skin, salted as it is by long contact with the waves.

“Wrapped in her plaid shawl, with a look of inspiration as she faced the breeze, the English woman gazed fixedly at the great sun ball as it descended toward the horizon. Far off in the distance a three-master in full sail was outlined on the bloodred sky and a steamship, somewhat nearer, passed along, leaving behind it a trail of smoke on the horizon. The red sun globe sank slowly lower and lower and presently touched the water just behind the motionless vessel, which, in its dazzling effulgence, looked as though framed in a flame of fire. We saw it plunge, grow smaller and disappear, swallowed up by the ocean.

“Miss Harriet gazed in rapture at the last gleams of the dying day. She seemed longing to embrace the sky, the sea, the whole landscape.

“She murmured: ‘Ah! I love⁠—I love⁠—’ I saw a tear in her eye. She continued: ‘I wish I were a little bird, so that I could mount up into the firmament.’

“She remained standing as I had often before seen her, perched on the cliff, her face as red as her shawl. I should have liked to have sketched her in my album. It would have been a caricature of ecstasy.

“I turned away so as not to laugh.

“I then spoke to her of painting as I would have done to a fellow artist, using the technical terms common among the devotees of the profession. She listened attentively, eagerly seeking to divine the meaning of the terms, so as to understand my thoughts. From time to time she would exclaim: ‘Oh! I understand, I understand. It is very interesting.’

“We returned home.

“The next day, on seeing me, she approached me, cordially holding out her hand; and we at once became firm friends.

“She was a good creature who had a kind of soul on springs, which became enthusiastic at a bound. She lacked equilibrium, like all women who are spinsters at the age of fifty. She seemed to be preserved in vinegary innocence, though her heart still retained something of youth and of girlish effervescence. She loved both nature and animals with a fervent ardour, a love like old wine, mellow through age, with a sensual love that she had never bestowed on men.

“One thing is certain: a bitch feeding her pups, a mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird’s nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their open mouths and enormous heads, and no feathers, made her quiver with the most violent emotion.

“Poor solitary beings! Sad wanderers from table d’hôte to table d’hôte, poor beings, ridiculous and lamentable, I love you ever since I became acquainted with Miss Harriet!

“I soon discovered that she had something she would like to tell me, but dared not, and I was amused at her timidity. When I started out in the morning with my box on my back, she would accompany me to the end of the village, silent, but evidently struggling inwardly to find words with which to begin a conversation. Then she would leave me abruptly, and, with jaunty step, walk away quickly.

“One day, however, she plucked up courage:

“ ‘I would like to see how you paint pictures? Will you show me? I have been very curious.’

“And she coloured up as though she had given utterance to words extremely audacious.

“I conducted her to the bottom of the Petit-Val, where I had commenced a large picture.

“She remained standing near me, following all my gestures with concentrated attention. Then, suddenly, fearing, perhaps, that she was disturbing me, she said to me: ‘Thank you,’ and walked away.

“But in a short time she became more familiar, and accompanied me every day, with visible pleasure. She carried her folding stool under her arm, would not consent to my carrying it, and she sat by my side. She would remain there for hours immovable and mute, following with her eye the point of my brush in its every movement. When I would obtain, by a large splatch of colour spread on with a knife, a striking and unexpected effect, she would, in spite of herself, give vent to a half-suppressed ‘Oh!’ of astonishment, of joy, of admiration. She had the most tender respect for my canvases, an almost religious respect for that human reproduction of a part of nature’s divine work. My studies appeared to her as a species of holy pictures, and sometimes she spoke to me of God, with the idea of converting me.

“Oh! He was a queer creature, this God of hers. He was a sort of village philosopher without any great resources, and without great power; for she always pictured him to herself as a being in despair over injustices committed under his eyes, as if he were helpless to prevent them.

“She was, however, on excellent terms with him, affecting even to be the confidante of his secrets and of his whims. She said: ‘God wills, or God does not will,’ just like a sergeant announcing to a recruit: ‘The colonel has commanded.’

“At the bottom of her heart she deplored my ignorance of the intentions of the Eternal, which she strove, nay, felt herself compelled, to impart to me.

“Every day, I found in my pockets, in my hat when I lifted it from the ground, in my box of colours, in my polished shoes, standing in the mornings in front of my door, those little pious brochures, which she, no doubt, received directly from Paradise.

“I treated her as one would an old friend, with unaffected cordiality. But I soon perceived that she had changed somewhat in her manner, though, for a while, I paid little attention to it.

“When I was painting, whether in my valley or in some country lane, I would see her suddenly appear with her rapid, springy walk. She would then sit down abruptly, out of breath, as though she had been running or were overcome by some profound emotion. Her face would be red, that English red which is denied to the people of all other countries; then, without any reason, she would turn ashy pale and seem about to faint away. Gradually, however, her natural colour would return and she would begin to speak.

“Then, without warning, she would break off in the middle of a sentence, spring up from her seat and walk away so rapidly and so strangely that I was at my wits’ ends to discover whether I had done or said anything to displease or wound her.

“I finally came to the conclusion that those were her normal manners, somewhat modified no doubt in my honour during the first days of our acquaintance.

“When she returned to the farm, after walking for hours on the windy coast, her long curls often hung straight down, as if their springs had been broken. This had hitherto seldom given her any concern, and she would come to dinner without embarrassment all dishevelled by her sister, the breeze.

“But now she would go up to her room in order to adjust what I called her glass lamps. When I would say to her, with familiar gallantry, which, however, always offended her: ‘You are as beautiful as a planet today, Miss Harriet,’ a little blood would immediately mount into her cheeks, the blood of a young maiden, the blood of sweet fifteen.

“Then she became quite savage, and ceased coming to watch me paint. But I always thought: ‘This is only a fit of temper. It will pass.’

“But it did not always pass away. When I spoke to her now, she would answer me, either with an air of affected indifference, or in sullen anger; and she became by turns rude, impatient, and nervous. I never saw her except at meals, and we spoke but little. I concluded, at length, that I must have offended her in something: and, accordingly, I said to her one evening:

“ ‘Miss Harriet, why is it that you do not act towards me as formerly? What have I done to displease you? You are causing me much pain!’

“She responded, in an angry tone, which was very funny: ‘I am always the same to you as formerly. It is not true, not true,’ and she ran upstairs and shut herself up in her room.

“At times she would look upon me with strange eyes. Since that time I have often said to myself that those condemned to death must look thus when informed that their last day has come. In her eye there lurked a species of madness, an insanity at once mystical and violent⁠—something more, a fever, an exasperated desire, impatient, unrealized and unrealizable!

“It seemed to me that there was also going on within her a combat, in which her heart struggled against an unknown force that she wished to overcome⁠—perhaps, even, something else. But what could I know? What could I know?

III

“It was indeed a singular revelation.

“For some time I had commenced to work, as soon as daylight appeared, on a picture the subject of which was as follows:

“A deep ravine, enclosed, surmounted by two thickets of trees and vines, extended into the distance and was lost, submerged in that milky vapour, in that cloud like cotton down that sometimes floats over valleys at daybreak. And at the extreme end of that heavy, transparent fog one saw, or, rather, surmised, that a couple of human beings were approaching, a human couple, a youth and a maiden, their arms interlaced, embracing each other, their heads inclined toward each other, their lips meeting.

“A first ray of the sun, glistening through the branches, pierced that fog of the dawn, illuminated it with a rosy reflection just behind the rustic lovers, framing their vague shadows in a silvery background. It was well done; yes, indeed, well done.

“I was working on the declivity which led to the Valley of Étretat. On this particular morning I had, by chance, the sort of floating vapor which I needed. Suddenly something rose up in front of me like a phantom; it was Miss Harriet. On seeing me she was about to flee. But I called after her, saying: ‘Come here, come here, mademoiselle. I have a nice little picture for you.’

“She came forward, though with seeming reluctance. I handed her my sketch. She said nothing, but stood for a long time motionless, looking at it. Suddenly she burst into tears. She wept spasmodically, like men who have been struggling hard against shedding tears, but who can do so no longer, and abandon themselves to grief, though unwillingly. I got up, trembling, moved myself by the sight of a sorrow I did not understand, and I took her by the hand with a gesture of brusque affection, the real impulse of a Frenchman who acts more rapidly than he thinks.

“She let her hands rest in mine for a few seconds, and I felt them quiver, as if her whole nervous system were on the rack. Then she withdrew her hands abruptly, or, rather, tore them out of mine.

“I recognized that shiver as soon as I had felt it; I was deceived in nothing. Ah! the love thrill of a woman, whether she is fifteen or fifty years of age, whether she is of the people or in society, goes so straight to my heart that I never had any difficulty in understanding it!

“Her whole frail being trembled, vibrated, yielded. I knew it. She walked away before I had time to say a word, leaving me as surprised as if I had witnessed a miracle, and as troubled as if I had committed a crime.

“I did not go in to breakfast. I took a walk on the edge of the cliff, feeling that I could just as soon weep as laugh, looking on the adventure as both comic and deplorable, and my position as ridiculous, believing her unhappy enough to go mad.

“I asked myself what I ought to do. I judged I had better take leave of the place and almost immediately my resolution was formed.

“Somewhat sad and perplexed, I wandered about until dinner time, and entered the farmhouse just when the soup had been served.

“I sat down at the table as usual. Miss Harriet was there, eating away solemnly, without speaking to anyone, without even lifting her eyes. Her manner and expression were, however, the same as usual.

“I waited patiently till the meal had been finished, when, turning toward the landlady, I said: ‘Well, Madame Lecacheur, it will not be long now before I shall have to take my leave of you.’

“The good woman, at once surprised and troubled, replied in her drawling voice: ‘My dear sir, what is it you say? You are going to leave us after I have become so accustomed to you?’

“I glanced at Miss Harriet out of the corner of my eye. Her countenance did not change in the least. But Céleste, the little servant, looked up at me. She was a fat girl, of about eighteen years of age, rosy, fresh, as strong as a horse, and possessing the rare attribute of cleanliness. I had kissed her at odd times in out-of-the-way corners, after the manner of travellers⁠—nothing more.

“The dinner being at length over, I went to smoke my pipe under the apple trees, walking up and down from one end of the enclosure to the other. All the reflections which I had made during the day, the strange discovery of the morning, that passionate and grotesque attachment for me, the recollections which that revelation had suddenly called up, recollections at once charming and perplexing, perhaps also that look which the servant had cast on me at the announcement of my departure⁠—all these things, mixed up and combined, put me now in a reckless humour, gave me a tickling sensation of kisses on the lips, and in my veins a something which urged me on to commit some folly.

“Night was coming on, casting its dark shadows under the trees, when I descried Céleste, who had gone to fasten up the poultry yard at the other end of the enclosure. I darted towards her, running so noiselessly that she heard nothing, and as she got up from closing the small trapdoor by which the chickens got in and out, I clasped her in my arms and rained on her coarse, fat face a shower of kisses. She struggled, laughing all the time, as she was accustomed to do in such circumstances. Why did I suddenly loose my grip of her? Why did I at once experience a shock? What was it that I heard behind me?

“It was Miss Harriet, who had come upon us, who had seen us and who stood in front of us motionless as a spectre. Then she disappeared in the darkness.

“I was ashamed, embarrassed, more sorry at having been thus surprised by her than if she had caught me committing some criminal act.

“I slept badly that night. I was completely unnerved and haunted by sad thoughts. I seemed to hear loud weeping, but in this I was no doubt deceived. Moreover, I thought several times that I heard someone walking up and down in the house and opening the hall door.

“Towards morning I was overcome by fatigue and fell asleep. I got up late and did not go downstairs until the late breakfast, being still in a bewildered state, not knowing what kind of expression to put on.

“No one had seen Miss Harriet. We waited for her at table, but she did not appear. At length, Mother Lechacheur went to her room. The Englishwoman had gone out. She must have set out at break of day, as she was wont to do, in order to see the sun rise.

“Nobody seemed astonished at this and we began to eat in silence.

“The weather was hot, very hot, one of those still, sultry days when not a leaf stirs. The table had been placed out of doors, under an apple tree; and from time to time Sapeur had gone to the cellar to draw a jug of cider, everybody was so thirsty. Céleste brought the dishes from the kitchen, a ragout of mutton with potatoes, a cold rabbit, and a salad. Afterwards she placed before us a dish of cherries, the first of the season.

“As I wanted to wash and freshen these, I begged the servant to go and bring a pitcher of cold water.

“In about five minutes she returned, declaring that the well was dry. She had lowered the pitcher to the full extent of the cord, and had touched the bottom, but on drawing the pitcher up again, it was empty. Mother Lecacheur, anxious to examine the thing for herself, went and looked down the hole. She returned announcing that one could see clearly something in the well, something altogether unusual. Doubtless a neighbour had thrown some bundles of straw down, out of spite.

“I wished also to look down the well, hoping to see better, and I leaned over the brink. I perceived, indistinctly, a white object. What could it be? I then conceived the idea of lowering a lantern at the end of a cord. The yellow flame danced on the stone walls, and gradually sank deeper. All four of us were leaning over the opening, Sapeur and Céleste having now joined us. The lantern rested on a black and white, indistinct mass, singular, incomprehensible. Sapeur exclaimed:

“ ‘It is a horse. I see the hoofs. It must have escaped from the meadow, during the night, and fallen in headlong.’

“But, suddenly, a cold shiver attacked my spine, I first recognized a foot, then a clothed limb; the body was entire, but the other limb had disappeared under the water.

“I groaned and trembled so violently that the light of the lamp danced hither and thither over the object, discovering a slipper.

“ ‘It is a woman! who⁠—who⁠—is down there. It is Miss Harriet.’

“Sapeur alone did not manifest horror. He had witnessed worse things in Africa.

“Mother Lecacheur and Céleste began to scream and to shriek, and ran away.

“But it was necessary to recover the corpse of the dead woman. I attached the boy securely by the loins, then I lowered him slowly, by means of the pulley, and watched him disappear in the darkness. In his hands he had a lantern, and another rope. Soon I recognized his voice, which seemed to come from the centre of the earth, crying:

“ ‘Stop.’

“I then saw him fish something out of the water. It was the other limb. He bound the two feet together, and shouted anew:

“ ‘Haul up.’

“I commenced to wind him up, but I felt as if my arms were broken, my muscles relaxed, and I was in terror lest I should let the boy fall to the bottom. When his head appeared over the brink, I asked:

“ ‘Well,’ as if I expected he had a message from the woman lying at the bottom.

“We both got on to the stone slab at the edge of the well, and, face to face, hoisted the body.

“Mother Lecacheur and Céleste watched us from a distance, concealed behind the wall of the house. When they saw, issuing from the well, the black slippers and white stockings of the drowned person, they disappeared.

“Sapeur seized the ankles, and we pulled up the poor chaste woman, in the most immodest posture. The head was in a shocking state, bruised and black; and the long, grey hair, hanging down, out of curl forever, was muddy and dripping with water.

“ ‘In the name of all that is holy, how thin she is!’ exclaimed Sapeur, in a contemptuous tone.

“We carried her into the room, and as the women did not put in an appearance, I, with the assistance of the lad, dressed the corpse for burial.

“I washed her disfigured face. By the touch of my hand an eye was slightly opened; it seemed to scan me with that pale stare, with that cold, that terrible look which corpses have, a look which seems to come from the beyond. I plaited up, as well as I could, her dishevelled hair, and I arranged on her forehead a novel and singular coiffure. Then I took off her dripping wet garments, baring, not without a feeling of shame, as though I had been guilty of some profanation, her shoulders and her chest, and her long arms, slim as the twigs of branches.

“I next went to fetch some flowers, poppies, cornflowers, marguerites, and fresh, sweet smelling grass, with which to strew her funeral couch.

“Being the only person near her, it was necessary for me to fulfil the usual formalities. In a letter found in her pocket, written at the last moment, she asked that her body be buried in the village in which she had passed the last days of her life. A frightful thought then oppressed my heart. Was it not on my account that she wished to be laid at rest in this place?

“Towards evening, all the female gossips of the locality came to view the remains of the deceased; but I would not allow a single person to enter; I wanted to be alone; and I watched by the corpse the whole night.

“By the light of the candles, I looked at the body of this miserable woman, wholly unknown, who had died so lamentably and so far away from home. Had she left no friends, no relatives behind her? What had her infancy been? What had been her life? Whence had she come, all alone, a wanderer, like a dog driven from home? What secrets of suffering and of despair were sealed up in that disagreeable body, like a shameful defect, concealed all her life beneath that ridiculous exterior, which had driven away from her all affection and all love?

“How many unhappy beings there are! I felt that upon that human creature weighed the eternal injustice of implacable nature! Life was over with her, without her ever having experienced, perhaps, that which sustains the most miserable of us all⁠—to wit, the hope of being once loved! Otherwise, why should she thus have concealed herself, have fled from others? Why did she love everything so tenderly and so passionately, everything living that was not a man?

“I understood, also, why she believed in a God, and hoped for compensation from him for the miseries she had endured. She had now begun to decompose, and to become, in turn, a plant. She would blossom in the sun, and be eaten up by the cattle, carried away in seed by the birds, and as flesh by the beasts, again to become human flesh. But that which is called the soul had been extinguished at the bottom of the dark well. She suffered no longer. She had changed her life for that of others yet to be born.

“Hours passed away in this silent and sinister communion with the dead. A pale light announced the dawn of a new day, and a bright ray glistened on the bed, shedding a dash of fire on the bedclothes and on her hands. This was the hour she had so much loved, when the waking birds began to sing in the trees.

“I opened the window wide, I drew back the curtains, so that the whole heavens might look in upon us. Then bending toward the glassy corpse, I took in my hands the mutilated head, and slowly, without terror or disgust, imprinted a long, long kiss upon those lips which had never before received the salute of love.”

Léon Chenal was silent. The women wept. We heard the Comte d’Étraille on the box seat blow his nose several times in succession. The coachman alone had gone to sleep. The horses, no longer feeling the sting of the whip, had slackened their pace and were dragging us slowly along. And the brake hardly moved at all, having become suddenly heavy, as if laden with sorrow.

Martin’s Girl

It happened to him one Sunday after Mass. He came out of church and was following the sunken road that led to his house, when he found himself behind Martin’s girl, who also was on her way home.

The head of the house marched beside his daughter with the consequential step of the prosperous farmer. Disdaining a smock, he wore a sort of jacket of grey cloth, and on his head a wide-brimmed felt hat.

She, squeezed into stays that she only laced once a week, walked along stiffly, swinging her arms a little, her waist compressed, broad-shouldered, her hips swinging as she walked.

On her head she wore a flower-trimmed hat, the creation of an Yvetot milliner, that left bare all her strong, supple, rounded neck; short downy hairs, bleached by sun and open air, blew about it.

Benoist saw only her back, but her face was familiar enough to him, although he had never really looked at it.

“Dammit,” he said abruptly, “she’s a rare fine wench after all, is Martin’s girl.” He watched her walking along, filled with a sudden admiration, his senses stirred. He did not in the least need to see her face again. He kept his eyes fixed on her figure; one thought hammered in his mind, as if he had said it aloud: “Dammit, she’s a rare fine wench.”

Martin’s girl turned to the right to enter Martin’s Farm, the farm belonging to Jean Martin, her father; she turned round and looked behind her. She saw Benoist, whom she thought a very queer-looking fellow.

“Good morning, Benoist,” she called.

“Good morning, lass; good morning, Martin,” he answered, and walked on.

When he reached his own house, the soup was on the table. He sat down opposite his mother, beside the hired man and the labourer, while the servant girl went to draw the cider.

He ate some spoonfuls, then pushed away his plate.

“Are you sick?” his mother asked.

“No,” he answered. “It feels like I had porridge in my stomach and it spoils my appetite.”

He watched the others eating, every now and then breaking off a mouthful of bread that he carried slowly to his lips and chewed for a long time. He was thinking of Martin’s girl: “She’s a rare fine wench after all.” And to think he had never noticed it until this moment, and that it had come upon him like this, out of a clear sky, and so desperately that he could not eat.

He hardly touched the stew. His mother said:

“Come, Benoist, make yourself eat a morsel; it’s a bit of loin, it’ll do you good. When you’ve no appetite, you ought to make yourself eat.”

He swallowed a little, then pushed his plate aside again⁠—no, it was no better.

When the meal was over, he went off round the fields, and gave the labourer the afternoon off, promising to look to the beasts on the way round.

The countryside was deserted, it being the day of rest. Under the noon sun, the cows lay placidly about in a field of clover, wide-bellied, chewing the cud. Unyoked ploughs were waiting in the corner of a ploughed field; and the wide brown squares of upturned fields, ready for the sowing, stretched between patches of yellow covered with the rotting stubble of corn and oats long since gathered in.

An autumn wind, a rather dry wind, blew over the plain with the promise of a fresh evening after sunset. Benoist sat down on the edge of a dike, rested his hat on his knees, as if he needed the air on his head, and declared aloud, in the silent countryside: “As fine girls go, she’s a rare fine one.”

He was still thinking about her when night came, in his bed, and in the morning, when he woke.

He was not unhappy, he was not restless: he could hardly say what his feelings were. It was something that held him, something that had fastened on his imagination, an idea that obsessed him and roused something like a thrill in his heart. A big fly sometimes gets shut up in a room. You hear it fly round, buzzing, and the sound obsesses and irritates. Suddenly it stops: you forget it, but all at once it begins again, forcing you to raise your head. You can neither catch it nor chase it nor kill it nor make it keep still. It settles for a brief moment, and begins droning again.

Just so, the memory of Martin’s girl flitted distractedly through Benoist’s mind like an imprisoned fly.

Then he was seized with desire to see her again, and walked several times past Martin’s Farm. At last he caught a glimpse of her hanging washing on a line stretched between two apple trees.

It was warm: she had taken off everything but a short petticoat, and the single chemise she wore clearly revealed the curve of her body when she lifted her arms to peg out the napkins.

He remained crouching under the dike for more than an hour, even after she had gone. He went away again with her image more firmly fixed in his mind than ever.

For a month his mind was filled with thoughts of her, he shivered when she was spoken of in his presence. He could not eat, and every night he sweated so that he could not sleep.

On Sunday at Mass, his eyes never left her. She noticed it, and smiled at him, flattered by his admiration.

But one evening he came upon her unexpectedly in a road. She stopped when she saw him coming. Then he walked right up to her, choking with nervousness and a passion of desire, but determined to speak to her. He began, stuttering:

“Look here, my lass, this can’t go on like this.”

Her reply sounded as if she were making fun of him:

“What is it that can’t go on, Benoist?”

He answered:

“That I think about you as often as there are hours in the day.”

She rested her hands on her hips:

“I’m not making you do it.”

He stammered:

“Yes, you are: I can’t sleep, or rest, or eat, or anything.”

She said softly:

“Well, and what would cure you?”

He stood paralysed, his arms dangling, his eyes round, his mouth hanging open.

She poked him violently in the stomach, and fled, running.

After this day, they met again by the dikes, in the sunken roads, or more often at dusk on the edge of a field, when he was coming home with his goats and she was driving the cows back to their shed.

He felt himself urged, driven towards her by a wild desire of heart and body. He would have liked to crush her, strangle her, devour her, absorb her into himself. And he trembled with impotent impatient rage because she was not his completely, as if they had been one and indivisible.

People were talking about them. They were said to be betrothed. He had, moreover, asked her if she would be his wife, and she had answered him: “Yes.” They were waiting an opportunity to speak to their parents.

Then, without warning, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He did not even see her when he prowled round the farm. He could not catch a glimpse of her at Mass on Sundays. And it was on a Sunday, after the sermon, that the priest announced in the pulpit that he published the banns of marriage between Victoire-Adélaïde Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.

Benoist felt a strange emotion in his hands, as though the blood had run out of them. His ears sang; he heard nothing more, and after a time he realised that he was crying in his missal.

He kept his room for a month. Then he began working again.

But he was not cured and he thought about it continually. He avoided walking along the roads that ran past the house where she lived, so that he should not see even the trees in the yard: it necessitated a wide detour, which he made morning and evening.

She had now married Vallin, the wealthiest farmer in the district. Benoist and he no longer spoke, although they had been friends since childhood.

But one evening, as Benoist was on his way past the town hall, he heard that she was pregnant. Instead of bitter suffering, the knowledge brought him, on the contrary, something like relief. It was finished now, absolutely finished. This divided them more utterly than her marriage. Assuredly he preferred it so.

Months passed, and more months. He caught occasional glimpses of her going about the village with her burdened gait. She turned red when she saw him, hung her head and quickened her step. And he turned out of his way to avoid crossing her path and meeting her eye.

But he thought wretchedly that the day would inevitably come when he would find himself face to face with her, and be compelled to speak to her. What should he say to her now, after all he had said to her in other days, holding her hands and kissing the hair falling round her cheeks? He still thought often of their dike-side trysts. It was a wicked thing she had done, after all her promises.

Little by little, however, his heart forgot its pain; only a gentle melancholy lingered in it. And one day, for the first time, he took again his old road past the farm where she lived. He saw the roof of her house long before he drew near. It was under this very roof that she was living with another. The apple trees were in bloom, the cocks crowing on the dunghill. There did not seem to be a soul in the house, since everyone was in the fields, hard at work on the tasks spring brought. He halted near the fence and looked into the yard. The dog was asleep in front of his kennel, three calves were going slowly, one after another, towards the pond. A plump turkey was strutting before the door, showing off before the hens with the air of an operatic star.

Benoist leaned against the post: a sudden violent desire to cry had seized him again. But all at once he heard a cry, a cry for help. It came from the house. He stood a moment bewildered, his hands gripping the wooden bar, listening, listening. Another cry, a long-drawn agonised cry, thrust through ears and mind and flesh. It was she crying like this. He leaped forward, crossed the grass, pushed open the door and saw her stretched on the floor, writhing, with livid and haggard eyes, taken by the pangs of childbirth.

He stood there, then, pale and more violently trembling than she, stammering:

“Here I am, here I am, my lass.”

Gasping, she answered:

“Oh, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, Benoist.”

He stared at her, not knowing what else to say or do. Her cries began again:

“Oh! oh! it tears me! Oh! Benoist!”

And she twisted herself in an agony of pain.

All at once, Benoist was overwhelmed by a wild impulse to succour her, comfort her, take away her pain. He stooped, took her in his arms, lifted her up, carried her to her bed, and while she continued to moan, he undressed her, taking off her bodice, her skirt, her petticoat. She was gnawing her fists to keep from screaming. Then he did for her all he was used to do for beasts, for cows and sheep and mares: he helped her and received between his hands a plump wailing child.

He washed it, wrapped it in a dishcloth that was drying before the fire and laid it on a pile of linen that was lying on the table to be ironed; then he went back to the mother.

He laid her on the floor again, changed the bed, and put her back in it. She stammered: “Thanks, Benoist, you’re a kind soul.” And she wept a few tears, as if she were regretting things a little.

As for him, he felt no love for her now, none at all. It was over. Why? How? He could not have said. The events of the last hour had cured him more effectually than ten years’ absence would have done.

Exhausted and fainting, she asked:

“What is it?”

He answered calmly:

“It’s a girl, and a very fine one.”

They were silent again. A few moments later, the mother spoke in a weak voice:

“Show her to me, Benoist.”

He went to bring the infant, and he was offering it to her as if he held the holy sacrament, when the door opened and Isidore Vallin appeared.

At first he did not understand; then, suddenly, realisation came to him.

Benoist, filled with dismay, stammered:

“I was going past, I was just going past, when I heard her screaming, and I came in⁠ ⁠… here’s your baby, Vallin.”

Tears in his eyes, the husband stooped towards him and took the tiny morsel the other held out to him, kissed it; a moment he stood, his emotion choking him; he laid his child back on the bed and, holding out both hands to Benoist:

“Put it there, Benoist, put it there: there’s nothing more for you and me to say now. We’ll be friends if you’re willing; eh, friends!”

And Benoist answered:

“I’m willing, I am; of course I’m willing.”

The Orient

Autumn is here! When I feel the first touch of winter I always think of my friend who lives down yonder on the Asiatic frontier. The last time I entered his house I knew that I should not see him again. It was towards the end of September, three years ago. I found him stretched out on his divan, dreaming under the influence of opium. Holding out his hand to me without moving, he said:

“Stay here. Talk and I will answer you, but I shall not move, for you know that when once the drug has been swallowed you must stay on your back.”

I sat down and began to tell him a thousand things about Paris and the boulevards.

But he interrupted me.

“What you are saying does not interest me in the least, for I am thinking only of countries under other skies. Oh, how poor Gautier must have suffered, always haunted by the longing for the Orient! You don’t know what that means, how that country takes hold of you, how it captivates you, penetrates you to your inmost being and will not let you go. It enters into you through the eye, through the skin, all its invisible seductions, and it holds you by an invisible thread, which is unceasingly pulling you, in whatever spot on earth chance may have flung you. I take the drug in order to muse on that land in the delicious torpor of opium.”

He stopped and closed his eyes.

“What makes it so pleasant to you to take this poison?” I asked. “What physical joy does it give, that people take it until it kills them?”

“It is not a physical joy,” he replied; “it is better than that, it is more. I am often sad; I detest life, which wounds me every day on all sides, with all its angles, its hardships. Opium consoles for everything, makes one resigned to everything. Do you know that state of mind that I might call gnawing irritation? I ordinarily live in that state. And there are two things that can cure me of it: opium or the Orient. As soon as I have taken opium I lie down and wait, perhaps one hour and sometimes two. Then, when it begins to take effect I feel first a slight trembling in the hands and feet, not a cramp, but a vibrant numbness; then little by little I have the strange and delicious sensation of feeling my limbs disappear. It seems to me as if they were taken off, and this feeling grows upon me until it fills me completely. I have no longer any body; I retain merely a kind of pleasant memory of it. Only my head is there, and it works. I dream. I think with an infinite, material joy, with unequalled lucidity, with a surprising penetration. I reason, I deduce, I understand everything. I discover ideas that never before have come to me; I descend to new depths and mount to marvellous heights; I float in an ocean of thought, and I taste the incomparable happiness, the ideal enjoyment of the chaste and serene intoxication of pure intelligence.”

Again he stopped and closed his eyes. I said: “Your longing for the Orient is due only to this constant intoxication. You are living in a state of hallucination. How can one long for that barbarous country, where the mind is dead, where the sterile imagination does not go beyond the narrow limits of life and makes no effort to take flight, to expand and conquer?”

“What does practical thought matter?” he replied. “What I love is dreaming. That only is good, and that only is sweet. Implacable reality would lead me to suicide, if dreaming did not permit me to wait.

“You say that the Orient is the land of barbarians. Stop, wretched man! It is the country of the sages, the hot country where one lets life flow by, where angles are rounded.

“We are the barbarians, we men of the West who call ourselves civilized; we are hateful barbarians who live a painful life, like brutes.

“Look at our cities built of stone and our furniture made of hard and knotty wood. We mount, panting, a high, narrow stairway, to go into stuffy apartments into which the cold wind comes whistling, only to escape immediately again through a chimney which creates deadly currents of air that are strong enough to turn a windmill. Our chairs are hard, our walls cold and covered with ugly paper; everywhere we are wounded by angles⁠—angles on our tables, on our mantels, on our doors and on our beds. We live standing up or sitting in our chairs, but we never lie down except to sleep, which is ridiculous, for in sleeping you are not conscious of the happiness there is in being stretched out flat.

“And then to think of our intellectual life! It is filled with incessant struggle and strife. Worry hovers over us and preoccupations pester us; we no longer have time to seek and pursue the two or three good things within our reach.

“It is war to the finish. And our character, even more than our furniture, is full of angles⁠—angles everywhere.

“We are hardly out of bed when we hasten to our work, in rain or snow. We fight against rivals, competition, hostility. Every man is an enemy whom we must fear and overcome and with whom we must resort to ruse. Even love has with us its aspects of victory and defeat: that also is a struggle.”

He reflected for some moments and then continued:

“I know the house that I am going to buy. It is square, with a flat roof and wooden trimmings, in the Oriental fashion. From the terrace you can see the sea, where white sails like pointed wings are passing, and Greek or Turkish vessels. There are hardly any openings on the outside walls. A large garden, where the air is heavy under the shadow of palms, is in the center of this abode. A jet of water rises from under the trees and falls in spray into a large marble basin, the bottom of which is covered with golden sand. I shall bathe there at any hour of the day, between two pipes, two dreams, two kisses.

“I will not have any servant, any hideous maid with greasy apron, who kicks up the dirty bottom of her skirt with her worn shoes. Oh, that kick of the heel which shows the yellow ankle! It fills my heart with disgust, and yet I cannot avoid it. Those wretches all do it.

“I shall no longer hear the tramping of shoes on the floor, the loud slamming of doors, the crash of breaking dishes.

“I will have beautiful black slaves, draped in white veils, who run barefoot over heavy carpets.

“My walls shall be soft and rounded, like a woman’s breasts; and my divans, ranged in a circle around each apartment, shall be heaped with cushions of all shapes, so that I may lie down in all possible postures.

“Then, when I am tired of this delicious repose, tired of enjoying immobility and my eternal dream, tired of the calm pleasure of well-being, I shall have a swift black or white horse brought to my door.

“And I shall ride away on it, drinking in the air which stings and intoxicates, the air that whistles when one is galloping furiously.

“And I shall fly like an arrow over this coloured earth, which intoxicates the eye with the effect of the flavour of wine.

“In the calm of the evening I shall ride madly toward the wide horizon, which is tinged rose-colour by the setting sun. Everything is rosy down there in the twilight, the scorched mountains, the sand, the clothing of the Arabs, the white coat of the horses.

“Pink flamingoes rise out of the marshes under the pink sky, and I shall shout deliriously, bathed in the illimitable rosiness of the world.

“I shall no longer see men dressed in black, sitting on uncomfortable chairs and drinking absinthe while talking of business, or walking along the pavements in the midst of the deafening noise of cabs in the street.

“I shall know nothing of the state of the Bourse, the fluctuations of stocks and shares, all the useless stupidities in which we waste our short, miserable and treacherous existence. Why all this trouble, all this suffering, all these struggles? I shall rest, sheltered from the wind, in my bright, sumptuous home.

“And I shall have four or five wives in luxurious apartments⁠—five wives who have come from the five continents of the world and who will bring to me a taste of feminine beauty as it flowers in all races.” Again he stopped, and then he said softly:

“Leave me.”

I went, and I never saw him again.

Two months later he sent me these three words only: “I am happy.”

His letter smelled of incense and other sweet perfumes.

The Child

After swearing for a long time that he would never marry, Jacques Bourdillère suddenly changed his mind. It happened one summer at the seaside, quite unexpectedly.

One morning, as he was stretched on the sand, watching the women come out of the water, a little foot caught his attention, because of its slimness and delicacy. As he raised his eyes higher, the entire person seemed attractive. Of this entire person he had, however, seen only the ankles and the head emerging from a white flannel bathrobe, fastened with care. He was called sensual and dissipated, and it was by grace of form alone that he was first captured. Afterwards he was held by the charm and sweet spirit of the young girl, who was simple and good and fresh, like her cheeks and her lips.

When he was introduced to the family, they liked him and soon he was head over heels in love. When he saw Berthe Lannis at a distance, on the long stretch of yellow sand, he trembled from head to foot. Near her he was dumb, incapable of saying anything or even of thinking, with a kind of bubbling in his heart, a humming in his ears, and a frightened feeling in his mind. Was this love?

He did not know, he did not understand it, but he was fully decided to make this child his wife.

Her parents hesitated a long time, deterred by the bad reputation of the young man. He had a mistress, it was said⁠—an old mistress, an old and strong entanglement, one of those chains which is believed to be broken, but which continues to hold, nevertheless. In addition, he had loved, for longer or shorter periods, every woman who had come within reach of his lips.

But he turned over a new leaf, and would not even consent to see once more the woman with whom he had lived so long. A friend arranged her pension, assuring her a livelihood. Jacques paid, but he did not wish to hear her name mentioned, pretending henceforth that he did not even know who she was. She wrote letters which he would not open. Every week he recognized the clumsy handwriting of the woman he had abandoned, and every week a greater anger arose in him against her, and he would tear the envelope in two, without opening it, without reading a line, knowing beforehand the reproaches and complaints it would contain.

As there was but little belief in his perseverance, he was put to the test during the whole winter, and it was not until the spring that his suit was accepted.

The marriage took place in Paris during the early part of May. It was decided that they should not go on the usual honeymoon. After a little ball, a dance for her young cousins, which would not last beyond eleven o’clock, and would not prolong forever the fatigue of that day of ceremonies, the young couple intended to pass their first night at the family home and to set out the next morning for the seaside, where they had met and loved.

The night came, and people were dancing in the big drawing room. The newly-married pair had withdrawn into a little Japanese boudoir with bright silk hangings, and scarcely lighted this evening, except by the dim rays from a coloured lantern in the shape of an enormous egg, which hung from the ceiling. The long window was open, allowing at times a fresh breath of air from without to blow upon their faces, for the evening was soft and warm, full of the odour of springtime.

They said nothing, but held each other’s hands, pressing them from time to time with all their force. She was a little dazed by this great change in her life; her eyes were dreaming. She was smiling, deeply moved, ready to weep, often ready to swoon from joy, believing the entire world changed because of what had come to her, a little disturbed without knowing the reason why, and feeling all her body, all her soul, enveloped in an indefinable, delightful lassitude.

He watched her all the time, smiling with a fixed smile. He wished to talk but found nothing to say, and remained quiet, expressing all his ardour in the pressing of her hand. From time to time he murmured “Berthe!” and each time she raised her eyes to his with a sweet and tender look. They would look at each other a moment, then his eyes, fascinated by hers, would fall.

They discovered no ideas to exchange. But they were left alone, except that sometimes a dancing couple would cast a glance at them in passing, a furtive glance, as if it were the discreet and confidential witness of a mystery.

A side door opened, a domestic entered, bearing upon a tray an urgent letter which a messenger had brought. Jacques trembled as he took it, seized with a vague and sudden fear, the mysterious fear of sudden misfortune.

He looked for a long time at the envelope, not knowing the handwriting, nor daring to open it, wishing not to read, not to know the contents, desiring to put it in his pocket and to say to himself: “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I shall be far away and it will not matter!” But upon the corner were two words underlined: very urgent, which frightened him. “Allow me, my dear,” said he, and he tore off the wrapper. He read the letter, growing frightfully pale, running over it at a glance, and then seeming slowly to spell it out.

When he raised his head his whole countenance was changed. He stammered: “My dear little girl, a great misfortune has happened to my best friend. He needs me immediately, in a matter of⁠—of life and death. Allow me to go for twenty minutes. I will return immediately.”

She, trembling and frightened, murmured: “Go, dear!” not yet being enough of a wife to dare to ask or demand to know anything. And he disappeared. She remained alone, listening to the dance music in the next room.

He had taken the first hat he could find, and an overcoat, and had run down the stairs. As he was going out into the street he stopped under a gaslight in the hall and reread the letter. It said:

“Sir: A girl called Ravet, who appears to be your ex-mistress, has given birth to a child which she asserts is yours. The mother is dying and implores you to visit her. I take the liberty of writing to you to ask whether you will grant the last wish of this woman, who seems to be very unhappy and worthy of pity.

“Yours faithfully,

“Dr. Bonnard.”

When he entered the room of the dying woman she was already in the last agony. He did not know her at first. The doctor and two nurses were looking after her, and all over the floor were pails full of ice and linen stained with blood.

Water covered the floor, two candles were burning on a table; behind the bed, in a little wicker cradle, a child was crying, and, at each of its cries, the tortured mother would try to move, shivering under the icy compresses.

She was bleeding, wounded to death, killed by this birth. Her life was slipping away; and, in spite of the ice, in spite of all care, the haemorrhage continued, hastening her last hour.

She recognized Jacques, and tried to raise her hand. She was too weak for that, but the warm tears began to glide down her cheeks.

He fell on his knees beside the bed, seized one of her hands and kissed it frantically; then, little by little, he approached nearer to the wan face, which quivered at his touch. One of the nurses, standing with a candle in her hand, threw the light upon them, and the doctor, who had stepped into the background, looked at them from the end of the room.

With a far-off voice, breathing hard, she said: “I am going to die, dearest; promise me you will remain till the end. Oh! do not leave me now, not at the last moment!”

He kissed her brow, her hair, with a groan. “Do not be uneasy,” he murmured, “I will stay.”

It was some minutes before she was able to speak again, she was so weak and overcome. Then she continued: “It is yours, the little one. I swear it before God, I swear it to you upon my soul, I swear it at the moment of death. I have never loved any man but you⁠—promise me not to abandon it⁠—” He tried to take in his arms the poor, weak body, emptied of its life blood. He stammered, moved by remorse and grief: “I swear to you I will bring it up and love it. It shall never be separated from me.” Then she held Jacques in an embrace. Powerless to raise her head, she held up her blanched lips in an appeal for a kiss. He bent his mouth to receive this poor, suppliant caress.

Calmed a little, she murmured in a low tone: “Take it, that I may see that you love it.”

He went to the cradle and took up the child.

He placed it gently on the bed between them. The little creature ceased to cry. She whispered: “Do not stir!” And he remained motionless. There he stayed, holding in his burning palms a hand that shook with the tremor of death, as he had held, an hour before, another hand that had trembled with the tremor of love. From time to time he looked at the hour, with a furtive glance of the eye, watching the hand as it passed midnight, then one o’clock, then two.

The doctor had retired. The two nurses, after roaming around for some time with light step, slept now in their chairs. The child slept, and the mother, whose eyes were closed, seemed to be resting also.

Suddenly, as the pale daylight began to filter through the torn curtains, she extended her arms with so startling and violent a motion that she almost threw the child upon the floor. There was a rattling in her throat; then she lay on her back motionless, dead.

The nurses, who had hastened to her side, said: “It is over.”

He looked once at this woman he had loved, then at the hand that marked four o’clock, and, forgetting his overcoat, fled in his evening clothes with the child in his arms.

After she had been left alone, his young bride had waited calmly at first, in the Japanese boudoir. Then, seeing that he did not return, she went back to the drawing room, indifferent and quiet in appearance, but frightfully disturbed. Her mother, perceiving her alone, asked where her husband was. She replied: “In his room; he will return presently.”

After an hour, as everybody asked about him, she told of the letter, of the change in Jacques’ face, and her fears of some misfortune.

They still waited. The guests gone; only the parents and near relatives remained. At midnight, they put the bride in her bed, shaking with sobs. Her mother and two aunts were seated on the bed listening to her weeping. Her father had gone to the police headquarters to make inquiries. At five o’clock a light sound was heard in the corridor. The door opened and closed softly. Then suddenly a cry, like the mewing of a cat, went through the house, breaking the silence.

All the women of the house were up with one bound, and Berthe was the first to spring forward, in spite of her mother and her aunts, clothed only in her night-robe.

Jacques was standing in the middle of the room, livid, breathing hard, holding a child in his arms.

The four frightened women looked at him, but Berthe suddenly took courage, her heart wrung with anguish, and ran to him saying: “What is it? Tell me! What is it?”

He looked as if he had lost his senses and answered in a husky voice: “It is⁠—it is⁠—I have a child, and its mother has just died.” And he put into her arms the howling little baby.

Berthe, without saying a word, seized the child and embraced it, straining it to her heart. Then, turning toward her husband with her eyes full of tears, she said: “The mother is dead, you say?” He answered: “Yes, just died⁠—in my arms⁠—I had broken with her since last summer⁠—I knew nothing about it⁠—only the doctor sent for me and⁠—”

Then Berthe murmured: “Well, we will bring up this little one.”

A Party

Maître Saval, a notary, was considered an artist in Vernon, where he lived. He was passionately fond of music; though still young, he was bald, always carefully shaved, stoutish but not disagreeably so⁠—and wore gold eyeglasses, instead of old-fashioned spectacles. He played the piano a little, also the violin, and gave musical evenings for the performance of new operas.

He even had a thread of a voice, only a very thin thread, but this he managed with such taste that cries of “Bravo!” “Amazing!” “Delightful!” came from all corners as soon as he had sung his last note.

He subscribed to a music library in Paris which supplied him with all the novelties and from time to time he sent out cards of invitation to the leaders of society in the town, which ran as follows:

“M. Saval, notary, requests the pleasure of your company at the first performance of Saïs in Vernon.”

The chorus consisted of some military officers with good voices and there were two or three ladies in the town who sang. The notary himself conducted with such mastery that the bandmaster of the 190th regiment of infantry remarked one day in the Café de l’Europe: “Ah! Monsieur Saval is a master; it is a pity he did not take up the arts as a profession.”

When his name was mentioned in a drawing room, someone was sure to say: “He is not an amateur, he is a real artiste,” and two or three others would repeat with conviction: “Oh, yes, he is a real artiste,” with an emphasis on the word “real.”

Whenever there was a first night at one of the big theatres in Paris, Monsieur Saval went up to town. Therefore a year ago, according to his usual habit, he wanted to go and hear Henry VIII, and took the express that arrives at Paris at half past four, having decided to return home by the twelve-thirty-five that night to avoid sleeping at the hotel. He had put on evening dress before starting, which he hid under his overcoat, and turned up the collar.

As soon as he set foot in the Rue d’Amsterdam his spirits rose and he said to himself: “The air of Paris is like no other air in the world. There is something exhilarating, exciting, intoxicating about it that makes a man want to dash about and do all sorts of things. As soon as I get out of the train I feel as if I had drunk a bottle of champagne. What a jolly life one could have in Paris among the artists, musicians and writers. Happy are the elect, the great men who enjoy fame in such a city. Theirs is really life!”

He made plans for the future; he wanted to meet some famous men so that he could talk about them at Vernon, and spend an occasional evening with them when he came to Paris. Suddenly an idea entered his head. He had heard about the little cafés of the outer Boulevards where well-known painters, literary men and even musicians met, and he began slowly to make his way towards Montmartre.

He had two hours to spare, and wanted to find things out for himself. He wandered past bars full of down-and-out Bohemians, scrutinising them closely, trying to pick out the artistes, until at last he entered the Rat Mort, attracted by the name.

Five or six women sat with their elbows on the marble tables, talking in low voices about their love affairs, Lucie’s quarrels with Hortense, and the caddish behaviour of Octave. They were not young, were either too fat or too thin, and looked tired and worn; you felt that their hair was very thin; and they drank their beer like men.

Monsieur Saval seated himself at some distance from them and waited, as it was nearly time for his absinth. Presently a tall young man came in and sat down beside him, whom the patronne called Monsieur Romantin. The notary gave a start; could it be the Romantin who had received a First at the last Salon?

The newcomer beckoned to the waiter and said: “Bring dinner at once, then take thirty bottles of beer and the ham I ordered this morning round to my new studio, 15, Boulevard de Clichy. We are having a housewarming.”

Monsieur Saval ordered dinner too, and as he took off his overcoat he was seen to be in evening dress. His neighbour had apparently not noticed him, for he took up a newspaper and began to read. Monsieur Saval looked at him out of the corner of his eyes, eager to enter into conversation. Two other young men came in wearing red velvet jackets, and pointed beards à la Henri III, and sat down opposite Romantin.

One of them said: “It is this evening, isn’t it?” Romantin shook hands with him: “Yes, rather, old chap, everyone is coming. Bonnat, Guillemet, Gervex, Béraud, Hébert, Duez, Clairin, Jean-Paul Laurens; it will be a great evening. And the women, you’ll see! Every single actress⁠—of course, I mean those who are not acting tonight.” The cabaret-proprietor, coming up to them, said: “You have a good many housewarmings?” and the painter replied: “That’s right, one every three months, at every quarter-day.”

Monsieur Saval could keep quiet no longer, and said hesitatingly: “Excuse me, sir, but I heard your name, and am very anxious to know whether you are the Romantin whose work I admired so much in the last Salon.” The artist replied: “The very same, sir.” The notary paid him such a neat compliment that it was obvious he was a man of culture; the painter, flattered, responded graciously, and then they started a conversation. Romantin returned to the subject of his housewarming, and described the gorgeousness of the entertainment, and Monsieur Saval asked him about the guests he was expecting. “It would be a wonderful piece of luck,” he added, “for a stranger to meet so many celebrities at once, at the house of so distinguished an artist as yourself.”

Romantin, now completely won over, replied: “If it would give you any pleasure, do come.” Monsieur Saval accepted the invitation with enthusiasm, and insisted on paying both bills in return for his neighbour’s amiability; he also paid for the drinks of the young men in red velvet, and then left the cabaret with the artist.

They stopped before a very long, low house, the first story of which looked like a very long conservatory and was divided into six studies all in a row, which faced the Boulevard.

Romantin led the way upstairs, opened a door, struck a match, and then lighted a candle. They were in a huge room with no furniture except three chairs, two easels, and a few sketches on the floor against the walls. Monsieur Saval, speechless with surprise, remained standing at the door. The painter said: “You see there’s plenty of room, but there’s a lot to be done yet.” Then, examining the bare, lofty room with its ceiling lost in gloom, he continued: “The studio has great possibilities,” and wandered about looking round with a sharp eye and said: “My little woman might have been useful. You can’t beat a woman at arranging draperies! But I sent her to the country today to get rid of her for the evening. It’s not that she worries me, but she has no manners, which is a bore for one’s guests.” He thought the matter over for a second or two, and added: “She’s a good girl, but not easy to get on with. If she knew I was having a party, she would scratch my eyes out.”

Monsieur Saval had not stirred a step; he failed to understand what it was all about. The artist went up to him. “As I have invited you, you will help me, of course”; and the notary replied: “Of course I will: I am entirely at your disposal.”

Romantin took off his jacket. “Well, friend, let’s make a start. First, we must clean the place.” He went behind the easel on which stood a painting of a cat, and produced a very dilapidated broom. “Here you are, sweep up while I attend to the lighting.” Monsieur Saval took the broom, looked at it, and began to sweep the floor awkwardly, raising a cloud of dust. Romantin, very indignant, stopped him: “Heavens above, don’t you know how to sweep? Now, watch me,” and he began to push the heap of greyish dirt along the floor as if he had done nothing else all his life; then he handed the broom back to the notary, who tried to imitate him. In five minutes there was such a cloud of dust in the studio that Romantin called out: “Where are you? I can’t see you.” Monsieur Saval came up to him, coughing, and the painter asked: “How would you set about to make a chandelier?” Quite bewildered, the notary echoed: “A chandelier?” “Yes, a chandelier to light the room, a chandelier to hold candles.” The guest, still completely at sea, replied: “I don’t know,” and the painter, skipping about and snapping his finger like castanets, continued: “Well, my lord, I have had an inspiration,” and then, more soberly: “Do you happen to have five francs on you?” “Certainly.” “Well, then, go and buy five francs’ worth of candles while I go to the cooper’s.” And he pushed the notary into the street in his evening dress. Five minutes later they had returned, the one with his candles and the other with a hoop off a barrel. Romantin dived into a cupboard and brought out twenty empty bottles, which he fastened all round the hoop, then he went downstairs to borrow the steps from the concierge, after explaining that he had won the old lady’s heart by painting her cat, which was on the easel. When he had brought the steps he said to Monsieur Saval: “Are you nimble?” “Why, yes,” replied the notary, innocently. “Then you can go up the steps and fasten the chandelier to the ring in the ceiling; after that you can put candles into all the bottles, and light them. I tell you I have a genius for illumination. But for heaven’s sake, take off your coat, you look like a flunkey.”

The door was flung violently open and a woman blazing with fury stood on the threshold. Romantin looked at her with horror in his eyes. She waited a second or two with folded arms, and then in a shrill voice, full of exasperation, shouted: “Oh, you dirty dog, that’s how you treat me!” Romantin made no reply and she continued: “Oh, you beast. You pretended to be kindness itself in sending me into the country. I’ll show you the kind of party you are going to have. Yes. I’ll receive your guests for you⁠ ⁠…”; and working herself up: “I’ll fling your candles and your bottles in their faces.⁠ ⁠…”

Romantin said gently: “Matilda, Matilda,” but she wouldn’t listen, and went on: “Wait a bit, my beauty, wait a bit!” Then Romantin went up to her and tried to get hold of her hands: “Matilda.” But she was fairly launched now; she ran on and on pouring forth a whole volume of abuse, a mountain of reproaches; the words streamed from her lips like a torrent of filth, getting entangled in the struggle for supremacy. She stammered, she stuttered, she jeered, gasped, and then suddenly started again with further insults, fresh oaths. He had seized her hands without attracting her notice, she was so determined to have her say, to relieve her feelings, that she did not even know he was there. At last she began to cry, and tears poured down her cheeks without interrupting her flow of grievances, but her voice grew shrill and strained and very tearful, until it was broken by sobs. She made one or two fresh starts but was choked into silence and collapsed in a flood of tears. Touched by her distress, he clasped her in his arms and kissed her hair.

“Matilda, my own dear Matilda, listen to me. Be sensible. If I am giving a party, you know it is only to thank these painters for my Salon Medal. I cannot invite women. You ought to be able to understand that. Artists are not like everyday people.”

She sobbed out: “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I was afraid of vexing you and hurting your feelings. Now listen; I am going to take you home; you are going to be good and cheerful, you are going to wait quietly for me in your little bed, and I will come round as soon as the party is over.”

She muttered: “Very well, but you won’t do it again?”

“Never, I swear.”

Then, turning towards Monsieur Saval, who had just hung up the chandelier, he said: “I’ll be back in five minutes, old chap. If anyone comes while I’m away, you’ll do the honours for me, won’t you?” And he took the still weeping and sniffing Matilda off. Left quite alone, Monsieur Saval finished tidying up, then lighted the candles and waited. Quarter of an hour, half an hour, a whole hour passed by, and no sign of Romantin. Suddenly there was a terrible noise on the stairs: twenty voices all together were bellowing out a song to the accompaniment of the tramp, tramp of feet like a Prussian regiment on the march; the regular tramp of feet shook the whole house. Then the door opened and the crowd made its appearance; a long string of men and women holding each other’s arms and beating time with their heels, filed into the studio like a snake uncoiling itself. They bellowed out:

“Walk in, walk right in, to my parlour. Nurses and Tommies all together!”

Utterly bewildered, Maître Saval, in full dress, remained standing under the chandelier. The procession caught sight of him and roared simultaneously: “A flunkey! A flunkey!” and began to gather round him, enclosing him in a circle of whoops and yells; they then took hands and danced madly round and round the poor notary, who attempted to explain: “Gentlemen⁠ ⁠… gentlemen⁠ ⁠… ladies⁠ ⁠…” but no one would listen, they went on circling and capering round him shouting at the top of their voices. At last the dancing stopped, and Monsieur Saval began: “Gentlemen,” but a tall, fair, heavily bearded young fellow interrupted him: “What is your name, old sport?” The scared notary replied: “I am Maître Saval.” “You mean Baptiste,” shouted one of the party, whereupon one of the women said: “Leave the poor fellow alone, or he will get angry. He is being paid to wait on us and not to have fun poked at him.” Then Monsieur Saval noticed that each guest had brought his own share of the feast⁠—the one a bottle, the other a pie, another some bread, another a ham, and so on. The tall, fair boy thrust an enormous sausage into his hands and said: “Here, arrange the buffet in the corner over there, put the bottles on the left and the eatables on the right.”

Not knowing whether he was on his head or his heels, Saval shouted back: “But I am a notary, gentlemen!”

There was a short silence followed by peals of laughter. A suspicious member of the party asked: “How did you get here?” He explained all about his intention of going to the opera, his departure from Vernon, his arrival in Paris, and what had happened during the evening. The guests had gathered round to hear the story, which they kept interrupting, and calling him Scheherazade.

There was still no sign of Romantin. More guests arrived, and Maître Saval was promptly introduced so that he might tell them the story. When he refused, the others insisted and tied him to one of the three chairs in the room between two women who kept on filling his glass. He drank, laughed, talked, sang, and tried to dance with his chair but fell down.

From that moment everything was a blank, although he had some vague idea that he was being undressed and put to bed, and that he felt very sick.

It was broad daylight when he woke up in a strange bed at the back of a deep recess.

An old woman with a broom glared at him, in a great rage, then said:

“Dirty beast! dirty beast! To get as drunk as that!”

He sat up in bed, feeling far from happy. “Where am I?” he asked.

“Where are you, you dirty beast? You are drunk. Be off now, one, two, three!”

He wanted to get up but he was lying naked in the bed and his clothes had vanished.

“Madam,” he began, “I⁠ ⁠… !” Then he remembered what had happened, and didn’t know what to do; he asked: “Has Monsieur Romantin not come back yet?”

The concierge shouted: “Are you going to clear out? Don’t let him find you here, whatever you do.”

At his wit’s end, Maître Saval said: “But I have no clothes, someone has taken them.” So he was obliged to wait, to explain matters, communicate with his friends and borrow money to buy clothes. He did not get away till evening.

And now when music is discussed in his beautiful drawing room at Vernon, he declares emphatically that painting is a very inferior art.

The Odyssey of a Prostitute

Yes. The memory of that evening will never fade. For half an hour I realised the sinister reality of implacable fate. I shuddered as a man shudders descending a mine. I plumbed the black depths of human misery; I understand that it is not possible for some people to live a decent life.

It was after midnight. I was going from the Vaudeville to the Rue Drouot, hurrying along the boulevard through a crowd of hurrying umbrellas. A fine rain was hovering in the air rather than falling, veiling the gas jets, spreading a gloom over the street. The gleaming pavement was sticky rather than damp. Anxious to get home, the passersby looked neither to right nor left.

The prostitutes, with skirts held up showing their legs, and revealing a white stocking to the wan gleams of evening light, were waiting in the shadow of doorways, speaking to the passersby or hurrying brazenly past them, thrusting a stupid incomprehensible phrase at them as they passed. They followed a man for a few seconds, jostling against him, breathing their putrid breath in his face; then, seeing the futility of their appeals, they abandoned him with a sudden angry movement and took up their promenade again, jerking their hips as they walked.

I went on my way, spoken to by them all, seized by the arm, irritated, revolted and disgusted. Suddenly I saw three of them running as if they were terrified, flinging a quick phrase to the others as they ran. And the others began to run too, an open flight, bunching their clothes together so that they could run the faster. They were making a roundup of prostitutes that night.

Suddenly I felt an arm under mine, while a terrified voice murmured in my ear: “Save me, sir, save me, don’t leave me.”

I looked at the girl. She was not yet twenty, although already fading. “Stay with me,” I said to her. “Oh, thank you,” she murmured.

We reached the line of police. It opened to let me pass.

And I proceeded down the Rue Drouot.

My companion asked:

“Will you come home with me?”

“No.”

“Why not? You have done me a very great service that I shan’t forget.”

To get rid of her, I answered:

“Because I’m married.”

“What does that matter?”

“Well, my child, that’s enough. I’ve pulled you out of a hole. Leave me alone now.”

The street was deserted and dark, really sinister. And this woman clinging to my arm added to the frightful feeling of sadness that had overwhelmed me. She tried to embrace me. I recoiled in horror, and said harshly:

“Be off, and shut your mouth.”

She retreated in something like anger, then abruptly began to sob. I stood bewildered, filled with pity, not understanding:

“Come, what’s the matter with you?”

She murmured between her tears:

“It’s not very pleasant, if you only knew.”

“What isn’t?”

“The life I live.”

“Why did you choose it?”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Then whose fault was it?”

“I know whose it was!”

I felt a sudden interest in this abandoned creature.

“Won’t you tell me about yourself?” I asked her.

She told me.

“I was sixteen years old, I was in service at Yvetot, with M. Lerable, a seedsman. My parents were dead. I had no one; I knew quite well that my master looked at me strangely and tickled my cheeks; but I didn’t think about it much. I knew a few things, of course. You get pretty shrewd in the country; but M. Lerable was a pious old thing who went to Mass every Sunday. I would never have believed him capable of it.

“Then one day he wanted to make up to me in my kitchen. I resisted him. He went off.

“There was a grocer opposite us, M. Dutan, who had a very agreeable assistant; so agreeable that I let him get round me. That happens to everybody, doesn’t it? So I used to leave the door open in the evenings, and he used to come and see me.

“And then one night M. Lerable heard a noise. He came upstairs and found Antoine and tried to kill him. They fought with chairs and the water jug and everything. I had seized my bit of clothes and I rushed into the street. Off I went.

“I was frightened, scared stiff. I got dressed under a doorway. Then I began to walk straight on. I was sure there had been someone killed and that the police were looking for me already. I reached the high road to Rouen. I thought to myself that at Rouen I could hide myself quite safely.

“It was too dark to see the ditches and I heard dogs barking in the farms. You don’t know what you hear at night. Birds screaming like a man who’s having his throat cut, beasts that yelp and beasts that wheeze, and all sorts of things that you don’t understand. I went all over gooseflesh. I crossed myself at every sound. You’ve no idea what it is that’s scaring you so. When it grew light, I thought of the police again and began to run. Then I calmed down.

“I felt hungry too, in spite of my anxiety; but I hadn’t anything, not a ha’penny. I’d forgotten my money, everything belonging to me in the world, eighteen francs.

“So I had to walk with a complaining stomach. It was warm. The sun scorched me. Noon passed. I went on walking.

“Suddenly I heard horses behind me. I turned round. The police! My blood ran cold; I thought I should fall; but I kept myself up. They caught up to me. They looked at me. One of them, the older, said:

“ ‘Good afternoon, miss.’

“ ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

“ ‘Where are you off like this?’

“ ‘I’m going to Rouen, to service in a situation I’ve been offered.’

“ ‘Like this, on your two feet?’

“ ‘Yes, like this.’

“My heart was beating so that I could hardly speak. I was saying to myself: ‘They’ll take me.’ And my legs itched to run. But they would have caught me up in a minute, you see.

“The old one began again:

“ ‘We’ll jog along together as far as Barantin, miss, since we’re all going the same way.’

“ ‘Gladly, sir.’

“So we fell to talking. I made myself as agreeable as I knew how, you may be sure, so agreeable that they thought things that weren’t true. And then, as I was walking through a wood, the old one said:

“ ‘What do you say if we go and lie down a bit on the moss?’

“I answered without stopping to think:

“ ‘Yes, if you like.’

“Then he dismounted, gave his horse to the other, and off we both went into the wood.

“There was no chance of saying no. What would you have done in my place? He took what he wanted; then he said: ‘We mustn’t forget the other fellow.’ And he went back to hold the horses, while the other one rejoined me. I was so ashamed of it that I could have cried. But I daren’t resist, you see.

“So we went on again. I had nothing more to say. I was too sad at heart. And then I was so hungry I couldn’t walk any further. All the same, they offered me a glass of wine in a village, and that heartened me up for a while. And then they set off at a trot, so as not to go through Barantin in my company. Then I sat down in the ditch and cried till I couldn’t cry any more.

“I was three hours longer walking to Rouen. It was seven o’clock in the evening when I arrived. At first I was dazzled by all the lights. And then I didn’t know where to sit down. On the roads there’s ditches and grass where you can even lie down to sleep. But in towns there’s nothing.

“My legs were giving way under me, and I had such fits of giddiness I thought I was going to fall. And then it began to rain, small fine rain, like this evening, that soaks through you without your noticing it. I have no luck on rainy days. Well, I began to walk in the streets. I stared at all the houses, and said to myself: ‘All those beds and all that bread in those houses, and I couldn’t find even a crust and a mattress.’ I went along the streets, where there were women speaking to passing men. In times like those you do what you can. I started to speak to everyone, as they were doing. But no one answered me. I wished I was dead. I went on like that till midnight. I didn’t even know what I was doing now. At last, a man listens to me. ‘Where do you live?’ he asks. Necessity makes you sharp. I answered: ‘I can’t take you home, because I live with mamma. But aren’t there houses where we can go?’

“ ‘It’s not often I spend a franc on a room,’ he answered.

“Then he reflected and added: ‘Come on. I know a quiet spot where we shan’t be interrupted.’

“He took me over a bridge and then he led me to the end of the town, in a meadow near the river. I couldn’t follow him any farther.

“He made me sit down, and then he began to busy himself with what we’d come for. But he was so long about his business that I was overcome with weariness and fell asleep.

“He went away without giving me anything. I didn’t hardly notice it. It was raining, as I told you. Ever since that day I’ve had pains I can’t get rid of, because I slept in the mud all the night.

“I was wakened by two cops, who took me to the police station and then, from there, to prison, where I stayed a week while they tried to find out what I could be or where I came from. I wouldn’t say anything for fear of consequences.

“They found out, however, and they let me go, after pronouncing me not guilty.

“I had to begin looking for work again. I tried to get a place, but I couldn’t, because of coming out of prison.

“Then I remembered an old judge who had rolled his eyes at me when he was trying me, just like old Lerable at Yvetot did. And I went to see him. I wasn’t mistaken. He gave me five francs when I came away, and said: ‘You shall have the same every time, but don’t come oftener than twice a week.’

“I understood that all right, seeing his age. But that gave me an idea. I said to myself: ‘Young men are all right for a bit of fun, and they’re jolly and all that, but there’s no fat living to be got there, while with old men it’s another thing.’ And then I’d got to know them, the old apes, with their sheep’s eyes and their wretched semblance of a head.

“Do you know what I did? I dressed myself like a servant girl coming from market, and I ran about the streets, looking for my foster-fathers. Oh, I caught them at the first shot. I used to say to myself: ‘Here’s one’ll bite.’

“He came up. He began:

“ ‘Good day, miss.’

“ ‘Good day, sir.’

“ ‘Where are you off like this?’

“ ‘I’m going back to my employers’ house.’

“ ‘Do they live a long way off, your employers?’

“ ‘So so.’

“Then he didn’t know what to say next. I used to slacken step to let him explain himself.

“Then he paid me a few compliments in a low voice, and then he asked me to come home with him. I took some pressing, you understand, then I gave in. I used to have two or three of that sort every morning, and all my afternoons free. That was the best time of my life. I didn’t worry.

“But there. One’s not left in peace long. Ill luck had it that I got to know a wealthy old devil in society. A former president, who was at least seventy-five years old.

“One evening he took me to dine in a restaurant in the suburbs. And then, you see, he hadn’t the sense to go carefully. He died during the dessert.

“I got three months in prison, because I wasn’t registered.

“It was then I came to Paris.

“Oh, it’s a hard life here, sir. You don’t eat every day. There’s too many of us. Ah, well, so much the worse, everyone has their own troubles, haven’t they?”

She was silent. I was walking beside her, sick at heart. Suddenly she began to talk familiarly again.

“So you’re not coming home with me, dearie?”

“No. I told you so before.”

“Well, goodbye, thanks all the same, and no offence taken. But I’m sure you’re making a mistake.”

And she went off, losing herself in the fine rain. I saw her passing under a gas jet, and then disappear in the shadows. Poor wretch!

A Coup d’État

Paris had just learnt of the disaster of Sedan. The Republic was proclaimed. All France was panting at the outset of a delirium that lasted until after the Commune. Everybody was playing soldiers from one end of the country to the other.

Hatters became colonels, assuming the duties of generals; revolvers and daggers were displayed on large rotund paunches, enveloped in red sashes; common citizens became temporary warriors, commanding battalions of noisy volunteers, and swearing like troopers to emphasize their importance.

The mere fact of bearing arms and handling guns excited people who hitherto had only handled weighing scales, and made them formidable to the first comer, without reason. They even executed a few innocent people to prove that they knew how to kill; and, in roaming through country places as yet innocent of Prussians, they shot stray dogs, cows chewing the cud in peace, or sick horses put out to pasture. Every man believed himself called upon to play a great role in military affairs. The cafés of the smallest villages, full of tradesmen in uniform, resembled barracks or field hospitals.

Now, the town of Canneville did not yet know the news of the army and the Capital, but a violent agitation had been disturbing it for a month, and the rival parties had confronted each other. The mayor, Vicomte de Varnetot, a small, thin man, already old, a Legitimist who had rallied recently to the Empire, spurred by ambition, had seen rising up against him a powerful adversary in Doctor Massarel, a stout, full-blooded man, head of the Republican party in the district, venerable chief of the Masonic lodge in the county town, president of the Society of Agriculture, chairman of the Fire Department banquet, and organizer of the rural militia which was to save the country.

In two weeks he had induced sixty-three married men and fathers of families to volunteer in defence of their country, prudent farmers and merchants of the town, and he drilled them every morning on the square in front of the town hall.

Whenever the mayor happened to appear at the local government building, Commander Massarel, covered with pistols, sword in hand, passing proudly up and down in front of his troops, would make them shout, “Long live our country!” And this, they noticed, disturbed the little Vicomte, who no doubt heard in it menace and defiance, and perhaps some odious recollection of the great Revolution.

On the morning of the fifth of September, in uniform, his revolver on the table, the doctor was giving a consultation to an old peasant couple of whom the husband had suffered with varicose veins for seven years, but who had waited until his wife had the same complaint before coming to see the doctor, when the postman arrived with the newspaper.

Doctor Massarel opened it, grew pale, straightened himself abruptly and, raising his arms to heaven in a gesture of exaltation, cried out with all his might, in the face of the amazed rustics:

“Long live the Republic! Long live the Republic! Long live the Republic!”

Then he dropped into his armchair weak with emotion.

When the peasant explained again that this sickness had begun with a feeling as if ants were running up and down in his legs, the doctor exclaimed: “Leave me in peace. I have no time to waste on such nonsense. The Republic is proclaimed! The Emperor is a prisoner! France is saved! Long live the Republic!” And, running to the door, he bellowed: “Céleste! Quick! Céleste!”

The frightened maid hastened in. He stuttered, so rapidly did he try to speak: “My boots, my sword⁠—my cartridge box⁠—and⁠—the Spanish dagger, which is on my night table. Hurry now!”

The obstinate peasant, taking advantage of the moment’s silence, began again: “They became like knots that hurt me when I walked.”

The exasperated doctor shouted: “Shut up, for heaven’s sake! If you had washed your feet oftener, it would not have happened.” Then, seizing him by the neck, he hissed in his face: “Can’t you understand that we are living in a Republic, idiot?”

But a sense of his profession calmed him suddenly, and he let the astonished old couple out of the house, repeating:

“Come back tomorrow, come back tomorrow, my friends; I have no time today.”

While equipping himself from head to foot, he gave another series of urgent orders to the maid:

“Run to Lieutenant Picart’s and to Sublieutenant Pommel’s and tell them that I want them here immediately. Send Torchebeuf to me, too, with his drum. Quick, now! Quick!” And when Céleste was gone, he collected his thoughts and prepared to overcome the difficulties of the situation.

The three men arrived together. They were in their working clothes. The Commander, who had expected to see them in uniform, gave a start of surprise.

“Good Lord! You know nothing, then? The Emperor has been taken prisoner. A Republic is proclaimed. We must take action. My position is delicate, I might almost say perilous.”

He reflected for some minutes in the presence of his astonished subordinates and then continued:

“We must act without hesitation. Minutes now are worth hours in times like these. Everything depends upon promptness of decision. You, Picart, go and find the priest and order him to ring the bell to bring the people together, so that I can inform them. You, Torchebeuf, beat the call in every part of the district, as far as the hamlets of Gerisaie and Salmare, to assemble the militia in arms, in the square. You, Pommel, put on your uniform at once, that is, the jacket and cap. We, together, are going to take possession of the town hall and summon M. de Varnetot to transfer his authority to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Act, then, and promptly. I will accompany you to your house, Pommel, since we are to work together.”

Five minutes later, the Commandant and his subaltern, armed to the teeth, appeared in the square, just at the moment when the little Vicomte de Varnetot, wearing hunting gaiters, and with his rifle on his shoulder, came along by another street, walking rapidly and followed by three gamekeepers in green jackets, each carrying a knife at his side and a gun over his shoulder.

While the doctor stopped in amazement, the four men entered the town hall and the door closed behind them.

“We have been forestalled,” murmured the doctor. “Now we shall have to wait for reinforcements; nothing can be done for the time being.”

Lieutenant Picart reappeared: “The priest refuses to obey,” said he; “he has even shut himself up in the church with the beadle and the usher.” On the other side of the square, opposite the white, closed front of the town-hall, the church, silent and sombre, showed its great oak door with the wrought-iron trimmings.

Then, as the puzzled inhabitants put their heads out of the windows, or came out upon their thresholds, the rolling of a drum was heard, and Torchebeuf suddenly appeared, beating with fury the three quick strokes of the call to arms. He crossed the square with disciplined step, and then disappeared along the road leading to the country.

The Commandant drew his sword, advanced alone about halfway between the two buildings where the enemy was barricaded and, waving his weapon above his head, roared at the top of his lungs: “Long live the Republic! Death to traitors!” Then he fell back where his officers were. The butcher, the baker, and the apothecary, feeling a little uncertain, put up their shutters and closed their shops. The grocery alone remained open.

Meanwhile the men of the militia were gradually arriving, variously clothed, but all wearing caps with red braid, the cap constituting the whole uniform of the corps. They were armed with their old, rusty guns, guns that had hung over chimneypieces in kitchens for thirty years, and looked quite like a detachment of foresters.

When there were about thirty around him, the Commandant explained in a few words the state of affairs. Then, turning toward his general staff, he said: “Now, we must act.”

While the inhabitants collected, looked on, and discussed the matter, the doctor quickly formed his plan of campaign:

“Lieutenant Picart, you advance to the windows of the town hall and order M. de Varnetot to surrender it to me, in the name of the Republic.”

But the lieutenant was a master-mason and refused.

“You are very clever, aren’t you? Trying to make a target of me! Those fellows in there are good shots, you know. No, thanks! Execute your commissions yourself!”

The Commandant turned red: “I order you to go in the name of discipline,” said he.

The lieutenant rebelled:

“I am not going to have my features spoiled without knowing the reason why.”

The notables of the village, in a group near by, began to laugh. One of them called out: “You are right, Picart, it is not the proper time.” The doctor, under his breath, muttered: “Cowards!” And, placing his sword and his revolver in the hands of a soldier, he advanced with measured step, his eyes fixed on the windows, as if he expected to see the muzzle of a gun pointed at him.

When he was within a few steps of the building the doors at the two ends, affording an entrance to two schools, opened, and a flood of little creatures, boys on one side, girls on the other, poured out and began playing in the open space, chattering around the doctor like a flock of birds. He could hardly make himself heard.

As soon as they were all out, the two doors closed. The greater part of the little monkeys finally scattered, and then the Commandant called out in a loud voice:

“Monsieur de Varnetot?” A window in the first story opened and M. de Varnetot appeared.

The Commandant began: “Monsieur, you are aware of the great events which have changed the system of Government. The party you represent no longer exists. The side I represent now comes into power. Under these sad but decisive circumstances, I come to summon you, in the name of the new Republic, to place in my hands the authority vested in you by the outgoing power.”

M. de Varnetot replied: “Doctor Massarel, I am mayor of Canneville, so placed by the proper authorities, and mayor of Canneville I shall remain until the title is revoked and replaced by an order from my superiors. As mayor, I am at home in the town hall and there I shall stay. Furthermore, just try to put me out.” And he closed the window.

The Commandant returned to his troops. But, before explaining anything, measuring Lieutenant Picart from head to foot, he said:

“You are a fine fellow, you are⁠—a goose, the disgrace of the army. I degrade you.”

The Lieutenant replied: “I don’t care a damn.” And he went over to the group of grumbling citizens.

Then the doctor hesitated. What should he do? Make an assault? Would his men obey him? And then, was he in the right? Then he had a bright idea. He ran to the telegraph office opposite the town hall, on the other side of the square, and sent three dispatches: “To the Members of the Republican Government, at Paris”; “To the New Republican Prefect of the Seine-Inférieure, at Rouen”; “To the New Republican Subprefect of Dieppe.”

He explained the situation fully; told of the danger which the district incurred by remaining in the hands of the monarchist mayor, offered his loyal services, asked for orders and signed his name, followed by all his titles. Then he returned to his army corps and, drawing ten francs out of his pocket, said:

“Now, my men, go and eat and drink a little something. Only leave here a detachment of ten men, so that no one leaves the town hall.”

Ex-Lieutenant Picart, chatting with the watch maker, overheard this. With a sneer he remarked: “Pardon me, but if they go out, you will have a chance to go in. Otherwise, I can’t see how you are to get in there!”

The doctor made no reply, but went off to lunch. In the afternoon, he placed guards all about town, as if it were threatened by a surprise. Many times he passed before the doors of the town hall and of the church, without noticing anything suspicious; one might have believed the two buildings were empty.

The butcher, the baker, and the apothecary reopened their shops. There was a lot of talking in the houses. If the Emperor had been taken prisoner, there must be a traitor somewhere. They did not know exactly which Republic had been restored.

Night came on. Toward nine o’clock, the doctor returned quietly and alone to the entrance to the town hall, persuaded that his adversary had retired. And, as he was trying to force an entrance with a few blows of a pickaxe, the loud voice of a sentry demanded suddenly: “Who goes there?” Monsieur Massarel beat a retreat at top speed.

Another day dawned without any change in the situation. The militia in arms occupied the square. The inhabitants stood around them, awaiting the solution. People from neighbouring villages came to look on. Finally, the doctor, realizing that his reputation was at stake, resolved to settle the thing in one way or another. He had just decided that it must be something energetic, when the door of the telegraph office opened and the little servant of the postmistress appeared, holding in her hand two papers.

First she went to the Commandant and gave him one of the dispatches; then, crossing the deserted centre of the square, intimidated by so many eyes fixed upon her, with lowered head and running steps, she rapped gently at the door of the barricaded house, as if unaware that a party of men in arms was concealed there.

The door opened slightly; the hand of a man received the message, and the girl returned, blushing and ready to weep, from being stared at by the whole countryside.

In vibrating tones the doctor shouted: “Silence, please.” And, when the populace became quiet, he continued proudly:

“Here is a communication which I have received from the Government.” And raising the telegram, he read:

“Old mayor recalled. Please attend to urgent matters. Instructions will follow.

“For the Subprefect,
Sapin, Councillor.”

He had triumphed. His heart was beating with joy. His hands were shaking. But Picart, his old subaltern, cried out to him from a neighbouring group: “That’s all right; but if the others in there won’t get out, that piece of paper will not do you much good.” M. Massarel turned pale. Supposing the others would not get out? He would now have to take the offensive. It was not only his right, but his duty. And he looked anxiously at the town hall, hoping that he might see the door open and his adversary retreat. But the door remained closed. What was to be done? The crowd was increasing, surrounding the militia. People were laughing.

One thought, especially, tortured the doctor. If he should make an assault, he must march at the head of his men; and as, once he were killed, there would be no opposition, it would be at him, and at him alone that M. de Varnetot and the three gamekeepers would aim. And their aim was good, very good! Picart had reminded him of that.

But an idea occurred to him, and turning to Pommel, he said: “Go, quickly, and ask the chemist to lend me a napkin and a pole.”

The Lieutenant hurried off. The doctor was going to make a political banner, a white one, that would, perhaps, rejoice the Legitimist heart of the old mayor.

Pommel returned with the piece of linen required, and a broom handle. With some pieces of string, they improvised a flag, which Massarel seized in both hands. Again, he advanced towards the town hall, bearing the standard before him. When in front of the door, he called out: “Monsieur de Varnetot!”

The door opened suddenly, and M. de Varnetot and his three gamekeepers appeared on the threshold. The doctor recoiled, instinctively. Then, he saluted his enemy courteously, and announced, almost strangled by emotion: “I have come, sir, to communicate to you the instructions I have just received.”

That gentleman, without any salutation whatever, replied: “I am going to withdraw, sir, but you must understand that it is not because of fear, or in obedience to an odious government that has usurped power.” And, biting off each word, he declared: “I do not wish to have the appearance of serving the Republic for a single day. That is all.”

Massarel, amazed, made no reply; and M. de Varnetot, walking off at a rapid pace, disappeared around the corner, followed closely by his escort. Then the doctor, mad with pride, returned to the crowd. When he was near enough to be heard, he cried: “Hurrah! Hurrah! The Republic triumphs all along the line!”

But no emotion was manifested. The doctor tried again: “The people are free! You are free and independent! Do you understand? Be proud of it!”

The listless villagers looked at him with eyes unlit by glory. In his turn, he looked at them, indignant at their indifference, seeking for some word that could make a grand impression, electrify this placid country and make good his mission. The inspiration came, and turning to Pommel, he said: “Lieutenant, go and get the bust of the ex-Emperor, which is in the Municipal Council Hall, and bring it to me with a chair.”

And soon the man reappeared, carrying on his right shoulder, Napoleon III in plaster, and holding in his left hand a straw-bottomed chair.

Massarel met him, took the chair, placed it on the ground, put the white image upon it, fell back a few steps and called out, in sonorous voice:

“Tyrant! Tyrant! At last you have fallen! Fallen in the dust and in the mire. An expiring country groaned beneath your foot. Avenging fate has struck you down. Defeat and shame cling to you. You fall conquered, a prisoner to the Prussians, and upon the ruins of the crumbling Empire the young and radiant Republic arises, picking up your broken sword.”

He awaited applause. But not a shout was raised, not a hand clapped. The bewildered peasants remained silent. And the bust, with its pointed moustaches extending beyond the cheeks on each side, the bust, as motionless and well groomed as a hairdresser’s sign, seemed to be looking at M. Massarel with a plaster smile, an ineffaceable and mocking smile.

They remained thus face to face, Napoleon on the chair, the doctor in front of him about three steps away. Suddenly the Commandant grew angry. What was to be done? What was there that would move these people, and bring about a definite victory of opinion? His hand happened to rest on his hip and to come in contact there with the butt end of his revolver, under his red sash. No inspiration, no further word would come. So he drew his pistol, advanced two steps, and, taking aim, fired at the late monarch. The ball entered the forehead, leaving a little, black hole, like a spot, nothing more. It made no effect. Then he fired a second shot, which made a second hole; then, a third; and then, without stopping, he emptied his revolver. The brow of Napoleon disappeared in white powder, but the eyes, the nose, and the fine points of the moustaches remained intact. Then, the exasperated doctor overturned the chair with a blow of his fist and, resting a foot on the remainder of the bust in an attitude of triumph, he turned to the flabbergasted public and shouted: “So let all tyrants perish!”

Still no enthusiasm was manifest, and as the spectators seemed to be in a kind of stupor from astonishment, the Commandant called to the militiamen: “You may now go to your homes.” And he went toward his own house with great strides, as if he were pursued.

His maid, when he appeared, told him that some patients had been waiting in his office for three hours. He hastened in. There were the two varicose-vein patients, who had returned at daybreak, obstinate and patient.

The old man immediately began his explanation: “This began by a feeling like ants running up and down my legs.”

A Humble Drama

Meetings constitute the charm of travelling. Who does not know the joy of coming, five hundred leagues from one’s native land, upon a man from Paris, a college friend, or a neighbour in the country? Who has not spent a night, unable to sleep, in the little jingling stagecoach of countries where steam is still unknown, beside a strange young woman, half seen by the gleam of the lantern when she clambered into the carriage at the door of a white house in a little town?

And, when morning comes, and brain and ears are still numbed by the perpetual ringing of the bells and the noisy clatter of the windows, how charming to see your pretty tousled neighbour open her eyes, look about her, arrange her rebellious tresses with the tips of her slim fingers, adjust her hat, feel with her skilful hand whether her corsets have not slipped, whether her person is as it should be, and her skirt not too crushed!

She gives you, too, a single cold, inquisitive glance. Then she settles herself into her corner and seems to have no eyes for anything but the landscape.

In spite of yourself, you stare at her all the time: you think of her the whole time in spite of yourself. What is she? Where has she come from? Where is she going to? In spite of yourself, you sketch a little romance in your mind. She is pretty; she seems charming! Happy man!⁠ ⁠… Life might be exquisite by her side. Who knows? Perhaps she is the woman necessary to our emotions, our dreams, our desires.

And how delicious, too, is the regret with which you see her get off at the gate of a country-house. A man is waiting there with two children and two servants. He takes her in his arms and kisses her as he helps her down. She stoops and takes up the little ones who are stretching out their hands, and caresses them lovingly; they go off down a path while the maids take the boxes which the conductor is handing down from the roof.

Goodbye! It is finished. You will never see her again. Goodbye to the woman who has spent the night at your side. You never knew her, never spoke to her; still you are a little sad when she goes. Goodbye!

I have many of these memories of travel, grave and gay.

I was in Auvergne, wandering on foot among those delightful French mountains, not too high, not too wild, but friendly and homely. I had climbed the Sancy, and was just going into a little inn, near a pilgrims’ chapel named Notre Dame de Vassivière, when I noticed an old woman, a strange, absurd figure, lunching by herself at the table inside.

She was at least seventy, tall, withered, and angular, with white hair arranged in old-fashioned sausage curls on her temples. She was dressed in the quaint and clumsy style of the wandering Englishwoman, like a person to whom clothes were a matter of complete indifference; she was eating an omelette and drinking water.

She had an odd expression, with restless eyes, the face of one whom life has treated harshly. I stared at her in spite of myself, wondering: “Who is she? What sort of thing is this woman’s life? Why is she wandering all alone in these mountains?”

She paid, then rose to go, readjusting upon her shoulders an extraordinary little shawl, whose two ends hung down over her arms. She took from a corner a long alpenstock covered with names engraved in the rusty iron, then walked out, straight and stiff, with the long strides of a postman setting off on his round.

A guide was waiting for her at the door. They moved off. I watched them descend the valley, along the road indicated 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 up the brim of that deep funnel in the heart of which, in a vast and wonderful green cavity filled with trees, bushes, rocks, and flowers, lies Lake Pavin, so round that it looks as though it had been made with a compass, so clear and blue that one might suppose it a flood of azure poured down from the sky, so charming that one would like to live in a hut on the slope of the wood overlooking this crater where, quiet and cool, the water sleeps.

She was standing there motionless, gazing at the transparent water lying at the bottom of the dead volcano. She was standing as though she would peer beneath it, into its unknown depths, peopled, it is said, by trout of monstrous size who have devoured all the other fish. As I passed close to her, I fancied that two tears welled in her eyes. But she walked away with long strides to rejoin her guide, who had stopped in a tavern at the foot of the rise leading to the lake.

I did not see her again that day.

Next day, as night was falling, I arrived at the castle of Murol. The old fortress, a giant tower standing upon a peak in the centre of a large valley, at the crossing of three dales, rises towards the sky, brown, crannied, and battered, but round from its broad circular base to the crumbling turrets of its summit.

It is more impressive than any other ruin in its simple bulk, its majesty, its ancient air of power and austerity. It stands there solitary, high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still a queen of the valleys crouching under it. The visitor approaches by a pine-clad slope, enters by a narrow door, and stops at the foot of the walls, in the first enclosure, high above the whole countryside.

Within are fallen rooms, skeleton staircases, unknown pits, subterranean chambers, oubliettes, walls cleft through the middle, vaults still standing, none knows how, a maze of stones and crannies where grass grows and animals creep.

I was alone, roaming about this ruin.

Suddenly, behind a piece of wall, I caught sight of a human being, almost a phantom, as if it were the spirit of the ancient ruined building.

I started in amazement, almost in terror. Then I recognised the old woman I had already met twice.

She was weeping. She was weeping big tears, and held her handkerchief in her hand.

I turned to go. She spoke to me, ashamed at having been discovered unawares.

“Yes, monsieur, I am crying.⁠ ⁠… It does not happen often.”

“Excuse me, madame, for having disturbed you,” I stammered in confusion, not knowing what to answer. “Doubtless you are the victim of some misfortune.”

“Yes⁠—no,” she murmured, “I am like a lost dog.”

And putting her handkerchief over her eyes, she burst into sobs.

I took her hands and tried to console her, touched by her very moving grief. And abruptly she began to tell me her history, as if she did not want to be left alone any longer to bear her grief.

“Oh!⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… Monsieur.⁠ ⁠… If you knew⁠ ⁠… in what distress I live⁠ ⁠… in what distress.⁠ ⁠…

“I was happy.⁠ ⁠… I have a home⁠ ⁠… away in my own country. I cannot go back again, I shall never go back again, it is too cruel.

“I have a son.⁠ ⁠… It is he! It is he! Children do not know.⁠ ⁠… One has so short a time to live! If I saw him now, I might not know him! How I loved him! How I loved him! Even before he was born, when I felt him stir in my body. And then afterwards. How I embraced him, caressed him, cherished him. If you only knew how many nights I have spent watching him sleep, thinking of him. I was mad about him. He was eight years old when his father sent him away to boarding-school. It was all over. He was no longer mine. Oh! My God! He used to come every Sunday, that was all.

“Then he went to college, in Paris. He only came four times a year; and each time I marvelled at the changes in him, at finding him grown bigger without having seen him grow. I was robbed of his childhood, his trust, the love he would never have withdrawn from me, all my joy in feeling him grow and become a little man.

“I saw him four times a year! Think of it! At each of his visits his body, his eyes, his movements, his voice, his laugh, were no longer the same, were no longer mine. A child alters so swiftly, and, when you are not there to watch him alter, it is so sad; you will never find him again!

“One year he arrived with down upon his cheeks! He! My son! I was amazed⁠ ⁠… and⁠—would you believe it?⁠—sad. I scarcely dared to kiss him. Was this my baby, my small wee thing with fair curls, my baby of long ago, the darling child I had laid in long clothes upon my knee, who had drunk my milk with his little greedy lips, this tall brown boy who no longer knew how to caress me, who seemed to love me chiefly as a duty, who called me ‘mother’ for convention’s sake, and who kissed me on the forehead when I longed to crush him in my arms?

“My husband died. Then it was the turn of my parents. Then I lost my two sisters. When Death enters a house, it is as though he hastened to finish as much work as possible so that he need not return for a long time. He leaves but one or two alive to mourn the rest.

“I lived alone. In those days my big son was dutiful enough. I hoped to live and die near him.

“I went to join him, so that we might live together. He had acquired a young man’s ways; he made me realise that I worried him. I went away; I was wrong; but I suffered so to feel that I, his mother, was intruding. I went back home.

“I hardly saw him again.

“He married. What joy! At last we were to be united again forever. I should have grandchildren! He had married an English girl who took a dislike to me. Why? Perhaps she felt that I loved him too much?

“I was again forced to go away. I found myself alone. Yes, monsieur.

“Then he went to England. He was going to live with them, his wife’s parents. Do you understand? They have him, they have my son for their own! They have stolen him from me! He writes to me every month. At first he used to come and see me. Now he comes no more.

“It is four years since I have seen him. His face was wrinkled and his hair was turning white. Was it possible? This man, this almost old man, my son? My little pink baby of long ago? Doubtless I shall not see him again.

“And I travel all the year. I go to the right and to the left, as you see, all by myself.

“I am like a lost dog. Goodbye, monsieur. Do not stay near me, it hurts me to have told you all this.”

And, as I walked down the hill again, I turned round, and saw the old woman standing on a cracked wall, gazing at the mountains, the long valley, and Lake Chambon in the distance.

The skirts of her dress and the queer little shawl on her thin shoulders fluttered in the wind like a flag.

Théodule Sabot’s Confession

Whenever Sabot came into the public-house of Martinville, a roar of laughter went up in anticipation. The fellow was as good as a play. He had no love for parsons, not he! He ate them alive.

Sabot (Théodule), master joiner, represented the radical party at Martinville. He was a tall thin man with a sly grey eye, hair brushed on to his temples, and a small thin-lipped mouth. When he said, “Our holy father the washout” in a certain way he had, the whole company yelled with laughter. He was careful to work on Sunday while Mass was going on. Every year he killed his pig on the Monday in Holy Week, so as to have black puddings till Easter, and when the rector passed he always said merrily:

“There’s the fellow who’s just been swallowing his God out of a pint-pot.”

The priest, a stout man, also very tall, feared him for his chaff, which won him many supporters. The reverend Maritime had a diplomatic mind, and dearly loved a crafty scheme. For six years the struggle went on between these two, secret, bitter, and incessant. Sabot was on the town council, and it was thought that he would be made mayor, which would certainly constitute the definite defeat of the Church.

The elections were about to take place, and the religious party in Martinville trembled for its security. One morning the rector went off to Rouen, telling his servant that he was going to the archbishop’s palace.

Two days later he returned, looking joyful and triumphant. Next day everyone knew that the chancel of the church was to be restored. His Lordship had given six hundred francs towards it out of his own pocket. All the old deal stalls were to be removed and replaced by new ones of oak. It was an important piece of carpentry, and by the evening everyone was talking of it.

Théodule Sabot did not laugh.

When he walked through the village next day, neighbours, friends and enemies alike, all asked him jestingly:

“Is it you who’s to do the church choir?”

He found nothing to answer, but his heart was black with rage.

“It’s a fine job,” they added unkindly. “It’s worth a good two or three hundred.”

Two days later it was known that the work of repair was to be entrusted to Célestin Chambrelan, the joiner at Percheville. Then the rumour was denied, and then it was announced that all the church pews were to be replaced as well. It would cost quite two thousand francs, and they had appealed to the government for the money. There was great excitement.

Théodule Sabot could not sleep. Never, within the memory of man, had a local joiner executed such a task. Then the story ran that the rector was heartbroken at giving this work to a joiner who was a stranger to the village, but that Sabot’s opinions were a barrier that prevented the contract from being entrusted to him.

Sabot knew it. At nightfall he betook himself to the rectory. The servant told him that the rector was at church. He went there.

Two lay sisters, sour old spinsters, were decorating the altar for the month of St. Mary, under the direction of the priest. He stood in the middle of the choir, protruding his enormous stomach, and was superintending the labours of the women who, perched on chairs, were arranging flowers round the shrine.

Sabot felt uneasy there, as though he had entered the house of his deadliest foe, but his greed for gain spurred him on. He came up cap in hand, taking no notice of the lay sisters, who remained motionless upon their chairs, stupefied with amazement.

“Good morning, parson,” he stammered.

“Good morning, joiner,” replied the parson without turning his head, engrossed in the work at the altar.

Sabot, who had rather lost his bearings, found nothing more to say. After a pause, however, he added:

“You are making preparations?”

“Yes,” replied Maritime, “we are drawing near to the month of St. Mary.”

“Quite, quite,” said Sabot, and was silent.

He was by now anxious to leave without speaking at all, but a glance at the choir restrained him. He saw that there were sixteen stalls to be repaired, six on the right and eight on the left, the vestry door occupying two places. Sixteen oak stalls were to be had for three hundred francs at the outside, and with a little good management a clever workman could make a clear two hundred francs on the job. He managed to stammer:

“I’ve come for the work.”

The rector looked surprised.

“What work?” he asked.

“The work to be done,” murmured Sabot, now quite desperate.

At that the priest turned and stared at him, saying:

“Do you mean the repairs to the choir of my church?”

At the tone adopted by the priest, Théodule Sabot felt a shiver run up his spine, and once more he suffered a violent longing to slink away. But he replied meekly:

“Yes, your reverence.”

The rector crossed his arms on his broad paunch, and said as though thunderstruck with surprise:

“And you⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠… you, Sabot⁠ ⁠… come here and ask me that!⁠ ⁠… You⁠ ⁠… the only infidel in my parish.⁠ ⁠… Why, it would be a scandal, a public scandal. His Lordship would reprimand me; I might even lose the living.”

He paused for a few seconds to regain his breath, then proceeded more calmly:

“I quite understand that it pains you to see a work of such importance entrusted to a joiner from a neighbouring parish. But I cannot do otherwise, unless⁠ ⁠… but no⁠ ⁠… that’s impossible. You’d never agree to it, and without that⁠ ⁠… never.”

Sabot was now looking at the ranks of pews running right to the west door. Mercy! was all that to be restored?

“What must you have?” he asked. “It can’t do any harm telling.”

“I must have an overwhelming proof of your good intentions,” replied the priest firmly.

“I don’t say,” murmured Sabot, “I don’t say but what an understanding mightn’t be come to.”

“You must communicate publicly at High Mass next Sunday,” announced the rector.

The joiner felt himself growing pale and, without answering, asked:

“And the pews, are they all to be done too?”

“Yes,” replied the rector with emphasis, “but later on.”

“Well, I don’t say,” replied Sabot. “I don’t say. I’m no atheist, I’m not; I’ve no quarrel with religion. What upsets me is practising it, but in a case like this I dare say you’d not find me obstinate.”

The lay helpers had descended from their chairs and were hidden behind the altar; they were listening, livid with emotion.

The rector, perceiving that he was victorious, became familiar and jolly:

“Splendid! Splendid! Now that’s very sensible of you, very sensible. Wait and see.”

Sabot smiled uncomfortably, and asked:

“Can’t this here communion be put off for a bit, just a little bit?”

But the priest resumed his severe expression.

“From the moment that the contract is given to you, I must be certain of your conversion,” he said, then continued more mildly:

“You’d better come and confess tomorrow, for I shall have to examine you at least twice.”

“Twice?⁠ ⁠…” repeated Sabot.

“Yes,” said the priest with a smile. “You see, you need a thorough cleaning, a complete wash. I expect you tomorrow.”

“And where’ll you do it?” asked the joiner in dismay.

“Why⁠ ⁠… in the confessional.”

“What?⁠ ⁠… In that box over there in the corner? Now look here⁠ ⁠… I don’t like your box a bit.”

“Why not?”

“Why⁠ ⁠… why, I’m not used to it. And I’m a bit hard of hearing too.”

The rector showed himself accommodating.

“Very well. Come to my house, to my study. We’ll get it done there, just a little chat. Does that suit you?”

“Oh, that’ll suit me all right, but as for that box of yours, no!”

“Well, tomorrow then, after the day’s work, at six o’clock.”

“Right-o, right you are. That’s settled. See you tomorrow, rector, and damn the man who goes back on a bargain.”

He held out his huge rough hand, on which the priest let his own fall with a loud smack. The echo ran along the vaulted roof and died in the distance behind the organ pipes.

Throughout the following day Théodule Sabot felt uncomfortable. He suffered an apprehension very like the fear one suffers before having a tooth out. At every moment the thought flashed across his mind: “I’ve got to confess this evening.” And his harried soul, the soul of a not very strongly convinced atheist, was sorely troubled before the vague powerful terror of the divine mystery.

As soon as his work was over he went off to the rectory. The rector was waiting for him in the garden, reading his breviary as he walked up and down a small path. He seemed delighted to see him and welcomed him with a hearty laugh.

“Ah⁠—here we are, then! Come in, come in, Monsieur Sabot; no one will eat you.”

Sabot entered the house first.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he faltered, “I’d like to see my little affair through at once like.”

“At your service,” replied the rector. “My surplice is here. One minute, and I’m ready to listen to you.”

The joiner, so distressed that his mind was a blank, watched him put on the white garment with its pleated folds. The priest signed to him:

“Kneel down on that hassock.”

But Sabot remained standing, ashamed at having to kneel.

“Does it do any good?” he stammered.

But the priest had become majestic.

“Only upon the knees,” he said, “may the tribunal of repentance be approached.”

Sabot knelt.

“Recite the Confiteor,” said the priest.

“Eh?⁠ ⁠…” asked Sabot.

“The Confiteor. If you no longer know it, repeat one by one the words I am about to utter.”

And the rector pronounced the sacred prayer in a slow voice, scanning each word for the joiner, who repeated it after him.

“Now confess,” he said.

But Sabot said nothing, not knowing where to begin.

Then the reverend Maritime came to his aid.

“Since you seem to be rather out of practice, my child, I will question you. We will take the commandments of God one by one. Listen to me and do not distress yourself. Speak very frankly and never be afraid of confessing too much.

“ ‘Thou shalt worship one God alone and adore Him with all thy heart.’ Have you loved anyone or anything as much as God? Have you loved Him with all your soul, with all your heart, with all the strength of your love?”

Sabot perspired with the effort of thought.

“No,” he replied. “Oh, no, your reverence. I love the good God as much as I can. Oh, Lord! Yes, I love Him all right. As for saying I don’t love my children, no. I can’t say that. As for saying if I had to choose between them and the good God, as for that I won’t say. As for saying if I had to lose a hundred francs for love of the good God, as for that I won’t say. But I love Him all right, that’s quite certain. I love Him just the same.”

“You must love Him more than anything,” said the priest gravely.

And Sabot, full of goodwill, declared:

“I’ll do my best, your reverence.”

“ ‘Thou shalt not swear vainly by the name of God, nor by any other,’ ” resumed Maritime. “Have you occasionally sworn oaths?”

“No oh, no, not that! I never swear, never. Sometimes, in a moment of hot temper like, I may say ‘God blast.’ But I never swear.”

“But that is swearing,” said the priest, and added severely: “Don’t do it any more. I pass on to the next: ‘Thou shalt spend the Sabbath in serving God devotedly.’ What do you do on Sundays?”

This time Sabot scratched his ear.

“Well, I serve the good God in the best way I can, your reverence. I serve Him⁠ ⁠… at home. I work on Sundays⁠ ⁠…”

The rector magnanimously interrupted him:

“I know you will behave better in the future. I pass over the three next commandments, as I am sure you have not sinned against the two first, and we will take the sixth with the ninth. To proceed: ‘Thou shalt not take another’s goods, nor retain them wittingly.’ Have you ever in any way taken what did not belong to you?”

Théodule Sabot was indignant:

“Certainly not! Certainly not, your reverence! I’m an honest man, that I swear. As for saying that I’ve not once or twice taken an extra hour over a job when I could, as for that I won’t say. As for saying that I’ve never put a few centimes on to a bill, only a few centimes, as for that I won’t say. But I’m not a thief, oh, Lord, no!”

“Taking a single centime constitutes a theft,” answered the priest severely. “Don’t do it again.⁠—‘Thou shalt not bear false witness nor lie in any way.’ Have you told lies?”

“No! that I haven’t. I’m not a liar; that’s one of the things I pride myself on. As for saying that I’ve never told a tall story, as for that I won’t say. As for saying that I’ve never tried to make another fellow believe what wasn’t true, when it suited me, as for that I won’t say. But as for being a liar, well, I’m no liar.”

“You must keep a closer watch upon yourself,” said the priest simply. Then he pronounced: ‘The works of the flesh thou shalt not desire save only in marriage.’ Have you ever desired or possessed any woman but your own wife?”

“No!” cried Sabot sincerely. “Certainly not, your reverence! Deceive my poor wife? No! No! Not so much as with the tip of my finger, and no more in thought than in deed. I swear that.” He paused for a few moments, and then continued in a lower voice, as though a sudden doubt had assailed him:

“As for saying that when I go to town I don’t ever go to a house⁠—you know what I mean, a gay house⁠—and fool about a bit and have a change of skin for once⁠—as for that I won’t say.⁠ ⁠… But I pay, your reverence, I always pay; and if you pay, that’s that, eh?”

The rector did not insist, and gave him absolution.

Théodule Sabot is at work on the repairs to the choir, and goes to communion every month.

A Vendetta

Paolo Saverini’s widow lived alone with her son in a poor little house on the ramparts of Bonifacio. The town, built on a spur of the mountains, in places actually overhanging the sea, looks across a channel bristling with reefs, to the lower shores of Sardinia. At its foot, on the other side and almost completely surrounding it, is the channel that serves as its harbour, cut in the cliff like a gigantic corridor. Through a long circuit between steep walls, the channel brings to the very foot of the first houses the little Italian or Sardinian fishing-boats, and, every fortnight, the old steamboat that runs to and from Ajaccio.

Upon the white mountain the group of houses is a yet whiter patch. They look like the nests of wild birds, perched so upon the rock, dominating that terrible channel through which hardly ever a ship risks a passage. The unresting wind harasses the sea and eats away the bare shore, clad with a sparse covering of grass; it rushes into the ravine and ravages its two sides. The trailing wisps of white foam round the black points of countless rocks that everywhere pierce the waves, look like rags of canvas floating and heaving on the surface of the water.

The widow Saverini’s house held for dear life to the very edge of the cliff; its three windows looked out over this wild and desolate scene.

She lived there alone with her son Antoine and their bitch Sémillante, a large thin animal with long shaggy hair, of the sheepdog breed. The young man used her for hunting.

One evening, after a quarrel, Antoine Saverini was treacherously slain by a knife-thrust from Nicolas Ravolati, who got away to Sardinia the same night.

When his old mother received his body, carried home by bystanders, she did not weep, but for a long time stayed motionless, looking at it; then, stretching out her wrinkled hand over the body, she promised him a vendetta. She would have no one stay with her, and shut herself up with the body, together with the howling dog. The animal howled continuously, standing at the foot of the bed, her head thrust towards her master, her tail held tightly between her legs. She did not stir, nor did the mother, who crouched over the body with her eyes fixed steadily upon it, and wept great silent tears.

The young man, lying on his back, clad in his thick serge coat with a hole torn across the front, seemed asleep; but everywhere there was blood; on the shirt, torn off for the first hasty dressing; on his waistcoat, on his breeches, on his face, on his hands. Clots of blood had congealed in his beard and in his hair.

The old mother began to speak to him. At the sound of her voice the dog was silent.

“There, there, you shall be avenged, my little one, my boy, my poor child. Sleep, sleep, you shall be avenged, do you hear! Your mother swears it! And your mother always keeps her word; you know she does.”

Slowly she bent over him, pressing her cold lips on the dead lips.

Then Sémillante began to howl once more. She uttered long cries, monotonous, heartrending, horrible cries.

They remained there, the pair of them, the woman and the dog, till morning.

Antoine Saverini was buried next day, and before long there was no more talk of him in Bonifacio.

He had left neither brothers nor close cousins. No man was there to carry on the vendetta. Only his mother, an old woman, brooded over it.

On the other side of the channel she watched from morning till night a white speck on the coast. It was a little Sardinian village, Longosardo, where Corsican bandits fled for refuge when too hard pressed. They formed almost the entire population of this hamlet, facing the shores of their own country, and there they awaited a suitable moment to come home, to return to the thickets of Corsica. She knew that Nicolas Ravolati had taken refuge in this very village.

All alone, all day long, sitting by the window, she looked over there and pondered revenge. How could she do it without another’s help, so feeble as she was, so near to death? But she had promised, she had sworn upon the body. She could not forget, she could not wait. What was she to do? She could no longer sleep at night, she had no more sleep nor peace; obstinately she searched for a way. The dog slumbered at her feet and sometimes, raising her head, howled into the empty spaces. Since her master had gone, she often howled thus, as though she were calling him, as though her animal soul, inconsolable, had retained an ineffaceable memory of him.

One night, as Sémillante was beginning to moan again, the mother had a sudden idea, an idea quite natural to a vindictive and ferocious savage. She meditated on it till morning, then, rising at the approach of day, she went to church. She prayed, kneeling on the stones, prostrate before God, begging Him to aid her, to sustain her, to grant her poor worn-out body the strength necessary to avenge her son.

Then she returned home. There stood in the yard an old barrel with its sides stove in, which held the rainwater; she overturned it, emptied it, and fixed it to the ground with stakes and stones; then she chained up Sémillante in this kennel, and went into the house.

Next she began to walk up and down her room, taking no rest, her eyes still turned to the coast of Sardinia. He was there, the murderer.

All day long and all night long the dog howled. In the morning the old woman took her some water in a bowl, but nothing else; no soup, no bread.

Another day went by. Sémillante, exhausted, was asleep. Next day her eyes were shining, her hair on end, and she tugged desperately at the chain.

Again the old woman gave her nothing to eat. The animal, mad with hunger, barked hoarsely. Another night went by.

When day broke, Mother Saverini went to her neighbour to ask him to give her two trusses of straw. She took the old clothes her husband had worn and stuffed them with the straw into the likeness of a human figure.

Having planted a post in the ground opposite Sémillante’s kennel, she tied the dummy figure to it, which looked now as though it were standing. Then she fashioned a head with a roll of old linen.

The dog, surprised, looked at this straw man, and was silent, although devoured with hunger.

Then the old woman went to the pork-butcher and bought a long piece of black pudding. She returned home, lit a wood fire in her yard, close to the kennel, and grilled the black pudding. Sémillante, maddened, leapt about and foamed at the mouth, her eyes fixed on the food, the flavour of which penetrated to her very stomach.

Then with the smoking sausage the mother made a collar for the straw man. She spent a long time lashing it round his neck, as though to stuff it right in. When it was done, she unchained the dog.

With a tremendous bound the animal leapt upon the dummy’s throat and with her paws on his shoulders began to rend it. She fell back with a piece of the prey in her mouth, then dashed at it again, sank her teeth into the cords, tore away a few fragments of food, fell back again, and leapt once more, ravenous. With great bites she rent away the face, and tore the whole neck to shreds.

The old woman watched, motionless and silent, a gleam in her eyes. Then she chained up her dog again, made her go without food for two more days, and repeated the strange performance.

For three months she trained the dog to this struggle, the conquest of a meal by fangs. She no longer chained her up, but launched her upon the dummy with a sign.

She had taught the dog to rend and devour it without hiding food in its throat. Afterwards she would reward the dog with the gift of the black pudding she had cooked for her.

As soon as she saw the man, Sémillante would tremble, then turn her eyes towards her mistress, who would cry “Off!” in a whistling tone, raising her finger.

When she judged that the time was come, Mother Saverini went to confession and took communion one Sunday morning with an ecstatic fervour; then, putting on a man’s clothes, like an old ragged beggar, she bargained with a Sardinian fisherman, who took her, accompanied by the dog, to the other side of the straits.

In a canvas bag she had a large piece of black pudding. Sémillante had had nothing to eat for two days. Every minute the old woman made her smell the savoury food, stimulating her hunger with it.

They came to Longosardo. The Corsican woman was limping slightly. She went to the baker’s and inquired for Nicolas Ravolati’s house. He had resumed his old occupation, that of a joiner. He was working alone at the back of his shop.

The old woman pushed open the door and called him:

“Hey! Nicolas!”

He turned round; then, letting go of her dog, she cried:

“Off, off, bite him, bite him!”

The maddened beast dashed forward and seized his throat. The man put out his arms, clasped the dog, and rolled upon the ground. For a few minutes he writhed, beating the ground with his feet; then he remained motionless while Sémillante rummaged at his throat and tore it out in ribbons.

Two neighbours, sitting at their doors, plainly recollected having seen a poor old man come out with a lean black dog which ate, as it walked, something brown that its master was giving to it.

In the evening the old woman returned home. That night she slept well.

The Confession

Marguerite de Thèrelles was dying. Although she was only fifty-six, she looked at least seventy-five. She was gasping, paler than her sheets, shaken with frightful shudders, her face distorted, her eyes haggard, as though they saw some frightful thing.

Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older, was sobbing on her knees at the bedside. A little table had been drawn up to the dying woman’s couch, and on the tablecloth stood two lighted candles, for they were waiting for the priest, who was to administer the extreme unction and the last sacrament.

The apartment wore the sinister aspect of all chambers of death, their air of despairing farewell. Medicine bottles stood on the tables, cloths lay about in corners, kicked or swept out of the way. The disordered chairs themselves looked frightened, as though they had run in every direction. For Death, the victor, was there, hidden, waiting.

The story of the two sisters was very touching. It had been told far and wide, and had filled many eyes with tears.

Suzanne, the elder, had once been deeply in love with a young man who loved her. They were betrothed, and were only awaiting the day fixed for the wedding, when Henry de Sampierre died suddenly.

The young girl’s despair was terrible, and she declared that she would never marry. She kept her word. She put on widow’s clothes and never gave them up.

Then her sister, her little sister Marguerite, who was only twelve years old, came one morning and threw herself into her elder sister’s arms, saying:

“Sister, I don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want you to cry all your life long. I will never leave you, never, never! I won’t marry either. I will stay with you forever and ever.”

Suzanne kissed her, touched by her childish devotion, believing in it not at all.

But the little sister kept her word, and, despite her parents’ prayers and her sister’s entreaties, she never married. She was pretty, very pretty; she refused several young men who seemed to love her; she never left her sister.

They lived together all the days of their lives, without ever being parted. They lived side by side, inseparable. But Marguerite always seemed sad and depressed, more melancholy than the elder, as though crushed, perhaps, by her sublime self-sacrifice. She aged more rapidly, had white hair at the age of thirty, and, often ill, seemed the victim of some secret gnawing malady.

Now she was to be the first to die.

She had not spoken for twenty-four hours. She had only said, at the first glimmer of dawn:

“Go and fetch the priest; the time has come.”

Since then she had lain still on her back, shaken with fits of shuddering, her lips trembling as though terrible words had risen from her heart and could not issue forth, her eyes wild with terror, a fearful sight.

Her sister, mad with grief, was crying brokenly, her forehead pressed against the edge of the bed, and repeating:

“Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!”

She had always called her “my little one,” just as the younger had always called her “Sister.”

Steps sounded on the staircase. The door opened. A choirboy appeared, followed by the old priest in his surplice. As soon as she saw him, the dying woman sat up with a convulsive movement, opened her lips, babbled two or three words, and fell to scraping her nails together as though she meant to make a hole in them.

The Abbé Simon went up to her, took her hand, kissed her on the brow, and said gently:

“God forgive you, my child; be brave, the time has come: speak.”

Then Marguerite, shivering from head to foot, shaking the whole bed with her nervous movements, stammered:

“Sit down, sister, and listen.”

The priest bent down to Suzanne, still lying at the foot of the bed, raised her, placed her in an armchair, and, taking in each hand the hand of one of the sisters, murmured:

“O Lord God, give them strength, grant them Thy pity!”

And Marguerite began to speak. The words came from her throat one by one, hoarse, deliberate, as though they were very weary.

“Mercy, mercy, sister, forgive me! Oh, if you knew how all my life I have dreaded this moment!⁠ ⁠…”

“What have I to forgive you, little thing?” stammered Suzanne, her tears choking her. “You have given me everything, sacrificed everything for me; you are an angel.”

But Marguerite interrupted her:

“Hush, hush! Let me speak⁠ ⁠… do not stop me⁠ ⁠… it is horrible⁠ ⁠… let me tell all⁠ ⁠… the whole story, without faltering.⁠ ⁠… Listen⁠ ⁠… You remember⁠ ⁠… you remember⁠ ⁠… Henry.⁠ ⁠…”

Suzanne shuddered and looked at her. The younger sister continued:

“You must hear it all, if you are to understand. I was twelve, only twelve, you remember that, don’t you? And I was spoilt, I did everything that came into my head!⁠ ⁠… Don’t you remember how spoilt I was?⁠ ⁠… Listen.⁠ ⁠… The first time he came he wore high shining boots; he dismounted in front of the steps, and he apologised for his clothes, saying he had come with news for Father. You remember, don’t you?⁠ ⁠… Don’t speak⁠ ⁠… listen. When I saw him I was quite overcome, I thought him so handsome; and I remained standing in a corner of the drawing room all the time he was speaking. Children are strange⁠ ⁠… and terrible.⁠ ⁠… Oh, yes⁠ ⁠… I have dreamed of it!

“He came back⁠ ⁠… many times.⁠ ⁠… I gazed at him with all my eyes, with all my soul.⁠ ⁠… I was big for my age⁠ ⁠… and far more sophisticated than people supposed. He came again often.⁠ ⁠… I thought of nothing but him. I used to repeat very softly: ‘Henry⁠ ⁠… Henry de Sampierre!’

“Then they said that he was going to marry you. It was a sore grief to me, sister, oh, a sore, sore grief! I cried for three whole nights, without sleeping. He used to come every day, in the afternoon, after lunch, you remember, don’t you? Don’t speak⁠ ⁠… listen. You made him cakes, of which he was very fond⁠ ⁠… with flour, butter and milk.⁠ ⁠… Oh! I knew just how you made them.⁠ ⁠… I could make them this moment, if I had to. He would swallow them in a single mouthful, and then he would toss down a glass of wine and then say: ‘Delicious!’ Do you remember how he used to say it?

“I was jealous, jealous.⁠ ⁠… The day of your wedding was drawing near. There was only a fortnight. I was going mad. I used to say to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, no, I won’t have it.⁠ ⁠… It is I who will marry him, when I am grown up. I shall never find a man I love so much.’⁠ ⁠… And then one evening, ten days before the wedding, you went out with him to walk in front of the house, in the moonlight⁠ ⁠… and out there⁠ ⁠… under the pine-tree, the big pine-tree⁠ ⁠… he kissed you⁠ ⁠… held you in his arms⁠ ⁠… for such a long time.⁠ ⁠… You haven’t forgotten, have you?⁠ ⁠… It may have been the first time⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… you were so pale when you came back into the drawing room!

“I saw you; I was there, in the copse. I grew wild with rage! If I could have done it, I would have killed you both!

“I said to myself: ‘He shall not marry Suzanne, never! He shall not marry anyone.⁠ ⁠… I should be too unhappy.⁠ ⁠…’ Suddenly I began to hate him terribly.

“Do you know what I did then?⁠ ⁠… Listen. I had seen the gardener make little balls with which to kill stray dogs. He crushed a bottle with a stone, and put the ground glass in a little ball of meat.

“I took a little medicine bottle from Mother’s room, I smashed it up with a hammer, and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glittering powder.⁠ ⁠… Next day, as soon as you had made the little cakes, I split them open with a knife and put the glass in.⁠ ⁠… He ate three of them⁠ ⁠… and I, too, ate one.⁠ ⁠… I threw the other six into the pond⁠ ⁠… the two swans died three days later.⁠ ⁠… Don’t speak⁠ ⁠… listen, listen. I was the only one who did not die.⁠ ⁠… But I have always been ill⁠ ⁠… listen.⁠ ⁠… He died⁠ ⁠… you know⁠ ⁠… listen⁠ ⁠… that was nothing.⁠ ⁠… It was afterwards, later⁠ ⁠… always⁠ ⁠… that it was most terrible⁠ ⁠… listen.⁠ ⁠…

“My life, my whole life⁠ ⁠… what torture! I said to myself: ‘I will never leave my sister. And I will tell her all, in the hour of my death.’⁠ ⁠… There! And since then I have thought every moment of this hour, the hour when I shall have to tell you all.⁠ ⁠… Now it has come⁠ ⁠… it is terrible.⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… Sister!

“Every moment the thought has been with me, morning and evening, day and night: ‘I shall have to tell her, some day.⁠ ⁠…’ I waited.⁠ ⁠… What torment!⁠ ⁠… It is done.⁠ ⁠… Do not say anything.⁠ ⁠… Now I am afraid.⁠ ⁠… I am afraid.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I am afraid! If I were to see him again, presently, when I am dead⁠ ⁠… see him again⁠ ⁠… do you dream of seeing him?⁠ ⁠… See him before you do!⁠ ⁠… I shall not dare.⁠ ⁠… I must⁠ ⁠… I am going to die.⁠ ⁠… I want you to forgive me. I want you to.⁠ ⁠… Without it, I cannot come into his presence. Oh, tell her to forgive me, Father, tell her.⁠ ⁠… I beg you. I cannot die without it.⁠ ⁠…”

She was silent, and lay panting, still clawing at the sheet with her shrivelled fingers.⁠ ⁠…

Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands, and did not stir. She was thinking of the man she might have loved so long! What a happy life they would have had! She saw him again, in the vanished long-ago, in the distant past forever blotted out. Oh, beloved dead, how you tear our hearts! Oh, that kiss, her only kiss! She had kept it in her soul. And then, nothing more, nothing more in all her life!⁠ ⁠…

Suddenly the priest stood up and cried out in a loud shaken voice:

“Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”

Then Suzanne let her hands fall apart and showed a face streaming with tears, and, falling upon her sister, she kissed her fiercely, stammering:

“I forgive you, I forgive you, little one.⁠ ⁠…”

Beside the Bed

A great fire blazed on the hearth. On the Japanese table two teacups faced each other, and the teapot steamed on one side, near a sugar-basin flanked by a decanter of rum.

The Comte de Sallure threw his hat, his gloves, and his fur coat on a chair, while the Comtesse, her evening cloak flung off, smoothed her hair lightly in front of the mirror. She was smiling happily to herself, and tapping the hair that curled above her temples with the tips of her slender fingers, gleaming with rings. Then she turned towards her husband. He looked at her for some minutes, in a hesitant sort of way, as if a secret thought were troubling him.

At last he said:

“And are you satisfied with the homage paid to you this evening?”

She gave him a direct glance, a glance on fire with triumph and defiance, and answered:

“I should hope so!”

Then she seated herself in the chair. He sat down facing her and, crumbling a soft roll, went on:

“It was almost ridiculous⁠ ⁠… for me.”

She asked:

“Is this a scene? Do you intend to reproach me?”

“No, my dear, I am only saying that this Monsieur Burel has been dancing attendance on you in a rather unnecessary way. If⁠ ⁠… if⁠ ⁠… if I had any rights in the matter, I should be angry.”

“My dear, be honest. It is merely that you do not feel today as you felt last year. When I discovered that you had a mistress, a mistress of whom you were very fond, you did not trouble yourself whether anyone paid homage to me or not. I told you how grieved I was; I said, as you have said this evening, but with more justice on my side: ‘My friend, you are compromising Madame de Servy, you are hurting me and you are making me ridiculous.’ What did you reply? Oh, you gave me quite clearly to understand that I was free, that between intelligent people marriage was only an association of common interests, a social tie, but not a moral tie. Isn’t that so? You gave me to understand that your mistress was infinitely better than I, more seductive, more a woman. That is what you said: more a woman. This was all hedged about, of course, with the tact of a well-bred man, wrapped up in compliments, conveyed with a delicacy to which I offer my profound respect. It was not any the less perfectly clear to me.

“We agreed that thenceforward we would live together, but quite separated. We had a child who formed a link between us.

“You almost allowed me to suppose that you cared only for appearances, that I could, if I pleased, take a lover, so long as the liaison remained a secret one. You held forth at great length and quite admirably on woman’s subtle tact, on the ease with which they steered their way through the decencies of society.

“I understood, my friend, I understood perfectly. In those days you loved Madame de Servy so very passionately, and my legitimate affection, my legal tenderness, bored you. I relieved you, no doubt, of a share of your means. Since then we have lived separate lives. We go about together, we return together, and then we go each our own way.

“And now, for the past month or two, you have assumed the airs of a jealous man. What does it all mean?”

“My dear, I am not at all jealous, but I am afraid of seeing you compromise yourself. You are young, gay, adventurous.⁠ ⁠…”

“Pardon me, but if we are talking of adventures, I insist upon a balance being struck between us.”

“Come now, don’t joke about it, I beg you. I am speaking to you as a friend, your true friend. As for all that you have just been saying, it is very exaggerated.”

“Not at all. You confessed, you confessed your liaison to me, which is equivalent to giving me leave to go and do likewise. I have not done it.⁠ ⁠…”

“Allow me!”

“Please let me speak. I have not done it. I have no lover, and I have not had one⁠ ⁠… yet. I wait⁠ ⁠… I look⁠ ⁠… I find no one. I must have someone really splendid, finer than you.⁠ ⁠… I am paying you a compliment, and you do not seem to appreciate it.”

“My dear, all these witticisms are quite out of place.”

“But I am not attempting to be witty at all. You talked to me about the eighteenth century. You gave me to understand that you had the morals of the Regency. I have forgotten nothing. On the day when it suits me to cease being what I am, whatever you do will be quite useless, you understand, you will be a cuckold like the others, and you won’t even be in any doubt about it.”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… how can you take such words on your lips?”

“Such words!⁠ ⁠… But you laughed madly when Madame de Gers swore that Monsieur de Servy had the air of a cuckold in search of his horns.”

“What may seem witty in the mouth of Madame de Gers becomes unseemly in yours.”

“Not at all. But you find the word ‘cuckold’ very amusing when it is applied to Monsieur de Servy, and you consider that it has an ugly sound when it is applied to yourself. Everything depends on the point of view. Besides, I don’t insist upon the word, I only threw it out to see if you were ripe.”

“Ripe⁠ ⁠… for what?”

“To be it, of course. When a man is annoyed at hearing that word spoken, it means that he⁠ ⁠… is asking for it. In two months’ time you will be the first to laugh if I speak of a⁠ ⁠… headdress. Then⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… when one actually is it, one doesn’t feel it.”

“You are behaving in the worst possible taste this evening. I have not seen you like this.”

“Ah, well, you see⁠ ⁠… I have changed⁠ ⁠… for the worse. It is your fault.”

“Come, my dear, let us talk seriously. I beg you, I implore you not to permit Monsieur Burel’s unpleasant assiduity, as you did this evening.”

“You are jealous. I was quite right.”

“No: not at all. I am only anxious not to look ridiculous. I don’t want to look ridiculous. And if I see that gentleman making further conversation against your⁠ ⁠… shoulders, or rather between your breasts⁠ ⁠…”

He was looking for a channel to make his words carry.

“I⁠ ⁠… I shall box his ears.”

“Are you by any chance in love with me?”

“A man might be in love with far less attractive women.”

“Stop where you are, please. To tell the truth, I’m no longer in love with you.”

The Comte stands up. He makes his way round the little table and, walking behind his wife, presses a kiss on the nape of her neck. She jumps to her feet with a movement of repulsion, and giving him a penetrating glance:

“No more of these pleasantries between us, please. We live apart. It’s all over.”

“Come now, don’t be offended. I have been finding you adorable for a long time.”

“Then⁠ ⁠… then⁠ ⁠… it means that I have improved. You too⁠ ⁠… you find me⁠ ⁠… ripe.”

“I find you ravishing, my dear; you have arms, a skin, shoulders⁠ ⁠…”

“Which will please Monsieur Burel.”

“You are cruel. But there⁠ ⁠… frankly⁠ ⁠… I don’t know another woman so uncommonly attractive as you are.”

“You have been fasting.”

“What?”

“I say, you have been fasting.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When a man fasts, he is hungry, and when he is hungry, he is prepared to eat things that at any other time he could not stomach. I am the dish, previously rejected, that you would not be sorry to feel between your teeth⁠ ⁠… this evening.”

“Oh, Marguerite! Who has taught you to speak like this?”

“You. Think: since your break with Madame de Servy, you have had, to my knowledge, four mistresses, cocottes all of them, and perfect of their kind. So how do I suppose I can explain your⁠ ⁠… airy nonsense of this evening, except as the consequence of a temporary abstinence?”

“I will be brutally frank, without mincing words. I have fallen in love with you again. Really and madly. That’s all.”

“Oh, indeed! Then you would like to⁠ ⁠… begin again?”

“Yes, Madame.”

“This evening!”

“Marguerite!”

“Good. You shall be still further scandalised. My dear, let us understand each other. We are no longer anything to each other, are we? I am your wife, it is true, but your wife⁠ ⁠… set free. I am about to take up an engagement elsewhere; you demand to be given preference. I will give it you⁠ ⁠… at the same price.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Let me make myself clear. Am I as good as your cocottes? Be honest about it.”

“A thousand times better.”

“Better than the best of them?”

“A thousand times.”

“Well, how much did the best of the lot cost you in three months?”

“I don’t follow you.”

“I say, how much did three months of your most charming mistress cost you, in money, jewellery, suppers, dinners, theatres, etc.⁠—the whole business, in short?”

“How on earth do I know?”

“You must know. Let’s see now, the average cost, a moderate estimate. Five thousand francs a month: is that about right?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… just about.”

“Well, my friend, give me five thousand francs now, and I am yours for a month, including this evening.”

“You are mad.”

“So you look at it that way: good night.”

The comtesse goes out of the room into her bedroom. The curtains of the bed are half drawn. A dim fragrance fills the air, it clings to the coverings of the bed itself.

The Comte appears in the doorway.

“That’s a delightful scent.”

“Really?⁠ ⁠… It’s no different, you know. I always use peau d’Espagne.”

“Amazing!⁠ ⁠… It smells delightful.”

“Possibly. But do me the kindness of leaving me now, because I am going to bed.”

“Marguerite.”

“Go at once.”

He comes right into the room, and sits down in the armchair.

The Comtesse:

“So that’s it.⁠ ⁠… Well, so much the worse for you.”

She slowly puts off her dance-frock, slipping out her bare white arms. She lifts them above her head to take down her hair before the glass; and something rosy gleams under a froth of lace at the edge of her black corset.

The Comte springs to his feet and comes towards her.

The Comtesse:

“Don’t come near me, or I shall be angry.”

He takes her bodily into his arms and feels for her lips.

Then, with an agile twist of her body, she snatches from her dressing-table a glass of the perfumed water she uses for her mouth and flings it over her shoulder full in her husband’s face.

He leaps back, dripping with water, furious, murmuring:

“That’s a silly trick.”

“That may be. But you know my conditions, five thousand francs.”

“But that’s absolutely insane.”

“Why insane?”

“What, why? A husband to pay for sleeping with his wife!”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… what unpleasant words you use!”

“Possibly. I repeat that a man would be insane to pay his wife, his legal wife.”

“It is much stupider, when one has a legal wife, to pay cocottes.”

“Maybe so, but I don’t care to be ridiculous.”

The Comtesse is sitting on a couch. She draws her stockings slowly down, turning them inside out like the skin of a snake. Her rosy leg emerges from its sheath of mauve silk, and her adorable little foot rests on the carpet.

The Comte draws a little nearer, and in a soft voice:

“What has put this mad idea into your head?”

“What idea?”

“To ask me for five thousand francs.”

“Nothing could be more natural. We are strangers to each other, aren’t we? And now you want me. You can’t marry me, since we are married. So you buy me, a little more cheaply than anyone else perhaps.

“Think now. This money, instead of passing into the hands of a hussy to be used for goodness knows what, will remain in your own house, in your household. Moreover, an intelligent man should find it rather original to pay for his own wife. In an illicit love-affair, the sweetest pleasures are those that cost dearly, very dearly. You give your love⁠ ⁠… your quite legitimate love, a new value, a savour of vice, a spice of⁠ ⁠… dissipation, when you⁠ ⁠… put a price on it as if it were bought love. Isn’t that so?”

She rises to her feet, almost naked, and turns towards a bathroom.

“Now, sir, please go at once, or I shall ring for my maid.”

The Comte stands still, puzzled, ill at ease, and looks at her, and abruptly, throwing his pocketbook at her:

“There you are, you baggage, there’s six thousand in it.⁠ ⁠… But you understand?”

The Comtesse picks up the money, counts it, and drawls:

“What?”

“Don’t make a habit of this.”

She breaks into laughter, and going towards him:

“Every month, sir, five thousand, or back I send you to your cocottes. And⁠ ⁠… if you are satisfied⁠ ⁠… I shall even demand a rise.”

Regret

Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes “Father Saval,” had just got out of bed. He was weeping. It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were falling. They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain. M. Saval was not in good spirits. He walked from the fireplace to the window, and from the window to the fireplace. Life has its sombre days. It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached the age of sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody to look after him. How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without anyone who is devoted to you!

He pondered over his life, so barren, so empty. He recalled former days, the days of his childhood, the home, the house of his parents; his college days, his escapades, the time he studied law in Paris, his father’s illness, his death. He then returned to live with his mother. They lived together very quietly, and desired nothing more. At last the mother died. How sad life is! He had lived alone since then, and now, in his turn, he, too, will soon be dead. He will disappear, and that will be the end. There will be no more of Paul Saval upon the earth. What a frightful thing! Other people will love, will laugh. Yes, people will go on amusing themselves, and he will no longer exist! Is it not strange that people can laugh, amuse themselves, be joyful under that eternal certainty of death? If this death were only probable, one could then have hope; but no, it is inevitable, as inevitable as that night follows the day.

If, however, his life had been full! If he had done something; if he had had adventures, great pleasures, success, satisfaction of some kind or another. But no, nothing. He had done nothing, nothing but rise from bed, eat, at the same hours, and go to bed again. And he had gone on like that to the age of sixty-two years. He had not even taken unto himself a wife, as other men do. Why? Yes, why was it that he had not married? He might have done so, for he possessed considerable means. Had he lacked an opportunity? Perhaps! But one can create opportunities. He was indifferent; that was all. Indifference had been his greatest drawback, his defect, his vice. How many men wreck their lives through indifference! It is so difficult for some natures to get out of bed, to move about, to take long walks, to speak, to study any question.

He had not even been loved. No woman had slept in his arms, in a complete abandon of love. He knew nothing of the delicious anguish of expectation, the divine vibration of a hand in yours, of the ecstasy of triumphant passion.

What superhuman happiness must overflow your heart, when lips encounter lips for the first time, when the grasp of four arms makes one being of you, a being unutterably happy, two beings infatuated with one another.

M. Saval was sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, in his dressing gown. Assuredly his life had been a failure, a complete failure. He had, however, loved. He had loved secretly, sadly, and indifferently, in a manner characteristic of him in everything. Yes, he had loved his old friend, Madame Sandres, the wife of his old college chum Sandres. Ah! if he had known her as a young girl! But he had met her too late; she was already married. Unquestionably, he would have asked her hand! How he had loved her, nevertheless, without respite, since the first day he set eyes on her!

He recalled his emotion every time he saw her, his grief on leaving her, the many nights that he could not sleep, because he was thinking of her.

On rising in the morning he was somewhat more rational than on the previous evening.

Why?

How pretty she was formerly, so dainty, with fair curly hair, and always laughing. Sandres was not the man she should have chosen. She was now fifty-two years of age. She seemed happy. Ah! if she had only loved him in days gone by; yes, if she had only loved him! And why should she not have loved him, Saval, seeing that he loved her, Madame Sandres, so much?

If only she could have guessed. Had she not guessed anything, seen anything, comprehended anything? What would she have thought? If he had spoken, what would she have answered?

And Saval asked himself a thousand other things. He reviewed his whole life, seeking to recall a multitude of details.

He recalled all the long evenings spent at the house of Sandres, when the latter’s wife was young, and so charming.

He recalled many things that she had said to him, the intonations of her voice, the little significant smiles that meant so much.

He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks of the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres was employed at the subprefecture. And all at once the distinct recollection came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood on the banks of the river.

They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets. It was a bright spring morning, one of those days which intoxicate one. Everything smells fresh, everything seems happy. The voices of the birds sound more joyous, and they fly more swiftly. They had luncheon on the grass, under the willow trees, quite close to the water, which glittered in the sun’s rays. The air was balmy, charged with the odours of fresh vegetation; they drank it in with delight. How pleasant everything was on that day!

After lunch, Sandres went to sleep on the broad of his back. “The best nap he had in his life,” said he, when he woke up.

Madame Sandres had taken the arm of Saval, and they started to walk along the river bank.

She leaned tenderly on his arm. She laughed and said to him: “I am intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated.” He looked at her, his heart going pit-a-pat. He felt himself grow pale, fearful that he might have looked too boldly at her, and that the trembling of his hand had revealed his passion.

She had made a wreath of wild flowers and water-lilies, and she asked him: “Do I look pretty like that?”

As he did not answer⁠—for he could find nothing to say, he would have liked to go down on his knees⁠—she burst out laughing, a sort of annoyed, displeased laugh, as she said: “Great goose, what ails you? You might at least say something.”

He felt like crying, but could not even yet find a word to say.

All these things came back to him now, as vividly as on the day when they took place. Why had she said this to him?⁠—“Great goose, what ails you? You might at least say something!”

And he recalled how tenderly she had leaned on his arm. And in passing under a shady tree he had felt her ear brushing his cheek, and he had moved his head abruptly, lest she should suppose he was too familiar.

When he had said to her: “Is it not time to return?” she darted a singular look at him. “Certainly,” she said, “certainly,” regarding him at the same time in a curious manner. He had not thought of it at the time, but now the whole thing appeared to him quite plain.

“Just as you like, my friend. If you are tired let us go back.”

And he had answered: “I am not tired; 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 notice 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 offence.”

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, M. 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?⁠ ⁠… What?”

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.

“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.

The Avenger

When M. Antoine Leuillet married the Widow Mathilde Souris, he had been in love with her for nearly ten years.

M. Souris had been his friend, his old college chum. Leuillet was very fond of him, but found him rather a muff. He often used to say: “That poor Souris will never set the Seine on fire.”

When Souris married Mdlle. Mathilde Duval, Leuillet was surprised and somewhat vexed, for he had a slight weakness for her. She was the daughter of a neighbor of his, a retired haberdasher with a good bit of money. She was pretty, well-mannered, and intelligent. She accepted Souris on account of his money.

Then Leuillet cherished hopes of another sort. He began paying attentions to his friend’s wife. He was a handsome man, not at all stupid, and also well off. He was confident that he would succeed; he failed. Then he fell really in love with her, and he was the sort of lover who is rendered timid, prudent, and embarrassed by intimacy with the husband. Mme. Souris fancied that he no longer meant anything serious by his attentions to her, and she became simply his friend. This state of affairs lasted nine years.

Now, one morning, Leuillet received a startling communication from the poor woman. Souris had died suddenly of aneurism of the heart.

He got a terrible shock, for they were of the same age; but the very next moment, a sensation of profound joy, of infinite relief of deliverance, penetrated his body and soul. Mme. Souris was free.

He had the tact, however, to make such a display of grief as the occasion required; he waited for the proper time to elapse, and attended to all the conventional usages. At the end of fifteen months he married the widow.

His conduct was regarded as not only natural but generous. He had acted like a good friend and an honest man. In short he was happy, quite happy.

They lived on terms of the closest confidence, having from the first understood and appreciated each other. One kept nothing secret from the other, and they told each other their inmost thoughts. Leuillet now loved his wife with a calm trustful affection; he loved her as a tender, devoted partner, who is an equal and a confidante. But there still lingered in his soul a singular and unaccountable grudge against the deceased Souris, who had been the first to possess this woman, who had had the flower of her youth and of her soul, and who had even robbed her of her poetic attributes. The memory of the dead husband spoiled the happiness of the living husband; and this posthumous jealousy now began to torment Leuillet’s heart day and night.

The result was that he was incessantly talking about Souris, asking a thousand minute and intimate questions about him, and seeking for information as to all his habits and personal characteristics. And he pursued him with railleries even into the depths of the tomb, recalling with self-satisfaction his oddities, emphasizing his absurdities, and pointing out his defects.

Every minute he kept calling out to his wife from one end to the other of the house:

“Hallo, Mathilde!”

“Here am I, dear.”

“Come and let us have a chat.”

She always came over to him, smiling, well aware that Souris was to be the subject of the chat, and anxious to gratify her second husband’s harmless fad.

“I say! do you remember how Souris wanted, one day, to prove to me that small men are always better loved than big men?”

And he launched out into reflections unfavorable to the defunct husband, who was small, and discreetly complimentary to himself, as he happened to be tall.

And Mme. Leuillet let him think that he was quite right; and she laughed very heartily, turned the first husband into ridicule in a playful fashion for the amusement of his successor, who always ended by remarking:

“Never mind! Souris was a muff!”

They were happy, quite happy. And Leuillet never ceased to testify his unabated attachment to his wife by all the usual manifestations.

Now, one night when they happened to be both kept awake by the renewal of youthful ardor, Leuillet, who held his wife clasped tightly in his arms, and had his lips glued to hers, said:

“Tell me this, darling.”

“What?”

“Souris⁠—’tisn’t easy to put the question⁠—was he very⁠—very amorous?”

She gave him a warm kiss, as she murmured:

“Not so much as you, my duck.”

His male vanity was flattered, and he went on:

“He must have been⁠—rather a flat⁠—eh?”

She did not answer. There was merely a sly little laugh on her face, which she pressed close to her husband’s neck.

He persisted in his questions:

“Come now! Don’t deny that he was a flat⁠—well, I mean, rather an awkward sort of fellow?”

She nodded slightly.

“Well, yes, rather awkward.”

He went on:

“I’m sure he used to weary you many a night⁠—isn’t that so?”

This time, she had an access of frankness, and she replied:

“Oh! yes.”

He embraced her once more when she made this acknowledgment, and murmured:

“What an ass he was! You were not happy with him?”

She answered:

“No. He was not always jolly.”

Leuillet felt quite delighted, making a comparison in his own mind between his wife’s former situation and her present one.

He remained silent for some time: then, with a fresh outburst of merit, he said:

“Tell me this!”

“What?”

“Will you be quite candid⁠—quite candid with me?”

“Certainly, dear.”

“Well, look here! Have you never been tempted to⁠—to deceive this imbecile, Souris?”

Mme. Leuillet uttered a little “Oh!” in a shamefaced way, and again cuddled her face closer to her husband’s chest. But he could see that she was laughing.

He persisted:

“Come now, confess it! He had a head just suited for a cuckold, this blockhead! It would be so funny! This good Souris! Oh! I say, darling, you might tell it to me⁠—only to me!”

He emphasized the words “to me,” feeling certain that if she wanted to show any taste when she deceived her husband, he, Leuillet, would have been the man; and he quivered with joy at the expectation of this avowal, sure that if she had not been the virtuous woman she was he could have had her then.

But she did not reply, laughing incessantly as if at the recollection of something infinitely comic.

Leuillet, in his turn, burst out laughing at the notion that he might have made a cuckold of Souris. What a good joke! What a capital bit of fun, to be sure!

He exclaimed in a voice broken by convulsions of laughter.

“Oh! poor Souris! poor Souris! Ah! yes, he had that sort of head⁠—oh, certainly he had!”

And Mme. Leuillet now twisted herself under the sheets, laughing till the tears almost came into her eyes.

And Leuillet repeated: “Come, confess it! confess it! Be candid. You must know that it cannot be unpleasant to me to hear such a thing.”

Then she stammered, still choking with laughter.

“Yes, yes.”

Her husband pressed her for an answer.

“Yes, what? Look here! tell me everything.”

She was now laughing in a more subdued fashion, and, raising her mouth up to Leuillet’s ear, which was held towards her in anticipation of some pleasant piece of confidence, she whispered⁠—“Yes, I did deceive him!”

He felt a cold shiver down his back, and utterly dumbfounded, he gasped.

“You⁠—you⁠—did⁠—really⁠—deceive him?”

She was still under the impression that he thought the thing infinitely pleasant, and replied.

“Yes⁠—really⁠—really.”

He was obliged to sit up in bed so great was the shock he received, holding his breath, just as overwhelmed as if he had just been told that he was a cuckold himself. At first, he was unable to articulate properly; then after the lapse of a minute or so, he merely ejaculated.

“Ah!”

She, too, had stopped laughing now, realizing her mistake too late.

Leuillet, at length asked.

“And with whom?”

She kept silent, cudgeling her brain to find some excuse.

He repeated his question.

“With whom?”

At last, she said.

“With a young man.”

He turned towards her abruptly, and in a dry tone, said.

“Well, I suppose it wasn’t with some kitchen wench. I ask you who was the young man⁠—do you understand?”

She did not answer. He tore away the sheet which she had drawn over her head, and pushed her into the middle of the bed, repeating.

“I want to know with what young man⁠—do you understand?”

Then, she replied with some difficulty in uttering the words.

“I only wanted to laugh.” But he fairly shook with rage: “What? How is that? You only wanted to laugh? So then you were making game of me? I’m not going to be satisfied with these evasions, let me tell you! I ask you what was the young man’s name?”

She did not reply, but lay motionless on her back.

He caught hold of her arm and pressed it tightly.

“Do you hear me, I say? I want you to give me an answer when I speak to you.”

Then, she said, in nervous tones.

“I think you must be going mad! Let me alone!”

He trembled with fury, so exasperated that he scarcely knew what he was saying, and, shaking her with all his strength, he repeated.

“Do you hear me? do you hear me?”

She wrenched herself out of his grasp with a sudden movement, and with the tips of her fingers slapped her husband on the nose. He entirely lost his temper, feeling that he had been struck, and angrily pounced down on her.

He now held her under him, boxing her ears in a most violent manner, and exclaiming:

“Take that⁠—and that⁠—and that⁠—there you are, you trollop!”

Then, when he was out of breath, exhausted from beating her, he got up, and went over to the chest of drawers to get himself a glass of sugared orange-water, for he was almost ready to faint after his exertion.

And she lay huddled up in bed, crying and heaving great sobs, feeling that there was an end of her happiness, and that it was all her own fault.

Then, in the midst of her tears, she faltered:

“Listen, Antoine, come here! I told you a lie⁠—listen! I’ll explain it to you.”

And now, prepared to defend herself, armed with excuses and subterfuges, she slightly raised her head all tangled under her crumpled nightcap.

And he, turning towards her, drew close to her, ashamed at having whacked her, but feeling intensely still in his heart’s core as a husband an inexhaustible hatred against that woman who had deceived his predecessor, Souris.

Suspense

The men were talking in the smoking-room after dinner. They were talking about unexpected legacies and curious inheritances, when Monsieur Le Brument, whom they sometimes addressed as “illustrious Master,” sometimes as “illustrious Advocate,” came and leaned up against the chimney.

“I have,” he said, “to search for an heir who disappeared in peculiarly terrible circumstances. It is one of those simple, violent dramas of ordinary life; the kind of thing that may happen any day but which, nevertheless, is one of the most appalling that I know of. This is the story:

“About six months ago I was called to see a dying woman, who said to me: ‘Sir, I wish you to undertake the most delicate and most difficult mission, one that will prove both tedious and wearisome. Please study my will, which is lying there on the table. A sum of five thousand francs is left you as a fee if you do not succeed, and of one hundred thousand francs if you do. I want you to find my son after my death.’

“She begged me to help her to sit up in bed, so that she might talk with greater ease, for her voice, broken and gasping, was whistling in her throat.

“It was a sumptuous house. The luxurious yet simple room was hung with material as thick as a wall, so soothing to the eye that it was like a caress, so restful that it seemed to absorb every word spoken in the room.

“The dying woman continued:

“ ‘You are the first person to hear my terrible story. I will try to keep my strength to go on to the end. You, whom I know to be kindhearted as well as experienced, must know all there is to know so that you may wish with all your heart to do your utmost to help me.

“ ‘Listen to me.

“ ‘Before I was married I loved a young man of whom my parents disapproved because he had not enough money. A short time after his proposal had been rejected, I married a very wealthy man, married him through ignorance, through fear, through obedience, through thoughtlessness, as young girls do. I had one child, a boy. After a few years my husband died. The man I had loved was married too. When he heard I was a widow he suffered terribly because he was not free to marry me. He came to see me, weeping and sobbing so bitterly that he almost broke my heart. We became friends. Perhaps I ought not to have seen him continually. The more’s the pity! I was alone, so sad, and so lonely, so desperate. And I loved him still. How terribly one can suffer!

“ ‘My parents being dead, he was all I had in the world. He often came to the house and spent whole evenings with me. I ought not to have let him come so often, since he was married. But I had not sufficient strength of mind to forbid his visits.

“ ‘How can I tell you?⁠ ⁠… he became my lover! How did it come about? I don’t even know! Does one ever know? Do you think it could be otherwise when two human beings are driven towards each other by the irresistible force of mutual love? Do you believe that it is always in our power to resist, to struggle, to refuse to yield to the prayers and supplications, the tears, the frenzied words, the paroxysms of passion of the man we adore, whom we desire to crown with every possible happiness, but whom, on the contrary, we must drive to despair in obedience to the world’s convention of honour? What strength would be required, what renunciation of all happiness, what self-denial, and even what virtuous selfishness! Is that not so?

“ ‘In short, I was his mistress, and I was happy. For two years I was happy. I had become his wife’s friend⁠—and this was my greatest weakness and my most cowardly act.

“ ‘We brought up my son together; we made a man of him, a real man, intelligent, sensible and determined, broad-minded and full of generous ideas. My son reached the age of seventeen. He, the boy, loved my⁠—my lover almost as much as I did, for he had been equally loved and cared for by both of us. He always called him “Chum.” He had the greatest respect for him, having learnt nothing but what was good from him and having continually before him this example of uprightness, honour and probity. He looked upon him as his mother’s old, loyal and devoted friend, as a kind of spiritual father, a guardian, protector⁠—what more can I say?

“ ‘Perhaps he had never asked himself what was the position between us, for from his earliest youth he had seen this man about the house, by my side, by his side, always thinking about us both.

“ ‘One evening the three of us were to dine together (this was my greatest treat), and I was expecting them and wondering which would be the first to arrive. The door opened; it was my old friend. I went to meet him with outstretched arms and he kissed me with the lingering kiss of happiness. All of a sudden a sound, a rustle, a whisper in the air⁠—that mysterious sensation that indicates the human presence⁠—made us start and turn abruptly. Jean, my son, stood there, looking at us, livid with rage.

“ ‘I lost my head for a moment then stepped back, holding my hands out to my child as if in supplication, but I could not see him. He had gone.

“ ‘We remained together⁠—my lover and I⁠—overwhelmed, unable to say a word. I sank into an armchair and felt a desire, a confused and violent desire, to escape, to rush out into the night, and to disappear forever. Then I sobbed convulsively and wept, shaken with spasms of grief, my spirit utterly crushed, my nerves tortured by the frightful sense of an irreparable misfortune and by the appalling sense of shame that fills a mother’s heart in such circumstances.

“ ‘He looked at me, terrified, not daring to come near me, to speak to me, to touch me, for fear the boy should return. At last he said: “I will go and look for him⁠—talk to him⁠—make him understand⁠—I must see him⁠—he must know⁠—” and he left me. I waited⁠—I waited, distracted, trembling at the least sound, sick with fright and filled with an undefined unbearable emotion at every slight crackling of the fire in the grate: I waited an hour, two hours, with an increasing dread in my heart, such as I had never felt before, a feeling of such intense anguish that I would not condemn any criminal to ten minutes of it. Where was my child? What was he doing?

“ ‘Towards midnight a messenger brought me a note from my lover. I know it by heart:

“ ‘ “Has your boy come back? I have not found him. I am downstairs. It is too late to come up.”

“ ‘I wrote in pencil on the same piece of paper:

“ ‘ “Jean has not returned; you must find him.”

“ ‘I spent the night in the armchair, waiting.

“ ‘I was going mad. I wanted to shout, to run about, to roll on the ground, but I kept perfectly still, waiting, waiting. What was going to happen? I tried hard to guess. But in spite of all my efforts, in spite of my agony of mind, I did not foresee the truth.

“ ‘Then I was afraid they might meet each other. What would they do? What would the boy do? Terrifying thoughts, alarming possibilities, racked my whole being. You can understand my feelings, can’t you?

“My maid, who neither knew nor understood what was happening, came to me again and again, but I sent her away, either by a word or a sign, until finally she went for the doctor, who arrived to find me suffering from a severe nervous attack. I was put to bed.

“ ‘When I regained consciousness after a long spell of brain fever I saw my lover⁠—alone, standing by the bed. I cried out:

“ ‘ “My son? Where is my son?”

“ ‘He made no reply. I stammered: “Dead⁠—dead⁠—he has killed himself?”

“ ‘He answered: “No, not that, I swear. But, in spite of my efforts, we have been unable to find him.”

“ ‘Then in a sudden burst of rage and exasperation⁠—for we are all subject to fits of unreasonable and unaccountable anger⁠—I said: “I forbid you to come back, to see me again, unless you find him; now go.”

“ ‘He went away and I have never seen either of them again; that is how I have lived for the last twenty years. Can you imagine such a life? Can you understand the appalling torture, the long constant gnawing at a mother’s heart, at a woman’s heart; this terrible, endless suspense without end⁠—endless! No⁠—it is going to end⁠—for I am dying. I shall die without having seen them⁠—either one⁠—or the other!

“ ‘He, my friend, has written to me every day for the last twenty years, and I have always refused to see him, even for a second, for I had a strange feeling that the very moment he came, my son would come too! My son!⁠—my son! Is he dead? Is he living? Where is he hiding? Over there, perhaps beyond the great ocean, in some country so far away that its very name is unknown to me! Does he ever think of me? Oh! if he only knew! How cruel children are! Has he understood the terrible suffering to which he has condemned me; the agony, the despair of which he was the cause while I was still in the prime of life, which will endure to the end; me, his mother, who loved him with all the passion of a mother’s love? Cruel, cruel, isn’t it? You will tell him what I have said. You will repeat my last words: “My child, my dear, dear child, don’t be so hard on suffering humanity; life is fierce and brutal enough! My dear child, think of what your poor mother’s existence has been since the day you left her. My dear child, forgive her, love her now that she is dead, for she has had to live through the most terrible penitential suffering.” ’

“She gasped for breath, trembling as if she were speaking to her son himself. Then she added: ‘You will also tell him that I have never seen⁠—the other one again.’

“She was silent, then continued in a broken voice: ‘Now, leave me, please. I want to die alone, since neither of them is with me.’ ”

Maître Le Brument added: “I left the house crying like a dumb animal, so much so that my coachman turned round to stare at me. And to think that, every day, dramas like this are happening all around us. I have not found the son⁠—that son. You may say what you like; I call him that criminal son.”

Decorated!

Some people are born with a predominant instinct, with some vocation or some desire aroused, from the very moment they begin to speak or to think.

Ever since he was a child Monsieur Sacrement had only had one idea in his head⁠—to be decorated. When he was still quite a small boy he used to wear a zinc Cross of the Legion of Honour just as other children wear a soldier’s cap, and he took his mother’s hand in the street with a proud look, sticking out his little chest with its red ribbon and metal star so that it might show to advantage.

His studies were not a success, and he failed in his examination for Bachelor of Arts; so, not knowing what to do, he married a pretty girl, for he had plenty of money of his own.

They lived in Paris, like many rich middle-class people do, mixing with their own particular set, without going among other people, proud of knowing a Deputy, who might perhaps be a Minister some day, while two heads of government departments were among their friends.

But Monsieur Sacrement could not get rid of his one absorbing idea, and he was very unhappy because he had not the right to wear a little bit of coloured ribbon in his buttonhole.

When he met any men who were decorated on the Boulevards, he looked at them askance, with intense jealousy. Sometimes, when he had nothing to do in the afternoon, he would count them, and say to himself: “Just let me see how many I shall meet between the Madeleine and the Rue Drouot.”

Then he would walk slowly, looking at every coat, with a practiced eye, for the little bit of red ribbon, and when he had got to the end of his walk he always said the numbers out loud. “Eight officers and seventeen knights. As many as that! It is stupid to sow the Cross broadcast in that fashion. I wonder how many I shall meet going back?”

And he returned slowly, unhappy when the crowd of passersby interfered with his seeing them.

He knew the places where most of them were to be found. They swarmed in the Palais Royal. Fewer were seen in the Avenue de l’Opéra than in the Rue de la Paix, while the right side of the Boulevard was more frequented by them than the left.

They also seemed to prefer certain cafés and theatres. Whenever he saw a group of white-haired old gentlemen standing together in the middle of the pavement, interfering with the traffic, he used to say to himself: “They are officers of the Legion of Honour,” and he felt inclined to take off his hat to them.

He had often remarked that the officers had a different bearing from mere knights. They carried their heads higher, and you felt that they enjoyed greater official consideration, and a more widely-extended importance.

Sometimes M. Sacrement would be seized with a furious hatred for everyone who was decorated; he felt like a Socialist towards them. Then, when he got home, excited at meeting so many Crosses⁠—just like a poor hungry wretch is on passing some dainty provision-shop⁠—he used to ask in a loud voice:

“When shall we get rid of this wretched government?” And his wife would be surprised, and ask:

“What is the matter with you today?”

“I am indignant,” he would reply, “at the injustice I see going on around us. Oh! the Communards were certainly right!”

After dinner he would go out again and look at the shops where all the decorations were sold, and examine all the emblems of various shapes and colours. He would have liked to possess them all, and to have walked gravely at the head of a procession with his opera-hat under his arm and his breast covered with decorations, radiant as a star, amid a buzz of admiring whispers and a hum of respect. But, alas! he had no right to wear any decoration whatever.

He used to say to himself: “It is really too difficult for any man to obtain the Legion of Honour unless he is some public functionary. Suppose I try to get appointed an officer of the Academy!”

But he did not know how to set about it, and spoke to his wife on the subject, who was stupefied.

“Officer of the Academy! What have you done to deserve it?”

He got angry. “I know what I am talking about; I only want to know how to set about it. You are quite stupid at times.”

She smiled. “You are quite right; I don’t understand anything about it.”

An idea struck him: “Suppose you were to speak to M. Rosselin, the Deputy, he might be able to advise me. You understand I cannot broach the subject to him directly. It is rather difficult and delicate, but coming from you it might seem quite natural.”

Mme. Sacrement did what he asked her, and M. Rosselin promised to speak to the Minister about it. Then Sacrement began to worry him, till the Deputy told him he must make a formal application and put forward his claims.

“What were his claims?” he said. “He was not even a Bachelor of Arts.”

However, he set to work and produced a pamphlet, with the title, “The People’s Right to Instruction,” but he could not finish it for want of ideas.

He sought for easier subjects, and began several in succession. The first was, “The Instruction of Children by Means of the Eye.” He wanted gratuitous theatres to be established in every poor quarter of Paris for little children. Their parents were to take them there when they were quite young, and, by means of a magic-lantern, all the notions of human knowledge were to be imparted to them. There were to be regular courses. The sight would educate the mind, while the pictures would remain impressed on the brain, and thus science would, so to say, be made visible. What could be more simple than to teach universal history, natural history, geography, botany, zoölogy, anatomy, etc., etc., thus?

He had his ideas printed in tract form, and sent a copy to each Deputy, ten to each Minister, fifty to the President of the Republic, ten to each Parisian, and five to each provincial newspaper.

Then he wrote on “Street Lending-Libraries.” His idea was to have little carts full of books drawn about the streets, like orange-carts are. Every householder or lodger would have a right to ten volumes a month by means of a halfpenny subscription.

“The people,” M. Sacrement said, “will only disturb itself for the sake of its pleasures, and since it will not go to instruction, instruction must come to it,” etc., etc.

His essays attracted no attention, but he sent in his application, and he got the usual formal official reply. He thought himself sure of success, but nothing came of it.

Then he made up his mind to apply personally. He begged for an interview with the Minister of Public Instruction, and he was received by a young subordinate, already very grave and important, who kept touching the buttons of electric-bells to summon ushers, and footmen, and officials inferior to himself. He declared to the applicant that his case was going on quite favourably, and advised him to continue his remarkable labours. So M. Sacrement set at it again.

M. Rosselin, the Deputy, seemed now to take a great interest in his success, and gave him a lot of excellent, practical advice. Rosselin was decorated, although nobody knew exactly what he had done to deserve such a distinction.

He told Sacrement what new studies he ought to undertake; he introduced him to learned Societies which took up particularly obscure points of science, in the hope of gaining credit and honours thereby; and he even took him under his wing at the Ministry.

One day, when he came to lunch with his friend (for several months past he had constantly taken his meals there), he said to him in a whisper as he shook hands: “I have just obtained a great favour for you. The Committee on Historical Works is going to entrust you with a commission. There are some researches to be made in various libraries in France.”

Sacrement was so delighted that he could scarcely eat or drink, and a week later he set out. He went from town to town, studying catalogues, rummaging in lofts full of dusty volumes, and was a bore to all the librarians.

One day, happening to be at Rouen, he thought he should like to embrace his wife, whom he had not seen for more than a week, so he took the nine o’clock train, which would land him at home by twelve at night.

He had his latchkey, so he went in without making any noise, delighted at the idea of the surprise he was going to give her. She had locked herself in. How tiresome! However, he cried out through the door:

“Jeanne, it is I.”

She must have been very frightened, for he heard her jump out of bed and speak to herself, as if she were in a dream. Then she went to her dressing-room, opened and closed the door, and went quickly up and down her room barefoot two or three times, shaking the furniture till the vases and glasses sounded. Then at last she asked:

“Is it you, Alexander?”

“Yes, yes,” he replied; “make haste and open the door.”

As soon as she had done so she threw herself into his arms, exclaiming:

“Oh! what a fright! What a surprise! What a pleasure!”

He began to undress himself methodically, as he did everything, and from a chair he took his overcoat, which he was in the habit of hanging up in the hall. But, suddenly, he remained motionless, struck dumb with astonishment⁠—there was a red ribbon in the buttonhole!

“Why,” he stammered, “this⁠—this⁠—this overcoat has got the rosette in it!”

In a second his wife threw herself on him, and, taking it from his hands, she said:

“No! you have made a mistake⁠—give it to me.”

But he still held it by one of the sleeves, without letting it go, repeating, in a half-dazed manner:

“Oh! Why? Just explain. Whose overcoat is it? It is not mine, as it has the Legion of Honour on it.”

She tried to take it from him, terrified, and hardly able to say:

“Listen⁠—listen⁠—give it to me⁠—I must not tell you⁠—it is a secret⁠—listen to me.”

But he grew angry, and turned pale:

“I want to know how this overcoat comes to be here? It does not belong to me.”

Then she almost screamed at him:

“Yes it does; listen⁠—swear to me⁠—well⁠—you are decorated.”

She did not intend to joke at his expense.

He was so overcome that he let the overcoat fall, and dropped into an armchair.

“I am⁠—you say I am⁠—decorated?”

“Yes, but it is a secret, a great secret.”

She had put the glorious garment into a cupboard, and came to her husband pale and trembling.

“Yes,” she continued, “it is a new overcoat that I have had made for you. But I swore that I would not tell you anything about it, as it will not be officially announced for a month or six weeks, and you were not to have known till your return from your business journey. M. Rosselin managed it for you.”

“Rosselin!” he contrived to utter in his joy; “he has obtained the decoration for me? He⁠—Oh!”

And he was obliged to drink a glass of water.

A little piece of white paper had fallen to the floor out of the pocket of the overcoat. Sacrement picked it up; it was a visiting-card, and he read out:

“Rosselin⁠—Deputy.”

“You see how it is,” said his wife.

He wept with joy, and, a week later, it was announced in the Journal Officiel that M. Sacrement had been awarded the Legion of Honour on account of his exceptional services.

The Father

He was employed at the Ministry of Education, and as he lived in the Batignolles suburb he took the omnibus every morning in order to go to his office. And every morning he travelled to the centre of Paris facing a girl with whom he fell in love.

She went to her work in a shop at the same time every day. She was small and dark, one of those brunettes whose eyes are so dark that they are like pitch balls stuck in her face, and whose skin has the gleam of ivory. Every day he saw her appear at the corner of the same street; and she would start running to catch up the heavy vehicle. She ran with short, hurried steps, supple and graceful, and would jump on to the step before the horses had quite stopped. Then she would make her way into the inside, panting a little, and, sitting down, would glance all round her.

The first time that he saw her, François Tessier knew that her face gave him infinite pleasure. Sometimes we meet such women, women whom we desire to seize fiercely in our arms, at first sight, before we even know them. This girl answered all the intimate desires, the secret dreams, the very ideal of love, as it were, which we bear about with us in the subconscious depths of our hearts.

Against his will he stared obstinately at her. His gaze embarrassed her and she blushed. He noticed this, and tried to turn away his eyes, but time and again they returned to her in spite of his efforts to fix his gaze elsewhere.

At the end of a few days they were no longer strangers, although they had never spoken to each other. He gave her his seat when the omnibus was full and went up on the top, in spite of the torture of loss it inflicted upon him. She greeted him now with a little smile; and though she always lowered her eyes under his gaze, which she felt to be too eager, yet she no longer seemed angry at being watched.

At last they began to talk to each other. A sudden intimate friendship was established between them, an intimacy confined to half an hour each day. And certainly it was the most delightful half-hour of his day. He thought of her all the rest of the time, and never ceased to dwell on the vision of her during his long sojourns at the office, haunted, obsessed, and invaded by the changing, clinging image which the face of a beloved woman leaves with us. It seemed to him that complete possession of that little creature would be for him a wild happiness, almost beyond human realisation.

Every morning now she shook hands with him, and he retained until evening the sense of that contact, the memory in his flesh of the faint pressure of her small fingers; he imagined that he preserved the imprint of them on his skin.

Throughout the rest of his time he looked forward anxiously to the short omnibus journey. And his Sundays seemed heartbreaking.

Certainly she loved him, for one Saturday in the spring she consented to lunch with him the next day at Maisons-Laffitte.

She arrived first at the station, and was waiting for him. He was surprised; but she said to him:

“Before we go, I’ve something to say. We’ve twenty minutes; that’s more than long enough.”

She was trembling, leaning on his arm, her eyes lowered and her cheeks pale.

“You must make no mistake about me,” she continued. “I’m an honest girl, and I won’t come with you unless you promise, unless you’ll swear not to⁠ ⁠… not to do anything which isn’t⁠ ⁠… which isn’t⁠ ⁠… nice.”

She had suddenly gone more scarlet than a poppy. She was silent. He did not know what to reply, happy and disappointed at the same time. At the bottom of his heart he possibly preferred that it should be like this; yet⁠ ⁠… yet he had lulled himself to sleep, the night before, with dreams that had fired his pulses. Certainly he would have loved her less, had he known her to be of easy virtue; but then how charming, how delicious it would be for him if she were! His mind was racked by all the selfish calculations that men make over this business of love.

As he said nothing, she added in a voice shaken with emotion, and tears at the corners of her eyes:

“If you don’t promise to respect me, absolutely⁠ ⁠… I’m going back home.”

He squeezed her arm affectionately and replied:

“I promise; you shall do nothing you do not want to do.”

She seemed relieved, and asked with a smile:

“Is that really true?”

He looked into the depths of her eyes.

“I swear it!”

“Then let’s take the tickets,” she said.

They could hardly speak a word to one another on the way, as their compartment was full.

Having reached Maisons-Laffitte, they directed their steps towards the Seine.

The warm air quieted their thoughts and their senses. The sun fell full upon the river, the leaves, and the grass, and darted a thousand gleams of happiness into body and mind. Hand in hand they walked along the bank, watching the little fish that glided in shoals under the surface of the water. They wandered along, adrift in happiness, as though transported from the earth in an ecstasy of delight.

At last she said:

“You must think me mad.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Isn’t it mad of me to go all alone with you like this?” she went on.

“Why, no; it’s quite natural.”

“No, no! It’s not natural⁠—for me⁠—for I don’t want to do anything foolish⁠—and this is just how one does come to do foolish things. But if you only knew! It’s so dull, every day the same thing, every day in the month and every month in the year. I live alone with my mother. And since she has had many sorrows in her life, she’s not very gay. As for me, I do what I can. I try to laugh, but I don’t always succeed. But all the same, it was wrong of me to come. But at least you don’t blame me for it?”

For answer he kissed her eagerly upon the ear. But she drew away from him with a swift movement, and said, suddenly vexed:

“Oh, Monsieur François, after what you promised me!”

And they turned back towards Maisons-Laffitte.

They lunched at the Petit-Havre, a low house buried beneath four enormous poplars, and standing on the bank of the river.

The fresh air, the heat, the thin white wine, and the exciting sense of each other’s nearness made them flushed, troubled and silent. But after coffee, a sudden tide of joy welled up in them; they crossed the Seine and set off again along the bank towards the village of La Frette.

Suddenly he asked:

“What is your name?”

“Louise.”

“Louise,” he repeated, and said no more.

The river, describing a long curve, caressed a distant row of white houses mirrored head downwards in the water. The girl picked daisies and arranged them in a huge rustic sheaf; the man sang at the top of his voice, as lively as a colt just put out to grass.

To the left, a slope planted with vines followed the curve of the river. Suddenly François stopped and remained motionless with astonishment.

“Oh, look!” he said.

The vineyards had ceased, and all the hillside was now covered with flowering lilac. It was a violet-hued wood, a carpet spread upon the earth, reaching as far as the village two or three kilometres distant.

She too stood spellbound with delight.

“Oh! How lovely!” she murmured.

They crossed a field and ran towards this strange hill which every year supplies all the lilac trundled about Paris on the little barrows of the street sellers.

A narrow path lost itself among the shrubs. They took it, and, coming to a small clearing, there sat down.

Legions of flies murmured above their heads, filling the air with a soft, ceaseless drone. The sun, the fierce sun of an airless day, beat down upon the long slope of blossom, drawing from this flower-forest a powerful scent, great heady gusts of perfume, the exhalation of the flowers.

A church-bell rang in the distance.

Quietly they embraced, then drew each other closer, lying in the grass, conscious of nothing but their kisses. She had closed her eyes and held him in her open arms, clasping him tightly, all thought dismissed, all reason abandoned, every sense utterly suspended in passionate expectation. She gave herself utterly to him, without knowing what she was doing, without even realising that she was delivered into his hands.

She came to herself half mad, as from a dreadful disaster, and began to weep, moaning with grief, hiding her face in her hands.

He tried to console her. But she was anxious to leave, to get back, to go home at once. She walked up and down with desperate strides, ceaselessly repeating:

“My God! My God!”

“Louise,” he begged. “Please stay, Louise.”

Her cheeks were now burning and her eyes sunken. As soon as they arrived at the station in Paris, she left him without even bidding him goodbye.

When he met her next day in the omnibus, she seemed to him to have changed, to have grown thinner.

“I must speak to you,” she said to him. “We will get off at the boulevard.”

When they were alone on the pavement she said:

“We must say goodbye to one another. I cannot see you again after what has happened.”

“But why not?” he stammered.

“Because I cannot. I was to blame. I shall not be guilty a second time.”

At that he begged and implored her, tortured with desire, maddened with the need to possess her utterly, in the deep abandon of nights of love.

“No, I cannot,” she replied obstinately. “No, I cannot.”

He grew more and more eager and excited. He promised to marry her.

“No,” she said again, and left him.

He did not see her for eight days. He could not continue to meet her, and, as he did not know her address, he thought her lost forever.

On the evening of the ninth day his doorbell rang. He went to open the door. It was she. She flung herself into his arms and resisted no longer. For three months she was his mistress. He began to weary of her, when she told him that she was with child. At that he had only one idea left in his head: to break with her at all costs.

Unable to tell her frankly what he meant to do, not knowing how to deal with the situation or what to say, wild with apprehension, and with the fear of the growing child, he made a desperate move. He decamped one night and disappeared.

The blow was so cruel that she made no search for the man who had deserted her in this fashion. She flung herself at her mother’s knees and confessed her misfortune to her; a few months later she gave birth to a son.

The years slipped by. François Tessier grew old, without suffering any change in his manner of life. He led the monotonous and dismal existence of a bureaucrat, without hope or expectation. Every day he rose at the same hour, went down the same streets, walked through the same door past the same hall-porter, entered the same office, sat down on the same seat, and worked at the same task. He was alone in the world, alone by day in the midst of his indifferent colleagues, alone at night in his bachelor lodgings. Every month he saved up a hundred francs for his old age.

Every Sunday he went for a walk along the Champs-Élysées, to watch the world of fashion go by, the carriages and the pretty women.

Next day he would say to his comrades in duress:

“It was a wonderful sight outside the park yesterday.”

One Sunday it chanced that he took a new way and went into the Parc Monceau. It was a bright summer morning. Nurses and mothers, seated on the benches at the side of the paths, were watching the children playing in front of them.

François Tessier shivered suddenly. A woman passed him, holding two children by the hand, a little boy of about ten, and a little girl of four. It was she.

He walked on for another hundred yards, and then sank into a chair, choked with emotion. She had not recognised him. Then he went back, trying to see her again. She was sitting down now. The boy was standing beside her, charmingly decorous, and the little girl was making mud pies. It was she, it was certainly she. She had the grave demeanour of a lady; her dress was simple, her bearing full of dignity and assurance.

He watched her from a distance, not daring to come close. The little boy raised his head. François Tessier felt himself trembling. This was his son, past all manner of doubt. He gazed at him, and fancied that he recognised himself as he might look in an old photograph.

He stayed hidden behind a tree, waiting for her to go, so that he might follow.

He did not sleep that night. The thought of the child racked him more than any other. His son! Oh! if he could only know, be sure! But what would he have done?

He had seen her house, he made inquiries, he learnt that she was married to a neighbour, a good man of high moral principles, touched by her misery. Knowing her sin and forgiving it, he had even acknowledged the child, his, François Tessier’s child.

Every Sunday he revisited the Parc Monceau. Every Sunday he saw her, and each time the mad, irresistible longing came to him to take his son in his arms, cover him with kisses, and carry him off, steal him.

He suffered terribly in his wretched loneliness, an old bachelor with nothing to love; he suffered a frightful anguish, torn by a fatherly love made up of remorse, longing, jealousy, and that need of small creatures to love which nature has implanted in the secret depths of every human being.

At last he decided to make a desperate effort, and, going up to her one day as she was entering the park, stood in her way, and said, with livid face and quivering lips:

“Don’t you recognise me?”

She raised her eyes, looked at him, uttered a scream of fear and horror, and, seizing her two children by the hand, fled, dragging them after her.

He went home to weep.

More months went by. He saw her no more. But he suffered day and night, gnawed and devoured by love for his child.

To embrace his son he would have died, would have committed murder, accomplished any task, braved any danger, attempted any perilous enterprise.

He wrote to her. She did not answer. After twenty letters he realised that he could not hope to move her. Then he took a desperate resolution; ready to receive a pistol bullet in his heart if he failed, he wrote a short note to her husband:

“Sir,

“My name must be an abhorred one to you. But I am so wretched, so tortured with remorse, that I have no hope except in you.

“I ask only for ten minutes’ talk with you.

“Yours,” etc.

Next day he received the answer:

“Sir,

“I shall expect you at five o’clock on Tuesday.”

As he mounted the staircase, François Tessier paused on every step, so furious was the beating of his heart. It was a hurrying clamour within his chest, a galloping animal, a dull and violent thudding. He could not breathe without an effort, and clung to the banisters to keep himself from falling.

At the third floor he rang. A servant opened the door.

“Monsieur Flamel?” he inquired.

“Yes, sir. Will you come in?”

He entered a middle-class drawing room. He was alone, and he waited in agony like a man in the grip of disaster.

A door opened. A man appeared. He was tall, grave, and rather stout, and wore a black frock-coat. He pointed to a chair.

François Tessier sat down, then said in a breathless voice:

“Monsieur⁠ ⁠… Monsieur⁠ ⁠… I don’t know if you know my name⁠ ⁠… if you know⁠ ⁠…”

Monsieur Flamel cut him short.

“Do not trouble to explain, monsieur. I know. My wife has spoken of you.”

He had the forthright aspect of a kindly man trying to be severe; and the upstanding dignity of a sober, middle-class citizen.

“You see, monsieur, it’s like this,” continued François Tessier. “I am dying of grief, remorse, and shame. All that I long for is that I may once, just once, kiss⁠ ⁠… the child.”

Monsieur Flamel rose, went to the fireplace, and rang. The servant appeared.

“Fetch Louis,” he said.

She went out. They remained facing one another, silent, having nothing else to say, waiting.

Suddenly a little boy of ten dashed into the room and ran to kiss the man he thought to be his father. But he stopped in confusion when he saw the stranger.

Monsieur Flamel kissed him on the forehead, and then said:

“Now, kiss this gentleman, darling.”

The child advanced obediently, looking at the stranger.

François Tessier had risen; he let his hat fall and was himself ready to collapse.

Monsieur Flamel had tactfully turned his back and was looking out of the window at the street.

The child waited in great astonishment. He picked up the hat and restored it to the stranger. Then François, taking the little boy in his arms, began to cover his face with furious kisses, upon eyes, cheeks, mouth, and hair.

The child was frightened by the storm of kisses and tried to avoid them, turning away his head, and with his little hands thrust away the man’s greedy lips.

Abruptly François Tessier set him down again.

“Goodbye! Goodbye!” he cried.

And he fled like a thief.

The String

Along all the roads around Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the little town, for it was market day. The men were proceeding with slow steps, the whole body bent forward at each movement of their long twisted legs, deformed by their hard work, by the weight on the plough which, at the same time, raised the left shoulder and distorted the figure, by the reaping of the wheat which made them spread their knees to get a firm stand, by all the slow and painful labours of the country. Their blouses, blue, starched, shining as if varnished, ornamented with a little design in white at the neck and wrists, puffed about their bony bodies, seemed like balloons ready to carry them off. From each of them a head, two arms, and two feet protruded.

Some led a cow or a calf at the end of a rope, and their wives, walking behind the animal, whipped its haunches with a leafy branch to hasten its progress. They carried large baskets on their arms from which, in some cases, chickens and, in others, ducks thrust out their heads. And they walked with a quicker, livelier step than their husbands. Their spare straight figures were wrapped in a scanty little shawl, pinned over their flat bosoms, and their heads were enveloped in a piece of white linen tightly pressed on the hair and surmounted by a cap.

Then a wagon passed at the jerky trot of a nag, shaking strangely, two men seated side by side and a woman in the bottom of the vehicle, the latter holding on to the sides to lessen the hard jolts.

In the square of Goderville there was a crowd, a throng of human beings and animals mixed together. The horns of the cattle, the tall hats with a long nap of the rich peasant, and the headgear of the peasant women rose above the surface of the crowd. And the clamorous, shrill, screaming voices made a continuous and savage din which sometimes was dominated by the robust lungs of some countryman’s laugh, or the long lowing of a cow tied to the wall of a house.

It all smacked of the stable, the dairy and the manure heap, of hay and sweat, giving forth that unpleasant odour, human and animal, peculiar to the people of the fields.

Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville, and he was directing his steps toward the public square, when he perceived upon the ground a little piece of string. Maître Hauchecorne, economical like a true Norman, thought that everything useful ought to be picked up, and he stooped painfully, for he suffered from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin cord from the ground and was beginning to roll it carefully when he noticed Maître Malandain, the harness-maker, on the threshold of his door, looking at him. They had heretofore had business together on the subject of a halter, and they were on bad terms, being both good haters. Maître Hauchecorne was seized with a sort of shame to be seen thus by his enemy, picking a bit of string out of the dirt. He concealed his find quickly under his blouse, then in his trousers pocket; then he pretended to be still looking on the ground for something which he did not find, and he went towards the market, his head thrust forward, bent double by his pains.

He was soon lost in the noisy and slowly moving crowd, which was busy with interminable bargainings. The peasants looked at cows, went and came, perplexed, always in fear of being cheated, not daring to decide, watching the vender’s eye, ever trying to find the trick in the man and the flaw in the beast.

The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, tied together by the feet, with terrified eyes and scarlet crests.

They heard offers, stated their prices with a dry air and impassive face, or perhaps, suddenly deciding on some proposed reduction, shouted to the customer who was slowly going away: “All right, Maître Anthime, I’ll give it to you for that.”

Then little by little the square was deserted, and the Angelus ringing at noon, those who lived too far away went to the different inns.

At Jourdain’s the great room was full of people eating, as the big yard was full of vehicles of all kinds, carts, gigs, wagons, nondescript carts, yellow with dirt, mended and patched, raising their shafts to the sky like two arms, or perhaps with their shafts in the ground and their backs in the air.

Very near the diners seated at the table, the immense fireplace, filled with bright flames, cast a lively heat on the backs of the row on the right. Three spits were turning on which were chickens, pigeons, and legs of mutton; and an appetizing odour of roast meat and gravy dripping over the nicely browned skin rose from the hearth, increased the jovialness, and made everybody’s mouth water.

All the aristocracy of the plough ate there, at Maître Jourdain’s, tavern keeper and horse dealer, a clever fellow who had money.

The dishes were passed and emptied, as were the jugs of yellow cider. Everyone told his affairs, his purchases, and sales. They discussed the crops. The weather was favourable for the green things but rather damp for the wheat.

Suddenly the drum began to beat in the yard, before the Kouse. Everybody rose, except a few indifferent persons, and ran to the door, or to the windows, their mouths still full and napkins in their hands.

After the public crier had ceased his drum-beating, he called out in a jerky voice, speaking his phrases irregularly:

“It is hereby made known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general to all persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning, on the road to Benzeville, between nine and ten o’clock, a black leather pocketbook containing five hundred francs and some business papers. The finder is requested to return same to the mayor’s office or to Maître Fortuné Houlbrèque of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward.”

Then the man went away. The heavy roll of the drum and the crier’s voice were again heard at a distance.

Then they began to talk of this event discussing the chances that Maître Houlbrèque had of finding or not finding his pocketbook.

And the meal concluded. They were finishing their coffee when the chief of the gendarmes appeared upon the threshold.

He inquired:

“Is Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, here?”

Maître Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, replied:

“Here I am.”

And the officer resumed:

“Maître Hauchecorne, will you have the goodness to accompany me to the mayor’s office? The mayor would like to talk to you.”

The peasant, surprised and disturbed, swallowed at a draught his tiny glass of brandy, rose, and, even more bent than in the morning, for the first steps after each rest were specially difficult, set out, repeating: “Here I am, here I am.”

The mayor was awaiting him, seated on an armchair. He was the notary of the vicinity, a stout, serious man, with pompous phrases.

“Maître Hauchecorne,” said he, “you were seen this morning picking up, on the road to Benzeville, the pocketbook lost by Maître Houlbrèque, of Manneville.”

The countryman, looked at the mayor in astonishment, already terrified, by this suspicion resting on him without his knowing why.

“Me? Me? I picked up the pocketbook?”

“Yes, you, yourself.”

“On my word of honour, I never heard of it.”

“But you were seen.”

“I was seen, me? Who says he saw me?”

“Monsieur Malandain, the harness-maker.”

The old man remembered, understood, and flushed with anger.

“Ah, he saw me, the clodhopper, he saw me pick up this string, here, Mr. Mayor.” And rummaging in his pocket he drew out the little piece of string.

But the mayor, incredulous, shook his head.

“You will not make me believe, Maître Hauchecorne, that Monsieur Malandain, who is a man we can believe, mistook this cord for a pocketbook.”

The peasant, furious, lifted his hand, spat at one side to attest his honour, repeating:

“It is nevertheless the truth of the good God, the sacred truth, Mr. Mayor. I repeat it on my soul and my salvation.”

The mayor resumed:

“After picking up the object, you stood like a stilt, looking a long while in the mud to see if any piece of money had fallen out.”

The old chap choked with indignation and fear.

“How anyone can tell⁠—how anyone can tell⁠—such lies to take away an honest man’s reputation! How can anyone⁠—”

There was no use in his protesting, nobody believed him. He was confronted with Monsieur Malandain, who repeated and maintained his affirmation. They abused each other for an hour. At his own request, Maître Hauchecorne was searched, nothing was found on him.

Finally the mayor, very much perplexed, discharged him with the warning that he would consult the public prosecutor and ask for further orders.

The news had spread. As he left the mayor’s office, the old man was surrounded and questioned with a serious or bantering curiosity, in which there was no indignation. He began to tell the story of the string. No one believed him. They laughed at him.

He went along, stopping his friends, beginning endlessly his statement and his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out, to prove that he had nothing.

They said:

“Old rascal, get out!”

And he grew angry, becoming exasperated, hot, and distressed at not being believed, not knowing what to do and always repeating himself.

Night came. He must depart. He started on his way with three neighbours to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up the bit of string; and all along the road he spoke of his adventure.

In the evening he took a turn in the village of Bréauté, in order to tell it to everybody. He only met with incredulity.

It made him ill all night.

The next day about one o’clock in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a hired man in the employ of Maître Breton, husbandman at Ymauville, returned the pocketbook and its contents to Maître Houlbrèque of Manneville.

This man claimed to have found the object in the road; but not knowing how to read, he had carried it to the house and given it to his employer.

The news spread through the neighbourhood. Maître Hauchecorne was informed of it. He immediately went the circuit and began to recount his story completed by the happy climax. He triumphed.

“What grieved me so much was not the thing itself, as the lying. There is nothing so shameful as to be placed under a cloud on account of a lie.”

He talked of his adventure all day long, he told it on the highway to people who were passing by, in the inn to people who were drinking there, and to persons coming out of church the following Sunday. He stopped strangers to tell them about it. He was calm now, and yet something disturbed him without his knowing exactly what it was. People had the air of joking while they listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel that remarks were being made behind his back.

On Tuesday of the next week he went to the market at Goderville, urged solely by the necessity he felt of discussing the case.

Malandain, standing at his door, began to laugh on seeing him pass. Why?

He approached a farmer from Criquetot, who did not let him finish, and giving him a thump in the stomach said to his face:

“You clever rogue.”

Then he turned his back on him.

Maître Hauchecorne was confused, why was he called a clever rogue?

When he was seated at the table, in Jourdain’s tavern he commenced to explain “the affair.”

A horse dealer from Monvilliers called to him:

“Come, come, old sharper, that’s an old trick; I know all about your piece of string!”

Hauchecorne stammered:

“But since the pocketbook was found.”

But the other man replied:

“⁠—Shut up, papa, there is one that finds, and there is one that brings back. No one is any the wiser, so you get out of it.”

The peasant stood choking. He understood. They accused him of having had the pocketbook returned by a confederate, by an accomplice.

He tried to protest. All the table began to laugh.

He could not finish his dinner and went away, in the midst of jeers.

He went home ashamed and indignant, choking with anger and confusion, the more dejected that he was capable with his Norman cunning of doing what they had accused him of, and even of boasting of it as of a good trick. His innocence to him, in a confused way, was impossible to prove, as his sharpness was known. And he was stricken to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.

Then he began to recount the adventure again, enlarging his story every day, adding each time, new reasons, more energetic protestations, more solemn oaths which he imagined and prepared in his hours of solitude, his whole mind given up to the story of the string. He was believed so much the less as his defense was more complicated and his arguing more subtle.

“Those are lying excuses,” they said behind his back.

He felt it, consumed his heart over it, and wore himself out with useless efforts. He was visibly wasting away.

The wags now made him tell about the string to amuse them, as they make a soldier who has been on a campaign tell about his battles. His mind, seriously affected, began to weaken.

Towards the end of December he took to his bed.

He died in the first days of January, and in the delirium of his death struggles he kept claiming his innocence, reiterating.

“A piece of string, a piece of string⁠—look⁠—here it is, Mr. Mayor.”

A Wise Man

Blérot had been my friend since childhood; we had no secrets from each other, and were united heart and soul by a brotherly intimacy and a boundless confidence in each other. He used to tell me his most intimate thoughts, even the smallest pangs of conscience that are very often kept hidden from our own selves. I did the same for him. I had been the confident of all his love affairs, as he had been with mine.

When he told me that he was going to get married I was hurt, as though by an act of treason. I felt that it must interfere with that cordial and absolute affection which had united us. His wife would come between us. The intimacy of the marriage-bed establishes a kind of complicity, a mysterious alliance between two persons, even when they have ceased to love each other. Man and wife are like two discreet partners who will not let anyone else into their secrets. But that close bond which the conjugal kiss fastens is broken quickly on the day on which the woman takes a lover.

I remember Blérot’s wedding as if it were but yesterday. I would not be present at the signing of the marriage contract, as I have no particular liking for such ceremonies. I only went to the civil wedding and to the church.

His wife, whom I had never seen before, was a tall, slight girl, with pale hair, pale cheeks, pale hands, and eyes to match. She walked with a slightly undulating motion, as if she were on board a ship, and seemed to advance with a succession of long, graceful courtesies.

Blérot seemed very much in love with her. He looked at her constantly, and I felt a shiver of an immoderate desire for her pass through his frame. I went to see him a few days later, and he said to me:

“You do not know how happy I am; I am madly in love with her; but then she is⁠—she is⁠—” He did not finish his sentence, but he put the tips of his fingers to his lips with a gesture which signified “divine! delicious! perfect!” and a good deal more besides.

I asked, laughing, “What! all that?”

“Everything that you can imagine,” was his answer.

He introduced me to her. She was very pleasant, on easy terms with me, as was natural, and begged me to look upon their house as my own. But I felt that he, Blérot, did not belong to me any longer. Our intimacy was cut off definitely, and we hardly found a word to say to each other.

I soon took my leave, and shortly afterwards went to the East, returning by way of Russia, Germany, Sweden, and Holland, after an absence of eighteen months from Paris.

The morning after my arrival, as I was walking along the boulevards to feel the air of Paris once more, I saw a pale man with sunken cheeks coming toward me, who was as much like Blérot as it was possible for an emaciated tubercular man to resemble a strong, ruddy, rather stout man. I looked at him in surprise, and asked myself: “Can it possibly be he?” But he saw me, uttered a cry, and came toward me with outstretched arms. I opened mine and we embraced in the middle of the boulevard.

After we had gone up and down once or twice from the Rue Drouot to the Vaudeville Theatre, just as we were taking leave of each other⁠—for he already seemed quite done up with walking, I said to him:

“You don’t look at all well. Are you ill?”

“I do feel rather out of sorts,” was all he said. He looked like a man who was going to die, and I felt a flood of affection for my dear old friend, the only real one that I had ever had. I squeezed his hands.

“What is the matter with you? Are you in pain?”

“A little tired; but it is nothing.”

“What does your doctor say?”

“He calls it anaemia, and has ordered me to eat no white meat and to take tincture of iron.”

A suspicion flashed across me.

“Are you happy?” I asked him.

“Yes, very happy; my wife is charming, and I love her more than ever.”

But I noticed that he grew rather red and seemed embarrassed, as if he was afraid of any further questions, so I took him by the arm and pushed him into a café, which was nearly empty at that time of day. I forced him to sit down, and looking him straight in the face, I said:

“Look here, old fellow, just tell me the exact truth.”

“I have nothing to tell you,” he stammered.

“That is not true,” I replied, firmly. “You are ill, mentally perhaps, and you dare not reveal your secret to anyone. Something or other is doing you harm, and I mean you to tell me what it is. Come, I am waiting for you to begin.”

Again he got very red, stammered, and turning his head away, he said:

“It is very idiotic⁠—but I⁠—I am done for!”

As he did not go on, I said:

“Just tell me what it is.”

“Well, I have got a wife who is killing me, that is all,” he said abruptly, almost desperately as if he had uttered a torturing thought, as yet unrealised.

I did not understand at first. “Does she make you unhappy? She makes you suffer, night and day? How? What is it?”

“No,” he replied in a low voice, as if he were confessing some crime; “I love her too much, that is all.”

I was thunderstruck at this unexpected avowal, and then I felt inclined to laugh, but at length I managed to reply:

“But surely, at least so it seems to me, you might manage to⁠—to love her a little less.”

He had got very pale again, but finally he made up his mind to speak to me openly, as he used to do formerly.

“No,” he said, “that is impossible; and I am dying from it, I know; it is killing me, and I am really frightened. Some days, like today, I feel inclined to leave her, to go away altogether, to start for the other end of the world, so as to live for a long time; and then, when the evening comes, I return home in spite of myself, but slowly, and feeling uncomfortable. I go upstairs hesitatingly and ring, and when I go in I see her there sitting in her armchair, and she says, ‘How late you are,’ I kiss her, and we sit down to dinner. During the meal I think: ‘I will go directly it is over, and take the train for somewhere, no matter where’; but when we get back to the drawing room I am so tired that I have not the courage to get up out of my chair, and so I remain, and then⁠—and then⁠—I succumb again.”

I could not help smiling again. He saw it, and said: “You may laugh, but I assure you it is very horrible.”

“Why don’t you tell your wife?” I asked him. “Unless she be a regular monster she would understand.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It is all very well for you to talk. I don’t tell her because I know her nature. Have you ever heard it said of certain women, ‘She has just married a third time?’ Well, and that makes you laugh as you did just now, and yet it is true. What is to be done? It is neither her fault nor mine. She is so, because nature has made her so; I assure you, my dear old friend, she has the temperament of a Messalina. She does not know it, but I do; so much the worse for me. She is charming, gentle, tender, and thinks that our conjugal intercourse, which is wearing me out and killing me, is natural and quite moderate. She seems like an ignorant schoolgirl, and she really is ignorant, poor child.

“Every day I form energetic resolutions, for you must understand that I am dying. But one look of her eyes, one of those looks in which I can read the ardent desire of her lips, is enough for me, and I succumb at once, saying to myself: ‘This is really the end; I will have no more of her death-giving kisses,’ and then, when I have yielded again, like I have today, I go out and walk and walk, thinking of death, and saying to myself that I am lost, that all is over.

“I am mentally so ill that I went for a walk to Père Lachaise cemetery yesterday. I looked at all the graves, standing in a row like dominoes, and I thought to myself: ‘I shall soon be there,’ and then I returned home, quite determined to pretend to be ill, and so escape, but I could not.

“Oh! You don’t know what it is. Ask a smoker who is poisoning himself with nicotine whether he can give up his delicious and deadly habit. He will tell you that he has tried a hundred times without success, and he will, perhaps, add: ‘So much the worse, but I would rather die than go without tobacco.’ That is just the case with me. When once one is in the clutches of such a passion or such a habit, one must give oneself up to it entirely.”

He got up and held out his hand. I felt seized with a tumult of rage, and with hatred for this woman, this careless, charming, terrible woman; and as he was buttoning up his coat to go away I said to him, brutally perhaps:

“But, in God’s name, why don’t you let her have lovers rather than kill yourself like that?”

He shrugged his shoulders without replying, and went off.

For six months I did not see him. Every morning I expected a letter of invitation to his funeral, but I would not go to his house from a complicated feeling of anger against him and of contempt for that woman; for a thousand different reasons.

One lovely spring morning I was walking in the Champs-Élysées. It was one of those warm afternoons which make our eyes bright and stir in us a tumultuous feeling of happiness from the mere sense of existence. Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I saw my old friend, looking well, stout, and rosy.

He gave me both hands, beaming with pleasure, and exclaimed:

“Here you are, you erratic individual!”

I looked at him, utterly thunderstruck.

“Well, on my word⁠—yes. By Jove! I congratulate you; you have indeed changed in the last six months!”

He flushed scarlet, and said, with an embarrassed laugh:

“One can but do one’s best.”

I looked at him so obstinately that he evidently felt uncomfortable, so I went on:

“So⁠—now⁠—you are⁠—completely cured?”

He stammered, hastily:

“Yes, perfectly, thank you.” Then changing his tone, “How lucky that I should have come across you, old fellow. I hope we shall see each other often now.”

But I would not give up my idea; I wanted to know how matters really stood, so I asked:

“Don’t you remember what you told me six months ago? I suppose⁠—I⁠—eh⁠—suppose you resist now?”

“Please don’t talk any more about it,” he replied, uneasily; “forget that I mentioned it to you; leave me alone. But, you know, I have no intention of letting you go; you must come and dine at my house.”

A sudden fancy took me to see for myself how matters stood, so that I might understand all about it, and I accepted. Two hours later he introduced me to his home.

His wife received me in a most charming manner, and she was, as a matter of fact, a most attractive woman. She looked guileless, distinguished and adorably naive. Her long hands, her neck, and cheeks were beautifully white and delicate, and marked her breeding, and her walk was undulating and delightful, as if her leg gave slightly at each step.

René gave her a brotherly kiss on the forehead and said:

“Has not Lucien come yet?”

“Not yet,” she replied, in a clear, soft voice; “you know he is almost always rather late.”

At that moment the bell rang, and a tall man was shown in. He was dark, with a thick beard, and looked like a society Hercules. We were introduced to each other; his name was Lucien Delabarre.

René and he shook hands in a most friendly manner, and then we went to dinner.

It was a most enjoyable meal, without the least constraint. My old friend spoke with me constantly, in the old familiar cordial manner, just as he used to do. It was: “You know, old fellow!”⁠—“I say, old fellow!”⁠—“Just listen a moment, old fellow!” Suddenly he exclaimed:

“You don’t know how glad I am to see you again; it takes me back to old times.”

I looked at his wife and the other man. Their attitude was perfectly correct, though I fancied once or twice that they exchanged a rapid and furtive look.

As soon as dinner was over René turned to his wife, and said:

“My dear, I have just met Pierre again, and I am going to carry him off for a walk and a chat along the boulevards to remind us of old times. You will excuse this bachelor spree. I am leaving Mr. Delabarre with you.”

The young woman smiled, and said to me, as she shook hands with me:

“Don’t keep him too long.”

As we went along, arm-in-arm, I could not help saying to him, for I was determined to know how matters stood:

“What has happened? Do tell me!”

He, however, interrupted me roughly, and answered like a man who has been disturbed without any reason.

“Just look here, old fellow; leave me alone with your questions.”

Then he added, half aloud, as if talking to himself:

“After all, it would have been too stupid to have let oneself go to perdition like that.”

I did not press him. We walked on quickly and began to talk. All of a sudden he whispered in my ear:

“I say, suppose we go and see the girls! Eh?”

I could not help laughing heartily.

“Just as you like; come along, old man.”

The First Fall of Snow

The promenade of La Croisette curves along the edge of the blue sea. To the right, where the Esterel juts out into the sea, the view is obstructed, and the horizon, with its charming southern outline of fantastic peaked summits, is lost to view.

To the left the islands of Saint Marguerite and Saint Honorat look like two big clumps of pine-trees rising out of the water.

And all along the broad gulf, up and down the tall mountains that lie about Cannes, the host of white villas sleeps in the sunlight. From far away these ghostly houses, scattered from top to bottom of the mountains, dotting the dusky verdure with snow-like specks, are clearly visible.

The houses nearest the water have gates opening on to the broad promenade bathed by the tranquil waves. The air is soft and pleasant and, above the garden wall, one catches a glimpse of orange and lemon-trees laden with golden fruit. Women move slowly over the sand of the avenue, followed by children bowling hoops, or chatting with their male escorts. On a mild winter day, with the faintest touch of freshness in the air, a young lady came out of her little, dainty house facing the Croisette and stopped for a minute to look at the pedestrians, smiled to herself, and then, quite exhausted, reached an empty bench facing the sea. Tired out with the short walk, she sat down, panting for breath. Her pale face looked like that of a dead woman. She coughed incessantly and raised transparent fingers to her lips as if to stop the exhausting paroxysms.

She gazed at the sky, full of sunshine, at the swallows, and at the irregular peaks of the Esterel in the distance, at the sea so blue and so calm lying near her.

She smiled again and murmured:

“Oh, how happy I am.”

Yet she knew she was going to die, that she would not see the spring, that in a year, along the same promenade, these same people passing in front of her would come to breathe the mild air of this charming spot; their children, a little older, their hearts still full of hope, tenderness and happiness, while the wretched remains of flesh she still possessed would be rotting away in an oak coffin, leaving only her bones to lie in the silk frock she had chosen for her shroud.

She would be gone. Life would go on for others, but for her it would be over, over forever. She would be gone. She smiled and breathed in the scented air of the gardens as well as her stricken lungs permitted.

And she lost herself in a daydream.

She was thinking of the past. She had been married four years ago to a gentleman of Normandy, strong, bearded, healthy, narrow-minded, broad-shouldered and cheerful. The match had been arranged for financial reasons unknown to her. She would have liked to say “No” but implied “Yes” by a movement of her head, so as not to thwart her father and mother. She was a Parisian, lighthearted, full of the joy of life. Her husband took her to his castle in Normandy, a huge stone building, surrounded by very tall, old trees. The front view was shut out by a high clump of pines, on the right an opening disclosed a view over the bare plain that stretched away to the distant farms. A crossroad passed by the gateway and led to the high road about three miles away.

She remembered everything: her arrival, the first day in her new home, and the lonely life that followed.

When she stepped out of the carriage she looked at the old building and said, laughingly:

“It’s not very cheerful.”

Her husband laughed back, replying:

“One gets accustomed to it. You’ll see. I never feel bored here.”

A great part of that day was spent in lovemaking, and it did not seem long to her. The next day it was the same thing, and so on through the week that was taken up with caressings. Then she started to rearrange her home, and that lasted a whole month. The days passed by in quite insignificant and yet absorbing pursuits. She learnt the value and importance of the little things of life. She found out that one could be interested in the fluctuation in the price of eggs.

It was summer, and she went out into the fields to watch the harvesting. The brightness of the sunshine kept her going.

Then came the autumn, and her husband went out shooting, starting in the morning with his two dogs, Médor and Mirza. She was left behind alone, but did not grieve over Henri’s absence: she was very fond of him though she did not miss him. When he returned, her affection was especially bestowed on the dogs. Every evening she looked after them with a mother’s care, petted them, calling them by all sorts of pet names she would never have thought of calling her husband.

He always told her all about the day’s sport, indicating the places where he had shot partridges; surprised at not finding any hares in Joseph Ledentée’s clover, or seemingly indignant at Monsieur Lechapelier’s conduct in always shooting along the border of his property and thereby getting the benefit of the game that he, Henri de Parville, had preserved. She replied: “That’s certainly not right,” thinking of something else. Then came the winter, the cold, rainy winter of Normandy. Everlasting showers fell on the slates of the great, steep-pitched roof, rising like a blade to the sky. The roads seemed like rivers of mud, the country itself a sea of mud; nothing could be heard but the sound of falling water. Nothing could be seen but the whirling flight of crows moving like a cloud, dropping on to the fields, and then flying off again.

About four o’clock the crowd of dark, flying creatures came with their deafening cries and perched in the tall beeches to the left of the castle. For over an hour they flew from treetop to treetop, seeming to be fighting, croaked and formed a moving black mass in the greyish branches.

Every evening she watched them with a heavy heart, overcome by the grim melancholy of night falling over the deserted country. Then she rang for the lamp and drew near the fire. She burnt heaps of wood without succeeding in warming the immense rooms that reeked with damp. She was always cold, everywhere; in the drawing room, at meals, in her own room. She felt as if she was chilled to the bone. Her husband did not come in till dinnertime, for he was always out shooting or else engaged with his crops and other country pursuits. He used to come in full of good spirits and covered with mud, rubbing his two hands and saying:

“What beastly weather!” or “How nice to have a fire!”

Occasionally he would ask:

“Has she anything to say today? Is she happy?”

He was happy, enjoying good health, and wanted nothing beyond his simple, healthy, quiet life.

In December, when the snow fell, she suffered terribly from the icy cold of the castle, which seemed to have grown chill with the centuries, as human beings become chill with age, and she said to her husband one evening:

“I say, Henri, you ought to install a furnace here, it would dry the walls. I assure you I am never warm.”

At first he was speechless at the extravagant idea of installing a furnace in his manor; it would have seemed more natural to him to feed his dogs out of silver-plated dishes. Then he burst out into a ringing fit of laughter, exclaiming:

“A furnace here! A furnace here! Ah! ah! ah! What a joke!”

“I assure you, dear, I am frozen with cold,” she persisted; “you don’t notice it because you are always moving about, but all the same I feel frozen.”

He only replied, still laughing:

“Nonsense, you’ll get used to it. Besides, it is excellent for the health. You will be all the better for it. Good Lord, we are not Parisians to live in front of the fire. After all, spring will soon be here.”

About the beginning of January she had the great misfortune to lose her father and mother, who were killed in a carriage accident. She went to Paris for the funeral, and, for six months, thought of nothing but her loss. The mildness of the beautiful summer finally roused her, and she drifted through life in a state of melancholy languor until autumn. When the cold weather returned she faced the fact of her gloomy future for the first time. What could she do? Nothing. What did life hold for her? Nothing. Was there anything she could hope for that would restore her drooping spirits? Nothing. The doctor had said that she would never have any children.

She suffered continually from the cold, which was sharper and more penetrating than the winter before. She stretched her poor, trembling hands out to the big flames; the blazing fire scorched her face, but icy winds crept down her back, slipping in between her skin and underclothing, and making her shiver all over. The rooms seemed full of draughts, specially lively draughts, crafty draughts as cruel as an enemy. She met them at every turn; without ceasing they blew on her face, her hands, her neck their frozen and perfidious breath.

Again she mentioned the furnace, but her husband listened to her as if she were asking for the moon. The introduction of that sort of thing at Parville seemed as impossible to him as the discovery of the Philosopher’s Stone.

He went to Rouen one day on business and brought back a tiny copper foot-warmer for his wife, which he laughingly called a portable furnace, and he was convinced that it would prevent her from ever feeling cold again.

Towards the end of December she realised that she could not live that life forever, and said timidly one night at dinner:

“I say, dear, can’t we go and spend a week or two in Paris before the spring?”

Full of astonishment, he said:

“In Paris? In Paris? Whatever for? Certainly not! We are better off here, at home. What odd ideas you have!”

She faltered: “It would make a change,” but he could not understand.

“What do you want by way of a change? Theatres, receptions, dinners in town? You knew well when you came here that you could not expect anything of the kind!”

Both words and voice made her feel he was reproaching her. She held her tongue, for she was gentle and retiring, without determination or power of resistance.

It was terribly cold again in January, and everything was covered with snow. One evening, as she was gazing at the cloud of crows circling round the trees, she began to cry in spite of herself. Her husband came in and asked, very surprised:

“What’s the matter with you?”

He was happy, quite happy, having never thought of any other life, any other pleasures. He had been born and had grown up in the melancholy part of the country; he felt quite at home, contented in mind and body.

He did not understand that anyone could want something to happen, that anyone could long for a change, he did not understand that, to some beings, it did not seem natural to be in the same spot throughout the four seasons of the year; apparently he did not know that spring, summer, autumn and winter hold fresh amusements in different countries for many people.

She could say nothing in reply and quickly wiped her tears. At last, she said desperately:

“I am⁠—I⁠—I’m rather sad⁠—I’m rather bored⁠ ⁠…” But terrified at what she had said, she quickly added:

“Besides, I’m⁠—I’m rather cold.”

The last remark irritated him:

“Ah, yes. Still your idea of a furnace. But, damn it, you haven’t had a single cold since you came here.”

When night came she went up to her room (for she had insisted on having a separate bedroom) and went to bed, but even there she was cold, and she thought:

“It will always be like this, always, until I die.”

Then she thought about her husband; how could he have said: “You have never had a single cold since you came here”! So, she had to be ill, she must cough before he could understand what she suffered! She was filled with the exasperated indignation of the weak and timid.

She must cough, and then, no doubt, he would be sorry for her. Well! She would cough, he would hear her cough, and the doctor would have to be sent for; he should see, her husband, he should see!

She had got out of bed, her legs and feet bare, and a childish idea made her smile: “I want a furnace and I am going to have it. I will cough until he makes up his mind to put one in the house.”

Almost naked, she sat down on a chair and waited an hour, two hours. She shivered but was not catching cold, so at last she decided on a bold expedient.

Noiselessly she left the room, went downstairs, and opened the door into the garden. The snow-covered earth seemed quite dead. Abruptly she thrust forward a bare foot, plunging it into the icy, fleecy foam. A sensation of cold, painful as a wound, gripped her heart; still she stretched out the other leg and began to descend the steps, slowly.

Then she went on over the grass, saying: “I’ll go as far as the pines.” She walked on, taking short steps, panting for breath and gasping every time she plunged her naked foot in the snow.

She touched the first pine-tree with her hand as if to convince herself that she had really accomplished her object; then she returned. Two or three times she thought she was going to fall, she felt so numb, so weak. Before going in, however, she sat down in the icy foam and even picked some up to rub on her chest.

Then she went in to bed. In an hour’s time she felt as if she had a swarm of ants in her throat, and other ants running about her body, but she slept in spite of all this.

The next morning she was coughing and could not get up. She had congestion of the lungs, she was delirious and in her delirium was always asking for a furnace. The doctor insisted on having one put in the house, and Henri yielded, though with a very bad grace.

She was incurable. Her lungs were so seriously affected as to cause acute anxiety for her life. The doctor said: “If she stays here she will not last until the winter,” so she was sent to the South. She came to Cannes, found the sun, loved the sea, and breathed the air thick with the scent of orange-flowers. Then she returned North in the spring.

But she lived with the dread of recovery; she was afraid of the long winters in Normandy; and, as soon as she was better, she opened her window at night, thinking of the delightful shores of the Mediterranean.

Now she is going to die; that she knows, and is quite happy about it. She unfolded a paper left unopened and saw the heading: “The first snow in Paris.”

First she shivered and then she smiled. Over there she can see the Esterel turning pink in the setting sun; she can see the great blue heavens, so blue; the vast stretch of blue sea, so blue.

She got up to go back with slow steps, often stopping to cough, for she had stayed out too long and she felt cold, rather cold.

She found a letter from her husband; still smiling, she read:

“My Dear Friend,

“I hope you are well and that you do not pine for our lovely country. We have had a spell of frost for some days which promises snow. Personally, I adore this weather, and you will understand that I refrain from lighting your accursed furnace⁠ ⁠…”

She ceased reading, full of happiness that, at least, she had had the furnace. Her right hand, which held the letter, fell slowly on her lap, while she raised the left to her mouth as if to calm the obstinate cough that was racking her chest.

The Model

The little town of Étretat, curved like the crescent moon, with its white cliffs, white pebbly strand and blue sea, drowsed under the sun of a day in mid-July. At the two points of the crescent, the two harbours, the small one on the right, the big one on the left, thrust out into the quiet water a dwarf foot and the foot of a colossus; and the needle, almost as high as the cliff, broad-based and tapering to the summit, reared its painted head towards the sky.

On the beach, beside the waves, a crowd of people sat watching the bathers. On the terrace of the Casino, more people sat or walked, spreading out under the brilliant sky into a garden of gay frocks blazing with red and blue umbrellas, embroidered on top with silken flowers.

On the promenade at the end of the terrace, other people, the quiet unassuming ones, sauntered, far from the smart mob.

A young man, a well-known, celebrated artist, Jean Summer by name, was walking gloomily beside a small invalid carriage in which a young woman was lying, his wife. A servant was gently pushing this sort of wheeled armchair, and the crippled woman gazed sadly at the joyful sky, the joyful day and the joyful crowd.

They did not speak. They did not look at each other.

“Let us stop a little,” said the young woman.

They stopped, and the painter seated himself on a folding chair, which the manservant produced for him.

People passing behind the still silent couple contemplated them with a sorrowful gaze. Gossip had created a whole legend of devotion. He had married her in spite of her infirmity, touched by her love, they said.

A little farther off, two young men were talking, sitting on a capstan, gazing into space.

“No, it’s not true. I tell you I know Jean Summer very well.”

“Well, but why did he marry her? She was already a cripple before her marriage, wasn’t she?”

“Exactly. He married her⁠ ⁠… he married her⁠ ⁠… as a man does marry, dammit, because he’s a fool!”

“But what else?”

“What else⁠ ⁠… what else, my friend? There is nothing else. A man is an ass because he’s an ass. And besides, you know very well that painters are particularly given to ridiculous marriages; almost all of them marry models, old mistresses, even women whose encounters with men have made them slightly shop-soiled. Why is it? Who knows? One would suppose, on the contrary, that the constant society of that flock of imbeciles called models ought to have filled men with a lasting disgust for that brand of female. Not at all. After making them pose, they marry them. Read Alphonse Daudet’s little book, which is so true, so cruel and so fine: Les Femmes d’Artistes.

“Fate, in a very special and terrible form, had its way with the couple you see there. The little woman staged a comedy, or rather a terrifying drama. She risked all to gain all, in short. Was she sincere? Did she love Jean? Can one ever be sure of that? Could anyone say for certain what is carefully planned and what is spontaneous in the things women do? Their sincerity reflects faithfully a constant change of mood. They are impassioned, wicked, devoted, admirable, depraved, in obedience to uncontrollable emotions. They lie the whole time, neither wishing it, knowing it, nor understanding that they are lying, and they have, with it and in spite of it, an absolute freshness of emotions and sentiments which they evidence in violent, unexpected, incomprehensible, crazy resolutions, that confound our reasoning, our customary calculations and our egoistic habits of thought. The abrupt and unpremeditated nature of their decisions makes them always for us undecipherable enigmas. We are always wondering: ‘Are they sincere? Are they false?’

“But, my friend, they are at once sincere and false, because it is their nature to be both to the utmost and to be neither the one nor the other.

“Think of the methods the most honest of them use to get what they want from us. Their methods are both complicated and simple. So complicated that we never guess them beforehand, so simple that after we have fallen victims we can’t help being surprised at it and saying to ourselves: ‘What, did she play a crude trick like that on me?’

“And they are always successful, my dear fellow, especially when it is marriage they are after.

“But listen to Summer’s story.

“The little woman is a model, of course. She posed for him. She was pretty, distinguished-looking too, and had, he thought, a divine figure. He fell in love with her, as a man does fall in love with a rather attractive woman whom he is constantly seeing. He imagined that he loved her with his whole heart. That’s an odd phenomenon. As soon as a man desires a woman, he is sincerely convinced that he could never tire of her for the rest of his life. He knows quite well that the thing has happened to him already; that disgust always follows possession; that the necessary condition of being able to spend the whole of one’s life with another being is not a brutish, physical appetite, quickly sated, but a similarity of mind, temperament and disposition. He must be able to decide whether the charm that holds him comes from the corporeal form, from a sort of drunkenness of the senses, or from a deeper spiritual beauty.

“Well, he imagined that he loved her; he made her a host of promises of faithfulness and he took her to live with him.

“She was really a nice little thing, and had that graceful puckish charm our Parisian little ladies so often have. She chattered like a magpie, she prattled, she said absurd things that seemed witty because of the droll way she uttered them. The gracious gestures she used every moment were well calculated to charm the eye of a painter. When she lifted her arms, when she stooped, when she stepped into a carriage, when she held out her hand to you, her movements were perfectly proportioned and harmonious.

“For three months, Jean never noticed that at bottom she was just like all other models.

“They rented a little house at Andrésy for the summer.

“I was there one evening, when the first doubts stirred in my friend’s mind.

“It was a radiant night, and we chose to walk along the river bank. The moon poured a rain of light on the rippling water, scattered its broken yellow rays over eddies and running water, and all the wide slow-moving reeds.

“We walked along the bank; the vague sense of exaltation born of such romantic nights had rather gone to our heads. We would have liked to achieve superhuman tasks, to love unknown creatures of rare poetic kind. We felt stirring in us ecstasies, desires, strange aspirations. And we were silent, filled with the serene living coolness of lovely night, with the cool beauty of the moon that seems to run through one’s body, filling it full, flooding the mind, lending it fragrance, drowning it in sweet content.

“All at once Joséphine (she was called Joséphine) uttered a cry:

“ ‘Oh, did you see the great big fish that jumped over there?’

“He answered carelessly, not looking:

“ ‘Yes, darling.’

“She was annoyed:

“ ‘No, you didn’t see it, seeing that you had your back to it.’

“He smiled:

“ ‘Yes, that’s true. It is so lovely that I am not thinking of anything.’

“She was silent; but a moment later she was seized with a desire to talk, and she asked:

“ ‘Shall you go to Paris tomorrow?’

“ ‘I don’t know anything about it,’ he said deliberately.

“She was irritated again:

“ ‘Do you think it’s amusing, walking with nothing to say? People talk, unless they’re idiots.’

“He did not answer. Then, well aware, thanks to her perverse woman’s instinct, that she would exasperate him, she began to sing that maddening air with which our ears and minds have been wearied for the last two years:

Je regardais en l’air.13

“He murmured:

“ ‘Please be quiet.’

“ ‘Why do you want me to be quiet?’ she demanded furiously.

“ ‘You’re spoiling the landscape,’ he answered.

“Then the scene began, the ugly idiotic scene, with its baseless reproaches, its misplaced recriminations, then tears. It came and went. They returned home. He had let her run on without replying to her, lulled by the beauty of the evening and stunned by her insane outburst.

“Three months later, he was struggling desperately in the strong unseen bonds which these affairs twist round our lives. She held him, exhausted him, tormented him. They quarrelled, insulted each other, and fought from morning until night.

“Finally, he decided to end it, to break with her at all costs. He sold all his canvases, borrowed some money from friends, realised twenty thousand francs (he was still hardly known) and one morning left them for her on the chimneypiece with a letter.

“He came and took refuge in my house.

“About three o’clock in the afternoon, there was a ring at the door. I went to open it. A woman leapt at me, pushed me aside, entered and penetrated to my studio; it was she.

“He had risen when he saw her enter.

“With a truly magnificent gesture, she threw the envelope containing the banknotes at his feet, and said shortly:

“ ‘There’s your money. I don’t want it.’

“She was very pale, trembling, and certainly ready for any folly. As for him, I saw him turn pale too, turn pale with anger and exasperation, ready, perhaps, for any violence.

“He asked:

“ ‘What is it you want?’

“She answered:

“ ‘I won’t be treated like a harlot. You implored me, you took me. I didn’t ask you for anything. Keep me with you.’

“He stamped his foot.

“ ‘No, this is too much. If you think you’re going to⁠ ⁠…’

“I seized him by the arm.

“ ‘Be quiet, Jean. Leave it to me.’

“I walked up to her, and gently, one step at a time, I tried to make her see reason, emptying out all the bagful of arguments one uses in such circumstances. She listened to me without moving, staring straight in front of her, obstinate.

“Finally, not knowing what else to say, and seeing that the scene could only end badly, I bethought myself of one last resort. I said deliberately:

“ ‘He still loves you, my dear; but his family want him to marry, and you realise⁠ ⁠…’

“She started:

“ ‘Oh⁠ ⁠… oh⁠ ⁠… I understand then⁠ ⁠…’

“She turned towards him:

“ ‘You’re going⁠ ⁠… you’re going⁠ ⁠… to be married?’

“He answered firmly:

“ ‘Yes.’

“She took a step forward:

“ ‘If you marry, I’ll kill myself⁠ ⁠… do you hear?’

“He shrugged his shoulders and said calmly:

“ ‘All right⁠ ⁠… kill yourself!’

“A frightful anguish clutched at her throat but she managed to get out two or three times:

“ ‘What did you say?⁠ ⁠… what did you say?⁠ ⁠… what did you say? Repeat it.’

“He repeated:

“ ‘All right, kill yourself, if it’ll amuse you.’

“She grew terrifyingly pale and replied:

“ ‘You’d better not drive me too far. I’ll throw myself out of the window.’

“He burst out laughing, walked across to the window, opened it, and bowing like a person politely making way for another to go first, said:

“ ‘The way is open. After you!’

“For a moment she stared at him with a wild distorted stare; then, taking off as if she were jumping a hedge in the country, she jumped past me, past him, cleared the railing and disappeared.⁠ ⁠…

“I shall never forget the effect that this open window made on me, after seeing that body leap past it and fall: in one moment it seemed in my sight wide as the sky and empty as space. I recoiled instinctively, not daring to look, as though I should fall myself.

“Jean, stunned, never moved.

“They picked up the poor girl with both legs broken. She will never walk again.

“Her lover, wild with remorse, and feeling perhaps a touch of gratitude, took her back and married her.

“There you are, my dear.”

The evening came. The young woman grew chilly and wished to go. The servant began to wheel the little invalid carriage towards the village. The painter walked beside his wife; they had not exchanged a single word for an hour past.

Practical Jokes

We live in a period when practical jokers have the air of undertakers’ men and are generally known as politicians. We never see them now, your real practical joke, your really splendid rag, your happy little games, the healthy forthright jokes of our fathers’ time. And, however, what is there more amusing and more laughable than such jests? What is more amusing than to mystify credulous souls, dupe the cleverest, and make the sharpest fall into inoffensive and comic traps? What is better fun than making adroit mock of people and forcing them to laugh at their own simplicity or even, when they get angry, revenging oneself by a fresh trick?

Oh! I have played a few; I’ve played some practical jokes in my time. And they have been played on me too, I can tell you, and good ones too. Yes, I have played more than one, terrible affairs⁠—make your hair stand on end. One of my victims died of the consequences, and no loss to anyone. I will tell the story one day, but I shall have some difficulty in telling it decently, for it was by no means a very respectable practical joke⁠—oh, by no means. It happened in a little village in the suburbs of Paris. Everyone there is still laughing at the memory of it, although the victim is dead. Peace to his soul!

I am going to tell of two, the last I suffered, and the first I played.

Let us begin with the last, for it amuses me least, since I was the victim.

I was going to hunt one autumn with some friends in their country-house in Picardy. My friends were practical jokers, you understand. I could not know any other kind of people.

When I arrived they gave me a princely reception, which put me on my guard. They fired off guns, they embraced me, they flattered me as if they expected a good deal from me, and I said to myself: “Look out, old man, they’re preparing something for you.”

During dinner the gaiety was excessive, far too loud. I thought: “These people are abnormally amused without any apparent reason. They must be working up for a joke of some sort. I’m fairly certain I’m the destined victim. Look out.”

Throughout the whole evening the laughter was over-boisterous. I could feel a joke in the air, like a dog scenting game. But what? I was on the lookout, and very uneasy. I did not let a word, or a hint, or a gesture go by me. Everything seemed suspicious, even the faces of the servants.

Bedtime came and they formed up in procession to take me to my room. Why? They cried out: “Good night.” I entered, I locked my door, and stood stock-still in the room without moving a foot, my candle in my hand.

I heard laughing and whispering in the corridor. No doubt they were spying on me. And I looked carefully at the walls, the furniture, the ceiling, the hangings and the floor. I saw nothing suspicious. I heard someone walk on the other side of the door. They must have come to look through the keyhole.

An idea occurred to me: “My light is going to go out suddenly and leave me in the dark.” Then I lit all the candles on the chimney. Then I looked round once again without discovering anything. I went round the room on tiptoe. Nothing. I inspected all the objects one after another. Nothing. I went up to the window. The shutters, great wooden shutters, were wide open. I closed them carefully and then pulled the curtains, enormous velvet curtains, and put a chair before them, in order to have nothing to fear from outside.

Then I sat down carefully. The armchair was all right. I did not dare to go to bed. However, time was getting on. And at last I saw that I was making myself ridiculous. Supposing they were spying on me, as I suspected, they must be laughing heartily at my terror while they waited for the climax of the mystification they had prepared.

So I made up my mind to go to bed. But the bed roused my worst suspicions. I pulled the bed curtains. They seemed stiff. There was the danger! Either I was going to receive a douche of cold water from the top of the bed, or else as soon as I lay down I should fall through on the floor with my mattress. I thought over all the tricks of this kind that had been played, so far as I could remember⁠—and I did not intend to be caught. Not if I knew it! No!

Then I suddenly remembered an infallible precaution. Gently I took hold of the edge of the mattress and pulled it quietly towards me. It came, with its sheets and coverings. I dragged them to the very middle of the room opposite the door. I made my bed again as well as I could, far from the suspected bedstead and its disturbing surroundings. Then I extinguished all the lights and returned, feeling my way, to glide between the sheets.

For over an hour I remained awake, shivering at the least noise. Everything seemed calm in the house. I went to sleep.

I must have slept a long time and deeply, but suddenly I was awakened with a start by a heavy body falling on me, while at the same time a burning liquid that made me howl with pain passed over my face, my neck and my shoulders. And a frightful noise, as if a whole dresser full of crockery had come down, filled my ears.

I was stifling under the weight that had fallen on me, and did not move. I stretched out my hand to see what it was. I felt a face, a nose, whiskers. Then I let out, with all my strength, and hit the face. Immediately such a storm of bows fell on me that I jumped with a bound out of my soaked sheets and fled in my nightshirt into the corridor through the door, which I saw standing open.

Good heavens! it was broad day. Everybody ran out at the noise and they found, stretched across my bed, the dismayed footman, who had been bringing me my morning cup of tea and had stumbled over my rough and ready couch on his way. He had fallen on me, spilling my breakfast in a most uncalled-for fashion over my face.

The very precautions I had taken to close my shutters and sleep in the middle of the bedroom had made me the laughingstock I had dreaded being.

Oh, there was a good deal of laughter that day!

The other joke I want to tell you about dates from my early youth. I was fifteen years old, and I used to spend my holidays with my relations, always in a country-house, always in Picardy.

An old lady from Amiens was in the habit of visiting us. She was unbearable, preaching, grumbling, faultfinding, bad-tempered and vindictive. She disliked me, I don’t know why, and she never gave up telling tales about me, making the worst of my least words or doings. Oh, she was an old beast!

She was called Mme. Dufour, she wore a fine black wig though she was at least sixty, and on it ridiculous little caps with red ribbons. Everybody respected her because she was rich. I hated her from the bottom of my heart, and I resolved to have my revenge for the ill turns she did me.

I had just passed out of the second form, and I had been particularly struck in the chemistry lessons by the properties of a substance called phosphide of lime, which when thrown into water catches fire, explodes, and gives off rings of white smoke with a disagreeable odour. To amuse myself during the holidays, I had helped myself to some handfuls of this substance, which looked very like what we call crystal.

I had a cousin of my own age. I told him my plan. He was frightened by my boldness.

Then, one evening, while all the family were in the drawing room, I stole into Mme. Dufour’s bedroom, and got hold (I hope the ladies will excuse me) of a round receptacle which is generally kept not far from the head of the bed. I made sure that it was perfectly dry and I put at the bottom a handful, a big handful, of phosphide of lime.

Then I went to hide in the garret till the time came. Soon the sound of voices and footsteps told me that people were going to bed; then came silence. I came down barefoot, holding my breath, and I went and put my eye to the keyhole of my enemy’s door.

She was carefully putting away her odds and ends. Then one by one she took off her clothes, putting on a great white dressing-gown that seemed stuck to her bones. She took a glass, filled it with water, and, putting her hand in her mouth as if she was going to pull out her tongue, brought out something red and white that she put in the water. I was as frightened as if I had taken part in some shameful and terrible mystery. It was only her false teeth.

Then she took off her black wig and appeared with a small skull powdered with a few white hairs, so comic that this time I almost laughed behind the door. Then she said her prayers, rose, approached my instrument of vengeance, put it on the floor in the middle of the room, and, stooping down, covered it entirely with her dressing-gown.

I was waiting with a beating heart. She was tranquil, content, happy. I was waiting⁠ ⁠… happy, too, as we are when we are taking vengeance.

I heard at last a very gentle noise, a lapping sound, and then suddenly a series of muffled detonations like distant firing.

An expression of unutterable fright and surprise passed in a flash over Mme. Dufour’s face. Her eyes opened, closed, reopened, then she leaped up with a suppleness of which I would never have believed her capable, and she looked.

The white object was crackling, exploding, full of rapid floating flames like the Greek fire of the ancients. And a thick cloud was rising, mounting towards the ceiling, a mysterious cloud, full of fearsome witchcraft.

What must the poor woman have thought? Did she believe it was a trick of the devil? Or some fearful malady? Did she think that this fire came out of her body, was going to ravage her entrails, overflow like the crater of a volcano, or make her burst like an overloaded cannon?

She remained standing rigid, stupefied with fear, her look fixed on what was happening. Then suddenly she uttered a cry such as I had never heard, and fell on her back.

I ran away and buried myself in my bed, and closed my eyes firmly, trying to prove to myself that I had done nothing, seen nothing, and had never left my bedroom.

I kept on saying to myself: “She is dead! I have killed her!” and I listened anxiously for the noises of the house.

There was much coming and going and talking; then I heard them laughing; then I suffered a sound thrashing from the paternal hand.

Next morning, Mme. Dufour was very pale, and drank water all the time. Perhaps, in spite of what her doctor said, she was trying to extinguish the fire that she believed was enclosed in her inside.

Ever afterwards, when anyone talks of illness before her, she heaves a deep sigh, and murmurs:

“Oh, madame, if you knew! There are diseases so curious⁠ ⁠…”

She never says any more.

The Hand

A circle had been formed round Monsieur Bermutier, examining magistrate, who was giving his opinion on the mysterious Saint Cloud affair. For the past month all Paris had been wildly excited over this inexplicable crime. No one could make head or tail of it.

Monsieur Bermutier was standing with his back to the fireplace and was talking, threading the evidence together, discussing the various theories, but drawing no conclusions.

A number of women had risen to draw near to him, and were still standing up, their eyes fixed on the magistrate’s clean-shaven lips, whence his grave observations issued. They shivered and trembled, their nerves on edge with inquisitive terror, with that greedy and insatiate desire to be terrified which haunts their souls and tortures them like a physical hunger.

One of them, paler than the rest, remarked during an interval of silence:

“It’s horrible. It verges upon the ‘supernatural.’ No one will ever get to the bottom of it.”

The magistrate turned to her.

“Yes, madame,” he said, “probably no one ever will. As for the word ‘supernatural’ which you have just used, it has nothing to do with the case. We are dealing with a crime planned with the greatest skill and executed skilfully, so well entangled in mystery that we cannot unravel it from its attendant circumstances. But once upon a time I myself had to deal with an affair in which an element of fantasy did really appear to be involved. We had to let that one go too, owing to lack of the power to clear it up.”

Several women cried at the same time, so rapidly that their voices sounded as one:

“Oh, do tell us the story!”

Monsieur Bermutier smiled gravely, as an examining magistrate ought to smile.

“But please do not believe,” he resumed, “that I could for one moment imagine that there was anything supernatural about this adventure. I only believe in normal causes. But if, instead of employing the word ‘supernatural’ to express that which we do not understand, we use merely the word ‘inexplicable,’ it will be much more useful. At any rate, in the affair which I am going to relate to you, it is more especially the attendant circumstances, the preliminary circumstances, which appealed to me. Here are the facts of the case:

“In those days I was examining magistrate at Ajaccio, a little white town lying on the shores of a delightful bay entirely surrounded by high mountains.

“The affairs with which I was most particularly concerned in those parts were the affairs of vendetta. There are some magnificent vendettas, as dramatic as they could well be, ferocious, heroic. In this district we come across the finest stories of revenge that you could possibly imagine, hatred centuries old, appeased for a moment, never wiped out, abominable plots, murders become massacres, deeds of which men were ready to boast themselves. For two years I heard tell of nothing but the price of blood, of the terrible Corsican custom which obliges a man to revenge every wrong upon the person who committed it, upon his descendants and those near to him. I have seen old men’s throats cut, and their children’s and their cousins’; my head was filled with these stories.

“Now one day I learnt that an Englishman had just taken, for a number of years, a small villa at the end of the bay. He had brought with him a French manservant whom he had engaged at Marseilles on his way out.

“Soon everybody began to take an interest in this strange person, who lived alone in his house, never going out except to shoot or fish. He spoke to no one, never went into the town, and, every morning, spent an hour or two at pistol and carbine practice.

“Legends grew up about him. People suggested that he was an important personage who had left his native land for political reasons; then it was stated that he was hiding after having committed an abominable crime. They even quoted circumstances of a peculiarly horrible nature.

“I was anxious, in my position as examining magistrate, to get some information about this man; but I found it impossible to discover anything. His name he gave as Sir John Rowell.

“I was content, then, with keeping him under close watch; but in fact I had no cause to believe in any suspicious circumstances connected with him.

“But as the rumours about him continued and grew, and became common property, I resolved to try and see this stranger for myself, and I made a habit of shooting regularly in the neighbourhood of his property. For a long time I waited my chance. At last it presented itself in the form of a partridge which I shot at and killed under the Englishman’s nose. My dog brought it to me, but, taking it with me, I went to make excuses for my discourteous act and to request Sir John Rowell to accept the bird.

“He was a big man with red hair and a red beard, very tall and very stout, a polite and placid Hercules. There was about him no trace of the so-called British stiffness, and he thanked me warmly for my civility in French of which the accent was unmistakably from the other side of the English Channel. At the end of a month we had chatted together five or six times.

“At last one evening, as I was passing his gate, I saw him smoking a pipe, straddling a chair in his garden. I greeted him, and he asked me to come in and drink a glass of beer. I did not oblige him to repeat his invitation.

“He received me with every mark of that meticulous English courtesy, spoke enthusiastically of France and Corsica, declaring that he was delighted with cette pays and cette rivage.

“Thereupon, with the greatest care and under the form of a lively curiosity, I asked him some questions about his life and his plans. He answered without a sign of embarrassment, and told me that he had travelled a great deal in Africa, India, and America. He added with a laugh:

“ ‘Oh, yes, I’ve had plenty of adventures.’

“Then he began to tell me hunting-stories, and gave me most interesting details about hunting hippopotamuses, tigers, and even gorillas.

“ ‘They are all formidable animals,’ I observed.

“ ‘Oh, no,’ he said with a smile, ‘the worst is man.’ And his smile changed to a laugh, the pleasant laughter of a hearty happy Englishman.

“ ‘I’ve hunted man a lot, too.’

“Then he began to speak of weapons, and invited me to come in and be shown his various types of guns.

“His drawing room was hung with black⁠—black silk embroidered with gold. Large yellow flowers twisted upon the dark material, gleaming like flames.

“ ‘It’s a Japanese material,’ he told me.

“But in the centre of the largest panel a strange thing caught my eye. Upon a square of red velvet a black object lay in sharp relief: I went up to it; it was a hand, a man’s hand. Not the hand of a skeleton, white and clean, but a black, dried hand, with yellow nails, the muscles laid bare, and traces of stale blood, like dirt, on the bones that had been cut clean off, as though with a blow from an ax, at the centre of the forearm.

“Round the wrist an enormous iron chain, riveted and welded on this foul limb, fastened it to the wall by a ring strong enough to hold an elephant.

“ ‘What is that?’ I asked.

“ ‘That’s my best enemy,’ answered the Englishman calmly. ‘It came from America. It was cut off with a sabre and the skin torn off with a sharp stone and dried in the sun for eight days. Oh, it was a fortunate thing for me.’

“I touched this human relic, which must have belonged to a colossus. The fingers, excessively long, were attached by enormous muscles which in places still retained shreds of flesh. The hand was frightful to see; flayed in this wise, it instinctively made me think of the revenge of some savage.

“ ‘The man must have been very strong,’ I said.

“ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the Englishman sweetly, ‘but I was stronger than he. I put that chain on to hold him.’

“I thought the man was jesting, and said: ‘The chain is quite useless now; the hand will not escape.’

“Sir John Rowell replied in a grave voice:

“ ‘It was always trying to get away. The chain is necessary.’

“With a swift glance I examined his face, asking myself:

“ ‘Is the man mad, or has he merely a poor taste in jokes?’

“But his face remained impenetrable, placid and kindly. I began to speak of other matters, and expressed my admiration for his guns.

“I noticed, however, that three loaded revolvers were lying about on various pieces of furniture, as though the man lived in constant fear of an attack.

“I revisited him on several occasions. Then I went there no more. People had grown accustomed to his presence. They were all completely indifferent to him.

“A whole year went by. Then one morning near the end of November my servant woke me and announced that Sir John Rowell had been murdered during the night.

“Half an hour later I entered the Englishman’s house with the commissioner-general and the chief of police. The valet, quite desperate and at his wit’s end, was weeping in front of the door. At first I suspected this man, but he was innocent.

“The criminal was never discovered.

“As I entered Sir John’s drawing room, I saw at the first glance the body, lying on its back, in the centre of the room.

“The waistcoat was torn, and a rent sleeve hung down; everything pointed to the fact that a terrible struggle had taken place.

“The Englishman had died of strangulation. His face, black and swollen, a terrifying sight, wore an expression of the most appalling terror; he held something between his clenched teeth; and his neck, pierced with five holes which might have been made with iron spikes, was covered with blood.

“A doctor joined us. He made a long examination of the fingerprints in the flesh and uttered these strange words:

“ ‘It’s just as if he had been strangled by a skeleton.’

“A shiver ran down my spine, and I turned my eyes to the wall, to the spot where I had formerly seen the horrible flayed hand. It was no longer there. The chain, broken, hung down.

“I stooped over the dead man, and I found in his distorted mouth one of the fingers of the vanished hand, cut, or rather sawn, in two by his teeth just at the second joint.

“We proceeded with the formal investigations. Nothing was discovered. No door had been forced, no window, no article of furniture. The two watchdogs had not awakened.

“Here, in a few words, is the servant’s deposition:

“For the past month his master had seemed to be very agitated. He had received many letters, which he burnt as soon as they arrived.

“Often he would take up a horsewhip, in a rage which savoured of madness, and beat furiously the dried hand sealed to the wall and removed, no one knew how, at the very hour of the crime.

“He had a habit of going to bed very late, and carefully locked all the doors and windows. He always had weapons within the reach of his arm. Often, at night, he would speak in a loud voice, as though quarrelling with someone.

“That night it happened that he had made no noise, and it was only when he came to open the windows that the servant had found Sir John murdered. He suspected no one.

“I communicated what I knew of the death to the magistrates and public officials, and a detailed inquiry was made over the entire island. Nothing was discovered.

“Then, one night, three months after the crime, I had a fearful nightmare. It seemed to me that I saw the hand, the horrible hand, run like a scorpion or a spider along my curtains and my walls. Three times I awoke, three times I fell asleep again, three times I saw the hideous relic career round my room, moving its fingers like paws.

“Next day the hand was brought to me; it had been found in the cemetery, on the tomb in which Sir John Rowell was buried, for we had been unable to discover his family.

“The index finger was missing.

“There, ladies, that is my story. I know nothing more.”

The ladies, horror-stricken, were pale and trembling.

“But that is not a dénouement, nor an explanation!” exclaimed one of them. “We shall not sleep if you do not tell us what really happened, in your opinion.”

The magistrate smiled austerely.

“Oh, as for me, ladies,” he said, “I shall certainly spoil your bad dreams! I simply think that the lawful owner of the hand was not dead, and that he came to fetch it with the one that remained to him. But I certainly don’t know how he did it. It was a kind of vendetta.”

“No,” murmured one of the ladies, “that should not be the explanation.”

And the judge, still smiling, concluded:

“I warned you that my theory would not appeal to you.”

Waiter, a Bock

Why did I go into that beer hall on that particular evening? I do not know. It was cold; a fine rain, a flying mist, veiled the gas lamps with a transparent fog, made the sidewalks reflect the light that streamed from the shop windows, lighting up the soft slush and the muddy feet of the passersby.

I was going nowhere in particular; was simply having a short walk after dinner. I had passed the Crédit Lyonnais, the Rue Vivienne, and several other streets. I suddenly perceived a large beer hall which was more than half full. I walked inside, with no object in view. I was not the least thirsty.

I glanced round to find a place that was not too crowded, and went and sat down by the side of a man who seemed to me to be old, and who was smoking a cheap clay pipe, which was as black as coal. From six to eight saucers piled up on the table in front of him indicated the number of bocks he had already absorbed. At a glance I recognized a bock-drinker, one of those frequenters of beer houses who come in the morning when the place opens, and do not leave till evening when it is about to close. He was dirty, bald on top of his head, with a fringe of iron-gray hair falling on the collar of his frock coat. His clothes, which were much too large for him, appeared to have been made for him at a time when he was corpulent. One could guess that he did not wear suspenders, for he could not take ten steps without having to stop to pull up his trousers. Did he wear a waistcoat? The mere thought of his boots and of that which they covered filled me with horror. The frayed cuffs were perfectly black at the edges, as were his nails.

As soon as I had seated myself beside him, this individual said to me in a quiet tone of voice:

“How goes it?”

I turned sharply round and closely scanned his features, whereupon he continued:

“I see you do not recognize me.”

“No, I do not.”

“Des Barrets.”

I was stupefied. It was the Comte Jean des Barrets, my old college chum.

I seized him by the hand, and was so dumbfounded that I could find nothing to say. At length I managed to stammer out:

“And you, how goes it with you?”

He responded placidly:

“I get along as best I can.”

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“You see what I am doing,” he answered quite resignedly.

I felt my face getting red. I insisted:

“But every day?”

“Every day it is the same thing,” was his reply, accompanied with a thick puff of tobacco smoke.

He then tapped with a sou on the top of the marble table, to attract the attention of the waiter, and called out:

“Waiter, two bocks.”

A voice in the distance repeated:

“Two bocks for the fourth table.”

Another voice, more distant still, shouted out:

“Here they are!”

Immediately a man with a white apron appeared, carrying two bocks, which he set down, foaming, on the table, spilling some of the yellow liquid on the sandy floor in his haste.

Des Barrets emptied his glass at a single draught and replaced it on the table, while he sucked in the foam that had been left on his mustache. He next asked:

“What is there new?”

I really had nothing new to tell him. I stammered:

“Nothing, old man. I am a business man.”

In his monotonous tone of voice he said:

“Indeed, does it amuse you?”

“No, but what can I do? One must do something!”

“Why should one?”

“So as to have occupation.”

“What’s the use of an occupation? For my part, I do nothing at all, as you see, never anything. When one has not a sou I can understand why one should work. But when one has enough to live on, what’s the use? What is the good of working? Do you work for yourself, or for others? If you work for yourself, you do it for your own amusement, which is all right; if you work for others, you are a fool.”

Then, laying his pipe on the marble table, he called out anew:

“Waiter, a bock.” And continued: “It makes me thirsty to keep calling so. I am not accustomed to that sort of thing. Yes, yes, I do nothing. I let things slide, and I am growing old. In dying I shall have nothing to regret. My only remembrance will be this beer hall. No wife, no children, no cares, no sorrows, nothing. That is best.”

He then emptied the glass which had been brought him, passed his tongue over his lips, and resumed his pipe.

I looked at him in astonishment, and said:

“But you have not always been like that?”

“Pardon me; ever since I left college.”

“That is not a proper life to lead, my dear fellow; it is simply horrible. Come, you must have something to do, you must love something, you must have friends.”

“No, I get up at noon, I come here, I have my breakfast, I drink my beer, I remain until the evening, I have my dinner, I drink beer. Then about half-past one in the morning, I go home to bed, because the place closes up; that annoys me more than anything. In the last ten years I have passed fully six years on this bench, in my corner; and the other four in my bed, nowhere else. I sometimes chat with the regular customers.”

“But when you came to Paris what did you do at first?”

“I paid my devoirs to the Café de Médicis.”

“What next?”

“Next I crossed the water and came here.”

“Why did you take that trouble?”

“What do you mean? One cannot remain all one’s life in the Latin Quarter. The students make too much noise. Now I shall not move again. Waiter, a bock.”

I began to think that he was making fun of me, and I continued:

“Come now, be frank. You have been the victim of some great sorrow; some disappointment in love, no doubt! It is easy to see that you are a man who has had some trouble. What age are you?”

“I am thirty, but I look forty-five, at least.”

I looked him straight in the face. His wrinkled, ill-shaven face gave one the impression that he was an old man. On the top of his head a few long hairs waved over a skin of doubtful cleanliness. He had enormous eyelashes, a heavy mustache, and a thick beard. Suddenly I had a kind of vision, I know not why, of a basin filled with dirty water in which all that hair had been washed. I said to him:

“You certainly look older than your age. You surely must have experienced some great sorrow.” He replied:

“I tell you that I have not. I am old because I never go out into the air. Nothing makes a man deteriorate more than the life of a café.”

I still could not believe him.

“You must surely also have been married? One could not get as bald-headed as you are without having been in love.”

He shook his head, shaking dandruff down on his coat as he did so.

“No, I have always been virtuous.”

And, raising his eyes toward the chandelier which heated our heads, he said:

“If I am bald, it is the fault of the gas. It destroys the hair. Waiter, a bock. Are you not thirsty?”

“No, thank you. But you really interest me. Since when have you been so morbid? Your life is not normal, it is not natural. There is something beneath it all.”

“Yes, and it dates from my infancy. I received a great shock when I was very young, and that turned my life into darkness which will last to the end.”

“What was it?”

“You wish to know about it? Well, then, listen. You recall, of course, the castle in which I was brought up, for you used to spend five or six months there during vacation. You remember that large gray building, in the middle of a great park, and the long avenues of oaks which opened to the four points of the compass. You remember my father and mother, both of whom were ceremonious, solemn, and severe.

“I worshipped my mother; I was afraid of my father; but I respected both, accustomed always as I was to see everyone bow before them. They were Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse to all the country round, and our neighbours, the Tannemares, the Ravelets, the Brennevilles, showed them the utmost consideration.

“I was then thirteen years old. I was happy, pleased with everything, as one is at that age, full of the joy of life.

“Well, toward the end of September, a few days before returning to college, as I was playing about in the shrubbery of the park, among the branches and leaves, as I was crossing a path, I saw my father and mother walking along.

“I recall it as though it were yesterday. It was a very windy day. The whole line of trees swayed beneath the gusts of wind, groaning, and seeming to utter cries⁠—those dull, deep cries that forests give out during a tempest.

“The falling leaves, turning yellow, flew away like birds, circling and falling, and then running along the path like swift animals.

“Evening came on. It was dark in the thickets. The motion of the wind and of the branches excited me, made me tear about as if I were crazy, and howl in imitation of the wolves.

“As soon as I perceived my parents, I crept furtively toward them, under the branches, in order to surprise them, as though I had been a veritable prowler. But I stopped in fear a few paces from them. My father, who was in a terrible passion, cried:

“ ‘Your mother is a fool; moreover, it is not a question of your mother. It is you. I tell you that I need this money, and I want you to sign this.’

“My mother replied in a firm voice:

“ ‘I will not sign it. It is Jean’s fortune. I shall guard it for him and I will not allow you to squander it with vile women; you have your own inheritance.’

“Then my father, trembling with rage, wheeled round and, seizing his wife by the throat, began to slap her with all his might full in the face with his disengaged hand.

“My mother’s hat fell off, her hair became loosened and fell over her shoulders; she tried to parry the blows, but she could not do so. And my father, like a madman, kept on striking her. My mother rolled over on the ground, covering her face with her hands. Then he turned her over on her back in order to slap her still more, pulling away her hands, which were covering her face.

“As for me, my friend, it seemed as though the world was coming to an end, that the eternal laws had changed. I experienced the overwhelming dread that one has in presence of things supernatural, in presence of irreparable disasters. My childish mind was bewildered, distracted. I began to cry with all my might, without knowing why; a prey to a fearful dread, sorrow, and astonishment. My father heard me, turned round, and, on seeing me, started toward me. I believe that he wanted to kill me, and I fled like a hunted animal, running straight ahead into the thicket.

“I ran perhaps for an hour, perhaps for two. I know not. Darkness set in. I sank on the grass, exhausted, and lay there dismayed, frantic with fear, and devoured by a sorrow capable of breaking forever the heart of a poor child. I was cold, hungry, perhaps. At length day broke. I was afraid to get up, to walk, to return home, to run farther, fearing to encounter my father, whom I did not wish to see again.

“I should probably have died of misery and of hunger at the foot of a tree if the park guard had not discovered me and led me home by force.

“I found my parents looking as usual. My mother alone spoke to me:

“ ‘How you frightened me, you naughty boy. I lay awake the whole night.’

“I did not answer, but began to weep. My father did not utter a single word.

“Eight days later I returned to school.

“Well, my friend, it was all over with me. I had witnessed the other side of things, the bad side. I have not been able to perceive the good side since that day. What has taken place in my mind, what strange phenomenon has warped my ideas, I do not know. But I no longer had a taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire for anything whatever, any ambition, or any hope. And I always see my poor mother on the ground, in the park, my father beating her. My mother died some years later; my father still lives. I have not seen him since. Waiter, a bock.”

A waiter brought him his bock, which he swallowed at a gulp. But, in taking up his pipe again, trembling as he was, he broke it. “Confound it!” he said, with a gesture of annoyance. “That is a real sorrow. It will take me a month to colour another!”

And he called out across the vast hall, now reeking with smoke and full of men drinking, his everlasting: “Waiter, a bock⁠—and a new pipe.”

The Old Man

The warm autumn sunlight fell across the farmyard through the tall beeches at the roadside. Under the turf cropped by the cows, the earth was soft and moist with recent rain, and sank underfoot with a sound of sucked-in water; the apple trees laden with apples strewed the dark-green herbage with pale-green fruit.

Four young heifers were grazing, tethered in a line; from time to time they lowed towards the house; cocks and hens lent colour and movement to the dungheap in front of the cowshed, running round, cackling noisily, scratching in the dust, while the two cocks crowed without ceasing, looking for worms for their hens, and calling to them with lively clucks.

The wooden gate opened; a man came in, aged perhaps forty, but looking sixty, wrinkled and bent, walking with long strides, weighed down by heavy sabots filled with straw. Arms of abnormal length hung down by the side of his body. As he drew near the farmhouse, a yellow cur, tied to the foot of an enormous pear-tree, beside a barrel which served as his kennel, wagged his tail, and began to bark joyously.

“Down, Finot!” cried the man.

The dog was silent.

A peasant woman came out of the house. Her broad, flat, bony body was plainly visible through a tight-fitting woollen jersey. A grey skirt, too short, reached halfway down her legs, which were hidden in blue stockings; she too wore sabots filled with straw. A yellowing white bonnet covered the sparse hair that clung round her skull, and her face, brown, thin, ugly, toothless, bore the savage and brutalised expression found often in the faces of peasants.

“How is he?” asked the man.

“Parson says it’s the end,” replied the woman; “he won’t last through the night.”

The two of them went into the house.

After passing through the kitchen, they entered a low, dark room, faintly lit by a window, in front of which hung a rag of Norman chintz. Huge beams in the ceiling, brown with age, dark and smoke-begrimed, ran across the room from one side to the other, carrying the light floor of the loft, where crowds of rats ran about both by day and by night.

The earthen floor, damp and uneven, had a greasy look; at the far end of the room the bed was a dim white patch. A hoarse regular sound, a harsh, rattling, and whistling sound, with a gurgling note like that made by a broken pump, came from the darkened couch, where an old man lay dying, the woman’s father.

The man and the woman came up and stared at the dying man with their calm, patient eyes.

“This time, it’s the end,” said the son-in-law; “he won’t even last till nightfall.”

“He’s been gurgling like that since midday,” answered his wife.

Then they were silent. Her father’s eyes were closed, his face was the colour of earth, so dry that it looked as though carved of wood. Between his half-open lips issued a laboured, clamorous breathing, and at every breath the grey calico sheet over his chest heaved and fell.

After a long silence the son-in-law declared:

“There’s nothing to do but leave him to snuff out. There’s nothing we can do. But it’s annoying all the same, because of the colzas; now the weather’s good, I’ll have to transplant them to morrow.”

His wife seemed uneasy at this idea. She pondered for some moments, then said:

“Seeing that he’s going to die, we won’t bury him before Saturday; that will leave you tomorrow for the colza.”

The peasant meditated.

“Yes,” he said, “but then tomorrow I’ll have to bid the guests for the funeral; it’ll take me a good five or six hours to go and see everyone from Tourville to Manetot.”

The woman, after pondering for two or three minutes, declared:

“It’s barely three, so you could start going round tonight and go all over Tourville way. You may as well say he’s dead, seeing that he can’t last through the afternoon.”

For a few moments the man remained in doubt, pondering over the consequences and the advantages of the idea.

“Very well, I’ll go,” he said at last.

He made as though to go out, then came back, and said, after a brief hesitation:

“Seeing that you’ve no work on hand, shake down some cooking-apples, and then you might make four dozen dumplings for the people that will be coming to the funeral; they’ll want cheering up. Light the range with the faggot under the shed by the winepress. It’s dry.”

He left the room, went back into the kitchen, opened the cupboard, took out a six-pound loaf, carefully cut off a slice, gathered the crumbs fallen on to the shelf in the hollow of his hand, and crammed them into his mouth, in order to waste nothing. Then on the tip of his knife he picked up a bit of salt butter from the bottom of a brown earthenware pot and spread it on his bread, which he began to eat slowly, as he did everything.

He went back across the yard, quieted the dog, who began to bark again, went out on to the road which ran alongside his ditch, and departed in the direction of Tourville.

Left alone, the woman set about her task. She took the lid off the flour bin and prepared the paste for the dumplings. For a long time she worked it, turning it over and over, kneading it, squeezing it, and beating it. Then she made a large ball of it, yellowish white in colour, and left it on the corner of the table.

Then she went to get the apples, and, to avoid injuring the tree with a stick, she climbed into it with the aid of a stool. She chose the fruit with care, taking only the ripest, and heaped them in her apron.

A voice called from the road:

“Hey there! Madame Chicot!”

She turned round. It was a neighbour, Master Osime Favet, the mayor, on his way to manure his fields, seated on the manure cart, with his legs dangling over the side. She turned round and replied:

“What can I do for you, Master Osime?”

“How’s your father getting on?”

“He’s practically gone,” she shouted. “The funeral’s on Saturday at seven, seeing as we’re in a hurry to do the colza.”

“Right,” replied the neighbour. “Good luck to you! Are you well?”

“Thank you, yes,” she replied to his polite inquiry. “And you too?”

Then she went on picking her apples.

As soon as she came in, she went to her father, expecting to find him dead. But from the door she could hear his noisy, monotonous death-rattle, and to save time decided that it was useless to go to his bedside. She began to make the dumplings.

She wrapped the apples, one by one, in a thin leaf of paste, then lined them up along the edge of the table. When she had made forty-eight, arranged in dozens one in front of the other, she began to think of getting supper ready, and hung her pot over the fire, to cook the potatoes; for she had reflected that it was useless to light the range that day, having still the whole of the next day in which to complete her preparations for the funeral.

Her husband returned about five o’clock. As soon as he had crossed the threshold he inquired:

“Is it over yet?”

“Not yet,” she replied. “The gurgling’s still going on.”

They went to the bed. The old man was in exactly the same condition. His raucous breathing, regular as the working of a clock, had become neither quicker nor slower. It came from second to second, with slight variations in the pitch, determined by the passage of the air as it entered and left his chest.

His son-in-law stared at him, then said:

“He’ll go out when we’re not thinking of it, like a candle.”

They went back to the kitchen, and began their supper in silence. When they had swallowed the soup, they ate a slice of bread and butter as well; then, as soon as the plates were washed, they went back to the dying man’s room.

The woman, holding a small lamp with a smoky wick, passed it in front of her father’s face. If he had not been breathing he would certainly have been taken for dead.

The bed belonging to the two peasants was hidden at the other end of the room, in a sort of recess. They got into bed without speaking a word, extinguished the light, and closed their eyes; soon two uneven snores, one deep, the other shriller, accompanied the uninterrupted rattle of the dying man.

The rats ran to and fro in the loft.

The husband awoke with the first pale glimmer of dawn. His father-in-law was still alive. He shook his wife, uneasy at the old man’s resistance.

“I say, Phémie, he won’t finish it off. What would you do about it?”

He knew her to be of good counsel.

“He won’t get through the day, for certain,” she replied. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. And then the mayor won’t stand in the way of the burial tomorrow just the same, seeing what he did for old Father Rénard, who died just at sowing-time.”

He was convinced by the voice of reason, and went off to the fields.

His wife cooked the dumplings, and then finished all the work of the farmhouse.

At midday, the old man was not dead. The day-labourers hired for the transplanting of the colza came in a group to look at the aged man who was so reluctant to take his leave. Each said his say, then went off again to the fields.

At six, when they returned from work, her father was still breathing. His son-in-law at last became alarmed.

“What’s to do now, Phémie?”

She had no more idea than he what was best to do. They went to find the mayor. He promised that he would shut his eyes and authorise the burial on the next day. The officer of health, whom they went to see, also undertook, as a favour to Master Chicot, to antedate the death certificate. The man and the woman went home reassured.

They went to bed and slept as on the night before, mingling their sonorous breathing with the fainter breathing of the old man.

When they awoke, he was not dead.

At that they were overwhelmed. They remained standing at the father’s bedside, looking at him with distrust, as though he had meant to play a shabby trick on them, to deceive and annoy them for his own amusement; above all, they grudged him the time he was making them waste.

“What are we to do?” asked the son-in-law.

She had no idea, and answered:

“It’s vexing, it is.”

They could not now put off the guests, who would be arriving at any moment. They decided to wait for them and explain the situation.

About ten to seven the first guests appeared. The women dressed in black, their heads wrapped in large veils, came in with a melancholy air. The men, ill at ease in their cloth coats, advanced more slowly, two and two, talking business.

Maître Chicot and his wife, dismayed, received them with distressed explanations; as they accosted the first group of guests, both of them burst into sudden premeditated and simultaneous sobs. They explained their story, recounted their embarrassment, offered chairs, ran to and fro, made excuses, tried to prove that anybody would have acted in the same way, talking incessantly, suddenly became so talkative that they gave no one a chance to reply.

They went from one to the next.

“We’d never ha’ thought it; it’s not to be believed he could ha’ lasted like this!”

The bewildered guests, a little disappointed, like people who have been robbed of a long-expected ceremony, did not know what to do, and remained seated or standing. Some were anxious to go. Maître Chicot restrained them.

“We’ll break a bit of food together all the same. We’ve made some dumplings; better make the best of the chance.”

Faces brightened at the thought. The guests began to talk in low voices. Gradually the yard filled; the first comers were telling the news to the new arrivals. They whispered together; everyone was cheered at the thought of the dumplings.

The women went in to see the dying man. They crossed themselves at the bedside, stammered a prayer, and came out again. The men, less eager for the spectacle, threw a single glance through the window, which had been set ajar.

Madame Chicot recounted the death agony.

“For two days now he’s been like that, neither more nor less, neither higher nor lower. Isn’t it just like a pump run dry?”

When everybody had seen the dying man, their thoughts were turned towards the collation; but as the guests were too numerous for the kitchen to hold, the table was carried out in front of the door. The four dozen dumplings, golden and appetising, attracted all eyes, set out in two large dishes. Everyone reached forward to take one, fearing that there were not enough. But four were left over.

Maître Chicot, his mouth full, declared:

“If the old man could see us, it’ud be a rare grief to him; he was rare and fond of them in his time.”

“He’ll never eat any more now,” said a fat, jovial peasant. “We all come to it in the end.”

This reflection, far from saddening the guests, appeared to cheer them up. At the moment it had come to them to eat the dumplings.

Madame Chicot, heartbroken at the expense, ran ceaselessly to and from the cellar to fetch cider. The jugs came up and were emptied one after another. Everyone was laughing now, talking loudly, beginning to shout, as people will shout at meals.

Suddenly an old peasant woman, who had remained near the dying man, held there by a greedy terror of the thing which was so soon to come to her, appeared at the window and shouted in a shrill voice:

“He’s gone! He’s gone!”

Everyone was silent. The women rose quickly, to go and see.

He really was dead. The rattle had ceased. The men looked at one another with downcast eyes. The old blackguard had chosen his time ill.

The Chicots were no longer crying. It was all over; they were calm. They kept on saying:

“We knew it couldn’t last. If only he could have made up his mind last night, we shouldn’t have had all this bother.”

Never mind, it was all over. They would bury him on Monday, that was all, and would eat more dumplings for the occasion.

The guests departed, talking of the affair, pleased all the same at having seen it, and also at having had a bite to eat.

And when the man and his wife were by themselves, face to face, she said, with her face contracted with anguish:

“All the same, I shall have to make four dozen more dumplings. If only he could have made up his mind last night!”

And her husband, more resigned, replied:

“You won’t have to do it every day.”

Letter Found on a Drowned Man

You ask me whether I am making fun of you, Madame? You cannot believe that a man has never been in love? All I can say is that I have never loved anyone!

How did that happen? I really don’t know. I have never known that intoxication which is called love. I have never known that particular dream, that state of exaltation, of folly, which the thought of some one woman can produce. I have never been pursued, haunted, thrown into a fever or entranced by the thought of meeting, or by the possession of, a being who suddenly seemed more desirable than all other happiness, more beautiful than any other creature, or more important than the whole world. Not one of you has ever made me shed tears or caused me a moment’s pain. I have never spent long nights, wide-awake, thinking of her. Awakenings radiant with the thought, the memory of her, are unknown to me. I know nothing of the maddening folly of hope when waiting for her arrival, the divine melancholy of regret after she has vanished leaving behind a faint scent of violets mingled with the odour of her skin.

I have never loved.

I have also often asked myself why. I must confess I hardly know. It is true that I have found reasons but, as they touch on metaphysics, you would probably not appreciate them.

I am afraid I am too critical of women to be entirely dominated by their charm. You must excuse this remark. I will explain what I mean. Every human being is composed of a moral and a physical nature; I would have to meet someone in whom the two natures were completely harmonious before I could fall in love. So far as I have seen, the one invariably outweighs the other, sometimes the moral predominates, sometimes the physical.

The intelligence which we have a right to demand from a woman when we love her has nothing of man’s intelligence. It is greater and it is less. A woman should have an open mind, she should be tactful, tenderhearted, refined, and sensitive. She need not be strong-minded or original, but she must be amiable, elegant, kind, coaxing, and possess that faculty of assimilation which will make her like her life’s partner within a short time. Tact must be her greatest quality: that subtle sense which is to the mind what touch is to the body, which reveals a thousand and one little things to her: the contours, angles and shapes of the intellectual world. The intelligence of the greater number of pretty women does not correspond with their physical charms, and the slightest lack of harmony in this connection strikes me at once. In friendship this is of no importance, for friendship is a compact in which defects and merits are both recognised. Friends may be criticised, their good qualities taken into consideration, their faults passed over, they may be estimated at their real value and still be the objects of a deep and beautiful feeling, full of intimacy.

In love one must be blind, give up one’s self entirely; neither see, think, nor understand. You must worship the weakness as well as the beauty of the loved one, renounce all judgment, all reflection, all perspicacity. I am incapable of this blindness and rebel against such unreasoning bondage.

That’s not all. I have such a high and subtle idea of harmony that nothing can ever realise my ideal. You will call me mad! Listen. A woman, in my opinion, may have an exquisite soul and a delightful body, and still the body and soul may not be in perfect tune.

What I mean is that people whose noses are a certain shape have no right to think in a certain way. The fat have no right to use the same words and phrases as the thin. You, Madame, with your blue eyes, cannot look at life, and judge of things and events as if they were black. The colour of your eyes must inevitably correspond with the colour of your thoughts. I have the scent of a hound for this sort of thing. You may laugh, but it’s true.

And yet, once, for an hour, for a day, I thought I was in love. Foolishly I had submitted to the influence of propinquity, I allowed myself to be beguiled by the hallucination of a dawn. Shall I tell you about it?

One evening I met a pretty little woman, very emotional, who, driven by a caprice, wanted to spend a night with me in a boat on the river. I would have preferred a room and a bed; however, I consented to the river and the boat.

It was in June. My friend chose a moonlight night so that she might work herself up thoroughly. We had dined at a riverside inn and started off at about ten o’clock. I thought it rather a stupid thing to do, but did not worry much, since my companion was very attractive. I sat down, seized the oars, and off we went. The scene was certainly picturesque. We glided past a wooded isle full of nightingales, the current carrying us swiftly over the water covered with rippling silver. The toads uttered thin clear and monotonous cries; the frogs croaked in the grass by the river’s bank, and the lapping of the water made a confused, muffled murmur, very disquieting and producing a vague sensation of mysterious dread upon us.

Our spirits were stirred by the sweet charm of the warm night and of the river glittering in the moonlight. It was good to be alive, to float idly on the water, to dream and to feel a young loving woman was by my side.

I was slightly agitated, slightly troubled, slightly intoxicated, by the pale brightness of the night and the presence of my companion.

“Come and sit beside me,” she said. I obeyed and she continued: “Recite some poetry to me.”

I did think that was too much of a joke: I refused: she insisted. She was determined to have a full dress performance, with the whole gamut of sentiment, ranging from the moon to the rhymed couplet. In the end I had to yield and mockingly recited a charming little poem by Louis Bouilhet of which the following are the last stanzas:

Je déteste surtout ce barde à l’oeil humide
Qui regarde une étoile en murmurant un nom
Et pour qui la nature immense serait vide
S’il ne portait en croupe ou Lisette ou Ninon

Ces gens-là sont charmants qui se donnent la peine
Afin qu’on s’interésse à ce pauvre univers,
D’attacher des jupons aux arbres de la plaine
Et la cornette blanche au front des coteaux verts

Certe ils n’ont pas compris les musiques divines,
Eternelle nature aux frémissantes voix,
Ceux qui ne vont pas seuls par les creuses ravines
Et rêvent d’une femme au bruit que font les bois.14

I expected to be reproached: nothing of the sort. She murmured: “How true.” I was astonished: could she have understood!

Our boat had gradually reached the bank and become entangled with a willow which stopped it dead. I put my arm round my companion’s waist and very gently approached my lips to her neck. But I was repulsed with an abrupt, angry movement. “That’s enough! How crude you are.” I tried to draw her to me. She resisted, caught hold of the tree, and nearly flung us both into the water. I thought it prudent to give up the pursuit. She said: “I would rather give you a ducking. I am so happy! I am in a dream. It is so delightful.” And she added with a touch of malice: “Have you already forgotten the lines you have just been reciting?”

She was right. I held my tongue.

She continued: “Now then, row,” and I seized the oars again.

I was beginning to find the night very long and my position ridiculous.

My companion said: “Will you promise me something?”

“Yes, what?”

“To keep quite quiet, to behave yourself properly, and to be discreet if I allow you⁠ ⁠…”

“What? Tell me.”

“This. I want to lie flat on my back in the bottom of the boat, by your side, and look at the stars.”

I said quickly: “I am all for that.”

She exclaimed: “You don’t understand. We are going to lie side by side, but I forbid you to touch me, to kiss me, or to fondle me.”

I promised. She added:

“If you move, I’ll capsize the boat.”

We lay down side by side, our eyes turned toward the sky while the boat floated along. We were rocked by the gentle motion of the water, and the faint sounds peculiar to night that could be heard more distinctly lying in the bottom of the boat, sometimes made us start. I felt a strange and poignant emotion welling up within me, an infinite gentleness like an irresistible impulse stretch out my arms in an embrace, to take someone to my heart, to give myself, my thoughts, my body, my life, my whole being to someone.

My companion murmured as if in a dream: “Where are we? Where are we going? I feel that I am in heaven. How beautiful! Oh! if you only loved me⁠ ⁠… a little!!!”

My heart began to throb. I was incapable of saying a word: I felt that I loved her. All urgent desire had fled from me, I felt quite happy by her side, and wanted nothing more.

For a very long time we never stirred. We held each other’s hands; we were in the grip of an enchantment that held us motionless: an unsuspected superior force, a chaste, intimate and absolute alliance of our two beings side by side, belonging to each other without contact! What was it? How can I know? Perhaps it was love?

The day began to break. It was three o’clock in the morning and very slowly a great brightness spread over the sky. I started up when the boat bumped against something, and found we had run into a little island. I was in ecstasies at the sight I saw, the heavens stretched above us were a mixture of red, rose and violet, and dappled with fiery clouds like golden vapour. The river was glowing with purple, three houses set on a hill seemed to be on fire.

I leaned over my companion to say: “Do look,” but remained silent with awe, I could see nothing but her. For she, too, was rosy, with exquisite rosy flesh tints which must have been partly a reflection from the sky. Her hair was rosy, so were her eyes, her teeth, her dress, her lace, her smile; she was rosy from head to foot, and I really believed that I beheld the dawn, so completely was I the victim of an hallucination.

She rose softly to her feet, holding up her lips to me. I approached her trembling, delirious, feeling convinced that I was going to kiss heaven, happiness, a dream become woman, the ideal in human form.

She said to me: “You’ve got a caterpillar in your hair!”

And that was why she was smiling! It was like receiving a nasty blow on the head, and I suddenly felt as sad as if I had lost all hope in life.

That’s all, Madame. It is childish, silly, stupid. But ever since then I am sure that I’ll never fall in love.

Still⁠ ⁠… you never can tell.

This letter was found upon a young man taken out of the Seine between Bougival and Marly, yesterday. It was brought along by an obliging bargee who had searched his pockets to find out who he was.

The Christening

In front of the farm-gates the men were waiting in their Sunday clothes. The May sun shed its burning light on the flowering apple trees which roofed the whole farmyard with blossom in great round fragrant bunches of pink and white. Petals fell round them in a ceaseless shower, fluttering and eddying into the tall grass, where the dandelions glittered like flames and the poppies were splashed in drops of blood.

A sow slumbered on the side of the manure-heap, and a band of little pigs with twisted, cord-like tails ran round her huge belly and swollen dugs.

Far away, through the trees behind the farmhouse, the church-bell suddenly rang out. Its iron voice sent up a faint and distant cry to the radiant heavens. Swallows darted arrow-like across the blue spaces bounded by the still shafts of tall beeches. A faint smell of stables mingled with the soft sweet fragrance of the apple trees.

One of the men standing by the gate turned towards the house and cried:

“Coom quick, Mélina; t’bell’s ringin’.”

He was about thirty years of age, a tall young peasant, as yet not bowed or deformed by long labour in the fields. His old father, gnarled like the trunk of an oak, with scarred wrists and crooked legs, announced: “Women, they bean’t never ready first.”

The two other sons laughed, and one, turning to the eldest brother, who had shouted first, said: “Go fetch ’em, Polyte. They’ll not be here before noon, I’m thinkin’.”

The young man entered the house.

A flock of ducks near at hand began to quack and flap their wings, and waddled off down to the pond.

Then at the open door appeared a stout woman carrying a two-months-old child. The white strings of her high bonnet hung down her back, streaming over a shawl as violently scarlet as a house on fire. The child, wrapped in white garments, rested against the nurse’s protruding stomach.

Next came the mother, a tall strong girl barely eighteen, fair and smiling, holding her husband’s arm. The two grandmothers followed, wrinkled like old apples, weariness apparent in their bowed backs, long since bent by rough and patient toil. One was a widow; she took the arm of the grandfather waiting at the gate, and they left at the head of the procession, just behind the child and the midwife. The rest of the family followed, the younger ones carrying paper bags full of sweets.

The little bell rang ceaselessly, calling with all its strength to the tiny mite it awaited. Children clambered on the dikes; heads appeared at gateways; milkmaids set down their pails and stood between them to watch the christening go by.

And the nurse moved on triumphantly with her living burden, stepping between puddles on the road which ran between the tree-crowned banks. And the old people advanced with ceremonious steps, walking a little crookedly, because of their age and infirmity. And the young folk were eager to dance, and looked at the girls who came to see them go by; and the father and mother walked with graver mien, following the child who would take their place and carry on their name in the country, the honoured name of Dentu.

They emerged on the plain and struck across the fields, avoiding the long roundabout road. Now the church came into view, with its pointed steeple. Just below the slate roof was an aperture, within which something swung swiftly backwards and forwards, passing and repassing behind the narrow window. It was the bell, still ringing, calling the newborn child to come for the first time to the house of God.

A dog had begun to follow the procession; they threw sweets to it, and it frisked round their feet.

The church-door was open. By the altar stood the priest, a tall fellow, slim and strong, with red hair. He too was a Dentu, the child’s uncle, another brother of the father. And he duly bestowed the name of Prosper-César upon his nephew, who began to cry when he tasted the symbolic salt.

When the ceremony was over, the family waited on the steps while the priest took off his surplice; then they started off once more. They went fast now, for there was the prospect of dinner before them. A crowd of urchins followed, and whenever a handful of sweets was thrown to them they struggled furiously; they fought hand to hand and pulled one another’s hair; even the dog dashed into the fight for the sweets, more stubborn than the children who tugged at his tail and ears and paws.

The nurse was tired; she turned to the priest walking beside her, and said: “How’d it be, sir, if you was to carry your nevvy for a stretch? Ah’m that cramped in the belly, ah’d like a bit of a rest, like.”

The priest took the child in his arms, the white clothes making a broad white stripe over the black cassock. He was embarrassed by the little burden, not knowing how to carry it or set it down. Everyone laughed, and one of the grandmothers shouted: “Aren’t ye ever sorry, passon, that ye’ll never have one of your own?”

The priest made no answer. He went forward with long strides, gazing intently at the blue-eyed baby, longing to kiss the rounded cheeks. He could no longer restrain the impulse; raising the child to his face, he gave it a long kiss.

The father shouted: “Hey there, passon, if ye’d like one, ye’ve only to say so.”

They began to jest, after the fashion of peasants.

As soon as they were seated at table, the rough peasant merriment broke out like a tempest. The two other sons were also to marry soon; their sweethearts were present, invited just for the meal; the guests perpetually alluded to the future generations foreshadowed by these unions.

Their words were coarse and pungent; the blushing girls giggled, the men guffawed. They shouted and beat upon the table with their fists. The father and grandfather were not behindhand with scandalous suggestions. The mother smiled; the old women took their share in the fun and thrust in obscene remarks.

The priest, inured to these rustic orgies, sat quietly beside the nurse, tickling his nephew’s little mouth. He seemed surprised at the child’s appearance, as though he had never noticed it. He contemplated it with deliberate intentness, with dreamy gravity, and a tenderness arose in his heart, a strange, unknown tenderness, sharp and a little melancholy, for the frail little creature that was his brother’s son.

He heard nothing, saw nothing, but stared at the child. He wanted to take him once more upon his knees, for still in his breast and in his heart he retained the soft pressure of the infant’s body, as when he carried him back from the church.

He was touched by that scrap of humanity as by an ineffable mystery of which he had never before thought, a mystery sacred and august, a new spirit made flesh, the great mystery of newborn life, of wakening love, of the undying race of humanity going on forever and ever.

The nurse was eating; her eyes shone in her red face. She was worried by the child, who prevented her from getting comfortably near the table.

“Give him to me,” said the priest; “I’m not hungry.” And he took the child. Then everything around him faded and disappeared; his eyes were fixed on the chubby pink face. Little by little the warmth of the tiny body penetrated through the shawls and the cassock to his legs, like a caress, so light, so good, so pure, so sweet, that his eyes filled with tears.

The noise of the revellers became terrific. The child, disturbed by the uproar, began to cry.

A voice sang out: “Hey there, passon, feed your baby.”

And a burst of laughter shook the room. But the mother had risen; she took her son and carried him into the next room. She came back a few minutes later announcing that he was fast asleep in his cradle.

The meal went on. From time to time men and women went out into the yard, then returned and sat down again. The meat, the vegetables, the cider, and the wine coursed down their throats, swelled their bellies, excited their spirits.

Night was falling when the coffee came in.

Long before then the priest had vanished, his absence arousing no surprise.

At last the young mother rose to see if the child were still asleep. It was dark now. She entered the room on tiptoe, and advanced with arms outstretched, so as not to knock against the furniture. But a strange noise made her stop, and she hurried out again in a fright, sure that she had heard someone move. Pale and trembling, she regained the dining room and told her story. The men rose noisily, drunk and angry, and the father, a lamp in his hand, rushed out.

The priest was on his knees beside the cradle, sobbing. His forehead rested on the pillow, beside the child’s head.

Coco

Throughout the neighbourhood the Lucases’ farm was known as the “Métairie,” no one could say why. The peasants no doubt connected this word “Métairie” with an idea of wealth and size, for the farm was certainly the largest, most prosperous, and best-managed in the district.

The yard was very large, and was encircled by five rows of magnificent trees, planted to shelter the short delicate apple trees from the strong wind of the plain. It contained long tile-roofed buildings in which the hay and grain were stored, fine cowsheds built of flints, stabling for thirty horses, and a dwelling-house of red brick, that looked like a small country-seat.

The manure heaps were well kept; the watchdogs lived in kennels, a crowd of chickens ran to and fro in the high grass.

Every day at noon fifteen persons, master, men, and maids, took their places at the long kitchen table on which the soup steamed in a great delf bowl with a pattern of blue flowers.

The animals, horses, cows, pigs, and sheep, were fat, clean, and well kept; and Lucas, a tall man beginning to acquire a paunch, made his rounds three times a day, watching over all and taking thought for all.

At the far end of the stable they kept, out of charity, a very old white horse that the mistress was anxious to have cared for until it died a natural death, because she had raised and always kept it, and because it stirred memories in her heart.

This old pensioner was looked after by a batman in the person of a fifteen-year-old lad named Isidore Duval, called Zidore for short, who, during the winter, gave him his ration of oats and his straw and, in the summer, was obliged to go four times a day and change the position where he was tied up, so that he might have plenty of fresh grass.

The animal, almost crippled, could hardly lift its heavy legs, thick at the knee and swollen above the hoofs. Its coat, which was no longer groomed, looked like white hair, and its long eyelashes gave its eyes a melancholy air.

When Zidore took it out to grass, he had to tug at the halter, so slowly did the animal walk; and the boy, stooping, panting, swore at it, exasperated at having the ancient nag to look after.

The farmhands, noticing the boy’s anger towards Coco, laughed at it; they were always talking to Zidore about the horse, just to exasperate the lad. His friends chaffed him. In the village he was called Coco-Zidore.

The boy was furious, and felt growing in himself a desire to be revenged on the horse. He was a thin child, long in the leg, very dirty, and with a mop of red, thick, coarse, bristling hair. He seemed stupid, spoke with a stammer, and with infinite labour, as though ideas were born with difficulty into his dull, brutish soul.

For a long time he felt surprised at the keeping of Coco, angry at seeing good stuff wasted on a useless beast. From the moment that it ceased working, it seemed to him wrong to feed it, revolting to waste good oats, so expensive as oats were, on this paralysed jade. Often, in spite of the orders of Farmer Lucas, he economised on the horse’s food, supplying it with no more than half its ration, keeping back litter and hay. The hatred in his confused primitive mind grew sharper, the hatred of a grasping peasant, cunning, ferocious, brutal, and cowardly.

When summer came round again, he had to go and move the beast from place to place on its sloping meadow. It was a long way from the farm. More furious each morning, the lad plodded off across the cornfields. The men working in the fields shouted to him in jest:

“Hey! Zidore! Give my kind regards to Coco.”

He never answered, but on the way he would break off a stick from a hedge, and as soon as he had tethered the old horse in a new place, he would allow it to resume its grazing and then, coming up treacherously, begin to thwack its hocks. The animal would try to escape, to rush away, to avoid the blows, and ran round at the end of its halter as though it were in a circus ring. The boy beat it savagely, running relentlessly after it, his teeth shut hard in anger.

Then he would go slowly away, without looking back, while the horse watched him go with its old eyes, its ribs projecting, and quite out of breath after so much trotting, and it would not lower its bony white head again until it had seen the young peasant’s blue blouse vanish in the distance.

As the nights were warm, Coco was now left to sleep out of doors, away at the edge of the valley, beyond the wood. Zidore alone went to see the animal.

The boy had a further habit of amusing himself by throwing stones at it. He would sit down ten paces away on a bank and stay there for half an hour, from time to time flinging a jagged pebble at the old nag, which remained standing, chained up in front of its enemy and looking steadily at him, not daring to crop the grass until he was gone.

But one thought remained firmly planted in the lad’s mind: Why feed this horse which did no work? It seemed to him as if this wretched jade were stealing another’s victuals, the possessions of mankind, the property of the good God, were stealing even from himself, Zidore, who had to work for his food.

Little by little, every day, the boy lessened the circle of pasture which he gave it by moving the stake to which its halter was fixed.

The animal went without food, grew thin, pined away. Too weak to break the cord, it stretched out its head towards the broad expanse of green, shining grass so near at hand; the smell of it reached its nostrils but it could not touch it.

Then one morning Zidore had an idea: he decided not to go on moving Coco. He had had enough of walking so far for the sake of this miserable carcass.

But he came all the same, to enjoy his revenge. The anxious beast stared at him. He did not beat it that day. He walked round it, his hands in his pockets. He even pretended to change its position, but thrust the stake back into the same hole, and went away, delighted with his invention.

The horse, seeing him go, neighed to remind him; but the lad began to run, leaving it all alone in the valley, well tied up, and without a blade of grass within range of its jaws.

Famished, it tried to reach the thick verdure that it could touch with the tip of its nostrils. It went down on its knees, stretching its neck, thrusting forward its slobbering lips. All in vain. Throughout the day, the old beast wore itself out with useless, terrible struggles. Hunger ravaged it, a hunger rendered more frightful by the sight of all that good green food stretched out on every side.

The boy did not return that day. He roamed about the woods after birds’ nests.

He reappeared the next day. Coco was lying down, exhausted. It rose at the sight of the boy, expecting that at last its position would be changed.

But the young peasant did not even touch the mallet lying in the ground. He came up, stared at the animal, flung a clod of earth at its muzzle, which splashed the white hair, and went away again, whistling.

The horse remained standing as long as it could still keep him in sight; then, feeling only too well that its attempts to reach the nearby grass would be useless, lay down once more upon its side and closed its eyes.

Next day Zidore did not come.

When, the following day, he drew near to Coco, who was still lying down, he saw that the horse was dead.

He remained standing, looking at it, pleased with his work, and at the same time surprised that it was already finished. He touched it with his foot, lifted one of its legs and then let it fall back again, sat down on the body and stayed there, his eyes fixed on the grass, without thinking of anything.

He returned to the farm, but did not mention the accident, for he wanted to go on playing truant at the times when he had been accustomed to go and change the horse’s position.

He went to see it the next day. Crows took flight at his approach. Innumerable flies were crawling about the body and buzzing all round it.

On his return he announced the event. The beast was so old that no one was surprised. The master said to two hands:

“Get your spades and dig a hole where it lies.”

The men buried the horse just at the spot where it had died of hunger.

The grass came up lush, verdant, and vigorous, nourished by the poor body.

Misti

Recollections of a Bachelor

My mistress at that time was a funny little woman. She was married, of course, for I’ve a perfect horror of unmarried women. After all, what pleasure can one have in possessing a woman who has the double disadvantage of belonging to no one and belonging to everyone? And honestly, quite apart from the moral side of the question, I can’t understand love as a profession. It rather disgusts me. It’s a weakness, I know, and I confess it.

The chiefest pleasure enjoyed by a bachelor who has a married woman for his mistress, is that she provides him with a home, a comfortable, pleasant home in which everyone looks after him and spoils him, from the husband to the servants. Every pleasure is there united, love, friendship, even paternity, the bed and the table, which constitute the final happiness of life, together with the incalculable advantage of being able to change your household from time to time, of installing yourself by turns in every different class of family, in the country, during the summer, in the home of the workman who lets you a room in his house; in the middle-class home of the provincial, during the winter, even in the homes of the aristocracy, if you are ambitious.

I have another weakness: I like my mistresses’ husbands. I admit that there are husbands, vulgar or coarse, who fill me with disgust for their wives, however charming these may be. But when the husband has wit or charm, I fall inevitably desperately in love. I am careful, if I break with the woman, not to break with the husband. In this way I have made my best friends, and in this manner I have ofttimes verified the incontestable superiority of the male over the female of the human species. The latter causes you every possible worry, makes scenes, reproaches you, and so forth; the former, who has quite as much right to complain, treats you, on the contrary, as though you were providence fallen at his fireside.

Well, my mistress was a funny little woman, dark, fantastic, capricious, religious, superstitious, credulous as a monk, but charming. Above all, she had a way of kissing which I have never found in another woman⁠ ⁠… but this is not the place.⁠ ⁠… And such a soft skin! I derived infinite pleasure merely from holding her hand! And her eyes. Her gaze passed over you like a slow caress, delicious and endless. Often I laid my head on her knees, and we remained motionless, she bending over me with that faint, enigmatic, disturbing little smile that women have, I lifting my eyes towards her, receiving like wine poured gently and deliciously into my heart, the shining gaze of her blue eyes, bright as though filled with thoughts of love, blue like a heaven of delights.

Her husband, a civil servant, was often away, leaving our evenings free. Often I spent them at her house, lying on the divan, my forehead pressed against one of her legs, while upon the other slept a huge black cat named “Misti,” which she adored. Our fingers met on the animal’s muscular back, and caressed one another amid its silky hair. I felt against my cheek its warm flank, throbbing with a perpetual purr-purr. Sometimes it would stretch out a paw to my mouth, or set five unsheathed claws upon my eyelids, whose points pricked my eyes and made me close them in a flash.

Sometimes we went out to enjoy what we called our escapades. As a matter of fact they were very innocent. They consisted in supping at an outlying inn, or else, after we had dined at her house or mine, of visiting low taverns, like students on the spree.

We went to the lowest drinking-places and sat down at the far end of smoky dens, on rickety chairs, at an old wooden table. A cloud of acrid smoke, which smelled still of the fried fish eaten at dinner, filled the room; men in blouses talked noisily and drank brandy; and the astonished waiter served us with cherries in brandy.

Trembling with delicious terror, she would raise her little black veil, folded double, to the tip of her nose, where it rested, and begin to drink with the pleasure of committing a delightful crime. Each cherry she swallowed gave her the sense of a sin committed, each sip of the coarse liquor ran down her throat like a delicate, forbidden pleasure.

Then she would say to me in a low voice: “Let us go.” And we left. She went out quickly, her head lowered, with short steps, between the drinkers who watched her pass with resentful glances; and when we found ourselves out in the street again, she would utter a deep sigh as though we had just escaped from dreadful peril.

Sometimes she asked me with a shudder: “If I were insulted in one of these places, what would you do?” And I would reply in a swaggering tone: “Why, defend you, damn it.” And she would squeeze my arm in her happiness, with a vague wish, perhaps, to be insulted and defended, to see those men, even those ruffians, fight me for her.

One evening, as we were seated at a table in a Montmartre den, we saw a ragged old woman come in, holding in her hand a greasy pack of cards. Observing a lady, the old woman promptly came up to us, offering to tell my companion’s fortune. Emma, whose mind believed anything and everything, shivered with pleasure and uneasiness, and made room beside her for the hag.

The ancient wrinkled woman, with rings of raw flesh round her eyes and an empty, toothless mouth, set out her dirty cards on the table. She made them into heaps, picked them up, and set them out again, muttering inaudible words. Emma listened, pale, breathing quickly, panting with distress and curiosity.

The sorceress began to speak; she made vague predictions: happiness and children, a fair young man, a journey, money, a lawsuit, a dark gentle man, the return of a friend, a success, a death. The announcement of this death struck the young woman. Whose death? When? How?

“As to that,” replied the old woman, “the cards are not strong enough; you must come and see me tomorrow. I’ll tell you with the coffee-mark, which never fails.”

Emma turned anxiously to me.

“We may go tomorrow, mayn’t we? Oh, please say yes! If not, you don’t know how it will torment me.”

I began to laugh.

“We’ll go if you want to, darling.”

The old woman gave us her address.

She lived on the sixth floor of an awful house behind the Buttes-Chaumont. We went there the next day.

Her room, a garret with two chairs and a bed, was full of strange things⁠—bunches of herbs hanging from nails, dried animals, bottles and phials containing various coloured liquids. On the table a stuffed black cat stared with glass eyes. He looked like the familiar spirit of this sinister dwelling.

Emma, faint with excitement, sat down, and said at once:

“Oh, darling, look at the cat! Isn’t he just like Misti?”

And she explained to the old woman that she herself had a cat just like that one; oh, exactly like it.

“If you love a man,” replied the sorceress solemnly, “you must not keep it.”

“Why not?” asked Emma, struck with terror.

The old woman sat down beside her in a familiar way, and took her hand.

“It’s the sorrow of my life,” she said.

My friend was eager to hear. She pressed the old woman to tell her, questioned her, urged her: the superstitious credulity they shared made them sisters in mind and heart. At last the fortune-teller made up her mind.

“I loved that cat,” she said, “like a brother. I was young in those days, and all alone; I did sewing at home. Monton was all I had. A lodger gave him to me. He was as clever as a child, and gentle too; he idolised me, dear lady, he idolised me more than a fetish. All day long he purred in my lap, all night on my pillow; I felt his heart beat, I did.

“Well, I made friends with a man, a nice boy who worked at a linen-draper’s. It went on for three months without my granting him anything. But you know how it is, one weakens⁠—it happens to everybody; and besides, I had begun to love him, that I had. He was so nice, so nice and kind. He wanted us to live together all the time, for economy. At last I let him come and see me one evening. I hadn’t made up my mind, oh, dear, no! but I liked the idea of being together for an hour.

“At the beginning he was very well-behaved. He said pretty things to me which stirred my heart. Then he kissed me, madame, gave me a lover’s kiss. I had shut my eyes and remained in a sort of paralysis of happiness. Suddenly I felt that he’d made a violent movement, and he screamed, a scream I shall never forget. I opened my eyes and saw that Monton had flown at his face and was tearing his skin with his claws, like a rag of linen. And the blood was streaming down, madame.

“I tried to pull the cat off, but he held tight, and went on scratching, and even bit me, he was so far out of his senses. At last I got hold of him and threw him out of the window, which was open, since it was summer.

“When I began to wash my poor friend’s face, I saw that he had lost his eyes, both eyes.

“He had to go to the hospital. He died of misery a year after. I wanted to have him with me and feed him, but he would not. He seemed to hate me after it had happened.

“As for Monton, he broke his back in the fall. The porter had picked up the body. I had him stuffed, since I still felt attached to him. If he had done that, it was because he loved me, wasn’t it?”

The old woman was silent, and stroked the dead beast with her hand; the carcass shook on its wire skeleton.

Emma, her heart wrung, had forgotten the predicted death. At any rate, she said nothing more about it, and went away after giving the woman five francs.

Her husband came back the next day, and so several days passed before I saw her.

When I visited her again, I was surprised not to see Misti. I asked where he was.

She blushed, and replied: “I gave him away. I wasn’t happy about him.”

I was surprised.

“Not happy? Not happy? What about?”

She gave me a long kiss, and murmured in a low voice:

“I was afraid for your eyes, darling.”

A Coward

Society called him “Handsome Signoles.” His name was Viscount Gontran-Joseph de Signoles.

An orphan, and possessed of an adequate income, he cut a dash, as the saying is. He had a good figure and a good carriage, a sufficient flow of words to pass for wit, a certain natural grace, an air of nobility and pride, a gallant moustache and an eloquent eye, attributes which women like.

He was in demand in drawing rooms, sought after for valses, and in men he inspired that smiling hostility which is reserved for vital and attractive rivals. He had been suspected of several love-affairs of a sort calculated to create a good opinion of a youngster. He lived a happy, carefree life, in the most complete well-being of body and mind. He was known to be a fine swordsman and a still finer shot with the pistol.

“When I come to fight a duel,” he would say, “I shall choose pistols. With that weapon, I’m sure of killing my man.”

One evening, he went to the theatre with two ladies, quite young, friends of his, whose husbands were also of the party, and after the performance he invited them to take ices at Tortoni’s.

They had been sitting there for a few minutes when he noticed a gentleman at a neighbouring table staring obstinately at one of the ladies of the party. She seemed embarrassed and ill at ease, and bent her head. At last she said to her husband:

“There’s a man staring at me. I don’t know him; do you?”

The husband, who had seen nothing, raised his eyes, but declared:

“No, not in the least.”

Half smiling, half in anger, she replied:

“It’s very annoying; the creature’s spoiling my ice.”

Her husband shrugged his shoulders.

“Deuce take him, don’t appear to notice it. If we had to deal with all the discourteous people one meets, we’d never have done with them.”

But the viscount had risen abruptly. He could not permit this stranger to spoil an ice of his giving. It was to him that the insult was addressed, since it was at his invitation and on his account that his friends had come to the café. The affair was no business of anyone but himself.

He went up to the man and said:

“You have a way of looking at those ladies, sir, which I cannot stomach. Please be so good as to set a limit to your persistence.”

“You hold your tongue,” replied the other.

“Take care, sir,” retorted the viscount, clenching his teeth; “you’ll force me to overstep the bounds of common politeness.”

The gentleman replied with a single word, a vile word which rang across the café from one end to the other, and, like the release of a spring, jerked every person present into an abrupt movement. All those with their backs towards him turned round, all the rest raised their heads; three waiters spun round on their heels like tops; the two ladies behind the counter started, then the whole upper half of their bodies twisted round, as though they were a couple of automata worked by the same handle.

There was a profound silence. Then suddenly a sharp noise resounded in the air. The viscount had boxed his adversary’s ears. Everyone rose to intervene. Cards were exchanged.

Back in his home, the viscount walked for several minutes up and down his room with long quick strides. He was too excited to think. A solitary idea dominated his mind: “a duel”; but as yet the idea stirred in him no emotion of any kind. He had done what he was compelled to do; he had shown himself to be what he ought to be. People would talk of it, would approve of him, congratulate him. He repeated aloud, speaking as a man speaks in severe mental distress:

“What a hound the fellow is!”

Then he sat down and began to reflect. In the morning he must find seconds. Whom should he choose? He searched his mind for the most important and celebrated names of his acquaintance. At last he decided on the Marquis de la Tour-Noire and Colonel Bourdin, an aristocrat and a soldier; they would do excellently. Their names would look well in the papers. He realised that he was thirsty, and drank three glasses of water one after the other; then he began to walk up and down again. He felt full of energy. If he played the gallant, showed himself determined, insisted on the most strict and dangerous arrangements, demanded a serious duel, a thoroughly serious duel, a positively terrible duel, his adversary would probably retire and apologise.

He took up once more the card which he had taken from his pocket and thrown down upon the table, and read it again as he had read it before, in the café, at a glance, and in the cab, by the light of each gas lamp, on his way home.

“Georges Lamil, 51, rue Moncey.” Nothing more.

He examined the grouped letters; they seemed to him mysterious, full of confused meaning. Georges Lamil? Who was this man? What did he do? Why had he looked at the woman in that way? Was it not revolting that a stranger, an unknown man, could thus disturb a man’s life, without warning, just because he chose to fix his insolent eyes upon a woman? Again the viscount repeated aloud:

“What a hound!”

Then he remained standing stock-still, lost in thought, his eyes still fixed upon the card. A fury against this scrap of paper awoke in him, a fury of hatred in which was mingled a queer sensation of uneasiness. This sort of thing was so stupid! He took up an open knife which lay close at hand and thrust it through the middle of the printed name, as though he had stabbed a man.

So he must fight. Should he choose swords or pistols?⁠—for he regarded himself as the insulted party. With swords there would be less risk, but with pistols there was a chance that his adversary might withdraw. It is very rare that a duel with swords is fatal, for mutual prudence is apt to restrain combatants from engaging at sufficiently close quarters for a point to penetrate deeply. With pistols he ran a grave risk of death; but he might also extricate himself from the affair with all the honours of the situation and without actually coming to a meeting.

“I must be firm,” he said. “He will take fright.”

The sound of his voice set him trembling, and he looked round. He felt very nervous. He drank another glass of water, then began to undress for bed.

As soon as he was in bed, he blew out the light and closed his eyes.

“I’ve the whole of tomorrow,” he thought, “in which to set my affairs in order. I’d better sleep now, so that I shall be quite calm.”

He was very warm in the blankets, but he could not manage to compose himself to sleep. He turned this way and that, lay for five minutes upon his back, turned on to his left side, then rolled over on to his right.

He was still thirsty. He got up to get a drink. A feeling of uneasiness crept over him:

“Is it possible that I’m afraid?”

Why did his heart beat madly at each familiar sound in his room? When the clock was about to strike, the faint squeak of the rising spring made him start; so shaken he was that for several seconds afterwards he had to open his mouth to get his breath.

He began to reason with himself on the possibility of his being afraid.

“Shall I be afraid?”

No, of course he would not be afraid, since he was resolved to see the matter through, and had duly made up his mind to fight and not to tremble. But he felt so profoundly distressed that he wondered:

“Can a man be afraid in spite of himself?”

He was attacked by this doubt, this uneasiness, this terror; suppose a force more powerful than himself, masterful, irresistible, overcame him, what would happen? Yes, what might not happen? Assuredly he would go to the place of the meeting, since he was quite ready to go. But supposing he trembled? Supposing he fainted? He thought of the scene, of his reputation, his good name.

There came upon him a strange need to get up and look at himself in the mirror. He re-lit his candle. When he saw his face reflected in the polished glass, he scarcely recognised it, it seemed to him as though he had never yet seen himself. His eyes looked to him enormous; and he was pale; yes, without doubt he was pale, very pale.

He remained standing in front of the mirror. He put out his tongue, as though to ascertain the state of his health, and abruptly the thought struck him like a bullet:

“The day after tomorrow, at this very hour, I may be dead.”

His heart began again its furious beating.

“The day after tomorrow, at this very hour, I may be dead. This person facing me, this me I see in the mirror, will be no more. Why, here I am, I look at myself, I feel myself alive, and in twenty-four hours I shall be lying in that bed, dead, my eyes closed, cold, inanimate, vanished.”

He turned back towards the bed, and distinctly saw himself lying on his back in the very sheets he had just left. He had the hollow face of a corpse, his hands had the slackness of hands that will never make another movement.

At that he was afraid of his bed, and, to get rid of the sight of it, went into the smoking-room. Mechanically he picked up a cigar, lit it, and began to walk up and down again. He was cold; he went to the bell to wake his valet; but he stopped, even as he raised his hand to the rope.

“He will see that I am afraid.”

He did not ring; he lit the fire. His hands shook a little, with a nervous tremor, whenever they touched anything. His brain whirled, his troubled thoughts became elusive, transitory, and gloomy; his mind suffered all the effects of intoxication, as though he were actually drunk.

Over and over again he thought:

“What shall I do? What is to become of me?”

His whole body trembled, seized with a jerky shuddering; he got up and, going to the window, drew back the curtains.

Dawn was at hand, a summer dawn. The rosy sky touched the town, its roofs and walls, with its own hue. A broad descending ray, like the caress of the rising sun, enveloped the awakened world; and with the light, hope⁠—a gay, swift, fierce hope⁠—filled the viscount’s heart! Was he mad, that he had allowed himself to be struck down by fear, before anything was settled even, before his witnesses had seen those of this Georges Lamil, before he knew whether he was going to fight?

He washed, dressed, and walked out with a firm step.

He repeated to himself, as he walked:

“I must be energetic, very energetic. I must prove that I am not afraid.”

His witnesses, the marquis and the colonel, placed themselves at his disposal, and after hearty handshakes discussed the conditions.

“You are anxious for a serious duel?” asked the colonel.

“Yes, a very serious one,” replied the viscount.

“You still insist on pistols?” said the marquis.

“Yes.”

“You will leave us free to arrange the rest?”

In a dry, jerky voice the viscount stated:

“Twenty paces; at the signal, raising the arm, and not lowering it. Exchange of shots till one is seriously wounded.”

“They are excellent conditions,” declared the colonel in a tone of satisfaction. “You shoot well, you have every chance.”

They departed. The viscount went home to wait for them. His agitation, momentarily quietened, was now growing minute by minute. He felt a strange shivering, a ceaseless vibration, down his arms, down his legs, in his chest; he could not keep still in one place, neither seated nor standing. There was not the least moistening of saliva in his mouth, and at every instant he made a violent movement of his tongue, as though to prevent it sticking to his palate.

He was eager to have breakfast, but could not eat. Then the idea came to him to drink in order to give himself courage, and he sent for a decanter of rum, of which he swallowed six liqueur glasses full one after the other.

A burning warmth flooded through his body, followed immediately by a sudden dizziness of the mind and spirit.

“Now I know what to do,” he thought. “Now it is all right.”

But by the end of an hour he had emptied the decanter, and his state of agitation had once more become intolerable. He was conscious of a wild need to roll on the ground, to scream, to bite. Night was falling.

The ringing of a bell gave him such a shock that he had not strength to rise and welcome his witnesses.

He did not even dare to speak to them, to say “Good evening” to them, to utter a single word, for fear they guessed the whole thing by the alteration in his voice.

“Everything is arranged in accordance with the conditions you fixed,” observed the colonel. “At first your adversary claimed the privileges of the insulted party, but he yielded almost at once, and has accepted everything. His witnesses are two military men.”

“Thank you,” said the viscount.

“Pardon us,” interposed the marquis, “if we merely come in and leave again immediately, but we have a thousand things to see to. We must have a good doctor, since the combat is not to end until a serious wound is inflicted, and you know that pistol bullets are no laughing-matter. We must appoint the ground, near a house to which we may carry the wounded man if necessary, etc. In fact, we shall be occupied for two or three hours arranging all that there is to arrange.”

“Thank you,” said the viscount a second time.

“You are all right?” asked the colonel. “You are calm?”

“Yes, quite calm, thank you.”

The two men retired.

When he realised that he was once more alone, he thought that he was going mad. His servant had lit the lamps, and he sat down at the table to write letters. After tracing, at the head of a sheet: “This is my will,” he rose shivering and walked away, feeling incapable of connecting two ideas, of taking a resolution, of making any decision what ever.

So he was going to fight! He could no longer avoid it. Then what was the matter with him? He wished to fight, he had absolutely decided upon this plan of action and taken his resolve, and he now felt clearly, in spite of every effort of mind and forcing of will, that he could not retain even the strength necessary to get him to the place of meeting. He tried to picture the duel, his own attitude and the bearing of his adversary.

From time to time his teeth chattered in his mouth with a slight clicking noise. He tried to read, and took down Châteauvillard’s code of duelling. Then he wondered:

“Does my adversary go to shooting-galleries? Is he well known? Is he classified anywhere? How can I find out?”

He bethought himself of Baron Vaux’s book on marksmen with the pistol, and ran through it from end to end. Georges Lamil was not mentioned in it. Yet if the man were not a good shot, he would surely not have promptly agreed to that dangerous weapon and those fatal conditions?

He opened, in passing, a case by Gastinne Renette standing on a small table, and took out one of the pistols, then placed himself as though to shoot and raised his arm. But he was trembling from head to foot and the barrel moved in every direction.

At that, he said to himself:

“It’s impossible. I cannot fight in this state.”

He looked at the end of the barrel, at the little, black, deep hole that spits death; he thought of the disgrace, of the whispers at the club, of the laughter in drawing rooms, of the contempt of women, of the allusions in the papers, of the insults which cowards would fling at him.

He was still looking at the weapon, and, raising the hammer, caught a glimpse of a cap gleaming beneath it like a tiny red flame. By good fortune or forgetfulness, the pistol had been left loaded. At the knowledge, he was filled with a confused inexplicable sense of joy.

If, when face to face with the other man, he did not show a proper gallantry and calm, he would be lost forever. He would be sullied, branded with a mark of infamy, hounded out of society. And he would not be able to achieve that calm, that swaggering poise; he knew it, he felt it. Yet he was brave, since he wanted to fight!⁠ ⁠… He was brave, since⁠ ⁠…

The thought which hovered in him did not even fulfil itself in his mind; but, opening his mouth wide, he thrust in the barrel of his pistol with savage gesture until it reached his throat, and pressed on the hammer.

When his valet ran in, at the sound of the report, he found him lying dead upon his back. A shower of blood had splashed the white paper on the table, and made a great red mark beneath these four words:

“This is my will.”

Rose

The two young women look as though they were buried under a weight of flowers. They are alone in the huge landau, which is loaded with bouquets like a giant basket. Upon the front seat lie two white satin hampers full of violets from Nice, and on the bearskin which covers their knees is a heap of roses, mimosa, pinks, daisies, tuberoses, and orange blossom, knotted together with silk rosettes, seeming about to crush the two slender bodies. Nothing emerges from this brilliant, perfumed bed but their shoulders, their arms, and a wisp of the upper half of their gowns, one blue, the other lilac.

The coachman’s whip is sheathed in anemones, the horses’ traces are covered with wallflowers, the spokes of the wheels blossom with mignonette; where the lamps should be hang two enormous round bouquets that look like the two strange eyes of this wheeled and flower-decked animal.

At a rapid trot the landau passes along the Antibes road, preceded, followed, and accompanied by a crowd of other garlanded vehicles, full of women drowning in a sea of violets. For it is the day of the battle of flowers at Cannes.

When they reach the Boulevard de la Foncière, the battle begins. For the whole length of the immense avenue a double row of garlanded carriages runs up and down like an endless ribbon. Flowers are flung from one to another. They pass through the air like bullets, strike against new faces, flutter, and fall in the dust, where a crowd of urchins picks them up.

A tight-packed crowd on the pavement is looking on, noisy but well-behaved, kept in order by mounted police, who trot arrogantly up and down, forcing back the over-inquisitive, as though they could not permit a plebeian crowd to come too near the aristocrats.

Those in the carriages call to one another, meet, and discharge volleys of roses. A car full of pretty girls dressed as red devils attracts and seduces all eyes. A debonair young man, who looks like the portraits of Henry IV, is throwing with eager gaiety a bouquet held on an elastic string. Before the menace of its impact the women shade their eyes and the men duck their heads, but the lively weapon, swift and obedient, describes a curve in the air and returns to its master, who promptly flings it at a fresh face.

The two young women empty their arsenal in handfuls, and receive a hail of bouquets; at last, tired by an hour of combat, they order the coachman to follow the Juan Bay road, which runs along the sea.

The sun disappears behind the Esterel, silhouetting across the flaming Western sky the black jagged edge of the long mountain. The quiet waters stretch, blue and clear, to the far horizon where they mingle with the sky: the fleet anchored in the middle of the bay looks like a herd of monstrous beasts, motionless upon the water, apocalyptic animals, breastplated and humpbacked, topped with masts frail as feathers, with eyes that gleam in the dusk.

The young women, huddled under the protection of the heavy rug, glance languidly about them. At last one of them speaks:

“There are some marvellous evenings, are there not, Margot, when life seems well worth living?”

“Yes, it’s very lovely,” replied the other, “but there is something missing, all the same.”

“What! I feel perfectly happy; there’s nothing I want.”

“Yes, but there is. You are overlooking it now. However profound the delight which overmasters our bodies, we demand always one thing more⁠ ⁠… for our hearts.”

“To love a little?” said the other, smiling.

“Yes.”

They fell into silence, looked straight ahead; then she who was called Marguerite murmured:

“Without love, life seems to me insupportable. I need to be loved, were it only by a dog. We are all like that, whatever you may say, Simone.”

“No, my dear. I would rather not be loved at all than by just anyone. Do you think I should enjoy being loved, for instance, by⁠ ⁠… by⁠ ⁠…”

She searched her mind for someone by whom she might be loved, and her eyes roved over the wide landscape. After raking the horizon, her glance fell upon the two metal buttons gleaming on the coachman’s back, and with a laugh she continued: “by my coachman?”

Madame Margot smiled faintly and said in a low voice:

“I assure you it’s very good fun to have one of your servants in love with you. It’s happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes so comically that I could die of laughter. Of course, the more loving they are, the more severe you become, until some day you dismiss them on the first excuse that comes into your head, because you’d look so ridiculous if anyone noticed what was going on.”

Madame Simone listened with her eyes looking straight in front of her, then declared:

“No, my footman’s heart is really not good enough for me. But tell me how you discovered that they were in love with you.”

“Why, just as I do with any other man; when they grew stupid.”

“Well, I don’t think my lovers look so stupid.”

“Why, they’re idiots, my dear, unable to speak, answer, or understand anything at all.”

“But what did you feel like when a servant fell in love with you? Were you affected, flattered⁠ ⁠… what?”

“Affected? No. Flattered? Yes, a little. One is always flattered by the love of a man, whoever he may be.”

“Really, Margot!”

“It’s quite true, my dear. I’ll tell you a strange thing which happened to me. To make you see how queer and contradictory are one’s feelings in such circumstances.

“Four years ago next autumn I found myself without a maid. I had tried five or six hopeless creatures one after another, and was about despairing of ever finding one, when I read, in the advertisement columns of a paper, that a young girl with knowledge of sewing, embroidery, and hairdressing was looking for a place and that she could supply excellent references. Also, she spoke English.

“I wrote to the address indicated, and next day the person in question came to see me. She was fairly tall, slender, and rather pale, with a very timid bearing. She had beautiful black eyes, a charming complexion, and I was attracted to her at once. I asked her for her references; she gave me one in English, for she had just left, she said, the service of Lady Rymwell, with whom she had been ten years.

“The letter stated that the girl had left of her own free will in order to go back to France, and that her mistress had found nothing to reproach her with, during her long service, except some slight indications of ‘French coquetry.’

“The puritanical flavour of the English phrase made me smile, and I engaged her at once as my maid. She began her duties the same day; her name was Rose.

“By the end of a month I adored her.

“She was a magnificent find, a pearl, a marvel.

“Her taste in hairdressing was perfect; she could trim a hat better than the best shops, and was a dressmaker into the bargain.

“I was amazed at her ability. Never had I had such a maid.

“She dressed me rapidly, and her hands were uncommonly light. I never felt her fingers on my skin, and there is nothing I dislike so much as the touch of a servant’s hand. I grew more and more indolent, it was such a pleasure to be dressed from head to foot, from chemise to gloves, by this tall, timid girl, whose cheeks always wore a faint blush, and who never spoke. After my bath she used to rub me and massage me while I dozed on my sofa; upon my word, I thought of her as a friend of humble rank rather than as a mere servant.

“One morning the porter made a mysterious request that he might speak to me. I was surprised, and sent for him. He was a very steady man, an old soldier who had been my husband’s orderly.

“He seemed embarrassed by what he had to tell, and at last faltered:

“ ‘Madame, the district inspector of police is in the hall.’

“ ‘What does he want?’ I asked sharply.

“ ‘He wants to search the house.’

“The police are a useful body, but I loathe them. I don’t think it’s a noble profession. Irritated and disturbed, I replied:

“ ‘Why this search? What is it for? I won’t have them in.’

“ ‘He says there is a criminal here,’ replied the porter.

“This time I was frightened, and told him to send up the inspector to explain. He was a fairly well-bred man, decorated with the Legion of Honour. He made excuses and begged my pardon, and eventually announced that one of my servants was a convict!

“I was thoroughly annoyed; I replied that I would vouch for the entire staff of the house, and went through them one after another.

“ ‘The porter, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.’

“ ‘That’s not the man.’

“ ‘The coachman, François Pingau, a peasant from Champagne, the son of one of the farmers on my father’s estate.’

“ ‘Not the man.’

“ ‘A stable-boy, also from Champagne, the son of some peasants with whom I am acquainted; and the footman you have just seen.’

“ ‘That’s not he.’

“ ‘Then, monsieur, it must be clear to you that you have made a mistake.’

“ ‘Excuse me, madame, but I am quite sure that there is no mistake on my part. As a dangerous criminal is in question will you have the goodness to have all your servants brought here before you and me?’

“I refused at first, but at last I gave way, and made them all come up, men and women.

“The inspector cast but a single glance at them, and declared:

“ ‘That is not all.’

“ ‘I am sorry, monsieur; the only one missing is my own maid, a girl whom you could not possibly mistake for a convict.’

“ ‘May I see her too?’ he asked.

“ ‘Certainly.’

“I rang for Rose, who promptly appeared. She had scarcely entered the room when the inspector made a sign, and two men whom I had not seen, hidden behind the door, flung themselves upon her, seized her hands, and bound them with cords.

“A cry of rage escaped me, and I was ready on the instant to run to her defence. The inspector stopped me:

“ ‘This girl, madame, is a man named Jean Nicolas Lecapet, condemned to death in 1879 for murder preceded by rape. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. Four months ago he escaped. We have been searching for him ever since.’

“I was bewildered, thunderstruck. I could not believe it. With a laugh the inspector continued:

“ ‘I can give you only one proof. His right arm is tattooed.’

“The sleeve was rolled up. It was true. The police officer added, rather tactlessly:

“ ‘You will have to trust us to verify the remaining details.’

“And they led my maid away!

“Now⁠—would you believe it?⁠—the feeling strongest in me was not anger at the way I had been tricked, duped, and made ridiculous; it was not the shame of having been dressed and undressed, handled and touched, by that man⁠ ⁠… but a⁠ ⁠… profound humiliation⁠ ⁠… the humiliation of a woman. Do you understand?”

“No, not quite.”

“Oh, think.⁠ ⁠… That fellow had been sentenced⁠ ⁠… for rape.⁠ ⁠… I thought, don’t you know⁠ ⁠… of the woman he had ravished⁠ ⁠… and it⁠ ⁠… it humiliated me.⁠ ⁠… Now do you understand?”

Madame Margot did not speak. She gazed straight in front of her with a queer, absent stare, at the two gleaming buttons of the coachman’s livery, her lips curved in the inscrutable smile a woman sometimes wears.

A Traveller’s Notes

Seven o’clock. A whistle blows; we are off. The train passes over the turnplates with the noise of stage thunder, then it plunges into the night, panting, puffing up its steam, throwing gleams of red light on passing walls, hedges, woods, and fields.

We are six, three on each seat, under the light of the lamp. Opposite me is a stout lady with a stout gentleman, an old married couple. A hunchback sits in the left corner; beside me is a young married pair, or, at least, a young couple! Are they married? The young woman is pretty and seems modest, but she smells too strongly of perfume. What kind of perfume is it? I know it without being able to name it. Ah! now I’ve got it. Peau d’Espagne? That tells nothing. Let us wait and see.

The stout lady looks at the young woman with an air of hostility which sets me to thinking. The stout gentleman closes his eyes. Already! The hunchback has rolled himself up into a ball. I no longer see where his legs are. One sees nothing but his bright eye under a skull cap with a red tassel. Then he shrinks into his travelling-shawl. He looks like a small parcel thrown down on the seat.

The old lady alone stays awake, suspicious, uneasy, like a watchman whose duty it is to guard the order and morality of the occupants of the carriage.

The young people do not move; their knees are under the same shawl, and their eyes are open, but they do not speak; are they married?

I also pretend to sleep, and watch.

Nine o’clock. The stout lady is about to give in, she closes her eyes spasmodically, and her head drops on her breast, but she lifts it up again by fits and starts. Then at last she goes to sleep.

O sleep! ridiculous mystery which makes faces appear so grotesque, you are the revealer of human ugliness. You uncover all shortcomings, all deformities and all defects. You turn every face touched by you into a caricature.

I rise and put the light blue shade over the lamp, and then I also go to sleep.

Every now and then the stopping of the train awakens me. An employee calls out the name of a town, and then we go on.

Here is the dawn. We are running alongside the Rhône, which is going down to the Mediterranean. Everybody is sleeping. The young people have their arms around each other. One of the feet of the young woman is peeping from under the shawl. She is wearing white stockings! That is commonplace: they are married! The air is not fresh in the compartment, and I open a window to change it. The cold coming in awakens everyone, except the hunchback, who is snoring under his cover.

The ugliness of the faces becomes more accentuated in the light of the new day.

The stout lady, with red face and untidy hair, looks awful. She glances around spitefully at her neighbours. The young woman looks smilingly at her companion. If she were not married she would have first looked at her mirror.

Here we are at Marseilles. Twenty minutes’ stop. I breakfast. We go on. The hunchback is missing, and we have, instead, two old gentlemen.

Then the two married couples, the old and the young, unpack their provisions. A chicken here, cold veal there, pepper and salt in paper, pickles in a handkerchief⁠—everything to make you disgusted with food forever. I know nothing more common, more vulgar, more out of place, and more ill-bred than to eat in a carriage where there are other passengers.

If it is freezing, open the windows. If it is hot, close them and smoke your pipe, even if you detest tobacco; begin to sing, to bark, indulge in the most annoying eccentricities, take off your shoes and stockings and pare your toenails; in short, pay these ill-bred people in their own coin for their lack of good manners.

The farsighted man will carry a bottle of benzine or petrol to sprinkle on the cushions when the people beside him begin to eat. Everything is permitted, anything is too good for the boors who poison you with the odour of their food.

Now we are running beside the blue sea. The sun beats down upon the coast dotted with charming towns.

Here is Saint-Raphael. Yonder is Saint-Tropez, the little capital of that deserted, unknown, and delightful country called the Mountains of the Moors. A broad river not spanned by any bridge, the Argens, separates this wild peninsula from the continent, and one can walk there for a whole day without meeting a soul. Here, the villages perched upon the mountains, are the same as they were in former times, with their Oriental houses, their arcades, their low-vaulted doors ornamented with sculpture.

No railroad, no public conveyance penetrates into these splendid wooded valleys. Only an old mail-boat carries the letters from Hyères and Saint-Tropez.

On we go. Here is Cannes, so pretty on the shore of its two gulfs, opposite the islands of Lérins, which would make two perfect paradises for the sick, if they could be connected with the mainland.

Here is the Gulf of Juan; the armoured squadron seems to lie asleep on the water.

Here is Nice. There is apparently an exhibition in the town. Let us go to see it.

Following a boulevard, which seems like a marsh, we reach a building on an elevation, in doubtful taste, which seems a miniature replica of the great palace of the Trocadéro.

Inside there are some people walking about in the midst of a chaos of boxes. The Exhibition, which has been open for a long time, will doubtless be ready next year!

It would be attractive inside if it were finished. But it is far from that.

Two sections especially attract me: that of the comestibles and that of the Fine Arts. Alas! there really are preserved fruits of Grasse here, and a thousand other good things to eat. But⁠—it is forbidden to sell them! One may only look at them! And that is so as not to injure the trade of the town! To exhibit sweetmeats for the mere pleasure of looking at them, and forbid anybody to taste them, really seems to be one of the finest inventions of the human mind.

The Fine Arts are⁠—in preparation! Yet some halls are open, where one may see very fine landscapes by Harpignies, Guillemet, Le Poittevin, a superb portrait of Mademoiselle Alice Regnault by Courtois, a delightful Béraud, etc. As for the rest⁠—when they are unpacked!

As one must see everything on visiting a place, I will treat myself to an air trip in the balloon of MM. Godard and Company.

The mistral is blowing. The balloon is swaying in an uneasy way. Suddenly there is an explosion; the cords of the net have broken. The public is forbidden to come within the enclosure, and I also am turned out.

I climb upon my carriage and survey the scene.

Every moment another rope snaps with a singular noise, and the brown skin of the balloon attempts to rise from the meshes that hold it. Then suddenly, under a more violent gust of wind, there is an immense tear from top to bottom of the great ball, which falls together like a limp cloth, torn and dead.

The next morning on awakening I call for the newspapers and read with astonishment:

“The tempest now raging on our coast has compelled the management of the captive and free balloons of Nice to empty its great aerostat, in order to avoid accidents. The system of instantaneous emptying used by M. Godard is one of his inventions that redound most to his honour.”

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh, the dear public!

The entire coast of the Mediterranean is the Eldorado of the chemists. One must be ten times a millionaire to dare purchase even a simple box of cough drops from these haughty merchants, who ask the price of diamonds for their jujubes.

One can go from Nice to Monaco via La Corniche, along the sea coast. There is nothing more charming than this road cut in the rock, which skirts gulfs, passes under arches, and turns and twists along the mountain through wonderful country.

Here is Monaco on its rock, and behind it Monte Carlo. Hush! I can understand how those who like to gamble adore this pretty little town. But how sombre and sad it is for those who do not gamble! There is no other pleasure, no other attraction.

Farther on is Mentone, the hottest place on the coast, and the one most frequented by invalids. There oranges ripen and consumptives are cured.

I take the night train to return to Cannes. In my compartment there are two ladies and a man from Marseilles who is determined to tell stories of railway accidents, murders, and thefts.

“I once knew a Corsican, madame, who came to Paris with his son. I speak of long ago, in the early days of the P.L.M. railway. I joined them, since we were friends, and off we went.

“The son, who was twenty years old, was utterly amazed at the running of the train, and stood leaning out of the window all the time to watch it. His father kept repeating to him: ‘Heh! Take care, Mathéo! Don’t lean out too far, or you may hurt yourself.’ But the boy did not even answer.

“I said to the father:

“ ‘Let him do it, if it amuses him.’

“But the father repeated:

“ ‘Come now, Mathéo, don’t lean out like that.’

“Then, as the son did not answer, he took him by the coat to make him come back into the carriage, and gave it a pull. And then the body fell back on our knees. He was minus his head, madame, for it had been cut off by a tunnel. And the neck was not even bleeding any longer; all the blood had flowed along the line.”

One of the ladies heaved a sigh, closed her eyes, and sank upon her neighbour. She had fainted.

The Patron

He would never have dared to hope that such good fortune would be his! The son of a provincial Sheriff, Jean Marin had come to Paris, like so many others, to study law in the Latin Quarter. In the various cafés which he had successively patronized, he had made friends with a number of talkative students, who chattered about politics as they drank their beer. He developed great admiration for them and became their follower, even paying for their drinks when he happened to have any money.

Afterwards, he practised law and handled some suits, which he lost, when, one morning, he read in the papers that a friend of his student days had become a deputy. Again he became his faithful servant, the friend who discharges all the troublesome errands, whom one sends for when he is wanted, and with whom one stands on no ceremony.

But it so happened, by the chance of politics, that the deputy became a minister, and six months afterwards, Jean Marin was appointed State Councillor.

At first, he was so puffed up with pride that he almost lost his head. He would take walks just to show himself off, as if the people he met in the street could guess his position just by looking at him. He always managed to say to the various tradespeople he dealt with, as well as to the newsdealers and even the cabmen:

“I, who am a State Councillor⁠ ⁠…”

He naturally experienced, as the direct result of his profession and his newly acquired dignity, an imperative desire to patronize. He would offer his influence to everyone he met, at all times, and with inexhaustible generosity.

When he ran up against a man he knew on the boulevard, he would rush up to him in a delighted manner, shake hands, inquire after his health and then, without waiting for any inquiry, would blurt out:

“You know I am State Councillor, and I am absolutely at your service. If there is anything I can do for you, I hope you will call on me unhesitatingly. In my position, a man can do a lot for his friends.”

Then he would go into some café with this friend and ask for some writing-paper and a pen and ink⁠—“just one sheet, waiter, I want to write a letter of introduction.”

He wrote quantities of these letters, sometimes twenty, thirty, and fifty a day. He wrote them at the Café Américain, at Bignon’s, at Tortoni’s, at the Maison-Dorée, at the Café Riche, at the Helder, at the Café Anglais, at the Napolitain, everywhere. He addressed them to every official in the Republic, from magistrates to ministers. And he was happy, thoroughly happy.

One morning, as he was leaving his rooms to go to the State Council it began to rain. He was inclined to take a cab, but did not, finally deciding that he would walk.

The shower became very heavy, soaking the pavements, and inundating the streets. M. Marin was compelled to seek shelter in a doorway. An old priest had already taken refuge there, an old, white-haired priest. Before he had been appointed State Councillor, M. Marin did not care much for the clergy. But now, ever since a Cardinal had consulted him regarding some delicate matter, he treated the clergy with consideration. The downpour was so heavy that the two men were forced to take refuge in the concierge’s box, to avoid getting splashed. M. Marin, who was constantly impelled to brag about himself, declared:

“A very bad day, monsieur l’abbé.”

The old priest bowed:

“Ah! yes, monsieur, and it is all the more disagreeable when one is in Paris for a few days only.”

“Ah! so you live in the provinces?”

“Yes, monsieur, I am only passing through Paris.”

“Indeed, it is most annoying to have rain when one is spending a day or so in the capital. We officials, who live here all the year round, do not mind it.”

The abbé made no reply and looked into the street, where the rain was beginning to stop a little. And suddenly clutching his gown in both hands, he resolved to brave the elements.

M. Marin, seeing him depart, shouted:

“You will get drenched, monsieur l’abbé. Wait a few minutes more, the rain will stop.”

The old man wavered and then said:

“Well, I’m in a great hurry. I have a very urgent engagement.”

M. Marin appeared very much concerned.

“But you will certainly be wet through. May I ask where you are going?”

The priest seemed to hesitate a moment, but then he said:

“I am going in the direction of the Palais-Royal.”

“Well then, if you will allow me, monsieur l’abbé, I will offer you the shelter of my umbrella. I am going to the State Council. I am a State Councillor.”

The old priest raised his eyes, looked at the speaker and exclaimed:

“I am greatly obliged to you, monsieur, and accept your offer with pleasure.”

Then M. Marin took him by the arm, and they set out. He led him along, watching over him and giving advice:

“Be careful of this gutter, monsieur l’abbé. Look out for the carriage wheels, they throw mud all over one. Mind the umbrellas! Nothing is more of a danger to the eyes than the sharp ends of an umbrella! The women, especially, are so careless; they never mind anything and thrust their sunshades and their umbrellas right under people’s noses. And they never go out of anyone’s way, either. They seem to think that they own the whole city. I think myself that their education has been sadly neglected.”

And M. Marin chuckled gleefully.

The priest made no reply. He picked his way carefully along the streets, slightly bent, choosing with discrimination the dry spots on the pavement so as not to bespatter his shoes and gown.

M. Marin went on:

“I suppose you are in Paris for a little rest?”

The old man retorted:

“No, I have come on business.”

“Oh! anything important? Might I inquire what it is? If I can be of service to you, I would only be too glad.”

The abbé looked embarrassed. He mumbled:

“Oh! it’s a little personal matter. A little difficulty with⁠—with my bishop. It could hardly interest you. It is something about the adjustment⁠—the adjustment of some ecclesiastical matter.”

M. Marin became eager.

“Why, these matters are always referred to the State Council. In this case I wish you would make use of me.”

“Yes, it is to the State Council I am going. You are most kind. I have an appointment with M. Lerepère and M. Savon, and maybe I will interview M. Petitpas also.”

M. Marin came to a stop.

“Why, they are my friends, monsieur l’abbé, my dearest friends, fine fellows, all of them. I shall warmly recommend you to them. Rely on me.”

The priest thanked him and protested his undying gratitude.

M. Marin was delighted.

“Oh! you can thank your stars, monsieur l’abbé, that you met me. You will see how smoothly everything will go now.”

They finally reached the State Council. M. Marin conducted the priest to his office, installed him before the open fire and then sat down at his desk and wrote:

“My dear colleague, allow me to recommend most heartily to you a very worthy priest, M. l’abbé⁠ ⁠…”

He paused and inquired: “Your name, please?”

“Abbé Ceinture.”

M. Marin wrote:

“M. l’abbé Ceinture, who needs your intercession in a little matter which he will lay before you.

“I am glad of this opportunity which allows me, my dear colleague⁠ ⁠…”

And he concluded with the customary compliments.

After he had written the three letters, he handed them to his protégé who departed amid renewed protestations of gratitude.

M. Marin attended to his official duties, went home, spent a quiet day and slept peacefully that night. The next morning he woke up happy, dressed and sat down to read the papers.

The first one he opened was a radical organ. He read:

“Our Clergy and our Officials.

“There seems to be no end to the misdeeds of the clergy. A certain priest named Ceinture, convicted of having conspired against the existing government, accused of infamous acts, that we will not even mention, suspected besides of being a former Jesuit transformed into an ordinary priest, revoked by his bishop for reasons which are said to be unprintable, and summoned to Paris to explain his conduct, has found a warm partisan in the State Councillor, Marin, who did not hesitate to give this cassocked rascal the most enthusiastic letters of recommendation to all his Republican colleagues.

“We wish to call the minister’s attention to the unqualifiable attitude of this State Councillor⁠ ⁠…”

M. Marin sprang to his feet, slammed down the paper and rushed off to see his colleague Petitpas, who exclaimed:

“Well you must have gone crazy to recommend that old conspirator to me.”

Thoroughly bewildered, M. Marin retorted:

“No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… you see, I was deceived myself. He looked like such a good man⁠ ⁠… he tricked me⁠ ⁠… he tricked me most shamefully. I beg of you to condemn him severely, most severely. I shall go myself to the Attorney General and the Archbishop of Paris, yes, to the Archbishop.⁠ ⁠…”

And he sat down abruptly at M. Petitpas’ desk and wrote:

My Lord: I have the honour to inform Your Grace that I have been made a victim of the intrigues and lies of a certain abbé Ceinture, who shamefully took advantage of my good faith.

Misled by the protestations of this priest, I was induced⁠ ⁠…

Then, after he had signed his name to the letter and sealed it, he turned to his colleague and remarked:

“Look here, my dear friend, I hope this will be a lesson to you never to recommend anyone.”

The Umbrella

Madame Oreille was a very economical woman; she thoroughly knew the value of a halfpenny, and possessed a whole storehouse of strict principles with regard to the multiplication of money, so that her servant found the greatest difficulty in making what servants call their “marketpenny,” while her husband had great difficulty in getting any pocket-money at all. They were, however, very comfortably off, and had no children. It really pained Mme. Oreille to see any money spent; it was like tearing at her heartstrings when she had to take any of those silver pieces out of her pocket; and whenever she had to spend anything, no matter how necessary it was, she slept badly the next night.

Oreille was continually saying to his wife:

“You really might be more liberal, as we have no children and never spend our income.”

“You don’t know what may happen,” she used to reply. “It is better to have too much than too little.”

She was a little woman of about forty, very active, rather hasty, wrinkled, very neat and tidy, and with a very short temper. Her husband very often used to complain of all the privations she made him endure; some of them were particularly painful to him, as they touched his vanity.

He was one of the upper clerks in the War Office, and only stayed there in obedience to his wife’s wish, so as to increase their income, which they did not nearly spend.

For two years he had always come to the office with the same old patched umbrella, to the great amusement of his fellow-clerks. At last he got tired of their jokes, and insisted upon his wife buying him a new one. She bought one for eight francs and a-half, one of those cheap things which big stores sell as an advertisement. When the others in the office saw the article, which was being sold in Paris by the thousand, they began their jokes again, and Oreille had a dreadful time of it with them. The umbrella was no good. In three months it was done for and at the office everybody laughed. They even made a song about it, which he heard from morning till night all over the immense building.

Oreille was very angry, and peremptorily told his wife to get him a new one, a good silk one, for twenty francs, and to bring him the bill, so that he might see that it was all right.

She bought him one for eighteen francs, and said, getting red with anger as she gave it to her husband:

“This will last you for five years at least.”

Oreille felt quite triumphant, and obtained a small ovation at the office with his new acquisition. When he went home in the evening, his wife said to him, looking at the umbrella uneasily:

“You should not leave it fastened up with the elastic; it will very likely cut the silk. You must take care of it, for I shall not buy you a new one in a hurry.”

She took it, unfastened it, and then remained dumbfounded with astonishment and rage. In the middle of the silk there was a hole as big as a sixpenny-piece, as if made with the end of a cigar.

“What is that?” she screamed.

Her husband replied quietly, without looking at it:

“What is it? What do you mean?”

She was choking with rage and could hardly get out a word.

“You⁠—you⁠—have burned⁠—your umbrella! Why⁠—you must be⁠—mad! Do you wish to ruin us outright?”

He turned round hastily, turning pale.

“What are you talking about?”

“I say that you have burned your umbrella. Just look here⁠—”

And rushing at him, as if she were going to beat him, she violently thrust the little circular burned hole under his nose.

He was so utterly struck dumb at the sight of it that he could only stammer out:

“What⁠—what is it? How should I know? I have done nothing, I will swear. I don’t know what is the matter with the umbrella.”

“You have been playing tricks with it at the office; you have been playing the fool and opening it, to show it off!” she screamed.

“I only opened it once, to let them see what a nice one it was, that is all, I declare.”

But she shook with rage, and got up one of those conjugal scenes which make a peaceable man dread the domestic hearth more than a battlefield where bullets are raining.

She mended it with a piece of silk cut out of the old umbrella, which was of a different color, and the next day Oreille went off very humbly with the mended article in his hand. He put it into a cupboard, and thought no more of it than of some unpleasant recollection.

But he had scarcely got home that evening when his wife took the umbrella from him, opened it, and nearly had a fit when she saw what had befallen it, for the disaster was now irreparable. It was covered with small holes, which evidently, proceeded from burns, just as if someone had emptied the ashes from a lighted pipe on to it. It was done for, utterly, irreparably.

She looked at it without a word, in too great a passion to be able to say anything. He also, when he saw the damage, remained almost dumb, in a state of frightened consternation.

They looked at each other; then he looked on to the floor. The next moment she threw the useless article at his head, screaming out in a transport of the most violent rage, for she had now recovered her voice:

“Oh! you brute! you brute! You did it on purpose, but I will pay you out for it. You shall not have another.”

And then the scene began again. After the storm had raged for an hour, he, at last, was able to explain himself. He declared that he could not understand it at all, and that it could only proceed from malice or from vengeance.

A ring at the bell saved him; it was a friend whom they were expecting to dinner.

Mme. Oreille submitted the case to him. As for buying a new umbrella, that was out of the question; her husband should not have another. The friend very sensibly said that in that case his clothes would be spoiled, and they were certainly worth more than the umbrella. But the little woman, who was still in a rage, replied:

“Very well, then, when it rains he may have the kitchen umbrella, for I will not give him a new silk one.”

Oreille utterly rebelled at such an idea.

“All right,” he said; “then I shall resign my post. I am not going to the office with the kitchen umbrella.”

The friend interposed:

“Have this one recovered; it will not cost much.”

But Mme. Oreille, being in the temper that she was, said:

“It will cost at least eight francs to recover it. Eight and eighteen are twenty-six. Just fancy, twenty-six francs for an umbrella! It is utter madness!”

The friend, who was only a poor man of the middle classes, had an inspiration:

“Make your fire insurance pay for it. The companies pay for all articles that are burned, as long as the damage has been done in your own house.”

On hearing this advice the little woman calmed down immediately, and then, after a moment’s reflection, she said to her husband:

“Tomorrow, before going to your office, you will go to the Maternelle Insurance Company, show them the state your umbrella is in, and make them pay for the damage.”

M. Oreille fairly jumped, he was so startled at the proposal.

“I would not do it for my life! It is eighteen francs lost, that is all. It will not ruin us.”

The next morning he took a walking-stick when he went out, for, luckily, it was a fine day.

Left at home alone, Mme. Oreille could not get over the loss of her eighteen francs by any means. She had put the umbrella on the dining room table, and she looked at it without being able to come to any determination.

Every moment she thought of the insurance company, but she did not dare to encounter the quizzical looks of the gentlemen who might receive her, for she was very timid before people, and grew red at a mere nothing, feeling embarrassed when she had to speak to strangers.

But regret at the loss of the eighteen francs pained her as if she had been wounded. She tried not to think of it any more, and yet every moment the recollection of the loss struck her painfully. What was she to do, however? Time went on, and she could not decide; but suddenly, like all cowards, she made up her mind.

“I will go, and we will see what will happen.”

But first of all she was obliged to prepare the umbrella so that the disaster might be complete, and the reason of it quite evident. She took a match from the mantelpiece, and between the ribs she burned a hole as big as the palm of her hand. Then she rolled it up carefully, fastened it with the elastic band, put on her bonnet and shawl, and went quickly toward the Rue de Rivoli, where the insurance office was.

But the nearer she got the slower she walked. What was she going to say, and what reply would she get?

She looked at the numbers of the houses; there were still twenty-eight. That was all right, she had time to consider, and she walked slower and slower. Suddenly she saw a door on which was a large brass plate with “La Maternelle Fire Insurance Office” engraved on it. Already! She waited for a moment, for she felt nervous and almost ashamed; then she went past, came back, went past again, and came back again.

At last she said to herself:

“I must go in, however, so I may as well do it now as later.”

She could not help noticing, however, how her heart beat as she entered. She went into an enormous room with grated wicket openings all round, and a man behind each of them, and as a gentleman, carrying a number of papers, passed her, she stopped him and said, timidly:

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur, but can you tell me where I must apply for payment for anything that has been accidentally burned?”

He replied in a sonorous voice:

“The first door on the left; that is the department you want.”

This frightened her still more, and she felt inclined to run away, to make no claim, to sacrifice her eighteen francs. But the idea of that sum revived her courage, and she went upstairs, out of breath, stopping at almost every other step.

She knocked at a door which she saw on the first landing, and a clear voice said, in answer:

“Come in!”

She obeyed mechanically, and found herself in a large room where three solemn gentlemen, each with a decoration in his buttonhole, were standing talking.

One of them asked her: “What do you want, Madame?”

She could hardly get out her words, but stammered: “I have come⁠—I have come on account of an accident, something⁠—”

He very politely pointed out a seat to her.

“If you will kindly sit down I will attend to you in a moment.”

And, returning to the other two, he went on with the conversation.

“The company, gentlemen, does not consider that it is under any obligation to you for more than four hundred thousand francs, and we can pay no attention to your claim to the further sum of a hundred thousand, which you wish to make us pay. Besides that, the surveyor’s valuation⁠—”

One of the others interrupted him:

“That is quite enough, Monsieur; the law-courts will decide between us, and we have nothing further to do than to take our leave.” And they went out after mutual ceremonious bows.

Oh! if she could only have gone away with them, how gladly she would have done it; she would have run away and given up everything. But it was too late, for the gentleman came back, and said, bowing:

“What can I do for you, Madame?”

She could scarcely speak, but at last she managed to say:

“I have come⁠—for this.”

The manager looked at the object which she held out to him in mute astonishment. With trembling fingers she tried to undo the elastic, and succeeded, after several attempts, and hastily opened the damaged remains of the umbrella.

“It looks to me to be in a very bad state of health,” he said, compassionately.

“It cost me twenty francs,” she said, with some hesitation.

He seemed astonished. “Really! As much as that?”

“Yes, it was a capital article, and I wanted you to see the state it is in.”

“Very well, I see; very well. But I really do not understand what it can have to do with me.”

She began to feel uncomfortable; perhaps this company did not pay for such small articles, and she said:

“But⁠—it is burned.”

He could not deny it.

“I see that very well,” he replied.

She remained open-mouthed, not knowing what to say next; then suddenly forgetting that she had left out the main thing, she said hastily:

“I am Mme. Oreille; we are assured in La Maternelle, and I have come to claim the value of this damage. I only want you to have it recovered,” she added quickly, fearing a positive refusal.

The manager was rather embarrassed, and said:

“But, really, Madame, we do not sell umbrellas; we cannot undertake such kinds of repairs.”

The little woman felt her courage reviving; she was not going to give up without a struggle; she was not even afraid now, so she said:

“I only want you to pay me the cost of repairing it; I can quite well get it done myself.”

The gentleman seemed rather confused.

“Really, Madame, it is such a very small matter! We are never asked to give compensation for such trivial losses. You must allow that we cannot make good pocket-handkerchiefs, gloves, brooms, slippers, all the small articles which are every day exposed to the chances of being burned.”

She got red, and felt inclined to fly into a rage.

“But Monsieur, last December one of our chimneys caught fire, and caused at least five hundred francs’ damage. M. Oreille made no claim on the company, and so it is only just that it should pay for my umbrella now.”

The manager, guessing that she was telling a lie, said, with a smile:

“You must acknowledge, Madame, that it is very surprising that M. Oreille should have asked no compensation for damages amounting to five hundred francs, and should now claim five or six francs for mending an umbrella.”

She was not the least put out, and replied:

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur, the five hundred francs affected M. Oreille’s pocket, whereas this damage, amounting to eighteen francs, concerns Mme. Oreille’s pocket only, which is a totally different matter.”

As he saw that he had no chance of getting rid of her, and that he would only be wasting his time, he said, resignedly:

“Will you kindly tell me how the damage was done?”

She felt that she had won the victory, and said: “This is how it happened, Monsieur: In our hall there is a bronze stick- and umbrella-stand, and the other day, when I came in, I put my umbrella into it. I must tell you that just above there is a shelf for the candlesticks and matches. I put out my hand, took three or four matches, and struck one, but it missed fire, so I struck another, which ignited, but went out immediately, and a third did the same.”

The manager interrupted her, to make a joke.

“I suppose they were Government matches, then?”

She did not understand him, and went on:

“Very likely. At any rate, the fourth caught fire, and I lit my candle, and went into my room to go to bed; but in a quarter-of-an-hour I fancied that I smelled something burning, and I have always been terribly afraid of fire. If ever we have an accident it will not be my fault, I assure you. I am terribly nervous since our chimney was on fire, as I told you; so I got up, and hunted about everywhere, sniffing like a dog after game, and at last I noticed that my umbrella was burning. Most likely a match had fallen between the folds and burned it. You can see how it has damaged it.”

The manager had taken his clue, and asked her:

“What do you estimate the damage at?”

She did not know what to say, as she was not certain what amount to put on it, but at last she replied:

“Perhaps you had better get it done yourself. I will leave it to you.”

He, however, naturally refused.

“No, Madame, I cannot do that. Tell me the amount of your claim, that is all I want to know.”

“Well!⁠—I think that⁠—Look here, Monsieur, I do not want to make any money out of you, so I will tell you what we will do. I will take my umbrella to the maker, who will recover it in good, durable silk, and I will bring the bill to you. Will that suit you, Monsieur?”

“Perfectly, Madame; we will settle it on that basis. Here is a note for the cashier, who will repay you whatever it costs you.”

He gave Mme. Oreille a slip of paper. She took it, got up, and went out, thanking him, for she was in a hurry to escape lest he should change his mind.

She went briskly through the streets, looking out for a really good umbrella-maker, and when she found a shop which appeared to be a first-class one, she went in, and said, confidently:

“I want this umbrella recovered in silk, good silk. Use the very best and strongest you have; I don’t mind what it costs.”

An Idyll

The train had just left Genoa, in the direction of Marseilles, and was following the rocky and sinuous coast, gliding like an iron serpent between the sea and the mountains, creeping over the yellow sand edged with silver waves and entering into the black-mouthed tunnels like a beast into its lair.

In the last carriage, a stout woman and a young man sat opposite each other. They did not speak, but occasionally they would glance at each other. She was about twenty-five years old. Seated by the window, she silently gazed at the passing landscape. She was from Piedmont, a peasant, with large black eyes, a full bust and fat cheeks. She had deposited several parcels on the wooden seat and she held a basket on her knees.

The man might have been twenty years old. He was thin and sunburned, with the dark complexion that denotes work in the open. Tied up in a handkerchief was his whole fortune; a pair of heavy boots, a pair of trousers, a shirt and a coat. Hidden under the seat were a shovel and a pickaxe tied together with a rope.

He was going to France to seek work.

The sun, rising in the sky, spread a fiery light over the coast; it was toward the end of May and delightful odours entered into the railway carriage.

The blooming orange and lemon-trees exhaled a heavy, sweet perfume that mingled with the breath of the roses which grew in profusion along the railroad track, as well as in the gardens of the wealthy and the humble homes of the peasants.

Roses are so completely at home along this coast! They fill the whole region with their dainty and powerful fragrance and make the atmosphere taste like a delicacy, something better than wine, and as intoxicating.

The train was going at slow speed as if loath to leave behind this wonderful garden! It stopped every few minutes at small stations, at clusters of white houses, then went on again leisurely, emitting long whistles. Nobody got in. One would have thought that all the world had gone to sleep and made up its mind not to travel on that sultry spring morning. The plump peasant woman from time to time closed her eyes, but she would open them suddenly whenever her basket slid from her lap. She would catch it, replace it, look out of the window a little while and then doze off again. Tiny beads of perspiration covered her brow and she breathed with difficulty, as if suffering from a painful oppression.

The young man had let his head fall on his breast and was sleeping the sound sleep of the labouring man.

All of a sudden, just as the train left a small station, the peasant woman woke up and opening her basket, drew forth a piece of bread, some hard-boiled eggs, and a flask of wine and some fine, red plums. She began to munch contentedly.

The man had also wakened and he watched the woman, watched every morsel that travelled from her knees to her lips. He sat with his arms folded, his eyes set and his lips tightly compressed.

The woman ate like a glutton, with relish. Every little while she would take a swallow of wine to wash down the eggs and then she would stop for breath.

Everything vanished, the bread, the eggs, the plums and the wine. As soon as she finished her meal, the man closed his eyes. Then, feeling ill at ease, she loosened her blouse and the man suddenly looked at her again.

She did not seem to mind and continued to unbutton her dress.

The pressure of her flesh causing the opening to gape, she revealed a portion of white linen chemise and a portion of her skin.

As soon as she felt more comfortable, she turned to her fellow-traveller and remarked in Italian: “It’s fine weather for travelling.”

“Are you from Piedmont?” he asked. “I’m from Asti.”

“And I’m from Casale.”

They were neighbours and they began to talk. They exchanged the commonplace remarks that working people repeat over and over and which are all-sufficient for their slow-working and narrow minds. They spoke of their homes and found out that they had a number of mutual acquaintances.

They quoted names and became more and more friendly as they discovered more and more people they knew. Short, rapid words, with sonorous endings and the Italian cadence, gushed from their lips.

After that, they talked about themselves. She was married and had three children whom she had left with her sister, for she had found a situation as nurse, a good situation with a French lady at Marseilles.

He was going to look for work.

He had been told that he would be able to find it in France, for they were building a great deal, he had heard.

They found nothing to talk about after that.

The heat was becoming terrible; it beat down like fire on the roof of the railway carriage. A cloud of dust flew behind the train and entered through the window, and the fragrance of the roses and orange-blossoms had become stronger, heavier and more penetrating.

The two travellers went to sleep again.

They awakened almost at the same time. The sun was nearing the edge of the horizon and shed its glorious light on the blue sea. The atmosphere was lighter and cooler.

The nurse was gasping. Her dress was open and her cheeks looked flabby and moist, and in an oppressed voice, she breathed:

“I have not nursed since yesterday; I feel as if I were going to faint.”

The man did not reply; he hardly knew what to say.

She continued: “When a woman has as much milk as I, she must nurse three times a day or she’ll feel uncomfortable. It feels like a weight on my heart, a weight that prevents my breathing and just exhausts me. It’s terrible to have so much milk.”

He replied: “Yes, it must be very annoying.”

She really seemed ill and almost ready to faint. She murmured: “I only have to press and the milk flows out like a fountain. It is really interesting to see. You wouldn’t believe it. In Casale, all the neighbours came to see it.”

He replied: “Ah! really.”

“Yes, really. I would show you, only it wouldn’t help me. You can’t make enough come out that way.”

And she paused.

The train stopped at a station. Leaning on a fence was a woman holding a crying infant in her arms. She was thin and in rags.

The nurse watched her. Then she said in a compassionate tone: “There’s a woman I could help. And the baby could help me, too. I’m not rich; am I not leaving my home, my people and my baby to take a place, but still, I’d give five francs to have that child and be able to nurse it for ten minutes. It would quiet him, and me too, I can tell you. I think I would feel as if I were being born again.”

She paused again. Then she passed her hot hand several times across her wet brow and moaned: “Oh! I can’t stand it any longer. I believe I shall die.” And with an unconscious motion, she completely opened her waist.

Her right breast appeared all swollen and stiff, with its brown teat, and the poor woman gasped: “Ah! mon Dieu! mon Dieu! What shall I do?”

The train had left the station and was continuing its route amid the flowers that gave forth their penetrating fragrance.

Once in a while a fishing smack glided over the blue sea with its motionless sail, which was reflected in the clear water as if another boat were turned upside down.

The young man, embarrassed, stammered: “But⁠—madam⁠—I⁠—might perhaps be⁠—be able to help you.”

In an exhausted whisper, she replied: “Yes, if you will be so kind, you’ll do me a great favour. I can’t stand it any longer, really I can’t.”

He got on his knees before her; and she leaned over to him with a motherly gesture as if he were a child. In the movement she made to draw near to the man, a drop of milk appeared on her breast. He absorbed it quickly, and, taking this heavy breast in his mouth like a fruit, he began to drink regularly and greedily.

He had passed his arms around the woman’s waist and pressed her close to him in order not to lose a drop of the nourishment. And he drank with slow gulps, like a baby.

All of a sudden she said: “That’s enough, now the other side!” And he obeyed her with alacrity.

She had placed both hands on his back and now was breathing happily, freely, enjoying the perfume of the flowers carried on the breeze that entered the open windows.

“It smells mighty good,” she said.

He made no reply and continued to drink at the living fountain of her breast, closing his eyes to better taste the mild fluid.

But she gently pushed him from her.

“That’s enough. I feel much better now. It has put life into me again.”

He rose and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

While she replaced her breasts inside her dress, she said:

“You did me a great favour. I thank you very much!”

And he replied in a grateful tone:

“It is I who thank you, for I hadn’t eaten a thing for two days!”

A Sale

The defendants, Brument (Césaire-Isidore) and Cornu (Prosper-Napoléon), appeared at the Seine-Inférieure Assizes, charged with attempting the murder, by drowning, of the woman Brument, lawful wife of the first of the said defendants.

The two accused are seated side by side in the dock. They are two peasants. The first is little and stout, with short arms, short legs and a round head; his red face, all bursting with pimples, squats without the least sign of a neck on top of a body equally round and equally short. He breeds pigs and lives at Cacheville-la-Goupil, in the district of Criquetot.

Cornu (Prosper-Napoléon) is thin, of medium height, with arms of disproportionate length. He has a crooked jaw and he squints. A blue blouse as long as a shirt falls to his knees, and his scant yellow hair, plastered down on his skull, gives his face a worn, dirty and hideously raddled air. He has been nicknamed “the priest” because he can give a perfect imitation of church hymns and even the sound of the church serpent. He keeps a public-house at Criquetot, and this talent of his attracts to the place a great many customers who prefer “Cornu’s Mass” to the good God’s.

Mme. Brument, seated on the witness stand, is a skinny peasant woman whose drowsy placidity is never shaken. She sits unmoving, hands crossed on knees, with an unwinking stare and an air of stupidity.

The president proceeds with the examination.

“Well, then, Mme. Brument, they entered your house and threw you into a barrel full of water. Tell us the facts in detail. Stand up.”

She stands up. She seems as tall as a mast, under the bonnet that covers her head with a white dome. She tells her tale in a drawling voice:

“I was shelling haricots. And then they came in. I thought to myself: ‘What’s up with them? They’re not themselves; they’re up to mischief.’ They kept looking at me out of the corners of their eyes, like this, especially Cornu, owing to his squint. I didn’t like to see them together, because they’re never up to much good when they’re together. I says to them: ‘What d’you want with me?’ They didn’t answer. I had, as you might say, a suspicion⁠ ⁠…”

The prisoner Brument interrupted her statement vehemently; he declared:

“I was tipsy.”

Whereupon Cornu, turning towards his fellow criminal, pronounced in a voice as deep as the note of an organ:

“Say that I was tipsy as well and you’ll be telling no lies.”

The president, severely: “You wish us to understand that you were drunk?”

Brument: “Yes, I was tipsy all right.”

Cornu: “It might happen to anyone.”

The president, to the victim: “Proceed with your statement, Mme. Brument.”

“Well, then Brument said to me: ‘D’you want to earn five francs?’ ‘Yes,’ said I, seeing you don’t pick five francs up in every gutter. Then he says to me: ‘Keep your eyes open and do as I do,’ and then he goes and fetches the big empty barrel that stands under the spout at the corner; and then he turns it up, and then he carries it into my kitchen, and then he sets it down in the middle of the floor, and then he says to me: ‘Go and fetch enough water to fill it.’

“So then I goes to the pond with two buckets and I fetch water, and still more water for nigh on an hour, seeing that barrel’s as big as a vat, saving your honour, Mr. President.

“While I was doing it, Brument and Cornu were having a drink, and then another drink, and then another drink. They were filling themselves up together, and I said: ‘It’s you that’s full, fuller than the barrel.’ And then that Brument answers: ‘Don’t you worry, get on with your job, your turn’s coming, everyone gets what’s coming to them.’ I takes no notice of his talk, seeing he was tipsy.

“When the barrel was full to the brim, I says: ‘There, I’ve done it.’

“And then Cornu gives me five francs. Not Brument⁠—Cornu; it was Cornu gave me them. And Brument says to me: ‘Do you want to earn another five francs?’

“ ‘Yes,’ says I, seeing I’m not used to such presents.

“Then he says to me:

“ ‘Strip.’

“ ‘You want me to strip?’

“ ‘Yes,’ he says.

“ ‘How far do you want me to strip?’

“He says to me:

“ ‘If you don’t like it, keep your chemise on, we’ve no objection to that.’

“Five francs is five francs, so I strips, but I didn’t like stripping in front of those two good-for-nothings. I takes off my bonnet, and then my bodice, and then my petticoat, and then my sabots. Brument says to me: ‘Keep your stockings on, we’re decent fellows, we are.’

“And that Cornu repeats: ‘We’re decent fellows, we are.’

“And there I am, like our mother Eve, as you might say. And they stands up, but they couldn’t stand straight, they was so drunk, saving your honour, Mr. President.

“I says to them: ‘What mischief are you up to?’

“And Brument says: ‘Are we ready?’

“Cornu says: ‘Ready it is.’

“And then they takes me, Brument by the head and Cornu by the feet, as you might say taking up a bundle of dirty clothes. I bawls, I does. And Brument says: ‘Shut up, you silly wretch.’

“And then they lifts me up in their arms, and sticks me in the barrel full of water, and they put the heart across me, and I was chilled to my very innards.

“And Brument says:

“ ‘Anything else?’

“Cornu says:

“ ‘No, that’s all.’

“Brument says:

“ ‘The head’s not in, and it counts.’

“Cornu says:

“ ‘Put her head in.’

“And then Brument pushes in my head as it might be to drown me, until the water ran up my nose and I thought I was seeing Paradise. And he gives me a push. And I went under.

“And then he must have had a fright. He pulled me out and says to me: ‘Go quick and dry yourself, you skinny wretch.’

“I rushes off and I runs to the priest’s, and he lends me a petticoat of his servant’s, seeing I’m in my skin, and he goes to fetch Mister Chicot, the village policeman, who goes to Cliquetot to fetch the gendarmes, and they come with me to the house.

“And there we find Brument and Cornu going for each other like two rams.

“Brument was bawling: ‘It’s not true, I tell you, it’s at least a cubic metre. It’s the measure that’s wrong.’

“Cornu was bawling: ‘Four buckets, that doesn’t make as much as you could call half a cubic metre. You needn’t say anything more, that’s what it is.’

“The sergeant puts his hands on their heads. That’s all I have to say.”

She sat down. There was laughter in the court. The astonished jurymen stared at each other. The president said solemnly:

“Prisoner Cornu, you appear to be the instigator of this infamous plot. Have you anything to say?”

And Cornu stood up in his turn.

“Your Worship, I was tipsy.”

The president replied gravely:

“I know you were. Go on.”

“I am going on. Well, Brument came to my place about nine o’clock, and he orders two brandies and says: ‘Have one with me, Cornu.’ And I sits down with him and drinks and I offers him another, out of politeness. Then he called for two more, and I did the same, and we went on, drinking brandy after brandy, until about twelve we were blind.

“Then Brument begins to cry. I feels very sorry for him. I asks him what’s the matter. He says: ‘I must have a thousand francs by Thursday.’ When I heard that, it turns me cold, you understand. And all of a sudden he comes out with the proposal: ‘I’ll sell you my wife.’

“I was tipsy and I’m a widower. It fairly got me, understand. I didn’t know his wife, but a wife’s a wife, isn’t she? I asks him: ‘How much will you sell her for?’

“He thinks it over, or rather he pretends to think it over. When a man’s tipsy, he’s not in his right wits, and he answers: ‘I’ll sell her by the cubic metre.’

“That doesn’t surprise me, seeing I was as tipsy as he was, and I’m used to cubic metres in my business. That’s a thousand litres, and I was agreeable to that. Only the price was still to be settled. Everything depends on quality. I says to him: ‘How much the cubic metre?’

“He answers:

“ ‘Two thousand francs.’

“I gives a jump like a rabbit, and then I think to myself that a woman can’t weigh more than three hundred litres. All the same, I says: ‘That’s too dear.’

“He answers:

“ ‘I can’t take less. I should lose on it.’

“A man isn’t a pig dealer for nothing, you understand. He knows his job. But set a thief to catch a thief, and I’m a sharp man, too. Ah! ah! ah! So I say to him: ‘If she was new, I wouldn’t say it was too dear, but as you’ve used her⁠—haven’t you?⁠—she’s secondhand. I give you fifteen hundred francs the cubic metre, not a ha’penny more. Is it a bargain?’

“He answers:

“ ‘It’s a bargain. Shake on it.’

“I shakes and we sets off, arm in arm. Folks ought to help each other along in this life.

“But I had a sudden fear: ‘How are you going to measure her in litres unless you melt her down?’

“Then he explains his idea, none too easily, seeing he was tipsy. He says: ‘I take a barrel, I fill it with water to the brim. I put her inside. All the water that pours over I’ll measure out, and that’ll be the total.’

“I says:

“ ‘Right, it’s agreed. But the water that pours over will run away: what are you going to do to gather it up again?’

“Then he thinks I’m a booby, and he explains that he’ll only have to pour back what’s run out of the barrel as soon as his wife has got out of it. The amount of water we had to add, would be the total. I reckon ten buckets: that’s a cubic metre. He’s not so stupid when he’s tipsy, the rascal, all the same!

“To cut it short, we go off to his house, and I examine the goods specified. As pretty women go, she’s not a pretty woman. Everyone can see that for themselves, seeing she’s sitting there. I says to myself: ‘I’ve been done; never mind, it’s all one: pretty or ugly, a woman’s just as much use, isn’t she now, Mr. President? And then I see for certain that she’s as thin as a match. I says to myself: ‘There’s not four hundred litres there!’ I know what I’m talking about, being used to dealing in liquids.

“She’s told you the way we arranged it. I even let her keep her chemise and her stockings on, a clear loss to me.

“When it was over, what d’you think? She runs off. I says: ‘Here! Brument, she’s getting away.’

“He replies: ‘Don’t you be afraid, I’ll always get her back again. She’ll have to come home to go to bed. I’m going to reckon the deficit.’

“We measured it. Not four buckets. Ah, ah, ah, ah!”

The prisoner began to laugh, and continued to laugh until a gendarme was obliged to thump him on the back. Quiet again, he adds:

“To cut it short, Brument declares: ‘Nothing doing, it’s not enough.’ I bawl, he bawls. I bawl louder, he stamps, I thump. That would have gone on till doomsday, seeing I was tipsy.

“Then in come the gendarmes. They curse me, and they play us a dirty trick. Sent to prison. I demand damages.”

He sits down.

Brument swears that his fellow criminal’s confession is true in every respect. The jury, overwhelmed, retired to consider their verdict.

They returned an hour later and acquitted the accused with severe strictures bearing on the sanctity of marriage, and setting forth in precise terms the limits set to commercial transactions.

Brument, accompanied by his spouse, made his way towards the conjugal hearth.

Cornu returned to his business.

Mother Savage

I

I had not returned to Virelogne for fifteen years. I went back there to hunt in the autumn, staying with my friend Serval, who had finally rebuilt his château, which had been destroyed by the Prussians.

I was infinitely fond of that country. There are delicious corners in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We folk whom nature attracts, keep certain tender recollections, often keen, for certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have touched us like happy events. Sometimes even memory returns toward a forest nook, or a bit of a river bank, or a blossoming orchard, seen only once, on some happy day, which has remained in our heart like those pictures of women seen in the street, on a spring morning, with a white, transparent costume, and which leave in our soul and flesh an unappeased, unforgetable desire, the sensation of having just missed happiness.

At Virelogne, I loved the whole region, sowed with little woods, and traversed by brooks which ran through the soil like veins bringing blood to the earth.

We fished in them for crayfish, trout, and eels! Divine happiness! We could bathe in certain places and often found woodcock in the tall grass which grew on the banks of those little narrow streams.

I went, light as a goat, watching my two dogs forage in front of me. Serval, a hundred yards away, on my right, was beating up a field of lucerne. I went around the thickets which formed the boundaries of the Sandres forest, and I perceived a hut in ruins.

Suddenly I recollected that I had seen it for the last time in 1869, neat, vine-clad, with chickens before the door. What is sadder than a dead house with its skeleton standing, dilapidated and sinister?

I recalled also that a woman had given me a glass of wine there, on a day when I was very tired, and that Serval had then told me the story of the inhabitants. The father, an old poacher, had been killed by the gendarmes. The son, whom I had seen before, was a tall, wizened lad who was likewise considered a ferocious killer of game. People called them the Savage family.

Was it a name or a nickname? I hailed Serval. He came with his long stride, as if he were walking on stilts.

I asked him: “What has become of those people?” And he told me this adventure.

II

“When war was declared, the younger Savage, who was then about thirty-three years old, enlisted, leaving his mother alone in the house. People did not pity the old woman very much, because they knew that she had money.

“So she stayed all alone in this isolated house, so far from the village, on the edge of the woods. She was not afraid, however, being of the same race as her men, a strong, tall, thin, old woman, who seldom laughed, and with whom no one joked. The women of the fields do not laugh much, anyway. That is the men’s business! They have a sad and narrow soul, leading a life which is gloomy and without bright spots.

“The peasant learns a little of the noisy gaiety of the pothouse, but his wife remains serious, with a constantly severe expression of countenance. The muscles of her face never learn the motions of laughter.

“Mother Savage continued her usual existence in her hut, which was soon covered with snow. She came to the village once a week to get bread and a little meat: then she returned to her cottage. As people spoke of wolves, she carried a gun on her shoulder, her son’s gun, rusty, with the stock worn by the rubbing of the hand. She was a curious sight, this tall Savage woman, a little bent, walking with slow strides through the snow, the barrel of the weapon extending beyond the black headdress, which imprisoned the white hair that no one had ever seen.

“One day the Prussians arrived. They were distributed among the inhabitants according to the means and resources of each. The old woman, who was known to be rich, had four soldiers billeted upon her.

“They were four big young men with fair flesh, fair beard, and blue eyes, who had remained stout in spite of the fatigues they had endured, and good fellows even if they were in a conquered territory. Alone with this old woman, they showed themselves full of consideration for her, sparing her fatigue and expense as far as they could do so. All four might have been seen making their toilette at the well in the morning, in their shirtsleeves, splashing their pink and white flesh, the flesh of the men of the north, in the water, on cold snowy days, while Mother Savage came and went preparing their soup. Then they might have been observed cleaning the kitchen, polishing the floor, chopping wood, peeling potatoes, washing the clothes, doing all the household duties, like four good sons around their mother.

“But she thought continually of her own son, the old mother, of her tall, thin boy with his crooked nose, brown eyes, and stiff moustache which made a cushion of black hair on his upper lip. She asked each of the soldiers installed at her hearth:

“ ‘Do you know where the French regiment has gone, the Twenty-third Infantry? My boy is in it.’

“They answered: ‘No, we don’t know anything at all about it.’

“And understanding her grief and worry they, who had mothers at home, rendered her a thousand little services.

“She liked them very well, moreover, her four enemies: for peasants seldom have patriotic hatreds: that is the business of the superior classes. The humble, those who pay the most because they are poor, and because every new burden rests upon them, those who are killed in masses, who form the true cannon fodder because they are numerous, those who, in a word, suffer most cruelly the atrocious miseries of the poor, because they are the weakest and the most unresisting, understand little of those bellicose ardours, the excitable points of honour and those pretended political combinations which exhaust two nations in six months, the victorious as well as the vanquished.

“They said in the country, speaking of Mother Savage’s Germans: ‘There are four who have found a snug berth.’

“Now, one morning, as the old woman was alone in the house, she perceived afar off on the plain a man coming toward her home. Soon she recognized him: it was the postman, charged with distributing letters. He handed her a folded paper, and she drew from their case her spectacles which she used for sewing, and read:

“ ‘Madame Savage, this is to give you sad news. Your son Victor was killed by a cannonball yesterday, which virtually cut him in two. I was very near, as we were side by side in the company and he had asked me to tell you the same day if anything happened to him.

“ ‘I took his watch from his pocket to bring it to you when the war is finished.

“ ‘I remain your friend,

“ ‘Césaire Rivot.

“ ‘Soldier of the 2nd Class, in the 23rd infantry.’

“The letter was dated three weeks back.

“She did not weep. She stood motionless, so astounded that she did not yet suffer.

“She thought: ‘Victor is killed!’

“Then little by little the tears came to her eyes and grief overwhelmed her heart. Ideas came to her one by one, frightful, torturing ideas. She would never kiss him again, her big boy, never again. The gendarmes had killed the father, the Prussians had killed the son. He had been cut in two by a cannonball. And it seemed to her that she saw the thing, the horrible thing: the head falling, the eyes open, while he gnawed the end of his big moustache, as he did in moments of anger.

“What had they done with his body afterwards? If they had only sent her boy back to her, as they had her husband, with a bullet in his forehead.

“But she heard a sound of voices. It was the Prussians, who were returning from the village. She quickly hid the letter in her pocket, and received them tranquilly, with her ordinary expression on her face, having had time to wipe her eyes.

“They were all four laughing, delighted, for they were bringing back a fine rabbit, stolen no doubt, and they made a sign to the old woman that they were going to have something good to eat.

“She applied herself at once to the duties of preparing the breakfast; but when it came to killing the rabbit, her heart failed her. And yet it was not the first. One of the soldiers killed it with a blow behind the ears.

“Once the animal was dead, she took the red body out of the skin; but the sight of the blood which she touched, which covered her hands, of the warm blood which she felt getting cold and coagulating, made her tremble from head to foot; and she kept seeing her tall boy cut in two and all bleeding, like this still palpitating animal.

“She sat at the table with her Prussians, but she could not eat, not even a mouthful. They devoured the rabbit without troubling about her. She looked at them aside without speaking, nursing an idea, with her countenance so impassive that they perceived nothing.

“Suddenly she said: ‘I don’t even know your names, and it is a month since we have been together.’ They understood, not without difficulty, what she wished and gave her their names. That was not enough, she made them write them for her on a piece of paper, with the address of their families, and resting her spectacles on her large nose she scanned this unknown handwriting, then she folded the sheet and put it in her pocket, with the letter which told of the death of her son.

“When the meal was finished, she said to the men:

“ ‘I am going to work for you.’

“And she began to carry straw to the garret in which they slept.

“They were astonished at this act. She explained to them that they would be less cold; and they assisted her. They piled the bundles of straw up to the roof, and thus they made for themselves a sort of big room with four walls of forage, warm and sweet-smelling, where they would sleep wonderfully.

“At dinner one of them was disturbed to see that Mother Savage did not eat anything. She asserted that she had cramps. Then she lighted a good fire to warm herself, and the four Germans climbed to their lodging by the ladder which they used every evening.

“As soon as the trapdoor was closed, the old woman took away the ladder, then she noiselessly opened the outside door and returned to get more bundles of straw, with which she filled the kitchen. She went out barefooted in the snow, so softly that the men heard nothing. From time to time she listened to the deep and uneven snores of the four sleeping soldiers. When she thought her preparations were sufficient, she threw into the fire one of the bundles of straw, and when it had ignited she piled it on the others, and then went out again and looked.

“A brilliant light illuminated in a few seconds all the interior of the cottage; then it became a frightful brazier, a gigantic, glowing furnace, whose gleams shone through the narrow window and cast a dazzling light upon the snow.

“Then a great cry came from the top of the house; there was a clamour of human shrieks, of heartrending appeals of anguish and terror. Then, the trapdoor having sunk down into the interior, a whirlwind of fire leaped through the attic, pierced the thatched roof, and ascended to the sky like the flame of a great torch; and the whole cottage was burning.

“Nothing more was heard inside but the crackling of the flames, the crumbling of the walls, and the crashing of the beams. The roof suddenly fell in, and the glowing remnant of the house shot up into the air, amid a cloud of smoke, a great fountain of sparks.

“The white field, lighted up by the fire, glistened like a cloth of silver tinted with red.

“A bell in the distance began to ring. The old Savage woman stood erect before her ruined home, armed with a gun, her son’s, for fear one of the men should escape.

“When she saw that her work was finished, she threw the weapon in the fire. A report rang out.

“The people arrived, peasants and Prussians.

“They found the woman sitting on the trunk of a tree, tranquil and satisfied.

“A German officer who could speak French like a Frenchman, asked her:

“ ‘Where are the soldiers?’

“She stretched her thin arm toward the red mass of flames, which were now dying down, and answered in a strong voice:

“ ‘They are in there!’

“All pressed around her. The Prussian asked:

“ ‘How did the fire start?’

“She replied:

“ ‘I set the house on fire.’

“They did not believe her, thinking that the sudden disaster had made her mad. Then, as everybody gathered around and listened, she related the whole thing from beginning to end, the arrival of the letter to the last cry of the men, burning up with the house. She did not forget a single detail of what she had felt nor what she had done.

“When she had finished she drew two papers from her pocket, and, to distinguish them in the last gleams of the fire, she again put on her spectacles. Then she said, showing one of them: ‘This is the death of Victor.’ Showing the other, she added, nodding her head toward the red ruins: ‘And this is the list of their names, so that someone may write the news home about them.’

“She quietly handed the white sheet to the officer, who took her by the shoulders, and she resumed:

“ ‘You will write how it happened, and you will tell their relatives that it was I who did it, Victoire Simon, the Savage; don’t forget.’

“The officer shouted some orders in German, to the soldiers; they seized her, and threw her against the still heated walls of the house. Then a squad of twelve men drew up in a rank opposite her, at a distance of twenty yards. She did not stir. She had understood. She waited.

“An order resounded, which was followed by a long report of muskets. One delayed shot went off all alone, after the others.

“The old woman did not fall. She sank down as if someone had mowed off her legs.

“The Prussian officer approached. She was cut almost in two, and in her shriveled hand she held her letter, bathed in blood.”

My friend Serval added.

“It was by way of reprisal that the Germans destroyed the château of the district, which belonged to me.”

I thought of the mothers of the poor gentle young fellows burned there; and of the atrocious heroism of that other mother, shot against the wall.

And I picked up a little pebble, still blackened by the fire.

The Tramp

He had known better days, in spite of his poverty and his infirmity.

At the age of fifteen both his legs had been crushed by a carriage on the Varville high road. Ever since then he had been a beggar, dragging himself along the roads and across the farmyards, balanced on his crutches, which had forced his shoulders to the level of his ears. His head appeared buried between two hills.

As a child he had been found in a ditch by the rector of Billettes, on the eve of All Souls’ Day, and for that reason had been christened Nicolas Toussaint (All Saints). He was brought up by charity, and remained a stranger to any form of education. It was after drinking some brandy given him by the village baker that he was lamed, which was considered an excellent joke; since then he had been a vagabond, not knowing how to do anything except hold out his hand for alms.

In earlier days the Baroness d’Avary had given him a sort of kennel filled with straw to sleep in, next to the chicken-house on the farm belonging to her country-house; and in the times of famine he was always certain of finding a piece of bread and a glass of cider in the kitchen. Often he received there a few coppers as well, thrown down by the old lady from the top of the terrace steps or from the windows of her room. Now she was dead.

In the village he was given scarcely anything; he was too well known; people were tired of him after forty years of seeing him drag his deformed and ragged body round from hovel to hovel on his two wooden paws. Yet he would not leave the neighbourhood, for he knew no other thing on earth but this corner of the country, these three or four hamlets in which he had dragged out his miserable life. He had set boundaries to his begging, and would never have passed over the frontiers within which he was used to keep himself.

He did not know if the world extended far beyond the trees which had always bounded his view. He had no curiosity in the matter. And when rustics, weary of meeting him continually at the edges of their fields or beside their ditches, shouted to him: “Why do you never go to the other villages, instead of always hobbling round these parts?” he would not answer and would go away, seized with a vague fear of the unknown, the fear of a poor man in confused terror of a thousand things, new faces, rough treatment, the suspicious looks of people who did not know him, and the policemen who went two by two along the roads, and sent him ducking instinctively into the bushes or behind the heaps of stones.

When he saw them in the distance, glittering in the sun, he acquired suddenly a strange, monster-like agility in getting himself into some hiding-place. He tumbled off his crutches, letting himself fall like a rag, and rolled up into a ball, becoming quite small, invisible, flattened like a hare in its form, blending his brown rags with the brown earth.

As a matter of fact he had never had anything to do with them. But he carried it in his blood, as though he had received this terror from the parents he had never seen.

He had no refuge, no roof, no hut, no shelter. He slept anywhere in the summer, and in the winter he slipped under barns or into cowsheds with remarkable adroitness. He always decamped before his presence was discovered. He knew the holes by which buildings might be entered; and the handling of his crutches had given surprising strength to his arms; by the strength of his wrists alone he would climb up into haylofts, where he sometimes stayed for four or five days without stirring out, when he had collected sufficient provisions during his rounds.

He lived like the beasts of the woods, surrounded by men, knowing no one, loving no one, arousing in the peasants no emotion but a sort of indifferent contempt and resigned hostility. He had been nicknamed “Bell,” because he swung between his two props like a bell between its two hammers.

For the past two days he had had nothing to eat. No one gave him anything now. People were at last quite tired of him. The peasant women at their doors shouted at him from the distance when they saw him coming:

“Be off with you, you clod! Why, I gave you a bit of bread only three days ago!”

And he swivelled round on his props and went off to the next house, where he was welcomed in the same fashion.

The women declared to their next-door neighbours:

“After all, we can’t feed the lazybones all the year round.”

The lazybones, however, needed food every day.

He had roamed all over Saint Hilaire, Varville, and Les Billettes without harvesting a solitary centime or an old crust. No hope remained, except at Tournolles; but that required of him a journey two leagues on the high road, and he felt too weary to drag himself along, with his belly as empty as his pocket.

But he set off.

It was December; a cold wind ran over the fields and whistled in the bare branches and the clouds galoped across the low, dark sky, hastening to an unknown goal. The cripple went slowly on, painfully moving his crutches one after the other, steadying himself on the one twisted leg that remained to him, terminated by a clubfoot swathed in a rag.

From time to time he sat down at the roadside and rested for a few minutes. Hunger was overwhelming his confused and stupid wits with utter misery. He had only one idea, to eat, but he did not know how it was to be brought about.

For three hours he struggled along the long road; then, when the trees of the village came into sight, he hastened his movements.

The first peasant whom he met, and of whom he asked alms, replied:

“Here you are back again at your old trade! Shall we never be rid of you?”

And “Bell” departed. At every door he was roughly treated and sent away without being given anything. But he continued his round, patient and obstinate. He did not garner a halfpenny.

Then he visited the farms, dragging himself across fields soft with rain, so exhausted that he could not lift his sticks. Everywhere he was driven away. It was one of those cold, melancholy days on which hearts are hardened, and tempers hasty, on which the soul is dark, and the hands open neither to give nor to succour.

When he had visited every house with which he was acquainted, he went and lay down in the corner of a ditch which ran alongside Maître Chiquet’s farmyard. He unhooked himself, this being the best way of expressing the manner in which he let himself fall down between the high crutches that he slipped under his arms. For a long time he remained motionless, tortured by hunger, but too much of an animal fully to comprehend his fathomless misery.

He waited for he knew not what, in that vague state of expectation which lives on, deathless, in all of us. There in the corner of the yard, in the icy wind, he awaited the mysterious aid from heaven or mankind which a wretched victim will always hope for, without wondering how, or why, or by whose agency it can possibly arrive. A flock of black hens was passing, seeking their sustenance in the earth, which gives food to all creatures. At every moment their sharp beaks found a bit of grain or an invisible insect, after which the birds would continue their slow, sure search.

“Bell” watched them, thinking of nothing; then there came to him, into his belly if not into his head, the feeling, rather than the thought, that one of those birds would make excellent eating, grilled over a fire of dead wood.

The idea that he was about to commit a theft never touched him. Taking up a stone which lay within his reach, he threw it at the nearest hen, and, being an expert shot, killed it outright. The bird fell on its side, beating its wings. The rest fled, swaying from side to side on their thin legs, and “Bell,” clambering once more into his crutches, started off to retrieve his booty, his movements resembling those of the hens.

As he arrived beside the little black corpse stained on the head with blood, he was given a violent blow in the back which made him loose hold of his sticks and sent him rolling for ten paces in front of him. Maître Chiquet, exasperated, rushed upon the marauder and showered blows upon him, beating him furiously, with the fury of a peasant who has been robbed, belabouring with fist and knee the entire body of the cripple, who could not defend himself.

The farmhands came up in their turn, and joined their master in battering the beggar. When they were weary of beating him, they picked him up, carried him off, and shut him up in the woodshed while someone went to fetch the police.

“Bell,” half dead, bleeding, and fainting with hunger, remained lying on the ground. Evening came, the night, then dawn. He had still had nothing to eat.

About midday the police appeared and opened the door with great care, expecting to meet with some resistance, for Maître Chiquet had given them to understand that he had been attacked by the beggar and had defended himself with great difficulty.

“Come on! Up you get!” shouted the sergeant.

But “Bell” could not move. He tried hard to hoist himself on to his sticks, but did not succeed. They thought he was shamming, trying to trick them, acting with the obstinate ill will common to malefactors, and the two armed men laid rough hands on him and set him on his crutches by main force.

Terror had gripped him, his instinctive terror of all wearers of the yellow shoulder-belt, the terror of the hunted before the hunter, of the mouse before the cat. With a superhuman effort he managed to remain upright.

“Off we go!” said the sergeant. He walked. All the farmhands watched him go. The women shook their fists at him; the men sniggered and abused him: he was caught at last! Good riddance!

He went off between his two guards. He succeeded in finding the desperate energy necessary to keep going until evening, stupefied, no longer even realising what was happening to him, too frightened to understand anything.

The people they met on the way stopped to watch him go by, and the peasants murmured:

“It’s some thief or other.”

Towards nightfall they reached the capital of the canton. He had never been so far as this. He hardly realised at all what was going on, nor what might happen to him afterwards. All these terrible, unforeseen events, these faces and strange houses, bewildered him.

He did not utter a word, having nothing to say, for he no longer understood anything. And besides, it was so many years since he had spoken to anyone that he had very nearly lost the use of his tongue; moreover, his thoughts were too confused to find expression in words.

He was locked up in the town jail. The policemen never imagined that he might need something to eat, and he was left until next day.

But when they came down to question him, they found him lying dead upon the floor. What a surprise!

A Meeting

It was all an accident, a pure accident. Tired of standing, Baron d’Étraille went⁠—as all the Princess’s rooms were open on that particular evening⁠—into an empty bedroom, which appeared almost dark after coming out of the brilliantly-lighted drawing rooms.

He looked round for a chair in which to doze, as he was sure his wife would not go away before daylight. As soon as he got inside the door he saw the big bed with its azure-and-gold hangings, in the middle of the great room, looking like a catafalque in which love was buried, for the Princess was no longer young. Behind it, a large bright spot looked like a lake seen at a distance from a window. It was a big looking-glass, discreetly covered with dark draperies that were sometimes let down, and often opened up, and it seemed to look at the bed, which was its accomplice. One might almost fancy that it felt regrets, and that one was going to see in it the charming shapes of the thighs of women and the gentle movement of arms about to embrace them.

The Baron stood still for a moment, smiling and rather moved, on the threshold of this chamber dedicated to love. But suddenly something appeared in the looking-glass, as if the phantoms which he had evoked had come up before him. A man and a woman who had been sitting on a low couch hidden in the shade had risen, and the polished surface, reflecting their figures, showed that they were kissing each other before separating.

The Baron recognised his wife and the Marquis de Cervigné. He turned and went away like a man fully master of himself, and waited till it was day before taking away the Baronne. But he had no longer any thoughts of sleeping.

As soon as they were alone, he said:

“Madame, I saw you just now in the Princess de Raynes’s room. I need say no more, for I am not fond either of reproaches, acts of violence, or of ridicule. As I wish to avoid all such things, we shall separate without any scandal. Our lawyers will settle your position according to my orders. You will be free to live as you please when you are no longer under my roof; but, as you will continue to bear my name, I must warn you that should any scandal arise, I shall show myself inflexible.”

She tried to speak, but he stopped her, bowed, and left the room.

He was more astonished and sad than unhappy. He had loved her dearly during the first period of their married life; but his ardour had cooled, and now he often had a caprice, either in a theatre or in society, though he always preserved a certain liking for the Baronne.

She was very young, hardly four-and-twenty, small, thin⁠—too thin⁠—and very fair. She was a true Parisian doll: clever, spoiled, elegant, coquettish, witty, with more charm than real beauty. He used to say familiarly to his brother, when speaking of her:

“My wife is charming, attractive, but⁠—there is nothing to lay hold of. She is like a glass of champagne that is all froth⁠—when you have got to the wine it is very good, but there is too little of it, unfortunately.”

He walked up and down the room in great agitation, thinking of a thousand things. At one moment he felt in a great rage, and felt inclined to give the Marquis a good thrashing, to horsewhip him publicly, in the club. But he thought that would not do, it would not be the thing; he would be laughed at, and not the other, and he felt that his anger proceeded more from wounded vanity than from a broken heart. So he went to bed, but could not get to sleep.

A few days afterward it was known in Paris that the Baron and Baronne d’Étraille had agreed to an amicable separation on account of incompatibility of temper. Nobody suspected anything, nobody laughed, and nobody was astonished.

The Baron, however, to avoid meeting her, travelled for a year; then he spent the summer at the seaside, and the autumn in shooting, returning to Paris for the winter. He did not meet his wife once.

He did not even know what people said about her. At any rate, she took care to save appearances, and that was all he asked for.

He got dreadfully bored, travelled again, restored his old castle of Villebosc⁠—which took him two years; then for over a year he received relays of friends there, till at last, tired of all these common place, so-called pleasures, he returned to his mansion in the Rue de Lilles, just six years after their separation.

He was then forty-five, with a good crop of gray hair, rather stout, and with that melancholy look of people who have been handsome, sought after, much liked, and are deteriorating daily.

A month after his return to Paris he took cold on coming out of his club, and had a bad cough, so his doctor ordered him to Nice for the rest of the winter.

He started by the express on Monday evening. He was late, got to the station only a very short time before the departure of the train, and had barely time to get into a carriage, with only one other occupant, who was sitting in a corner so wrapped in furs and cloaks that he could not even make out whether it were a man or a woman, as nothing of the figure could be seen. When he perceived that he could not find out, he put on his travelling-cap, rolled himself up in his rugs, and stretched himself out comfortably to sleep.

He did not wake up till the day was breaking, and looked immediately at his fellow-traveller. He had not stirred all night, and seemed still to be sound asleep.

M. d’Étraille made use of the opportunity to brush his hair and his beard, and to try and freshen himself up a little generally, for a night’s travelling changes one’s looks very much when one has attained a certain age.

A great poet has said:

Quand on est jeune, on a des matins triomphants!15

Then we wake up with a cool skin, a bright eye, and glossy hair. When one grows older one wakes up in a very different state. Dull eyes, red, swollen cheeks, dry lips, the hair and beard all disarranged, impart an old, fatigued, worn-out look to the face.

The Baron opened his travelling dressing-case, made himself as tidy as he could, and then waited.

The engine whistled and the train stopped, and his neighbour moved. No doubt he was awake. They started off again, and then an oblique ray of the sun shone into the carriage just on to the sleeper, who moved again, shook himself, and then calmly showed his face.

It was a young, fair, pretty, stout woman, and the Baron looked at her in amazement. He did not know what to believe. He could really have sworn that it was his wife⁠—but wonderfully changed for the better: stouter⁠—why, she had grown as stout as he was⁠—only it suited her much better than it did him.

She looked at him quietly, did not seem to recognise him, and then slowly laid aside her wraps. She had that calm assurance of a woman who is sure of herself, the insolent audacity of a first awaking, knowing and feeling that she was in her full beauty and freshness.

The Baron really lost his head. Was it his wife, or somebody else who was as like her as any sister could be? As he had not seen her for six years he might be mistaken.

She yawned, and he knew her by the gesture. She turned and looked at him again, calmly, indifferently, as if she scarcely saw him, and then looked out at the country again.

He was upset and dreadfully perplexed, and waited, looking at her sideways, steadfastly.

Yes; it was certainly his wife. How could he possibly have doubted? There could certainly not be two noses like that, and a thousand recollections flashed through him, slight details of her body, a beauty-spot on one of her limbs and another on her back. How often he had kissed them! He felt the old feeling of the intoxication of love stealing over him, and he called to mind the sweet odour of her skin, her smile when she put her arms on to his shoulders, the soft intonations of her voice, all her graceful, coaxing ways.

But how she had changed and improved! It was she and yet not she. He thought her riper, more developed, more of a woman, more seductive, more desirable, adorably desirable.

And this strange, unknown woman, whom he had accidentally met in a railway-carriage belonged to him; he had only to say to her:

“I insist upon it.”

He had formerly slept in her arms, existed only in her love, and now he had found her again certainly, but so changed that he scarcely knew her. It was another, and yet she at the same time. It was another who had been born, formed, and grown since he had left her. It was she, indeed; she whom he had possessed but whom he found with her manners modified, her features more formed, her smile less affected, her gestures surer. There were two women in one, mingling a great deal of what was new and unknown with many sweet recollections of the past. There was something extraordinary, disturbing, exciting about it⁠—a kind of mystery of love in which there floated a delicious confusion. It was his wife in a new body and in new flesh which his lips had never pressed.

And he remembered that in six or seven years everything changes in us, only outlines can be recognised, and sometimes even they disappear.

The blood, the hair, the skin, all change, and are reconstituted, and when people have not seen each other for a long time they find, when they meet, another totally different being, although it be the same and bear the same name.

And the heart also can change. Ideas may be modified and renewed, so that in forty years of life we may, by gradual and constant transformations, become four or five totally new and different beings.

He dwelt on this thought till it troubled him; it had first taken possession of him when he surprised her in the Princess’s room. He was not the least angry; it was not the same woman that he was looking at⁠—that thin, excitable little doll of those days.

What was he to do? How should he address her? and what could he say to her? Had she recognised him?

The train stopped again. He got up, bowed, and said: “Berthe, do you want anything I can bring you?”

She looked at him from head to foot, and answered, without showing the slightest surprise or confusion or anger, but with the most perfect indifference:

“I do not want anything⁠—thank you.”

He got out and walked up and down the platform a little in order to think, and, as it were, to recover his senses after a fall. What should he do now? If he got into another carriage it would look as if he were running away. Should he be gallant? That would look as if he were asking for forgiveness. Should he speak as if he were her master? He would look like a cad, and besides, he really had no right to do so.

He got in again and took his place.

During his absence she had hastily arranged her dress and hair, and was now lying stretched out on the seat, radiant, but without showing any emotion.

He turned to her, and said: “My dear Berthe, since this singular chance has brought us together after a separation of six years⁠—a quite friendly separation⁠—are we to continue to look upon each other as irreconcilable enemies? We are shut up together, tête-à-tête, which is so much the better or so much the worse. I am not going to get into another carriage, so don’t you think it is preferable to talk as friends till the end of our journey?”

She answered quite calmly again:

“Just as you please.”

Then he suddenly stopped, really not knowing what to say; but as he had plenty of assurance, he sat down on the middle seat, and said:

“Well, I see I must court you; so much the better. It is, however, really a pleasure, for you are charming. You cannot imagine how you have improved in the last six years. I do not know any woman who could give me that delightful sensation which I experienced just now when you emerged from your wraps. I could really have thought such a change impossible.”

Without moving her head or looking at him, she said: “I cannot say the same with regard to you; you have certainly deteriorated a great deal.”

He got red and confused, and then, with a smile of resignation, he said:

“You are rather hard.”

“Why?” was her reply. “I am only stating facts. I don’t suppose you intend to offer me your love? It must, therefore, be a matter of perfect indifference to you what I think about you. But I see it is a painful subject, so let us talk of something else. What have you been doing since I last saw you?”

He felt rather out of countenance, and stammered:

“I? I have travelled, hunted, and grown old, as you see. And you?”

She said, quite calmly: “I have always kept up appearances, as you ordered me.”

He was very nearly saying something brutal, but he checked himself, and kissed his wife’s hand:

“And I thank you,” he said.

She was surprised. He was indeed strong and always master of himself.

He went on: “As you have acceded to my first request, shall we now talk without any bitterness?”

She made a little gesture of disdain.

“Bitterness! I don’t feel any; you are a complete stranger to me; I am only trying to keep up a difficult conversation.”

He was still looking at her, carried away in spite of her harshness, and he felt seized with a brutal desire, the desire of the master.

Perceiving that she had hurt his feelings, she said: “How old are you now? I thought you were younger than you look.”

He grew rather pale:

“I am forty-five”; and then he added: “I forgot to ask after Princess de Raynes. Are you still intimate with her?”

She looked at him as if she hated him:

“Yes, certainly I am. She is very well, thank you.”

They remained sitting side by side, agitated and irritated. Suddenly he said:

“My dear Berthe, I have changed my mind. You are my wife, and I expect you to come with me today. You have, I think, improved both morally and physically, and I am going to take you back again. I am your husband and it is my right to do so.”

She was quite taken aback, and looked at him, trying to divine his thoughts; but his face was resolute and impenetrable.

“I am very sorry,” she said, “but I have made other engagements.”

“So much the worse for you,” was his reply. “The law gives me the power, and I mean to use it.”

They were getting to Marseilles, and the train whistled and slackened speed. The Baronne got up, carefully rolled up her wraps, and then turning to her husband, she said:

“My dear Raymond, do not make a bad use of the tête-à-tête which I had carefully prepared. I wished to take precautions, according to your advice, so that I might have nothing to fear from you or from other people, whatever might happen. You are going to Nice, are you not?”

“I shall go wherever you go.”

“Not at all; just listen to me, and I am sure that you will leave me in peace. In a few moments, when we get to the station, you will see the Princess de Raynes and the Comtesse Henriot waiting for me with their husbands. I wished them to see us, and to know that we had spent the night together in the railway-carriage. Don’t be alarmed; they will tell it everywhere as a most surprising fact.

“I told you just now that I had most carefully followed your advice and saved appearances. Anything else does not matter, does it? Well, in order to do so, I wished to be seen with you. You told me carefully to avoid any scandal, and I am avoiding it, for, I am afraid⁠—I am afraid⁠—”

She waited till the train had quite stopped, and as her friends ran up to open the carriage door, she said:

“I am afraid that I am enceinte.”

The Princess stretched out her arms to embrace her, and the Baronne said, pointing to the Baron, who was dumb with astonishment, and trying to get at the truth:

“You do not recognise Raymond? He has certainly changed a good deal, and he agreed to come with me so that I might not travel alone. We take little trips like this occasionally, like good friends who cannot live together. We are going to separate here; he has had enough of me already.”

She put out her hand, which he took mechanically, and then she jumped out on to the platform among her friends, who were waiting for her.

The Baron hastily shut the carriage door, for he was too much disturbed to say a word or come to any determination. He heard his wife’s voice, and their merry laughter as they went away.

He never saw her again, nor did he ever discover whether she had told him a lie or was speaking the truth.

The Legacy

I

Although it was not yet ten o’clock, the employees were pouring in like waves through the great doorway of the Ministry of Marine, having come in haste from every corner of Paris, for the first of the year was approaching, the time for renewed zeal⁠—and for promotions. A noise of hurrying footsteps filled the vast building, which was as tortuous as a labyrinth, and honeycombed with inextricable passages, pierced by innumerable doors opening into the various offices.

Each one entered his particular room, pressed the hands of his colleagues who had already arrived, threw off his coat, put on his office jacket, and seated himself before the table, where a pile of papers awaited him. Then they went for news into the neighbouring offices. They asked whether their chief had arrived, if he was in an agreeable humour, and if the day’s mail was a heavy one.

The clerk in charge of “general matter,” M. César Cachelin, an old noncommissioned officer of the marine infantry, who had become chief-clerk by priority of office, registered in a big book all the documents as they were brought in by the messenger. Opposite him the copying-clerk, old father Savon, a stupid old fellow, celebrated throughout the whole ministry for his conjugal misfortunes, copied in a slow hand a dispatch from the chief, sitting with his body held sidewise and his eyes askew, in the stiff attitude of the careful copyist.

M. Cachelin, a big man, whose short, white hair stood up like a brush on his head, talked all the time while performing his daily work: “Thirty-two dispatches from Toulon. That port gives us as much as any four others put together.”

Then he asked the old man Savon the question he put to him every morning:

“Well, father Savon, how is Madame?”

The old man, without stopping his work, replied: “You know very well, Monsieur Cachelin, that subject is a most painful one to me.”

Then the chief clerk laughed as he laughed every day at hearing the same phrase.

The door opened and M. Maze entered. He was a handsome, dark young fellow dressed with an exaggerated elegance, who thought his position beneath his dignity, and his person and manners above his position. He wore large rings, a heavy gold watch chain, a monocle (which he discarded while at work), and he made a frequent movement of his wrists in order to bring into view his cuffs ornamented with great shining buttons.

At the door he asked: “Much work today?” M. Cachelin replied: “It is always Toulon which keeps sending in. One can easily see that the first of the year is at hand, from the way they are hustling down there.”

But another employee, a great joker, always in high spirits, appeared in his turn and said laughing:

“We are not hustling at all, are we?” Then taking out his watch he added: “Seven minutes to ten and every man at his post! By George, what do you think of that? and I’ll wager anything that his Dignity M. Lesable arrived at nine o’clock⁠—at the same hour as our illustrious chief.”

The chief-clerk ceased writing, put his pen behind his ear, and leaning his elbow on the desk said: “Oh! there is a man for you! If he does not succeed, it will not be for want of trying.”

M. Pitolet, seating himself on the corner of the table and swinging his leg, replied:

“But he will succeed, papa Cachelin; he will succeed, you may be sure. I will bet you twenty francs to a sou that he will be chief within ten years.”

M. Maze, who rolled a cigarette while warming his calves before the fire, said:

“Pshaw! for my part I would rather remain all my life on a salary of twenty-four hundred francs than wear myself to a skeleton the way he is doing.”

Pitolet turned on his heels and said in a bantering tone: “But that does not prevent you, my dear fellow, from being here on this twentieth of December before ten o’clock.”

The other shrugged his shoulders with an air of indifference. “Hang it all! I do not want everybody to walk over my head, either! Since you come here to see the sun rise, I am going to do it, too, however much I may deplore your officiousness. From doing that to calling the chief ‘dear master,’ as Lesable does, and staying until half past six and then carrying work home with you is a long way. Besides, I am in society and I have other demands upon my time.”

M. Cachelin had ceased his registering and begun to dream, his eyes fixed on vacancy. At last he asked: “Do you believe that he will get an increase again this year?”

Pitolet cried: “I will bet you ten to one he gets it. He is not wearing himself out for nothing.”

And so they talked of the eternal question of promotion which for a month had excited the whole hive of clerks from the ground floor to the roof.

They calculated chances, computed figures, compared their various claims to promotion, and waxed indignant over former injustices. These discussions lasted from morning until evening, and the next day were begun all over again, with the same reasons, the same arguments, the same words.

A new clerk entered, a little, pale, sick-looking man, M. Boissel, who lived as in a romance of Alexandre Dumas, père. Everything with him was an extraordinary adventure, and he recounted every morning to his friend Pitolet his strange encounters of the previous evening, imaginary scenes enacted in his house, strange cries uttered in the street which caused him to open his window at half past three in the morning. Every day he had separated combatants, stopped runaway horses, rescued women from danger; and although of a deplorably weak constitution he talked unceasingly, in a slow and satisfied tone, of exploits accomplished by his strong arm.

As soon as he understood that they were talking of Lesable he declared: “Some day I will give that little pup his deserts; and if he ever walks over my head, I’ll give him something that will prevent him from trying again.”

Maze, continuing to smoke, sneered: “You would do well, then, to begin at once, for I hear on good authority that you are to be set aside this year for Lesable.”

Boissel raised his hand. “I swear that if⁠—”

The door opened once more, and a dapper little man wearing the side-whiskers of an officer of marine or lawyer, and a high, stiff collar, who spoke his words rapidly as though he could not take the time to finish what he had to say, entered quickly with a preoccupied manner. He shook hands all around with the air of a man who had no leisure for dallying, and approaching the chief-clerk said: “My dear Cachelin, will you give me the Chapelou papers, rope yarn, Toulon A.T.V., 1875?”

The clerk rose, reached for a portfolio above his head, took out a package of sealed documents wrapped in blue linen, and presenting them said: “There, M. Lesable; you remember the chief took three dispatches from their package yesterday.”

“Yes, I have them. Thanks,” and the young man went out hurriedly.

Hardly had he gone when Maze ejaculated: “Well! what an air! One would swear he was already chief.”

And Pitolet replied: “Patience, patience; he will be before any of us.”

M. Cachelin had not resumed his writing. A fixed thought seemed to have taken possession of him. At last he said: “He has a fine future, that boy!”

But Maze murmured in a disdainful tone: “For those who think the ministry is a career⁠—yes. For the others it is a little⁠—”

Pitolet interrupted him: “Perhaps you intend to become ambassador?”

The other made an impatient gesture. “It is not a question of me. I can take care of myself. That has nothing to do with the fact that the position of the head of a department will never be anything very much.”

Father Savon, the copyist, had never ceased his work. But for some little time he had been dipping his pen in the inkstand, then wiping it vigorously on the sponge which stood in a little glass of water on his desk, without being able to trace a letter. The black liquid slipped along the point of the metal and fell in round spots on the paper. The good man, driven to despair as sheet after sheet of paper was thus spoiled, said in a deep and sorrowful voice:

“Here is more adulterated ink!”

A shout of laughter came from every mouth. Cachelin shook the table with his stomach. Maze bent double, as though he were going up the chimney backward. Pitolet stamped and roared and waved his hands in the air, and even Boissel was almost suffocated, although he generally looked at these things on the tragic rather than the comic side.

But father Savon, wiping his pen on the tail of his overcoat, said: “There is nothing to laugh at. I have to go over my whole work two or three times.”

He took from his box another sheet of paper, laid his wax sheet over it, and commenced again at the beginning: “Monsieur le Ministre and dear Colleague⁠—” The pen now held the ink and traced the letters neatly. The old man settled down into his oblique posture and continued his copy.

The others had not stopped laughing. They were fairly choking. For six months they had played the same game on the poor old fellow, who had never detected it. It consisted in pouring several drops of oil on the damp sponge used for wiping pens. The metal, thus becoming coated with liquid grease, would not take the ink, and the perplexed copying-clerk would pass hours in using boxes of pens and bottles of ink, and finally declare that the supplies of the department were becoming perfectly worthless.

Then the jokers would torment the old man in other ways. They put gunpowder in his tobacco, pour drugs into his drinking water, and made him believe that, since the Commune, the majority of articles for general use had been adulterated by the socialists, to put the government in the wrong and bring about a revolution. He had conceived a terrible hatred against the anarchists, whom he believed to be concealed everywhere, and had a mysterious fear of an unknown woman⁠—veiled and formidable.

A sharp ring of the bell sounded in the corridor. They well knew the emphatic ring of their chief, M. Torchebeuf, and each one sprang toward the door that he might regain his own compartment.

Cachelin returned to his work. Then he laid down his pen again, and took his head in his hands and began to think.

He turned over in his mind an idea which had tormented him for some time. An old noncommissioned officer of the marine infantry, retired after receiving three wounds, one at Senegal and two at Cochin China, who had been given a position in the ministry as an exceptional favour, he had had to endure many miseries, many hardships, and many griefs in his long career as an insignificant subordinate. He considered authority, official authority, as the finest thing in the world. The head of a Department seemed to him an exceptional being, living in a higher sphere; and the employee of whom he heard it said: “He is a sharp one; he will get there yet,” appeared to him of another race, another nature, than himself.

He had therefore for his colleague Lesable a high respect which approached veneration, and he cherished the secret desire, which was never absent from his mind, to have him marry his daughter.

She would be rich one day, very rich. This was known throughout the entire ministry, for his sister, Mlle. Cachelin, possessed a million, a clear, cool million, acquired through love, they said, but purified by belated piety.

This ancient spinster, who had led a gay life in her youth, had retired with five hundred thousand francs, which she had more than doubled in eighteen years, thanks to her ferocious economy and more than frugal habits. She had lived for a long time with her brother, who was a widower with one daughter, Coralie; but she did not contribute in the slightest degree to the expenses of the house, guarding and accumulating her gold, and always repeating to Cachelin: “It makes no difference, since it is all for your daughter; but marry her quickly, for I want to see my little nephews around me. It is she who will give me the joy of embracing a child of our blood.”

This was well understood at the office, and suitors were not lacking for Coralie’s hand. It was said that Maze himself, the handsome Maze, the lion of the bureau, hovered around father Cachelin with a palpable intent. But the former sergeant, who had roamed through all latitudes, wanted a young man with a future, a young man who would be chief, and who would be able to make some return to him, the old clerk. Lesable suited him to a nicety, and he cast about in his mind for a means of attaching him to himself.

All of a sudden he sat upright, striking his hands together. He had found it. He well understood the weakness of each one of his colleagues. Lesable could be approached only through his vanity, his professional vanity. He would go to him and demand his protection as one goes to a senator or a deputy⁠—as one goes to a high personage.

Not having had any promotion for five years, Cachelin considered himself as certain to obtain one this year. He would make it appear then that he owed it to Lesable, and would invite him to dinner as a means of thanking him.

As soon as his project was conceived he began to put it into execution. He took off his office jacket, put on his coat, and, gathering up all the registered papers which concerned the services of his colleague, he betook himself to the office which Lesable occupied all alone, by special favour, because of his zeal and the importance of his functions.

The young man was writing at a great table, covered with bundles of documents and loose papers numbered with red or blue figures.

As soon as he saw the chief-clerk enter, he said in a familiar tone, which also betokened consideration: “Well, my dear fellow, do you bring me a lot of business?”

“Yes, a good deal. And then I want to speak to you.”

“Sit down, my friend; I am listening.”

Cachelin seated himself, coughed, put on a troubled look, and finally said in a despondent tone:

“This is what brings me here, Monsieur Lesable. I will not beat about the bush. I will be frank like an old soldier. I have come to demand a service of you.”

“What is it?”

“In few words, I wish very much to be promoted this year. I have nobody to help me, and I have thought of you.”

Lesable reddened somewhat. He was surprised, flattered, and filled with a pleased confusion. However, he replied:

“But I am nobody here, my friend. I am much less than you, who are going to be principal clerk. I can do nothing. Believe me that if⁠—”

Cachelin cut him short with respectful brusqueness: “Oh, nonsense. You have the ear of the chief, and if you speak a word for me I shall get it. Remember that in eighteen months I shall have the right to retire, and I shall be just five hundred francs to the bad if I obtain nothing on the first of January. I know very well that they say: ‘Cachelin is all right; his sister has a million.’ It is true enough that my sister has a million, but she doesn’t give any of it away. It is also true that her fortune is for my daughter, but my daughter and I are two different persons. I shall be in a nice fix if, when my daughter and my son-in-law are rolling in their carriage, I have nothing to eat. You see my position, do you not?”

Lesable agreed. “It is true⁠—what you say is very true. Your son-in-law may not be well disposed toward you. Besides, one is always more at ease when owing nothing to anybody. Well, I promise you I shall do my best; I shall speak to the chief, place the case before him, and shall insist if it be necessary. Count on me!”

Cachelin rose, took the hands of his colleague, and pressing them hard while he shook them in military fashion, stammered: “Thank you, thank you; believe me, if ever I have the opportunity⁠—if I can ever⁠—” He stopped, not being able to finish what he had begun, and went away making the corridor resound with the rhythmical tread of an old trooper.

But he heard from afar the sharp ring of a bell and he began to run. He knew that ring. It was the chief, M. Torchebeuf, who wanted him.

Eight days later Cachelin found one morning on his desk a sealed letter, which contained the following:

My Dear Colleague: I am happy to announce to you that the minister, at the instance of our director and our chief, yesterday signed your nomination to the position of principal clerk. You will receive tomorrow your official notification. Until then you know nothing, you understand?

Yours ever,

Lesable.

César ran at once to the office of his young colleague, thanked him, excused himself, offered his everlasting devotion, overwhelmed him with his gratitude.

It was known on the morrow that MM. Lesable and Cachelin had each been promoted. The other employees must wait another year, receiving by way of compensation a gratuity which varied from one hundred and fifty to three hundred francs.

M. Boissel declared that he would lie in wait for Lesable at the corner of the street at midnight some night and give him a drubbing which would leave its mark. The other clerks kept silent.

The following Monday, on his arrival, Cachelin went to the office of his protector, entered with solemnity, and in a ceremonious tone said: “I hope that you will do me the honour to dine with us during the New Year holidays. You may choose the day yourself.”

The young man, somewhat surprised, raised his head and looked his colleague full in the face. Then he replied without removing his eyes, that he might read the thoughts of the other: “But, my dear fellow you see⁠—all my evenings are promised here for some time to come.”

Cachelin insisted in a good-humoured tone: “Oh, but, I say, you will not disappoint us by refusing, after the service that you have rendered me. I beg you in the name of my family and in mine.”

Lesable hesitated, perplexed. He had understood well enough, but he did not know what to reply, not having had time to reflect and to weigh the pros and the cons. At last he thought: “I commit myself to nothing by going to dinner,” and he accepted with a satisfied air, choosing the Saturday following. He added, smiling: “So that I shall not have to get up too soon the next morning.”

II

M. Cachelin lived in a small apartment on the fifth floor of a house at the upper end of the Rue Rochechouart. There was a balcony from which one could see all Paris, and three rooms, one for his sister, one for his daughter, and one for himself. The dining room served also for a parlour.

He occupied himself during the whole week in preparing for this dinner. The menu was discussed at great length, in order that they might have a repast which should be at the same time homelike and elegant. The following was finally decided upon: A consommé with eggs, shrimps and sausage for hors d’oeuvre, a lobster, a fine chicken, preserved peas, a pâté de foie gras, a salad, an ice, and dessert.

The foie gras was ordered from a neighbouring pork butcher with the injunction to furnish the best quality. The pot alone cost three francs and a half.

For the wine, Cachelin applied to the wine merchant at the corner who supplied him with the red beverage with which he ordinarily quenched his thirst. He did not want to go to a big dealer reasoning thus: “The small dealers find few occasions to sell their best brands. On this account they keep them a long time in their cellars, and they are therefore better.”

He came home at the earliest possible hour on Saturday to assure himself that all was ready. The maid who opened the door for him was red as a tomato, for she had lighted her fire at midday through fear of not being ready in time, and had roasted her face at it all day. Emotion also excited her. He entered the dining room to inspect everything. In the middle of the little room the round table made a great white spot under the bright light of a lamp covered with a green shade.

The four plates were almost concealed by napkins folded in the form of an archbishop’s miter by Mlle. Cachelin, the aunt, and were flanked by knives and forks of white metal. In front of each stood two glasses, one large and one small. César found this insufficient at a glance, and he called: “Charlotte!”

The door at the left opened and a little old woman appeared. Older than her brother by ten years, she had a narrow face framed with white ringlets. She did these up in papers every night.

Her thin voice seemed too weak for her little bent body, and she moved with a slightly dragging step and tired gestures.

They had said of her when she was young: “What a dear little creature!”

She was now a shrivelled up old woman, very clean because of her early training, headstrong, spoiled, narrow-minded, fastidious, and easily irritated. Having become very devout, she seemed to have totally forgotten the adventures of her past.

She asked: “What do you want?”

He replied: “I find that two glasses do not make much of a show. If we could have champagne⁠—it would not cost me more than three or four francs; we have the glasses already, and it would entirely change the aspect of the table.”

Mlle. Charlotte replied: “I do not see the use of going to that expense. But you are paying; it does not concern me.”

He hesitated, seeking to convince himself:

“I assure you it would be much better. And then, with the cake it would make things more lively.” This decided him. He took his hat and went downstairs, returning in five minutes with a bottle under his arm which bore on a large white label, ornamented with an enormous coat of arms, the words: “Grand vin mousseux de Champagne du Comte de Chatel-Rénovau.”

Cachelin declared: “It cost only three francs, and the man says it is delicious.”

He took the champagne glasses from the cupboard and placed them before each place.

The door at the right opened. His daughter entered. She was a tall girl with firm, rosy flesh⁠—a handsome daughter of a strong race. She had chestnut hair and blue eyes. A simple gown outlined her round and supple figure; her voice was strong, almost the voice of a man, with those deep notes which make the nerves vibrate. She cried: “Heavens! Champagne! What luck!” clapping her hands like a child.

Her father said to her: “I wish you to be particularly nice to this gentleman; he has done such a lot for me.”

She began to laugh⁠—a sonorous laugh, which said: “I know.”

The bell in the vestibule rang. The doors opened and closed and Lesable appeared.

He wore a black coat, a white cravat, and white gloves. He created a stir. Cachelin sprang forward, embarrassed and delighted: “But, my dear fellow, this is among ourselves. See me⁠—I am in ordinary dress.”

The young man replied: “I know, you told me so; but I never go out in the evening without my dress-coat.” He saluted, his opera-hat under his arm, a flower in his buttonhole. César presented him: “My sister, Mlle. Charlotte; my daughter Coralie, whom at home we call Cora.”

Everybody bowed. Cachelin continued: “We have no salon. It is rather troublesome, but one gets used to it.”

Lesable replied: “It is charming.”

Then he was relieved of his hat, which he wished to hang up, and he began immediately to draw off his gloves.

They sat down and looked at one another across the table, and no one said anything more until Cachelin asked: “Did the chief remain late tonight? I left very early to help the ladies.”

Lesable replied in a careless tone: “No, we went away together, because we were obliged to discuss the matter of the payment for the canvasses at Brest. It is a very complicated affair, which will give us a great deal of trouble.”

Cachelin believed he ought to bring his sister into the conversation, and turning to her said: “It is M. Lesable who decides all the difficult questions at the office. One might say that he was the deputy chief.”

The old spinster bowed politely, saying: “Oh, I know that Monsieur has great capabilities.”

The maid entered, pushing open the door with her knee, and holding aloft with both hands a great soup tureen. Then the master of the house cried: “Come⁠—dinner! Sit there, M. Lesable, between my sister and my daughter. I hope you are not afraid of the ladies,” and the dinner began.

Lesable made himself agreeable, with a little air of self-sufficiency, almost of condescension, and he glanced now and then at the young girl, astonished at her freshness, at her beautiful, appetising health. Mlle. Charlotte showed her best side, knowing the intentions of her brother, and she took part in the conversation so long as it was confined to commonplace topics. Cachelin was radiant; he talked and joked in a loud voice while he poured out the wine bought an hour previous at the store on the corner: “A glass of this little Burgundy, M. Lesable. I do not say that it is anything remarkable, but it is good; it is from the cellar and it is pure⁠—I can say that much. We get it from some friends down there.”

The young girl said nothing; a little red, a little shy, she was awed by the presence of this man, whose thoughts she suspected.

When the lobster appeared, César declared: “Here comes a personage whose acquaintance I shall be glad to make.”

Lesable, smiling, told a story of a writer who had called the lobster “the cardinal of the seas,” not knowing that before being cooked the animal was a dark greenish black. Cachelin laughed with all his might, repeating: “Ha, ha, ha! that is first rate!” But Mlle. Charlotte, becoming serious, said sharply:

“I do not see anything amusing in that. That gentleman was an improper person. I understand all kinds of pleasantries, but I am opposed to anything which casts ridicule on the clergy in my presence.”

The young man, who wished to please the old maid, profited by this occasion to make a profession of the Catholic faith. He spoke of the bad taste of those who treated great truths with lightness. And in conclusion he said: “For myself I respect and venerate the religion of my fathers; I have been brought up in it, and I will remain in it till my death.”

Cachelin laughed no longer. He rolled little crumbs of bread between his finger and thumb while he murmured: “That’s right, that’s right.” Then he changed the conversation, and, with an impulse natural to those who follow the same routine every day, he said: “Our handsome Maze⁠—must have been furious at not having been promoted?”

Lesable smiled. “Well, why not? To everyone according to his deserts.” And they continued talking about the ministry, which interested everybody, for the two women knew the employees almost as well as Cachelin himself, through hearing them spoken of every day.

Mlle. Charlotte was particularly pleased to hear about Boissel, on account of his romantic spirit, and the adventures he was always telling about, while Cora was secretly interested in the handsome Maze. They had never seen either of the men, however.

Lesable talked about them with a superior air, as a minister might have done in speaking of his staff.

“Maze is not lacking in a certain kind of merit, but when one wishes to accomplish anything it is necessary to work harder than he does. He is fond of society and of pleasure. All that distracts the mind; he will never advance much on this account. He will be an Assistant Secretary, perhaps, thanks to the influence he commands, but nothing more. As for Pitolet, he is a good clerk, I must say. He has a superficial elegance which cannot be gainsaid, but nothing deep. There is a young man whom one could never put at the head of an important bureau, but who can always be utilised by an intelligent chief who would lay out his work for him.”

“And M. Boissel?” asked Mlle. Charlotte.

Lesable shrugged his shoulders: “A poor chap, a poor chap. He can see nothing in its proper proportions, and is continually imagining wonderful stories while half asleep. To us he is of no earthly use.”

Cachelin began to laugh. “But the best of all,” he declared, “is old father Savon.”

Then everybody laughed.

After that they talked of the theatres and the different plays of the year. Lesable judged the dramatic literature of the day with the same authority, concisely classifying the authors, determining the strength and weakness of each, with the assurance of a man who believes himself to be infallible and universal.

They had finished the roast. César now uncovered the pot of foie gras with the most delicate precautions, which made one imagine the contents to be something wonderful. He said: “I do not know if this one will be a success, but generally they are perfect. We get them from a cousin who lives in Strasburg.”

With respectful deliberation each one ate the butcher’s pâté in its little yellow pot.

But disaster came with the ice. It was a sauce, a soup, a clear liquid which floated in the dish. The little maid had begged the pastry cook’s boy, who brought the ice at seven o’clock, to take it out of the mold himself, fearing that she would not know how.

Cachelin, in despair, wished to make her carry it back again; then he calmed himself at the thought of the Twelfth Night cake, which he divided with great mystery as though it contained a prime secret. All fixed their gaze on the symbolic cake, then Mlle. Charlotte directed that each one close his eyes while taking a piece.

Who would be the king? A childish, expectant smile was on the lips of everyone. M. Lesable uttered a little “ah” of astonishment, and showed between his thumb and forefinger a great white bean still covered with pastry. Cachelin began to applaud, then cried: “Choose the queen! choose the queen!”

The king hesitated an instant only. Would it not be a politic act to choose Mlle. Charlotte? She would be flattered, brought over, his friend ever after! Then he reflected that it was really Mlle. Cora for whom he had been invited, and that he would seem like a ninny in choosing the aunt. He turned toward his youthful neighbor, and handing her the royal bean said: “Mademoiselle, will you permit me to offer it to you?” And they looked one another in the face for the first time.

She replied: “Thank you, Monsieur,” and received the gage of sovereignty.

He thought: “She is enormously pretty, this girl. Her eyes are superb. She is gay, too, if I am not mistaken!”

A sharp detonation made the two women jump. Cachelin had just opened the champagne, which escaped from the bottle and ran over the tablecloth. Then the glasses were filled with the frothy stuff and the host declared: “It is of good quality, one can see that.” But as Lesable was about to drink to prevent his glass from running over, César cried: “The king drinks! the king drinks! the king drinks!” And Mlle. Charlotte, also excited, squeaked in her thin voice: “The king drinks! the king drinks!”

Lesable emptied his glass with composure, and replacing it on the table said: “You see I am not lacking in assurance.” Then turning toward Mlle. Cora he said: “It is yours, Mademoiselle!”

She wished to drink, but everybody having cried: “The queen drinks! the queen drinks!” she blushed, began to laugh, and put the glass down again.

The end of the dinner was full of gaiety; the king showed himself most attentive and gallant toward the queen. Then when they had finished the liqueurs, Cachelin announced:

“We will have the table cleared away now to give us more room. If it is not raining, we can go to the balcony for a few minutes.” He wanted Lesable to see the view, although it was night.

The glass door was thrown open. A moist, warm breeze entered. It was mild outdoors as in the month of April. They all mounted the step which separated the dining room from the large balcony. They could see nothing but a vague glimmer hovering over the great city, like the gilt halos which they put on the heads of the saints. In some spots this light seemed more brilliant, and Cachelin began to explain:

“See, that is the Eden blazing down there. Look at the line of the boulevards. Isn’t it wonderful, how you can distinguish them! In the daytime it is splendid, this view. You would have to travel a long way before you saw anything finer!”

Lesable was leaning on the iron balustrade, by the side of Cora, who gazed into the void, silent, distraught, seized of a sudden with one of those melancholy languors which sometimes oppress the soul. Mlle. Charlotte returned to the room, fearing the damp. Cachelin continued to speak, his outstretched hand indicating the places where they would find the Invalides, the Trocadéro, the Arc de Triomphe.

Lesable in a low voice asked: “And you, Mlle. Cora, do you like to look at Paris from this height?”

She gave a little shiver, as though she had been dreaming and answered: “I? Yes, especially at night. I think of all the things which are happening there in front of us. How many happy people and how many who are unhappy in all these houses! If one could see everything, how many things one might learn!”

He came a little nearer, until their elbows and their shoulders touched:

“By moonlight this should be like fairyland.”

She murmured: “Ah, yes, indeed. One would say it was an engraving by Gustave Doré. What a pleasure it would be to take a long walk on these roofs.”

Then he questioned her regarding her tastes, her dreams, her pleasures. And she replied without embarrassment, after the manner of an intelligent, sensible girl⁠—one who was not more imaginative than was necessary.

He found her full of good sense, and he said to himself that it would be wonderfully sweet to put his arm about that firm, round figure, and to press a score of little slow kisses, as one drinks in little sips of excellent brandy, on that fresh cheek, near the ear, just where a ray from the lamp fell upon it. He felt himself attracted, moved by the sensation of the proximity of a beautiful woman, by the thirst for her ripe and virginal flesh and by that delicate seductive influence a young girl possesses. It seemed to him he could remain there for hours, nights, weeks, forever, leaning towards her, feeling her near to him, thrilled by the charm of that contact. And something like a poetic sentiment stirred his heart in the face of that great Paris, spread out before him, brilliant in her nocturnal life, her life of pleasure and debauchery. It seemed to him that he dominated the enormous city, that he hovered over it; and he thought how delicious it would be to recline every evening on such a balcony beside a woman, to love her and be loved by her, to press her to his breast, far above the vast city, and all the earthly loves it contained, above all the vulgar satisfactions and common desires, near to the stars.

There are nights when even the least exalted souls begin to dream, and Lesable felt as though he were spreading his wings for the first time. Perhaps he was a little tipsy.

Cachelin went inside to get his pipe, and came back lighting it. “I know,” he said, “that you do not smoke or I would offer you a cigarette. There is nothing more delightful than to smoke here. If I had to live on the ground floor I should die. We could do it if we wanted to, for the house belongs to my sister, as well as the two neighbouring ones⁠—the one on the right and the one on the left. She has a nice little revenue from these alone. They did not cost a great deal, either, when she bought them.” And turning toward the window he cried: “How much did you pay for the ground here, Charlotte?”

Then the thin voice of the old spinster was heard speaking. Lesable could only hear broken fragments of the sentences: “In eighteen hundred and sixty-three⁠—thirty-five francs⁠—built afterward⁠—the three houses⁠—a banker⁠—sold for at least five hundred thousand francs⁠—”

She talked of her fortune with the complacency of an old soldier who reels off stories of his campaigns. She enumerated her purchases, the high offers she had since had, the rise in values, etc.

Lesable, immediately interested, turned about, resting now his back against the balustrade of the balcony. But as he still caught only tantalizing scraps of what the old woman said, he brusquely left his young companion and went within where he might hear everything; and seating himself beside Mademoiselle Charlotte conversed with her for a long time on the probable increase in rents and what income should accrue from money well placed in stocks and bonds. He left toward midnight, promising to return.

A month later there was nothing talked about in the whole office but the marriage of Jacques Léopold Lesable with Mademoiselle Céleste Coralie Cachelin.

III

The young people began housekeeping on the same floor with Cachelin and Mlle. Charlotte, in an apartment similar to theirs from which the tenant was expelled.

A certain uneasiness, however, disturbed the mind of Lesable: the aunt had not wished to assure her heritage to Cora by any definitive act. She had, however, consented to swear “before God” that her will was made and deposited with Maître Belhomme, the notary. She had promised, moreover, that her entire fortune should revert to her niece on one sole condition. Being pressed to reveal this condition she refused to explain herself, but averred with a little amiable smile that it was very easy of fulfillment.

Notwithstanding these explanations and the stubbornness of the pious old woman, Lesable thought he ought to have further assurance; but, as the young woman pleased him greatly, his desire triumphed over his incertitude, and he yielded to the determined efforts of Cachelin.

Now he was happy, notwithstanding that he was always tormented by a doubt, and he loved his wife, who had in nowise disappointed his expectations. His life flowed along, tranquil and monotonous. He became, in several weeks, perfectly inured to his new position of married man, and he continued to be the same faithful and accomplished employee as formerly.

A year rolled away. The first of the year came round again. He did not receive, to his great surprise, the promotion on which he had counted. Maze and Pitolet alone passed to the grade above, and Boissel declared confidentially to Cachelin that he had promised himself to give his two fellow-clerks a good thrashing at the main entrance before everybody. But he did nothing.

For a whole week Lesable did not sleep a wink because of the anguish he felt at not having been promoted, despite his zeal. He had been working like a dog; he had filled the place of the assistant-chief, M. Rabot, who had been in the hospital of Val-de-Grâce for nine months; he had been coming to the office at half past eight every morning, remaining until half past six in the evening. What more could they ask? If they could not appreciate such faithful service he would do like the others, that was all. To everyone according to his deserts. How could M. Torchebeuf, who had always treated him like a son, have sacrificed him thus? He wanted to get at the bottom of the thing. He would go to the chief and have an explanation with him.

On Monday morning, therefore, before the arrival of his comrades, he knocked at the door of that potentate.

A sharp voice cried: “Come in!” He entered.

Seated before a great table strewn with papers, his little body bent over a writing-pad which his big head almost touched, M. Torchebeuf was busily writing. On seeing his favorite employee he said cheerfully: “Good morning, Lesable; you are well?”

The young man replied: “Good morning, dear master, I am very well; and you?”

The chief ceased writing and turned about in his revolving chair. His frail, slender body, clad in a black surtout of severe cut, seemed ridiculously disproportioned to the great leather-covered chair. The brilliant rosette of an officer of the Legion of Honour, a hundred times too large for the small body which it decorated, burned like a live coal upon his narrow chest. His skull was of considerable size, as though the entire development of the individual had been at the top, after the manner of mushrooms.

His chin was pointed, his cheeks hollow, his eyes protruding, and his great bulging forehead was surmounted with white hair which he wore thrown backward.

M. Torchebeuf said: “Sit down, my friend, and tell me what brings you here.”

Toward all the other clerks he displayed a military brusqueness, considering himself to be their captain, for the ministry was to him as a great vessel, the flagship of all the French fleet.

Lesable, somewhat moved, a little pale, stammered: “Dear master, I come to ask you if I have been lacking in any way.”

“Certainly not, my dear fellow; why do you ask me such a question?”

“Because I was a little surprised at not receiving my promotion this year, as in former years. Allow me to finish my explanation, dear master, and pardon my audacity. I know that I have obtained from you exceptional favours and unlooked-for advantages. I know that promotions are only made, as a general thing, every two or three years; but permit me to remind you that I furnish the bureau with nearly four times the amount of work of an ordinary employee, and at least twice as much time. If, then, you put in the balance the result of labor and the renumeration, you will certainly find the one far outweighs the other.”

He had carefully prepared this speech, which he judged to be excellent.

M. Torchebeuf, surprised, hesitated before replying. At length he said in a rather cool tone: “Although it is not admissible, on principle, that these subjects should be discussed between chief and employee, I am willing to reply for this once to your question regarding your very meritorious services.

“I proposed your name for promotion as in preceding years. The chief, however, crossed out your name on the ground that by your marriage your fortune was assured. You are to come into an inheritance such as your modest colleagues can never hope to possess. Is it not, therefore, just to take into consideration the condition of each one? You will be rich, very rich. Three hundred francs more per year will be as nothing to you, whereas this little increase will count for a great deal in the pockets of the others. There, my friend, you have the reason why you remain stationary this year.”

Lesable, irritated and covered with confusion, retired.

That evening at dinner he was disagreeable to his wife. She, however, was gay and pleasant as usual. Although she was of an even temper, she was headstrong, and when she desired anything greatly she never yielded her point. She possessed no longer for him the sensual charm of the early days, and although he still looked upon her with the eye of desire, for she was fresh and charming, he experienced at times that disillusion so near to estrangement which soon comes to two beings who live a common life. The thousand trivial or grotesque details of existence, the loose toilettes of the morning, the common linen robe-de-chambre, the faded peignoir, for they were not rich, and all the necessary home duties which are seen too near at hand in a poor household⁠—all these things took the glamour from marriage and withered the flower of poetry which, from a distance, is so attractive to lovers.

Aunt Charlotte also rendered herself as disagreeable as possible. She never went out, but stayed indoors and busied herself in everything which concerned the two young people. She wished everything conducted in accordance with her notions, made observations on everything, and as they had a horrible fear of offending her, they bore it all with resignation, but also with a suppressed and ever-increasing exasperation.

She went through their apartment with her slow, dragging step, constantly saying in her sharp, nasal voice: “You ought to do this; you certainly ought to do that.”

When the husband and wife found themselves alone together, Lesable, who was a perfect bundle of nerves, would cry out: “Your aunt is growing intolerable. I won’t stand her here any longer, do you hear? I won’t stand it!” And Cora would reply tranquilly: “What do you want me to do?”

Then flying into a passion he would say: “It is dreadful to have such a family!”

And she, still calm, would reply: “Yes, the family is dreadful, but the inheritance is good, isn’t it? Now don’t be an imbecile. You have as much interest as I in managing Aunt Charlotte.”

Then he would be silent, not knowing what to say.

The aunt now harried them unceasingly on the subject of a child. She pushed Lesable into corners and hissed in his face: “My nephew, I intend that you shall be a father before I die. I want to see my little heir. You cannot make me believe that Cora was not made to be a mother. It is only necessary to look at her. When one gets married, my nephew, it is to have a family⁠—to send out little branches. Our holy mother, the Church, forbids sterile marriages. I know very well that you are not rich, and that a child causes extra expense. But after me you will want for nothing. I want a little Lesable, do you understand? I want him.”

When, after fifteen months of marriage, her desire was not yet realized, she began to have doubts and became very urgent; and she gave Cora in private advice⁠—practical advice, that of a woman who has known many things in her time, and who has still the recollection of them on occasion.

But one morning she was not able to rise from her bed, feeling very unwell. As she had never been ill before, Cachelin ran in great agitation to the door of his son-in-law: “Run quickly for Dr. Barbette,” he said, “and you will tell the chief, won’t you, that I shall not be at the office today.”

Lesable passed an agonizing day, incapable of working himself, or of giving directions to the other clerks. M. Torchebeuf, surprised, remarked: “You are somewhat distraught today, M. Lesable.” And Lesable answered nervously: “I am greatly fatigued, dear master; I have passed the entire night at the bedside of our aunt, whose condition is very serious.”

The chief replied coldly: “As M. Cachelin is with her I think that should suffice. I cannot allow my bureau to be disorganized for the personal reasons of my employees.”

Lesable had placed his watch on the table before him, and he waited for five o’clock with feverish impatience. As soon as the big clock in the grand court struck he hurried away, quitting the office, for the first time, at the regular hour.

He even took a cab to return home, so great was his anxiety, and he mounted the staircase at a run. The nurse opened the door; he stammered: “How is she?”

“The doctor says that she is very low.”

His heart began to beat rapidly. He was greatly agitated. “Ah, indeed!”

Could she, by any chance, be going to die?

He did not dare to go into the sick woman’s chamber now, and he asked that Cachelin, who was watching by her side, be called.

His father-in-law appeared immediately, opening the door with precaution. He had on his dressing-gown and skullcap, as on the pleasant evenings which he passed in the corner by the fire; and he murmured in a low voice: “It’s very bad, very bad. She has been unconscious since four o’clock. She even received the viaticum this afternoon.”

Then Lesable felt a weakness descending into his legs, and he sat down.

“Where is my wife?”

“She is at the bedside.”

“What is it the doctor says? Tell me exactly.”

“He says it is a stroke. She may come out of it, but she may also die tonight.”

“Do you need me? If not, I would rather not go in. It would be very painful to me to see her in this state.”

“No, go to your own apartment. If there is anything new I will call you at once.”

Lesable went to his own quarters. The apartment seemed to him changed⁠—it was larger, clearer. But, as he could not keep still, he went out onto the balcony.

They were then in the last days of July, and the great sun, on the point of disappearing behind the two towers of the Trocadéro, rained fire on the immense conglomeration of roofs.

The sky, a brilliant shining red at the horizon, took on, higher up, tints of pale gold, then of yellow, then of green⁠—a delicate green flecked with light; then it became blue⁠—a pure and fresh blue overhead.

The swallows passed like flashes, scarcely visible, painting against the vermilion sky the curved and flying profile of their wings. And above the infinite number of houses, above the far-off country, floated a rose-tinted cloud, a vapour of fire toward which ascended, as in an apotheosis, the points of the church-steeples and all the slender pinnacles of the monuments. The Arc de Triomphe appeared enormous and black against the conflagration on the horizon, and the dome of the Invalides seemed another sun fallen from the firmament upon the roof of a building.

Lesable held with his two hands to the iron railing, drinking in the air as one drinks of wine, feeling a desire to leap, to cry out, to make violent gestures, so completely was he given over to a profound and triumphant joy. Life seemed to him radiant, the future full of richness! What would he do? And he began to dream.

A noise behind him made him tremble. It was his wife. Her eyes were red, her cheeks slightly swollen: she looked tired. She bent down her forehead for him to kiss; then she said: “We are going to dine with papa so that we may be near her. The nurse will not leave her while we are eating.”

He followed her into the next apartment.

Cachelin was already at table awaiting his daughter and his son-in-law. A cold chicken, a potato salad, and a compote of strawberries were on the buffet, and the soup was smoking in the plates.

They sat down at table. Cachelin said: “These are days that I wouldn’t like to see often. They are not gay.” He said this with a tone of indifference and a sort of satisfaction in his face. He set himself to eat with the appetite of a hungry man, finding the chicken excellent and the potato salad most refreshing.

But Lesable felt his stomach oppressed and his mind ill at ease. He hardly ate at all, keeping his ear strained toward the next room, which was as still as though no one was within it. Nor was Cora hungry, but silent and tearful she wiped her eyes from time to time with the corner of her napkin. Cachelin asked: “What did the chief say?” and Lesable gave the details, which his father-in-law insisted on having to the last particular, making him repeat everything as though he had been absent from the ministry for a year.

“It must have made a sensation there when it became known that she was sick.” And he began to dream of his glorious reentry when she should be dead, at the head of all the other clerks. He said, however, as though in reply to a secret remorse: “It is not that I desire any evil to the dear woman. God knows I would have her preserved for many years yet, but it will have that effect all the same. Father Savon will even forget the Commune on account of it.”

They were commencing to eat their strawberries, when the door of the sickroom opened. The commotion among the diners was such that with a common impulse all three of them sprang to their feet, terrified. The little nurse appeared, still preserving her calm, stupid manner, and said tranquilly:

“She has stopped breathing.”

Cachelin, throwing his napkin among the dishes, sprang forward like a madman; Cora followed him, her heart beating; but Lesable remained standing near the door, spying from a distance the white spot of the bed, scarcely visible by the light of the dying day. He saw the back of his father-in-law as he stooped over the couch, examining but disturbing nothing; and suddenly he heard his voice, which seemed to him to come from afar⁠—from very far off⁠—the other end of the world, one of those voices which pass through our dreams and which tell us astonishing things. Cachelin said: “It is all over. She is dead.” He saw his wife fall upon her knees and bury her face in the bedclothes, sobbing. Then he decided to go in, and, as Cachelin straightened himself up, the young man saw on the whiteness of the pillow the face of Aunt Charlotte, so hollow, so rigid, so pale, that with its closed eyes it looked like the face of waxen figure.

He asked in a tone of anguish: “Is it over?”

Cachelin, who was gazing at his sister, too, turned towards Lesable, and the two men looked at each other.

“Yes,” replied the elder, wishing to force his face into an expression of sorrow, but the two understood one another at a glance, and without knowing why, instinctively, they shook hands, as though each would thank the other for a service rendered.

Then, without losing any time, they quickly occupied themselves with the offices required by the dead.

Lesable undertook to fetch the doctor, and to discharge as quickly as possible the most urgent errands.

He took his hat and ran down the staircase, in haste to be in the street, to be alone, to breathe, to think, to rejoice in solitude over his good fortune.

When he had attended to his errands, instead of returning he went across to the boulevard, possessed with a desire to see the crowds, to mingle in the movement of the happy life of the evening. He felt like crying out to the passersby: “I have fifty thousand francs a year,” and he walked along, his hands in his pockets, stopping before the show-windows, examining the rich stuffs, the jewels, the artistic furniture, with this joyous thought: “I can buy these for myself now.”

Suddenly he stopped in front of a mourning store and the startling thought came into his mind: “What if she is not dead? What if they are mistaken?”

And he quickly turned homeward with this doubt troubling his mind.

On entering he demanded: “Has the doctor come?”

Cachelin replied: “Yes, he has confirmed the death, and is now writing the certificate.”

They reentered the death-chamber. Cora was still weeping, seated in an armchair. She wept very gently, without noise, almost without grief now, with that facility for tears which women have.

As soon as they were all three alone in the room Cachelin said in a low voice: “Now that the nurse has gone to bed, we might look around to see if anything is concealed in the furniture.”

The two men set about the work. They emptied the drawers, rummaged through the pockets, unfolded every scrap of paper. By midnight they had found nothing of interest. Cora had fallen asleep, and she snored a little, in a regular fashion. César said: “Are we going to stay here until daybreak?” Lesable, perplexed, thought it was the proper thing. Then the father-in-law said: “In that case let us bring in armchairs”; and they went out to get the two big, soft easy-chairs which furnished the room of the young married couple.

An hour later the three relatives slept, with uneven snorings, before the corpse, icy in its eternal immobility.

They awakened when, at daybreak, the little nurse entered the chamber. Cachelin immediately said, rubbing his eyes: “I have been a little drowsy for the last half hour.”

Lesable, who was now sitting very upright, declared: “Yes, I noticed it very plainly. As for me, I have not lost consciousness for a second; I just closed my eyes to rest them.”

Cora went to her own room.

Then Lesable asked with apparent indifference:

“When do you think we should go to the notary’s to find out about the will?”

“Why⁠—this morning if you wish.”

“Is it necessary that Cora should accompany us?”

“That would be better, perhaps, since she is in fact the heir.”

“In that case I shall go and tell her to get ready.”

Lesable went out with a quick step.

The office of Maître Belhomme was just opening its doors when Cachelin, Lesable and his wife presented themselves in deep mourning, with faces full of woe.

The notary at once appeared and, greeting them, bade them sit down. Cachelin spoke up: “Monsieur, you remember me: I am the brother of Mlle. Charlotte Cachelin. These are my daughter and my son-in-law. My poor sister died yesterday; we will bury her tomorrow. As you are the depositary of her will, we come to ask you if she has not formulated some request relative to her inhumation, or if you have not some communication to make to us.”

The notary opened a drawer, took out an envelope from which he drew a paper, and said:

“Here, Monsieur, is a duplicate of the will, the contents of which I will make you acquainted with immediately. The other document, exactly similar to this, is to remain in my hands.” And he read:

“I, the undersigned, Victorine-Charlotte Cachelin, here express my last wishes:

“I leave my entire fortune, amounting to about one million one hundred and twenty thousand francs, to the children who will be born of the marriage of my niece Céleste-Coralie Cachelin, the possession of the income to go to the parents until the majority of the eldest of their descendants.

“The provisions which follow regulate the share which shall fall to each child, and the share remaining to the parents until their death.

“In the event of my death before my niece has an heir, all my fortune is to remain in the hands of my notary, for the term of three years, for my wish above expressed to be complied with if a child is born during that time.

“But in the case of Coralie’s not obtaining from Heaven a descendant during the three years following my death, my fortune is to be distributed, by the hands of my notary, among the poor and the benevolent institutions contained in the following list.”

There followed an interminable series of names of communities, of societies, of orders, and of instructions.

Then Maître Belhomme politely placed the paper in the hands of Cachelin, who stood speechless with astonishment.

The notary thought he ought to add something by way of explanation to his visitors.

“Mlle. Cachelin,” said he, “when she did me the honour to speak to me for the first time of her project of making her will according to this plan, expressed to me the great desire which she had to see an heir of her race. She replied to all my reasoning by a more and more positive expression of her wishes, which were based, moreover, on a religious sentiment, she holding every sterile union to be the sign of divine malediction. I have not been able to modify her intentions in the least. Believe me, I regret this fact exceedingly.” Then he added, smiling at Coralie: “But I do not doubt that the desideratum of the deceased will be quickly realized.”

And the three relatives went away, too bewildered to think of anything.

Side by side they walked home, without speaking, ashamed and furious, as though they had robbed each other. All of Cora’s grief, even, had suddenly disappeared, the ingratitude of her aunt driving away all disposition to weep.

At last Lesable, whose pale lips were drawn with rage, said to his father-in-law:

“Pass me that paper, that I may read it with my own eyes.” Cachelin handed him the document and the young man began to read. He had stopped on the footpath and, jostled by the passersby, he stood there scanning the words with his piercing and practical eye. The two others waited a few steps in front, still silent.

Then he handed back the paper, saying:

“There is nothing to be done. She has tricked us beautifully.”

Cachelin, who was irritated by the failure of his hopes, replied:

“It was for you to have a child, damn it! You knew well enough that she wanted it long ago.”

Lesable shrugged his shoulders without answering.

On entering they found a crowd of people awaiting them, those whose calling brings them where a corpse is. Lesable went to his room, not wishing to be bothered, and César spoke roughly to all of them, crying out to them to leave him in peace, demanding that they get through with it as quickly as possible, thinking that they were very long in relieving him of the dead.

Cora, shut up in her room, made no sound, but after an hour Cachelin came and rapped on the door of his son-in-law.

“I come, my dear Léopold,” said he, “to submit some reflections to you, for it is necessary to come to some understanding. My opinion is that we should give her a befitting funeral in order to give no hint at the Ministry of what has happened. We will arrange about the expense. Besides, nothing is lost. You have not been married very long, and it would be too great a misfortune if you had no children. You must set about it, that’s all. And now to business. Will you drop in at the Ministry after a while? I am going to address the envelopes for the death announcements.”

Lesable grudgingly agreed that his father-in-law was right, and they sat down face to face, each at an end of a long table, to fill in the black-bordered cards.

Then they lunched. Cora reappeared, indifferent as though nothing of what had passed concerned her, and she ate a good deal, having fasted the evening before.

As soon as the meal was finished she returned to her room. Lesable left to go to the Ministry, and Cachelin installed himself on the balcony, his chair tilted back, in order to enjoy a pipe.

The broad sun of a summer day fell perpendicularly upon the multitude of roofs, some of which were pierced with windows which blazed as with fire and threw back the dazzling rays which the sight could not sustain.

And Cachelin, in his shirtsleeves, looked, with his eyes blinking under this stream of light, upon the green hillocks far, far away beyond the great city, beyond the dusty suburbs. He thought of how the Seine flowed there, broad, calm, and fresh, at the foot of hills which had trees on their slopes, and how much better it would be to be lying on one’s stomach in that greenery on the bank of the river, gazing into the water, than to be sitting on the burning lead of his balcony. And an uneasiness oppressed him, the tormenting thought, the grievous sensation of their disaster, of that unfortunate, unexpected thing, so much more bitter and brutal because the hope had been so ardent and so long-lived; and he said aloud, as people do in time of great trouble of mind, in the uprooting of a fixed idea: “Damned old witch!”

Behind him in the bedroom he heard the movements of those who were busying themselves with the preparations for the funeral, and the continuous noise of the hammer which nailed up the coffin. He had not looked at his sister since his visit to the lawyer.

But little by little the warmth, the gaiety, the clear charm of this beautiful day penetrated to his mind and his soul, and he thought that things were not so desperate. Why should his daughter not have a child? She had not been married two years yet! His son-in-law appeared vigorous, well built, and in good health, although small. They would have a child, and then besides, by Jupiter, they had to!

Lesable furtively entered the Ministry and slunk to his room. He found on the table a paper bearing these words: “The chief wants you.” He made a gesture of impatience. He felt a revolt against this yoke which had again fallen on his back; then a sudden and violent desire to succeed seized him. He would be chief in his turn, and soon; he would then go higher still. Without removing his frock-coat he went at once to M. Torchebeuf. He presented himself with one of those solemn faces which one assumes on sad occasions. But there was something more⁠—an expression of sincere and profound sorrow, that involuntary dejection which a deep disappointment leaves upon the features.

The head of the chief was bent over his papers. He raised it suddenly, and said in a sharp tone: “I have needed you all morning. Why have you not come?”

Lesable replied: “Dear master, we have had the misfortune to lose my aunt, Mademoiselle Cachelin, and I have just come to ask you to attend the funeral, which will take place tomorrow.”

The frown on the brow of M. Torchebeuf immediately disappeared, and he replied with a touch of consideration: “That alters the case, my dear friend. I thank you and give you the day, for you must have a great deal to attend to.”

But Lesable, desiring to show his zeal, said: “Thanks, dear master, everything is finished, and I expected to remain here until the regular hour for closing.”

And he returned to his desk.

The news soon spread, and his fellows came from all the departments to bring him their congratulation rather than their condolences, and also to see how he bore himself. He endured their speeches and their looks with the resigned appearance of an actor, and also with a tact which astonished them.

“He conducts himself very well,” said some.

“Well he may,” added others; “he ought to be content⁠—lucky dog!”

Maze, more audacious than any of them, asked with the careless air of a man of the world: “Do you know exactly the amount of the fortune?”

Lesable replied in a perfectly disinterested tone: “No, not precisely. The will says about twelve hundred thousand francs. I know that, as the notary was obliged to make us acquainted immediately with certain clauses relative to the funeral.”

It was the general opinion that Lesable would not remain in the Ministry. With an income of sixty thousand francs one does not remain a quill-driver. One is somebody and can be something according to one’s inclination.

Some thought that he was aiming at the Cabinet; others believed that he thought of the Chamber of Deputies. The chief was expecting to receive his resignation to transmit to the head of the department.

The entire Ministry came to the funeral, which was thought to be very meagre. But the word was around: “It is Mlle. Cachelin herself who wished it so. It was in the will.”

On the very next day Cachelin was at his post, and Lesable, after a week of indisposition, also returned, a little pale but assiduous and zealous as formerly. One would have said that nothing unlooked-for had happened to them. It was only remarked that they ostentatiously smoked very large cigars, that they talked of consols, railways, of stocks and shares, like men who have scrip in their pockets, and it became known, in a short time, that they had rented a country-house in the neighbourhood of Paris, in which to spend the summer season.

“They are miserly like the old woman,” they said. “It runs in the family. Birds of a feather flock together. But it doesn’t look well to retain a clerkship with such a fortune.”

In a short time the matter was forgotten. They were rated and judged.

IV

After the burial of Aunt Charlotte, Lesable thought again of the million, and, tormented by a rage all the more violent because it must be kept secret, he hated all the world on account of his deplorable ill-luck. “Why, having been married two years, have I not had a child?” he asked himself, and the fear of seeing his household remain sterile made his heart sink. Then, as an urchin who sees from afar the shining prize at the end of the goal, and swears to himself to attain it, and exerts all the vigour and tenacity necessary to reach it, so Lesable took the desperate resolution to become a parent. So many others had, why might not he also? Perhaps he had been negligent, careless, ignorant of something, the consequence of complete indifference. Never having felt a violent desire for an heir, he had never directed all his energies to obtaining this result. He determined to concentrate all his efforts; he would neglect nothing, and he must succeed because he so much desired to. But when he returned home, he felt ill enough to take to his bed. The disappointment had been too bitter and he bowed himself to the blow.

This nervous strain brought him to such a state that the physician judged his condition serious enough to prescribe absolute rest as well as an interminable course of treatment. They feared brain fever. In eight days, however, he was about again and resumed his work at the office. But he dare not yet, he believed, approach the conjugal bed. He hesitated and trembled as a general who is going to give battle, a battle on which depends his future. Each evening he awaited the next day, hoping for an access of virility and energy, a happy moment in which he might accomplish his desire. He felt his pulse every minute, and if it was too feeble or too rapid, he took a tonic, ate raw meat, and strengthened himself in every possible way. As his improvement was not very rapid, Lesable determined to pass the hot months in the country. He persuaded himself that the country air would be a sovereign balm for his weakness, and he assured himself of the accomplishment of the hoped-for success. He said to his father-in-law, in a confidential tone: “When we are once in the country my health will improve, and all will go well.” That one word “country” seemed to carry for him a mysterious significance.

They rented a small house in the village of Bezons, and the whole family took up their residence there. The two men started out on foot every morning for the station of Colombes, returning in the evening.

Cora, enchanted at living thus on the banks of the peaceful river, would seat herself on the sward, gather flowers, and bring home great bunches of delicate, trembling ferns.

Every evening they all three walked along the river as far as the tollgate of Morue, and, entering, drank a bottle of beer at the Restaurant des Tilleuls. The river, retarded by the long file of stakes, poured between them and leaped, bubbled, and foamed for the distance of a hundred feet. The roaring of the falls made the ground tremble, while a fine mist of vapour floated in the air, rising from the cascade like a light smoke, throwing on the surroundings a delightful odour of spray and a savour of wet earth. As night fell, a great light below and in front indicated Paris, and Cachelin exclaimed every evening: “What a city, after all!”

From time to time, a train, passing on the iron bridge which crossed the end of the island, made a rolling as of thunder and suddenly disappeared, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, toward Paris or toward the sea. They returned home slowly, seating themselves on the bank, watching the moon rise and pour on the river her soft and yellow light, which seemed to fuse with the water, and the wrinkles of the current moved like waves of fire. The toads uttered their short and metallic cries. The calls of the night birds rang out on the air, and sometimes a large, mute shadow glided on the river, troubling her calm and luminous course. It was a band of freebooters who, throwing in suddenly their net, drew it back without noise into their boat, dragging in its vast and sombre mesh a shoal of shining and trembling gudgeons, like a treasure drawn from the bottom of the sea, a living treasure of silver fish.

Cora, deeply moved, leaned tenderly upon the arm of her husband, whose design she suspected, although nothing of it had been spoken between them. It was for them like a new betrothal, a second expectation of the kiss of love. Sometimes he would bestow a furtive caress behind her ear, on that charming spot of tender flesh where curls the first hair. She responded by a pressure of the hand, and they attracted while refusing each other, incited and held back by a will more energetic, by the phantom of the million. Cachelin, appeased by the hope which he felt around him, was happy. He drank deeply and ate much, feeling, born in him at twilight, the hour of poetry, that foolish tenderness which comes to the dullest persons in certain aspects of nature: a rain of light through the branches, a sunset behind the distant hills, with purple reflections on the water. He declared: “As for me, in the presence of such things I believe in God. It touches me here,” and he indicated the pit of his stomach. “I feel myself turned upside down. I feel queer. It seems to me I have been steeped in a bath which makes me want to cry.”

As for Lesable, his health rapidly improved. He was seized with sudden ardours, which he did not understand, and he felt a desire to run like a young colt, to roll in the grass and neigh with delight.

He thought the favoured time was approaching. It was a true wedding night. Then they had a new honeymoon full of caresses and hopes. Later they perceived that their experiments were fruitless and their confidence was in vain.

But in the midst of despair Lesable did not lose courage; he continued to make the most superhuman efforts. His wife, moved by the same desire and trembling with the same fear, more robust too than he, encouraged him in his attempts and stimulated his flagging ardour. They returned to Paris in the early days of October.

Life became hard for them again. Unkind words fell from their lips, and Cachelin, who scented the situation, harassed them with the coarse and venomous epigrams of an old trooper.

And one incessant thought pursued them, tortured them, and sharpened their mutual rancour⁠—that of the unattainable legacy. Cora now carried a sharp tongue, and lashed her husband. She treated him like a little boy, a mere brat, a man of no importance. Cachelin at every meal repeated: “If I were rich, I should have children in plenty; when one is poor it is necessary to be reasonable.” Then turning to his daughter he added: “You must be like me; but there⁠—” and he looked at his son-in-law significantly, accompanying the look with a movement of the shoulders full of contempt.

Lesable made no reply. He felt himself to be a superior man allied to a family of boors.

At the Ministry they noticed the alteration in his manner, and even the chief one day asked him: “Are you not ill? You appear to me to be somewhat changed.”

Lesable replied: “Not at all, my dear sir. I am a little tired, perhaps, having worked very constantly, as you may have seen.”

He counted very surely on his promotion at the end of the year, and he had resumed, in this hope, the laborious life of a model employee. But among the meagre bonuses that were distributed Lesable’s was the smallest of all, and Cachelin received nothing. Struck to the heart, Lesable sought the chief, whom, for the first time, he addressed as “Monsieur.”

“Of what use is it, Monsieur, to work as I do, if I do not reap any reward?”

The head of Monsieur Torchebeuf appeared to bristle.

“I have already told you, Monsieur Lesable, that I will admit of no discussion of this nature between us. I repeat to you again that your claim is unreasonable, your actual fortune being so great as compared to the poverty of your colleagues⁠—”

Lesable could not contain himself. “But I have nothing, Monsieur. Our aunt has left her fortune to the first child which shall be born of our marriage. We live, my father-in-law and I, on our salaries.”

The chief was greatly surprised. “If you have no fortune today, you will be rich, in any case, at some future day. It amounts to the same thing.”

Lesable withdrew, more cast down by his failure than by the uncertainty of Aunt Charlotte’s million.

As Cachelin came to his desk some days later the handsome Maze entered with a smile on his lips; next Pitolet appeared, his eyes shining; then Boissel opened the door, and advanced with an excited air, tittering and exchanging meaning looks with the others. Old Savon continued his copying, his clay pipe in the corner of his mouth, seated on his high chair, his feet twisted about the rounds after the fashion of little boys. Nobody spoke. They seemed to be waiting for something, and Cachelin continued to register his papers, announcing in a loud voice according to his custom: “Toulon: Furniture for the officers of the Richelieu. Lorient: Diving apparatus for the Desaix. Brest: Samples of sails of English manufacture.”

Lesable entered. He came now every morning for information in regard to the affairs which concerned him, his father-in-law no longer taking the trouble to send him instructions by the office boy.

While he was looking amongst the papers spread out on the table of the chief-clerk, Maze watched him from his corner, rubbing his hands, and Pitolet, who was rolling a cigarette, seemed full of mirth he could not control. He turned toward the copying-clerk:

“Say now, papa Savon, you have learned many things in your time, haven’t you?”

The old man, knowing they meant to tease him and to speak to him of his wife, did not reply.

Pitolet began: “You must have discovered the secret of begetting children, since you have had several.”

The old clerk raised his head. “You know, M. Pitolet, that I do like any joking on this subject. I have had the misfortune to marry an unworthy woman, and when I became convinced of her faithlessness I separated from her.”

Maze asked in an indifferent tone: “You have had several proofs of her infidelity, have you not?”

And the old man gravely replied: “I have.”

Pitolet put in again: “That has not prevented you from becoming the father of three or four children, I am told.”

The poor old man, growing very red, stammered: “You are trying to wound me, Monsieur Pitolet; but you will not succeed. My wife has had, in fact, three children. I have reason to believe that the first born is mine, but I deny the two others.”

Pitolet continued: “Everybody says, in truth, that the first one is yours. That is sufficient. It is very gratifying to have a child, very gratifying and very delightful. I wager Lesable there would be enchanted to have one⁠—only one, like you.”

Cachelin had stopped writing. He did not laugh, although old Savon was his butt ordinarily, and he had poured out his stock of cruel jokes on the subject of the old clerk’s conjugal sorrows.

Lesable had collected his papers; but feeling himself attacked he wished to remain, held back by pride, confused and irritated, and wishing to know who had betrayed his secret.

Then the recollection of the confidence he had made to his chief came back to him, and he at once understood it was necessary to express his indignation if he did not wish to become the butt of the whole Ministry.

Boissel marched up and down the room, all the time tittering. He imitated the hoarse voices of the street criers, and bellowed: “The secret of begetting children, for ten centimes⁠—two sous! Buy the secret of begetting children⁠—revealed by Monsieur Savon, with many horrible details.” Everybody began to laugh except Lesable and his father-in-law, and Pitolet, turning toward the order-clerk, said: “What is the matter with you, Cachelin? You seem to have lost your habitual gaiety. One would think that you do not find it amusing to believe that old Savon could have had a child by his wife. I think it very funny. Everybody cannot do as much.”

Lesable pretended to be deeply absorbed in his papers and to hear nothing of what was going on about him, but he was as white as a ghost.

Boissel took up the strain in the same mocking voice: “The utility of heirs for getting an inheritance, ten centimes, two sous; who will buy?”

Then Maze, who thought this was very poor sort of wit, and who personally was enraged at Lesable having robbed him of the hope of a fortune which he had secretly cherished, said pointedly: “What is the matter with you, Lesable? You are very pale.”

Lesable raised his head and looked his colleague full in the face. He hesitated a second, while his lip trembled as he tried to formulate a bitter reply, but, unable to find the phrase he sought, he responded: “There is nothing the matter with me. I am only astonished that you display so much delicacy.”

Maze, who stood with his back to the fire and his hands under his coattails, replied, laughing: “One does the best one can, old man. We are like you, we do not always succeed⁠—”

An explosion of laughter interrupted his words. Old Savon, who now vaguely comprehended that the clerks no longer addressed their railleries to him, looked around with his mouth gaping and his pen suspended in the air. And Cachelin waited, ready to come to blows with the first person who came in his way.

Lesable stammered: “I do not understand. In what have I not succeeded?”

The handsome Maze dropped the tails of his coat, and began to stroke his mustache. “I know that you ordinarily succeed in all that you undertake. I have done wrong to speak of you. Besides, we were speaking of old Savon’s children, and not of yours, as you haven’t any. Now since you succeed in all your enterprises, it is evident that, if you do not have children, it is because you do not want them.”

“What business is it of yours?” demanded Lesable sharply.

At this provoking tone Maze in his turn raised his voice: “Hold on! what do you take me for? Try to be polite, or I’ll settle you!”

Lesable trembled with anger, and losing all self-control, replied: “Monsieur Maze, I am not, like you, a great booby, or a great coxcomb. And I forbid you ever to speak to me again. I care neither for you nor your kind.” And he threw a look of defiance at Pitolet and Boissel.

Maze suddenly understood that true force is in calmness and irony, but wounded in his most vulnerable part⁠—his vanity⁠—he wished to strike his enemy to the very heart, and replied in the protecting tone of a benevolent well-wisher, but with rage in his eyes: “My dear Lesable, you pass all bounds. But I understand your vexation. It is pitiful to lose a fortune, and to lose it for so little, for a thing so easy, so simple. If you wish, I will do you this service myself, for nothing, out of pure friendship. It is only an affair of five minutes⁠—”

He was still speaking when Lesable hurled the inkstand of old Savon full at his head.

A flood of ink covered his face and metamorphosed him into a Negro with surprising rapidity. He sprang forward, rolling the whites of his eyes, with his hands raised ready to strike. But Cachelin covered his son-in-law, and grasping Maze by the arms pushed him aside, and, after pounding him well, dashed him against the wall. Maze disengaged himself with a violent effort, and rushed through the door, crying to the two men: “You shall soon hear from me!” Pitolet and Boissel followed him.

Boissel explained his moderation by declaring he should have killed someone if he had taken part in the struggle.

As soon as he entered his room Maze endeavoured to remove the stain, but without success. The ink was violet, and was indelible and ineffaceable. He stood before his glass furious and disconsolate, rubbing savagely at his face with a napkin rolled in a knot. He obtained only a richer black, mixed with red, the blood coming to the surface with the friction.

Boissel and Pitolet strove to advise and console him. One suggested the application of pure olive oil, the other prescribed a bath of ammonia. The office boy was sent to ask the advice of a chemist. He brought back a yellow liquid and pumice stone, which was used with no result.

Maze, disheartened, sank into a chair and declared: “Now it only remains to settle the question of honour. Will you act as seconds for me, and demand of Monsieur Lesable a sufficient apology, or the reparation by arms?”

They both at once consented, and began to discuss the steps to be taken. They had no idea about affairs of this kind, but not wishing to betray their ignorance, and desiring to appear correct, their advice were timorous and conflicting. It was finally decided that they should consult a sea captain who was attached to the Ministry to look after the coal distribution. But he was as ignorant as they were. After some moments of reflection, however, he advised them to go and see Lesable and ask to be put in touch with two of his friends.

As they proceeded to the office of their colleague, Boissel suddenly stopped. “Is it not imperative that we should have gloves?” he asked.

Pitolet hesitated an instant. “Perhaps it is,” he replied seriously. But in order to procure the gloves it would have been necessary to go out, and the chief was rather severe.

They sent the office boy to bring an assortment from the nearest glove-store.

To decide upon the colour was a question of time. Boissel preferred black. Pitolet thought that shade out of place in the circumstances. At last they chose violet.

Seeing the two men enter gloved and solemn, Lesable raised his head and brusquely demanded: “What do you want?”

Pitolet replied: “Monsieur, we are charged by our friend, Monsieur Maze, to ask of you an apology, or a reparation by arms for the insult you have inflicted on him.”

Lesable, still greatly exasperated, cried: “What, he insults me, and sends you to provoke me? Tell him that I despise him⁠—that I despise all he can say or do.”

Boissel advanced with a tragic air. “You will force us, Monsieur, to publish in the papers an official report, which will be very disagreeable to you.”

Pitolet maliciously added: “And which will gravely injure your honour, and your future advancement.”

Lesable, overwhelmed, looked at them. What should he do? He sought to gain time. “Will you wait a moment in the office of Monsieur Pitolet? You shall have my answer in ten minutes.”

When at last alone he looked around him, seeking for some counsel, some protection.

A duel! He was going to fight a duel!

He sat terrified, with a beating heart. He, a peaceful man, who had never dreamed of such a possibility, who was not prepared for the risk, whose courage was not equal to such a formidable event. He rose from his chair and sat down again, his heart wildly beating, his legs sinking under him. His anger and his strength had totally deserted him.

But the thought of the opinion of the Ministry, the gossip the story would make among his acquaintances, aroused his failing pride, and, not knowing what to decide, he sought his chief to ask his advice. M. Torchebeuf was surprised and perplexed. An armed encounter seemed to him unnecessary, and he thought a duel would demoralise the service. He replied: “I can give you no advice. It is a question of honour, which does not concern me. Do you wish that I should give you a note to Commandant Bouc? He is a competent man in such matters, and will be able to advise you.”

Lesable accepted the offer, and saw the commandant, who even consented to be his second; he took an under-chief for another.

Boissel and Pitolet waited with their gloves on. They had borrowed two chairs from another office, in order to have four seats.

They saluted gravely and took their places, while Pitolet explained the situation. The commandant, having listened attentively, replied: “The case is serious, but it does not appear to me to be irreparable. Everything depends on the intention.” He was a sly old sailor, who was enjoying himself.

A long discussion began regarding the reciprocal apologies the principals should make. M. Maze acknowledging not to have had the intention to offend, M. Lesable should hasten to avow himself in the wrong in throwing the inkstand at the head of M. Maze, and pray to be excused for his inconsiderate violence.

The four proxies returned to their clients.

Maze, seated before his table, was agitated by the dread of the possible duel, although expecting to see his adversary retreat, and regarded his face attentively in one of those little, round tin mirrors which the employees concealed in a drawer for the purpose of adjusting their hair and ties before leaving in the evening. He read the letter of apology which had been prepared by the seconds of both parties, and declared with evident satisfaction: “That appears to me to be very honourable; I am willing to sign it.”

Lesable, for his part, accepted without discussion the arrangement of his seconds, and declared: “As this is the result of your mutual consultation, I can but acquiesce.”

The four plenipotentiaries assembled. The letters were exchanged, they saluted gravely, and so the affair terminated. An extraordinary excitement reigned in the Ministry. The employees, carrying the news, passed from one door to the other, and lingered to gossip about in the lobbies. When they heard how the affair had ended, there was general disappointment. Someone said: “Still, that will not get Lesable a baby.” And the saying took. One employee made a rhyme upon it.

But at the moment when everything seemed adjusted, a difficulty suggested itself to Boissel: “What would be the attitude of the two adversaries when they found themselves face to face? Would they speak, or would they ignore each other?” It was decided that they should meet, as if by chance, in the office of the chief, and exchange, in the presence of M. Torchebeuf, some words of politeness.

This ceremony was accordingly accomplished, and Maze, having sent for a carriage, returned home, to try to remove the stain from his face.

Lesable and Cachelin drove home together without speaking, mutually exasperated, each blaming the other for the disgraceful affair.

The moment he entered the house, Lesable threw his hat violently on the table and cried to his wife: “I have had enough of it! I have a duel on your account now!” She looked at him in angry surprise.

“A duel? How is that?”

“Because Maze has insulted me on your account.”

She approached him. “On my account? How?”

He threw himself passionately into an armchair and exclaimed: “He has insulted me⁠—no need to say any more about it.”

But she would know. “You must repeat to me the words he used about me.”

Lesable blushed, and then stammered: “He told me⁠—he told me⁠—it was in regard to your sterility.”

She gave a start; then recoiling in fury, the paternal rudeness showing through the woman’s nature, she burst out:

“I! I am sterile, am I? What does that clown know about it? Sterile with you, yes; because you are not a man. But if I had married another, no matter who, do you hear? I should have had children. Ah, you had better talk! It has cost me dear to have married a softy like you! And what did you reply to this good-for-nothing?”

Lesable, frightened before this storm, stuttered: “I⁠—I slapped his face.”

She looked at him in astonishment.

“And what did he do?”

“He sent me a challenge; that was all.”

She was instantly interested, attracted, like all women, by the dramatic element, and she asked, immediately softened, and suddenly seized with a sort of esteem for this man who was going to risk his life for her sake:

“When are you going to fight him?”

He replied tranquilly: “We are not going to fight: the matter has been arranged by our seconds. Maze has sent me an apology.”

Transported with rage, she boxed his ears. “Ah, he insults me in your presence, and you permit it, and refuse to fight him! It needed but this to make you a coward.”

Enraged at this he cried: “I command you to hold your tongue. I know better than you do how to protect my honour. To convince you, here is the letter of M. Maze; take it and read it, and see for yourself.”

She took the letter, ran her eye over it, and divining the whole truth, sneered: “You wrote him a letter also? You are afraid of each other. What cowards men are! If we were in your place, we women⁠—after all, it is I who have been insulted, your wife, and you are willing to let it pass. That need not astonish me, for you are not man enough to beget a child. That explains everything. You are as impotent before women as you are cowardly among men. Ah, I have married a nice worm!”

She had suddenly assumed the voice and gestures of her father, the coarse and vulgar manners of an old trooper, and the intonations of a man.

Standing before him, her hands on her hips, tall, strong, vigorous, her chest protruding, her cheeks flushed, her voice deep and vibrant, she looked at this little man seated in front of her, a trifle bald, clean shaven except for the short side-whiskers of the lawyer, and she felt a desire to crush, to strangle him.

She continued: “You are capable of nothing⁠—of nothing whatever! You allow everybody at the Ministry, even, to be promoted over your head!”

The door opened, and Cachelin entered, attracted by the sound of their voices, and demanded to know what was the matter. “I told the truth to that worm!” answered Cora.

Lesable raised his eyes, and for the first time noticed the resemblance between father and daughter. It seemed to him that a veil was lifted and the pair were revealed in their true colours⁠—the same coarse nature was common to both; and he, a ruined man, was condemned to live between the two forever.

Cachelin exclaimed: “If you only could get a divorce! It is not very satisfactory to have married a capon.”

At that word, trembling and blazing with fury, Lesable sprang up with a bound. He rushed at his father-in-law shouting: “Get out of here! Begone! You are in my house⁠—do you understand? and I order you to leave it.” He seized from the table a bottle of sedative water and brandished it like a club.

Cachelin, intimidated, backed out of the room, muttering: “What will he do next, I wonder?”

But Lesable was too angry to be easily appeased. He turned upon his wife, who regarded this outburst in astonishment, and placing the bottle on the table cried: “As for you⁠—as for you⁠—” But as words failed him to express his rage, he was choked into silence, and stood glaring at her with a distorted visage.

She began to laugh.

This mocking laughter put him beside himself, and springing upon her he seized her by the throat with his left hand, while he boxed her ears furiously with the right. She recoiled, terrified and suffocating, and fell backward on the bed, while he continued to strike her. Suddenly he raised himself, out of breath, exhausted and heartily ashamed of his brutality; he stammered: “There⁠—there⁠—there⁠—that will do!”

But she did not move; it seemed as if he had killed her. She lay on her back, on the side of the bed, her face concealed by her hands.

He approached her in alarm, wondering what had happened, and expecting her to uncover her face and look at him. She made no sign, and suspense becoming intolerable he murmured: “Cora, Cora, speak!” But she did not move or reply.

What was the matter with her? What was she going to do?

His rage had passed⁠—fallen as suddenly as it had been aroused. He felt that his conduct was odious, almost criminal. He had beaten his wife, his own wife⁠—he who was circumspect, cold, and courteous. And in the softness his remorse awakened, he would ask her forgiveness. He threw himself on his knees at her side and covered with kisses the cheek he had just smitten. He softly touched the end of a finger of the hand that covered her face. She seemed to feel nothing. He coaxed her, caressing her as one caresses a beaten dog. She took no notice of him. “Cora, listen: I have done wrong! Cora, hear me!” She seemed as one dead. Then he tried to take her hand from her face. It obeyed his effort passively, and he saw an open eye, which stared at him with a fixed and alarming gaze.

He continued: “Listen, Cora, I was transported with fury. It was your father who drove me to do this shameful thing. A man cannot take such an insult as that.” She made no reply, as if she heard nothing. He did not know what to say, or what to do. He kissed her under the ear, and raising himself he saw a tear in the corner of her eye, a great tear which rolled slowly down her cheek, and her eyelids fluttered and closed convulsively. He was seized with shame, deeply moved, and opening his arms he threw himself on his wife; he removed the other hand from her face and covered it with kisses, crying: “My poor Cora, forgive me! forgive me!”

Still she wept, without a sound, without a sob, as one weeps from the deepest grief. He held her pressed closely against him, caressing her and whispering in her ear all the tender words he could command. But she remained insensible. However, she ceased to weep. They continued thus a long time locked in each other’s arms.

The night fell, folding in its sombre shadow the little room; and when it was entirely dark he was emboldened to solicit her pardon in a manner that was calculated to revive their hopes.

When they had risen he resumed his ordinary voice and manner, as if nothing had happened. She appeared, on the contrary, softened, and spoke in a gentler tone than usual, regarding her husband with submissive, almost caressing eyes, as if this unexpected correction had relaxed her nerves and softened her heart.

Lesable said quietly: “Your father must be tired of being alone so long. It will soon be dinnertime; go and fetch him.”

She obeyed him.

It was seven o’clock indeed, and the little maid announced dinner, as Cachelin, serene and smiling, appeared with his daughter. They seated themselves at table and talked on this evening with more cordiality than they had done for a long time, as if something agreeable had happened to everybody.

V

But their hopes, always sustained, always renewed, ended in nothing. From month to month their expectations declined, in spite of the persistence of Lesable and the cooperation of his wife. They were consumed with anxiety. Each without ceasing reproached the other for their want of success, and the husband in despair, emaciated, fatigued, had to suffer all the vulgarity of Cachelin, who in their domestic warfare called him “M. Lecoq,” in remembrance, no doubt, of the day that he missed receiving a bottle in his face for having called his son-in-law a capon.

He and his daughter, whose interests were in league, enraged by the constant thought of this great fortune so near, and yet impossible to seize, racked their invention to humiliate and torture this impotent man, who was the cause of all their misfortune.

As they sat at table, Cora repeated each day: “There is very little for dinner. If we were rich, it would be otherwise. It is not my fault.”

When Lesable set out for his office, she called from her room: “Do not forget your umbrella or you will come back as muddy as an omnibus wheel. It’s not my fault that you are still obliged to follow the trade of a quill-driver.”

When she went out herself, she never failed to cry: “If I had married another man, I should have a carriage of my own.”

Every hour and on every occasion she harped on this subject. She pricked her husband with reproaches, lashed him with insult, held him alone guilty, and made him responsible for the loss of the fortune that should have been hers.

At last, one evening, losing all patience, Lesable exclaimed: “In the dog’s name, can’t you hold your tongue? From first to last it is your fault, and yours alone, do you hear, if we have not a child, because I have already had one.”

He lied, preferring anything to this eternal reproach, to this shame of appearing impotent. She looked at him, astonished at first, seeking the truth in his eyes; at last comprehending, and full of disdain, she cried: “You have a child, have you?”

He replied with effrontery: “Yes, an illegitimate child, that I am bringing up at Asnières.”

She answered quietly: “We will go and see it tomorrow, so that I may find out how what he is like.”

He only blushed to the ears and stammered: “Just as you please.”

She rose the next morning at seven o’clock, very much to her husband’s astonishment.

“Are we not going to see your child? You promised me yesterday evening. Perhaps you haven’t got it any more today.”

He sprang from the bed hastily. “It is not my child we are going to see, but a physician, who will give us his opinion on your case.”

She replied in the tone of a woman who was sure of herself: “I shall ask nothing better.”

Cachelin was instructed to inform the chief that his son-in-law was ill, and Lesable and his wife advised by a neighbouring chemist, rang at one o’clock exactly the office-bell of Dr. Lefilleul, author of several works on the hygiene of generation.

They were shown into a salon decorated in white and gold, but scantily furnished in spite of the number of chairs and sofas. They seated themselves and waited. Lesable was excited, trembling, and also ashamed. Their turn came at last, and they were shown into a sort of office, where they were received by a short, stout man of dignified and ceremonious demeanour.

He waited till they should explain their case, but Lesable had not courage to utter a word, and blushed up to the roots of his hair. It therefore devolved on his wife to speak, and with a resolute manner and in a tranquil voice, she made known their errand.

“Monsieur, we have come to discover the reason why we cannot have children. A large fortune depends upon this for us.”

The consultation was long, minute, and painful. Cora alone seemed unembarrassed, and submitted to the critical examination of the medical expert, sustained by the great interest she had at stake.

After having studied for nearly two hours the constitutions of the married pair, the practitioner said: “I discover nothing either abnormal or special. Your case is by no means an uncommon one. There is as much divergence in constitutions as in characters. When we see so many households out of joint through incompatibility of temper, it is not astonishing to see others sterile through incompatibility of physique. Madame appears to be particularly well fitted for the offices of motherhood. Monsieur, on his side, although presenting no conformation outside of the general rule, seems to me enfeebled, perhaps the consequence of his ardent desire to become a parent. Will you permit me to make an auscultation?”

Lesable, greatly disturbed, removed his waistcoat, and the doctor glued his ear to the thorax, and then to the back of his patient, tapping him continuously from the throat to the stomach, and from the loins to the nape of his neck. He discovered a slight irregularity in the action of the heart, and even a menace to the right lung. “⁠—It is necessary for you to be very careful, Monsieur, very careful. This is anaemia, and comes from exhaustion⁠—nothing else. These conditions, although now insignificant, may in a short time become incurable.”

Lesable turned pale with anguish and begged for a prescription.

The doctor ordered a complicated regime consisting of iron, raw meat, and soup, combined with exercise, rest, and a sojourn in the country during the hot weather. He indicated, moreover, the symptoms that proclaimed the desired fecundity, and initiated them into the secrets which were usually practised with success in such cases.

The consultation cost forty francs.

When they were in the street, Cora burst out full of wrath:

“I have discovered what my fate is to be!”

Lesable made no reply. He was tormented by anxiety, he was recalling and weighing each word of the physician. Had the doctor made a mistake, or had he judged truly? He thought no more of the inheritance now, or the desired offspring; it was a question of life or death. He seemed to hear a whistling in his lungs, and his heart sounded as though it were beating in his ears. In crossing the garden of the Tuileries he was overcome with faintness and had to sit down to recover himself. His wife, as though to humiliate him by her superior strength, remained standing in front of him, regarding him from head to foot with pitying contempt. He breathed heavily, exaggerating the effort by his fears, and with the fingers of his left hand on his right wrist he counted the pulsations of the artery.

Cora, who was stamping with impatience, cried: “When will you be ready? It’s time to stop this nonsense!” He arose with the air of a martyr, and went on his way without uttering a word.

When Cachelin was informed of the result of the consultation, his fury knew no bounds. He bawled out: “We know now whose fault it is to a certainty. Ah, well!” And he looked at his son-in-law with his ferocious eyes as though he would devour him.

Lesable neither listened nor heard, being totally absorbed in thoughts of his health and the menace to his existence. Father and daughter might say what they pleased. They were not in his skin, and as for him he meant to preserve his skin at all hazards. He had the various prescriptions of the physician filled, and at each meal he produced an array of bottles with the contents of which he dosed himself regardless of the sneers of his wife and her father. He looked at himself in the glass every instant, placed his hand on his heart each moment to study its action, and removed his bed to a dark room which was used as a clothes closet to put himself beyond the reach of carnal temptation.

He conceived for his wife a hatred mingled with contempt and disgust. All women, moreover, appeared to him to be monsters, dangerous beasts, whose mission it was to destroy men; and he thought no more of the will of Aunt Charlotte, except as one recalls a past accident which might have been fatal.

Some months passed. There remained but one year before the fatal term.

Cachelin had suspended in the dining room an enormous calendar, from which he effaced a day each morning, raging at the impotence of his son-in-law, who was allowing this great fortune to escape week by week. And the thought that he would have to drudge at the office all his life, and limit his expenses to the pitiful sum of two thousand francs a year, filled him with a passion of anger that found vent in the most violent abuse. He could not look at Lesable without shaking with rage, with a brutal desire to beat, to crush, to trample on him. He hated him with an inordinate hatred. Every time he saw him open the door and enter the room, it seemed to him that a robber had broken into the house and robbed him of a sacred inheritance. He hated him more than his most mortal enemy, and he despised him at the same time for his weakness, and above all for the baseness which caused him to sacrifice their common hope of posterity to the fear of his health. Lesable, in fact, lived as completely apart from his wife as if no tie united them. He never approached or touched her; he avoided even looking at her, as much through shame as through fear.

Cachelin, every morning asked his daughter: “Well, how about your husband? Has he made up his mind?”

And she would reply: “No, papa.”

Each evening saw the most painful scenes take place at table. Cachelin continually reiterated: “When a man is not a man, he had better get out and yield his place to another.”

And Cora added: “The fact is, there are some men who are both useless and wearisome. I do not know why they are permitted to live only to become a burden to everyone.”

Lesable dosed himself and made no reply. At last one day his father-in-law cried: “Say, you, if you do not change your manners now that your health is improving, do you know what my daughter means to do?”

The son-in-law raised his eyes, foreseeing a new outrage. Cachelin continued: “She will take somebody else, confound you! You may consider yourself lucky if she hasn’t done so already. When a girl has married a weakling like you, she is entitled to do anything.”

Lesable, turning livid with wrath, replied: “It is not I who prevents her from following your good counsel.”

Cora lowered her eyes, and Cachelin, knowing that he had said an outrageous thing, remained silent and confused.

VI

At the office the two men seemed to live on good enough terms. A sort of tacit pact was entered into between them to conceal from their colleagues their internal warfare. They addressed each other as “my dear Cachelin,” “my dear Lesable”; they even feigned to laugh and talk together as men who were satisfied and happy in their domestic relations.

Lesable and Maze, for their part, comported themselves in the presence of each other with the ceremonious politeness of adversaries who had met in battle.

The duel they had escaped, but whose shadow had chilled them, exacted of them an exaggerated courtesy, a more marked consideration, and perhaps a secret desire for reconciliation, born of the vague fear of a new complication. Their attitude was recognised and approved as that of men of the world, who had had an affair of honour. They saluted each other from a distance with severe gravity, and with a flourish of hats that was graceful and dignified. They did not speak, their pride preventing either from making the first advances. But one day, Lesable, whom the Chief demanded to see immediately, to show his zeal, started with a great rush through the lobby and ran right into the stomach of an employee. It was Maze. They recoiled before each other, and Lesable exclaimed with eager politeness: “I hope I have not hurt you, Monsieur?”

Maze responded: “Not at all, sir.”

From this moment they thought it expedient to exchange some phrases when they met. Then, in the interchange of courtesies, there were little attentions they paid each other from which arose in a short time certain familiarities, then an intimacy tempered with reserve and restrained by a certain hesitation; then on the strength of their increasing goodwill and visits made to the room of each other, a comradeship was established. They often gossiped together now of the news that found its way into the bureau. Lesable laid aside his air of superiority, and Maze no longer paraded his social successes. Cachelin often joined in the conversation and watched with interest their growing friendship. Sometimes as the handsome Maze left the apartment with head erect and square shoulders, he turned to his son-in-law and hissed: “There goes a fine man!” One morning when they were all four together, for old Savon never left his copying, the chair of the old clerk, having been tampered with no doubt by some practical joker, collapsed under him, and the good man rolled on the floor uttering cries of affright. The three others flew to his assistance. The order-clerk attributed this machination to the communists, and Maze earnestly desired to see the wounded part. Cachelin and he even essayed to take off the poor old fellow’s clothes to dress the injury, they said, but he resisted desperately, crying that he was not hurt.

When the fun was over, Cachelin suddenly exclaimed: “I say, M. Maze, now that we are all together, can you not do us the honour of dining with us next Sunday? It will give pleasure to all three of us, myself, my son-in-law, and my daughter, who has often heard your name when we speak of the office. Shall it be yes?”

Lesable added his entreaty, but more coldly than his father-in-law:

“Pray come,” he said; “it will give us great pleasure.”

Maze hesitated, embarrassed and smiling at the remembrance of past events.

Cachelin urged him: “Come, say we may expect you!”

“Very well, then, I accept.”

Cachelin said on entering the house: “Cora, do you know that M. Maze is coming here to dinner next Sunday?”

Cora, surprised at first, stammered: “M. Maze? Really!” She blushed up to her hair without knowing why. She had so often heard him spoken of, his manners, his successes, for he was looked upon at the office as a man who was irresistible with women, that she had long felt a desire to know him.

Cachelin continued rubbing his hands: “You will see that he is a real man, and a fine fellow. He is as tall as a carbineer; he does not resemble your husband there.”

She did not reply, confused as if they had divined her dreams of him.

They prepared this dinner with as much solicitude as the one to which Lesable had been formerly invited. Cachelin discussed the dishes, wishing to have everything served in perfection; and as though a confidence unavowed and still undetermined had risen up in his heart, he seemed more gay, tranquilised by some secret and sure prevision.

Through all that Sunday he watched the preparations with the utmost solicitude, while Lesable was doing some urgent work, brought the evening before from the office.

It was the first week of November, and the new year was at hand.

At seven o’clock Maze arrived, in high good humour. He entered as though he felt very much at home, with a compliment and a great bouquet of roses for Cora. He added, as he presented them, in the familiar tone of a man of the world: “It seems to me, Madame, I know you already, and that I have known you from your childhood, for many years your father has spoken to me of you.”

Cachelin, seeing the flowers, cried: “Ah they are charming!” and his daughter recalled that Lesable had not brought her a bouquet the day he was introduced.

The handsome clerk seemed enchanted, laughing and bestowing on Cora the most delicate flatteries, which brought the colour to her cheeks.

He found her very attractive. She thought him charming and seductive. When he had gone, Cachelin exclaimed: “Isn’t he a fine fellow? What havoc he creates! They say he can wheedle any woman!”

Cora, less demonstrative, avowed, however, that she thought him very agreeable, and not so much of a poseur as she had believed.

Lesable, who seemed less sad and weary than usual, acknowledged that he had underrated Maze on his first acquaintance.

Maze returned at intervals, which gradually grew shorter. He delighted everybody. They petted and coddled him. Cora prepared for him the dishes he liked, and the intimacy of the three men soon became so great that they were seldom seen apart.

The new friend took the whole family to the theatre in boxes procured through the press. They returned on foot, through the streets thronged with people, to the door of Lesable’s apartments, Maze and Cora walking before, keeping step, hip to hip, swinging with the same movement, the same rhythm, like two beings created to walk side by side through life. They spoke to each other in a low tone, laughing softly together, and seemed to understand each other instinctively: sometimes the young woman would turn her head and throw behind her a glance at her husband and father.

Cachelin followed them with a look of benevolent regard, and often, forgetting that he spoke to his son-in-law, he declared: “They have the same physique exactly. It is a pleasure to see them together.”

Lesable replied quietly: “Yes, they are about the same figure.” He was happy now in the consciousness that his heart was beating more vigorously, that his lungs acted more freely, and that his health had improved in every respect; his rancour against his father-in-law, whose cruel taunts had now entirely ceased, vanished little by little.

The first day of January he was promoted to the chief clerkship. His joy was so excessive over his happy event that on returning home he embraced his wife for the first time in six months. She appeared embarrassed, as if he had done something improper, and she looked at Maze, who had called to present to her his devotion and respect on the first day of the year. He also had an embarrassed air, and turned toward the window like a man who does not wish to see.

But Cachelin very soon resumed his brutalities, and began to harass his son-in-law with his coarse jests.

Sometimes he even attacked Maze, as though he blamed him also for the catastrophe suspended over them⁠—the inevitable date of which approached nearer every minute.

Cora alone appeared composed, entirely happy and radiant. She had forgotten, it seemed, the threatening nearness of the term.

March had come. All hope seemed lost, for it would be three years on the twentieth of July since Aunt Charlotte’s death.

An early spring had advanced the vegetation, and Maze proposed to his friends one Sunday to make an excursion to the banks of the Seine, to gather the violets in the shady places. They set out by a morning train and got off at Maisons-Laffitte. A breath of winter still lingered among the bare branches, but the turf was green and lustrous, flecked with flowers of white and blue, and the fruit-trees on the hillsides seemed garlanded with roses as their bare branches showed through the clustering blossoms. The Seine, thick and muddy from the late rains, flowed slowly between its banks gnawed by the frosts of winter; and all the country, steeped in vapour, exhaled a savour of sweet humidity under the warmth of the first days of spring.

They wandered in the park. Cachelin, more glum than usual, tapped his cane on the gravelled walk, thinking bitterly of their misfortune, so soon to be irremediable. Lesable, morose also, feared to wet his feet in the grass, while his wife and Maze were gathering flowers to make a bouquet. Cora for several days had seemed suffering, and looked weary and pale. She was soon tired and wished to return for luncheon. They came upon a little restaurant near an old ruined mill, and the traditional repast of a Parisian picnic party was soon served under a green arbour, on a little table covered with two napkins, and quite near the banks of the river. They had fried gudgeons, roast beef cooked with potatoes, and they had come to the salad of fresh green lettuce, when Cora rose brusquely and ran toward the river, pressing her napkin with both hands to her mouth.

Lesable, uneasy, wondered what could be the matter. Maze disconcerted, blushed, and stammered, “I do not know⁠—she was well a moment since.”

Cachelin appeared frightened, and remained seated, with his fork in the air, a leaf of salad suspended at the end. Then he rose, trying to see his daughter. Bending forward, he perceived her leaning against a tree and seeming very ill. A swift suspicion flashed through his mind, and he fell back into his seat and regarded with an embarrassed air the two men, both of whom seemed now equally confused. He looked at them with anxious eyes, no longer daring to speak, wild with anguish and hope.

A quarter of an hour passed in utter silence. Then Cora reappeared, a little pale and walking slowly. No one questioned her; each seemed to divine a happy event, difficult to speak of. They burned to know, but feared also to hear, the truth. Cachelin alone had the courage to ask: “You are better now?” And she replied: “Yes, thank you; there is not much the matter; but we will return early, as I have a light headache.” When they set out she took the arm of her husband as if to signify something mysterious she had not yet dared to avow.

They separated at the station of Saint-Lazare. Maze, making a pretext of some business affair which he had just remembered, bade them adieu, after having shaken hands with all of them. As soon as Cachelin was alone with his daughter and his son-in-law, he asked: “What was the matter with you at breakfast?”

But Cora did not reply at first; after hesitating for a moment she said: “It was nothing much; a little sickness of the stomach was all.” She walked with a languid step, but with a smile on her lips.

Lesable was ill at ease, his mind distracted; haunted with confused and contradictory ideas, angry, feeling an unavowable shame, cherishing a cowardly jealousy, he was like those sleepers who close their eyes in the morning that they may not see the ray of light which glides between the curtains and strikes the bed like a brilliant shaft.

As soon as he entered the house, he shut himself in his own room, pretending to be occupied with some unfinished work. Then Cachelin, placing his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, exclaimed: “You are pregnant, aren’t you?”

She stammered: “Yes, I think so. Two months.”

Before she had finished speaking, he bounded with joy, then began to dance the cancan around her, an old recollection of his garrison days. He lifted his leg and leaped like a young kid in spite of his great paunch, and made the whole apartment shake with his gambols. The furniture jostled, the glasses on the buffet rattled, and the chandelier oscillated like the lamp of a ship.

He took his beloved daughter in his arms and embraced her frantically. Then tapping her lightly on the shoulder he cried: “Ah, it is done, then, at last! Have you told your husband?”

She murmured, suddenly intimidated: “No⁠—not yet⁠—I⁠—I⁠—was waiting⁠—”

But Cachelin exclaimed: “Good, very good. You find it awkward. I will run and tell him myself.”

And he rushed to the apartment of his son-in-law. On seeing him enter, Lesable, who was doing nothing, rose and looked inquiringly at Cachelin, who left him no time for conjecture, but cried: “Do you know your wife is in the family way?”

The husband was stricken speechless, his countenance changed, and the blood surged to the roots of his hair: “What? How? Cora? you say⁠—” he faltered when he recovered his voice.

“I say that she is pregnant; do you understand? Now is our chance!”

In his joy he took Lesable’s hands and pressed and shook them, as if to felicitate him, to thank him, and cried: “Ah, at last it is true, it is true! it is true! Think of the fortune we shall have!” and unable to contain himself longer, he caught his son-in-law in his arms and embraced him, crying: “More than a million! think of it! more than a million!” and he began to dance more violently than ever.

“But come, she is waiting for you, come and embrace her, at least,” and taking him by the shoulders he pushed Lesable before him, and threw him like a ball into the apartment where Cora stood anxiously waiting and listening.

The moment she saw her husband, she recoiled, stifled with a sudden emotion. He stood before her, pale and severe. He had the air of a judge, and she of a culprit. At last he said: “It seems that you are pregnant.”

She stammered in a trembling voice: “Yes, that seems to be the case.”

But Cachelin seized each of them by the neck, and, bringing them face to face, cried: “Now kiss each other, by George! It is a fitting occasion.”

And after releasing them, he capered about like a schoolboy, shouting: “Victory, victory, we have won our case! I say, Léopold, we must purchase a country house; there, at least, you will certainly recover your health.” At this idea Lesable trembled. His father-in-law continued: “We will invite M. Torchebeuf and his wife to visit us, and as the under-chief is at the end of his term you may take his place. That is the way to bring it about.”

Lesable was now beginning to regard things from Cachelin’s standpoint, and he saw himself receiving his chief at a beautiful country place on the banks of the river, dressed in coat of white twill, with a Panama hat on his head.

Something sweet entered into his heart with this hope, something warm and good seemed to melt within him, rendering him light of heart and healthier in feeling. He smiled, still without speaking.

Cachelin, intoxicated with joy, transported at the thought of his fine prospects, continued:

“Who knows, we may gain some political influence. Perhaps you will be deputy. At all events, we can see the society of the neighbourhood, and enjoy some luxuries. And you shall have a little pony to convey you every morning to the station.” These images of luxury, of elegance and prosperity aroused the drooping spirits of Lesable. The thought that he could be driven in his own carriage, like the rich people he had so often envied, filled him with satisfaction, and he could not refrain from exclaiming: “Ah, that will be delightful indeed.”

Cora, seeing him won over, smiled tenderly and gratefully, and Cachelin, who saw no obstacles now in the way of indulgence, declared: “We will dine at the restaurant, to celebrate the happy event.”

When they reached home, the two men were a little tipsy, and Lesable, who saw double and whose ideas were all topsy-turvy, could not find his bedroom. He made his way by mistake, or forgetfulness, into the long vacant bed of his wife. And all night long it seemed to him that the bed oscillated like a boat, rolling and pitching as though it would upset. He was even a little seasick.

He was surprised on awaking to find Cora in his arms. She opened her eyes with a smile and kissed him with a sudden effusion of gratitude and affection. Then she said to him, in that caressing voice which women employ in their cajoleries: “If you wish to be very nice, you will not go to your office today. There is no need to be so punctual now that we are going to be rich, and we will make a little visit to the country, all by ourselves.”

Lesable was content to remain quiet, with the feeling for self-indulgence which follows an evening of excess, and the warmth of the bed was grateful. He felt the drowsy wish to lie a long time, to do nothing more but to live in tranquil idleness. An unusual sloth paralyzed his soul and subdued his body, and one vague, happy, and continuous thought never left him⁠—“He was going to be rich, independent.”

But suddenly a fear seized him, and he whispered softly, as if he thought the walls might hear him: “Are you very sure you are pregnant, after all?”

She reassured him at once. “Oh, yes! I am certain of it. I could not be mistaken.”

And, as if still doubting, he traced the outline of her figure with his hand, and feeling convinced declared: “Yes, it is true⁠—but you will not be brought to bed before the date. They will contest our right on that account, perhaps.”

At this supposition she grew angry.

“Oh, no indeed, they are not going to trick us now after so much misery, so much trouble, and so many efforts. Oh, no, indeed!” She was overwhelmed with indignation. “Let us go at once to the notary,” she said.

But his advice was to get a physician’s certificate first, and they presented themselves again to Dr. Lefilleul.

He recognized them immediately, and exclaimed: “Ah well, have you succeeded?”

They both blushed up to their ears, and Cora a little shamefacedly stammered: “I believe we have, doctor.”

The doctor rubbed his hands, crying: “I expected it, I expected it. The means I recommended to you never fail; at least, only from some radical incapacity of one of the parties.”

When he had made an examination of the young wife, he declared: “It is true, bravo!” and he wrote on a sheet of paper:

“I, the undersigned, doctor of medicine, of the Faculty of Paris, certify that Madame Léopold Lesable, née Cachelin, presents all the symptoms of pregnancy, dating from over three months.”

Then, turning toward Lesable: “And you,” he said, “how is that chest and that heart?” and having made an auscultation, he declared that the patient was entirely cured. They set out happy and joyous, arm in arm, with elastic steps. But on the route Léopold had an idea. “We had better go home before we see the lawyer, and rearrange your dress; you’ll put two or three towels under your belt, it will draw attention to it and that will be better; he will not believe then that we are trying to gain time.”

They returned home, and he himself undressed his wife in order to adjust the deception. Ten consecutive times Lesable changed the position of the towels, and stepped back some paces to get the proper effect, wishing to obtain an absolutely perfect resemblance. Satisfied with the result at last, they set out again, and walked proudly through the streets, Lesable carrying himself with the air of one whose virility was established and patent to all the world.

The notary received them kindly. Then he listened to their explanation, ran his eye over the certificate, and, as Lesable insisted, “For the rest, Monsieur, it is only necessary to glance for a second,” he threw a convinced look on the telltale figure of the young woman.

There was a moment of anxious suspense, when the man of law declared: “Assuredly, whether the infant is born or to be born, it exists, it lives; so we will suspend the execution of the testament till the confinement of Madame.”

After leaving the office of the notary, they embraced each other on the stairway, so exuberant was their joy.

VII

From the moment of this happy discovery, the three relatives lived in the most perfect accord. They were good-humoured, reasonable, and kind. Cachelin had recovered all his old gaiety, and Cora loaded her husband with attentions. Lesable also seemed like another man, and more gay than he had ever been in his life. Maze came less often, and seemed ill at ease in the family circle; they received him kindly, but with less warmth than formerly, for happiness is egotistical and excludes strangers.

Cachelin himself seemed to feel a certain secret hostility against the handsome clerk whom some months before he had introduced so eagerly into his household. It was he who announced to this friend the pregnancy of Cora. He said to him brusquely: “You know my daughter is pregnant!”

Maze, feigning surprise, replied: “Ah, indeed! you ought to be very happy.”

Cachelin responded with a “Humph!” for he perceived that his colleague, on the contrary, did not appear to be delighted. Men care but little to see in this state (whether or not the cause lies with them) women in whom they are interested.

Every Sunday, however, Maze continued to dine with the family, but it was no longer pleasant to spend the evenings with them, albeit no serious difference had arisen; and this strange embarrassment increased from week to week. One evening, just after Maze had gone, Cachelin cried with an air of annoyance: “That fellow is beginning to weary me to death!”

Lesable replied: “The fact is, he does not improve on acquaintance.” Cora lowered her eyes. She did not give her opinion. She always seemed embarrassed in the presence of the handsome Maze, who, on his side, appeared almost ashamed when he found himself near her. He no longer smiled on looking at her as formerly, no longer asked her and her husband to accompany him to the theatre, and the intimacy, which till lately had been so cordial, seemed to have become but an irksome burden.

One Thursday, when her husband came home to dinner, Cora kissed him with more coquetry than usual and whispered in his ear:

“Perhaps you are going to scold me now?”

“Why should I?” he inquired.

“Well, because⁠—M. Maze came to see me a little while ago, and, as I do not wish to be gossiped about on his account, I begged him never to come when you were not at home. He seemed a little hurt.”

Lesable, very much surprised, demanded: “Very well, what did he say to that?”

“Oh! he did not say much, but it did not please me all the same, and then I asked him to cease his visits entirely. You know very well that it is you and papa who brought him here⁠—I was not consulted at all about it⁠—and I feared you would be displeased because I had dismissed him.”

A grateful joy beamed from the face of her husband.

“You did right, perfectly right, and I even thank you for it.”

She went on, in order to establish the understanding between the two men, which she had arranged in advance: “At the office you must conduct yourself as though nothing had happened, and speak to him as you have been in the habit of doing; but he is not to come here any more.”

Taking his wife tenderly in his arms, Lesable impressed long kisses on her eyelids and on her cheeks. “You are an angel! You are an angel!” he repeated, and he felt pressing against his stomach the already lusty child.

VIII

Nothing of importance happened up to the date of Cora’s confinement, which occurred on the last day of September. The child, being a daughter, was called Désirée. As they wished to make the christening an imposing event, it was decided to postpone the ceremony until they were settled in the new country house which they were going to buy.

They chose a beautiful estate at Asnières, on the hills that overlook the Seine. Great changes had taken place during the winter. As soon as the legacy was secured, Cachelin asked for his pension, which was granted, and he left the office. He employed his leisure moments in cutting, with the aid of a little scroll-saw, the covers of cigar-boxes. He made clocks, caskets, jardinières, and all sorts of odd little pieces of furniture. He had a passion for this work, the taste for which had come to him on seeing a peripatetic merchant working thus with sheets of wood on the Avenue de l’Opéra; and each day he obliged everybody to admire some new design both complicated and puerile. He was amazed at his own work, and kept on saying: “It is astonishing what one can accomplish!”

The assistant-chief, M. Rabot, being dead at last, Lesable fulfilled the duties of his place, although he did not receive the title, for sufficient time had not elapsed since his last promotion.

Cora had become a wholly different woman, more refined, more elegant, instinctively divining all the transformations that wealth imposes. On New Year’s Day she made a visit to the wife of her husband’s chief, a commonplace person, who remained a provincial, notwithstanding a residence of thirty-five years in Paris, and she put so much grace and seductiveness into her prayer that Mme. Torchebeuf should stand godmother to her child that the good woman consented. Grandpapa Cachelin was the godfather.

The ceremony took place on a brilliant Sunday in June. All the employees of the office were invited to witness it, except the handsome Maze, who was seen no more in the Cachelin circle.

At nine o’clock Lesable waited at the railway station for the train from Paris, while a groom, in livery covered with great gilt buttons, held by the bridle a plump pony hitched to a brand-new phaeton.

The engine whistled, then appeared, dragging its train of cars, which soon discharged their freight of passengers.

M. Torchebeuf descended from a first-class carriage with his wife, in a magnificent toilette, while Pitolet and Boissel got out of a second-class carriage. They had not dared to invite old Savon, but it was understood that they were to meet him by chance in the afternoon and bring him to dinner with the consent of the chief.

Lesable hurried to meet his superior, who advanced slowly, the lapel of his frock-coat ornamented with a decoration that resembled a full-blown red rose. His enormous head, surmounted by a large hat that seemed to crush his small body, gave him the appearance of a phenomenon, and his wife, if she had stood on tiptoe, could have looked over his head without any trouble.

Léopold, radiant, bowed and thanked his guests. He seated them in the phaeton, then running toward his two colleagues, who were walking modestly behind, he pressed their hands, regretting that his phaeton was too small to accommodate them also. “Follow the quay,” he directed, “and you will reach my door⁠—‘Villa Désirée,’ the fourth one after the turn. Make haste!”

And mounting the phaeton, he took the reins and drove off, while the groom leaped lightly to the little seat behind.

The ceremony was very brilliant, and afterwards they returned for luncheon. Each one found under his napkin a present proportioned to his station. The godmother received a bracelet of solid gold, her husband a scarf-pin of rubies, Boissel a pocket book of Russian leather, and Pitolet a superb meerschaum pipe. “It was Désirée,” they said, “who offered these presents to her new friends.”

Mme. Torchebeuf, blushing with confusion and pleasure, placed on her fat arm the brilliant circle, and, as the chief wore a narrow black cravat, which would not receive the pin, he stuck the jewel in the lapel of his frock-coat, under the Legion of Honour, as if it had been another decoration of an inferior order.

Outside the window the shining band of the river was seen, curving toward Suresnes, its banks shaded with trees. The sun fell in a rain on the water, making it seem a river of fire. The beginning of the repast was rather solemn, being made formal by the presence of M. and Mme. Torchebeuf. After a while, however, things began to go better. Cachelin threw out some heavy jokes, which he felt would be permitted him since he was rich, and everyone laughed at them. If Pitolet or Boissel had uttered them, the guests would certainly have been shocked.

At dessert, the infant was brought in and received a kiss from each of the company. Smothered in a cloud of snowy lace, the baby looked at the guests with its blue eyes void of intelligence or expression, and rolled its bald head from side to side with an air of newly awakened interest.

Pitolet, amid the confusion of voices, whispered in the ear of Boissel: “It looks like a little Mazette.” The joke went round the Ministry next day.

At two o’clock the health of the newly christened baby was drunk, and Cachelin proposed to show his guests over the property, and then to take them for a walk on the banks of the Seine.

They moved in a slow procession from room to room, from the cellar to the garret; then they examined the garden tree by tree, plant by plant; after which, separating into two parties, they set out for a walk.

Cachelin, who did not feel at home in the company of ladies, drew Boissel and Pitolet into a café on the bank of the river, while Mesdames Torchebeuf and Lesable, with their husbands, walked in the opposite direction, these refined ladies not being able to mingle with the common Sunday herd.

They walked slowly along the path, followed by the two men, who talked gravely of the affairs of the office. On the river the boats were continually passing, propelled by long strokes of the oars in the hands of jolly fellows, the muscles of whose bare arms rolled under the sunburned skin. Women, reclining on black or white fur rugs, managed the tillers, drowsing under the hot sun, holding open over their heads, like enormous flowers floating on the surface of the water, umbrellas of red, yellow, and blue silk. Cries from one boat to the other, calls, and shouts, and a remote murmur of human voices lower down, confused and continuous, indicated where the swarming crowds were enjoying a holiday.

Long files of fishermen stood motionless all along the river, while the swimmers, almost naked, standing in heavy fishing boats, plunged in head-foremost, climbed back upon the boats and leaped into the water again.

Mme. Torchebeuf looked on in surprise.

Cora said to her: “It is like this every Sunday; it spoils this charming country for me.”

A canoe moved softly by. Two women rowed, while two men were stretched in the bottom of the boat. One of the women, turning her head towards the shore, cried:

“Hello! hello! you respectable women! I have a man for sale, very cheap! Do you want him?”

Cora turned away contemptuously and taking the arm of her companion said: “We cannot remain here; let us go. What infamous creatures!”

They moved away as M. Torchebeuf was saying to Lesable: “It is settled for the first of January. The head of the Department has positively promised me.”

“I don’t know how to thank you, dear master,” Lesable replied.

When they reached home they found Cachelin, Pitolet, and Boissel laughing immoderately and almost carrying old Savon, whom they jokingly declared they had found on the beach in the company of a girl.

The frightened old man was crying: “It is not true, no, it is not true. It is not right to say that, M. Cachelin, it is not kind.”

And Cachelin, choking with laughter, cried: “Ah, you old rogue, did you not call her your ‘sweet goose quill’? We caught you, you rascal!”

Then the ladies, too, began to laugh at the dismay of the poor old man.

Cachelin continued: “With M. Torchebeuf’s permission, we will keep him prisoner as a punishment and make him dine with us.”

The chief good-humouredly consented, and they continued to laugh about the lady abandoned by the old man, who protested all the time, annoyed at this mischievous farce.

The subject was the occasion of inexhaustible wit throughout the evening, which sometimes even bordered on the obscene.

Cora and Mme. Torchebeuf, seated under a tent on the lawn, watched the reflections of the setting sun, which threw upon the leaves a purple glow.

Not a breath stirred the branches, a serene and infinite peace fell from the calm and flaming heavens. Some boats still passed, more slowly, drifting with the tide.

Cora remarked: “It appears that poor M. Savon married a bad woman.”

Mme. Torchebeuf, who was familiar with everything of the office, replied:

“Yes, she was an orphan, very much too young for him, and deceived him with a worthless fellow, and she ended in running away with him.”

Then the fat lady added: “I say he was a worthless fellow, but I know nothing about it. It is reported that they loved one another very much. In any case, old Savon is not very seductive.”

Mme. Lesable replied gravely:

“That is no excuse; the poor man is much to be pitied. Our next door neighbour, M. Barbou, has had the same experience. His wife fell in love with a sort of painter who passed his summers here, and she has gone abroad with him. I do not understand how women can fall so low. To my mind it seems a special chastisement should be meted out to those wicked creatures who bring shame upon their families.”

At the end of the alley the nurse appeared, carrying the little Désirée wrapped in her laces. The child, all rosy in the red gold of the evening light, was coming towards the two women. She stared at the fiery sky with the same pale and astonished eyes with which she regarded their faces.

All the men who were talking at a distance drew near, and Cachelin, seizing his little granddaughter, tossed her aloft in his arms as if he would carry her to the skies. Her figure was outlined against the brilliant line of the horizon, while her long white robe almost touched the ground; and the grandfather cried: “Look! isn’t this the best thing in the world, after all, father Savon?”

But the old man made no reply, having nothing to say, or perhaps thinking too many things.

A servant opened the door and announced: “Madame is served!”

Happiness

It was teatime, just before the lamps were brought in. The villa overlooked the sea; the vanished sun had left the sky rose-tipped in its passing, and powdered with golden dust; and the Mediterranean, without ripple or faintest movement, smooth, still gleaming with the light of the dying day, spread out a vast shield of burnished metal.

Far to the right, the jagged mountains lifted their black sharp-cut bulk against the dim purple of the West.

They were speaking of love, retelling an ancient tale, saying over again things already said many, many times before. The soft melancholy dusk pressed upon their speech, so that a feeling of tenderness welled up in their hearts, and the word “love,” constantly repeated, now in a man’s strong voice, now in the high, clear tones of a woman, seemed to fill the little room, flitting about it like a bird, hovering like a spirit over them.

Can one love for years without end?

Yes, claimed some.

No, declared others.

They drew a distinction between various cases, made clear the qualities that divided them from others, quoted examples; and all, both men and women, filled with rushing, disquieting memories which they could not reveal and which hovered on their lips, seemed profoundly moved; they spoke of this commonplace yet supreme thing, this mysterious concord between two beings, with the deepest emotion and burning interest.

Suddenly one among them, whose eyes were fixed on the distant scene, exclaimed:

“Oh! Look! What’s that, over there?”

Across the sea, on the rim of haze, rose a huge, grey, shapeless mass.

The women had risen and were staring uncomprehendingly at this amazing object, which none of them had ever seen before.

“It’s Corsica,” said someone. “It can be seen two or three times a year under exceptional atmospheric conditions, when the air is so perfectly clear as not to conceal it with those mists of water-vapour in which distant prospects are always wrapped.”

They could distinguish vaguely the mountain peaks, and fancied that they could see the snow on the summits. And everyone was surprised, disturbed, almost frightened at this abrupt appearance of a world, at this phantom risen from the sea. Such, perhaps, were the perilous visions of those who set out like Columbus across strange seas.

Then an old gentleman, who had not spoken, remarked:

“Oddly enough, in that island which has just swum into our sight⁠—at the very moment when it would give force to what we have been saying and awaken one of my strangest memories⁠—I came across a perfect instance of faithful love, miraculously happy love.

“Five years ago I made a tour in Corsica. That wild island is farther away from us, and less known to us, than America, although it is sometimes to be seen from the coasts of France, even as today.

“Imagine a world still in chaos, a maelstrom of mountains separated by narrow ravines down which rush foaming torrents; not a single level space, but only immense billows of granite and gigantic undulations in the ground covered with thickets or with lofty forests of chestnut and pine. It is virgin soil, uncultivated, deserted, although an occasional village may be descried, like a pile of rocks perched on the top of a mountain. There is no culture, no industry, no art. Never does one meet with a piece of carved wood, a block of sculptured stone, with any reminder of hereditary taste, rudimentary or refined, for gracious and beautiful things. That is the most striking thing in this superb, harsh country: its inherited indifference to that search for magical loveliness which is called art.

“Italy, where every palace, full of masterpieces, is itself a masterpiece, where marble, wood, bronze, iron, in fact all metals and stones, bear witness to the genius of man, where the tiniest heirlooms in old houses reveal a divine care for beauty, is to each one of us a sacred and beloved land, because she displays and proves to us the strong impulse, the grandeur, the power, and the triumph of the creative intelligence.

“Facing her, wild Corsica has remained just as she was in her earliest days. There man lives in his rude house, indifferent to all that does not affect his mere existence or his family quarrels. He has survived with the defects and qualities of all uncivilised races, violent, strong to hate, instinctively bloodthirsty, but also hospitable, generous, full of true piety, simple-hearted, opening his door to the passerby and bestowing a loyal friendship in return for the smallest token of sympathy.

“For a month I had been wandering over this magnificent island, feeling as though I were at the end of the world. There are no inns, no taverns, no roads. Mule paths lead to the villages that cling to the flanks of the mountains and overlook the twisting gulfs from whose depths the heavy, muffled, deep roar of the torrent rises ceaselessly in the silence of evening. The traveller knocks at the house doors and asks for shelter for the night and food until next day. He sits down at the humble table and sleeps beneath the humble roof, and in the morning shakes the outstretched hand of his host, who leads him to the edge of the village.

“One evening, after walking for ten hours, I came to a little house standing by itself in the depths of a narrow valley that fell into the sea a league farther on. The two steep slopes of the hillside, covered with thickets, boulders, and tall trees, were like two gloomy walls enclosing this unutterably mournful abyss.

“Round the hovel were a few vines, a small garden, and, further on, some large chestnut-trees; enough, actually, for a bare existence, a fortune in that poor country.

“The woman who opened the door was old, hard-featured, and clean, which was unusual. The man, seated on a cane chair, got up to greet me and then sat down without saying a word.

“ ‘Please excuse him,’ said his wife to me. ‘He’s deaf now. He’s eighty-two.’

“She spoke perfect French. I was surprised.

“ ‘You are not Corsicans?’ I asked her.

“ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘we come from the mainland. But we have lived here for fifty years.’

“A feeling of anguish and terror overwhelmed me at the thought of the fifty years that had rolled by in this dark hole, so far from towns and the life of men. An old shepherd came in, and we began to eat the only course of the dinner, a thick soup in which potatoes, bacon, and cabbage were all boiled together.

“When the short meal was over, I went out and sat before the door, my heart oppressed with the melancholy of that sombre landscape, in the grip of that feeling of wretchedness which sometimes lays hold on the traveller, on sad evenings, in desolate places. It seems as though all things were coming to an end, life itself, and the universe. The dreadful misery of life is revealed in one blinding flash, and the isolation of all things, the nothingness of all things, and the black loneliness of our hearts which soothe and deceive themselves with dreams until the coming of death itself.

“The old woman joined me, and tormented by the curiosity which lives on in the hearts of even the most resigned of mortals, said to me:

“ ‘So you come from France?’

“ ‘Yes, I am travelling for pleasure.’

“ ‘You are from Paris, perhaps?’

“ ‘No, I come from Nancy.’

“At that it seemed to me that an extraordinary excitement was agitating her. How I saw this, or rather felt it, I do not know.

“ ‘You are from Nancy?’ she repeated slowly.

“The husband appeared in the doorway, impassive, as are all deaf people.

“ ‘It does not matter,’ she continued. ‘He cannot hear.’

“Then, after a few seconds:

“ ‘Then you know people in Nancy?’

“ ‘Why, yes, almost everybody.’

“ ‘The Sainte-Allaize family?’

“ ‘Yes, very well; they were friends of my father’s.’

“ ‘What is your name?’

“ ‘I told her. She stared intently at me, then said in that soft voice evoked by wakening memories:

“ ‘Yes, yes, I remember quite well. And the Brisenaves, what has become of them?’

“ ‘They are all dead.’

“ ‘Ah! And the Sirmonts, do you know them?’

“ ‘Yes, the youngest is a general.’

“At that she replied, shaking with excitement, with anguish, with I know not what confused powerful and intimate emotion, with I know not how pressing a need to confess, to tell everything, to speak of things she had until this moment kept locked in the secret places of her heart, and of the people whose name troubled the very depths of her soul:

“ ‘Yes, Henri de Sirmont. I know him well. He is my brother.’

“I lifted my eyes to her, quite dumbfounded with surprise. And suddenly I remembered.

“It had been a great scandal, long ago, in aristocratic Lorraine. As a young girl, beautiful, wealthy, Suzanne de Sirmont had run off with a noncommissioned officer in the hussar regiment of which her father was commander.

“He was a handsome lad; his parents were peasants, but he wore the blue dolman with a gallant air, this soldier who seduced his colonel’s daughter. Doubtless she had seen him, noticed him, fallen in love with him as she watched the squadrons march past. But how had she spoken to him, how had they been able to meet and come to an understanding? How had she dared to make him realise that she loved him? This no one ever knew.

“Nothing had been guessed or foreseen. One evening, when the soldier had just completed his term of service, he disappeared with her. A search was made, but they were not found. No news of them was heard, and she was thought of as dead.

“And thus I had found her in this sinister valley.

“Then in my turn I answered:

“ ‘Yes, I remember well. You are Mademoiselle Suzanne.’

“She nodded ‘yes.’ Tears poured from her eyes. Then, glancing towards the old man, standing motionless on the threshold of his dwelling, she said to me:

“ ‘That is he.’

“And I realised that she still loved him, still saw him with eyes blinded by love.

“ ‘But at least you have been happy?’ I asked.

“She answered, in a voice that came from her heart:

“ ‘Oh, yes, very happy. He has made me very happy. I have never had any regrets.’

“I gazed at her, a little sad, surprised, marvelling at the power of love! This rich girl had followed this man, this peasant. She had stooped herself to a life without charm, luxury, or refinement of any sort, she had accustomed herself to an entirely simple existence. And she still loved him. She had become the wife of a country clodhopper, with a bonnet and a canvas skirt. She sat on a cane chair, she ate broth made of potatoes, cabbage, and bacon, out of an earthen platter set on a deal table. She slept on straw at his side.

“She had never a thought for anything but him. She had regretted neither jewels, nor fine clothes, nor fashion, nor the comfort of armchairs, nor the perfumed warmth of tapestry-hung rooms, nor the softness of down whereon the body sinks to rest. She had never needed anything but him; so only that he was there, she wanted nothing.

“In early youth she had forsaken life and the world and those who had loved and nurtured her. She had come, alone with him, to this wild ravine. And he had been everything to her, all that a woman desires, all that she dreams of, all that she ceaselessly awaits, all for which she never ceases to hope. He had filled her existence with happiness from its beginning to its close.

“She could not have been happier.

“And all night long, as I listened to the hoarse breathing of the old soldier lying on his pallet beside the woman who had followed him so far, I thought of this strange and simple adventure, of her happiness, so complete, built of so little.

“I left next morning, after shaking hands with the old couple.”

The teller of the tale was silent. A woman said:

“All the same, her ideal was too easy of attainment, her needs too primitive, her demands on life too simple. She must have been a stupid girl.”

Another woman said slowly:

“What does it matter? She was happy.”

In the distance, on the rim of the world, Corsica receded into the night, sinking slowly back into the sea, withdrawing the vast shadow that had appeared as though itself would tell the story of the two humble lovers sheltered by its shores.

Farewell

The two friends were finishing dinner. From the café window they saw the boulevard, covered with people. They felt the caress of the warm airs that drift through Paris on calm summer nights, making a man raise his eyes towards the passersby, rousing in him a desire to get away, far away to some distant place, no one knows where, under green leaves; making him dream of moonlit rivers and glowworms and nightingales.

One of the two, Henri Simon, sighing deeply, said:

“Ah! I’m getting old. It’s sad. Once, on nights like this, I felt the devil in my bones. Today I feel nothing but regrets. Life goes so fast!”

He was already somewhat fat, aged perhaps forty-five, and very bald.

The other, Pierre Carnier, infinitesimally older, but slimmer and more lively, replied:

“As for me, my dear chap, I’ve grown old without noticing it in the least. I was always a gay dog, a jolly fellow, vigorous and all that. But when a man looks in his mirror every day, he does not see old age doing its work, for it is slow and regular, and changes the face so gradually that the transitions are imperceptible. That is the only reason why we do not die of grief after only two or three years of its ravages. For we cannot appreciate them. In order to realise them, we should have to go without looking at our faces for six months on end⁠—then what a blow it would be!

“And women, my dear chap, how sorry I am for the poor things! The whole of their happiness, the whole of their power, the whole of their lives, lies in their beauty, which lasts ten years.

“Well, I have grown old without suspecting it, and thought myself almost an adolescent when I was nearly fifty. Not feeling within myself any infirmity of any sort, I went on my way, happy and carefree.

“The revelation of decay came to me in a simple but terrible manner, and prostrated me for nearly six months⁠ ⁠… then I resigned myself to my lot.

“I have often been in love, like all men, but once more than usual.

“I met her at the seaside, at Étretat, about twelve years ago now, shortly after the war. There is nothing so charming as the beach there, in the morning, at the bathing-hour. It is small, curved like a horseshoe, framed in the high white cliffs pierced with those curious holes known as the Gates, one very large, stretching its gigantic limb into the sea, the other opposite it, low and round; the crowd of women gathers together within the frame of high rocks, thronging the narrow tongue of shingle, covering it with a brilliant garden of bright frocks. The sun falls full upon the slopes, on sunshades of every hue, on the greenish-blue sea; everything is gay and charming, a smiling scene. You go and sit right at the edge of the water, and watch the ladies bathing. They come down the beach draped in a flannel wrap which they cast off with a pretty gesture as they reach the foamy fringe of the small waves; and go into the sea with swift little steps, sometimes interrupted by a shiver of delicious cold, a brief catching of the breath.

“Very few stand this bathing-test. There they can be judged, from the calf to the throat. Above all, when they leave the water, their weaknesses are plain to see; although the seawater is a powerful stimulant to flabby bodies.

“The first time that I saw this young woman under these conditions, I was ravished and seduced. She stood the test triumphantly. There are faces, too, whose charm comes home to us instantaneously, conquers us at sight. We think we have found the woman we were born to love. I suffered that sensation, that shock of emotion.

“I had myself introduced to her, and was soon caught as I had never been. She played havoc with my heart. It is a dreadful and glorious experience thus to submit oneself to a woman’s power. It is almost a torture, and, at the same time, an incredible happiness. Her look, her smile, the hair on the nape of her neck lifted by the breeze, all the tiniest lines of her face, the faintest movements of her features, ravished me, overwhelmed me, and maddened me. She possessed me with the whole of herself, her gestures, her attitudes, even the clothes she wore, which acquired magical powers. I thrilled at the sight of her veil on a piece of furniture, or her glove thrown down on an armchair. Her dresses seemed to me inimitable. No woman’s hats were as delightful as hers.

“She was married, but the husband came down every Saturday and went away again on the Monday. In other respects he left me quite indifferent. I was not in the least jealous, I do not know why; never has any human being seemed to me of less importance in life, or occupied less of my attention, than that man.

“How I loved her! And how beautiful she was, how graceful and young! She was youth, elegance, and freshness personified. I had never really felt what a pretty creature a woman is, how fine, distinguished, and delicate, fashioned of charm and grace. I had never realised the seductive beauty that lies in the curve of a cheek, in the quiver of a lip, in the round folds of a little ear, in the shape of the absurd organ we call a nose.

“It lasted three months, and then I went off to America, my heart crushed with despair. But the thought of her dwelt with me, persistent, triumphant. She possessed me from the distance as she had possessed me close at hand. Years passed. I never forgot her. The charming image of her remained before my eyes and in my heart. And my affection for her remained faithful, a calm affection now, a feeling like the loved remembrance of all that was most beautiful and seductive in my experience of life.

“Twelve years are so little in the life of a man! He never feels them pass! They go by one after the other, gently and swiftly, slow and hurried, each so long, and yet so soon finished! And they add up together so promptly, leave so little trace behind them, fade so utterly that when he turns to look at the time that has run by he sees nothing, and cannot understand how it has come about that he is old.

“It really seemed to me as though a mere few months separated me from that charming season on the beach at Étretat.

“Last spring I went to dine with some friends of mine at Maisons-Laffitte.

“Just as the train was starting, a stout lady got into my compartment, escorted by four little girls. I scarcely troubled to glance at this mother-hen with her brood, very wide and very round, her full-moon face framed in a ribbon-decked hat.

“She breathed hard, out of breath after walking fast. The children began to chatter. I opened my paper and began to read.

“We had just gone through Asnières when my neighbour suddenly said to me:

“ ‘Excuse me, monsieur, but are you not Monsieur Carnier?’

“ ‘Yes, madame.’

“Then she began to laugh, with the happy laughter of a contented woman, yet with a touch of sadness in it.

“ ‘You do not recognise me?’

“I hesitated. I certainly thought I had seen that face somewhere; but where? When?

“ ‘Yes⁠ ⁠… and no⁠ ⁠…’ I replied. ‘I certainly know you, but I can’t think of your name.’

“She blushed slightly, and said:

“ ‘Madame Julie Lefèvre.’

“I had never had such a shock. In a single instant I felt as though all were over with me! I felt that a veil had been torn from before my eyes, and that I was on the point of making frightful and heartrending discoveries.

“This was she! This fat, ordinary woman, she? And she had hatched out these four daughters since I had last seen her. The little creatures caused me more astonishment than their mother herself. They had come from her body; they were already big; they had taken their place in life. While she no longer counted, she, that marvel of fascinating exquisite grace. I had seen her only yesterday, it seemed, and now had found her thus! Was it possible? Violent grief oppressed my heart, and a protest, too, against Nature herself, an unreasoning exasperation at this brutal, infamous work of destruction.

“I looked at her in awe. Then I took her hand, and tears came into my eyes. I wept for her youth, I wept for her death. For I did not know this fat woman.

“She, also affected, faltered:

“ ‘I am greatly changed, am I not? But time goes by, doesn’t it? You see, I have become a mother, just a mother, a good mother. Farewell to the rest, it is all over. Oh! I thought you would not recognise me if we ever met. And you have changed also; it took me some time to be sure that I was not making a mistake. You’ve gone quite white. Think of it; it is twelve years ago! Twelve years! My eldest girl is already ten.’

“I looked at the child. And I found in her something of her mother’s old charm, but as yet a sense of immaturity, of something early and unformed. And life seemed to me swift as a passing train.

“We arrived at Maisons-Laffitte. I kissed my old friend’s hand. I had found nothing to say to her but the most appalling commonplaces. I was too overcome to speak.

“That evening, when all alone in my house, I looked for a long time into the mirror, a long, long time, and I ended by recalling myself as I had been, by seeing again, in my mind’s eye, my brown moustache and my black hair, and the youthful outlines of my face. Now I was old. Farewell.”

Solitude

It was just after a male dinner-party. The evening had been hilarious. One of the guests, an old friend of mine, said to me:

“Would you like to walk up the Avenue des Champ-Élysése?”

So we set off, walking slowly up the long sidewalk, under trees that showed their first sparse leaves. There was no sound but the confused ceaseless murmuring of Paris. A fresh wind blew across our faces, and the dark sky was sown with a golden dust by the myriad stars.

My companion said to me:

“I don’t know why, but I breathe better here at night than anywhere else in the world. At these times my spirit seems freed. For a moment, I have one of those sudden inward gleams of light that for a fraction of time deceive us with the thought that we have penetrated the divine secret of the universe. Then the window closes again. The moment is gone.”

From time to time we see two shadows slipping along under the walls; we walk past a bench where, pressed close together, two human beings are merged into one dark blur.

The man at my side murmured:

“Poor wretches! They rouse in me no disgust, but only a profound pity. Of all the mysteries of human life, I have pierced one: the terrible unhappiness of mortal life has its roots in the lifelong loneliness of every one of us: all our strivings, all our acts have one end only, escape from this loneliness. Those poor creatures, making love on public benches in the open air, are trying, as we try, as all mortal wretches try, to end their isolation, if only for a moment or less; but they remain, they will always remain solitary, and so shall we also.

“Some days we realise it more sharply, some less, that’s all.

“For some time now I have been suffering the unspeakable torment born of my realisation, my vision of the frightful solitude in which I spend my life, and I know that nothing can end it, nothing, I tell you. Whatever our strivings, whatever our deeds, whatever the wild desire of our hearts, the demands of our lips and the clutch of our arms, we are always solitary.

“I persuaded you to walk along here with me this evening because I suffer horribly, these days, from the loneliness of my apartment. What good will this do me? I talk to you, you listen to me, and we are alone together, side by side, but alone. Do you understand?

“Blessed are the poor in heart, says the Scripture. They keep the illusion of happiness. Such as they do not endure a solitary bitterness, they do not, as I do, drift through life and never touch it but to jostle elbows with it, with no joy but a self-centred satisfaction in understanding, observing, guessing, and enduring without end the knowledge of our eternal isolation.

“You think me a little mad, don’t you?

“Listen to me. Since I have been conscious of the solitude of my spirit, I have felt that day by day I penetrate a little further into a subterranean darkness, whose bounds I cannot find, whose end I do not know, which perhaps has no end. I go my way through it without any companion, without anyone near me, and no living soul is walking along the same shadowy road. This subterranean passage is life. Sometimes I hear sounds, voices, cries.⁠ ⁠… I grope towards these confused murmurs. But I never know exactly whence they come; I never meet any other person, I never touch another hand in the darkness that surrounds me. Do you understand?

“At times men have caught a glimpse of this frightful anguish.

“Musset wrote:

“Qui vient? Qui m’appelle? Personne.
Je suis seul.⁠—C’est l’heure qui sonne.
O solitude!⁠—O pauvreté!16

“But, for him, it was only a fleeting uneasiness, and not, as for me, a hard certainty. He was a poet; he peopled life with phantoms and dreams. He was never truly alone. I, I am alone!

“Did not Gustave Flaubert, one of the great seers and therefore one of the great tragic figures of this world, write to a friend these despairing words?⁠—‘We are all of us in a wilderness. No man understands any other.’

“No, no man understands any other, whatever he thinks, whatever he says, whatever he tries to do. Does the earth know what is happening in those stars we see, flung out in space like a seed of fire, so distant that we see the light only of a few while the innumerable company of the others is lost in infinity, so near that they are perhaps one whole like the molecules of a body?

“Even so, man has no more knowledge of what is taking place in another man. We are farther from each other than these stars, and even more isolated, since thought is an impassable barrier.

“Do you know anything more dreadful than the swift and endless passing by of human beings whose minds we cannot reach? We love each other as if we were chained fast, close together, with outstretched arms that just cannot touch. We are torn with a desire for union, but all our efforts are barren, our moments of passionate abandon futile, our caresses vain. We reach out towards an intimate union, we strain towards each other, and achieve no more than the violent impact of our bodies.

“I never feel more solitary than when I open my heart to a friend, because it is then that I realise most sharply the impassable barrier. He is beside me, this man; I see his clear eyes fixed on me, but of his soul, behind them, I know nothing at all. He listens to me. What is he thinking? You don’t understand this agony of mind? Perhaps he hates me? or despises me? or is jeering at me? He thinks over what I am saying, he judges me, he rails at me, he condemns me, considers me commonplace or a fool. How do I know what he is thinking? How do I know whether he loves me as I love him? And what is passing through that small round head? What a mysterious thing are the secret thoughts of a human being, these thoughts that are at once hidden and free, that we can neither know, nor direct, nor rule, nor vanquish.

“And I, even I, who have all the will in the world to give my whole being, to fling open all the doors of my soul, cannot surrender myself. In the deepest recesses of my being, I guard the secret hiding-place of this I where no man can enter in. No man can discover it, nor enter therein, because no other man is made in my likeness, because no man understands any other.

“Even now, as I speak, do you at least understand me? No, you think me mad! You watch me curiously, you guard yourself from me! You say to yourself: ‘What is the matter with him this evening?’ but if ever there comes to you a moment of insight, and you feel in all its horror the subtle and unbearable suffering I endure, come to me and say only, ‘I understand you,’ and you will give me perhaps one second of happiness.

“There are women who make me realise my solitude even more vividly.

“Wretched! Most wretched! How I have suffered through them, because more often than men do, they have deluded me into thinking that I do not live alone.

“When we enter the dominion of Love we feel a sudden sense of freedom. An unearthly happiness pervades us. Do you know why? Do you know whence comes this sense of profound well-being? It is born of nothing more than a dream that we are no longer solitary. The isolation, the forsaken loneliness of the human spirit seems ended. What folly!

“Even more cruelly driven are we by the undying craving for love which gnaws at our lonely hearts; woman is the dream’s supremest cheat.

“You know those glorious hours spent in the company of this long-haired creature whose form enchants us and whose glance inflames us. What ecstasy it is that confounds our minds! What false dream that sweeps us away!

“Can it be that any moment now she and I will be one, one whole? But this ‘any moment now’ never comes, and after weeks of waiting, of hope and deceitful joy, one day I find myself suddenly more alone than I have ever been before.

“After each kiss, after each embrace, the isolation grows. And how overwhelming, how monstrous it is!

“Sully-Prudhomme, the poet, wrote:

“Les caresses ne sont que d’inquiets transports,
Infructueux essais du pauvre amour qui tente
L’impossible union des âmes par les corps.⁠ ⁠…17

And then, goodbye. It is the end. You hardly recognise this woman who for an instant of time has been everything to you, and whose inmost⁠—and probably quite commonplace⁠—soul has remained a mystery to you.

“In the very hours when it seemed that, in a mysterious harmony of spirit, a perfect mingling of your desires and all your longings, you had reached down to the very depths of her soul, a word, sometimes only one word, reveals your error and, like a bright light in darkness, shows you the black pit opened between you.

“Nevertheless, the dearest thing in the world still is to spend an evening in the presence of a beloved woman, without words, almost entirely content in the mere sense of her nearness. Ask for nothing more, for never will your soul meet another’s.

“As for me, I have shut up the gates of my spirit. I no longer talk to anyone of what I believe, what I think, and what I love. Knowing myself condemned to a frightful solitude, I look out on life as a spectator, and make no comments. Of what account are opinions, quarrels, pleasures, beliefs? Unable to share my life with any other creature, I stand apart from all. My spirit, unseen, keeps its undiscovered house. I have conventional phrases with which to reply to the day’s questions, and a smile that signifies ‘Yes’ when I do not want even to take the trouble to speak.

“Do you understand?”

We had walked up the long avenue as far as the Arc de Triomphe at the Étoile end, and now come back to the Place de la Concorde, for he had delivered himself of all this without haste and added to it a great deal more that now I do not remember.

He halted; and flinging out his arm in an abrupt gesture towards the tall granite obelisk that rears itself from the stones of Paris and loses its lofty Egyptian profile in the stars, an exiled monument bearing the history of its country written in strange signs on its flank, my friend cried: “Look, we are all as that stone!” and left me on the instant without another word.

Was he drunk? Was he mad? Was he inspired? Even now I do not know. Sometimes I think that he was right; sometimes I think that he had lost his mind.

My Landlady

“At that time,” said George Kervelen, “I was living in furnished lodgings in the Rue des Saints-Pères. When my parents decided that I should go to Paris to continue my law studies, there had been a long discussion about settling everything. My allowance had been fixed at first at two thousand five hundred francs, but my poor mother was so anxious, that she said to my father that if I spent my money rashly I might not have enough to eat, and then my health would suffer, and so it was settled that a comfortable boardinghouse should be found for me, and that the amount should be paid to the proprietor himself, or herself, every month.

“I had never left Quimper. I wanted everything that one desires at that age and I was prepared to have a good time in every way.

“Some of our neighbours told us of a certain Mme. Kergaran, a native of Brittany, who took in boarders, and so my father arranged matters by letter with this respectable person, at whose house I and my luggage arrived one evening.

“Mme. Kergaran was a woman of about forty. She was very stout, had a voice like a drill-sergeant, and decided everything in a very abrupt and decisive manner. Her house was narrow, with only one window opening on to the street on each story, which rather gave it the appearance of a ladder of windows, or better, perhaps, of a slice of a house sandwiched in between two others.

“The landlady lived on the first floor with her servant, the kitchen and dining room were on the second, and four boarders from Brittany lived on the third and fourth, and I had two rooms on the fifth.

“A little dark corkscrew staircase led up to these attics. All day long Mme. Kergaran was up and down these stairs like a captain on board ship. Ten times a day she would go into each room, noisily superintending everything, seeing that the beds were properly made, the clothes well brushed, that the attendance was all that it should be; in a word, she looked after her boarders like a mother, and better than a mother.

“I soon made the acquaintance of my four fellow-countrymen. Two were medical and two were law students, but all impartially endured the landlady’s despotic yoke. They were as frightened of her as a boy robbing an orchard is of a rural policeman.

“I, however, immediately felt that I wished to be independent; it is my nature to rebel. I declared at once that I meant to come in at whatever time I liked, for Mme. Kergaran had fixed twelve o’clock at night as the limit. On hearing this she looked at me for a few moments, and then said:

“ ‘It is quite impossible; I cannot have Annette called up at any hour of the night. You can have nothing to do out-of-doors at such a time.’

“I replied firmly that, according to the law, she was obliged to open the door for me at any time.

“ ‘If you refuse,’ I said, ‘I shall get a policeman to witness the fact, and go and get a bed at some hotel, at your expense, in which I shall be fully justified. You will, therefore, be obliged either to open the door for me or to get rid of me. Do whatever you please.’

“I laughed in her face as I told her my conditions. She could not speak for a moment for surprise, then she tried to negotiate, but I was firm, and she was obliged to yield. It was agreed that I should have a latchkey, on my solemn undertaking that no one else should know it.

“My energy made such a wholesome impression on her that from that time she treated me with marked favour; she was most attentive, and even showed me a sort of rough tenderness which was not at all unpleasing. Sometimes when I was in a jovial mood I would kiss her by surprise, if only for the sake of getting the box on the ears which she gave me immediately afterward. When I managed to duck my head quickly enough, her hand would pass over me as swiftly as a ball, and I would run away laughing, while she would call after me:

“ ‘Oh! you wretch, I will pay you out for that.’

“However, we soon became real friends.

“It was not long before I made the acquaintance of a girl who was employed in a shop, and whom I constantly met. You know what that sort of love affair is in Paris. One fine day, going to a lecture, you meet a girl going to work arm-in-arm with a friend. You look at her and feel that pleasant little shock which the eyes of some women give you. It is one of the charming things of life, those sudden physical attractions aroused by a chance meeting, that gentle seduction induced by contact with a woman born to please and to be loved. Whether she is greatly loved or not makes no difference. It is in her nature to respond to one’s secret desire for love. The first time you see her face, her mouth, her hair, her smile, their charm penetrates you with a sweet joy, you are pervaded by a sense of well-being, and a tenderness, as yet undefined, impels you towards this woman whom you do not know. There seems to be in her some appeal which you answer, an attraction that draws you, as if you knew her for a long time, had already seen her, and knew what she is thinking. The next day at the same time, going through the same street, you meet her again, and the next, and the succeeding days. At last you speak, and the love affair follows its course just like an illness.

“Well, by the end of three weeks I was on that footing with Emma which precedes intimacy. The fall would indeed have taken place much sooner had I known where to bring it about. The girl lived at home, and utterly refused to go to an hotel. I did not know how to manage, but at last I made the desperate resolve to take her to my room some night at about eleven o’clock, under the pretence of giving her a cup of tea. Mme. Kergaran always went to bed at ten, so that we could get in by means of my latchkey without exciting any attention, and go down again in an hour or two in the same way.

“After a good deal of entreaty on my part, Emma accepted my invitation.

“I did not spend a very pleasant day, for I was by no means easy in my mind. I was afraid of complications, of a catastrophe, of some scandal. At night I went into a café, and drank two cups of coffee and three or four glasses of cognac, to give me courage, and when I heard the clock strike half past ten, I went slowly to the place of meeting, where she was already waiting for me. She took my arm in a coaxing manner, and we set off slowly toward my lodgings. The nearer we got to the door the more nervous I got, and I thought to myself: ‘If only Mme. Kergaran is in bed already.’

“I said to Emma two or three times:

“ ‘Above all things, don’t make any noise on the stairs,’ to which she replied, laughing:

“ ‘Are you afraid of being heard?’

“ ‘No,’ I said, ‘but I am afraid of waking the man who sleeps in the room next to me, who is not at all well.’

“When I got near the house I felt as frightened as a man does who is going to the dentist’s. All the windows were dark, so no doubt everybody was asleep, and I breathed again. I opened the door as carefully as a thief, let my fair companion in, shut it behind me, and went upstairs on tiptoe, holding my breath, and striking wax-matches lest the girl should make a false step.

“As we passed the landlady’s door I felt my heart beating very quickly. But we reached the second floor, then the third, and at last the fifth, and got into my room. Victory!

“However, I only dared to speak in a whisper, and took off my boots so as not to make any noise. The tea, which I made over a spirit-lamp, was soon drunk, and then I became pressing, till little by little, as if in play, I, one by one, took off my companion’s garments. She yielded while resisting, blushing, confused.

“She had absolutely nothing on except a short white petticoat when my door suddenly opened, and Mme. Kergaran appeared with a candle in her hand, in exactly the same costume as Emma.

“I jumped away from her and remained standing, looking at the two women, who were looking at each other. What was going to happen?

“My landlady said, in a lofty tone of voice which I had never heard from her before:

“ ‘Monsieur Kervelen, I will not have prostitutes in my house.’

“ ‘But, Madame Kergaran,’ I stammered, ‘the young lady is a friend of mine. She just came in to have a cup of tea.’

“ ‘People don’t take tea in their chemises. You will please make this person go directly.’

“Emma, in a natural state of consternation, began to cry, and hid her face in her petticoat, and I lost my head, not knowing what to do or say. My landlady added, with irresistible authority:

“ ‘Help her to dress, and take her out at once.’

“It was certainly the only thing I could do, so I picked up her dress from the floor where it had collapsed in a heap like a deflated balloon, put it over her head, and began to fasten it as best I could. She helped me, crying all the time, hurrying and making all sorts of mistakes and unable to find either buttonholes or laces, while Mme. Kergaran stood by motionless, with the candle in her hand, looking at us with the severity of a judge.

“Emma now began to hurry feverishly, throwing her things on at random, tying, pinning, lacing and fastening in a frenzy, goaded on by the irresistible desire for flight, and without even stopping to button her boots, she rushed past the landlady and ran downstairs. I followed her in my slippers and half undressed, and kept repeating: ‘Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!’

“I felt that I ought to say something to her, but I could not find anything. I overtook her just by the street-door, and tried to take her into my arms, but she pushed me violently away, saying in a low, nervous voice:

“ ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone!’ and so ran out into the street, closing the door behind her.

“When I went upstairs again I found that Mme. Kergaran was waiting on the first landing. I went up slowly, expecting, and ready for, anything.

“Her door was open, and she called me in, saying in severe voice:

“ ‘I want to speak to you, M. Kervelen.’

“I went in, with my head bent. She put her candle on the mantelpiece, and then, folding her arms over her expansive bosom, which a fine white dressing-jacket hardly covered, she said:

“ ‘So, Monsieur Kervelen, you think my house is a house of ill-fame?’

“I was not at all proud. I murmured:

“ ‘Oh dear, no! But, Mme. Kergaran, you must not be angry; you know what young men are.’

“ ‘I know,’ was her answer, ‘that I will not have such creatures here, so you will understand that. I expect to have my house respected, and I will not have it lose its reputation, you understand me? I know⁠—’

“She went on thus for at least twenty minutes, overwhelming me with the good name of her house, with reasons for her indignation, and loading me with severe reproofs.

“Men are curious creatures. Instead of listening to her, I was looking at her, and did not hear a word, not a word she said. She had a superb bosom, firm, white and plump, perhaps a little too plump, but tempting enough to send shivers down one’s spine. I should never have dreamed that anything so charming was concealed beneath the woollen dress of my landlady. She looked ten years younger when undressed. I began to feel queer⁠ ⁠… shall I say⁠ ⁠… moved? I suddenly found myself picking up with her the threads of the situation she had disturbed fifteen minutes previously in my bedroom.

“Behind her, in the alcove, I could see her bed, with the sheets rolled down, tossed, showing a hollow place where her body had pressed. And I thought it must be very nice, very warm there, much warmer than in any other bed, no doubt because of the opulent charms that rested there.

“What could be more charming, more disturbing, than an unmade bed? This one, even from a distance, intoxicated me, and made my flesh tingle.

“She was still talking, but now more gently, like a gruff but well-meaning friend, who is willing to make up and be friends.

“ ‘Madame Kergaran,’ I stammered, ‘I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠…’ and as she had stopped to hear my reply, I seized her in my arms and began to kiss her, to devour her, like a famished man who has been waiting for a long time.

“She struggled, turning away her head, but without becoming really angry, and repeated mechanically, as was her habit: ‘Oh, the brute⁠ ⁠… the brute⁠ ⁠… the bru⁠ ⁠…’

“She did not finish the word, for I had lifted her with an effort, and was carrying her clasped to my heart. Under certain circumstances, one acquires remarkable vigour!

“I stumbled against the edge of the bed, and I fell on it still holding her in my arms⁠ ⁠… It was nice and warm in her bed.

“An hour later, the candle having gone out, my landlady got up to light another. As she returned and slipped in by my side, her great, round leg crushing the sheets, she said in a coaxing, satisfied, perhaps grateful tone: ‘Oh, the brute⁠ ⁠… the brute!⁠ ⁠…’ ”

The Little Cask

Maître Chicot, the innkeeper, who lived at Épreville, pulled up his tilbury in front of Mother Magloire’s farmhouse. He was a tall man of about forty, fat and with a red face, who was generally said to be very malicious.

He hitched his horse up to the gatepost and went in the yard. He owned some land adjoining that of the old woman. He had been coveting her plot for a long while, and had tried in vain to buy it 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, shrivelled 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 very 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, Maître Prosper?”

“Oh! pretty well, thank you, except a few rheumatic pains occasionally; otherwise, I should have nothing to complain of.”

“Well, I am glad of that!”

And she said no more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work. Her crooked, knotty 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 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 beaks.

Chicot seemed embarrassed, anxious, with something on the tip of his tongue which he could not get out. At last he said hurriedly:

“I say, Mother Magloire⁠—”

“Well, what is it?”

“You are quite sure that you do not want to sell your farm?”

“Certainly not; you may make up your mind to that. What I have said, I have said, so don’t bring it up again.”

“Very well; only I fancy I have thought of an arrangement that might suit us both very well.”

“What is it?”

“Here you are: You shall sell it to me, and keep it all the same. You don’t understand? Very well, just listen to my idea.”

The old woman left off peeling her potatoes, and her bright eyes looked at the innkeeper attentively from under her wrinkled eyelids, as he went on:

“Let me explain myself: Every month I will give you a hundred and fifty francs. You understand me, I 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, will 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-humouredly, 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 will 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 Maître 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 felt instinctively, 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 chinking in her apron, falling to her, as it were, from the skies, without her doing anything for it, filled her with 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 a monthly payment of fifty crowns 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 took a lot of persuading, and declared that she could not make up her mind to agree to his proposal, though she was all the time on tenterhooks lest he should not consent to give the fifty crowns. 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 for 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 I had to be carried to 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 be sure to see me put underground first.”

The whole day was spent in discussing the money, and as the old woman would not give way, the landlord consented to give the fifty crowns, and she insisted upon having ten crowns over and above to strike the bargain.

Three years passed by, and the old dame did not seem to have grown a day older. Chicot was in despair. It seemed to him as if he had been paying that annuity for fifty years, that he had been taken in, outwitted, and ruined. From time to time he went to see his annuitant, 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 would have thought 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 tilbury again, growling to himself:

“Will you never die, you old brute?”

He did not know what to do, and 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 he began to cast about for means of getting rid of her.

One day he came to see her again, rubbing his hands as he did the first time when 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 Épreville? The people are talking about it and saying that 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 told twice, and the next day but one⁠—she was going to the town in any case, it being market-day, in her gig, driven by her man⁠—she, without any demur, put her trap up in Maître Chicot’s stable, and went in search of her promised dinner.

The innkeeper was delighted, and treated her like a princess, 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. She would drink next to nothing either, and declined any coffee, so he asked her:

“But surely, you will take a little drop of brandy?”

“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 liquor 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, draining the last drops so as to make sure of all, 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 without any ill effect; it goes down like sugar, and leaves no headache behind; one would think that it evaporated on the tongue. It is the most wholesome thing you can drink.”

She took it, for she really wanted 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.” Then she took her leave, 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 smelled the alcohol he felt pleased.

“I suppose you will give me a glass of the special?” he said. And two or three times they drank each other’s health.

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, sometimes in her kitchen, sometimes in her yard, sometimes on the roads in the neighbourhood, and was often brought home dead to the world.

Chicot 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, having fallen down drunk in the snow.

And when Maître Chicot inherited the farm he said:

“It was very stupid of her; if she had not taken to drink she might very well have lived for ten years longer.”

Châli

Admiral de la Valle, who seemed to be half asleep in his armchair, said in a voice which sounded like an old woman’s:

“I had a very singular little love adventure once; would you like to hear it?”

He spoke from the depths of his great armchair, with that everlasting dry, wrinkled smile on his lips, that Voltairian smile which made people take him for a terrible sceptic.

I

“I was thirty years of age and a first lieutenant in the navy, when I was entrusted with an astronomical expedition to Central India. The English Government provided me with all the necessary means for carrying out my enterprise, and I was soon busied with a few followers in that vast, strange, surprising country.

“It would take me twenty volumes to relate that journey. I went through wonderfully magnificent regions, was received by strangely handsome princes, and was entertained with incredible magnificence. For two months it seemed to me as if I were walking in a poem, that I was going about in a fairy kingdom, on the back of imaginary elephants. In the midst of wild forests I discovered extraordinary ruins, delicate and chiseled like jewels, fine as lace and enormous as mountains, those fabulous, divine monuments which are so graceful that one falls in love with their form as with a woman, feeling a physical and sensual pleasure in looking at them. As Victor Hugo says, ‘Whilst wide-awake, I was walking in a dream.’

“Toward the end of my journey I reached Ganhara, which was formerly one of the most prosperous towns in Central India, but is now much decayed. It is governed by a wealthy, arbitrary, violent, generous, and cruel prince. His name is Rajah Maddan, a true Oriental potentate, delicate and barbarous, affable and sanguinary, combining feminine grace with pitiless ferocity.

“The city lies at the bottom of a valley, on the banks of a little lake surrounded by pagodas, which bathe their walls in the water. At a distance the city looks like a white spot, which grows larger as one approaches it, and by degrees you discover the domes and spires, the slender and graceful summits of Indian monuments.

“At about an hour’s distance from the gates, I met a superbly caparisoned elephant, surrounded by a guard of honour which the sovereign had sent me, and I was conducted to the palace with great ceremony.

“I should have liked to have taken the time to put on my gala uniform, but royal impatience would not permit me to do it. He was anxious to make my acquaintance, to know what he might expect from me.

“I was ushered into a great hall surrounded by galleries, in the midst of bronze-coloured soldiers in splendid uniforms, while all about were standing men dressed in striking robes, studded with precious stones.

“On a bench like our garden benches, without a back; I saw a shining mass, a kind of setting sun reposing; it was the rajah who was waiting for me, motionless, in a robe of the purest canary colour. He had some ten or fifteen million francs’ worth of diamonds on him, and by itself, on his forehead, glistened the famous star of Delhi, which has always belonged to the illustrious dynasty of the Pariharas of Mundore, from whom my host was descended.

“He was a man of about five-and-twenty, who seemed to have some Negro blood in his veins, although he belonged to the purest Hindu race. He had large, almost motionless, rather vague eyes, fat lips, a curly beard, low forehead, and dazzling sharp white teeth, which he frequently showed with a mechanical smile. He got up and gave me his hand in the English fashion, and then made me sit down beside him on a bench which was so high that my feet hardly touched the ground, and on which I was very uncomfortable.

“He immediately proposed a tiger hunt for the next day; war and hunting were his chief occupations, and he could hardly understand how one could care for anything else. He was evidently fully persuaded that I had only come all that distance to amuse him a little, and to be the companion of his pleasures.

“As I stood greatly in need of his assistance, I tried to flatter his tastes, and he was so pleased with me that he immediately wished to show me how his trained boxers fought, and led the way into a kind of arena situated within the palace.

“At his command two naked men appeared, their hands covered with steel claws. They immediately began to attack each other, trying to strike one another with these sharp weapons, which left long cuts, from which the blood flowed freely down their dark skins.

“It lasted for a long time, till their bodies were a mass of wounds, and the combatants were tearing each other’s flesh with these pointed blades. One of them had his jaw smashed, while the ear of the other was split into three pieces.

“The prince looked on with ferocious pleasure, uttered grunts of delight, and imitated all their movements with careless gestures, crying out constantly:

“ ‘Strike, strike hard!’

“One fell down unconscious and had to be carried out of the arena, covered with blood, while the rajah uttered a sigh of regret because it was over so soon.

“He turned to me to know my opinion; I was indignant, but I congratulated him loudly. He then gave orders that I was to be conducted to Couch-Mahal (the palace of pleasure), where I was to be lodged.

“This palace, this jewel, was situated at the extremity of the royal park, and one of its walls was built into the sacred lake of Vihara. It was square, its four sides showing rows of galleries with colonnades of most beautiful workmanship. At each angle there were light, lofty, or low towers, standing either singly or in pairs: no two were alike, and they looked like flowers growing out of that graceful plant of Oriental architecture. All were surmounted by fantastic roofs, like coquettish ladies’ caps.

“In the middle of the edifice a large dome raised its round cupola, like a woman’s bosom, up to a lovely slender belfry open to the sky.

“The whole building was covered with sculpture from top to bottom, with exquisite arabesques which delighted the eye, motionless processions of delicate figures whose attitudes and gestures in stone told the story of Indian manners and customs.

“The rooms were lighted by windows with dentelated arches, looking on to the gardens. On the marble floor were designs of graceful bouquets in onyx, lapis-lazuli, and agate.

“I had scarcely had time to finish my toilette when Haribadada, a court dignitary who was specially charged to communicate between the prince and me, announced his sovereign’s visit.

“The saffron-coloured rajah appeared, again shook hands with me, and began to tell me a thousand different things, constantly asking me for my opinion, which I had great difficulty in giving him. Then he wished to show me the ruins of the former palace at the other extremity of the gardens.

“It was a real forest of stones inhabited by a large tribe of apes. On our approach the males began to run along the walls, making the most hideous faces at us, while the females ran away, carrying off their young in their arms. The rajah shouted with laughter and pinched my shoulder to draw my attention, and to testify his own delight, and sat down in the midst of the ruins, while around us, squatting on the top of the walls, perching on every eminence, a number of animals with white whiskers put out their tongues and shook their fists at us.

“When he had seen enough of this, the yellow rajah rose and began to walk sedately on, keeping me always at his side, happy at having shown me such things on the very day of my arrival, and reminding me that a grand tiger hunt was to take place the next day, in my honour.

“I was present at it, at a second, a third, at ten, twenty in succession. We hunted all the animals which the country produces in turn: the panther, the bear, elephant, antelope, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile⁠—half the beasts in creation I should say. I was disgusted at seeing so much blood flow, and tired of this monotonous pleasure.

“At length the prince’s ardour abated and, at my urgent request, he left me a little leisure for work, contenting himself by loading me with costly presents. He sent me jewels, magnificent stuffs, and well-broken animals of all sorts, which Haribadada presented to me with apparently as grave respect as if I had been the sun himself, although he heartily despised me at the bottom of his heart.

“Every day a procession of servants brought me, in covered dishes, a portion of each course that was served at the royal table. Every day he seemed to take an extreme pleasure in getting up some new entertainment for me⁠—dances by the bayadères, jugglers, reviews of the troops, and I was obliged to pretend to be most delighted with it, so as not to hurt his feelings when he wished to show me his wonderful country in all its charm and splendour.

“As soon as I was left alone for a few moments I either worked or went to see the monkeys, whose company pleased me a great deal better than that of their royal master.

“One evening, however, on coming back from a walk, I found Haribadada outside the gate of my palace. He told me in mysterious tones that a gift from the king was waiting for me in my abode, and he said that his master begged me to excuse him for not having sooner thought of offering me that of which I had been deprived for such a long time.

“After these obscure remarks the ambassador bowed and withdrew.

“When I went in I saw six little girls standing against the wall, motionless, side-by-side, like smelts on a skewer. The eldest was perhaps ten and the youngest eight years old. For the first moment I could not understand why this girls’ school had taken up its abode in my rooms; then, however, I divined the prince’s delicate attention: he had made me a present of a harem, and had chosen it very young from an excess of generosity. There, the more unripe the fruit is, in the higher estimation it is held.

“For some time I remained confused, embarrassed, and ashamed in the presence of these children, who looked at me with great grave eyes which seemed already to divine what I might want of them.

“I did not know what to say to them; I felt inclined to send them back; but I could not return the presents of a prince; it would have been a mortal insult. I was obliged, therefore, to install this troop of children in my palace.

“They stood motionless, looking at me, waiting for my orders, trying to read my thoughts in my eyes. Confound such a present! How absurdly it was in my way. At last, thinking that I must be looking rather ridiculous, I asked the eldest her name.

“ ‘Châli,’ she replied.

“This little creature, with her beautiful skin, which was lightly yellow, like old ivory, was a marvel, a perfect statue, with her face and its long and severe lines.

“I then asked, in order to see what she would reply, and also, perhaps, to embarrass her:

“ ‘What have you come here for?’

“She replied in her soft, harmonious voice: ‘I have come to do whatever my Lord wishes.’ She was evidently quite resigned.

“I put the same question to the youngest, who answered immediately in her shrill voice:

“ ‘I am here to do whatever you ask me, my master.’

“This one was like a little mouse, and was very taking, just as they all were, so I took her in my arms and kissed her. The others made a movement to go away, thinking, no doubt, that I had made my choice; but I ordered them to stay, and sitting down in the Indian fashion, I made them all sit round me and began to tell them fairytales, for I spoke their language tolerably well.

“They listened very attentively, and trembled, wringing their hands in agony. Poor little things, they were not thinking any longer of the reason why they were sent to me.

“When I had finished my story, I called Latchmân, my confidential servant, and made him bring sweetmeats and cakes, of which they ate enough to make themselves ill. Then, as I began to find the adventure rather funny, I organized games to amuse my wives.

“One of these diversions had an enormous success. I made a bridge of my legs and the six children ran underneath, the smallest beginning and the tallest always knocking against them a little, because she did not stoop enough. It made them shout with laughter, and these young voices sounding through the low vaults of my sumptuous palace seemed to wake it up and to people it with childlike gaiety and life.

“Next I took great interest in seeing to the sleeping apartments of my innocent concubines, and in the end I saw them safely locked up under the surveillance of four female servants, whom the prince had sent me at the same time in order to take care of my sultanas.

“For a week I took the greatest pleasure in acting the part of a father toward these living dolls. We had capital games of hide-and-seek and puss-in-the-corner, which gave them the greatest pleasure. Every day I taught them a new game, to their intense delight.

“My house now seemed to be one class room, and my little friends, dressed in beautiful silk stuffs, and in materials embroidered with gold and silver, ran up and down the long galleries and the quiet rooms feebly lighted by the day coming in through the arched windows, like little human animals.

“Then one evening, I know not how, the eldest, who was called Châli, and who looked like an old ivory statuette, really became my wife. She was an adorable little creature, timid and gentle, who soon got to love me ardently and whom I loved strongly with some degree of shame, with hesitation as if afraid of European morality, with reserve and scruples, and yet with passionate tenderness. I cherished her as if I had been her father and I caressed her like a lover.

“Excuse me ladies, I am going a little bit too far.

“The others continued to play in the palace like a lot of happy kittens, but Châli never left me except when I went to the prince.

“We passed delicious hours together in the ruins of the old castle, among the monkeys, who had become our friends.

“She used to lie on my knees, and remain there, turning all sorts of things over in her little sphinx’s head, or perhaps not thinking of anything, retaining that beautiful, charming, hereditary pose of that noble and dreamy people, the hieratic pose of the sacred statues.

“In a large brass dish I had one day brought provisions, cakes, fruits. The apes came nearer and nearer, followed by their young ones, who were more timid; at last they sat down round us in a circle, without daring to come any nearer, waiting for me to distribute my delicacies. Then, almost invariably, a male more daring than the rest would come to me with outstretched hand, like a beggar, and I would give him something, which he would take to his wife. All the others immediately began to utter furious cries, cries of rage and jealousy; and I could not make the terrible racket cease except by throwing each one his share.

“As I was very comfortable in the ruins I had my instruments brought there, so that I might be able to work. As soon, however, as they saw the copper fittings on my scientific instruments, the monkeys, no doubt taking them for some deadly engines, fled on all sides, uttering the most piercing cries.

“I often spent my evenings with Châli on one of the outside galleries that looked on to the lake of Vihara. One night in silence we were looking at the bright moon gliding over the sky, throwing a mantle of trembling silver over the water, and, on the further shore, upon the row of small pagodas like carved mushrooms with their stalks in the water. Taking the thoughtful face of my little mistress between my hands, I printed a long, soft kiss on her polished brow, on her great eyes, which were full of the secret of that ancient and fabulous land, and on her calm lips which opened to my caress. I felt a confused, powerful, above all a poetical, sensation, the sensation that I possessed a whole race in this little girl, that mysterious race from which all the others seem to have taken their origin.

“The prince, however, continued to load me with presents. One day he sent me a very unexpected object, which excited a passionate admiration in Châli. It was merely one of those cardboard boxes covered with shells stuck on outside. In France it would have been worth forty cents, at the most. But there it was a jewel beyond price, and no doubt was the first that had found its way into the kingdom. I put it on a table and left it there, wondering at the value which was set upon this trumpery article out of a bazaar.

“But Châli never got tired of looking at it, of admiring it ecstatically. From time to time she would say to me, ‘May I touch it?’ And when I had given her permission she raised the lid, closed it again with the greatest precaution, touched the shells very gently, and the contact seemed to give her real physical pleasure.

“However, I had finished my scientific work, and it was time for me to return. I was a long time in making up my mind, held by my tenderness for my little friend, but at last I was obliged to fix the day of my departure.

“The prince got up fresh hunting excursions and fresh wrestling matches, and after a fortnight of these pleasures I declared that I could stay no longer, and he gave me my liberty.

“My farewell from Châli was heartrending. She wept, lying beside me, with her head on my breast, shaken with sobs. I did not know how to console her; my kisses were no good.

“All at once an idea struck me, and getting up I went and got the shell-box, and putting it into her hands, I said, ‘That is for you; it is yours.’

“Then I saw her smile at first. Her whole face was lighted up with internal joy, with that profound joy which comes when impossible dreams are suddenly realized, and she embraced me ardently.

“All the same, she wept bitterly when I bade her a last farewell.

“I gave fatherly kisses and cakes to all the rest of my wives, and then I left for home.

II

“Two years had passed when the chance of my duties again called me to Bombay. Because I knew the country and the language well, I was left there to undertake another mission, by a sequence of unforeseen circumstances.

“I finished what I had to do as quickly as possible, and as I had a considerable amount of spare time on my hands I determined to go and see my friend Rajah Maddan and my dear little Châli once more, though I expected to find her much changed.

“The rajah received me with every demonstration of pleasure, and hardly left me for a moment during the first day of my visit. At night, however, when I was alone, I sent for Haribadada, and after several misleading questions I said to him:

“ ‘Do you know what has become of little Châli, whom the rajah gave me?’

“He immediately assumed a sad and troubled look, and said, in evident embarrassment:

“ ‘We had better not speak of her.’

“ ‘Why? She was a dear little woman.’

“ ‘She turned out badly, sir.’

“ ‘What⁠—Châli? Where is she? What has become of her?’

“ ‘I mean to say that she came to a bad end.’

“ ‘A bad end! Is she dead?’

“ ‘Yes. She committed a very dreadful action.’

“I was very much distressed. I felt my heart beat; my breast was oppressed with grief, and I insisted on knowing what she had done and what had happened to her.

“The man became more and more embarrassed, and murmured: ‘You had better not ask about it.’

“ ‘But I want to know.’

“ ‘She stole⁠—’

“ ‘Who⁠—Châli? What did she steal?’

“ ‘Something that belonged to you.’

“ ‘To me? What do you mean?’

“ ‘The day you left she stole that little box which the prince had given you; it was found in her hands.’

“ ‘What box are you talking about?’

“ ‘The box covered with shells.’

“ ‘But I gave it to her.’

“The Hindu looked at me with stupefaction, and then replied: ‘Well, she declared with the most sacred oaths that you had given it to her, but nobody could believe that you could have given a king’s present to a slave, and so the rajah had her punished.’

“ ‘How was she punished? What was done to her?’

“ ‘She was tied up in a sack and thrown into the lake from this window, from the window of the room in which we are, where she had committed the theft.’

“I felt the most terrible grief that I ever experienced, and made a sign to Haribadad to go away so that he might not see my tears. I spent the night on the gallery which looked on to the lake, on the gallery where I had so often held the poor child on my knees, and pictured to myself her pretty little body lying decomposed in a sack in the dark waters beneath me.

“The next day I left again, in spite of the rajah’s entreaties and evident vexation; and I now still feel as if I had never loved any woman but Châli.”

The Drunkard

I

A northerly gale was blowing, sweeping across the sky vast wintry clouds, black and heavy, which in their passage flung furious showers of rain upon the earth.

The raging sea roared and shook the coast, hurling shorewards great slow-moving, frothing waves, which were shattered with the noise of a cannon. They came on quite quietly, one after another, mountain-high; at each squall they flung in the air the white foam of their crests like the sweat from monstrous heads.

The hurricane was sucked into the little valley of Yport; it whistled and moaned, tearing the slates from the roofs, smashing the shutters, throwing down chimneys, hurling such violent gusts along the streets that it was impossible to walk without clinging to the walls, and children would have been swept away like leaves and whisked over the houses into the fields.

The fishing-boats had been hauled up on dry land, for fear of the sea that at high tide would strip the beach clean, and some sailors, sheltered behind the round bellies of the vessels lying on their sides, were watching the fury of sky and sea.

Gradually they went away, for night was falling on the storm, wrapping in darkness the raging ocean and all the strife of angry elements.

Two men still remained, their hands in their pockets, their backs stooped under the squalls, their woollen caps crammed down to their eyes, two tall Norman fishermen, their necks fringed with bristling beards, their skins burnt by the salt gusts of the open sea, their eyes blue, with a black speck in the centre, the piercing eyes of sailors who see to the edge of the horizon, like birds of prey.

“Come along, Jérémie,” said one of them. “We’ll pass away the time playing dominoes. I’ll pay.”

But the other still hesitated, tempted by the game and the brandy, knowing well that he would get drunk again if he went into Parmelle’s, and held back, too, by the thought of his wife left all alone in the cottage.

“Anyone would say you’d made a bet to fuddle me every night. Tell me, now, what good does it do you, for you always pay?” he asked.

He laughed none the less at the idea of all the brandy he had drunk at another’s expense; he laughed the happy laugh of a Norman getting something for nothing.

His friend Mathurin still held him by the arm.

“Come along, Jérémie. It’s no night to go home with nothing warm in your belly. What are you afraid of? Won’t your old woman warm your bed for you?”

“Only the other night I couldn’t find the door at all,” replied Jérémie. “They pretty well fished me out of the brook in front of our place.”

The old scoundrel laughed again at the thought of it, and went quietly towards Parmelle’s café, where the lighted windows gleamed; he went forward, dragged by Mathurin and pushed by the wind, incapable of resisting the double force.

The low room was full of sailors, smoke, and clamour. All the men, clad in woollen jerseys, their elbows on the tables, were shouting to make themselves heard. The more drinkers that came in, the louder it was necessary to yell through the din of voices and the click of dominoes on marble, with the inevitable result that the uproar grew worse and worse.

Jérémie and Mathurin went and sat down in a corner and began a game; one after another the glasses of brandy disappeared in the depths of their throats.

Then they played more games, drank more brandy. Mathurin went on pouring it out, winking at the proprietor, a stout man with a face as red as fire, who was chuckling delightedly as if he were enjoying an interminable joke; and Jérémie went on swallowing the brandy, nodding his head, giving vent to a laughter like the roaring of a wild beast, staring at his comrade with a besotted, happy air.

All the company were going home. Each time that one of them opened the outer door in order to leave, a gust of wind entered the café, driving the thick smoke from the pipes into mad swirls, swinging the lamps at the end of their chains until the flames flickered; and then suddenly they would hear the heavy shock of a breaking wave and the howling of the gale.

Jérémie, his collar unfastened, was lolling drunkenly, one leg thrust out and one arm hanging down; in the other hand he held his dominoes.

They were by now left alone with the proprietor, who had come up to them with the sharpest interest.

“Well, Jérémie,” he asked, “does it feel good, inside? Has all the stuff you’ve poured down freshened you up, eh?”

“The more goes down,” spluttered Jérémie, “the drier it gets, in there.”

The innkeeper cast a sly glance at Mathurin.

“And what about your brother, Mathurin?” he said. “Where is he at the moment?”

“He’s warm all right, don’t you worry,” replied the sailor, shaking with silent laughter.

And the two of them looked at Jérémie, who triumphantly put down the double six, announcing:

“There’s the boss.”

When they had finished their game, the proprietor announced:

“Well, boys, I’m going to pack up. I’ll leave you the lamp and the bottle; there’s a franc’s worth of stuff still left in it. Lock the street door, Mathurin, won’t you, and slip the key under the shutter like you did the other night?”

“Right you are, don’t worry,” replied Mathurin.

Parmelle shook hands with his two belated customers, and stumped up the wooden stairs. For several minutes his heavy step resounded through the little house; then a loud bump announced that he had just got into bed.

The two men went on playing; from time to time the fury of the gale momentarily increased in violence; it shook the door and made the walls tremble. The two tipplers would raise their heads as though someone were coming in; then Mathurin would take the bottle and fill up Jérémie’s glass. But suddenly the clock over the counter struck twelve. Its husky chime resembled the clashing of saucepans, and the strokes resounded for a long time, jingling like old iron.

Promptly Mathurin rose, like a sailor whose watch is finished:

“Come along, Jérémie, we must vamose.”

The other set himself in motion with more difficulty, got his balance by leaning on the table; then reached the door and opened it while his companion was turning out the lamp.

When they were in the street Mathurin locked up the tavern and said:

“Well, good night; see you tomorrow.”

And he vanished in the darkness.

II

Jérémie advanced three steps, then wavered, thrust out his hands, found a wall to hold him upright, and went on again with tottering steps. Now and then a squall, rushing up the narrow street, hurled him forward into a run for several paces; then, when the violence of the swirling blast died down, he halted abruptly, his forward impulse lost, and began to waver drunkenly again upon his wayward legs.

Instinctively he went towards his own home, as birds towards their nest. He recognised his door at last and began to fumble at it in order to find the lock and put his key in it. He could not find the hole, and began to swear in a low voice. Then he knocked upon the door with his fists, calling to his wife to come and help him.

“Mélina! hi! Mélina!”

As he leant against the door to keep himself from falling, it yielded and swung open, and Jérémie, losing his support, collapsed into his house, and rolled on to his nose in the middle of his own dwelling-place. He felt something heavy pass over his body and escape into the night.

He did not move, overwhelmed with fright, bewildered, in terror of the devil, of ghosts, of all the mysterious works of darkness; for a long time he waited without daring to stir. But as he saw there were no further signs of movement, he recovered a little of his wits, the muddled wits of a hard drinker.

He sat up very softly. Again he waited for a long time, and at last, plucking up courage, murmured:

“Mélina!”

His wife did not answer.

A sudden misgiving crossed his darkened brain, an undefined misgiving, a vague suspicion. He did not move, he stayed there sitting on the ground, in the dark, ransacking his thoughts, brooding over unfinished speculations as unsteady as his feet.

Again he asked:

“Tell me who it was, Mélina. Tell me who it was. I won’t do anything to you.”

He waited. No voice rose in the darkness. He was thinking aloud, now.

“I’ve had a drop to drink, I have. I’ve had a drop to drink. It was him that treated me, the lubber; he did it, so as I wouldn’t go home. I’ve had a drop to drink.”

And then he went on in his former manner.

“Tell me who it was, Mélina, or I’ll do you a mischief.”

After another pause of waiting, he went on with the slow, obstinate logic of a drunken man.

“It was him that kept me at that swab Parmelle’s place; and all the other nights too, so as I mightn’t go home. He’s plotting with someone. Oh, the stinking swine!”

Slowly he rose to his knees. Blind rage was taking possession of him, mingling with the fumes of the liquor.

“Tell me who it was, Mélina,” he repeated, “or I’ll bash your head in, I give you fair warning!”

He was standing upright now, shaking all over in a blaze of fury, as though the alcohol in his body had caught fire in his veins. He made a step forward, bumped into a chair, snatched it up, walked on, reached the bed, fumbled at it, and felt under the clothes the warm body of his wife.

Then, mad with rage, he snarled:

“Oh! So you were there all the time, you slut, and wouldn’t answer!”

And, raising the chair he grasped in his strong fist, the sailor dashed it down in front of him with exasperated fury. A scream came wildly from the bed, a mad piercing scream. Then he began to beat at it like a thresher in a barn. Soon nothing stirred. The chair broke to pieces, but one leg remained in his hand, and he went on, panting.

Suddenly he stopped and asked:

“Now will you say who it was?”

Mélina did not answer.

At that, worn out with fatigue, besotted by his own violence, he sat down again on the ground, stretched himself to his full length, and went to sleep.

When dawn appeared, a neighbour, noticing that the door was open, came in. He found Jérémie snoring on the floor, where lay the remains of a chair, and, in the bed, a mess of blood and flesh.

A Woman’s Hair

The walls of the cell were bare and whitewashed. A narrow, barred window, so high that it could not easily be reached, lighted this bright, sinister little room; the madman, seated on a straw chair, looked at us with a fixed eye, vague and troubled. He was very thin, with wrinkled cheeks and almost white hair that had evidently grown white in a few months. His clothes seemed too large for his dried-up limbs, his shrunken chest, and hollow body. One felt that this man had been ravaged by his thoughts, by a thought, as fruit is by a worm. His madness, his idea, was there in his head, obstinate, harassing, devouring. It was eating his body, little by little. It, the Invisible, the Impalpable, the Unseizable, the Immaterial Idea gnawed his flesh, drank his blood, and extinguished his life.

What a mystery, this man killed by a Thought! He is an object of fear and pity, this madman! What strange dream, frightful and deadly, can dwell in his forehead, to fold such profound and ever-changing wrinkles in it?

The doctor said to me: “He has terrible paroxysms of rage, and is one of the strangest lunatics I have ever seen. His madness is of an erotic, macabre kind. He is a sort of necrophile. He has written a journal which shows as plainly as daylight the malady of his mind. His madness is visible, so to speak. If you are interested, you may run through this document.”

I followed the doctor into his office and he gave me the journal of this miserable man.

“Read it,” said he, “and give me your opinion about it.”

Here is what the little book contained:

“Up to the age of thirty-two years I lived quietly, without love. Life appeared to me very simple, very good, and very easy. I was rich. I had a taste for so many things that I had never felt a passion for anything. It was good to live! I awoke happy each day, to do things which it pleased me to do, and I went to bed satisfied, with a calm hope for the next day and a future without care.

“I had had some mistresses without ever having my heart torn by desire or my soul bruised by love after the possession. It is good to live thus. It is better to love, but it is terrible. Still those who love like everybody else should find happiness, less than mine, perhaps, for love has come to me in an unbelievable manner.

“Being rich, I collected ancient furniture and antiques. Often I thought of the unknown hands which had touched these things, of the eyes that had admired them, and the hearts that had loved them for one does love such things! I often remained for hours and hours looking at a little watch of the last century. It was so dainty, so pretty with its enamel and gold embossing. And it still went, as on the day when some woman had bought it, delighted in the possession of so fine a jewel. It had not ceased to palpitate, to live its mechanical life, but had ever continued its regular ticktack, although a century had passed. Who then had first carried it upon her breast, in the warmth of the dress⁠—the heart of the watch beating against the heart of the woman? What hand had held it at the ends of its warm fingers, then wiped the enamelled shepherds, tarnished a little by the moisture of the skin? What eyes had looked upon this flowered dial awaiting the hour, the dear hour, the divine hour?

“How I should have liked to see her, to know her, the woman who had chosen this rare and exquisite object. But she is dead! I am possessed by a desire for women of former times; from a distance I love all those who loved long ago. The story of past tenderness fills my heart with regrets. Oh! the beauty, the smiles, the caresses of youth, the hopes! Should not these things be eternal!

“How I have wept, during whole nights, over the women of old, so beautiful, so tender, so sweet, whose arms opened to love, and who are now dead! The kiss is immortal! It goes from lip to lip, from century to century, from age to age! Men take it and give it and die.

“The past attracts me, the present frightens me, because the future is death. I regret all that which is gone, I weep for those who have lived; I wish to stop the hour, to arrest time. But it goes, it goes on, it passes away, and it takes me, from second to second, a little of me for the annihilation of tomorrow. And I shall never live again.

“Farewell, women of yesterday, I love you.

“And yet I have nothing to complain of. I have found her whom I awaited, and I have tasted through her of inconceivable pleasure.

“I was roaming around Paris on a sunny morning, with joyous foot and happy soul, looking in the shops with the vague interest of a stroller. All at once I saw in an antique shop an Italian piece of furniture of the xvii century. It was very beautiful, very rare. I decided it must be by a Venetian artist, named Vitelli, who belonged to that epoch. Then I passed on.

“Why did the remembrance of this piece of furniture follow me with so much force that I retraced my steps? I stopped again before the shop to look at it, and felt that it tempted me.

“What a singular thing is temptation! One looks at an object, and, little by little, it seduces you, troubles you, takes possession of you like the face of a woman. Its charm enters into you, a strange charm which comes from its form, its colour, and its physiognomy. Already one loves it, wishes it, desires it. A need of possession seizes you, a pleasant need at first, because timid, but increasing, becoming violent and irresistible. And the dealers seem to suspect, from the look of the eye, this secret, increasing desire. I bought that piece of furniture and had it carried to my house immediately. I placed it in my room.

“Oh! I pity those who do not know this honeymoon of the collector with the object which he has just acquired. He caresses it with his eye and hand as if it were flesh; he returns every moment to it, thinks of it continually, wherever he goes and whatever he may be doing. The thought of it follows him into the street, into the world, everywhere. And when he reenters his house, before even removing his gloves or his hat, he goes to look at it with the tenderness of a lover.

“Truly, for eight days I adored that piece of furniture. I kept opening its doors and drawers; I handled it with delight and experienced all the intimate joys of possession.

“One evening, in feeling the thickness of a panel, I perceived that there might be a hiding-place there. My heart began to beat and I passed the night in searching out the secret, without being able to discover it.

“I came upon it the next day by forcing a piece of metal into a crevice in the panelling. A shelf slipped, and I saw, exposed upon a lining of black velvet, a marvellous head of woman’s hair!

“Yes, a head of hair, an enormous twist of blond hair, almost red, which had been cut off near the skin and tied together with a golden cord.

“I stood there stupefied, trembling and disturbed! An almost insensible perfume, so old that it seemed like the soul of an odour, arose from this mysterious drawer and this most surprising relic.

“I took it gently, almost religiously, and lifted it from its resting-place. Immediately it unwound, spreading out its golden billows upon the floor, where it fell, thick and light, supple and brilliant, like the fiery tail of a comet.

“A strange emotion seized me. To whom had this belonged? When? Under what circumstances? Why had this hair been shut up in this piece of furniture? What adventure, what drama was hidden beneath this souvenir? Who had cut it off? Some lover, on a day of parting? Some husband, on a day of vengeance? Or, perhaps, the woman herself, whose hair it was, on a day of despair? Was it at the hour of entering the cloister that she had thrown there this fortune of love, as a token left to the world of the living? Was it the hour of closing the tomb upon the young and beautiful dead, that he who adored her took this diadem of her head, the only thing he could preserve of her, the only living part of her body that would not perish, the only thing that he could still love and caress and kiss, in the transport of his grief?

“Was it not strange that this hair should remain there thus, when there was no longer any vestige of the body with which it was born?

“It curled about my fingers and touched my skin with a singular caress, the caress of death. I felt myself affected, as if I were going to weep.

“I kept it a long time in my hands, then it seemed to me that it had some effect upon me, as if something of the soul still remained in it. And I laid it upon the velvet again, the velvet blemished by time, then pushed in the drawer, shut the doors of the closet, and betook myself to the street to dream.

“I walked straight ahead, full of sadness, and full of trouble, of the kind of trouble that remains in the heart after the kiss of love. It seemed to me I had lived in former times, and that I had known this woman.

“And Villon’s lines rose to my lips, like a sob:

Dictes-moy où, ne en quel pays
Est Flora, la belle Romaine,
Archipiada, ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine?
Echo parlant quand bruyt on maine
Dessus rivière, ou sus estan;
Qui beauté eut plus que humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?
⋮
La royne blanche comme un lys
Qui chantoit à voix de sereine,
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys,
Harembouges qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
Que Anglais bruslèrent à Rouen?
Où sont-ils, Vierge souveraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?18

“When I returned to my house I felt an irresistible desire to see my strange treasure again. I took it up and felt it, and in touching it a prolonged thrill ran through my body.

“For some days, however, I remained in my ordinary state, although the thought of this hair never left me. Whenever I came in, it was my first desire to look at it and handle it. I would turn the key of the desk with the same trembling that one has in opening the door of one’s mistress, for I felt in my hands and in my heart a confused, singular, continual, sensual desire to bury my fingers in this charming rivulet of dead hair.

“Then, when I had finished caressing it, when I had returned it to its resting-place, I always felt that it was there, as if it were something alive, concealed, imprisoned; I felt it and I still desired it; again I felt the imperious need of touching it, of feeling it, of enervating myself to the point of weakness, by contact with this cold, smooth, irritating, exciting, delicious hair.

“I lived thus for a month or two, I no longer know how long, with this thing possessing me, haunting me. I was happy and tortured, as in the expectation of love, as one is after the avowal which precedes the embrace.

“I would shut myself up alone with it in order to feel it upon my skin, to bury my lips in it, to kiss it, and bite it. I would roll it around my face, drink it in, drown my eyes in its golden waves, in order to see life golden through it.

“I loved it! Yes, I loved it. I could no longer live away from it, nor be contented an hour without seeing it. I expected⁠—I expected⁠—what? I know not⁠—her!

“One night I was suddenly awakened with a feeling that I was not alone in my room. I was alone, however. But I could not go to sleep again; and, as I was tossing in the fever of insomnia, I rose and went to look at the twist of hair. It appeared to me sweeter than usual, and more animated.

“Could the dead return? The kisses with which I warmed it made me swoon with happiness, and I carried it to my bed and lay down with it, pressing it to my lips, as one does a mistress he hopes to enjoy.

“The dead returned! She came! Yes, I saw her, touched her, possessed her as she was when alive in former times, large, blond, plump, with cool breasts, and with hips in the form of a lyre. And I followed that divine, undulating line from the throat to the feet, in all the curves of the flesh, with my caresses.

“Yes, I possessed her, every day and every night. The Dead Woman had returned, the beautiful Dead Woman, the Adorable, the Mysterious, the Unknown, and she returned every night.

“My happiness was so great that I could not conceal it. I found in her a superhuman delight, the profound, inexplicable joy of possessing the Impalpable, the Invisible, the Dead! No lover ever tasted joys more ardent or more terrible.

“I knew not how to conceal my happiness. I loved it so much that I could not bear to leave it. I carried it with me always, everywhere. I walked with it through the city, as if it were my wife, conducting it to the theatre and to restaurants as one would a mistress. But they saw it⁠—and guessed⁠—they took me, and threw me into prison, like a malefactor. They took it away⁠—oh! misery!⁠—”

The manuscript stopped there. And suddenly, as I raised my wondering eyes to the doctor, a frightful cry, a howl of fury and exasperated desire filled the asylum.

“Listen,” said the doctor, “it is necessary to douse that obscene maniac with water five times a day. Sergeant Bertrand is not the only man who fell in love with the dead.”

I stammered, moved with astonishment, horror, and pity: “But that hair⁠—did it really exist?”

The doctor got up, opened a closet full of vials and instruments, and threw me, across his office, a long thick rope of blond hair, which flew towards me like a golden bird.

I trembled as I felt upon my hands its caressing, light touch. And I stood there, my heart beating with disgust and desire, the disgust we have in coming in contact with objects connected with crimes, and the desire which comes with the temptation to test some infamous and mysterious thing.

Shrugging his shoulders, the doctor added: “The mind of man is capable of anything.”

The Horrible

The warm night was closing in. The women had remained in the drawing room while the men sat smoking on the garden chairs in front of the door, round a table laden with cups and liqueur-glasses.

Their lighted cigars shone like eyes in the growing darkness. They had been discussing a frightful accident that had happened the previous evening, when two men and three women had been drowned in the river before the eyes of the guests.

General de G⁠⸺ remarked: “Yes, these things do affect one but they are not horrible.

“The hackneyed word ‘horrible’ carries much more meaning than the word ‘terrible’ does. A frightful accident like this distresses, upsets, and alarms one, but it does not horrify. In order to experience horror, something more is needed than mental emotion, something more than witnessing a frightful death; there must be either a shuddering sense of mystery, or a feeling of abnormal, unnatural terror. A man who dies even in the most dramatic circumstances does not inspire horror; a battlefield is not horrible; blood is not horrible; the vilest crimes are rarely horrible.

“Listen, I will give you two instances which have made me realise the meaning of horror.

“During the war of 1870 we were retreating towards Pont-Audemer after having passed through Rouen. The army consisted of about twenty thousand men; twenty thousand men in retreat, disbanded, demoralised, exhausted, were going to re-form at Havre.

“The ground was covered with snow, and night was falling. No one had had any food since the evening before; the Prussians were not far away, and the men had to retire quickly.

“The ghastly Norman country, speckled with the shadows of the trees round the farms, lay still, under a black heavy threatening sky.

“Nothing could be heard in the wan twilight but the sound, muddled, confused, and yet over-loud, of the troops on the march, an endless tramping mingled with the faint clink of their mess-tins or their swords. The men, bent, round-shouldered, dirty, many of them in rags, dragged themselves along, toiled through the snow with long exhausted strides, their hands sticking to the steel on the butt ends of their muskets, for it was freezing hard. I frequently saw a poor devil marching barefooted, so painful were his boots, leaving bloodstained footprints at every step. After a while he would sit down for a few minutes, but he never rose again. Every man who sat down was a dead man.

“How many of these poor exhausted soldiers we left behind expected to start again as soon as they had rested their stiffened legs! But the moment they stopped, their sluggish blood ceased to circulate in their frozen veins, and an irresistible numbness chilled them to the marrow, chained them to the ground, closed their eyes, and in one second paralysed the overwrought human machine. They gradually sank down, their heads on their knees, not falling over altogether, for their backs and their limbs become as hard and rigid as a piece of wood: it was impossible either to bend the bodies or place them upright.

“The rest of us, more robust, kept on going, chilled to the bone, going forward by mere inertia, through the night, the snow, the cold deathlike country, crushed by grief, defeat, and despair, but, above all, in the grip of the appalling sense of abandonment, the end of all things, death⁠—nothing left.

“I saw two gendarmes holding the arms of a strange-looking little man, old, beardless, quite amazing in appearance. They were searching for an officer, believing that they had caught a spy.

“The word ‘spy’ spread rapidly through the crowd of stragglers, who gathered around the prisoner. A voice shouted: ‘He must be shot.’ And through the group of soldiers falling over with fatigue and only able to stand upright by leaning on their guns, there suddenly passed that wave of infuriated and bestial anger which drives a mob to bloodshed.

“I tried to speak, because I was in command of a battalion at the time, but the authority of officers was no longer recognised and they would even have shot me.

“One of the gendarmes said: ‘He has been following us for three days. He asks everybody for information about the artillery.’

“I tried to question the man: ‘What are you doing? What do you want? Why are you following the army?’ He muttered a few words in unintelligible dialect.

“He was indeed a strange being, with narrow shoulders and a sullen look: he was so ill at ease in my presence that I had no further doubt as to his being a spy. He seemed very old and feeble, and kept looking at me furtively, in a humble, stupid, sly way.

“The men around us shouted: ‘To the wall! To the wall!’

“I said to the gendarmes: ‘You will be responsible for the prisoner?’

“I was still speaking when the surging crowd knocked me off my feet and I saw in a flash the man seized by the angry soldiers, thrown down, beaten, dragged along the road and flung against a tree. Half dead, he fell in the snow.

“They shot him immediately. The soldiers fired at him, reloaded their guns, and fired again with the rage of brutes. They fought with each other for their turn to shoot, and, still firing, they filed past the corpse as you file past a coffin to sprinkle it with holy water.

“Then suddenly the cry arose: ‘The Prussians! The Prussians!’ And from every side I heard the tremendous uproar of the panic-stricken army in full flight.

“The panic due to the firing at the vagabond had maddened the executioners themselves, who, not understanding that they were responsible for the terror they felt, fled and disappeared into the darkness.

“I was left alone with the body and the two gendarmes whose duty compelled them to stay with me.

“They lifted up the battered mass of bruised and bleeding flesh. ‘He must be searched,’ I said, handing them a box of candle-matches which I had in my pocket. One of the gendarmes held the light for the other. I stood between the two.

“The gendarme who was examining the body declared:

“ ‘Clothed in a blue workman’s blouse, a white shirt, trousers, and a pair of shoes.’

“The first match went out, and a second was lighted. The man, turning out the pockets, continued: ‘A horn-handled knife, check handkerchief, snuffbox, piece of string, and piece of bread.’

“The second match went out, a third was lighted. After having carefully felt the corpse, the gendarme said: ‘That’s all.’

“I said: ‘Strip him. We may find something next his skin,’ and to enable the two gendarmes to work together, I held the match for them. By its fugitive light I saw them gradually strip the body and expose to view the bleeding mass of flesh, still warm in death.

“Suddenly one of them stammered: ‘Damn it all, Major; it’s a woman!’

“I cannot describe my strange, poignant feeling of anguish. I could not believe it, and knelt down in the snow beside the shapeless pulp to see for myself: it was a woman!

“The two gendarmes, speechless and demoralised, waited for me to express an opinion on the matter. But I didn’t know what to think, I had no idea what could have happened. Then the brigadier drawled out: ‘Perhaps she had come to look for her son in the artillery, because she had not heard from him.’

“And the other replied:

“ ‘That may well be so.’

“And I who had seen so many terrible things began to shed tears. And beside the dead woman, in the icy cold night, in the middle of the dark plain, in the presence of this mystery, this unknown victim, I knew exactly what the word ‘horror’ meant.

“I had the same feeling last year when interrogating one of the survivors of the Flatters Mission, an Algerian sharpshooter. You know most of the details of that appalling drama, but there is still another of which you are probably ignorant.

“The colonel was going to the Sudan through the desert, crossing the immense territory of the Touaregs, who in that ocean of sand which stretches from the Atlantic to Egypt, and from the Sudan to Algeria, are pirates of a sort comparable to those who formerly plundered the high seas.

“The guides conducting the column belonged to the tribe of Shaamba from Wargla.

“Well, one day they pitched their camp in the middle of the desert, and the Arabs declared that as the spring was a little farther on they would go with all the camels to fetch water.

“One man only warned the colonel that he had been betrayed. Flatters refused to believe him and accompanied the convoy with his engineers, doctors, and most of the officers. They were massacred by the spring, and all the camels were captured.

“The captain of the Arabian Department of Wargla who had stayed behind in the camp took command of the survivors, Spahis and sharpshooters, and began to retreat, abandoning all supplies and provisions, because there were no camels.

“So they started off through the shadeless, boundless solitude, beneath the fierce sun that scorched them from early morning till night.

“One tribe surrendered, bringing dates as a peace-offering; these dates were poisoned, and nearly all the Frenchmen perished, the only remaining officer being of the number.

“Only a few Spahis were left with their quartermaster, Pobéguin, besides the native sharpshooters of the Shaamba tribe, with two camels, but these disappeared one night with two Arabs.

“Then the survivors realised that they would be obliged to eat each other, and as soon as the flight of the two Arabs with the two camels was discovered, they separated and proceeded to march one by one through the soft sand, under the fierce blaze of the sun, out of gunshot range of each other.

“They kept on like this all day and when they reached a spring each one in turn went up to drink as soon as his nearest neighbour had reached the distance decided upon. So they kept on the whole day, raising in their track across that level, burnt-up expanse those little columns of dust which in the distance show the track of travellers in the desert.

“But, one morning, one of the men swerved round and approached his neighbour, and the other stopped to look.

“The man whom the famished soldier was approaching made no attempt to run away, but lay flat on the ground and aimed at him. When he thought he was within gunshot he fired, but did not hit the other, who still advanced and, firing in his turn, shot his comrade dead.

“The others rushed up from every direction for their share of the dead body; he who had been the slaughterer cut it up and distributed the pieces.

“Then the irreconcilable allies spaced themselves as before, until the next murder should bring them together again.

“For two days they lived upon their share of human flesh; then, as hunger seized them again, he who had killed the first man killed a second. Again he cut up the corpse like a butcher, and offered portions to his companions, only keeping his own share. And so this retreat of cannibals continued.

“The only surviving Frenchman, Pobéguin, was killed at a well-side the very night before help arrived.

“Do you understand now what I mean by the ‘horrible’?”

This is the story that was told by General de G⁠⸺ the other night.

A Memory

How many memories of my youth came to me under the gentle caress of the earliest summer sun! It is an age wherein all is good, glad, charming, and intoxicating. How exquisite are the memories of lost springs!

Do you recall, my old friends, my brothers, those years of gladness in which life was but triumph and laughter? Do you recall the days when we roamed disreputably about Paris, our radiant poverty, our walks in the woods newly clad in green, our revels under the open sky outside the taverns on the banks of the Seine, and our love-adventures, so commonplace and so delicious?

I should like to relate one of those adventures. It dates from twelve years ago, and already feels so old, so old, that it seems now at the other end of my life, before the turning, the ugly turning whence suddenly I saw the end of the journey.

I was twenty-five in those days. I had just come to Paris; I worked in a government office, and Sundays seemed to me extraordinary festivals, full of exuberant happiness, although nothing remarkable ever happened on them.

Every day is Sunday now. But I regret the times when I had only one a week. How good it was! I had six francs to spend!

I awoke early, that particular morning, with that feeling of freedom well known to clerks, the feeling of deliverance, rest, tranquillity, and independence.

I opened my window. The weather was glorious. The clear blue sky was spread above the city, full of sunshine and swallows.

I dressed very quickly and went out, eager to spend the day in the woods, to breathe the odour of the leaves; for I came of country stock, and spent my childhood on the grass and under the trees.

Paris was waking joyfully, in the warmth and the light. The fronts of the houses shone, the concierges’ canaries sang furiously in their cages, and gaiety ran down the street, lighting up faces and stirring laughter everywhere, as though a mysterious happiness filled all animate and inanimate life in that radiant dawn.

I reached the Seine, to catch the Swallow, which was to take me to Saint-Cloud.

How I loved waiting for the boat upon the landing-stage! I felt as though I were off to the end of the world, to new and wonderful countries. I watched the boat come into sight, away in the distance under the arch of the second bridge, very small, with its plume of smoke, then larger, larger, always growing; and to my mind it took on the airs and graces of a liner.

It came alongside the stage, and I embarked.

A crowd of people in their Sunday clothes were already on board, with gay dresses, brilliantly coloured ribbons, and fat scarlet faces. I placed myself right in the bows, and stood there watching quays, trees, houses, and bridges go by. And suddenly I saw the great viaduct of Point-du-Jour barring the stream. It was the end of Paris, the beginning of the country, and at once beyond the double line of arches the Seine widened out, as though space and liberty had been granted to it, becoming suddenly the lovely peaceful river that flows on across the plains, at the foot of the wooded hills, through the meadows, and along the edge of the forest.

After passing between two islands, the Swallow followed the curve of a slope whose green expanse was covered with white houses. A voice announced: “Bas-Meudon”; then, farther on: “Sèvres,” and, still farther on: “Saint-Cloud.”

I disembarked. And I hurried through the little town along the road to the woods. I had brought a map of the suburbs of Paris, lest I lost myself on the paths which run in every direction across the woods where the people of Paris go for their expeditions.

As soon as I was in the shade, I studied my route, which seemed perfectly simple. I was to turn to the right, then to the left, then to the left again, and I should arrive at Versailles by nightfall, for dinner.

And I began to walk slowly, beneath the fresh leaves, drinking in the fragrant air, perfumed with the odour of buds and sap. I walked with short steps, unmindful of the stacks of old paper, of the office, of my chief and my colleagues, and of files, and dreaming of the happy adventures that must assuredly be waiting for me in the stretches of that veiled, unknown future. I was filled with a thousand memories of childhood awakened in me by the scents of the country, and I went on, sunk in the fragrant, living, throbbing loveliness of the woods, warmed by the powerful June sun.

Sometimes I sat down by a bank and looked at the little flowers of every kind, whose names I had long known. I knew them all again, just as though they were the very ones I had once seen in my own country. They were yellow, red, and violet, delicate and dainty, lifted on high stalks or huddled close to the earth. Insects of every colour and shape, short and squat or long and thin, extraordinary in their construction, frightful microscopic monsters, peacefully mounted the blades of grass, which bent under their weight.

Then I slept for some hours in a ditch, and went on again, rested and strengthened by my sleep.

In front of me opened a delightful alley, whose rather sparse leafage allowed drops of sunlight to shower everywhere upon the soil, and gleamed on the white daisies. It ran on endlessly, calm and empty. A solitary great hornet buzzed down it, pausing at times to sip a flower that stooped beneath it, and flying off again almost at once to come to rest again a little farther on. Its fat body looked like brown velvet striped with yellow, borne on wings that were transparent and inordinately small.

Suddenly I saw at the end of the path two people, a man and a woman, coming towards me. Annoyed at being disturbed in my quiet walk, I was on the point of plunging into the undergrowth when I fancied I heard them calling to me. The woman was actually waving her sunshade, and the man, in his shirtsleeves, his frock-coat over one arm, was raising the other as a signal of distress.

I went towards them. They were walking hurriedly, both very red, she with little rapid steps, he with long strides. Ill humour and weariness was visible on their faces. The woman asked me at once:

“Monsieur, can you tell me where we are? My idiotic husband has lost us, after saying that he knew this district perfectly.”

“Madame,” I replied confidently, “you are going towards Saint-Cloud, and Versailles is behind you.”

“What!” she continued, glancing with angry pity towards her husband. “Versailles is behind us? But that is precisely where we mean to have dinner!”

“So do I, madame; I am going there.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!” she repeated, in the tone of overwhelming contempt with which women express their exasperation.

She was quite young, pretty, and dark, with a shadow of a moustache on her lip.

As for the man, he was perspiring and mopping his brow. Without doubt they were Parisian shopkeepers. The man looked overcome, tired out and miserable.

“But, my dear girl,” he murmured, “it was you⁠ ⁠…”

She did not permit him to finish the sentence.

“It was I!⁠ ⁠… Ah! it is I now. Was it I who wanted to go off without inquiries, declaring that I could always find my way? Was it I who wanted to turn to the right at the top of the hill, declaring that I remembered the way? Was it I who undertook to look after Cachou⁠ ⁠…”

She had not finished speaking when her husband, as though he had suddenly gone out of his mind, uttered a piercing cry, a long, wild cry, which cannot be written in any language, but which was something like teeeteeet.

The young woman seemed neither surprised nor excited, and continued:

“No, upon my word, some people are too silly, always pretending to know everything. Was it I who took the Dieppe train last year instead of the Havre train? Tell me, was it I? Was it I who betted that Monsieur Letournier lived in the Rue des Martyrs?⁠ ⁠… Was it I who wouldn’t believe that Céleste was a thief?⁠ ⁠…”

And she continued furiously, with amazing rapidity of speech, piling up the most heterogeneous, unexpected, and grievous charges, furnished by all the intimate situations in their existence together, blaming her husband for all his actions, ideas, manners, experiments, and efforts, his whole life, in fact, from their wedding day up to the present moment.

He tried to stop her, to calm her, and faltered:

“But, my dear girl⁠ ⁠… it’s no use⁠ ⁠… in front of the gentleman⁠ ⁠… we’re making an exhibition of ourselves. It is of no interest to the gentleman.”

And he turned his melancholy eyes upon the thickets, as though eager to explore their peaceful and mysterious depths, to rush into them, escape and hide from every eye. From time to time he again uttered his cry, a prolonged, very shrill teeeteeet. I imagined this habit was a nervous disorder.

The young woman abruptly turned to me and, changing her tone with remarkable rapidity, remarked:

“If monsieur will be good enough to permit us, we will go with him, in order not to lose ourselves again and risk having to sleep in the wood.”

I bowed; she took my arm and began to talk of a thousand things, of herself, her life, her family, and her business. They kept a glove-shop in the Rue Saint-Lazare.

Her husband walked beside her, continually throwing wild glances into the thick of the trees, and every now and then shouting teeeteeet.

At last I asked him:

“Why do you shout like that?”

“It’s my poor dog that I’ve lost,” he replied with an air of consternation and despair.

“What? You have lost your dog?”

“Yes. He was barely a year old. He had never gone out of the shop. I wanted to take him for a walk in the woods. He had never seen grass or leaves before, and it pretty well sent him off his head. He began to run about, barking, and has disappeared in the forest. I should also tell you that he was very frightened of the railway; it may have made him lose his senses. I have called and called in vain; he has not come back. He will die of hunger in there.”

Without turning towards her husband, the woman remarked:

“If you had kept him on the lead, it wouldn’t have happened. People as silly as you have no business to have dogs.”

“But, my dear girl, it was you⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped short; and looking into his eyes as though she were going to tear them out, she began once more her innumerable reproaches.

Night was falling. The veil of mist which covers the countryside at twilight was slowly unfolding; romance hovered around, born of the strange, delightful coolness that fills the woods at the approach of night.

Suddenly the young man stopped, and, feeling about himself frantically, exclaimed:

“Oh! I believe I have⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, what?” she asked, looking at him.

“I did not realise that I was carrying my frock-coat on my arm.”

“Well?”

“I have lost my letter-case⁠ ⁠… my money is in it.”

She quivered with rage and choked with indignation.

“That is the last straw. How idiotic you are, how perfectly idiotic! How can I have married such a fool? Well, go and look for it, and take care that you find it. I will go on to Versailles with this gentleman. I don’t want to spend the night in the woods.”

“Yes, dear,” he replied meekly; “where shall I find you?”

A restaurant had been recommended to me. I told him of it.

The husband turned back and, bending down towards the ground, scanning it with anxious eyes, he walked away, continually shouting teeeteeet.

It was a long time before he disappeared; the shades of evening, thicker now, obscured him at the far end of the path. Soon the outline of his body was seen no more, but for a long time we heard his melancholy teeeteeet, teeeteeet, becoming shriller as the night grew darker.

As for me, I walked on with lively, happy steps through the sweetness of the twilight, with the unknown woman leaning on my arm.

I racked my brain in vain for compliments. I remained silent, excited and enraptured.

But suddenly a high road cut across our path. I saw that on the right, in a valley, there was quite a town.

What was this place?

A man was passing; I questioned him.

“Bougival,” he replied.

I was thunderstruck.

“Bougival! Are you sure?”

“Damn it all, I live there!”

The little woman laughed uproariously.

I suggested taking a cab to Versailles.

“Certainly not!” she replied. “This is too funny, and I’m so hungry. I’m not a bit anxious; my husband will always find his way all right. It’s a pleasure for me to be relieved of him for a few hours.”

We accordingly entered a restaurant by the waterside, and I was bold enough to engage a private room.

She got thoroughly tipsy, I can assure you; sang, drank champagne, and did all sorts of crazy things⁠ ⁠… even the craziest of all.

That was my first adultery!

A Walk

When old Levas, bookkeeper in the service of Messrs. Labuze and Company, left the shop, he stood for some moments dazzled by the brilliance of the setting sun. All day long he had worked in the yellow light of a gas-jet, in the depths of the back part of the shop, which looked on to a courtyard as narrow and deep as a well. So dark was the little room in which he had spent his days for the past forty years that, even in the height of summer, artificial light was rarely to be dispensed with between the hours of twelve and three.

It was always damp and cold there; and the smell from the ditch under the window came into the gloomy room, filling it with an odour of decay and drains.

For forty years Monsieur Levas had been arriving at this prison at eight o’clock each morning, and staying there till seven at night, bent over his ledgers, writing with the savage concentration of a good workman.

He was now making three thousand francs a year, having begun at fifteen hundred francs. He had remained a bachelor, his means not permitting him to take a wife. And, never having had anything, he did not desire much. From time to time, however, wearying of his monotonous and endless task, he would formulate a Platonic wish: “Lord, if I had five thousand pounds, I’d have an easy time of it.” But he never had had an easy time, having never had anything but his monthly salary.

His life had gone by without adventures, without passions, almost without hopes. The facility of dreaming, planted in every man, had never blossomed in the narrow bed of his ambitions.

At the age of twenty-one he had gone into Labuze and Company. And he had never come out.

In 1856 his father died, and in 1859 his mother. Since then the only event had been a change of lodgings in 1860, his landlord having proposed to raise the rent.

Every day, at six o’clock precisely, his alarm clock made him leap out of bed with its fearful clatter, like a chain being unwound. Twice, however, once in 1866 and once in 1874, the mechanism had gone wrong, without his ever having found out why. He dressed, made his bed, swept out his room, and dusted his armchair and the top of his chest of drawers. These tasks took an hour and a half.

Then he went out, bought a roll at Lahure’s bakery, where he had known eleven different proprietors without the shop ever changing its name, and started off, eating his bread.

His entire existence had therefore taken place in the dark, narrow office, always covered with the same wallpaper. He had come into it in his youth as assistant to Monsieur Brument and with the ambition to take his place. He had taken his place, and hoped for nothing more.

All the harvest of memories which other men gather in the course of life, the unexpected happenings, the happy or tragic loves, the adventurous journeys, all the chances of a free existence, had passed him by. Days, weeks, months, seasons, years, were all alike. At the same hour each day he rose, went out, arrived at the office, lunched, left the office, dined, and went to bed, without anything having ever interrupted the regular monotony of the same actions, the same events, and the same thoughts.

Once upon a time he had looked at his fair moustache and curly hair in the little round mirror left behind by his predecessor. Now, every evening, before going, he contemplated in the same mirror his white moustache and his bald forehead. Forty years had gone by, long and swift, empty as a day of sorrow, alike as the hours of a sleepless night. Forty years of which nothing remained, not even a memory, not even a grief since the death of his parents. Nothing.

On this day Monsieur Levas stood dazzled, at the street-door, by the brilliance of the setting sun; instead of returning home, he thought of taking a little walk before dinner, as he did four or five times a year.

He reached the boulevards, where a flood of people streamed past under the budding trees. It was a spring evening, one of those first evenings of generous warmth which thrill the heart with a madness of life.

Monsieur Levas walked on with the rickety gait of old age. There was a gleam of gaiety in his eye; he was happy because the rest of the world was merry and the air was warm.

He reached the Champs-Élysées and continued to walk, freshened by the gusts of youth with which the wind caressed him.

The whole sky was aflame, and the Arc de Triomphe was a dark bulk silhouetted against the brilliant background of the horizon, like a giant straddling over a house on fire. When he drew near the huge monument, the old bookkeeper realised that he was hungry, and entered a restaurant for dinner.

He dined in front of the shop, on the pavement, off sheep’s trotters, a salad, and asparagus; and Monsieur Levas had the best meal he had eaten for a long time. He washed down his Brie cheese with half a bottle of good claret; then he took a cup of coffee, which was unusual with him, and after that a small glass of liqueur brandy.

When he had paid, he felt quite lively and merry, even a little excited. He said to himself: “What a glorious night! I’ll go on as far as the entrance to the Bois de Boulogne, it will do me good.”

He started off again. An old song, which a girl who had been his neighbour used once upon a time to sing, recurred obstinately into his head.

Quand le bois reverdit,
Mon amoureux me dit:
Viens respirer, ma belle,
Sous la tonnelle.

He hummed it endlessly, beginning again and again. Night had fallen over Paris, an airless night, as close as an oven. Monsieur Levas walked along the Avenue of the Bois de Boulogne and watched the carriages go by. They came on with their gleaming eyes, one after another, allowing a glimpse of an embracing couple, the woman in a light dress, the man in black.

It was one long procession of lovers, driving under the warm and starry sky. Continually they came, went by, came, went by, side by side in the carriages, silent, clasped to each other, lost in the illusion and fever of their desires, in the shuddering longing for the next embrace. The warm air seemed filled with swift, wandering kisses. They spread a strange tenderness through the air, making it more stifling than ever. A mad excitement eddied through the air, created by these intertwined couples, these people inflamed with the same expectation, the same thought. All these carriages filled with lovemaking brought with them their own atmosphere, subtle and disturbing.

Monsieur Levas, a little tired at the end of his walk, sat down on a bench to watch the passage of these cabs heavy with love. Almost at once a woman drew near and sat down beside him.

“Hallo, darling,” she said.

He made no answer. She continued:

“Let me love you, dearie; you’ll find me so kind.”

“You are making a mistake, madame,” he said.

She put her arm through his.

“Come on, don’t be a silly boy; listen⁠ ⁠…”

He had risen, and walked away, a feeling of tightness round his heart.

A hundred yards further on another woman accosted him.

“Come and sit beside me for a while, dearie!”

“Why do you follow this trade?” he said to her.

She stood in his way, and her voice was changed, hoarse and bitter.

“God, I don’t do it for fun.”

“Then what drives you to it?” he insisted gently.

“One must live, worse luck.”

And she went off with a little song on her lips.

Monsieur Levas was bewildered. Other women passed him, called to him, invited him. He felt as though something black and oppressive hung above his head.

He sat down on a bench. The carriages were still rolling past.

“I should have done better not to come,” he thought; “I’m quite put out.”

And he began to think of all this love, venal or passionate, all these kisses, bought or free, which were passing before his eyes.

Love! He hardly knew aught of it. In all his life he had known but two or three women, chance meetings, unsought; his means had allowed him no more. And he thought of the life he had led, so different from everyone else’s, so sombre, so gloomy, so dull, so empty.

There are some people who have no luck. And suddenly, as though a thick veil had been torn aside, he saw clearly the misery, the infinite, monotonous misery of his life, past, present, and to come; the last days like the first, nothing before him, nothing behind him, nothing round him, nothing in his heart; nothing anywhere.

Still the line of carriages went by. Always he saw, appearing and disappearing with the swift passage of the open vehicle, the two inside, silently embracing. It seemed to him as though the whole human race was passing by, drunk with joy, pleasure, and happiness. And he watched them alone, alone, all alone. He would still be alone tomorrow, always alone, alone, as no other creature in the world is alone.

He got up, walked a few steps, and, quickly tired, as though he had just finished a long walk, sat down on the next bench.

What was he waiting for? What was he hoping for? Nothing. He thought how good it must seem, in old age, to hear the chatter of little children as you come home at night. It must be sweet to grow old surrounded with those who owe their lives to you, love you, caress you, tell you those ridiculous, delightful things that warm your heart and console you for everything.

And thinking of his empty room, the clean sad little room into which no one but himself had ever gone, a feeling of distress oppressed his soul. It seemed to him even more melancholy than his little office.

No one ever came to it; no one ever spoke in it. It was dead, dumb; it lacked even an echo of a human voice. It seemed as though walls must hold something of the people who live between them, something of their ways, their faces, their speech. Houses lived in by happy families are more cheerful than the houses of the miserable. His room was empty of memories, like his life. And the thought of returning to it alone, of getting into bed, of going through all the movements and duties of every evening, was horrible to him. And, as though to get further away from this sinister dwelling-place and from the moment when he must return to it, he rose, and, suddenly reaching the first path in the Bois, he turned into a little copse, to sit down on the grass.

He heard, around him, above him, everywhere, a confused, immense, continuous roar, made up of innumerable different noises, a dull roar, near and distant, a vast vague quivering of life: the breath of Paris, breathing like a colossal being.

The sun, already high in the heavens, threw a flood of light upon the Bois de Boulogne. A few carriages were driving up and down, and groups of riders were trotting gaily past.

A young couple walked along a lonely path. Suddenly the woman, lifting her eyes, caught sight of something brown in the branches. She pointed to it, surprised and uneasy.

“Look.⁠ ⁠… What is that?”

Then with a cry she collapsed into the arms of her companion, who was forced to lower her on to the ground.

The keepers, promptly summoned, let down from the tree the body of an old man, hanged by his braces.

It was discovered that death had taken place the previous evening. Papers found on the man showed that he was a bookkeeper at Messrs. Labuze and Company, and that his name was Levas.

Death was attributed to suicide from a cause unknown. Possibly temporary insanity?

The Sisters Rondoli

I

“No,” said Pierre Jouvent, “I do not know Italy. I started to go there twice, but each time I was stopped at the frontier and could not manage to get any further. And yet my two attempts gave me charming ideas of the manners of that beautiful country. Some time or other I must visit its cities, as well as the museums and works of art with which it abounds. I shall make another attempt as soon as possible to cross that impregnable border.

“You don’t understand me, so I will explain myself. In 1874 I was seized with desire to see Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples. I got this whim about the middle of June, then the powerful fever of spring stirs the desire for love and adventure. I am not, as you know, a great traveller; it appears to me a useless and tiresome business. Nights spent in a train, the disturbed slumbers of the railway carriage, with the attendant headache and stiffness in every limb, the sudden waking in that rolling box, the unwashed feeling, the flying dust and smuts that fill your eyes and hair, the taste of coal in your mouth, and the bad dinners in draughty refreshment rooms, are, in my opinion, a horrible way of beginning a pleasure trip.

“After this introduction by the express, we have the miseries of the hotel; of some great hotel full of people, and yet so empty; the strange room, and the dubious bed! I am most particular about my bed; it is the sanctuary of life. We entrust our nude and fatigued bodies to it that they may be refreshed and rested between soft sheets and feathers.

“There we spend the most delightful hours of our existence, the hours of love and of sleep. The bed is sacred, and should be respected, venerated, and loved by us as the best and most delightful of our earthly possessions.

“I cannot lift up the sheets of a hotel bed without a shiver of disgust. What took place there the night before? What dirty, odious people have slept in it! I begin, then, to think of all the horrible people with whom one rubs shoulders every day, hideous hunchbacks, people with flabby bodies, with dirty hands that make you wonder what their feet and the rest of their bodies are like. I think of those who exhale a smell of garlic and dirt that is loathsome. I think of the deformed and purulent, of the perspiration emanating from the sick, and of everything that is ugly in man. And all this, perhaps, in the bed in which I am going to sleep! The mere idea of it makes me feel ill as I get in.

“And then the hotel dinners⁠—those dreary table d’hôte dinners in the midst of all sorts of extraordinary people, or else those terrible solitary dinners at a small table in a restaurant, feebly lighted up by a small, cheap candle under a shade.

“Again, those terribly dull evenings in some unknown town! Do you know anything more wretched than when it is getting dark on such an occasion? You go about as if in a dream, looking at faces which you have never seen before and will never see again; listening to people talking about matters which are either quite indifferent to you or in a language that perhaps you do not understand. You have a terrible feeling, almost as if you were lost, and you continue to walk on, so as to avoid returning to the hotel, where you would feel still more lost because you are at home, in a home which belongs to anyone who can pay for it. At last you fall into a chair at some well-lit café, whose gilding and lights overwhelm you a thousand times more than the shadows in the streets. Then you feel so abominably lonely sitting in front of the foaming bock which a hurrying waiter has brought, that a kind of madness seizes you, the longing to go somewhere or other, no matter where, as long as you need not remain in front of that marble table and in the dazzling brightness.

“And then, suddenly, you perceive that you are really alone in the world, always and everywhere; and that in places which we know the familiar jostlings give us the illusion only of human brotherhood. At such moments of self-abandonment and sombre isolation in distant cities you think broadly, clearly, and profoundly. Then one suddenly sees the whole of life outside the vision of eternal hope, outside the daily deceptions of daily habits and of the expectations of happiness, of which we always dream.

“It is only by going a long distance that we can fully understand how near, short-lived and empty everything is; only by searching for the unknown do we perceive how commonplace and evanescent everything is; only by wandering over the face of the earth can we understand how small the world is, and how very much alike everywhere.

“How well I know, and how I hate and fear more than anything else those haphazard walks through unknown streets. This was the reason why, as nothing would induce me to undertake a tour in Italy by myself, I induced my friend Paul Pavilly to accompany me.

“You know Paul, and how woman is everything, the world, life itself, to him. There are many men like him, to whom existence becomes poetical and idealised by the presence of women. The earth is habitable only because they are there; the sun shines and is warm because it lights them; the air is soft and balmy because it blows upon their skin and ruffles the short hair on their temples, and the moon is charming because it makes them dream, and imparts a languorous charm to love. Every act and action of Paul has woman for its motive; all his thoughts, all his efforts, and hopes are centred on them.

“A poet has branded that type of man:

Je déteste surtout le barde à l’oeil humide
Qui regarde une étoile en murmurant un nom,
Et pour qui la nature immense serait vide
S’il ne portait en croupe ou Lisette ou Ninon.

Ces gens-là sont charmants qui se donnent la peine,
Afin qu’on s’intéresse à ce pauvre univers,
D’attacher des jupons aux arbres de la plaine
Et la cornette blanche au front des coteaux verts.

Certes ils n’ont pas compris tes musiques divines
Eternelle Nature aux frémissantes voix,
Ceux qui ne vont pas seuls par les creuses ravines
Et rêvent d’une femme au bruit que font les bois!19

“When I mentioned Italy to Paul he at first absolutely refused to leave Paris. I, however, began to tell him of the adventures I had on my travels. I told him that Italian women are supposed to be charming, and I made him hope for the most refined society at Naples, thanks to certain letters of introduction which I had for a Signore Michel Amoroso whose acquaintances are very useful to travellers. So at last he allowed himself to be persuaded.

II

“We took the express one Thursday evening on the 26th of June. Hardly anyone goes south at that time of the year, so that we had the carriage to ourselves. Both of us were in a bad temper on leaving Paris, sorry for having yielded to the temptation of this journey, and regretting cool Marly, the beautiful Seine, and our lazy boating excursions, our delightful evenings spent on the banks of the river waiting for nightfall.

“As soon as the train started Paul settled himself comfortably into a corner, and said: ‘It is most idiotic to go to this place.’ As it was too late for him to change his mind then, I answered: ‘Well, you should not have come.’

“He did not answer, and I felt very much inclined to laugh when I saw how furious he looked. He certainly looks like a squirrel, but then every one of us has retained the type of some animal or other as the mark of primal race. How many people have jaws like a bulldog, or heads like goats, rabbits, foxes, horses, or oxen. Paul was a squirrel turned into a man. He had its bright, quick eyes, its hair, its pointed nose, its small, fine, supple, active body, and a certain mysterious resemblance in his general bearing: in fact, a similarity of movements, of gestures, and of bearing which might almost be taken for an atavism.

“At last we both went to sleep⁠—the noisy slumber of the railway carriage, which is broken by horrible cramps in the arms and neck, and by the sudden stopping of the train.

“We woke up as we were going along the Rhône. Soon the continuous noise of the grasshoppers came in through the window, a cry which seems to be the voice of the warm earth, the song of Provence. It seemed to instill into our looks, our breasts, and our souls the light and happy feeling of the south, the smell of the parched earth, of the stony and light soil of the olive tree with its grey-green foliage.

“When the train stopped again a porter ran along the train calling out ‘Valence’ in a sonorous voice, with an accent that again gave us that taste of Provence which the shrill note of the grasshoppers had already imparted to us.

“Nothing happened till we got to Marseilles, where we breakfasted, but when we returned to our carriage we found a woman installed there. Paul, with a delighted look at me, unconsciously gave his short moustache a twirl, and passed his fingers like a comb through his hair, which had become slightly disordered with the night’s journey. Then he sat down opposite the newcomer.

“Whenever I happen to see a new face, either while travelling or in society, I become obsessed with the desire to find out what character, mind, and intellectual capacities are hidden beneath those features.

“She was a young and pretty woman, a native of the south of France certainly, with splendid eyes, beautiful, wavy black hair, which was so thick, long, and strong that it seemed almost too heavy for her head. She was dressed with a certain southern bad taste which made her look a little vulgar. Her regular features had none of the grace and finish of the refined races, of that slight delicacy which members of the aristocracy inherit from their birth, and which is the hereditary mark of blue blood.

“Her bracelets were too big to be of gold; she wore earrings with white stones too big to be diamonds, and she belonged unmistakably to the people. One would guess that she would talk too loud, and use exaggerated gestures.

“When the train started she remained motionless in her place, in the attitude of a woman who was in a rage. She had not even looked at us.

“Paul began to talk to me, evidently with an eye to effect, trying to attract her attention, as shopkeepers expose their choice wares to catch the notice of passersby. She did not seem to hear.

“ ‘Toulon! Ten minute’s wait! Ten minute’s wait! Refreshment room!’ the porter shouted.

“Paul motioned to me to get out, and, as soon as we were on the platform, he said:

“ ‘I wonder who on earth she can be?’

“I began to laugh. ‘I am sure I don’t know, and I don’t in the least care.’

“He was quite excited.

“ ‘She is an uncommonly fresh and pretty girl. What eyes she has, and how cross she looks. She must be dreadfully worried, for she takes no notice of anything.’

“ ‘You will have all your trouble for nothing,’ I ventured.

“He began to lose his temper.

“ ‘I am not taking any trouble, my dear fellow. I think her an extremely pretty woman, that is all. If one could only speak to her! But I don’t know how to begin. Can’t you give me an idea? Can’t you guess who she is?’

“ ‘Upon my word, I cannot. I rather think she is some actress who is going to rejoin her company after some love adventure.’

“He seemed quite upset, as if I had said something insulting.

“ ‘What makes you think that? On the contrary, I think she looks most respectable.’

“ ‘Just look at her bracelets,’ I said, ‘her earrings, and her whole dress. I should not be the least surprised if she were a dancer or a circus rider, but most likely a dancer. Her whole style smacks very much of the theatre.’

“He evidently did not like the idea.

“ ‘She is much too young, I am sure; why, she is hardly twenty.’

“ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘there are many things which one can do before one is twenty; dancing and reciting are among them, without counting another business which is, perhaps, her sole occupation.’

“ ‘Take your seats for Nice, Vintimiglia,’ the guards and porters called out.

“We got in; our fellow-passenger was eating an orange. She certainly was not refined. She had spread her handkerchief on her knees, and the way in which she tore off the peel and opened her mouth to put in the pieces, and then spat the pips out of the window, showed that her education had been decidedly vulgar. She seemed more unapproachable than ever, and swallowed the fruit with an exceedingly comic air of rage.

“Paul devoured her with his eyes, and tried to attract her attention and excite her curiosity, but in spite of his talk and of the manner in which he brought in well-known names, she did not pay the least attention to him.

“After passing Fréjus and St. Raphael, the train passes through a veritable garden, a paradise of roses, of groves of oranges and lemons covered with fruit and flowers at the same time. That delightful coast from Marseilles to Genoa is a kingdom of perfumes in a land of flowers.

“June is the time to see it, when in every narrow valley and on every slope the most exquisite flowers are growing luxuriantly. And the roses! fields, hedges, groves of roses! They climb up the walls, blossom on the roofs, hang from the trees, peep out from among the bushes; they are white, red, yellow, large and small, ordinary and quiet, with a simple dress, or full in brilliant and heavy toilettes. Their powerful perfume makes the air heavy and relaxing, while the still more penetrating lasting odour of the orange blossoms sweetens the atmosphere, till it might almost be called a sugarplum for the olfactory nerve.

“The shore, with its brown rocks, was bathed by the motionless Mediterranean. The hot summer sun stretched like a fiery cloth over the mountains, over the long expanses of sand, and over the hard, set blue sea. The train went on, through the tunnels, along the slopes, above the water, on straight, wall-like viaducts, and a soft, vague, saltish smell came up, a smell of drying seaweed, mingled at times with the strong, heavy perfume of the flowers.

“But Paul neither saw, nor looked at, nor smelled anything, for our fellow-traveller engrossed all his attention.

“When we got to Cannes, as he wished to speak to me, he signed to me to get out again, and as soon as I had done so he took me by the arm.

“ ‘Do you know she is really charming. Just look at her eyes; and I never saw anything like her hair.’

“ ‘Don’t excite yourself,’ I replied. ‘Tackle her, if you have any intentions that way. She does not look impregnable, I fancy, although she appears to be a little bit grumpy.’

“ ‘Why don’t you speak to her?’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to say, for I am always terribly stupid at first; I can never make advances to a woman in the street. I follow them, go round and round them, quite close to them, but I never know what to say at first. I only once tried to enter into conversation with a woman in that way. As I clearly saw that she was waiting for me to make overtures, and as I felt bound to say something, I stammered out, “I hope you are quite well, Madame?” She laughed in my face, and I made my escape.’

“I promised Paul to do all I could to bring about a conversation, and when we had taken our places again, I politely asked our neighbour:

“ ‘Have you any objection to the smell of tobacco, Madame?’

“She merely replied: ‘Non capisco.’

“So she was an Italian! I felt an absurd inclination to laugh. As Paul did not understand a word of that language, I was obliged to act as his interpreter, so I said in Italian:

“ ‘I asked you, Madame, whether you had any objection to tobacco smoke?’

“With an angry look, she replied, ‘Che mi fa?’

“She had neither turned her head nor looked at me, and I really did not know whether to take this ‘What does it matter to me’ for an authorisation, a refusal, a real sign of indifference, or for a mere ‘Leave me alone.’

“ ‘Madame,’ I replied, ‘if you mind the smell of tobacco in the least⁠—’

“She again said, ‘mica,’ in a tone of voice which seemed to mean, ‘I wish to goodness you would leave me alone!’ It was, however, a kind of permission, so I said to Paul:

“ ‘You can smoke.’

“He looked at me in that curious sort of way that people have when they try to understand others who are talking in a strange language before them, and asked me:

“ ‘What did you say to her?’

“ ‘I asked if we might smoke, and she said we might do whatever we liked.’

“Whereupon I lighted my cigar.

“ ‘Did not she say anything more?’

“ ‘If you had counted her words you would have noticed that she used exactly six, two of which gave me to understand that she knew no French, so four remained, and a lot cannot be said in four words.’

“Paul seemed quite unhappy, disappointed, and at sea.

“But suddenly the Italian asked me, in that tone of discontent which seemed habitual to her, ‘Do you know at what time we shall get to Genoa?’

“ ‘At eleven o’clock,’ I replied. Then after a moment I went on:

“ ‘My friend and I are also going to Genoa, and if we can be of any service to you, we shall be very happy.’ As she did not answer, I insisted: ‘You are alone and if we can be of service⁠ ⁠…’ But she interrupted with such a ‘mica,’ that I did not venture on another word.

“ ‘What did she say?’ Paul asked.

“ ‘She said that she thought you were charming.’

“But he was in no humour for joking, and begged me, dryly, not to make fun of him, so I translated her question and my polite offer, which had been so pertly rejected.

“Then he became as agitated as a squirrel in a cage.

“ ‘If we only knew,’ he said, ‘what hotel she was going to, we would go to the same. Try and find out, so as to have another opportunity for making her speak.’

“It was not particularly easy, and I did not know what pretext to invent, anxious as I was to make the acquaintance of this unapproachable person.

“We passed Nice, Monaco, Mentone, and the train stopped at the frontier for the examination of luggage.

“Although I hate those badly brought-up people who breakfast and dine in railway-carriages, I went and bought a quantity of good things to make one last attack on her by their means. I felt sure that this girl must, ordinarily, be by no means inaccessible. Something had put her out and made her irritable, but very little would suffice, a mere word or some aggreeable offer, make her unbend, to decide her and overcome her.

“We started again, and we three were still alone. I spread my eatables out on the seat. I cut up the fowl, put the slices of ham neatly on a piece of paper, and then carefully laid out our dessert, the strawberries, plums, cherries, and cakes, close to the girl.

“When she saw that we were going to eat she took a piece of chocolate and two small rolls out of her pocket and began to eat them with her beautiful sharp teeth.

“ ‘Ask her to have some of ours,’ Paul said in a whisper.

“ ‘That is exactly what I want to do, but it is rather a difficult matter.’

“As she, however, glanced from time to time at our provisions, I felt sure that she would still be hungry when she had finished what she had. So as soon as her frugal meal was over, I said to her:

“ ‘It would be very kind of you if you would take some of this fruit.’

“Again she said ‘mica,’ but less crossly than before.

“ ‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘may I offer you a little wine? I see you have not drunk anything. It is Italian wine, and as we are now in your own country, we should be very pleased to see such a pretty Italian mouth accept the offer of its French neighbours.’

“She shook her head slightly, evidently wishing to refuse, but very desirous of accepting, and her ‘mica’ this time was almost polite. I took the bottle, which was covered with straw in the Italian fashion, and filling the glass I offered it to her.

“ ‘Please drink it,’ I said, ‘to bid us welcome to your country.’

“She took the glass with her usual look, and emptied it at a draught, like a woman tormented with thirst, and then gave it back to me without even saying ‘Thank you.’

“Then I offered her the cherries. ‘Please take some,’ I said; ‘we shall be so pleased if you will.’

“Out of her corner she looked at all the fruit spread out beside her, and said so rapidly that I could scarcely follow her: ‘A me non piacciono ne le ciliegie ne le susine; amo soltano le fragole.’

“ ‘What does she say?’ Paul asked.

“ ‘That she does not care for cherries or plums, but only for strawberries.’

“I put a newspaper full of wild strawberries on her lap, and she ate them quickly, throwing them into her mouth from some distance in a coquettish and charming manner.

“When she had finished the little red heap which we had seen rapidly diminishing, melting and disappearing under the rapid action of her hands, I asked her:

“ ‘What may I offer you now?’

“ ‘I will take a little chicken,’ she replied.

“She certainly devoured half of it, tearing it to pieces with the rapid movements of her jaws like some carnivorous animal. Then she made up her mind to have some cherries, which she ‘did not like,’ then some plums, then some little cakes. Then she said, ‘I have had enough,’ and sat back in her corner.

“I was much amused, and tried to make her eat more, pressing her, in fact, till she suddenly got in a rage again, and flung such a furious ‘mica’ at me, that I would no longer run the risk of spoiling her digestion.

“I turned to my friend. ‘My poor Paul,’ I said, ‘I am afraid we have had our trouble for nothing.’

“Night was coming on, one of those hot summer nights which extend their warm shade over the burning and exhausted earth. Here and there, in the distance by the sea, over capes and promontories bright stars began to shine on the dark horizon, which I was, at times, almost inclined to confound with lighthouses.

“The scent of the orange-trees became more penetrating, and we breathed with delight, distending our lungs to inhale it more deeply. The balmy air was soft, delicious, almost divine.

“Suddenly I noticed something like a shower of stars under the dense shade of the trees along the line where it was quite dark. It might have been taken for drops of light, leaping, flying, playing and running among the leaves, or for small stars fallen from the skies in order to have an excursion on the earth; but they were only fireflies dancing a strange fiery ballet in the perfumed air.

“One of them happened to come into our carriage and shed its intermittent light, which seemed to be extinguished one moment and to be burning the next. I covered the carriage-lamp with its blue shade and watched the strange fly careering about in its fiery flight. Suddenly it settled on the dark hair of our neighbour, who was dozing after dinner. Paul seemed delighted, his eyes fixed on the bright, sparkling spot which looked like a living jewel on the forehead of the sleeping woman.

“The Italian awoke about eleven o’clock, with the bright insect still in her hair. When I saw her move, I said: ‘We are just getting to Genoa, Madame,’ and she murmured, without answering me, as if possessed by some obstinate and embarrassing thought:

“ ‘What am I going to do, I wonder?’

“And then she suddenly asked:

“ ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

“I was so taken aback that I really did not understand her.

“ ‘With us? What do you mean?’

“She repeated, looking more and more furious:

“ ‘Would you like me to go with you now, as soon go as we get out of the train?’

“ ‘I am quite willing; but where do you want to go to? Where shall I take you to?’

“She shrugged her shoulders with an air of supreme indifference.

“ ‘Wherever you like; what does it matter to me?’ She repeated her ‘Che mi fa?’ twice.

“ ‘But we are going to the hotel.’

“ ‘Very well, let us all go to the hotel,’ she said, in a contemptuous voice.

“I turned to Paul, and said:

“ ‘She wants to know if we should like her to come with us.’

“My friend’s utter surprise restored my self-possession. He stammered:

“ ‘With us? Where to? What for? How?’

“ ‘I don’t know, but she made this strange proposal to me in a most irritable voice. I told her that we were going to the hotel, and she said: “Very well, let us all go there!” I suppose she is without a halfpenny. She certainly has a very strange way of making acquaintances.’

“Paul, who was very much excited, exclaimed:

“ ‘I am quite agreeable. Tell her that we will take her wherever she likes.’ Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he said uneasily:

“ ‘We must know, however, with whom she wants to go⁠—with you or with me?’

“I turned to the Italian, who did not even seem to be listening to us, and said:

“ ‘We shall be very happy to take you with us, but my friend wants to know whether you will take my arm or his?’

“She opened her black eyes wide with vague surprise, and said, ‘Che mi fa?’

“I was obliged to explain myself. ‘In Italy, I believe when a man looks after a woman, fulfills all her wishes, and satisfies all her caprices, he is called a patito. Which of us two will you take for your patito?’

“Without the slightest hesitation she replied: ‘You!’

“I turned to Paul. ‘You see, my friend, she chooses me; you have no luck.’

“ ‘All the better for you,’ he replied, in a rage. Then, after thinking for a few moments, he went on:

“ ‘Do you really care about taking this creature with you? She will spoil our journey. What are we to do with this woman, who looks like I don’t know what? They will not take us in at any decent hotel.’

“I, however, was just beginning to find the Italian much nicer than I had thought her at first, and I was now very anxious to take her with us. The idea delighted me. I already felt those little shivers which the expectation of a night of love sends through the veins.

“I replied, ‘My dear fellow, we have accepted, and it is too late to recede. You were the first to advise me to say “Yes.” ’

“ ‘It is very stupid,’ he growled, ‘but do as you please.’

“The train whistled, slackened speed, and we ran into the station.

“I got out of the carriage, and offered my new companion my hand. She jumped out lightly, and I gave her my arm, which she took with an air of seeming repugnance. As soon as we had claimed our luggage we started off into the town, Paul walking in complete silence, with a nervous step.

“ ‘To what hotel shall we go?’ I asked him. ‘It may be difficult to get into the City of Paris Hotel with a woman, especially with this Italian.’

“Paul interrupted me: ‘Yes, with an Italian who looks more like a strumpet than a duchess. However, that is no business of mine. Do just as you please.’

“I was in a state of perplexity. I had written to the City of Paris to reserve our rooms, and now I did not know what to do.

“Two commissionnaires followed us with our luggage. I continued: ‘You might as well go first, and say that we are coming; and give the landlord to understand that I have a⁠—a friend with me, so that we should like rooms quite by themselves for us three, so as not to be brought in contact with other travellers. He will understand, and we will decide according to his answer.’

“But Paul growled, ‘Thank you; such commissions and such a role do not suit me by any means. I did not come here to get ready your apartments or to minister to your pleasures.’

“But I was insistent: ‘Look here, don’t be angry. It is surely far better to go to a good hotel than to a bad one, and it is not difficult to ask the landlord for three separate bedrooms and a dining room.’

“I put a stress on three, and that decided him.

“He went on first, and I saw him enter the great doorway of a fine hotel, while I remained on the other side of the street dragging along my Italian who did not say a word, and followed by the porters with the luggage.

“Paul came back at last, looking as dissatisfied as my companion.

“ ‘That is settled,’ he said, ‘and they will take us in; but there are only two bedrooms. You must settle it as you can.’

“I followed him, rather ashamed of going in with such a strange companion.

“There were two bedrooms separated by a small sitting-room. I ordered a cold supper, and then I turned to the Italian with a perplexed look.

“ ‘We have only been able to get two rooms, so you must choose which you like.’

“She replied with her eternal ‘Che mi fa?’ I thereupon took up her little black wooden box, just like those which servants use, and took it into the room on the right, which I had chosen for her for us. A bit of paper was fastened on to the box, on which was written, ‘Mademoiselle Francesca Rondoli, Genoa.’

“ ‘Your name is Francesca?’ I asked, and she nodded her head, without replying.

“ ‘We shall have supper directly,’ I continued. ‘Meanwhile, I daresay you would like to freshen yourself up a bit!’

“She answered with a ‘mica,’ a phrase which she employed just as frequently as ‘Che mi fa,’ but I went on: ‘It is always pleasant after a journey.’

“Then I suddenly remembered that she had not, perhaps, the necessary objects, for she appeared to me in a very singular position, as if she had just escaped from some disagreeable adventure, and I brought her my dressing-case.

“I put out all the little instruments for cleanliness and comfort which it contained: a nailbrush, a new toothbrush⁠—for I always carry a selection of them about with me⁠—my nail-scissors, a nail-file, and sponges. I uncorked a bottle of eau de cologne, one of lavender-water, and a little bottle of new-mown hay, so that she might have a choice. Then I opened my powder-box, and put out the powder-puff, put my fine towels over the water-jug, and placed a piece of new soap near the basin.

“She watched my movements with a vexed look in her wide-open eyes, without appearing either surprised or pleased by my forethought.

“ ‘Here is all that you require,’ I then said; ‘I will tell you when supper is ready.’

“When I returned to the sitting-room I found that Paul had taken possession of the other room, and had shut himself in, so I sat down to wait.

“A waiter went back and forth, bringing plates and glasses. He laid the table slowly, then put a cold fowl on it, and told me that all was ready.

“I knocked gently at Mademoiselle Rondoli’s door. ‘Come in,’ she said, and when I did so I was struck by a strong, heavy smell of perfumes, as if I were in a hairdresser’s shop.

“The Italian was sitting on her box in an attitude either of thoughtful discontent or absentmindedness. The towel was still folded over the water-jug, which was quite full, and the soap, untouched and dry, was lying beside the empty basin; but one would have thought that the young woman had drunk half of the bottles of scent. The eau de cologne, however, had been spared, as only about a third of it had gone; but to make up for that she had used a surprising amount of lavender-water and new-mown hay. A cloud of violet powder, a vague white mist, seemed still to be floating in the air, from the effects of her over-powdering her face and neck. It seemed to cover her eyelashes, eyebrows, and the hair on her temples like snow, while her cheeks were plastered with it, and layers of it covered her nostrils, the corners of her eyes, and her chin.

“When she got up she exhaled such a strong odour of scent that it almost made me feel faint.

“When we sat down to supper I found that Paul was in a most execrable temper, and I could get nothing out of him but words of blame and irritation, and disagreeable compliments.

“Mademoiselle Francesca ate like an ogre, and as soon as she had finished her meal she threw herself upon the sofa. As for me, I saw the decisive moment approaching for settling how we were to apportion the rooms. I determined to take the bull by the horns, and sitting down by the Italian I gallantly kissed her hand.

“She half opened her tired eyes looked at me, sleepy and discontented.

“ ‘As we have only two bedrooms, will you allow me to share yours with you?’

“ ‘Do just as you like,’ she said. ‘It is all the same to me. Che mi fa?’

“Her indifference vexed me.

“ ‘But you are sure you do not mind my being in your room with you?’ I said.

“ ‘It is all the same to me; do just as you like.’

“ ‘Should you like to go to bed at once?’

“ ‘Yes; I am very sleepy.’

“She got up, yawned, gave Paul her hand, who took it with a furious look, and I lighted her into our room. A disquieting feeling haunted me. ‘Here is all you want,’ I said again.

“This time I took care to pour half the water into the basin, and to put a towel near the soap.

“Then I went back to Paul. As soon as I got into the room, he said, ‘You have got a nice sort of a creature there!’ and I answered, laughing, ‘My dear friend, don’t speak ill of sour grapes,’ and he replied, ill-temperedly:

“ ‘Just take care how this ends, my good fellow.’

“I almost trembled with that feeling of fear which assails us after some suspicious love escapade⁠—that fear which spoils our pleasant meetings, our unexpected caresses, our chance kisses. However, I put a bold face on the matter. ‘At any rate, the girl is no adventuress.’

“But the fellow had me in his power; he had seen the shadow of my anxiety on my face.

“ ‘What do you know about her? You really astonish me. You pick up an Italian woman travelling alone in the train, and she volunteers, with most singular cynicism, to go and be your mistress in any old hotel. You take her with you, and then you declare that she is not a tart! And you persuade yourself that you are not running more risk than if you were to go and spend the night with a woman who had smallpox.’

“He laughed with an unpleasant and angry laugh. I sat down, a prey to uneasiness. What was I to do, for he was right after all? And a struggle began within me, between desire and fear.

“He went on: ‘Do as you like, I have warned you, so do not complain of the consequences.’

“But I saw such ironical gaiety in his eyes, such a delight in his revenge; he made fun of me so good-naturedly, that I did not hesitate any longer. I gave him my hand, and said, ‘Good night. You know the old saying: “A victory without peril is a triumph without glory,” and upon my word, the victory is worth the danger.’

“And with a firm step I went into Francesca’s room.

“I stopped short at the door in surprise and astonishment. She was already asleep, quite naked on the bed. Sleep had overcome her when she had finished undressing, and she was reposing in the charming attitude of one of Titian’s women.

“It seemed as if she had lain down from sheer fatigue in order to take off her stockings, for they were lying on the bed. Then she had thought of something pleasant, no doubt, for she had waited to finish her reverie before moving, and then, closing her eyes, she had lost consciousness. A nightgown, embroidered about the neck such as one buys in cheap, ready-made shops, a beginner’s luxury, was lying on a chair.

“She was charming, young, firm, and fresh.

“What is prettier than a woman asleep? The body with its soft contours, whose every curve is a temptation, whose plump softness stirs the senses, seems to have been created for the repose of the bed. Only when it is lying upon the sheets does one get the full value of that undulating line which curves in at the waist, curves out at the hips and then runs down the charming outline of the leg, ending at the point of the foot. I was on the point of forgetting my friend’s prudent counsels, but suddenly turning to the washstand I saw everything as I had left it, and I sat down, anxious, and a prey to irresolution.

“I remained thus for a long time, not able to make up my mind what to do. Retreat was impossible, and I must either pass the night on a chair, or go to bed myself at my own risk and peril.

“I had no thoughts of sleeping either here or there, for my head was too excited and my eyes too occupied.

“I stirred incessantly, feverish, uncomfortable, enervated. Then I began to reason with myself, certainly with a view to capitulation: ‘If I lie down that does not bind me to anything, and I shall certainly be more comfortable on a mattress than on a chair.’

“I undressed slowly, and then, stepping over the sleeping girl, I stretched myself out against the wall, turning my back on temptation.

“In this position I remained for a long time without going to sleep, when suddenly my neighbour awoke. She opened her eyes, looked astonished, and still discontented; then seeing that she had nothing on, she got up and calmly put on her nightgown with as much indifference as if I had not been present.

“Then⁠ ⁠… I seized the opportunity, but this did not appear to disturb her at all. She immediately went quietly to sleep again, with her head resting on her right arm. And I began to meditate on the weakness and folly of human nature. Then I went to sleep also.

“She got up early, like a woman who is used to work in the morning. She woke me up by doing so, and I watched her through my half-closed eyelids.

“She came and went without hurrying herself, as if she were astonished at having nothing to do. At last she went to the washstand, and in a moment she emptied all the scent that remained in my bottles. She certainly also used some water, but very little.

“When she was quite dressed she sat down on her box again, and holding one knee between her hands, seemed to be thinking.

“Then I pretended to notice her, and said:

“ ‘Good morning, Francesca.’

“Without seeming in at all a better temper than the previous night, she murmured, ‘Good morning.’

“When I asked her whether she had slept well, she nodded ‘Yes,’ and jumping out of bed, I went and kissed her.

“She turned her face toward me like a child who is being kissed against its will; but I took her tenderly in my arms (the wine being poured out, I would have been very stupid not to drink any more of it). Gently I put my lips on her large eyes, which she closed with evident distaste under my kisses on her fresh cheeks and full lips, which she turned away.

“ ‘You don’t seem to like being kissed,’ I said to her.

“ ‘Mica’ was her only answer.

“I sat down on the trunk by her side, and, passing my arm through hers, I said: ‘Mica! mica! mica! in reply to everything. I shall call you Mademoiselle Mica, I think.’

“For the first time I fancied I saw the shadow of a smile on her lips, but it passed by so quickly that I may have been mistaken.

“ ‘But if you never say anything but “Mica” I shall not know what to do to try and please you. Let us see; what shall we do today?’

“She hesitated a moment as if some fancy had flitted through her head, and then she said carelessly: ‘It is all the same to me; whatever you like.’

“ ‘Very well, Mademoiselle Mica, we will get a carriage and go for a drive.’

“ ‘As you please,’ she said.

“Paul was waiting for us in the dining room, looking as bored as third parties generally do in love affairs. I assumed a delighted air, and shook hands with him with triumphant energy.

“ ‘What are you thinking of doing?’ he asked.

“ ‘First of all we will go and see a little of the town, and then we might take a carriage, for a drive in the neighbourhood.’

“We breakfasted in silence and then started on foot to visit the museums. We went through the Spinola Palace, the Doria Palace, the Marcello Durazzo, the Red and White Palaces. Francesca either looked at nothing or merely just glanced carelessly at all the various masterpieces. Paul followed us, growling all sorts of disagreeable things. Then we all three took a silent drive into the country and returned to dinner.

“The next day it was the same thing and the next day again; so on the third Paul said to me: ‘Look here, I am going to leave you; I am not going to stop here for three weeks watching you make love to this creature.’

“I was perplexed and annoyed, for to my great surprise I had become singularly attached to Francesca. A man is but weak and foolish, carried away by the merest trifle, and a coward every time that his senses are excited or mastered. I clung to this unknown girl, silent and dissatisfied as she always was. I liked her somewhat ill-tempered face, the dissatisfied droop of her mouth, the weariness of her look; I liked her fatigued movements, the contemptuous way in which she yielded to my wishes, the very indifference of her caresses. A secret bond, that mysterious bond of animal love, the secret attachment to a possession which does not satiate, bound me to her. I told Paul so, quite frankly. He treated me as if I had been a fool, and then said:

“ ‘Very well, take her with you.’

“But she obstinately refused to leave Genoa, without giving any reason. I besought, I reasoned, I promised, but all was of no avail, and so I stayed on.

“Paul declared that he would go by himself, and went so far as to pack up his portmanteau; but he remained all the same.

“Thus a fortnight passed. Francesca was always silent and irritable, lived beside me rather than with me, responded to all my desires, all my demands, and all my propositions with her perpetual ‘Che mi fa,’ or with her no less perpetual ‘Mica.’

“My friend got more and more furious, but my only answer was, ‘You can go if you are tired of staying. I am not detaining you.’

“Then he called me names, overwhelmed me with reproaches, and exclaimed: ‘Where do you think I can go to now? We had three weeks at our disposal, and here is a fortnight gone! I cannot continue my journey now; and, in any case, I am not going to Venice, Florence, and Rome all by myself. But you will pay for it, and more dearly than you think for, most likely. You are not going to bring a man all the way from Paris in order to shut him up at a hotel in Genoa with an Italian adventuress.’

“When I told him, very calmly, to return to Paris, he exclaimed that he was going to do so the very next day; but the next day he was still there, still in a rage and swearing.

“By this time we began to be known in the streets, through which we wandered from morning till night, those narrow streets without footpaths, which are like an immense stone labyrinth with tomb-like passages. We went through those windy gorges, narrowed between such high walls that the sky is hardly visible. Sometimes French people would turn round astonished at meeting their fellow-countrymen with this bored girl in her loud clothes, and who looked singularly out of place, not to say compromising, beside us.

“She used to walk along, leaning on my arm, without looking at anything. Why did she remain with me, with us, who seemed to give her so little pleasure? Who was she? Where did she come from? What was she doing? Had she any plan or idea? How did she live? As an adventuress, or by chance meetings? I tried in vain to find out and to explain it. The better I knew her the more enigmatical she became. She was not one of those who make a living by, and a profession of, venal love. She rather seemed to me to be a girl of poor family who had been seduced and taken away, and then cast aside and lost. What did she think was going to become of her, or for whom was she waiting? She certainly did not appear to be trying to make a conquest of me, or to get any profit out of me.

“I tried to question her, to speak to her of her childhood and family; but she never gave me an answer. I stayed with her, my heart unfettered and my senses enchained, never wearied of holding this proud and quarrelsome woman in my arms, captivated by my senses, or rather seduced, overcome, by the youthful, healthy, powerful charm which emanated from her sweet-smelling person and from the robust lines of her body.

“Another week passed, and the term of my holiday was drawing to a close, for I had to be back in Paris by July 11. By this time Paul had come to take his part in the adventure, though still grumbling at me, while I invented pleasures, distractions, and excursions to amuse my mistress and my friend; and in order to do this I gave myself a large amount of trouble.

“One day I proposed an excursion to Santa Margarita, a charming little town in the midst of gardens, hidden at the foot of a slope which stretches far into the sea. We all three were following the excellent road which goes along the foot of the mountain. Suddenly Francesca said to me: ‘I shall not be able to go with you tomorrow; I must go and see some of my relatives.’

“That was all; I did not ask her any questions, as I was quite sure she would not answer me.”

“The next morning she got up very early; then as I remained in bed, she sat down at the foot of it, and said in a constrained and hesitating voice:

“ ‘If I do not come back tonight, will you come and fetch me?’

“ ‘Most certainly I shall,’ was my reply. ‘Where must I come to?’

“Then she explained: ‘You must go into Victor Emmanuel Street, down the Passage Falcone, and Saint Raphael Street, and go into the furniture shop at the bottom, in a court, and there you must ask for Mme. Rondoli. That’s where it is.’

“And so she went away, leaving me rather astonished.

“When Paul saw that I was alone he stammered out: ‘Where is Francesca?’ And when I told him what had happened he exclaimed:

“ ‘My dear fellow, we are in luck, let us bolt; as it is, our time is up. Two days, more or less, make no difference. Let us start at once; go and pack up your things. Off we go!’

“But I refused. I could not, as I told him, leave the girl in such a manner, after having lived with her for nearly three weeks. At any rate I ought to say goodbye to her, and make her accept a present; I certainly had no intention of behaving badly to her.

“But he would not listen; he pressed and worried me, but I would not give way.

“I remained indoors for several hours, expecting Francesca’s return, but she did not come. At last, at dinner, Paul said with a triumphant air: ‘She has thrown you over, my dear fellow; it is certainly very funny, very funny.’

“I must acknowledge that I was surprised and rather vexed. He laughed in my face, and made fun of me.

“ ‘It is not exactly a bad way of getting rid of you, though rather primitive. “Just wait for me, I shall be back in a moment.” How long are you going to wait? I should not wonder if you were foolish enough to go and look for her at the address she gave you. “Does Mme. Rondoli live here, please?” I’ll bet that you are longing to go there.’

“ ‘Not in the least,’ I protested, ‘and I assure you that if she does not come back tomorrow morning I shall start by the express at eight o’clock. I shall have waited twenty-four hours, and that is enough; my conscience will be quite clear.’

“I spent an uneasy and unpleasant evening, for I really had at heart a very tender feeling for her. I went to bed at twelve o’clock, and hardly slept at all. I got up at six, called Paul, packed up my things, and two hours later we started for France together.

III

“The next year, at just about the same period, I was seized, just as one is with a periodical fever, with a new desire to go to Italy, and I immediately made up my mind to carry it into effect. There is no doubt that every really well-educated man ought to see Florence, Venice, and Rome. There is the additional advantage of providing many subjects of conversation in society, and of giving one an opportunity for bringing forward artistic generalities which appear profound. This time I went alone, and I arrived at Genoa at the same time as the year before, but without any adventure on the road. I went to the same hotel, and actually happened to have the same room.

“I was scarcely in bed when the recollection of Francesca which, since the evening before, had been floating vaguely through my mind, haunted me with strange persistency.

“Have you ever been obsessed by the thought of a woman, long afterwards, on returning to the place where you loved her and she gave herself to you? It is one of the most powerful and painful sensations I know. It seems as if one could see her enter, smiling and holding out her arms. Her features, elusive yet clear, are before your eyes. She passes, returns and disappears. She tortures you like a nightmare, holds you, fills your heart, and stirs your senses by her unreal presence. She is visible to the eye, her perfume haunts you, the taste of her kisses is on your lips, and the touch of her body caresses your skin. Yet, one knows one is alone, and one is strangely tortured by the phantom one has evoked. A heavy, heartbreaking melancholy invades you, as if you were abandoned forever. Everything looks depressing, filling the heart with a horrible sense of isolation and abandonment. Never return to the house, the room, the woods, the garden, the seat, the town, where you have held in your arms a woman you loved.

“I thought of her nearly the whole night, and by degrees the wish to see her again seized me, a confused desire at first, which gradually grew stronger and more intense. At last I made up my mind to spend the next day in Genoa, to try and find her, and if I should not succeed to take the evening train.

“Early in the morning I set out on my search. I remembered the directions she had given me when she left me, perfectly⁠—Victor-Emmanuel Street, the Passage Falcone, St. Raphael Street, house of the furniture-dealer, at the bottom of the yard in a court.

“I found it without the least difficulty, and I knocked at the door of a somewhat dilapidated-looking dwelling. A fat woman opened it, who must once have been very handsome, but who actually was only very dirty. Although she was too fat, she still bore the lines of majestic beauty; her untidy hair fell over her forehead and shoulders, and one fancied one could see her fat body floating about in an enormous dressing-gown covered with spots of dirt and grease. Round her neck she wore a great gilt necklace, and on her wrists were splendid bracelets of Genoa filigree work.

“In rather a hostile manner she asked me what I wanted, and I replied by requesting her to tell me whether Francesca Rondoli lived there.

“ ‘What do you want with her?’ she asked.

“ ‘I had the pleasure of meeting her last year, and I should like to see her again.’

“The old woman looked at me suspiciously. ‘Where did you meet her?’ she asked.

“ ‘Why, here, in Genoa itself.’

“ ‘What is your name?’

“I hesitated a moment, and then I told her. I had scarcely done so when the Italian raised her arms as if to embrace me. ‘Oh! you are the Frenchman; how glad I am to see you! But what grief you caused the poor child. She waited for you a month; yes, a whole month. At first she thought you would come to fetch her. She wanted to see whether you loved her. If you only knew how she cried when she saw that you were not coming! She cried till she seemed to have no tears left. Then she went to the hotel, but you had gone. She thought that most likely you were travelling in Italy, and that you would return by Genoa to fetch her, as she would not go with you. And she waited more than a month, Monsieur; and she was so unhappy; so unhappy. I am her mother.’

“I really felt a little disconcerted, but I regained my self-possession, and asked: ‘Is she here now?’

“ ‘No, she has gone to Paris with a painter, a delightful man, who loves her very much, and who gives her everything that she wants. Just look at what she sent me; they are very pretty, are they not?’

“And she showed me, with quite southern animation, her heavy bracelets and necklace. ‘I have also,’ she continued, ‘earrings with stones in them, a silk dress, and some rings; but I only wear them on grand occasions. Oh! she is very happy, sir, very happy. She will be so pleased when I tell her you have been here. But pray come in and sit down. You will take something or other, surely?’

“But I refused, as I now wished to get away by the first train; but she took me by the arm and pulled me in, saying:

“ ‘Please, come in; I must tell her that you have been here.’

“I found myself in a small, rather dark room, furnished with only a table and a few chairs.

“She continued: ‘Oh! She is very happy now, very happy. When you met her in the train she was very miserable, for her lover had just left her at Marseilles, and she was coming back, poor child. But she liked you at once, though she was still rather sad, you understand. Now she has all she wants, and she writes and tells me everything that she does. His name is Bellemin, and they say he is a great painter in your country. He met her in the street here, and fell in love with her immediately. But you will take a glass of syrup?⁠—it is very good. Are you quite alone, this year?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘quite alone.’

“I felt an increasing inclination to laugh, as my first disappointment was dispelled by what Mother Rondoli said. I was obliged, however, to drink a glass of her syrup.

“ ‘So you are quite alone?’ she continued. ‘How sorry I am that Francesca is not here now; she would have been company for you all the time you stayed. It is not very amusing to go about all by oneself, and she will be very sorry also.’

“Then, as I was getting up to go, she exclaimed:

“ ‘But would you not like Carlotta to go with you? She knows all the walks very well. She is my second daughter, sir.’

“No doubt she took my look of surprise for consent, for she opened the inner door and called out up the dark stairs which I could not see:

“ ‘Carlotta! Carlotta! come down, quickly, my dear child.’

“I tried to protest, but she would not listen.

“ ‘No; she will be very glad to go with you; she is very nice, and much more cheerful than her sister, and she is a good girl, a very good girl, whom I love very much.’

“I heard the clatter of slippers on the stairs, and a tall, slender, dark girl appeared, also with her hair hanging down, and whose youthful figure showed unmistakably beneath an old dress of her mother.

“The latter at once told her how matters stood.

“ ‘This is Francesca’s Frenchman, you know, the one whom she knew last year. He is quite alone, and has come to look for her, poor fellow; so I told him that you would go with him to keep him company.’

“The girl looked at me with her handsome dark eyes, and said, smiling:

“ ‘I have no objection, if he wishes it.’

“I could not possibly refuse, and merely said: ‘Of course I shall be very glad of your company.’

“Her mother pushed her out. ‘Go and get dressed directly; put on your blue dress and your hat with the flowers, and make haste.’

“⁠—As soon as she had left the room the old woman explained herself: ‘I have two others, but they are much younger. It costs a lot of money to bring up four children. Luckily the eldest is off my hands at present.’

“Then she told all about herself, about her husband, who had been an employee on the railway, but who was dead, and she expatiated on the good qualities of Carlotta, her second girl, who soon returned, dressed, as her sister had been, in a striking, peculiar manner.

“Her mother examined her from head to foot, and, after finding everything right, she said:

“ ‘Now, my children, you can go.’ Then, turning to the girl, she said: ‘Be sure you are back by ten o’clock tonight; you know the door is locked then.’

“ ‘All right, mamma; don’t alarm yourself,’ Carlotta replied.

“She took my arm, and we went wandering about the streets, just as I had done the previous year with her sister.

“We returned to the hotel for lunch, and then I took my new friend to Santa Margarita, just as I had done with her sister the year previously.

“During the whole fortnight which I had at my disposal I took Carlotta to all the places of interest in and about Genoa. She gave me no cause to regret the other.

“She cried when I left her, and the morning of my departure I gave her four bracelets for her mother, besides a substantial token of my affection for herself.

“One of these days I intend to return to Italy, and I cannot help remembering, with a certain amount of uneasiness, mingled with hope, that Mme. Rondoli has two more daughters.”

What the Colonel Thought

“I’m an old man now,” said Colonel Laporte. “I’ve got the gout, and my legs are as stiff as the posts in a fence, but, damme, if a woman, a pretty woman, ordered me to go through the eye of a needle, I believe I’d jump into it like a clown through a hoop. That’s how I shall die; it’s in the blood. I’m a veteran ladies’ man, I am, an old buffer of the old school. The sight of a woman, a pretty woman, stirs me to my boots. I give you my word it does.

“And we’re all like that, gentlemen, we Frenchmen. We remain knights to our dying day, the knights of love and hazard, now that they’ve done away with God, Whose real bodyguard we used to be.

“But no one can take woman from our hearts. She’s there and she’ll stay there. We love her, and we’ll go on loving her; we’ll do any sort of madness for her, so long as France remains on the map of Europe. And even if France is wiped out, there will always be Frenchmen.

“As for me, when a woman, a pretty woman, looks at me, I feel capable of anything. Why, damme, when I feel her eyes, her damned wonderful eyes, peering into me, sending a flame through my veins, I want to do Lord knows what, to fight, to struggle, to smash the furniture, to show that I’m the strongest, bravest, boldest, and most devoted of mankind.

“And I’m not the only one, not by a long way; the whole French army’s just the same, I swear it. From the private up to the general, we all go forward to the end when there’s a woman, a pretty woman, in the case. Remember what Joan of Arc made us do in the old days. Well, I bet you that if a woman, a pretty woman, had taken command of the army the night before Sedan, when Marshal MacMahon was wounded, we’d have crossed the Prussian lines, by God! and drunk our brandy from their cannons.

“We didn’t need a Trochu in Paris, but a St. Geneviève.

“That reminds me of a little story of the war which proves that, in a woman’s presence, we’re capable of anything.

“I was a plain captain in those days, and was commanding a detachment of scouts fighting a rear guard action in the middle of a district overrun by the Prussians. We were cut off and constantly pursued; we were worn out in body and mind, perishing of exhaustion and hunger.

“Well, before the next day we had to reach Barsur-Tain or we were done for, cut off and wiped out. How we had escaped so long I don’t know. We had twelve leagues to march during the night, on empty stomachs, through the snow, which was thick on the ground and still falling. I thought: ‘This is the end; my poor lads will never get through.’

“We had eaten nothing since the previous day. All day long we stayed hidden in a barn, huddled against one another for greater warmth, incapable of motion or speech, sleeping by fits and starts, as a man does when utterly exhausted with fatigue.

“It was dark by five o’clock, with the livid darkness of a snowy day. I shook my men; many refused to rise, unable to move or to stand up, their joints stiff with the cold and so forth.

“In front of us stretched the plain, a perfect swine of a plain, without a scrap of cover, with the snow coming down. It fell and fell, like a curtain, in white flakes, hiding everything under a heavy mantle, frozen, thick and dead, a coverlet of icy wool. It was like the end of the world.

“ ‘Come on, boys. Fall in.’

“They looked at it, the white dust coming down from the sky, and seemed to think: ‘We’ve had enough; as well die here.’

“So I pulled out my revolver, saying:

“ ‘I shoot the first man who funks.’

“And off they went, very slowly, like men whose legs are utterly done for.

“I sent four scouts on in front, three hundred metres ahead; the remainder followed higgledy-piggledy, a confused column, in an order dictated only by the extent of their exhaustion and the length of their steps. I placed the strongest in the rear, with orders to hurry on the laggards with bayonet thrusts⁠ ⁠… in the back.

“The snow buried us alive, so to speak, powdering caps and capes without thawing upon them, making phantoms of us, as though we were the ghosts of soldiers dead of weariness.

“I said to myself: ‘We’ll never get out of this without a miracle.’

“From time to time we halted for a few minutes for the sake of those who could not keep up. Then no sound could be heard but the faint whisper of the snow, the almost inaudible murmur made by the rush and swirl of the falling flakes.

“Some of the men shook themselves, others did not move.

“Then I would order them to continue the march. Up went the rifles on to their shoulders, and with drowsy limbs they plodded on again.

“Suddenly the scouts came in; something was alarming them. They had heard voices in front of us. I sent six men and a sergeant. And I waited.

“Suddenly a sharp cry, a woman’s scream, pierced the heavy silence of the snow, and in a few minutes two prisoners were brought before me, an old man and a girl.

“I questioned them in a low voice. They were fleeing from the Prussians, who had occupied their house that evening, and who were drunk. The father had been afraid for his daughter, and without even telling their servants, they had both escaped in the dark.

“I at once realised that they were people of the middle class, or even better.

“ ‘Come with us,’ I said to them.

“Off we went. As the old man knew the country, he acted as our guide. The snow stopped falling; the stars came out and the cold grew quite terrible. The young girl, who held her father’s arm, walked with tottering steps, in obvious distress. Several times she murmured: ‘I can’t feel my feet any longer,’ and as for me, I suffered worse to see the poor little woman dragging herself so wearily through the snow.

“Suddenly she stopped.

“ ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I’m so tired I can go no further.’

“The old man wanted to carry her, but he could not even lift her off the ground, and with a deep sigh she fainted.

“They formed a circle round her. As for me, I marked time where I stood, not knowing what to do, and unable to make up my mind to abandon the man and his child.

“Then one of my men, a Parisian who had been nicknamed Slim Jim, suddenly said:

“ ‘Come on, you fellows, we must carry the young lady, or damn me if we’re decent Frenchmen.’

“I believe I swore with pure pleasure.

“ ‘By God, that’s good of you, boys; I’ll take my share in it too.’

“The trees of a small wood were faintly visible on the left through the darkness. Several men fell out and soon returned with a bundle of branches intertwined to form a litter.

“ ‘Who’ll lend his cape?’ said Pratique. ‘It’s for a pretty girl, boys.’

“And ten capes fell round his feet. In a second the girl was lying on the warm garments, and lifted on to six shoulders. I was in front on the right, and, by Jove! I was pleased to bear the burden.

“We went off as though we’d had a glass of wine, with more life and fire. I even heard jokes. You see, Frenchmen only need a woman to become electrified.

“The soldiers had almost formed up again in proper ranks, heartened and warmed. An old irregular who was following the litter, awaiting his turn to replace the first of his comrades who fell out, murmured to his neighbour in a tone loud enough for me to overhear:

“ ‘I’m not young any longer, but, damn it all, there’s nothing like the sex for putting courage into a man’s belly.’

“Until three o’clock in the morning we went forward almost without a halt. Then suddenly the scouts doubled back again, and soon the whole detachment was lying down in the snow, a mere vague shadow on the ground.

“I gave orders in a low voice, and behind us I heard the dry metallic crackle of rifles being cocked.

“For out in the middle of the plain something strange was stirring. It looked like an enormous animal moving along, lengthening out like a snake or gathering itself together into a ball, dashing off abruptly, now to the right, now to the left, halting, then starting off again.

“Suddenly this wandering shape approached us, and I saw, coming up at a fast trot, one behind the other, twelve lost Uhlans, seeking the right road. They were now so close that I could plainly hear the loud breathing of the horses, the jingling of their accoutrements, and the creaking of their saddles.

“I cried: ‘Fire!’

“Fifty shots broke the silence of the night. Then four or five more reports rang out, then one all by itself, and when the blinding glare of the blaze of fire had faded, we saw that the twelve men and nine of their horses had fallen. Three animals were galloping wildly away, one of them dragging behind it the body of its rider, hanging from the stirrup by one foot, bumping and bounding furiously.

“Behind me a soldier laughed, a terrible laugh. Another said:

“ ‘That makes a few widows.’

“Perhaps he was married. A third added:

“ ‘It didn’t take long.’

“A head was thrust out from the litter.

“ ‘What is happening?’ asked the girl. ‘Is there fighting?’

“ ‘It’s nothing, mademoiselle,’ I replied. ‘We have just dispatched a dozen Prussians.’

“ ‘Poor wretches!’ she murmured; but as she was cold, she disappeared again under the soldiers’ capes.

“Off we went again. We marched for a long time, but at last the sky grew pale. The snow became bright, luminous, and gleaming, and a line of warm colour appeared in the East.

“A distant voice cried:

“ ‘Who goes there?’

“The whole detachment halted, and I went forward to reassure the sentry. We were arriving in the French lines.

“As my men filed past headquarters, an officer on horseback, to whom I had just told our story, asked in a loud voice, as he saw the litter go by:

“ ‘What have you got in there?’

“A fair, smiling little face, with disordered hair, promptly appeared, and replied:

“ ‘It’s me, monsieur.’

“A laugh went up among the men, and our hearts leaped for pure joy.

“It was then that Pratique, who was marching beside the litter, waved his cap and shouted:

“ ‘Vive la France!’

“And I don’t know why, but I felt quite stirred, I thought the gesture so brave and gallant.

“I felt as though we had just saved the country, had done something which other men would not have done, something simple, something truly patriotic.

“I’ll never forget that little face of hers, and if I were asked for my opinion on the abolition of drums and bugles, I would propose substituting for them a pretty girl in each regiment. It would be better than playing the ‘Marseillaise.’ Good Lord, what a spirit it would put into a private to have a madonna like that, a living madonna, marching beside the colonel.”

He paused for a few seconds, then resumed with an air of conviction, nodding his head:

“Yes, we’re great lovers of women, we Frenchmen.”

Bed No. 29

When Captain Épivent passed in the street all the ladies turned to look at him. He was the perfect type of a handsome hussar officer. He was always on parade, always strutted a little and seemed preoccupied and proud of his leg, his figure, and his moustache. He had superb ones, it is true, a superb moustache, figure and leg. The first-mentioned was blond, very heavy, falling martially from his lip in a beautiful sweep the colour of ripe wheat, carefully turned at the ends, and falling over both sides of his mouth in two powerful sprigs. His waist was thin as if he wore a corset, while a vigorous masculine chest, bulged and arched, spread itself above his waist. His leg was admirable, a gymnastic leg, the leg of a dancer, whose muscular flesh outlined each movement under the clinging cloth of his red trousers.

He walked with muscles taut, with feet and arms apart, and with the slightly swinging gait of the horseman, who knows how to make the most of his limbs and his carriage, and who seems a conqueror in a uniform, but looks commonplace in a mufti.

Like many other officers, Captain Épivent did not look well in civilian clothes. He had no elegance as soon as he was clothed in the grey or black of the shop assistant. But in his proper setting he was a triumph. He had, besides, a handsome face, the nose thin and curved, blue eyes, and a good forehead. He was bald, and he never could understand why his hair had fallen out. He consoled himself with the thought that, with a heavy moustache, a head a little bald was not so bad.

He scorned everybody in general, with a difference in the degrees of his scorn.

In the first place, for him the middle class did not exist. He looked at them as he would look at animals, without according them more of his attention than he would give to sparrows or chickens. Officers, alone, counted in his world; but he did not have the same esteem for all officers. He only respected handsome men; an imposing presence, that true, military quality being first. A soldier was a gay fellow, a devil, created for love and war, a man of brawn and muscle, with hair on his chest, nothing more. He classed the generals of the French army according to their figure, their bearing, and the stern look of their faces. Bourbaki appeared to him the greatest warrior of modern times.

He often laughed at the officers of the line who were short and fat, and puffed while marching. And he had a special scorn for the poor recruits from the École Polytechnique, those thin, little men with spectacles, awkward and unskilful, who looked as appropriate in a uniform as a bull in a china shop, as he often asserted. He was indignant that they should be tolerated in the army, those abortions with the lank limbs, who marched like crabs, did not drink, ate little, and seemed to love equations better than pretty girls.

Captain Épivent himself had constant successes and triumphs with the fair sex.

Every time he took supper in company with a woman, he thought himself certain of finishing the night with her upon the same mattress, and, if unsurmountable obstacles prevented victory that evening, he was sure, at least, that the affair would be “continued in our next.” His comrades did not like him to meet their mistresses, and the merchants in the shops, who had their pretty wives at the counter, knew him, feared him, and hated him desperately. When he passed, the merchants’ wives, in spite of themselves, exchanged glances with him through the glass of the front windows; those looks that avail more than tender words, which contain an appeal and a response, a desire and an avowal. And the husbands, impelled by a sort of instinct, suddenly turned, casting a furious look at the proud, erect silhouette of the officer. And, when the Captain had passed, smiling and content with his impression, the merchants, handling with nervous hands the objects spread out before them, would declare:

“What a big fool! When shall we stop feeding all these good-for-nothings who go clattering their ironmongery through the streets? For my part, I would rather be a butcher than a soldier. Then if there’s blood on my table, it is the blood of beasts, at least. And he is useful, is the butcher; and the knife he carries has not killed men. I do not understand how these murderers are tolerated, walking on the public streets, carrying with them their instruments of death. It is necessary to have them, I suppose, but at least, let them conceal themselves, and not dress up in masquerade, with their red breeches and blue coats. The executioner doesn’t dress himself up, does he?”

The woman, without answering, would shrug her shoulders, while the husband, divining the gesture without seeing it, would cry:

“Anybody must be stupid to watch those fellows parade up and down.”

Nevertheless, Captain Épivent’s reputation for conquests was well established in the whole French army.

Now, in 1868, his regiment, the One Hundred and Second Hussars came into garrison at Rouen.

He soon became known in the town. He came every evening, towards five o’clock, to Boïeldieu Mall, to take his absinthe and coffee at the Comedy; and, before entering the establishment, he would always take a turn upon the promenade, to show his leg, his figure, and his moustaches.

The merchants of Rouen who also promenaded there with their hands behind their backs, preoccupied with business affairs, speaking of the ups and downs of the market, would sometimes throw him a glance and murmur:

“Egad! that’s a handsome fellow!”

But when they knew him, they remarked:

“Look! Captain Épivent! A fine chap, say what you will!”

The women on meeting him had a very queer little movement of the head, a kind of shiver of modesty, as if they felt weak or unclothed in his presence. They would lower their heads a little, with a smile upon their lips, as if they had a desire to be found charming and have a look from him. When he walked with a comrade the comrade never failed to murmur with jealous envy, each time that he saw the same byplay:

“This rascal Épivent has all the luck!”

Among the kept ladies of the town it was a struggle, a race, to see who would carry him off. They all came at five o’clock, the officers’ hour, to Boïeldieu Mall, and dragged their skirts, in couples up and down the length of the walk, while the lieutenants, captains, and majors, two by two, dragged their swords along the ground before entering the café.

One evening the beautiful Irma, the mistress, it was said, of M. Templier-Papon, the rich manufacturer, stopped her carriage in front of the Comedy and, getting out, made a pretence of buying some paper or some visiting cards at M. Paulard’s, the engraver’s, in order to pass before the officers’ tables and cast a look at Captain Épivent, which seemed to say: “When you will,” so clearly that Colonel Prune, who was drinking the green liquor with his lieutenant-colonel, could not help muttering:

“Confound that fellow! He is lucky, that scamp!”

The remark of the Colonel was repeated, and Captain Épivent, moved by this approbation of his superior, passed the next day and many times after that under the windows of the beauty, in full uniform.

She saw him, showed herself, and smiled.

That same evening he was her lover.

They attracted attention, made an exhibition of their attachment, and mutually compromised themselves, both of them proud of their adventure.

Nothing was talked of in town except the amours of the beautiful Irma and the officer. M. Templier-Papon alone was ignorant of their relation.

Captain Épivent beamed with glory; every instant he would say:

“Irma happened to say to me⁠—Irma told me tonight⁠—or, yesterday at dinner Irma said⁠—”

For a whole year they walked about and displayed in Rouen this love like a flag taken from the enemy. He felt his stature increased by this conquest, he was envied, more sure of his future, surer of the decoration so much desired, for the eyes of all were upon him, and it is sufficient to be well in the public eye in order not to be forgotten.

But war was declared, and the Captain’s regiment was one of the first to be sent to the front. Their farewells were lamentable, lasting the whole night long.

Sword, red breeches, cap, and jacket were all overturned from the back of a chair upon the floor; robes, skirts, silk stockings, also fallen down, were spread around and mingled with the uniform abandoned on the carpet; the room upside down as if there had been a battle; Irma, wild, her hair unbound, threw her despairing arms around the officer’s neck, straining him to her; then, leaving him, rolled upon the floor, overturning the furniture, catching the fringes of the armchairs, biting their feet, while the Captain, much moved, but not skilful at consolation, repeated:

“Irma, my little Irma, do not cry so, it is necessary.”

He occasionally wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the tip of his finger. They separated at daybreak. She followed her lover in her carriage as far as the first stopping-place. Then she kissed him before the whole regiment at the moment of separation. People even found this very pretty, worthy, and very romantic; and the comrades pressed the Captain’s hand and said to him:

“You lucky dog. She had a heart, that kid.”

They seemed to see something patriotic in it.

The regiment was sorely proved during the campaign. The Captain conducted himself heroically and finally received the cross of honour. Then, the war ended, he returned to Rouen and the garrison.

Immediately upon his return he asked news of Irma, but no one was able to give him anything exact. Some said she was married to a Prussian major. Others, that she had gone to her parents, who were farmers in the suburbs of Yvetot.

He even sent his orderly to the mayor’s office to consult the registry of deaths. The name of his mistress was not to be found.

He cherished a great sorrow, and was not at pains to conceal it. He even took the enemy to task for his unhappiness, attributing to the Prussians, who had occupied Rouen, the disappearance of the young girl, declaring:

“In the next war, they shall pay well for it, the beggars!”

Then, one morning as he entered the mess at lunch time, an old porter, in a blouse and oilcloth cap, gave him a letter, which he opened and read:

“My darling: I am in hospital, very ill, very ill. Will you not come and see me? It would give me so much pleasure!

“Irma.”

The Captain grew pale and, moved with pity, declared:

“It’s too bad! The poor girl! I will go there as soon as I have had lunch.”

And during the whole time at the table, he told the officers that Irma was in hospital, and that he, by God, was going to get her out. It must be the fault of those unspeakable Prussians. She had doubtless found herself alone without a sou, broken down with misery, for they must certainly have stolen her furniture.

“Ah! the dirty swine!”

Everybody listened with great excitement. Scarcely had he slipped his napkin in his wooden ring, when he rose and, taking his sword from the peg, and thrusting out his chest to make his waist thin, hooked his belt and set out with hurried step to the city hospital.

But entrance to the hospital building, where he expected to enter immediately, was sharply refused him, and he was obliged to find his Colonel and explain his case to him in order to get a word from him to the director.

This man, after having kept the handsome Captain waiting some time in his anteroom, gave him an authorized pass and a cold and disapproving greeting.

Inside the door he felt himself constrained in this asylum of misery and suffering and death. A boy in the service showed him the way. He walked upon tiptoe, that he might make no noise, through the long corridors, where floated a musty odour of illness and medicines. From time to time a murmur of voices alone disturbed the silence of the hospital.

At times, through an open door, the Captain perceived a dormitory, with its rows of beds whose clothes were raised by the forms of bodies. Some convalescents were seated in chairs at the foot of their beds, sewing, and clothed in the uniform grey cloth dress with white cap.

His guide suddenly stopped before one of these corridors filled with patients. He read on the door, in large letters: “Syphilis.” The Captain started; then he felt that he was blushing. An attendant was preparing some medicine at a little wooden table at the door.

“I will show you,” said she, “it is bed 29.”

And she walked ahead of the officer. She indicated a bed: “There it is.”

There was nothing to be seen but a bundle of bedclothes. Even the head was concealed under the coverlet. Everywhere faces were to be seen on the beds, pale faces, astonished at the sight of a uniform, the faces of women, young women and old women, but all seemingly plain and common in the humble, regulation garb.

The Captain, very much disturbed, carrying his sword in one hand and his cap in the other, murmured:

“Irma.”

There was a sudden motion in the bed and the face of his mistress appeared, but so changed, so tired, so thin, that he would scarcely have known it.

She gasped, overcome by emotion, and then said:

“Albert!⁠—Albert! It is you! Oh! I am so glad⁠—so glad.” And the tears ran down her cheeks.

The attendant brought a chair. “Won’t you sit down, sir?” she said.

He sat down and looked at the pale, wretched countenance, so little like that of the beautiful, fresh girl he had left. Finally he said:

“What is the matter with you?”

She replied, weeping: “You know well enough, it is written on the door.” And she hid her eyes under the edge of the bedclothes.

Dismayed and ashamed, he continued: “How did you catch it, my poor girl?”

She answered: “It was those beasts of Prussians. They took me almost by force and then poisoned me.”

He found nothing to add. He looked at her and kept turning his cap around on his knees.

The other patients gazed at him, and he believed that he detected an odour of putrefaction, of contaminated flesh, in this corridor full of girls tainted with this ignoble, terrible malady.

She murmured: “I do not believe that I shall recover. The doctor says it is very serious.”

Then she noticed the cross upon the officer’s breast and cried:

“Oh! you have been decorated; now I am happy. How contented I am! If I could only embrace you!”

A shiver of fear and disgust ran through the Captain at the thought of this kiss. He had a desire to make his escape, to be in the clear air and never see this woman again. He remained, however, not knowing how to say goodbye, and finally stammered:

“You took no care of yourself, then.”

A flame flashed in Irma’s eyes: “No, the desire to avenge myself came to me when I should have broken away from it. And I poisoned them too, all, all that I could. As long as there were any of them in Rouen, I had no thought for myself.”

He declared, in a constrained tone in which there was a little note of gaiety: “So far, you have done some good.”

Getting animated, and her cheekbones getting red, she answered:

“Oh! yes, there will more than one of them die from my fault. I tell you I had my revenge.”

Again he said: “So much the better.” Then rising, he added: “Well, I must leave you now, because I have only time to meet my appointment with the Colonel⁠—”

She showed much emotion, crying out: “Already! You leave me already! And you have scarcely arrived!”

But he wished to go at any cost, and said:

“But you see that I came immediately; and it is absolutely necessary for me to be at the Colonel’s at four o’clock.”

She asked: “Is it still Colonel Prune?”

“Still Colonel Prune. He was twice wounded.”

She continued: “And your comrades? Have some of them been killed?”

“Yes. Saint-Timon, Savagnat, Poli, Saprival, Robert, de Courson, Pasafil, Santal, Caravan, and Poivrin are dead. Sahel had an arm carried off and Courvoisin a leg crushed. Paquet lost his right eye.”

She listened, much interested. Then suddenly she stammered:

“Will you kiss me, say, before you leave me? Madame Langlois is not there.”

And, in spite of the disgust which came to his lips, he placed them against the wan forehead, while she, throwing her arms around him, scattered random kisses over his blue jacket.

Then she said: “You will come again? Say that you will come again⁠—Promise me that you will.”

“Yes, I promise.”

“When, now. Can you come on Thursday?”

“Yes, Thursday⁠—”

“Thursday at two o’clock?”

“Yes, Thursday at two o’clock.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Adieu, my dearie.”

“Adieu.”

And he went away, confused by the staring glances of the dormitory, bending his tall form to make himself seem smaller. And when he was in the street he took a long breath.

That evening his comrades asked him: “Well, how is Irma?”

He answered in a constrained voice: “She has a trouble with the lungs; she is very ill.”

But a little lieutenant, scenting something from his manner, went to headquarters, and, the next day, when the Captain went into mess, he was welcomed by a volley of laughter and jokes. They had got vengeance at last.

It was learned further that Irma had led a very gay life with the Prussian General Staff, that she had gone through the country on horseback with the colonel of the Blue Hussars, and many others, and that, in Rouen, she was no longer called anything but the “Prussians’ woman.”

For eight days the Captain was the victim of his regiment. He received by post and by messenger, notes from those who can reveal the past and the future, circulars of specialists, and medicines, the nature of which was inscribed on the package.

And the Colonel, catching the drift of it, said in a severe tone:

“Well, the Captain had a pretty acquaintance! I send him my compliments.”

After some twelve days he was called by another letter from Irma. He tore it up in a rage, and made no reply to it.

A week later she wrote him again that she was very ill and wished to see him to say farewell.

He did not answer.

After some days more he received a note from a chaplain of the hospital.

“The girl Irma Pavolin is on her deathbed and begs you to come.”

He dared not refuse to follow the chaplain, but he entered the hospital with a heart swelling with wicked anger, with wounded vanity, and humiliation.

He found her scarcely changed at all and thought that she had deceived him. “What do you want with me?” he asked.

“I wish to say farewell. It appears that I am near the end.”

He did not believe it.

“Listen,” said he, “you have made me the laughingstock of the regiment, and I do not wish it to continue.”

She asked: “What have I done?”

He was irritated at not knowing how to answer. But he said:

“Don’t imagine I am coming back here to be joked by everybody on your account.”

She looked at him with languid eyes, where shone a pale light of anger, and answered:

“What have I done to you? I have not been nice to you, perhaps! Is it because I have sometimes asked for something? But for you, I would have remained with M. Templier-Papon, and would not have found myself here today. No, you see, if anyone has reproaches to make it is not you.”

He answered in a clear tone: “I have not made reproaches, but I cannot continue to come to see you, because your conduct with the Prussians has been the shame of the town.”

She fell back suddenly in the bed, as she replied:

“My conduct with the Prussians? But when I tell you that they took me, and when I tell you that if I took no thought of myself, it was because I wished to poison them! If I had wished to cure myself, it would not have been so difficult, I can tell you! But I wished to kill them, and I have killed them, come now! I have killed them!”

He remained standing: “In any case,” said he, “it was a shame.”

She seemed to choke, and then replied:

“Why is it a shame for me to cause them to die and try to exterminate them, tell me? You did not talk that way when you used to come to my house in the Rue Jeanne d’Arc. Ah! it is a shame! You have not done so much, with your cross of honour! I deserve more merit than you, do you understand, more than you, for I have killed more Prussians than you!”

He stood dazed before her, trembling with indignation. He stammered: “Be still⁠—you must⁠—be still⁠—because those things⁠—I cannot allow⁠—anyone to touch upon⁠—”

But she was not listening: “What harm have you done the Prussians? Would it ever have happened if you had kept them from coming to Rouen? Tell me! It is you who should stop and listen. And I have done more harm than you, I, yes, more harm to them than you, and I am going to die for it, while you are singing songs and making yourself fine to inveigle women⁠—”

Upon each bed a head was raised and all eyes looked at this man in uniform, who stammered again:

“You must be still⁠—more quiet⁠—you know⁠—”

But she would not be quiet. She cried out:

“Ah! yes, you are a pretty poser! I know you well. I know you. And I tell you that I have done them more harm than you⁠—I⁠—and that I have killed more than all your regiment together⁠—come now, you coward.”

He went away, in fact he fled, stretching his long legs as he passed between the two rows of beds where the syphilitic patients were becoming excited. And he heard the gasping, hissing voice of Irma pursuing him:

“More than you⁠—yes⁠—I have killed more than you⁠—”

He tumbled down the staircase four steps at a time, ran off and shut himself up in his room.

The next day he heard that she was dead.

Nerves

The diners slowly entered the big hotel dining room and took their places. The waiters refrained from hurrying, so as to give the latecomers a chance, and avoid the trouble of handing the dishes round a second time. The old bathers, the habitués, whose season was almost over, looked intently at the door whenever it opened, to see what new faces might appear.

That is the chief amusement of watering-places. One goes to dinner to inspect each day’s new arrivals, to guess what they are, what they do and what they think. We all have a vague wish to meet pleasant people, to make agreeable acquaintances, even to meet with a love adventure. In this jostling life, neighbours, strangers, assume considerable importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy awaits its opportunity, and the desire to make friends is always alert.

We cherish dislikes for a week and friendship for a month; people are seen with different eyes when viewed through the medium of a meeting at a watering-place. After an hour’s chat in the evening after dinner, under the trees of the park where the healing spring bubbles, superior intelligence and outstanding merits are suddenly discovered in human beings, but a month later we have completely forgotten the new friends we found so charming at the first meeting.

Permanent and serious ties are also formed there sooner than elsewhere. You meet every day and soon get to know one another, and growing affection is mingled with the pleasure and unrestraint of long-standing intimacy. You never forget the sweetness and compassion of early friendship, the first conversations which end in the discovery of a soul, the first glances charged with questions and replies, and secret thoughts not yet uttered by human lips, or the first heartfelt confidence, the delightful feeling of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in return.

And the sadness of watering-places, the monotony of days all alike, make this blossoming of affection all the more complete.

Well, that evening, as on every other evening, we were waiting for the arrival of newcomers.

Only two arrived, a man and woman⁠—father and daughter⁠—but they looked very unusual. They immediately reminded me of some of Edgar Poe’s characters; and yet they had a charm, the charm of unhappiness; and I imagined them as the victims of fate. The man was tall and thin, rather bent, with hair that was too white for his age; his bearing and his person betrayed the grave, austere manners peculiar to Protestants. The daughter, aged about twenty-four or five, was short, very thin, very pale, and seemed worn out, tired, and overwrought. Occasionally you meet people who seem too weak for the tasks and needs of daily life, too weak to move about, to walk, to do any of the daily round. The young thing was rather pretty, with a transparent, spiritual beauty. She ate extremely slowly as if she could hardly move her arms.

It was surely she who had come to take the waters.

They sat facing me, on the other side of the table, and I noticed at once that the father had a very curious nervous contraction. Every time he wanted to reach anything, his hand made a rapid hook-like movement, a kind of wild zigzag, before it could get hold of what it wanted. After a few minutes this twitching tired me to such an extent that I turned my head away so as not to see it.

I also noticed that the young girl kept a glove on her left hand, during meals.

After dinner I went for a stroll in the grounds of the bathing establishment. We were in the little Auvergne village of Châtel-Guyon, hidden in a gorge at the foot of the high range from which so many boiling springs flow, arising from the deep bed of extinct volcanoes. Over there, above our heads, the cones, extinct craters, raised their stunted heads above the rest of the long mountainous chain, for Châtel-Guyon lies at the beginning of the land of the Dôme.

Farther away lies the country of the peaks, and farther still the country of the Plombs.

The Puy-de-Dôme is the highest of the volcanic ones, the Pic of Sancy the highest of the rocky peaks, and the Plomb de Cantal is the highest point of the gigantic mass of Cantal.

It was a very warm evening. I was walking up and down the shady raised path that overlooked the grounds and listening to the music of the casino when I caught sight of the father and daughter slowly coming in my direction. I bowed as one bows to one’s hotel companions at a watering-place; and the man, stopping, asked me:

“Could you suggest a short walk, sir, pleasant and, if possible, not hilly? Forgive me for bothering you.”

I offered to take them to the valley through which the little river flows, a deep valley forming a narrow gorge between two steep, craggy, wooded slopes. They accepted my offer.

And, of course, we talked of the virtue of the waters.

“Oh,” he said, “my daughter has a curious illness whose origin is a mystery. She suffers from unaccountable nervous attacks. Sometimes she is supposed to be suffering from heart disease, sometimes from a liver attack, and sometimes from disease of the spine. Now this complicated malady with its numerous forms and numerous modes of attack, is placed in the stomach, the great centre and great regulator of the body. That’s why we are here. For my part, I think it is nervous trouble. In any case, it is very sad.”

Immediately I remembered the violent twitching of his hand and asked him:

“But is it not due to heredity? Are you not suffering from your nerves?”

He replied quietly: “Me?⁠ ⁠… Certainly not⁠ ⁠… my nerves have always been very steady.⁠ ⁠…”

Then suddenly, after a pause, he continued:

“Ah! you mean the contraction of my hand every time I want to take hold of anything? That is the result of a terrible experience I had. Just imagine, this child has been buried alive!”

I could only utter an “ah,” full of surprise and emotion.

He continued:

“This is the story, a quite simple one. For some time Juliette had suffered from severe heart attacks. We believed that her heart was diseased, and were prepared for the worst.

“One day she was carried into the house cold, lifeless, dead. She had fallen unconscious in the garden. The doctor certified that life was extinct. I kept watch for two nights and a day; with my own hands I laid her in the coffin which I accompanied to the cemetery, where it was placed in the family vault, in Lorraine in the depth of the country.

“It had been my wish to have her buried with her jewellery, bracelets, necklaces, rings⁠—all of the presents I had given her⁠—and dressed in her first ball dress.

“You may easily imagine my state of mind when I got back home. She was the only one left, for my wife had been dead for many years. Half mad, completely exhausted, I went up to my room and sank into an easy-chair, incapable of thought, too weak to move. I was nothing but a suffering, vibrating machine, a thing that had been flayed alive; my soul was like an open wound.

“My old valet, Prosper, who had helped to lay Juliette in her coffin, and dress her for her last sleep, silently entered the room and asked:

“ ‘Will Monsieur have something?’

“I shook my head.

“ ‘Monsieur is wrong. Something will happen to Monsieur if he does not take care. Will Monsieur allow me to put him to bed?’

“I answered: ‘No, leave me alone,’ and he retired.

“The hours slipped by unperceived. Oh! What a terrible night! It was cold, the fire had died out in the huge grate, and the wind, the winter wind, frozen and laden with ice, beat against the windowpanes with a fiendish regularity.

“The hours slipped by unperceived. There I was, unable to sleep, broken, crushed, with eyes wide open, legs outstretched, body limp and inanimate, and my mind stupefied. Suddenly the big front door bell rang. The start I gave made the chair creak under me. The solemn, heavy sound rang through the empty building as through a vault. I turned round to see what time it was and found it was two o’clock. Who could possibly be coming at that time?

“Impatiently the bell rang again twice. No doubt the servants were afraid to get up. I took a candle, went downstairs and was going to ask: ‘Who’s there?’ but felt ashamed of such weakness and slowly drew the heavy bolts. My heart was beating rapidly, I was afraid. I opened the door abruptly and distinguished a white figure standing in the darkness, rather like a phantom.

“I drew back, paralysed with anguish, stammering:

“ ‘Who⁠—who⁠—who are you?’

“A voice replied: ‘It is I, father.’

“It was my daughter.

“I really thought I must be mad, and I retreated backward before the advancing spectre: I moved away, making a sign with my hand as if to drive the phantom away, that peculiar gesture which you have already noticed and which I have never got rid of.

“ ‘Don’t be frightened, father; I was not dead,’ the apparition said. ‘Somebody tried to steal my rings and cut off one of my fingers; the blood began to flow and that brought me to life again.’ And then I saw that she was covered with blood.

“I fell on my knees, choking with sobs and panting for breath.

“When I had regained a little self-control, though I was still too distraught to realise the terrible happiness that had befallen me, I made her go up to my room, put her in the easy-chair, and pulled the bell violently for Prosper to light the fire, get something to drink, and summon assistance.

“The man entered, stared at my daughter, gasped with alarm and horror, and dropped dead on the ground.

“It was he who had opened the vault, who had mutilated and then left my child, unable to destroy the traces of his theft. He had not even taken the trouble to replace the coffin in its niche, feeling quite convinced that I would not suspect him in whom I trusted absolutely.

“You see, sir, what an unhappy couple we are.”

He was silent. Night had fallen, enveloping the little desolate mournful valley in its gloom, and a kind of mysterious dread came over me at being in the company of these strange beings: the dead returned from the grave, and the father with his alarming gestures.

What could I say? I murmured:

“What a horrible thing!”

Then, after a moment’s silence, I added: “Let us go back, I think it’s rather cold.” And we returned to the hotel.

Confessing

The noon sun poured fiercely down upon the fields. They stretched in undulating folds between the clumps of trees that marked each farmhouse; the different crops, ripe rye and yellowing wheat, pale-green oats, dark-green clover, spread a vast striped cloak, soft and rippling, over the naked body of the earth.

In the distance, on the crest of a slope, was an endless line of cows, ranked like soldiers, some lying down, others standing, their large eyes blinking in the burning light, chewing the cud and grazing on a field of clover as broad as a lake.

Two women, mother and daughter, were walking with a swinging step, one behind the other, towards this regiment of cattle. Each carried two zinc pails, slung outwards from the body on a hoop from a cask; at each step the metal sent out a dazzling white flash under the sun that struck full upon it.

The women did not speak. They were on their way to milk the cows. When they arrive, they set down one of their pails and approach the first two cows, making them stand up with a kick in the ribs from wooden-shod feet. The beast rises slowly, first on its forelegs, then with more difficulty raises its large hind quarters, which seem to be weighted down by the enormous udder of livid pendulous flesh.

The two Malivoires, mother and daughter, kneeling beneath the animal’s belly, tug with a swift movement of their hands at the swollen teat, which at each squeeze sends a slender jet of milk into the pail. The yellowish froth mounts to the brim, and the women go from cow to cow until they reach the end of the long line.

As soon as they finish milking a beast, they change its position, giving it a fresh patch of grass on which to graze.

Then they start on their way home, more slowly now, weighed down by the load of milk, the mother in front, the daughter behind.

Abruptly the latter halts, sets down her burden, sits down, and begins to cry.

Madame Malivoire, missing the sound of steps behind her, turns round and is quite amazed.

“What’s the matter with you?” she said.

Her daughter Céleste, a tall girl with flaming red hair and flaming cheeks, flecked with freckles as though sparks of fire had fallen upon her face one day as she worked in the sun, murmurs, moaning softly, like a beaten child:

“I can’t carry the milk any further.”

Her mother looked at her suspiciously.

“What’s the matter with you?” she repeated.

“It drags too heavy, I can’t,” replied Céleste, who had collapsed and was lying on the ground between the two pails, hiding her eyes in her apron.

“What’s the matter with you, then?” said her mother for the third time. The girl moaned:

“I guess there’s a baby on the way.” And she broke into sobs.

The old woman now in her turn set down her load, so amazed that she could find nothing to say. At last she stammered:

“You⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠… you’re going to have a baby, you clod! How can that be?”

The Malivoires were prosperous farmers, wealthy and of a certain position, widely respected, good business folk, of some importance in the district.

“I guess I am, all the same,” faltered Céleste.

The frightened mother looked at the weeping girl grovelling at her feet. After a few seconds she cried:

“You’re going to have a baby! A baby! Where did you get it, you slut?”

Céleste, shaken with emotion, murmured:

“I guess it was in Polyte’s coach.”

The old woman tried to understand, tried to imagine, to realise who could have brought this misfortune upon her daughter. If the lad was well off and of decent position, an arrangement might be come to. It wasn’t so bad, yet. Céleste was not the first to be in the same way, but it was annoying all the same, seeing their position and the way people talked.

“And who was it, you slut?” she repeated.

Céleste, resolved to make a clean breast of it, stammered:

“I guess it was Polyte.”

At that Madame Malivoire, mad with rage, rushed upon her daughter and began to beat her with such fury that her hat fell off in the effort.

With great blows of the fist she struck her on the head, on the back, all over her body; Céleste, prostrate between the two pails, which afforded her some slight protection, shielded just her face with her hands.

All the cows, disturbed, had stopped grazing and turned round, staring with their great eyes. The last one mooed, stretching out its muzzle towards the women.

After beating her daughter till she was out of breath, Madame Malivoire stopped, exhausted; her spirits reviving a little, she tried to get a thorough understanding of the situation.

“⁠—Polyte! Lord save us, it’s not possible! How could you, with a carrier? You must have lost your wits. He must have played you a trick, the good-for-nothing!”

Céleste, still prostrate, murmured in the dust:

“I didn’t pay my fare!”

And the old Norman woman understood.

Every week, on Wednesday and on Saturday, Céleste went to town with the farm produce, poultry, cream, and eggs.

She started at seven with her two huge baskets on her arm, the dairy produce in one, the chickens in the other, and went to the main road to wait for the coach to Yvetot.

She set down her wares and sat in the ditch, while the chickens with their short pointed beaks and the ducks with their broad flat bills thrust their heads between the wicker bars and looked about them with their round, stupid, surprised eyes.

Soon the bus, a sort of yellow box with a black leather cap on the top, came up, jerking and quivering with the trotting of the old white horse.

Polyte the coachman, a big jolly fellow, stout though still young, and so burnt up by sun and wind, soaked by rain, and coloured with brandy that his face and neck were brick-red, cracked his whip and shouted from the distance:

“Morning, Mam’zelle Céleste. In good health, I hope?”

She gave him her baskets, one after the other, which he stowed in the boot; then she got in, lifting her leg high up to reach the step, and exposing a sturdy leg clad in a blue stocking.

Every time Polyte repeated the same joke: “Clumsy; it’s not got any thinner.”

She laughed, thinking it funny.

Then he uttered a “Gee up, old girl!” which started off the thin horse. Then Céleste, reaching for her purse in the depths of her pocket, slowly took out fivepence, threepence for herself and twopence for the baskets, and handed them to Polyte over his shoulder.

He took them, saying:

“Aren’t we going to have our little bit of sport today?”

And he laughed heartily, turning round towards her so as to stare at her at his ease.

She found it a big expense, the half-franc for a journey of two miles. And when she had no coppers she felt it still more keenly; it was hard to make up her mind to part with a silver coin. One day, as she was paying, she asked:

“From a good customer like me you oughtn’t to take more than threepence.”

He burst out laughing.

“Threepence, my beauty; why, you’re worth more than that.”

She insisted on the point.

“But you make a good two francs a month out of me.”

He whipped up his horse and exclaimed:

“Look here, I’m an obliging fellow! We’ll call it quits for a bit of sport.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with an air of innocence.

He was so amused that he laughed till he coughed.

“A bit of sport is a bit of sport, damn it; a game for a lad and a lass, a dance for two without music.”

She understood, blushed, and declared:

“I don’t care for that sort of game, Monsieur Polyte.”

But he was in no way abashed, and repeated, with growing merriment:

“You’ll come to it some day, my beauty, a bit of sport for a lad and a lass!”

And since that day he had taken to asking her, each time that she paid her fare:

“Aren’t we going to have our bit of sport today?”

She, too, joked about it by this time, and replied:

“Not today, Monsieur Polyte, but Saturday, for certain!”

And amid peals of laughter he answered:

“Saturday then, my beauty.”

But inwardly she calculated that, during the two years the affair had been going on, she had paid Polyte forty-eight whole francs, and in the country forty-eight francs is not a sum which can be picked up on the roadside; she also calculated that in two more years she would have paid nearly a hundred francs.

To such purpose she meditated that, one spring day as they jogged on alone, when he made his customary inquiry: “Aren’t we going to have our bit of sport yet?” she replied:

“Yes, if you like, Monsieur Polyte.”

He was not at all surprised, and clambered over the back of his seat, murmuring with a complacent air:

“Come along, then. I knew you’d come to it some day.”

The old white horse trotted so gently that she seemed to be dancing upon the same spot, deaf to the voice which cried at intervals, from the depths of the vehicle: “Gee up, old girl! Gee up, then!”

Three months later Céleste discovered that she was going to have a child.

All this she had told her mother in a tearful voice. Pale with fury, the old woman asked:

“Well, what did it cost?”

“Four months; that makes eight francs, doesn’t it?” replied Céleste.

At that the peasant woman’s fury was utterly unleashed, and, falling once more upon her daughter, she beat her a second time until she was out of breath. Then she rose and said:

“Have you told him about the baby?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why haven’t you told him?”

“Because very likely he’d have made me pay for all the free rides!”

The old woman pondered awhile, then picked up her milk pails.

“Come on, get up, and try to walk home,” she said, and, after a pause, continued:

“And don’t tell him as long as he doesn’t notice anything, and we’ll make six or eight months’ fares out of him.”

And Céleste, who had risen, still crying, dishevelled and swollen round the eyes, started off again with dragging steps, murmuring:

“Of course I won’t say a word.”

Fear

The train rushed through the shadows.

I was alone, facing an old gentleman who was looking out of the window. There was a strong smell of disinfectant in this P.L.M. carriage, which must have come from Marseilles.

It was a moonless, airless, burning night. There were no stars to be seen, and the wind of the leaping train blew in our faces, warm, soft, oppressive and stifling.

We had left Paris three hours before, and we were approaching the heart of France, without catching a glimpse of the country we were crossing.

All at once a fantastic apparition rushed into sight. There was a wood, and a big fire lit there, and two men standing round it.

We saw it for an instant: they looked like two tramps, in rags, reddened by the glare from the fire, with their bearded faces turned towards us, and all round them, like the setting of a play, rose the green trees; they were a bright and shining green, the vivid light reflected from the flames struck across the trunks, and the thick leafage was barred and stabbed and splashed by the light spreading through it.

Then the darkness swept back again.

It certainly was the strangest of visions. What were those two wanderers doing in that forest? Why a fire on this suffocating night?

My neighbour took out his watch and said:

“It is exactly midnight, sir: we have just seen a strange thing.”

I agreed; we fell into conversation and tried to imagine what these persons could be: criminals burning evidence or sorcerers preparing a philtre? You don’t light a fire in a forest at midnight, and in the height of summer, to boil soup. So what were they doing? We could not reach any likely explanation.

And my neighbour began to talk. He was an old man, whose profession I found it impossible to guess. He was certainly an eccentric, highly cultured, and he seemed perhaps a little mad.

But is it always possible to say who are the wise and who are the fools in this life where reason is often called stupidity and folly genius?

He said:

“I am glad to have seen that. For a brief space of time I experienced a forgotten sensation.

“How disturbing the world must have been in the old days when it was full of mystery!

“With each veil lifted from the unknown world, the human imagination is laid waste a little farther. You, sir, don’t feel that the night is very empty and filled with a tiresomely commonplace darkness, since it was robbed of its apparitions.

“ ‘No more fantasy,’ they say, ‘no more strange beliefs, all the inexplicable is explicable. The supernatural sinks like a lake emptied by a canal; day by day science narrows the boundaries of the marvellous.’

“I, sir, I belong to the old race, to those who love to believe. I belong to the old simple race that is used to being baffled, used to not investigating and to not knowing. That delights in being surrounded by mysteries and shrinks from the simple and brutal truth.

“Yes, sir, we have laid waste the imagination by suppressing the invisible. I see our earth today as a forsaken world, empty and bare. The beliefs that flung a veil of poetry over it are gone.

“How I should like⁠—when I go out at night⁠—to shiver with the mortal terror that makes old women cross themselves when they pass the graveyard wall and the last few superstitious folk run before the weird wandering lights and the strange mists from the marshes! How I should like to believe in some vague terrifying thing that I thought I felt slipping past me in the darkness!

“How sombre and terrible the shadows of evening must have been in the old days, when they were full of unknown fabulous beings, evil wandering spirits who took unforeseen shapes and froze the heart with dread! Their occult power was quite beyond the grasp of our minds and they drew near with inevitable feet.

“When the supernatural disappeared, true fear disappeared from the earth too, for we are truly afraid only of what we do not understand. Visible dangers can move, disturb, terrify. But what is that compared with the overwhelming terror that fills your mind when you expect to meet a wandering ghost, or suffer the clinging arms of a dead man, or see running on you one of those frightful beasts invented by man’s fear? The dark seems light to me, now that it is no longer haunted.

“And the proof of all this is that if we suddenly found ourselves alone in that wood, we should be pursued by the vision of the two strange beings who have just appeared to us in the glare of their fire, rather than by dread of any real danger at all.

“We are truly afraid,” he repeated, “only of what we do not understand.”

A sudden memory woke in my mind, the memory of a story told us one Sunday by Tourgeniev, in Gustave Flaubert’s house.

I don’t know whether he had written it in any of his books.

No one was more subtly able to thrill us with a suggestion of the veiled unknown world than the great Russian storyteller, or to reveal⁠—in the half-light of a strange tale⁠—uncertain, uncertain, disturbing, threatening things.

In his books we are sharply aware of that vague fear of the Invisible, the fear of the unknown thing behind the wall, behind the door, behind the external world. Perilous gleams of light break on us, as we read, revealing just enough to add to our mortal fear.

He seems sometimes to be showing us the inner meaning of strange coincidences, the unexpected connection between circumstances that were apparently fortuitous and really guided by a hidden malicious will. In his books we can imagine we feel an imperceptible hand guiding us through life in a mysterious way, as through a shifting dream whose meaning we never grasp.

He does not rush boldly into the supernatural world like Edgar Poe or Hoffmann, he tells simple stories and a sense of something a little uncertain and a little uneasy creeps somehow into them.

That day he used those very words: “We are truly afraid only of what we do not understand.”

Arms hanging down, legs stretched out and relaxed, hair quite white, he was sitting or rather lounging in a large armchair, drowned in that flowing tide of beard and silvery hair that gave him the air of an Eternal Father or a River God from Ovid.

He spoke slowly, with a certain indolence which lent a charm to his phrases, and a rather hesitating and awkward manner of speaking which emphasised the vivid rightness of his words. His wide pale eyes, like the eyes of a child, reflected all the changing fancies of his mind. This is what he told us:

He was hunting, as a young man, in a Russian forest. He had tramped all day, and towards the end of the afternoon he reached the edge of a quiet river.

It ran under the trees, and among the trees, filled with floating grasses, deep, cold and clear.

An overmastering desire seized the hunter to fling himself into this transparent water. He stripped and dived into the stream. He was a very tall and a very strong youth, active, and a splendid swimmer.

He let himself float gently in great content of mind, grasses and roots brushed past him and tendrils of creeping plants trailed lightly over his skin, thrilling him.

Suddenly a hand touched his shoulder.

He turned round in startled wonder and saw a frightful creature staring hungrily at him.

It was like a woman or a monkey. Its vast wrinkled grimacing face smiled at him. Two nameless things, which must have been two breasts, floated in front of it, and its mass of tangled hair, burnt by the sun, hung round its face and fell down its back.

Tourgeniev felt a piercing and appalling fear, the icy fear of the supernatural.

Without pausing to reflect, without thinking or understanding, he began to swim frantically towards the bank. But the monster swam quicker still, and touched his neck, his back and his legs with little cacklings of delight. Mad with terror, the young man reached the bank at last, and tore at full speed through the wood, with never a thought of recovering his clothes and his gun.

The frightful creature followed him, running as quickly as he did and growling all the time.

Spent and sick with fear, the fugitive was ready to drop to the ground when a boy who was watching his goats ran up, armed with a whip; he laid it about the fearsome human beast who ran away howling with grief. And Tourgeniev saw her disappear among the leaves of the trees, like a female gorilla.

It was a madwoman, who had lived in this wood for thirty years, on the charity of the shepherds, and who spent half her days swimming in the river.

The great Russian writer added: “I have never felt such fear in my life, because I could not imagine what this monster could be.”

I related this adventure to my companion, and he replied:

“Yes, we are afraid only of what we do not understand. We only truly experience that frightful spiritual convulsion which we call dread when our fear is touched with the superstitious terror of past ages. I myself have suffered this dread in all its horror, and that over something so simple and so stupid that I hardly dare tell you about it.

“I was travelling in Brittany, alone and on foot. I had walked across Finistère, desolate moors, bare earth where nothing will grow but the gorse that grows beside great sacred stone pillars. The evening before, I had seen the menacing headland of Raz, the end of the old world, where two oceans, the Atlantic and the Channel, forever surge and break; my mind was full of legends, stories read or told in this country of credulous and superstitious folk.

“I was walking at night from Penmarch to Pontl’Abbé. Do you know Penmarch? A flat shore, utterly flat, very low-lying, seeming lower than the sea. Wherever you look you see the grey threatening sea, full of rocks slavered with foam, like raging beasts.

“I had dined in a fisherman’s inn, and I had taken the road to the right, between two moors. It was growing very dark.

“Now and then a Druid stone, standing like a phantom, seemed to look at me as I passed, and a vague fear slowly took hold of me: fear of what? I had not the least idea. It was one of the evenings when the wind of passing spirits blows on your face, and your soul shudders and knows not why, and your heart beats in bewildered terror of some invisible thing, that terror whose passing I regret.

“The road seemed very long to me, interminably long and empty.

“There was no sound but the thunder of the waves down below, at my back; and sometimes the monotonous sinister sound seemed quite close, so close that I imagined the waves were at my heels, racing over the plain, and foaming as they came, and I felt a wild impulse to save myself from them, to run for my life before their onrush.

“The wind, a little wind that blew in gusts, whistled through the gorse all round me. And quickly as I went, my arms and legs were cold with the horrid cold of mortal fear.

“Oh, how I longed to meet someone!

“It was so black that now I could hardly make out the road.

“And suddenly I heard a rolling sound, a long way in front of me. ‘That’s a carriage,’ I thought. Then I heard nothing more.

“A moment later I distinctly heard the same noise again, nearer now.

“I saw no light, however, and I said to myself: ‘They have no lantern. There’s nothing to be surprised at in that, in this wild district.’

“The noise stopped once more, then began again. It was too shrill to be made by a wagon; and besides I did not hear the sound of a horse trotting, which surprised me, for the night was very still.

“ ‘What can it be?’ I wondered.

“It was approaching swiftly, very swiftly! I was sure now that I could hear only one wheel⁠—no clatter of hoofs or feet⁠—nothing. What could it be?

“It was close now, quite close; prompted by a quite instinctive fear, I flung myself down in a ditch and I saw pass right by me a wheelbarrow running all by itself⁠—no one was pushing it⁠—yes, a wheelbarrow⁠—all by itself.

“My heart began such a violent leaping that I lay helpless on the grass, listening to the rolling of the wheel, which drew farther and farther away, going down to the sea. And I dared neither get up nor walk nor stir hand or foot; for if it had come back, if it had followed me, I should have died of terror.

“I was a long time before I recovered myself, a very long time. And I covered the rest of the road in such agony of mind that the least noise stopped the breath in my throat.

“You think it idiotic? But how terrifying! Thinking it over afterwards, I understood what it was; a barefooted child must have been pushing the wheelbarrow, and I had been expecting to see the head of a man of ordinary height.

“You can understand it⁠ ⁠… fear of some supernatural happening has crept into one’s mind⁠—a wheelbarrow running⁠—all by itself. How terrifying!”

He was silent for a moment, then added:

“Believe me, sir, we are watching a strange and terrible spectacle⁠—this invasion of cholera.

“You can smell the disinfectant poisoning the whole air in these carriages; it means that somewhere it is lurking.

“You should see Toulouse now. Go there, and you can feel that He is there. And it is no mere fear of disease that distracts the townspeople. The cholera is something more than that, it is the Unseen, it is one of the ancient plagues, a sort of malevolent spirit that has come back to the world, and astounds us as much as it terrifies us because it seems to belong to a lost age.

“The doctors make me laugh with their microbe. It is no insect that drives men to such a pitch of terror that they will jump out of the windows; it is cholera, the inexplicable and terrible being come from the recesses of the East.

“Walk through Toulouse and see them dancing in the streets.

“Why do men dance in days when death is abroad? They let off fireworks in the fields round the town; they light bonfires, orchestras play gay music on all the public promenades.

“Why this madness?

“It is because He is present: they are defying now, not the Microbe, but Cholera; they want to swagger past Him, as they might swagger past an ambushed enemy spy. It is for Him that they dance, and laugh and shout and light fires and play waltzes, for Him, the Angel of Destruction, lurking in every place, unseen, threatening, like one of those old evil jinns conjured up by barbaric priests.⁠ ⁠…”

The Return

The sea is fretting the shore with small recurring waves. Small white clouds pass rapidly across the wide blue sky, swept along like birds by the swift wind; and the village, in a fold of a valley which descends to the sea, lies drowsing in the sun. By the side of the road, at the very entrance to the village, stands the lonely dwelling of the Martin-Lévesques. It is a small fisherman’s cottage with clay walls and a roof of thatch made gay with tufts of blue iris. There is a square patch of front garden the size of a pocket-handkerchief, containing onions, some cabbages, parsley, and chevril, and separated from the road by a hedge.

The man is away fishing, and his wife is sitting in front of the house, mending the meshes of a large brown net spread upon the wall like a gigantic spider’s web. A little girl of fourteen is sitting near the gate in a cane chair tilted back and supported against the fence; she is mending linen, miserable stuff already well darned and patched. Another girl a year younger is rocking in her arms a tiny child still too young to walk or talk, and two mites of two and three are squatting on the ground, opposite each other, digging in the earth with clumsy fingers and throwing handfuls of dust in one another’s faces.

No one speaks. Only the baby that is being rocked to sleep cries incessantly in a weak, thin, small voice. A cat is asleep on the windowsill; some faded pinks at the foot of the wall make a fine patch of white blossom, over which hovers a drowsy swarm of flies.

The little girl sewing by the gate cries out abruptly:

“Mother!”

“What is it?” her mother answers.

“He’s here again.”

Ever since the morning they have been uneasy, for a man has been prowling round the house, an old man who looks like a beggar. They saw him as they were taking their father to his ship, to see him on board. He was sitting in the ditch opposite their gate. Then, when they came back from the seashore, they saw him still looking at the house.

He looked ill and very wretched. For more than an hour he had not stirred; then, seeing that they looked on him as a bad character, he had got up and gone off, dragging one leg behind him.

But before long they had seen him return with his weary limp, and he had sat down again, a little farther off this time, as though to spy upon them.

The mother and the little girls were afraid. The mother was particularly uneasy, for she was by nature timid, and her husband, Lévesque, was not due back from the sea before nightfall.

Her husband’s name was Lévesque, and hers was Martin, and the pair had been baptised Martin-Lévesque. This is why: her first husband had been a sailor named Martin who went every summer to the Newfoundland cod-fisheries. After two years of married life she had borne him a little daughter and was six months gone with another child, when her husband’s ship, the Two Sisters, a three-masted barque from Dieppe, disappeared.

No news of it was ever heard, no member of the crew returned, and it was thought lost with all hands.

For ten years Madame Martin waited for her man, having a hard struggle to bring up the two children. Then, as she was a fine strong woman, a local fisherman named Lévesque, a widower with one son, asked her to marry him. She consented, and bore him two other children in three years.

Their life was hard and laborious. Bread was dear, and meat almost unknown in the household. Sometimes they were in debt to the baker, in the winter, during the stormy months. But the children grew up strong; the neighbours said:

“They’re good folk, the Martin-Lévesques. She’s as hard as nails, and there’s no better fisherman than Lévesque.”

The little girl sitting by the fence went on:

“He looks as though he knew us. Perhaps he’s some beggar from Épreville or Auzebosc.”

But the mother was sure of the truth. No, no, he wasn’t a local man, that was certain.

As he remained motionless as a log, his eyes fixed obstinately upon the cottage, Madame Martin lost her temper; fear lending her courage, she seized a spade and went out in front of the gate.

“What are you doing there?” she cried to the vagabond.

“I’m taking the air,” he replied in a hoarse voice. “Am I doing you any harm?”

“What are you playing the spy for round my house?” she replied.

“I’m doing no one any harm,” he answered. “Can’t I sit down by the roadside?”

Not finding an answer, she went back into the house.

Slowly the day dragged by. Round about midday the man disappeared. But near five o’clock he wandered past once more. He was not seen again that evening.

Lévesque came home at nightfall and was told of the affair.

“Some dirty rascal slinking about the place,” he decided.

He went to bed with no anxiety, while his wife dreamed of this tramp who had stared at her with such strange eyes.

When dawn came a gale was blowing, and the sailor, seeing that he could not put out to sea, helped his wife to mend the nets.

About nine o’clock the eldest girl, one of Martin’s children, who had gone out for some bread, ran in with a scared face, and cried:

“He’s back again, mother.”

Her mother felt a prick of excitement; very pale, she said to her husband:

“Go and tell him not to spy on us like this, Lévesque; it’s fairly getting on my nerves.”

Lévesque was a big fisherman with a brick-red face, a thick red beard, blue eyes with gleaming black pupils, and a strong neck always well wrapped up in a woollen scarf, to protect him from the wind and rain of the open sea. He went out calmly and marched up to the tramp.

And they began to talk.

The mother and children watched from the distance, trembling with excitement.

Suddenly the unknown man got up and accompanied Lévesque towards the house.

Madame Martin recoiled from him in terror. Her husband said:

“Give him a bit of bread and a mug of cider; he hasn’t had a bite since the day before yesterday.”

The two of them entered the cottage, followed by the woman and the children. The tramp sat down and began to eat, his head lowered before their gaze.

The mother stood and stared at him; the two eldest daughters, Martin’s children, leaned against the door, one of them holding the youngest child, and stared eagerly at him. The two mites sitting among the cinders in the fireplace stopped playing with the black pot, as though to join in gaping at the stranger.

Lévesque sat down and asked him:

“Then you’ve come from far?”

“From Cette.”

“On foot, like that?”

“Yes. When you’ve no money, you must.”

“Where are you going?”

“I was going here.”

“Know anyone in these parts?”

“Maybe.”

They were silent. He ate slowly, although ravenous, and took a sip of cider between each mouthful of bread. His face was worn and wrinkled, full of hollows, and he had the air of a man who has suffered greatly.

Lévesque asked him abruptly:

“What’s your name?”

He answered without raising his head:

“My name is Martin.”

A strange shudder ran through the mother. She made a step forward as though to get a closer view of the vagabond, and remained standing in front of him, her arms hanging down and her mouth open. No one spoke another word. At last Lévesque said:

“Are you from these parts?”

“Yes, I’m from these parts.”

And as he at last raised his head, his eyes met the woman’s and remained gazing at them; it was as though their glances were riveted together.

Suddenly she said in an altered voice, low and trembling:

“Is it you, husband?”

“Yes, it’s me,” he said slowly.

He did not move, but continued to munch his bread.

Lévesque, surprised rather than excited, stammered:

“It’s you, Martin?”

“Yes, it’s me,” said the other simply.

“Where have you come from?” asked the second husband.

He told his story:

“From the coast of Africa. We foundered on a reef. Three of us got away, Picard, Vatinel, and me.

“Then we were caught by savages, who kept us twelve years. Picard and Vatinel are dead. An English traveller rescued me and brought me back to Cette. And here I am.”

Madame Martin had begun to cry, hiding her face in her apron.

“What are we to do now?” said Lévesque.

“Is it you that’s her husband?” asked Martin.

“Yes, it’s me,” replied Lévesque.

They looked at one another and were silent.

Then Martin turned to the circle of children round him and, nodding towards the two girls, asked:

“Are they mine?”

“Yes, they’re yours,” said Lévesque.

He did not get up; he did not kiss them. He only said:

“God, they’re big!”

“What are we to do?” repeated Lévesque.

Martin, perplexed, had no idea. Finally he made up his mind:

“I’ll do as you wish. I don’t want to wrong you. But it’s annoying when I think of the house. I’ve two children, you’ve three; let’s each keep our own. As for the mother, is she yours, or shall I have her? I agree to whatever you like, but as for the house, that’s mine, for my father left it me, I was born in it, and the lawyer’s got the papers about it.”

Madame Martin was still crying, stifling her short gasps in the blue canvas of her apron. The two tall girls had drawn nearer and were looking uneasily at their father.

He had finished eating, and said in his turn:

“What are we to do?”

Lévesque had an idea:

“We must get the rector. He’ll decide.”

Martin rose, and as he went towards his wife she flung herself upon his breast, sobbing:

“It’s you, husband! Martin, my poor Martin, it’s you!”

She held him in her arms, suddenly stirred by a breath of the past, by an anguished rush of memories that reminded her of her youth and of her first kisses.

Martin, much affected, kissed her bonnet. The two children by the fireplace both began to cry when they heard their mother cry, and the youngest of all, in the arms of the younger Martin daughter, howled in a shrill voice like a fife out of tune.

Lévesque stood up and waited.

“Come on,” he said. “We must get it put straight.”

Martin let go of his wife and, as he was looking at his two daughters, their mother said:

“You might kiss your da.”

They came up together, dry-eyed, surprised, a little frightened. He kissed them one after another, on both cheeks, with a loud, smacking kiss. The baby, seeing the stranger draw near, screamed so violently that it nearly fell into convulsions.

Then the two men went out together.

As they passed the Café du Commerce, Lévesque asked:

“How about a little drink?”

“Yes, I could do with some,” declared Martin. They went in and sat down in the room, which was still empty. Lévesque shouted:

“Hey, there, Chicot, two double brandies, and the best! It’s Martin, he’s come back; Martin, you know, my wife’s man; Martin of the Two Sisters, that was lost.”

The barman came up, three glasses in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other, a red-faced, podgy, potbellied man. In a calm voice he asked:

“Ah! Here you are, then, are you, Martin?”

Martin answered:

“Yes, here I am.”

The Tomb

On the seventeenth of July, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, at half past two o’clock in the morning, the caretaker of Béziers cemetery, who lived in a little house at the end of the burying ground, was awakened by the yelping of his dog, which was locked in the kitchen.

He immediately went downstairs, and saw that the animal was scenting something under the door and barking furiously, as though some tramp had been prowling about the house. Vincent, the caretaker, took up his gun and went out cautiously.

His dog ran off in the direction of General Bonnet’s Avenue and stopped short in front of Madam Tomoiseau’s monument.

The caretaker, advancing cautiously, soon noticed a dim light in the direction of Malenvers Avenue. He slipped in amongst the tombstones and witnessed a most horrible deed of desecration.

A young man had disinterred the corpse of a young woman, buried the day before, and he was dragging it out of the grave.

A small dark lantern, placed on a pile of earth, lit up this hideous scene.

Vincent, the caretaker, pounced upon the criminal, felled him to the ground, bound his hands and took him to the police station.

He was a young, lawyer from the city, rich and well thought of. His name was Courbataille.

He was tried. The public prosecutor recalled the monstrous deeds, committed by Sergeant Bertrand, and aroused the audience.

The crowd was thrilled with indignation. As soon as the magistrate sat down the cry arose: “Put him to death! Put him to death!” The president had great difficulty in restoring silence.

Then he said, in a serious tone of voice: “Accused, what have you to say in your defence?”

Courbataille, who had refused counsel, arose. He was a handsome youth, large, dark, with an open countenance, strong features, and a fearless eye.

The crowd began to hiss.

He was not disconcerted, but commenced speaking with a slightly husky voice, a little low in the beginning, but gradually gaining in strength:

“Your Honour,

“Gentlemen of the jury,

“I have very little to say. The woman whose tomb I violated was my mistress. I loved her.

“I loved her, not with a sensual love, not simply from kindness of soul and heart, but with an absolute, perfect love, with mad passion.

“Listen to what I have to say:

“When I first met her, I felt a strange sensation on seeing her. It was not astonishment, nor admiration, for it was not what is called love at first sight, but it was a delightful sensation, as though I had been plunged in a tepid bath. Her movements captivated me, her voice enchanted me, it gave me infinite pleasure to watch everything about her. It also seemed to me that I had known her for a long time, that I had seen her before. She seemed to have some of my spirit within her.

“She seemed to me like an answer to an appeal from my soul, to this vague and continuous appeal which forces us toward Hope throughout the whole course of our lives.

“When I became a little better acquainted with her, the mere thought of seeing her again filled me with a deep and exquisite agitation; the touch of her hand in mine was such a joy to me that I had never imagined the like before; her smile made my eyes shine with joy, and made me feel like running about, dancing, rolling on the ground.

“Then she became my mistress.

“She was more than that to me, she was my life itself. I hoped for nothing more on earth, I wished for nothing more, I longed for nothing more.

“Well, one evening, as we were taking a rather long walk by the bank of the stream, we were caught by the rain. She felt cold.

“The next day she had inflammation of the lungs. Eight days later she died.

“During those dying hours, astonishment and fear prevented me from understanding or thinking.

“When she was dead, I was so stunned by brutal despair that I was unable to think. I wept.

“During all the horrible phases of interment my wild, excessive grief was the sorrow of a man beside himself, a sort of sensual physical grief.

“Then when she was gone, when she was under the ground, my mind suddenly became clear, and I passed through a train of mental suffering so terrible that even the love she had given me was dear at such a price.

“Then I was seized with an obsession.

“I shall never see her again.

“After reflecting on that for a whole day, it maddens you.

“Think of it! A being is there, one whom you adore, a unique being, for in the whole wide world there is no one who resembles her. This being has given herself to you, with you she creates this mysterious union called love. Her glance seems to you vaster than space, more charming than the world, her bright glance full of tender smiles. This being loves you. When she speaks to you her voice overwhelms you with happiness.

“And suddenly she disappears! Think of it! She disappears not only from your sight, but from everybody’s. She is dead. Do you understand what that word means? Never, never, never more, nowhere, will this being exist. Those eyes will never see again. Never will this voice, never will any voice like this, among human voices, pronounce one word in the same way that she pronounced it.

“There will never be another face born like hers. Never, never! The cast of statues is kept; the stamp that reproduces objects with the same outlines and the same colours is preserved. But this body and this face will never be seen again on this earth. And still there will be born thousands of beings, millions, thousands of millions, and even more, and among all these women there will never be found one like her. Can that be possible? It makes one mad to think of it!

“She lived twenty years, no more, and she has disappeared forever, forever, forever! She thought, she smiled, she loved me. Now there is nothing more. The flies which die in the autumn are of as much importance as we in creation. Nothing more! And I thought how her body, her fresh, warm body, so soft, so white, so beautiful, was rotting away in the depths of a box under the ground. And her soul, her mind, her love⁠—where were they?

“Never to see her again! Never again! My mind was haunted by the thought of that decomposing body, which I, however, might still recognize!

“I set out with a shovel, a lantern and a hammer. I climbed over the cemetery wall. I found the hole where her grave was. It had not yet been entirely filled up. I uncovered the coffin, and raised one of the planks. An awful odour, the abominable breath of putrefaction, arose in my face. Oh, her bed, perfumed with iris!

“However, I opened the coffin and thrust in my lighted lantern, and saw her. Her face was blue, swollen, horrible! Black liquid had flowed from her mouth.

“She! It was she! I was seized with horror. But I put out my arm and caught her hair to pull this monstrous face towards me! It was at that moment I was arrested.

“All night I carried with me, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a sexual embrace, the filthy smell of this putrefaction, the odour of my beloved!

“Do what you like with me.”

A strange silence seemed to hang over the hall. People appeared to be awaiting something more. The jury withdrew to deliberate. When they returned after a few minutes, the accused did not seem to have any fears, nor even any thoughts. In the traditional formula the judge informed him that his peers had found him not guilty.

He did not make a movement, but the public applauded.

The Confession

When Captain Hector-Marie de Fontenne married Mlle. Laurine d’Estelle, parents and friends were of the opinion that it was a most unsuitable match.

Mlle. Laurine, pretty, slender, fragile, fair and self-possessed, had at twelve the assurance of a woman of thirty. She was one of those precocious little Parisians who seem to have been born with a perfect understanding of the art of life, equipped with every feminine wile, every intellectual audacity, and with the profound guile and subtlety of mind that makes certain men and women seem fated, however they may act, to trick and deceive others. Their every action seems premeditated, their every move calculated, their every word carefully weighed; their existence is only a part that they play to an audience of their fellow creatures.

She was charming too: bubbling with laughter, laughter that she could neither restrain nor moderate when she came across anything amusing or odd. She laughed in people’s faces in the most impudent way in the world, but so charmingly that no one was ever offended.

She was rich, immensely rich. A priest acted as intermediary to arrange her marriage with Captain de Fontenne. Educated in a seminary, in the most austere fashion, this officer had brought to the regiment the manners of the cloister, the strictest principles and an armour-plated intolerance. He was one of those men who become by an inevitable fate either saints or nihilists, over whose minds ideas exercise an absolute tyranny, whose beliefs are never shaken nor their resolutions broken.

He was a tall dark youth, grave, austere, ingenuous, single-minded, curt and obstinate, one of those men who go through life with not the least understanding of its hidden meanings, its halftones and its subtleties, guessing nothing, suspecting nothing, never admitting that anyone thinks, judges, believes or acts otherwise than they do themselves.

Mlle. Laurine saw him, read his character at a glance, and agreed to take him for her husband.

They got on splendidly together. She was tactful, quick-witted and subtle, able to adapt herself to any role circumstances demanded of her, diligent in good works and ardent in pleasure, assiduous in her attendance at church and theatre, urbane and correct, with a delicate suggestion of irony and a gleam that lurked in her eye when she was holding grave converse with her grave husband. She related to him the charitable enterprises she undertook with all the priests of the parish and the neighbourhood, and these pious occupations provided her with an excuse for staying out from morning till night.

But sometimes, in the very middle of reciting some charitable deed, she fell abruptly into a wild fit of laughter, nervous and quite irrepressible laughter. Captain de Fontenne was surprised and uneasy and a little shocked by the spectacle of his wife choking with mirth. When she was recovering her self-control he would ask: “Well, what is it, Laurine?” “It’s nothing,” she answered; “I just thought of an odd thing that happened to me.” And she would proceed to tell him some tale or other.

Well, during the summer of 1883, Captain Hector de Fontenne took part in the grand manoeuvres of the 32nd Army Corps.

One evening, when they were camping in the outskirts of a town, after ten days of living under canvas and in the open country, ten days of hard work and rough living, the captain’s comrades determined to stand themselves a good dinner.

At first M. de Fontenne refused to accompany them; then, as his refusal caused surprise, he agreed.

His neighbour at table, Major de Faure, under cover of talking about military operations, the only thing in which Captain de Fontenne was passionately interested, filled his glass again and again. The day had been very warm, with a heavy, scorching, thirsty heat; and Captain de Fontenne went on drinking without thinking what he did: he did not notice that, little by little, an unwonted gaiety was taking possession of him, a sharp heady excitement. He was glad to be alive, full of wakening desires, new appetites, vague longings.

With the dessert, he was drunk. He talked, laughed, gesticulated, completely and clamorously drunk, with the mad drunkenness of your habitually quiet and abstemious man.

It was proposed to finish the evening at the theatre: he accompanied his comrades. One of them recognised an actress whose lover he had been; and a supper party was arranged that included part of the feminine personnel of the company.

Captain de Fontenne woke up next morning in a strange bedroom and in the arms of a little, fair-haired woman, who greeted him with: “Good morning, dearie,” when she saw him opening his eyes.

At first he did not realise what had happened; then, slowly, things came back to him⁠—a little confusingly, however.

Then he got up without saying a word, dressed, and emptied his purse on the mantelpiece.

He was overwhelmed with shame at the vision of himself standing, in uniform, sword at his side, in this apartment room, with its shabby curtains and a stain-mottled couch of dubious aspect: he dared not go away, nor walk down the staircase where he would meet people, nor pass the concierge, and above all he dared not walk out into the street under the eyes of passersby and neighbours.

The woman continued to reiterate: “What’s got you? Have you lost your tongue? You wagged it freely enough last night. You are a freak, you are!”

He saluted her ceremoniously, and summoning up courage to get away, he strode back to his lodging, convinced that everyone knew by his manner, his bearing and his face that he was coming from a prostitute.

And he was torn by remorse, the torturing remorse of an austere and scrupulous man.

He confessed and took the sacrament; but he was still sick at heart, obsessed by the remembrance of his fall and a feeling that he owed a debt, a sacred debt, to his wife.

He did not see her until a month later, for she had been staying with her parents, while the grand manoeuvres took place.

She came to him with open arms and a smile on her lips. He received her with the embarrassed air of a guilty man, and almost refrained from speaking to her until the evening.

As soon as they were alone together, she asked him:

“Well, what’s the matter, darling? I find you very changed.”

He answered awkwardly:

“There’s nothing the matter with me, my dear, absolutely nothing.”

“I beg your pardon, but I know you very well, and I’m sure there’s something the matter with you, some trouble or grief or annoyance or other.”

“Well, yes, I am troubled.”

“Ah! And by what?”

“I can’t possibly tell you about it.”

“Not tell me? Why not? You alarm me.”

“I have no reason to give you. I can’t possibly tell you about it.”

She was sitting on a low couch and he was striding up and down the room, hands behind his back, avoiding his wife’s eye. She went on:

“Very well, so I must hear your confession⁠—that’s my duty⁠—and require the truth from you⁠—that’s my right. You can no more have secrets from me than I can have them from you.”

He turned his back on her and stood framed in the tall window.

“My dear,” he said solemnly, “there are things it is better not to tell. The thing that worries me is one of them.”

She rose, crossed the room, took him by the arm and forced him to turn round. She put her two hands on his shoulders; then, smiling, coaxing, her eyes lifted to him, she said:

“Come, Marie” (she called him Marie when she loved him very much), “you can’t hide anything from me. I believe you’ve done something wicked.”

He murmured:

“I’ve done something very wicked.”

“Oh, as bad as that?” she said gaily. “You of all people! You astonish me.”

“I won’t tell you anything more,” he answered sharply. “It’s no use your insisting.”

But she led him to an armchair, made him sit in it, rested herself on his right knee and dropped a small swift kiss, a light-winged kiss, on the upturned end of his moustache.

“If you don’t tell me anything, we shall never be friends again.”

Torn by remorse and in an agony of grief, he murmured:

“If I told you what I had done, what I had done, you would never forgive me.”

“On the contrary, darling, I would forgive you at once.”

“No, it’s impossible.”

“I promise I will.”

“I tell you it’s impossible.”

“I swear I’ll forgive you.”

“No, my dear Laurine, you couldn’t.”

“How childish you are, darling, not to say silly. By refusing to tell me what you’ve done, you leave me to believe abominable things; and I shall always be thinking about it, and I shall bear you as deep a grudge for your silence as for your unknown crime. While if you tell me about it quite frankly, I shall have forgotten it tomorrow.”

“Well, I⁠ ⁠…”

“What?”

He crimsoned to the ears, and said gravely:

“I confess to you as I would confess to a priest, Laurine.”

Her lips curved in the swift smile that sometimes hovered there, as she listened to him; in a half-mocking voice she said:

“I am all ears.”

He went on:

“You know, my dear, how little I ever drink. I never drink anything but water with a dash of light wine, and never liqueurs, as you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, do you know, towards the end of the grand manoeuvres, I allowed myself to drink a little one evening when I was very thirsty, very exhausted, very tired, and⁠ ⁠…”

“You got drunk? How horrid of you!”

“Yes, I got drunk.”

She had adopted an air of severity:

“There now, you were quite drunk, own up, too drunk to walk, weren’t you?”

“No, not so drunk as that. I lost my senses, not my balance. I talked and laughed, I was mad.”

As he was silent, she asked:

“Is that all?”

“No.”

“Ah! and⁠ ⁠… then?”

“Then⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I did a very shameful thing.”

She looked at him, uneasy, a little troubled and moved, too.

“What did you do, darling?”

“We had supper with⁠ ⁠… with some actresses⁠ ⁠… and I don’t know how it happened, I’ve been unfaithful to you, Laurine.”

He had made his confession in a grave solemn voice.

She started slightly, and her eyes gleamed with swift amusement, an overwhelming and irresistible amusement.

She said:

“You⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠… you have⁠ ⁠…”

A little, mirthless laugh, nervous and broken, escaped between her lips three times, choking her speech.

She tried to recover her gravity; but each time she opened her mouth to utter a word, laughter bubbled at the bottom of her throat, leaped forth, was stifled, and broke out again and again, like the gas of an uncorked bottle of champagne from which the froth is pouring. She pressed her hand on her lips to calm herself and to stifle this misplaced outburst of amusement in her mouth; but her laughter slipped between her fingers, came in choking gasps from her breast, escaped in spite of her. She babbled: “You⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠… you have deceived me.⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… oh! Oh! oh!⁠ ⁠… oh! oh! oh!”

And she gazed at him with a strange expression that she could not keep from being so mocking that he was thunderstruck and stupefied.

And abruptly she gave up her attempt at self-control and broke down completely. Then she began to laugh, and laughed like a woman with an attack of nerves. Little sharp broken cries came between her lips, sounding as though they came from the very depths of her breast; with both hands pressed on the pit of her stomach, she abandoned herself to long drawn spasms of laughter that almost choked her, like the spasms of coughing in whooping-cough.

And every effort she made to control herself brought on a fresh attack, every word she tried to say convulsed her the more.

“My⁠ ⁠… my⁠ ⁠… my⁠ ⁠… my poor darling⁠ ⁠… oh! oh! oh!⁠ ⁠… oh! oh! oh!⁠ ⁠…”

He stood up, leaving her sitting alone in the armchair; he had suddenly turned pale and he said:

“Laurine, you are worse than vulgar.”

In an ecstasy of amusement, she stammered:

“Well⁠ ⁠… well, what do you expect?⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I can’t help it⁠ ⁠… you’re so funny⁠ ⁠… oh! oh! oh! oh!”

He had grown livid and he was looking at her now with a steady glance that revealed the strange thoughts stirring behind it.

Suddenly he opened his mouth as if to shout something, but said nothing, turned on his heel and went out, slamming the door.

Laurine, bent double, exhausted, faint, continued to laugh, in dying spasms of laughter that rose and fell like the flame of a half-extinguished blaze.

The Castaway

“Really, dear, I think you must be mad to go for a walk in the country in this weather. For the last two months you’ve had the oddest ideas. You drag me willy-nilly to the seaside, though you never thought of such a thing before in all the forty-five years of our married life. You make a point of choosing Fécamp, a melancholy hole, and now you’ve got such a passion for rushing about, you who could never be induced to stir out, that you want to walk about the fields on the hottest day in the year. Tell d’Apreval to go with you, since he falls in with all your whims. As for me, I’m going in to have a rest.”

Madame de Cadour turned to her old friend:

“Are you coming with me, d’Apreval?”

He bowed and smiled with old-world gallantry.

“Where you go, I go,” he said.

“Very well, go and get sunstroke,” said Monsieur de Cadour, and reentered the Hôtel des Bains to lie down on his bed for an hour or two.

As soon as they were alone, the old woman and her aged companion started off. She clasped his hand and said very softly:

“At last! At last!”

“You are mad,” he murmured. “I assure you you’re mad. Think of the risk. If that man⁠ ⁠…”

She started violently.

“Oh, Henry, don’t call him that man.”

“Well,” he continued in a brusque voice, “if our son has any uneasy thoughts, if he suspects us, we’re caught, both of us. You’ve done without seeing him for forty years. What’s the matter with you now, then?”

They had followed the long road which leads from the sea to the town. They turned to the right to climb the hill of Étretat. The white road unwound itself before them under the blazing rain of sunlight. They walked slowly in the burning heat, taking short steps. She had taken her friend’s arm and was walking straight ahead with a fixed, haunted stare.

“So you’ve never seen him again either?” she said.

“No, never.”

“Is it possible?”

“My dear friend, don’t let us begin this eternal discussion all over again. I have a wife and children, just as you have a husband; so that each of us has everything to fear from public opinion.”

She did not answer. She was thinking of her lost youth, of old, unhappy, far-off things.

She had been married by her family, just as a young girl is married. She hardly knew her betrothed, a diplomat, and later she lived with him the life of any woman of fashion.

Then, however, a young man, Monsieur d’Apreval, married like herself, fell passionately in love with her; and during a long absence of Monsieur de Cadour on a political mission in India, she gave way to his desire.

Could she have resisted? Could she have denied herself? Would she have had the courage, the strength, not to yield?⁠—for she loved him too. No, certainly no! It would have been too hard! She would have suffered too deeply! Life is very crafty and cruel! Can we avoid these temptations, or fly from the fate that marches upon us? How can a woman, alone, deserted, without love, without children, continue to run away from a passion surging in her? It is as though she fled from the light of the sun, to live to the end of her life in darkness.

And how plainly she remembered now the little things, his kisses, his smile, the way he stopped at the door to look at her, whenever he came to her house. What happy days, her only happy days, so soon over!

Then she discovered that she was with child; what agony!

Oh! the long terrible journey to the south, her misery, her incessant fear, her life hidden in the lonely little cottage on the shores of the Mediterranean, in the depths of the garden she dared not go beyond.

How well she remembered the long days she spent lying under an orange-tree, her eyes lifted to the round flaming fruit in the green foliage! How she longed to go out, to go down to the sea, whose sweet scent came to her over the wall, whose little waves she heard upon the beach; and dreamed perpetually of its wide blue surface glittering in the sun, flecked with white sails, and rimmed by a mountain. But she dared not go through the gate. Supposing she were recognised, in this state, her altered figure crying her shame!

And the days of waiting, the last few tormenting days! The fears! The threatening pians! Then the awful night! What misery she had endured!

What a night it had been! How she had moaned and screamed! She could see even now the pale face of her lover, kissing her hand every minute, the doctor’s smooth countenance, the nurse’s white cap.

And what a convulsion she had felt in her heart at the child’s shrill feeble cry, the first effort of a man’s voice!

And the day after! The day after! The only day of her life on which she had seen and kissed her son, for never afterwards had she as much as set eyes on him!

Then, after that time, the long empty life, the thought of this child floating always in the void of her mind! She had never seen him again, not once, the little being who was her flesh and blood, her son! He had been seized, carried off, and hidden! She knew only that he was being brought up by Norman peasants, that he had himself become a peasant, that he had married, with a good dowry from the father whose name he did not know.

How many times, in the last forty years, she had longed to go away to see him, to kiss him! She did not think of him as grown up. She dreamed always of that scrap of humanity she had held for one day in her arms, clasped to her tortured body.

How many times she had said to her lover: “I can hold out no longer; I must see him; I am going!”

Always he had restrained her, held her back. She would not know how to contain herself, how to master her emotion. The man would guess, and would exploit the secret. She would be ruined.

“How is he?” she said.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him again either.”

“Is it possible? To have a son and not know him! To be afraid of him, to have cast him away as a disgrace!”

It was horrible.

They were still walking up the long road, oppressed by the blazing sun, still mounting the interminable hillside.

“It’s like a judgment, isn’t it?” she continued. “I’ve never had another child. I could not fight any longer my desire to see him; it’s haunted me for forty years. A man couldn’t understand these things. Remember that I am very near death. And I shall not have seen him again⁠ ⁠… never again; is it possible? How can I have waited so long? I’ve thought of him all my life, and what a terrible existence the thought has made it! Not once have I awakened, not once, do you hear, without my first thought being for him, for my child! How is he? Oh, how guilty I feel before him! Ought one to fear the world in such a case? I should have left all and followed him, brought him up, loved him. I should have been happier then, surely. But I did not dare. I was a coward. How I have suffered! Oh, those poor abandoned creatures, how they must hate their mothers!”

She stopped abruptly, choked with sobs. The whole valley was deserted and silent in the overpowering blaze of sunlight. Only the crickets uttered their harsh, ceaseless croak in the thin brown grass at the roadside.

“Sit down for a little,” he said.

She let him lead her to the edge of the ditch, and sank down upon the grass, burying her face in her hands. Her white hair, falling in curls on each side of her face, became dishevelled, and she wept, torn by her bitter grief.

He remained standing in front of her, uneasy, not knowing what to say to her.

“Come⁠ ⁠… be brave,” he murmured.

“I will be,” she said, rising to her feet. She dried her eyes and walked on with the shaky steps of an old woman.

A little further on the road ran under a group of trees which hid several houses. They could now hear the regular vibrant shock of a blacksmith’s hammer on the anvil. Soon they saw, on the right, a cart halted before a kind of low house, and, in a shed, two men shoeing a horse.

Monsieur d’Apreval went up to them.

“Pierre Bénédict’s farm?” he asked.

“Take the road on the left,” answered one, “right by the little inn, and go straight on; it’s the third after Poret’s. You can’t miss it.”

They turned to the left. She was going very slowly now, her legs flagging, her heart thudding so violently that it snatched her breath away. At every step she muttered, as though it were a prayer:

“My God! Oh, my God!”

A violent access of emotion contracted her throat, making her totter on her feet as though she had been hamstrung.

Monsieur d’Apreval, nervous and rather pale, said sharply:

“If you can’t control yourself better, you’ll betray us at once. Try to master your feelings.”

“How can I?” she faltered. “My child! When I think that I’m about to see my child!”

They followed one of those little lanes that run between one farmyard and another, shut in between a double row of beeches along the roadside.

Suddenly they found themselves in front of a wooden gate shaded by a young pine-tree.

“Here it is,” he said.

She stopped short and looked round.

The yard, which was planted with apple trees, was large, stretching right up to the little thatched farmhouse. Facing it were the stables, the barn, the cow-house, and the chicken-run. Under a slate-roofed shed stood the farm vehicles, a two-wheeled cart, a wagon, and a gig. Four calves cropped the grass, beautifully green in the shade of the trees. The black hens wandered into every corner of the enclosure.

There was no sound to be heard; the door of the house was open, but no one was in view.

They entered the yard. At once a black dog leapt out of an old barrel at the foot of a large pear-tree and began to bark furiously.

Against the wall of the house, on the way to the door, four beehives stood upon a plank, the straw domes in a neat line.

Halting in front of the house, Monsieur d’Apreval shouted:

“Is anyone in?”

A child appeared, a little girl of about ten, dressed in a bodice and woollen petticoat, with bare and dirty legs. She looked timid and sullen, and stood still in the doorway, as though to defend the entry.

“What d’you want?” she said.

“Is your father in?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

“I dunno.”

“And your mother?”

“She’s with the cows.”

“Will she be back soon?”

“I dunno.”

The old woman cried out abruptly in a hurried voice, as though fearing to be forcibly dragged away:

“I won’t go without seeing him.”

“We’ll wait, my dear.”

As they turned round, they caught sight of a peasant woman coming towards the house, carrying two heavy-looking tin pails on which the sun from time to time flashed with a brilliant white flame.

She was lame in the right leg, and her chest was muffled in a rusty brown knitted garment, stained and bleached by rain and sun. She looked like some poor servant, dirty and wretched.

“There’s mother,” said the child.

When she was near her dwelling she regarded the strangers with an evil, suspicious look; then went into the house as though she had not seen them.

She looked old; her face was hollowed, yellow, hard, the wooden face of rustics.

Monsieur d’Apreval called her back.

“I say, we came in to ask you to sell us two glasses of milk.”

Having set down her pails, she reappeared in the doorway and muttered:

“I don’t sell milk.”

“We’re very thirsty. The lady is old and very tired. Can’t we get something to drink?”

The peasant woman stared at him with surly, uneasy eyes. At last she made up her mind.

“Seeing you’re here, I’ll give you some all the same,” she said, disappearing into the house.

Then the child came out carrying two chairs, which she set under an apple tree; and the mother came, in her turn, with two foaming cups of milk that she placed in the visitors’ hands.

She remained standing in front of them as though to keep watch on them and guess their intentions.

“You’re from Fécamp?” she said.

“Yes,” replied Monsieur d’Apreval, “we’re there for the summer.”

Then, after a pause, he added: “Could you sell us chickens every week?”

She hesitated, then replied:

“I might. Would you be wanting young birds?”

“Yes, young ones.”

“What do you pay for them at market?”

D’Apreval, who did not know, turned to his companion: “What do you pay for chickens, dear⁠—young ones?”

“Four francs and four francs fifty,” she faltered, her eyes full of tears.

The farmer’s wife looked sideways at her, much surprised, and asked:

“Is the poor lady ill, that she’s cryin’?”

He did not know what to answer, and stammered:

“No.⁠ ⁠… No.⁠ ⁠… She⁠ ⁠… she lost her watch on the way, a beautiful watch, and it grieves her. If anyone picks it up, let us know.”

Madame Bénédict thought this queer, and did not answer.

Suddenly she said:

“Here’s himself.”

She alone had seen him come in, for she was facing the gate. D’Apreval started violently; Madame de Cadour nearly fell as she turned frantically round in her chair.

A man was standing ten paces off, leading a cow at the end of a cord, bent double, breathing hard.

“Damn the brute!” he muttered, taking no notice of the strangers.

He passed them, going towards the cowshed, in which he disappeared.

The old woman’s tears were suddenly dried up; she was too bewildered for speech or thought: her son, this was her son!

D’Apreval, stabbed by the same thought, said in a troubled voice:

“That is Monsieur Bénédict, is it not?”

“Who told you his name?” asked the farmer’s wife, distrustful of them.

“The blacksmith at the corner of the high road,” he replied.

Then all were silent, their eyes fixed on the door of the cowshed, which made a sort of black hole in the wall of the building. They could see nothing inside, but vague sounds were to be heard, movements, steps muffled in the straw strewn on the ground.

He reappeared on the threshold, wiping his brow, and came back towards the house with a long slow step that jerked him up at every pace he took.

Again he passed in front of the strangers without appearing to notice them, and said to his wife:

“Go draw me a mug of cider; I be thirsty.”

Then he entered his dwelling. His wife went off to the cellar leaving the two Parisians by themselves.

Madame de Cadour was quite distracted.

“Let us go, Henry, let us go,” she faltered.

D’Apreval took her arm, helped her to rise, and supporting her with all his strength⁠—for he felt certain that she would fall⁠—he led her away, after throwing five francs on to one of the chairs.

As soon as they had passed through the gate, she began to sob, torn with grief, and stammering:

“Oh! Oh! Is this what you’ve made of him?”

He was very pale.

“I did what I could,” he answered harshly. “His farm is worth eighty thousand francs. It isn’t every middle-class child who has such a marriage-portion.”

They walked slowly back, without speaking another word. She was still sobbing; the tears ran unceasing from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

At last they stopped, and the pair reached Fécamp.

Monsieur de Cadour was awaiting them for dinner. He began to laugh and cried out at sight of them:

“There you are, my wife’s got a sunstroke. I’m delighted at it. Upon my word, I think she’s been off her head for some time past.”

Neither answered; and as the husband, rubbing his hands, inquired: “At all events, have you had a nice walk?” D’Apreval replied:

“Delightful, my dear fellow, perfectly delightful.”

Yvette

I

As they left the Café Riche, Jean de Servigny said to Léon Saval:

“We’ll walk, if you don’t mind walking. It’s too fine to take a cab.”

“It will suit me perfectly,” answered his friend.

“It’s barely eleven,” continued Jean. “We shall be there long before midnight, so let us go slowly.”

A restless crowd swarmed on the boulevard, the crowd which on summer nights is always to be seen there, contented and merry, walking, drinking, and talking, streaming past like a river. Here and there a café flung a brilliant splash of light on to the group which sat outside, drinking at round little tables loaded with bottles and glasses, and obstructing the hurrying crowd of passersby. And in the road the cabs, with their red, blue, and green eyes, passed swiftly across the harsh glare of the lighted front, and for an instant revealed the silhouette of the thin, trotting horse, the profile of the driver on the box, and the dark, square body of the vehicle. The Urbaine cabs gleamed as the light caught their yellow panels.

The two friends walked slowly along, smoking their cigars. They were in evening dress, their overcoats on their arms, flowers in their button holes and their hats a little on one side, with the careless tilt affected by men who have dined well and find the breeze warm.

Ever since their schooldays the two had been close friends, profoundly and loyally devoted to each other.

Jean de Servigny, small, slim, slightly bald, and frail, very elegant, with a curled moustache, bright eyes, and thin lips, was one of those night-birds who seem to have been born and bred on the boulevards; inexhaustible, though he wore a perpetual air of fatigue, vigorous despite his pallor⁠—one of those slender Parisians to whom gymnastics, fencing, the cold plunge, and the Turkish bath have given an artificial nervous strength. He was as well known for his conviviality as for his wit, his wealth, and his love affairs, and for that geniality, popularity, and fashionable gallantry which are the hallmark of a certain type of man.

In other ways too he was a true Parisian, quick-witted, sceptical, changeable, impulsive, energetic yet irresolute, capable of anything and of nothing, an egoist on principle and a philanthropist on impulse. He kept his expenditure within his income, and amused himself without ruining his health. Cold and passionate by turns, he was continually letting himself go and pulling himself up, a prey to conflicting impulses, and yielding to all of them, following his instinct like any hardened pleasure-seeker whose weathercock logic bids him follow every wind and profit from any train of events, without taking the trouble to set a single one of them in motion.

His companion, Léon Saval, rich also, was one of those superb giants who compel women to turn round and stare after them in the street. He had the air of a statue come to life, of a racial type: he was like one of those models which are sent to exhibitions. Too handsome, too tall, too broad, too strong, all his faults were those of excess. He had broken innumerable hearts.

As they reached the Vaudeville, he inquired:

“Have you let this lady know that you’re bringing me?”

Servigny laughed.

“Let the Marquise Obardi know! Do you let a bus-driver know in advance that you’re going to get on to his bus at the corner of the boulevard?”

“Well, then, exactly who is she?” asked Saval, slightly perplexed.

“A parvenue,” replied his friend, “a colossal fraud, a charming jade, sprung from Lord knows where, who appeared one day, Lord knows how, in the world of adventurers, in which she is well able to make herself prominent. Anyhow, what does it matter? They say her real name, her maiden-name⁠—for she has remained a maiden in every sense but the true one⁠—is Octavie Bardin, whence Obardi, retaining the first letter of the Christian name and dropping the last letter of the surname. She’s an attractive woman, too, and with your physique you’re certain to become her lover. You can’t introduce Hercules to Messalina without something coming of it. I ought to add, by the way, that though admission to the place is as free as to a shop, you are not obliged to buy what is on sale. Love and cards are the stock-in-trade, but no one will force you to purchase either. The way out is as accessible as the way in.

“It is three years now since she took a house in the Quartier de l’Étoile, a rather shady district, and opened it to all the scum of the Continent, which comes to Paris to display its most diverse, dangerous, and vicious accomplishments.

“I went to the house. How? I don’t remember. I went, as we all go, because there’s gambling, because the women are approachable and the men scoundrels. I like this crowd of decorated buccaneers, all foreign, all noble, all titled, all, except the spies, unknown to their ambassadors. They all talk of their honour on the slightest provocation, trot out their ancestors on no provocation at all, and present you with their life-histories on any provocation. They are braggarts, liars, thieves, as dangerous as their cards, as false as their names, brave because they must be, like footpads who cannot rob their victims without risking their necks. In a word, the aristocracy of the galleys.

“I adore them. They’re interesting to study, interesting to meet, amusing to listen to, often witty, never commonplace like the dregs of French officialdom. Their wives too are always pretty, with a little flavour of foreign rascality, and the mystery of their past lives, half of which were probably spent in a penitentiary. Most often they have glorious eyes and wonderful hair, the real professional physique, a grace which intoxicates, a seductive charm that drives men mad, a vicious but wholly irresistible fascination! They’re the real old highway robbers, female birds of prey. And I adore them too.

“The Marquise Obardi is a perfect type of these elegant jades. A little overripe, but still beautiful, seductive, and feline, she’s vicious to the marrow. There’s plenty of fun in her house⁠—gambling, dancing, supper⁠ ⁠… all the distractions of the world, the flesh, and the devil, in fact.”

“Have you been, or are you, her lover?” asked Léon Saval.

Servigny answered:

“I haven’t been, am not, and never shall be. It’s the daughter I go there for.”

“Oh, there’s a daughter, then, is there?”

“There is indeed! She’s a marvel. At present she’s the principal attraction. A tall, glorious creature, just the right age, eighteen, as fair as her mother is dark, always merry, always ready for fun, always laughing at the top of her voice, and dancing like a thing possessed. Who’s to have her? Who has had her? No one knows. There are ten of us waiting and hoping.

“A girl like that in the hands of a woman like the Marquise is a fortune. And they don’t show their hands, the rogues. No one can make it out. Perhaps they’re waiting for a catch, a better one than I am. Well, I can assure you that if the chance comes my way I’ll take it.

“This girl, Yvette, absolutely nonplusses me. She’s a mystery. If she isn’t the most finished monster of perverse ingenuity that I’ve ever seen, she’s certainly the most extraordinary scrap of innocent girlhood to be found anywhere. She lives there among that disgraceful crew with easy and triumphant serenity, exquisitely wicked or exquisitely simple.

“She’s an extraordinary girl to be the daughter of an adventuress, sprung up in that hotbed, like a beautiful plant nourished on manure, or she may be the daughter of some man of high rank, a great artist or a great nobleman, a prince or a king who found himself one night in her mother’s bed. No one can understand just what she is, or what she thinks about. But you will see her.”

Saval shouted with laughter.

“You’re in love with her,” he said.

“No, I am one of the competitors, which is not the same thing. By the way, I’ll introduce you to my most serious rivals. But I have a real chance. I have a good start, and she regards me with favour.”

“You’re in love,” repeated Saval.

“No, I’m not. She disturbs me, allures me and makes me uneasy, at once attracts me and frightens me. I distrust her as I would a trap, yet I long for her with the longing of a thirsty man for a cool drink. I feel her charm, and draw near it as nervously as if I were in the same room with a man suspected of being a clever thief. In her presence I feel an almost absurd inclination to believe in the possibility of her innocence, and a very reasonable distrust of her equally possible cunning. I feel that I am in contact with an abnormal being, a creature outside the laws of nature, delicious or detestable, I don’t know.”

For the third time Saval declared:

“You’re in love, I tell you. You speak of her with the fervour of a poet and the lyricism of a troubadour. Come now, have it out with yourself, search your heart and admit it.”

“Well, it may be so, after all. At least she’s always in my mind. Yes, perhaps I am in love. I think of her too much. I think of her when I’m falling asleep and when I wake up; that’s fairly serious. Her image haunts me, pursues me, is with me the whole time, in front of me, round me, in me. Is it love, this physical obsession? Her face is so sharply graven in my mind that I see it the moment I shut my eyes. I don’t deny that my pulses race whenever I see her. I love her, then, but in an odd fashion. I long for her passionately, yet the idea of making her my wife would seem to me a monstrous absurd folly. I am also a little afraid of her, like a bird swooped upon by a hawk. And I’m jealous of her too, jealous of all that is hidden from me in her incomprehensible heart. I’m always asking myself: ‘Is she a delightful little guttersnipe or a thoroughly bad lot?’ She says things that would make a trooper blush, but so do parrots. Sometimes she’s so brazenly indecent that I’m inclined to believe in her absolute purity, and sometimes her artlessness is so much too good to be true that I wonder if she ever was chaste. She provokes me and excites me like a harlot, and guards herself at the same time as though she were a virgin. She appears to love me, and laughs at me; in public she almost proclaims herself my mistress, and when we’re alone together she treats me as though I were her brother or her footman.

“Sometimes I imagine that she has as many lovers as her mother. Sometimes I think that she knows nothing about life, absolutely nothing.

“And she has a passion for reading novels. At present, while waiting for a more amusing position, I am her bookseller. She calls me her librarian.

“Every week the Librairie Nouvelle sends her, from me, everything that has appeared; I believe she reads through the whole lot.

“It must make a strange salad in her head.

“This literary taste may account for some of her queer ways. When you see life through a maze of fifteen thousand novels, you must get a queer impression of things and see them from an odd angle.

“As for me, I wait. It is certainly true that I have never felt towards any woman as I feel towards her.

“It’s equally certain that I shall never marry her.

“If she has had lovers, I shall make one more. If she has not, I shall be the first to take my seat in the train.

“It’s all very simple. She can’t possibly marry, ever. Who would marry the daughter of the Marquise Obardi, Octavie Bardin? Clearly no one, for any number of reasons.

“Where could she find a husband? In society? Never; the mother’s house is a public resort, and the daughter attracts the clients. One can’t marry into a family like that. In the middle classes, then? Even less. Besides, the Marquise has a good head on her shoulders; she’d never give Yvette to anyone but a man of rank, and she’ll never find him.

“In the lower classes, perhaps? Still less possible. There’s no way out of it, then. The girl belongs neither to society nor to the middle class, nor to the lower classes, nor would marriage jockey her into any one of them. She belongs, by her parentage, her birth, her upbringing, heredity, manners, habits, to the world of gilded prostitution.

“She can’t escape unless she becomes a nun, which is very unlikely, seeing that her manners and tastes are already what they are. So she has only one possible profession⁠—love. That’s where she’ll go, if she has not already gone. She can’t escape her destiny. From being a young girl, she’ll become just a⁠—‘woman.’ And I should very much like to be the man who brings about the transformation.

“I am waiting. There are any number of lovers. You’ll come across a Frenchman, Monsieur de Beloigne, a Russian who calls himself Prince Kravalow, and an Italian, Chevalier Valréali. These have all definitely entered themselves for the race, and are already training. There are also a number of camp-followers of less account.

“The Marquise is on the lookout. But I fancy she has her eye on me. She knows I’m very rich and she knows less about the others.

“Her house is the most extraordinary place of the kind that I have ever seen. You meet some very decent fellows there; we’re going ourselves and we shall not be the only ones. As for the women, she has come across, or rather picked out, the choicest fruit on the professional stall. Lord knows where she found them. And she was magnificently inspired to make a point of taking those who had children of their own, daughters for choice. The result is that a greenhorn might think the house was full of honest women!”

They had reached the Avenue of the Champs Élysées. A faint breeze whispered among the leaves, and was now and again wafted against their faces, like the soft breath of a giant fan swinging somewhere in the sky. Mute shadows drifted under the trees, others were visible as dark blots on the benches. And all these shadows spoke in very low tones, as though confiding important or shameful secrets.

“You cannot imagine,” went on Servigny, “what a collection of fancy titles you come across in this rabbit-warren. By the way, I hope you know I’m going to introduce you as Count Saval. Saval by itself would not be at all popular, I assure you.”

“No, damn it, certainly not!” cried his friend. “I’m hanged if anyone is going to think me fool enough to scrape up a comic-opera title even for ‘one night only,’ and for that crowd. With your leave, we’ll cut that out.”

Servigny laughed.

“You old idiot! Why, I’ve been christened the Duc de Servigny. I don’t know how or why it was done. I have just always been the Duc de Servigny; I never made trouble about it. It’s no discomfort. Why, without it I should be utterly looked down on!”

But Saval was not to be persuaded.

“You’re a nobleman, you can carry it off. As for me, I shall remain, for better or worse, the only commoner in the place. That will be my mark of distinctive superiority.”

But Servigny was obstinate.

“I tell you it can’t be done, absolutely cannot be done. It would be positively indecent. You would be like a rag-and-bone man at an assemblage of emperors. Leave it to me; I’ll introduce you as the Viceroy of Upper Mississippi, and no one will be surprised. If you’re going to go in for titles, you might as well do it with an air.”

“No; once more, I tell you I won’t have it.”

“Very well, then. I was a fool really to try persuading you, for I defy you to get in without someone decorating you with a title; it’s like those shops a lady can’t pass without being given a bunch of violets at the doorstep.”

They turned to the right down the Rue de Berri, climbed to the first floor of a fine modern mansion, and left their coats and sticks in the hands of four flunkeys in knee-breeches. The air was heavy with the warm festive odour of flowers, scent, and women; and a ceaseless murmur of voices, loud and confused, came from the crowded rooms beyond.

A tall, upright, solemn, potbellied man, in some sort master of the ceremonies, his face framed in white whiskers, approached the newcomers and, making a short, stiff bow, asked:

“What name, please?”

“Monsieur Saval,” replied Servigny.

Whereupon the man flung open the door and in a loud voice announced to the crowd of guests:

“Monsieur le Duc de Servigny. Monsieur le Baron Saval.”

The first room was full of women. The eye was filled at once by a vast vision of bare bosoms lifting from billows of white lace.

The lady of the house stood talking to three friends; she turned and came forward with stately steps, grace in her bearing and a smile upon her lips.

Her low, narrow forehead was entirely hidden by masses of black, gleaming hair, thick and fleecy, encroaching even on her temples. She was tall, a little too massive, a little too fat, a little overripe, but very handsome, with a warm, heady, and powerful beauty. Her crown of hair, with the large black eyes beneath it, provoked entrancing dreams and made her subtly desirable. Her nose was rather thin, her mouth large and infinitely alluring, made for speech and conquest.

But her liveliest charm lay in her voice. It sprang from her mouth like water from a spring, so easily, so lightly, so well pitched, so clear, that listening to it was sheer physical joy. It thrilled the ear to hear the smooth words pour forth with the sparkling grace of a brook bubbling from the ground, and fascinated the eye to watch the lovely, too-red lips part to give them passage.

She held out her hand to Servigny, who kissed it, and, dropping the fan that hung from a thin chain of wrought gold, she gave her other hand to Saval, saying:

“You are welcome, Baron. My house is always open to any friend of the Duc’s.”

Then she fixed her brilliant eyes on the giant to whom she was being introduced. On her upper lip was a faint smudge of black down, the merest shadow of a moustache, more plainly visible when she spoke. Her scent was delicious, strong and intoxicating, some American or Indian perfume.

But other guests were arriving, marquises, counts, or princes. She turned to Servigny and said, with the graciousness of a mother:

“You will find my daughter in the other room. Enjoy yourselves, gentlemen. The house is yours.”

She left them in order to greet the new arrivals, giving Saval that fugitive smiling glance with which women let men know that they have found favour.

Servigny took his friend’s arm.

“I’ll be your pilot,” he said. “Here, where we are at present, are the women; this is the temple of the Flesh, fresh or otherwise. Bargains as good as new, or better; very superior articles at greatly reduced rates. On the left is the gambling. That is the temple of Money. You know all about that.

“At the far end, dancing; that is the temple of Innocence. There are displayed the offspring, if we may believe it, of the ladies in here. Even lawful unions would be smiled on! There is the future, the hope⁠ ⁠… of our nights. And there, too, are the strangest exhibits in this museum of diseased morals, the young girls whose souls are double-jointed, like the limbs of little clowns who had acrobats for parents. Let us go and see them.”

He bowed to right and left, a debonair figure, scattering pretty speeches and running his rapid, expert glance over every pair of bare shoulders whose possessor he recognised.

At the far end of the second room an orchestra was playing a waltz; they stopped at the door and watched. Some fifteen couples were dancing, the men gravely, their partners with fixed smiles on their lips. Like their mothers, they showed a great deal of bare skin; since the bodices of some were supported only by a narrow ribbon round the upper part of the arm, there were occasional glimpses of a dark shadow under the armpits.

Suddenly a tall girl started up and crossed the room, pushing the dancers aside, her absurdly long train gathered in her left hand. She ran with the short quick steps affected by women in a crowd, and cried out:

“Ah, there’s Muscade. How are you, Muscade!”

Her face was glowing with life, and radiant with happiness. She had the white, golden-gleaming skin which goes with auburn hair. Her forehead was loaded with the sheaf of flaming, gleaming tresses that burdened her still slender neck.

She seemed made for motion as her mother was for speech, so natural, gracious, and simple were her movements. A sense of spiritual delight and physical contentment sprang from the mere sight of her as she walked, moved, bent her head or raised her arm.

“Ah, Muscade,” she repeated. “How are you, Muscade?”

Servigny shook her hand vigorously, as though she were a man, and said:

“This is my friend, Baron Saval, Mam’zelle Yvette.”

She greeted the newcomer, then stared at him.

“How do you do? Are you always as tall as this?”

“Oh, no, Mam’zelle,” answered Servigny, in the mocking tone he used to conceal his uneasiness in her presence. “He has put on his largest size today to please your mother, who likes quantity.”

“Oh, very well, then,” replied the girl in a seriocomic voice. “But when you come for my sake, please be a little smaller; I like the happy medium. Muscade here is about my size,” and she offered him her little hand.

“Are you going to dance, Muscade?” she asked. “Let’s dance this waltz.”

Servigny made no answer, but with a sudden swift movement put his arm round her waist, and away they went like a whirlwind.

They danced faster than any, turning and twirling with wild abandon, so tightly clasped that they looked like one. Their bodies held upright and their legs almost motionless, it was as though they were spun round by an invisible machine hidden under their feet. They seemed unwearying. One by one the other couples dropped out till they were left alone, waltzing on and on. They looked as though they no longer knew where they were or what they were doing, as though they were far away from the ballroom, in ecstasy. The band played steadily on, their eyes fixed on this bewitched pair; everyone was watching, and there was a burst of applause when at last they stopped.

She was rather flushed; her eyes were no longer frank, but strangely troubled, burning yet timid, unnaturally blue, with pupils unnaturally black.

Servigny was drunk with giddiness, and leaned against a door to recover his balance.

“You have a poor head, Muscade,” she said. “You don’t stand it as well as I do.”

He smiled his nervous smile and looked at her with hungry eyes, a savage lust in his eyes and the curve of his lips.

She continued to stand in front of the young man, her throat heaving as she regained her breath.

“Sometimes,” she continued, “you look just like a cat about to make a spring. Give me your arm, and let us go and find your friend.”

Without speaking he offered her his arm, and they crossed the large room.

Saval was alone no longer; the Marquise Obardi had joined him, and was talking of trivial things, bewitching him with her maddening voice. Gazing intently at him, she seemed to utter words very different from those on her lips, words that came from the secret places of her heart. At the sight of Servigny she smiled and, turning to him, said:

“Have you heard, my dear Duc, that I’ve just taken a villa at Bougival for a couple of months? Of course you’ll come and see me; you’ll bring your friend, won’t you? I’m going down there on Monday, so will you both come and dine there next Saturday, and stay over the weekend?”

Servigny turned sharply to Yvette. She was smiling a serene, tranquil smile, and with an air of bland assurance said:

“Of course Muscade will come to dinner on Saturday; there’s no need to ask him. We shall have all kinds of fun in the country.”

He fancied that he saw a vague promise in her smile, and an unwonted decision in her voice.

The Marquise thereupon raised her great black eyes to Saval’s face, and said:

“And you also, Baron?”

There was nothing equivocal about her smile.

He bowed.

“I shall be only too pleased.”

“We’ll scandalise the neighbourhood⁠—won’t we, Muscade?⁠—and drive my admirers wild with rage,” murmured Yvette, glancing, with a malice that was either candid or assured, towards the group of men who watched them from the other side of the room.

“To your heart’s content, Mam’zelle,” replied Servigny; by way of emphasising the intimate nature of his friendship with her, he never called her “mademoiselle.”

“Why does Mademoiselle Yvette always call my friend Servigny ‘Muscade’?” asked Saval.

The girl assumed an air of innocence.

“He’s like the little pea that the conjurers call ‘Muscade.’ You think you have your finger on it, but you never have.”

“Quaint children, aren’t they?” the Marquise said carelessly, obviously thinking of far other things, and not for an instant lowering her eyes from Saval’s face.

“I’m not quaint, I’m frank,” said Yvette angrily. “I like Muscade, and he’s always leaving me; it’s so annoying.”

Servigny made her a low bow.

“I’ll never leave you again, Mam’zelle, day or night.”

She made a gesture of alarm.

“Oh, no, that would never do! In the daytime, by all means, but at night you’d be in the way.”

“Why?” he asked imprudently.

With calm audacity she replied:

“Because you couldn’t possibly look so nice with your clothes off.”

“What a dreadful thing to say!” exclaimed the Marquise, without appearing in the least excited. “You can’t possibly be so innocent as all that.”

“I entirely agree with you,” added Servigny in a jesting tone.

Yvette looked rather hurt, and said haughtily:

“You have just been guilty of blatant vulgarity; you have permitted yourself far too much of that sort of thing lately.”

She turned her back on him, and shouted:

“Chevalier, come and defend me; I have just been insulted.”

A thin, dark man came slowly towards them.

“Which is the culprit?” he asked, forcing a smile.

She nodded towards Servigny.

“That’s the man; but all the same I like him better than all of you put together; he’s not so boring.”

The Chevalier Valréali bowed.

“We do what we can. Perhaps we are not so brilliant, but we are at least as devoted.”

A tall, stout man with grey whiskers and a deep voice was just leaving.

“Your servant, Mademoiselle Yvette,” he said as he passed.

“Ah, it’s Monsieur de Belvigne,” she exclaimed, and turning to Saval, she introduced him.

“Another candidate for my favour, tall, fat, rich, and stupid. That’s how I like them. He’s a real Field-marshal⁠—one of those who hold the door open at restaurants. But you’re taller than he is. Now what am I going to christen you? I know! I shall call you Rhodes Junior, after the colossus who must have been your father. But you two must have really interesting things to discuss, far above our heads, so good night to you.”

She ran across to the orchestra, and asked them to play a quadrille.

Madame Obardi’s attention seemed to be wandering.

“You’re always teasing her,” she said softly. “You’re spoiling the child’s disposition and teaching her a number of bad habits.”

“Then you haven’t finished her education?” he replied.

She seemed not to understand, and continued to smile benevolently.

But observing the approach of a solemn gentleman whose breast was covered with orders, she ran up to him:

“Ah, Prince, how delightful!”

Servigny took Saval’s arm once more and led him away, saying:

“There’s my last serious rival, Prince Kravalow. Isn’t she a glorious creature?”

“They’re both glorious,” replied Saval. “The mother’s quite good enough for me.”

Servigny bowed.

“She’s yours for the asking, my dear.”

The dancers elbowed them as they took their places for the quadrille, couple by couple, in two lines facing one another.

“Now let’s go and watch the Greeks for a bit,” said Servigny.

They entered the gambling-room.

Round each table a circle of men stood watching. There was very little conversation; sometimes a little chink of gold, thrown down on the cloth or hastily mixed up, mingled its faint metallic murmur with the murmur of the players, as though the voice of gold were making itself heard amid the human voices.

The men were decorated with various orders and strange ribbons; and their diverse features all wore the same severe expression. They were more easily distinguished by their beards.

The stiff American with his horseshoe beard, the haughty Englishman with a hairy fan spread over his chest, the Spaniard with a black fleece reaching right up to his eyes, the Roman with the immense moustache bequeathed to Italy by Victor Emmanuel, the Austrian with his whiskers and clean-shaven chin, a Russian general whose lip was armed with two spears of twisted hair, Frenchmen with gay moustaches⁠—they displayed the imaginative genius of every barber in the world.

“Aren’t you going to play?” asked Servigny.

“No; what about you?”

“I never play here. Would you like to go now? We’ll come back one day when it’s quieter. There are too many people here today; there’s nothing to be done.”

“Yes, let us go.”

They disappeared through a doorway which led into the hall.

As soon as they were out in the street, Servigny asked:

“Well, what do you think of it all?”

“It’s certainly interesting. But I like the women better than the men.”

“Good Lord, yes! Those women are the best hunting in the country. Don’t you agree with me that love exhales from them like the perfumes from a barber’s shop? These are positively the only houses where one can really get one’s money’s worth. And what expert lovers they are! What artists! Have you ever eaten cakes made by a baker? They look so good, and they have no flavour at all. Well, the love of an ordinary woman always reminds me of baker’s pastry, whereas the love you get from women like the Marquise Obardi⁠—that really is love! Oh, they can make cakes all right, can these confectioners. You have to pay them twopence halfpenny for what you would get anywhere else for a penny, that’s the only thing.”

“Who is the man running the place at present?” asked Saval.

Servigny shrugged his shoulders to express utter ignorance.

“I have no idea,” he said. “The last I knew certainly was an English peer, but he left three months ago. At the moment she must be living on the community, on the gambling and the gamblers, very likely, for she has her whims. But it’s an understood thing, isn’t it, that we are dining with her at Bougival on Saturday? There’s more freedom in the country, and I shall end by finding out what notions Yvette has in her head!”

“I ask for nothing better,” replied Saval. “I’m not doing anything that day.”

As they returned down the Champs Élysées, under the embattled stars, they passed a couple lying on a bench, and Servigny murmured:

“How ridiculous, yet how utterly indispensable, is this business of love! A commonplace, and an ecstasy, always the same and always different! And the clown who is paying that girl a franc is only seeking the very thing I buy for ten thousand from some Obardi who is perhaps no younger or more fascinating than that drab! What folly!” He was silent for some minutes, then said:

“All the same, it wouldn’t be a poor thing to be Yvette’s first lover. For that I’d give⁠ ⁠… I’d give⁠ ⁠…”

He did not make up his mind what he would give. And Saval bade him good night at the corner of the Rue Royale.

II

The table had been laid on the veranda that overlooked the river. Villa Printemps, the house that the Marquise Obardi had taken, stood halfway up the hillside, at the very point where just below the garden wall the Seine made a turn towards Marly. Opposite the house the island of Croissy formed a background of tall trees, a mass of leafage. A long reach of the broad river was clearly visible as far as the floating café, La Grenouillère, half hidden in the branches.

Night was coming down, calm and still, after a flaming riverside sunset; one of those tranquil evenings that bring with them a vague sense of happiness. Not a breath or air stirred the branches, no gust of wind disturbed the smooth translucent surface of the Seine. The air was warm, but not too hot; it was good to be alive. The grateful coolness of the riverbanks rose to the quiet sky.

The sun was disappearing behind the trees, wheeling towards other lands. The serene calm of the sleeping earth soothed their senses; under the vast quiet dome of the sky they felt the effortless surge of the universal life.

The scene enchanted them when they came out of the drawing room and sat down at the dinner-table. A tender gaiety filled their hearts; they all felt it very good to be dining out there in the country with that broad river and glorious sunset for scenery, and breathing that sweet pure air.

The Marquise had taken Saval’s arm, Yvette Servigny’s.

These four made up the little party.

The two women were not in the least like their Parisian selves. Yvette was the more altered of the two; she spoke very little, and seemed tired and grave.

Saval hardly recognised her, and asked:

“What’s the matter with you, Mademoiselle? I find you very changed since last week. You have become quite a reasonable being.”

“It’s the effect of the country,” she answered. “I am not the same there; I feel quite strange. And besides, I never am the same two days together. Today I behave like a lunatic, tomorrow I’ll be like a funeral oration; I change like the weather, I don’t know why. I’m capable of absolutely anything⁠—at the right time. There are days when I could kill people; not animals⁠—I could never kill animals⁠—but people, certainly; and then there are days when I cry for just nothing. A hundred different ideas rush through my head. It depends, too, on my feeling when I get up in the morning. Every morning when I wake up I know just what I shall be like all day. Perhaps our dreams decide that sort of thing. Partly it depends on the book I have just been reading.”

She was dressed in white flannel; the soft delicate folds of material covered her from head to foot. The bodice was loose, with big pleats, and suggested, without too rigidly defining, the firm sweeping contour of her already well-formed bosom. Her slender neck rose from fold upon fold of frothy lace, drooping languidly, its warm gleaming flesh even whiter than her dress and weighed down with its heavy burden of golden hair.

For a long minute Servigny gazed at her, then said:

“You are adorable tonight, Mam’zelle⁠—I wish I could always see you like that.”

“Don’t propose to me, Muscade,” she said, with a touch of her wonted archness. “On a day like this I should take you at your word, and that might cost you dear.”

The Marquise looked happy, very happy. She was dressed severely in black; the fine folds of the gown set off the superb, massive lines of her figure. There was a touch of red in the bodice, a spray of red carnations fell from her waist and was caught up at her side, a red rose was fastened in her dark hair. There was a flame in her tonight, in her whole being, in the simple dress with the bloodred blossoms, in the glance that lingered on her neighbour, in her slow voice, in her rare movements.

Saval too was grave and preoccupied. From time to time, with a gesture familiar to him, he stroked his brown Vandyke beard, and seemed sunk in thought.

For some moments no one spoke.

“There is sometimes a saving grace in silence,” said Servigny at last, as the trout was being handed. “Neighbours are often closer to one another when silent than when speaking; isn’t that so, Marquise?”

She turned slightly towards him and replied:

“Yes, it’s true. It is so sweet for both of us to think of the same delightful thing.”

She turned her burning gaze on Saval; for some moments they remained looking into one another’s eyes. There was a slight, an almost imperceptible movement under the table.

“Mam’zelle Yvette,” continued Servigny, “you’ll make me think you’re in love if you continue to behave so beautifully. Now with whom can you be in love? Let’s think it out together. I leave the vulgar herd of sighing swains on one side, and go straight for the principals. How about Prince Kravalow?”

At this name Yvette was roused.

“My poor dear Muscade, what are you thinking about? The Prince looks like a Russian in the waxworks who would win medals at a hairdressing competition.”

“Very well. The Prince is out of it. Perhaps you have chosen the Vicomte Pierre de Belvigne?”

This time she broke into a fit of laughter and asked:

“Can you see me hanging round Raisiné’s neck”⁠—she called him Raisiné, Malvoisie, or Argenteuil according to the day of the week, for she nicknamed everyone⁠—“and whispering in his ear: ‘My dear little Pierre,’ or ‘My divine Pedro, my adored Pietri, my darling Pierrot, give your dear fat poodlehead to your darling little wifie because she wants to kiss it’?”

“Away with Number Two, then,” said Servigny. “We are left with the Chevalier Valréali, whom the Marquise seems to favour.”

Yvette was as much amused as before.

“What, Old Lachrymose? Why, he’s a professional mourner at the Madeleine; he follows all the high-class funerals. Whenever he looks at me I feel as though I were already dead.”

“That’s three. Then you’ve fallen hopelessly in love with Baron Saval, here present.”

“With Rhodes Junior? No, he’s too strong. It would feel like being in love with the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile.”

“Well, then, Mam’zelle, it is plain that you’re in love with me, for I’m the only one of your worshippers that we haven’t already dealt with. I had kept myself to the end, out of modesty and prudence. It only remains for me to thank you.”

“You, Muscade!” she replied with charming gaiety. “Oh, no, I like you very much⁠ ⁠… but I don’t love you⁠ ⁠… Wait, I don’t want to discourage you. I don’t love you yet.⁠ ⁠… You have a chance⁠ ⁠… perhaps⁠ ⁠… Persevere, Muscade, be devoted, ardent, obedient, take plenty of trouble and all possible precautions, obey my lightest whims, be prepared to do anything I may choose⁠ ⁠… and we’ll see⁠ ⁠… later.”

“But, Mam’zelle, I’d rather do all this for you after than before, if you don’t mind.”

“After what⁠ ⁠… Muscade?” she asked him with the ingenuous air of a soubrette.

“Why, deuce take it, after you’ve shown me that you love me.”

“Well, behave as though I did, and believe it if you want to.”

“But, I must say⁠ ⁠…”

“Be quiet, Muscade. That’s enough about it for this time.”

He made her a military salute and held his tongue.

The sun had gone down behind the island, but the sky still glowed like a brazier, and the quiet water of the river was as though changed to blood. The sunset spilled a burning light over houses, people, everything; the scarlet rose in the Marquise’s hair was like a drop of crimson fallen upon her head from the clouds.

Yvette was looking the other way; her mother laid her hand on Saval’s, as though by accident. But the young girl turned, and the Marquise quickly snatched away her hand and fumbled at the folds of her bodice.

Servigny, who was watching them, said:

“If you like, Mam’zelle, we’ll go for a walk on the island after dinner.”

She was delighted with the idea.

“Oh, yes; that will be lovely; we’ll go by ourselves, won’t we, Muscade?”

“Yes, all by ourselves, Mam’zelle.”

Once more they were silent.

The calm of the wide landscape, the restful slumber of eventide weighed on their hearts, their bodies, their voices. There are rare, quiet hours wherein speech is almost impossible. The servants made no noise. The flaming sky burnt low; slowly night folded the earth in shadow.

“Do you propose to stay here long?” asked Saval.

“Yes,” replied the Marquise, dwelling upon each word, “for just as long as I’m happy here.”

As it was now too dark to see, lamps were brought. They flung across the table a strange pale light in the hollow darkness. A rain of little flies began falling upon the cloth. They were tiny midges, burnt as they flew over the glass chimneys of the lamps; their wings and legs singed, they powdered the table-linen, the plates, and the glasses with a grey, creeping dust. The diners swallowed them in their wine, ate them in the sauces, watched them crawling over the bread. Their faces and hands were perpetually tickled by a flying swarm of innumerable tiny insects.

The wine had constantly to be thrown away, the plates covered; they took infinite precautions to protect the food they were eating. Yvette was amused at the game; Servigny carefully sheltered whatever she was raising to her lips, guarded the wineglass and held his napkin spread out over her head like a roof. But it was too much for the fastidious nerves of the Marquise, and the meal was hastily brought to an end.

“Now let’s go to the island,” said Yvette, who had not forgotten Servigny’s suggestion.

“Don’t stay long, will you?” advised her mother languidly. “We’ll come with you as far as the ferry.”

They went off along the towpath, still two and two, the young girl in front with her friend. They could hear the Marquise and Saval behind them talking very fast in very low voices. All round them was black, with a thick, inky blackness. But the sky, swarming with seeds of fire, seemed to spill them out on the river, for the dark water was richly patined with stars.

By this time the frogs were croaking; all along the banks their rolling, monotonous notes creaked out.

The soft voices of innumerable nightingales rose in the still air.

Yvette remarked abruptly:

“Hallo! They are no longer following us. Where are they?”

And she called: “Mother!”

There was no answer. “They can’t be far away,” continued the young girl. “I heard them a moment ago.”

“They must have gone back,” murmured Servigny. “Perhaps your mother was cold.” He led her on.

A light shone in front of them; it was the inn of Martinet, a fisherman who also ran a tavern. At their call a man came out of the house, and they boarded a large boat moored in the grasses on the bank. The ferryman took up his oars, and the heavy boat advanced, waking the stars slumbering on the water and rousing them to a frenzied dancing that died slowly down in their wake. They touched the other bank and stepped off under the tall trees. The coolness of the moist earth floated up under the high thick branches that seemed to bear as many nightingales as leaves. A distant piano began to play a popular waltz.

Servigny had taken Yvette’s arm; very softly he slipped his hand behind her waist and pressed it gently.

“What are you thinking of?” he asked.

“I?⁠ ⁠… Nothing, I’m so happy.”

“Then you don’t care for me?”

“Yes, I do, Muscade. I care for you, I care for you a great deal; only don’t talk about it now. It’s too beautiful here to listen to your nonsense.”

He clasped her to him, though she strove, with little struggles, to free herself; through the flannel, so soft and fleecy to the touch, he could feel the warmth of her body.

“Yvette,” he stammered.

“Yes; what is it?”

“It’s⁠ ⁠… I who care for you.”

“You⁠ ⁠… don’t mean that, Muscade.”

“Yes, I do; I’ve cared for you for a very long time.”

She was still struggling to get away, striving to free her arm caught between their two bodies. They walked with difficulty, hampered by this link and by her struggles, zigzagging like a couple of drunkards.

He did not know what to say to her now, well aware that it is impossible to use to a young girl the words one would use to a grown woman; he was worried, wondering what he could do, wondering if she consented or did not understand, at his wit’s end for words that would be at once tender, discreet, and unmistakable.

Every second he repeated:

“Yvette! Speak to me, Yvette!”

Suddenly he pressed an audacious kiss on her cheek. She made a little movement of withdrawal, and said in a vexed tone:

“Oh! How absurd you are. Will you leave me alone?”

Her voice revealed nothing of her thoughts and wishes; he saw that she was not too angry, and he stooped his lips to the nape of her neck, on the first few downy golden hairs, the adorable spot he had coveted so long.

Then she struggled with all her might to get free. But he held her firmly, and placing his other hand on her shoulder, forced her head round towards him, and took from her mouth a long, maddening kiss. She slipped between his arms with a quick twist of her whole body, stooped swiftly, and having thus dexterously escaped from his embrace, vanished in the darkness with a sharp rustling of petticoats like the whirring noise of a pheasant rising.

At first he remained motionless, stunned by her quickness and by her disappearance; then, hearing no further sound, he called in a low voice:

“Yvette!”

There was no answer; he began to walk on, ransacking the darkness with his eyes, searching in the bushes for the white patch that must be made by her dress. All was dark. He called again more loudly:

“Mam’zelle Yvette!”

The nightingales were silent.

He hurried on, vaguely uneasy, calling ever louder and louder:

“Mam’zelle Yvette! Mam’zelle Yvette!”

Nothing! He stopped, listened. The whole island was silent; there was barely a rustle in the leaves overhead. The frogs alone kept up their sonorous croaking on the banks.

He wandered from copse to copse, descending first to the steep wooded slope of the swift main stream, then returning to the bare flat bank of the backwater. He went right up until he was opposite Bougival, then came back to the café La Grenouillère, hunting through all the thickets, constantly crying:

“Mam’zelle Yvette, where are you? Answer! It is only a joke. Answer me, answer me! Don’t make me hunt like this.”

A distant clock began to strike. He counted the strokes; it was midnight. For two hours he had been running round the island. He thought that she had probably gone home, and, very uneasy, went back, going round by the bridge.

A servant, asleep in an armchair, was waiting in the hall. Servigny woke him and asked:

“Is it long since Mademoiselle Yvette came in? I left her out in the country, as I had to pay a call.”

“Oh, yes, your Grace,” the fellow replied, “Mademoiselle came in before ten.”

He walked up to his room and went to bed. But he lay with his eyes open, unable to sleep. That snatched kiss had disturbed her. What did she want? he wondered. What did she think? What did she know? How pretty she was, and how she had maddened him! His desire, dulled by the life he had led, by all the women he had known, was reawakened by this strange child, so fresh, provoking, and inexplicable.

He heard one o’clock strike, then two. He realised that he would get no sleep that night. He was hot and wet with sweat; he felt in his temples the quick thudding of his heart. He got up to open the window.

A cool breeze came in, and he drew long deep breaths of it. The night was utterly dark, silent, and still. But suddenly in the darkness of the garden he caught sight of a speck of light, like a little piece of glowing coal. “Ah, a cigar,” he thought. “It can’t be anyone but Saval. Léon,” he called softly.

“Is that you, Jean?” a voice answered.

“Yes. Wait, I’m coming down.”

He dressed, went out, and joined his friend, who was smoking astride an iron chair.

“What are you doing at this time of night?”

“Having a rest,” replied Saval, and laughed.

Servigny shook his head.

“I congratulate you, my dear chap. As for me, I’ve run my head into a wall.”

“You are telling me⁠ ⁠… ?”

“I am telling you⁠ ⁠… that Yvette is not like her mother.”

“What happened? Tell me all about it.”

Servigny recounted his unsuccessful efforts, then continued:

“Yes, the child really worries me. Do you realise that I haven’t been able to get to sleep? What a queer thing a girl is. This one looks as simple as possible, and yet she’s a complete mystery. One can understand at once a woman who has lived and loved, who knows what life is like. But with a young girl, on the other hand, one can’t be sure of anything at all. I’m really beginning to think she’s playing the fool with me.”

Saval rocked gently on his chair.

“Be careful, my dear chap,” he said very slowly; “she’ll get you to marry her. Remember the illustrious examples in history. That was how Mademoiselle de Montijo became empress, and she was at least of decent family. Don’t play the Napoleon.”

“Have no fears about that,” said Servigny. “I’m not a fool, nor an emperor. One has to be one or the other to lose one’s head so completely. But, I say, are you sleepy?”

“Not a bit.”

“Come for a walk along the riverside, then.”

“Very well.”

They opened the gate and started off down the river towards Marly.

It was the cool hour just before dawn, the hour of deepest sleep, deepest rest, utter quiet. Even the faint noises of the night were silent now. The nightingales sang no longer, the frogs had finished their croaking; some unknown animal, a bird perhaps, alone broke the stillness, making a feeble sawing noise, monotonous and regular, like the working of a machine. Servigny, who had at times a touch of the poet and of the philosopher too, said abruptly:

“Look here. This girl absolutely maddens me. In arithmetic, one and one make two. In love, one and one ought to make one, but they make two all the same. Do you know the feeling? The savage need of absorbing a woman into oneself, or of being absorbed into her? I don’t mean the mere physical desire to embrace her, but the mental and spiritual torment to be at one with another human being, to open one’s whole soul to her, one’s whole heart, and to penetrate to the uttermost depths of her mind. And never, never do you really know her or discover all the fluctuations of her will, her desires, and her thoughts. Never can you make even the slightest guess at the whole of the secret, the whole mystery of the spirit come so close to you, a spirit hidden behind two eyes as clear as water, as transparent as though there were no secret behind them. A spirit speaks to you through a beloved mouth, a mouth that seems yours because you desire it so passionately; one by one this spirit sends you its thoughts in the guise of words, and yet it remains farther from you than the stars are from one another, farther out of reach than the stars. Strange, isn’t it!”

“I do not demand so much,” replied Saval. “I do not bother to look behind the eyes. I don’t care much for the inside; it’s the outside I care for.”

“Whatever you say, Yvette’s a queer creature,” murmured Servigny. “I wonder how she’ll treat me in the morning.”

As they reached the weir at Marly, they saw that the sky was paling. Cocks began to crow in the farmyards; the sound reached them slightly muffled by thick walls. A bird cried in a park on the left, continually repeating a simple and ridiculous little cadenza.

“Time to go back,” said Saval, and they turned round.

When Servigny reached his room, the horizon gleamed rosily through the still open window. He pulled down the Venetian blinds and drew the heavy curtains across, got into bed, and at last fell asleep. And all the time he dreamt of Yvette.

A curious sound awoke him. He sat up and listened, but did not hear it again. Then suddenly there came against his shutters a rattling like hail. He jumped out of bed and ran to the window; throwing it open, he saw Yvette standing on the garden-path, throwing great handfuls of gravel in his face.

She was dressed in pink, and wore a broad-brimmed straw hat surmounted with a military plume; she was laughing with malicious mischief.

“Well, Muscade, still asleep? What can you have been doing last night to wake up so late? Did you have any adventures, my poor Muscade?”

“Coming, coming, Mam’zelle! Just a moment, while I stick my nose into the water-jug, and I’ll be down.”

“Hurry up,” she cried; “it’s ten o’clock. And I’ve got a scheme to talk over with you, a plot we are going to carry out. Breakfast at eleven, you know.”

He found her seated on a bench with a book on her knees, a novel. She took his arm with friendly familiarity, as frankly and gaily as though nothing had happened the night before, and leading him to the far end of the garden, said:

“This is my plan. We’re going to disobey mamma, and you are going to take me presently to the Grenouillère. I want to see it. Mamma says that decent women can’t go there, but I don’t care whether I can or I can’t. You’ll take me, Muscade, won’t you? We’ll have such sport with the people on the river.”

The fragrance of her was delightful, but he could not discover what vague, faint scent it was that hung round her. It was not one of her mother’s heavy perfumes, but a delicate fragrance in which he thought he recognised a faint whiff of iris powder and perhaps a touch of verbena.

Whence came this elusive scent⁠—from her dress, her hair, or her skin? He was wondering about this when, as she spoke with her face very close to his, he felt her fresh breath full in his face, and found it quite as delightful. He fancied that the fleeting fragrance he had failed to recognise was the figment of his own bewitched senses, nothing but a delusive emanation from her youth and alluring grace.

“You will, won’t you, Muscade?” she said. “It will be so hot after breakfast that mother won’t want to go out. She’s very lazy when it’s hot. We’ll leave her with your friend, and you shall be my escort. We’ll pretend we are going up to the woods. You don’t know how I shall enjoy seeing the Grenouillère.”

They reached the gate facing the Seine. A flood of sunlight fell on the quiet, gleaming river. A light heat-mist was lifting, the steam of evaporated water, leaving a little glittering vapour on the surface of the stream. From time to time a boat went by, a light skiff or a heavy barge, and distant whistles could be heard, the short notes of the whistles on the Sunday trains that flooded the country with Parisians, and the long warning notes of the steamboats passing the weir at Marly.

But a small bell rang for breakfast, and they went in.

The meal was eaten in silence. A heavy July noon pressed on the earth and oppressed the dwelling thereon. The heat was almost tangible, paralysing both mind and body. The sluggish words would not leave their lips; every movement was an effort, as though the air had acquired power of resistance, and was more difficult to thrust through.

Yvette alone, though silent, was animated, and possessed by impatience. As soon as dessert was finished she said:

“Supposing we went for a walk in the woods. It would be perfectly delightful under the trees.”

“Are you mad?” murmured the Marquise, who looked utterly exhausted. “How can one go out in weather like this?”

“Very well,” replied the young girl slyly, “we’ll leave you here with the Baron to keep you company. Muscade and I will scramble up the hill and sit down and read on the grass.”

She turned to Servigny, saying: “That’s all right, isn’t it?”

“At your service, Mam’zelle,” he replied.

She ran off to fetch her hat. The Marquise shrugged her shoulders and sighed: “Really, she’s quite mad.” Indolently she held out her beautiful white hand in a gesture of profound and seductive lassitude; the Baron pressed a lingering kiss upon it.

Yvette and Servigny departed. At first they followed the river, then they crossed the bridge and went on to the island, and sat down under the willows on the bank of the main stream, for it was still too early to go to La Grenouillère.

The young girl at once took a book from her pocket and, laughing, said:

“Muscade, you’re going to read to me.” And she held out the volume for him to take. He made a deprecatory gesture. “I, Mam’zelle? But I can’t read.”

“Come, now, no excuses, no arguments,” she replied severely. “You’re a nice lover, you are. ‘Everything for nothing’⁠—that’s your creed, isn’t it?”

He took the book and opened it, and was surprised to find that it was a treatise on entomology, a history of ants by an English author. He remained silent, thinking that she was making fun of him.

“Go on, read,” she said.

“Is this a bet,” he asked, “or just a joke?”

“Neither. I saw the book in a shop; they told me it was the best book about ants, and I thought it would be nice to hear about the lives of the little creatures and watch them running about in the grass at the same time. So read away.”

She lay down face downwards at full length, her elbows resting on the ground and her head between her hands, her eyes fixed on the grass.

“ ‘Without doubt,’ he read, ‘the anthropoid apes are of all animals those which approach most closely to man in their anatomical structure; but if we consider the habits of ants, their organisation into societies, their vast communities, the houses and roads which they construct, their custom of domesticating animals and even at times of having slaves, we shall be forced to admit that they have the right to claim the place next to man on the ladder of intelligence.’ ”

He continued in a monotonous voice, stopping from time to time to ask: “Isn’t that enough?”

She signed “no” with a shake of her head, and, having picked up a wandering ant on the point of a blade of grass she had plucked, she amused herself by making it run from one end of the stem to the other, turning it upside-down as soon as the insect reached either end. She listened in silence and with concentrated attention to all the surprising details of the life of these frail creatures, their subterranean establishments, the way in which they bring up, keep, and feed little grubs in order to drink the secret liquor they secrete, just as we keep cows in our byres, their custom of domesticating little blind insects which clean their dwellings, and of going to war in order to bring back slaves to serve the victors, which the slaves do with such solicitude that the latter even lose the habit of feeding themselves.

And little by little, as though a maternal tenderness had awakened in her head for this creature at once so tiny and so intelligent, Yvette let it climb about her finger, watching it with loving eyes, longing to kiss it. And as Servigny was reading how they live in a community, how they play together in a friendly rivalry of strength and skill, the young girl, in her enthusiasm, tried to kiss the insect, which escaped from her finger and began to run over her face. She shrieked as violently as though a deadly peril threatened her, and with wild gestures she slapped at her cheek to get rid of the creature. Servigny, roaring with laughter, caught it near her hair and, at the spot where he had caught it, pressed a long kiss, from which Yvette did not recoil.

She got up, declaring: “I like that better than a novel. Now let’s go to La Grenouillère.”

They reached a part of the island which was laid out like a park, shaded with huge trees. Couples wandered under the lofty foliage beside the Seine, over which the boats were gliding. There were girls with young men, working girls with their sweethearts, who were walking in shirtsleeves, coats on their arms and tall hats on the back of their heads, looking weary and dissipated; citizens with their families, the wives in their Sunday best, the children running round their parents like a brood of chickens. A continuous distant buzz of human voices, a dull rumbling clamour, announced the nearness of the establishment beloved of boating parties. Suddenly it came into view, an enormous roofed barge moored to the bank, filled by a crowd of men and women who sat drinking at tables or stood up, shouting, singing, laughing, dancing, capering to the noise of a jingling piano, out of tune and as vibrant as a tin can. Tall, red-haired girls, displaying before and behind them the swelling, provocative curves of breasts and hips, walked up and down with eager, inviting glances, all three parts drunk, talking obscenities. Others were dancing wildly in front of young men who were half naked, dressed only in rowing-shorts and zephyrs, and wearing coloured jockey-caps on their heads. There was a pervading odour of sweat and face powder, the combined exhalations of perfumeries and armpits. Those who were drinking at the tables were swallowing white and red and yellow and green liquids, screaming and yelling for no reason, yielding to a violent need to make a din, an animal instinct to fill ears and brain with noise. From time to time a swimmer dived from the roof, splashing those sitting near, who yelled at him like savages.

On the river a fleet of boats passed and repassed; long narrow skiffs went by, urged on by the powerful strokes of oarsmen whose bare arms showed rolls of muscle under the sunburnt skin. The women in the boats, dressed in blue or red flannel, holding open umbrellas also blue or red over their heads, wore brilliant splashes of colour under the burning sun; they lolled on their seat in the stern and seemed to glide along the water, motionless or drowsy. Heavier boats moved slowly past, loaded with people. A lighthearted student, bent on making himself conspicuous, rowed with a windmill stroke, bumping into all the boats, whose occupants swore at him. He eventually disappeared crestfallen, after nearly drowning two swimmers, followed by the jeers of the crowd jammed together on the floating café.

Yvette, radiant, passed through the middle of this noisy, struggling crowd on Servigny’s arm. She seemed quite happy to be jostled by all and sundry, and stared at the girls with calm and friendly eyes.

“Look at that one, Muscade, what lovely hair she’s got! They do seem to be enjoying themselves.”

The pianist, an oarsman dressed in red, whose hat was very like a colossal straw parasol, began a waltz. Yvette promptly seized her companion by the waist and carried him off with the fury she always put into her dancing. They went on so long and with such frenzy that the whole crowd watched them. Those who were sitting drinking stood upon their tables and beat time with their feet, others smashed glasses. The pianist seemed to go mad; he banged at the ivory keys with galloping hands, gesticulating wildly with his whole body, swaying his head and its enormous covering with frantic movements.

Abruptly he stopped, slid down, and lay full length on the ground, buried under his hat, as though he were dead of exhaustion. There was a burst of laughter in the café, and everyone applauded. Four friends rushed up as though there had been an accident, and picking up their comrade, bore him off by all four limbs, placing on his stomach the roof under which he sheltered his head. Another jester followed, intoning the De Profundis, and a procession formed up behind the mock corpse. It went round all the paths in the island, gathering up drinkers, strollers, indeed everyone it met.

Yvette ran along enraptured, laughing heartily and talking to everyone, wild with the din and the bustle. Young men pushed against her and stared at her excitedly with eyes whose burning glances seemed to strip her naked. Servigny began to be afraid that the adventure might end unfortunately. The procession went on its way, getting faster and faster, for the four bearers had begun to race, followed by the yelling crowd. But suddenly they turned towards the bank, stopped dead at the edge, for an instant swung their comrade to and fro, and then, all letting go of him at once, they heaved him into the water. A great shout of merriment burst from every mouth, while the bewildered pianist splashed about, swearing, coughing, and spitting out the water; stuck fast in the mud, he struggled to climb up the bank. His hat, which was floating down the stream, was brought back by a boat.

Yvette danced with joy and clapped her hands, saying:

“Oh, Muscade, what fun, what fun!”

Servigny, now serious, watched her, a little embarrassed and a little dismayed to see her so much at ease in this vulgar mob. He felt a faint disgust born of the instinct that an aristocrat rarely loses, even in moments of utter abandon, the instinct that protects him from unpardonable familiarities and contacts that would be too degrading. “No one will credit you with too much breeding, my child,” he said to himself, astounded. He had an impulse to speak to her aloud as familiarly as he always did in his thoughts, with as little ceremony as he would have used on meeting any woman who was common property. He no longer saw her as any different from the red-haired creatures who brushed against them, bawling obscene words in their harsh voices. Coarse, brief, and expressive, these words were the current speech of the crowd; they seemed to flit overhead, born there in the mob like flies in the dunghill over which they hover. No one seemed shocked or surprised; Yvette did not seem to notice them at all.

“Muscade, I want to bathe,” she said. “Let’s go out into deep water.”

“At your service, ma’am,” he replied.

They went to the bathing-cabin to get costumes. She was ready first and waited for him on the bank, smiling at all who looked at her. Then they went off side by side in the warm water. She swam with a luxurious abandon, caressed by the stream, quivering with a sensual pleasure; at every stroke she raised herself as though she were ready to leap out of the river. He found difficulty in keeping up with her; he was out of breath and angry at his inferiority. But she slowed down and then turned quickly and floated, her arms crossed, her eyes staring towards the blue sky. He gazed at the soft supple line of her body as she lay there on the surface of the river, at the rounded form and small firm tips of the shapely breasts revealed by her thin clinging garment, the curving sweetness of her belly, the half-submerged thighs, the bare knees gleaming through the water, and the small foot thrust out. He saw every line of her, as though she were deliberately displaying herself to tempt him, offering herself to him or trying to make a fool of him again. He began to desire her with a passionate ardour, every nerve on edge. Abruptly she turned round and looked at him.

“What a nice head you have,” she said with a laugh.

He was hurt, irritated by her teasing, filled with the savage fury of the derided lover. He yielded to a vague desire to punish her, to avenge himself; he wanted to hurt her.

“You’d like that sort of life, would you?” he said.

“What sort?” she asked, with her most innocent air.

“Come now, no more nonsense. You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“No, honestly, I don’t.”

“We’ve had enough of this comedy. Will you or won’t you?”

“I don’t understand you in the least.”

“You’re not so stupid as all that. Besides, I told you last night.”

“What? I’ve forgotten.”

“That I love you.”

“You!”

“Yes, I!”

“What a lie!”

“I swear it’s true.”

“Prove it, then.”

“I ask for nothing better.”

“Well, do, then.”

“You didn’t say that last night.”

“You didn’t propose anything.”

“Oh, this is absurd!”

“Besides, I am not the one to be asked.”

“That’s very kind of you! Who is, then?”

“Mamma, of course.”

He gave way to a fit of laughter.

“Your mother? No, really, that’s too much!”

She had suddenly become very serious, and, looking into his eyes, said:

“Listen, Muscade, if you really love me enough to marry me, speak to mamma first, and I’ll give you my answer afterwards.”

At that he lost his temper altogether, thinking that she was still playing the fool with him.

“What do you take me for, Mam’zelle? An idiot like the rest of your admirers?”

She continued to gaze at him with calm, clear eyes. After a moment’s hesitation she said:

“I still don’t understand.”

“Now look here, Yvette,” he said brusquely, with a touch of rudeness and ill nature in his voice. “Let’s have done with this ridiculous comedy, which has already gone on too long. You keep on playing the innocent maiden, and, believe me, the part doesn’t suit you at all. You know perfectly well that there can be no question of marriage between us⁠—but only of love. I told you I loved you⁠—it’s quite true⁠—I repeat, I do love you. Now don’t pretend not to understand, and don’t treat me as though I were a fool.”

They were upright in the water, face to face, supporting themselves by little movements of the hands. For some seconds more she continued motionless, as though she could not make up her mind to understand his words, then suddenly she blushed to the roots of her hair. The blood rushed in a swift tide from her neck to her ears, which turned almost purple, and without a word she fled landwards, swimming with all her strength, with hurried, powerful strokes. He could not overtake her, and the pursuit left him breathless. He saw her leave the water, pick up her wrap, and enter her cabin, without turning her head.

He took a long time to dress, very puzzled what to do, planning what to say to her, and wondering whether to apologise or persevere.

When he was ready, she had gone, alone. He returned slowly, worried and anxious. The Marquise, on Saval’s arm, was strolling along the circular path round the lawn. At sight of Servigny she spoke with the careless air she had assumed on the previous evening:

“Didn’t I tell you not to go out in such heat? Now Yvette has sunstroke; she’s gone to lie down. She was as scarlet as a poppy, poor child, and has a frightful headache. You must have been walking full in the sun, and up to some mischief or other, heaven knows what. You have no more sense than she has.”

The young girl did not come down to dinner. When she was asked if she would like something brought up to her room, she replied through the closed door that she was not hungry⁠—she had locked herself in and wished to be left alone. The two young men left by the ten o’clock train, promising to come again the following Thursday, and the Marquise sat down by the open window and, musing, listened to the far-off sound of dance-music jerked out at La Grenouillère, vibrating in the profoundly solemn silence of night.

Inured and hardened to love by love, as a man is to riding or rowing, she nevertheless had sudden moments of tenderness which attacked her like a disease. These passions seized roughly upon her, swept through her whole being, driving her mad, exhausting her, or depressing her according to their nature, lofty, violent, dramatic, or sentimental.

She was one of those women who were created to love and to be loved. From a very humble beginning she had climbed high through love, of which she had made a profession almost without being aware of it: acting by instinct, by inborn skill, she accepted money as she accepted kisses, naturally, without distinguishing between them, employing her amazing intuition in an unreasoning and utterly simple fashion, as animals, made cunning by the struggle for life, employ theirs. She had had many lovers for whom she felt no tenderness, yet at whose embraces she had not felt disgust. She endured all caresses with calm indifference, just as a traveller eats anything, because he must live. But from time to time her heart or her flesh caught fire, and she fell into a passion which lasted weeks or months, according to the physical and moral qualities of her lover. These were the delicious moments of her life. She loved with her whole soul, her whole body, with ecstatic abandon. She threw herself into love like a suicide into a river, and let herself be carried away, ready to die if necessary, intoxicated, maddened, infinitely happy. Each time she thought she had never before felt anything like it, and she would have been entirely amazed if she had been reminded of the many different men of whom she had dreamed passionately all night long, gazing at the stars.

Saval had fascinated her, captured her body and soul. She dreamed of him now, soothed by his image and her remembrance of him, in the calm exaltation of a joy fulfilled, of a happiness present and certain.

A noise behind her made her turn round. Yvette had just come in, still in the same dress she had worn all day, but pale now, and with the burning eyes that are the mark of great weariness. She leaned on the ledge of the open window opposite her mother.

“I’ve something to tell you,” she said.

The Marquise, surprised, looked at her. Her love for her daughter was selfish; she was proud of her beauty, as one is proud of wealth; she was herself still too beautiful to be jealous, too careless to make the plans she was commonly supposed to entertain, yet too cunning to be unconscious of her daughter’s value.

“Yes, child,” she replied, “I’m listening; what is it?”

Yvette gave her a burning look, as though to read the depths of her soul, as though to detect every emotion which her words would rouse.

“This is it. Something extraordinary happened just now.”

“What?”

“Monsieur de Servigny told me he loved me.”

The Marquise waited, uneasy. But as Yvette said nothing more, she asked:

“How did he tell you? Explain!”

The young girl sat down by her mother’s feet in a familiar coaxing attitude and, pressing her hand, said:

“He asked me to marry him.”

Madame Obardi made a sudden gesture of amazement, and cried:

“Servigny? You must be mad!”

Yvette’s eyes had never left her mother’s face, watching sharply for her thoughts and her surprise.

“Why must I be mad?” she asked gravely. “Why should Monsieur de Servigny never marry me?”

“You must be wrong,” stammered the Marquise, embarrassed; “it can’t be true. You can’t have heard properly⁠—or you misunderstood him. Monsieur de Servigny is too rich to marry you, and too⁠ ⁠… too⁠ ⁠… Parisian to marry at all.”

Yvette slowly rose to her feet.

“But if he loves me as he says he does?” she added.

Her mother replied somewhat impatiently:

“I thought you were old enough and knew enough of the world not to have such ideas in your head. Servigny is a man of the world and an egoist; he will only marry a woman of his own rank and wealth. If he asked you to marry him⁠ ⁠… it means he wants⁠ ⁠… he wants⁠ ⁠…”

The Marquise, unable to voice her suspicions, was silent for a moment, then added:

“Now leave me alone, and go to bed.”

And the young girl, as though she now knew all she wanted, replied obediently:

“Yes, mother.”

She kissed her mother’s forehead and departed with a calm step. Just as she was going out of the door, the Marquise called her back:

“And your sunstroke?” she asked.

“I never had one. It was this affair which had upset me.”

“We’ll have another talk about it,” added the Marquise. “But, above all, don’t be alone with him again after this occurrence for some time. And you may be quite sure that he won’t marry you, do you understand, and that he only wants to⁠ ⁠… to compromise you.”

This was the best she could do by way of expressing her thoughts. And Yvette returned to her room.

Madame Obardi began to reflect.

Having lived for years in an amorous and opulent tranquillity, she had carefully guarded her mind from every thought that might preoccupy, trouble, or sadden her. She had always refused to ask herself what would become of Yvette; there was always time enough to think of that when difficulties arose. She knew, with her courtesan’s instinct, that her daughter could not marry a rich and highborn man save by an extremely improbable piece of good fortune, one of those surprises of love which set adventuresses upon thrones. She did not really contemplate this possibility, too much preoccupied to form plans by which she herself would not be directly affected.

Yvette would doubtless follow in her mother’s footsteps. She would become a light o’ love; why not? But the Marquise had never had the courage to ask herself when, or how, this would come about. And now here was her daughter suddenly, without any preparation, asking her one of those questions which cannot be answered, and forcing her to take up a definite position in an affair so difficult, so delicate, so dangerous in every sense, and which so profoundly troubled her conscience, the conscience any mother must display when her daughter is involved in an affair such as this.

She had too much natural wit, a wit which might nod but was never quite asleep, to be deceived for one moment in Servigny’s intentions, for she knew men, by personal experience, especially men of that tribe. And so, at the first words uttered by Yvette, she had cried out, almost involuntarily:

“Servigny marry you? You must be mad!”

What had led him to use the old, old trick⁠—he, the shrewd rake, the jaded man about town? What would he do now? And the child, how was she to be more explicitly warned or even forbidden? She was capable of any folly. Who would imagine that a great girl like that could be so innocent, so ignorant, and so unwary?

And the Marquise, thoroughly perplexed and already exhausted by her mental efforts, was utterly at a loss, finding the situation really awkward.

Weary of the whole business, she thought:

“Oh, well, I’ll keep a close watch on them and act according to events. If necessary, I’ll even talk to Servigny; he’s sensitive, and can take a hint.”

She did not ask herself what she should say to him, nor what he would reply, nor what sort of an agreement could be made between them, but, happy at being relieved of one anxiety without having had to make any decision, she began again to dream of her adored Saval. Her glance, wandering in the night, turned to the right towards the misty radiance that hovered over Paris; with both hands she threw kisses towards the great city, swift unnumbered kisses that flew into the darkness one after another; and very softly, as though she were still speaking to him, she murmured:

“I love you! I love you!”

III

Nor could Yvette sleep. Like her mother, she sat at the open window, resting her elbows on the sill, and tears, her first bitter tears, filled her eyes.

Till now she had lived and grown up in the heedless and serene self-confidence of happy youth. Why should she have analysed, wondered, reflected? Why should she not have been like all young girls of her age? Why should doubt, fear, painful suspicions have troubled her? Because she seemed to talk about every subject, because she had taken the tone, the manner, the bold speech of those around her, she had seemed to know all about everything. But she knew hardly more than a girl brought up in a convent; her risky phrases came from her memory, from the faculty women possess of imitation and assimilation, not from a mind already sophisticated and debauched.

She talked of love in the same way that an artist’s or musician’s son talks of painting and music at ten or twelve years of age. She knew, or rather suspected, the sort of mystery hidden behind this word⁠—too many jests had been whispered in her presence for her innocence to remain completely unenlightened⁠—but how was she to tell from this that every household was not like the one she lived in? Her mother’s hand was kissed with apparent respect; all their friends were titled; all were rich, or appeared to be; all spoke familiarly of princes of the blood royal. Two king’s sons had actually come several times, in the evening, to the Marquise’s house. How was she to know?

And, besides, she was by nature innocent. She did not probe into things, she had not her mother’s intuitive judgment of other people. She lived tranquilly, too full of the joy of life to worry about circumstances which might have roused suspicions in people of more quiet, more thoughtful, more secluded ways, who were less impulsive and less radiantly joyous. And now, in a single instant, by a few words whose brutality she had felt without understanding, Servigny had roused in her a sudden uneasiness, an uneasiness at first unreasoning, and now growing into a torturing fear.

She had gone home, had fled from him like a wounded animal; deeply wounded, indeed, by the words she repeated to herself again and again, trying to penetrate their farthest meaning, trying to guess their whole implication: “You know perfectly well that there can be no question of marriage between us⁠—but of love!”

What had he meant? And why the harshness? There was something, then, some shameful secret, of which she was in ignorance? Doubtless she was the only one in ignorance of it. What was it? She was terrified, crushed, as at the discovery of a hidden infamy, the treachery of a friend, one of those calamities of the heart which strike at one’s very reason.

She had thought, wondered, pored over it, wept, consumed with fears and suspicions. Then her young and buoyant nature calmed her, and she began to imagine an adventure, to build up an unusual and dramatic situation drawn from her remembrance of all the fanciful romances she had read. She recalled exciting changes of fortune, gloomy and heartrending plots, and mingled them with her own story, to fling a romantic glory round the half-seen mystery which surrounded her.

She was no longer miserable, she was wholly wrapped up in her dreams. She lifted mysterious veils, imagined improbable complications, a thou sand curious and terrible ideas, attractive through their very strangeness. Was she, by any chance, the natural daughter of a prince? Had her unfortunate mother been reduced and deserted, created a marquise by a king, King Victor Emmanuel perhaps, and had she even been forced to flee from the wrath of her family?

Or was she not more probably a child abandoned by her parents, very noble and famous parents, as the fruit of a guilty love, and found by the marquise, who had adopted her and brought her up? A hundred other notions raced through her head; she accepted or rejected them at the dictates of her fancy. She grew profoundly sorry for herself, at once very happy and very sad; above all, she was delighted at becoming the heroine of a romance with emotions to reveal, a part to act, a dignity and nobility to be upheld. And she thought of the part she would have to play in each plot she imagined. She saw it vaguely, as if she were a character in a novel by Scribe or George Sand. It would be compounded of equal parts of devotion, pride, self-sacrifice, greatness of soul, tenderness, and fine words. Her volatile little heart almost revelled in her new position.

She had continued till nightfall to ponder over her future course of action, wondering how to set to work to drag the truth from the Marquise.

And at the coming of night, so suitable to a tragic situation, she had thought of a trick, a quite simple yet subtle trick, for getting what she wanted; it was to tell her mother very abruptly that Servigny had asked her to marry him. At this news Madame Obardi, in her surprise, would surely let fall a word, an exclamation, that would illumine her daughter’s mind.

So Yvette had promptly put her plan into execution. She expected a burst of astonishment, protests of affection, disclosures, accompanied by tears and every sign of emotion.

And lo and behold! her mother had not apparently been either surprised or heartbroken, merely annoyed; from the worried and peevish tone of her reply the young girl, in whose mind every latent power of feminine cunning, wit, and knowledge were suddenly aroused, realised that it was no good insisting, that the mystery was quite other and more painful than she had imagined, and that she must discover it for herself. So she had returned to her room with a sad heart, her spirit distressed, depressed now in the apprehension of a real misfortune, without knowing how or why she was suffering such an emotion. She rested her elbows on the windowsill and wept.

She cried for a long time, now with no idle dreams: she made no attempt at further discovery. Little by little she was overcome with weariness, and closed her eyes. She dozed, for a few minutes, in the unrefreshing slumber of a person too exhausted to undress and get into bed; her sleep was long and fitful, roughly broken whenever her head slipped from between her hands.

She did not go to bed until the earliest gleam of daylight, when the chill of dawn drove her from the window.

During the next day and the day after, she kept an air of melancholy and reserve. A ceaseless and urgent travail of thought was moving within her; she was learning to watch, to guess, to reason. A gleam, still vague, seemed to throw a new light upon the men and events passing around her; distrust invaded her soul, distrust of everyone that she had believed in, distrust of her mother. During those two days she conjectured every conceivable supposition. She envisaged every possibility, making the most extravagant resolutions, in the impulsiveness of her volatile and unrestrained nature. On the Wednesday she fixed on a plan, a whole scheme of conduct and an elaborate plan of espionage. On the Thursday morning she rose with the determination to be more cunning than the most experienced detective, to be armed against all the world.

She even decided to take as her motto the two words “Myself alone,” and for more than an hour she wondered how they could with best effect be engraved round her monogram and stamped on her notepaper.

Saval and Servigny arrived at ten o’clock. The young girl held out her hand with reserve, but without embarrassment, and said in a familiar, though serious, tone:

“Good morning, Muscade. How are you?”

“Pretty well, thank you, Mam’zelle. And you?”

He watched her narrowly. “What game is she playing now?” he said to himself.

The Marquise having taken Saval’s arm, he took Yvette’s, and they began to walk round the lawn, disappearing and reappearing behind the clumps of trees.

Yvette walked with a thoughtful air, her eyes on the gravel path, and seemed scarcely to hear her companion’s remarks, to which she made no reply. Suddenly she asked:

“Are you really my friend, Muscade?”

“Of course, Mam’zelle.”

“But really, really and truly?”

“Absolutely your friend, Mam’zelle, body and soul.”

“Enough not to tell a lie for once, just for once?”

“Enough not even to tell one for twice, if necessary.”

“Enough to tell me the whole truth, even if it’s unpleasant?”

“Yes, Mam’zelle.”

“Well, what do you really think, really, really think, of Prince Kravalow?”

“Oh, Lord!”

“There you are, already getting ready to tell a fib.”

“No, I’m searching for the words, the right words. Well, dash it, the Prince is a Russian⁠—a real Russian, who speaks Russian, was born in Russia, and perhaps had a passport to get into France. There’s nothing false about him except his name and his title.”

She looked into his eyes.

“You mean he’s a⁠ ⁠… a⁠ ⁠…”

He hesitated; then, making up his mind, said:

“An adventurer, Mam’zelle.”

“Thank you. And the Chevalier Valréali is no better, is he?”

“It’s as you say.”

“And Monsieur de Belvigne?”

“Ah, he’s rather different. He’s a gentleman, provincial of course; he’s honourable⁠ ⁠… up to a point⁠ ⁠… but he’s singed his wings through flying too near the candle.”

“And you?”

Without hesitation he replied:

“I? Oh, I’m what’s generally called a gay dog, a bachelor of good family who once had brains and frittered them away on making puns; who had health, and ruined it by playing the fool; moderate wealth, and wasted it doing nothing. All I have left is a certain experience of life, a pretty complete freedom from prejudice, a vast contempt for men, women included, a profound sense of the uselessness of my actions, and a wide tolerance of scoundrels in general. I still have momentary flashes of honesty, as you see, and I’m even capable of affection, as you could see if you would. With these qualities and defects I place myself at your orders, Mam’zelle, body and soul, for you to dispose of at your pleasure. There!”

She did not laugh; she listened attentively, carefully scrutinising his words and intentions.

“What do you think of the Comtesse de Lammy?” she continued.

“You must allow me not to give you my opinions on women,” he said gaily.

“Not on any?”

“No, not on any.”

“Then that means you must have a very low opinion of them, of all of them. Now think, aren’t there any exceptions?”

He laughed with the insolent air he almost always wore, and the brutal audacity that was his strength, his armour against life.

“Present company always excepted, of course,” he said.

She flushed slightly, but coolly asked: “Well, what do you think of me?”

“You want to know? Very well, then. I think you’re a person of excellent sense, of considerable experience, or, if you prefer it, of great common sense; that you know very well how to mask your battery, amuse yourself at others’ expense, hide your purpose, pull the strings and wait, without impatience, for the result.”

“Is that all?” she asked.

“That’s all,” he replied.

“I’ll make you alter your opinion, Muscade,” she said very gravely. Then she went over to her mother, who was walking with bent head and tiny steps, with the languid gait one falls into when murmuring of things sweet and intimate. As she walked she drew designs, letters perhaps, with the tip of her sunshade, and talked to Saval without looking at him, talked long and slowly, resting on his arm, held close against his side. Yvette looked sharply at her, and a suspicion, so vague that she could not put it into words, as if it were a physical sensation only half realised, flitted across her mind as the shadow of a windblown cloud flits across the earth.

The bell rang for lunch.

It was silent, almost gloomy.

There was storm in the air, as the saying goes. Vast motionless clouds lay in wait on the horizon, silent and heavy, but loaded with tempest.

When they had taken their coffee on the veranda, the Marquise asked:

“Well, darling, are you going for a walk today with your friend Servigny? This is really the weather to enjoy the coolness of the woods.”

Yvette threw her a rapid glance, and swiftly looked away again.

“No, mother, I’m not going out today.”

The Marquise seemed disappointed.

“Do go for a little walk, child,” she persisted. “It’s so good for you.”

“No, mother,” said Yvette sharply, “I’m going to stay in the house, and you know quite well why, because I told you the other night.”

Madame Obardi had quite forgotten, consumed with her need to be alone with Saval. She blushed, fidgeted, and, distracted by her own desire, uncertain how to secure a free hour or two, stammered:

“Of course; I never thought of it. You’re quite right; I don’t know where my wits are wandering.”

Yvette took up a piece of embroidery which she called the “public welfare,” busying herself with it five or six times a year, on days of utter boredom, and seated herself on a low chair beside her mother. The young men sat in deck-chairs and smoked their cigars.

The hours went by in idle conversation that flagged continually. The Marquise threw impatient glances at Saval, seeking for an excuse, any way of getting rid of her daughter. Realising at last that she would not succeed, and not knowing what plan to adopt, she said to Servigny:

“You know, my dear Duc, that you’re both going to stay the night here. Tomorrow we are going to lunch at the restaurant Fournaise, at Chaton.”

He understood, smiled, and said with a bow:

“I am at your service, Marquise.”

Slowly the day wore on, slowly and uncomfortably, under the menace of the storm. Gradually the hour of dinner approached. The lowering sky was heavy with dull, sluggish clouds. They could not feel the least movement in the air.

The evening meal was eaten in silence. A sense of embarrassment and restraint, a sort of vague fear, silenced the two men and the two women.

When the table had been cleared, they remained on the veranda, speaking only at long intervals. Night was falling, a stifling night. Suddenly the horizon was torn by a great jagged flame that lit with its dazzling and pallid glare the four faces sunk in the shadows. Followed a distant noise, dull and faint, like the noise made by a cart crossing a bridge; the heat of the atmosphere increased, the air grew still more oppressive, the evening shadows more profound.

Yvette rose.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. “The storm makes me feel ill.”

She bent her forehead for the Marquise to kiss, offered her hand to the two young men, and departed.

As her room was directly above the veranda, the leaves of a large chestnut-tree planted in front of the door were soon gleaming with a green light. Servigny fixed his eyes on this pale gleam in the foliage, thinking now and then that he saw a shadow pass across it. But suddenly the light went out. Madame Obardi sighed.

“My daughter is in bed,” she said.

Servigny rose.

“I will follow your daughter’s example, Marquise, if you will allow me.”

He kissed her hand and disappeared in his turn.

She remained alone with Saval, in the darkness. At once she was in his arms, clasping him, embracing him. Then, though he tried to prevent it, she knelt down in front of him, murmuring: “I want to look at you in the lightning-flashes.”

But Yvette, her candle blown out, had come out on to her balcony, gliding barefooted like a shadow, and was listening, tortured by a painful and confused suspicion. She could not see, being exactly over their heads on the roof of the veranda. She heard nothing but a murmur of voices, and her heart beat so violently that the thudding of it filled her ears. A window shut overhead. So Servigny had just gone up to bed. Her mother was alone with the other.

A second flash split the sky, and for a second the whole familiar landscape was revealed in a vivid and sinister glare. She saw the great river, the colour of molten lead, like a river in some fantastic dream-country. At the same instant a voice below her said: “I love you.” She heard no more; strange shudder passed over her, her spirit was drowned in a fearful sea of trouble.

Silence, pressing, infinite, a silence that seemed the eternal silence of the grave, brooded over the world. She could not breathe, her lungs choked by some unknown and horrible weight. Another flash kindled the heavens and for an instant lit up the horizon, another followed on its heels, then another and another.

The voice she had already heard repeated more loudly: “Oh! How I love you! How I love you!” And Yvette knew the voice well; it was her mother’s.

A large drop of warm water fell upon her forehead, and a slight, almost imperceptible quiver ran through the leaves, the shiver of the coming rain.

Then a tumult came hurrying from far off, a confused tumult like the noise of the wind in trees; it was the heavy shower pouring in a torrent upon the earth, the river, and the trees. In a few moments the water was streaming all round her, covering her, splashing her, soaking her like a bath. She did not move, thinking only of what was happening on the veranda. She heard them rise and go up to their rooms. Doors slammed inside the house. And obeying an irresistible longing for certitude, a maddening, torturing desire, the young girl ran down the stairs, softly opened the outer door, ran across the lawn under the furious downpour of rain, and hid in a clump of bushes to watch the windows.

One alone, her mother’s, showed a light. And suddenly two shadows appeared on the luminous square, two shadows side by side. Then they drew closer and made only one; another flash of lightning flung a swift and dazzling jet of light upon the house-front, and she saw them embracing, their arms about one another’s necks.

At that she was stunned; without thinking, without knowing what she did, she cried out with all her strength, in a piercing voice: “Mother!” as one cries to warn another creature of deadly peril.

Her desperate cry was lost in the clatter of the rain, but the engrossed pair started uneasily apart. One of the shadows disappeared, while the other tried to distinguish something in the darkness of the garden.

Fearing to be taken unawares and found by her mother, Yvette ran to the house, hurried upstairs, leaving a trail of water dripping from step to step, and locked herself in her room, determined to open to no one. Without taking off the soaking clothes which clung to her body, she fell upon her knees with clasped hands, imploring in her distress some superhuman protection, the mysterious help of heaven, that unknown aid we pray for in our hours of weeping and despair. Every instant the great flashes threw their livid light into the room, and she saw herself fitfully reflected in her wardrobe-mirror, with her wet hair streaming down her back, so strange a figure that she could not recognise herself.

She remained in this strait for a long time, so long that the storm passed without her noticing its departure. The rain ceased to fall, light flowed into the sky, though it was still dark with clouds, and a warm, fragrant, delicious freshness, the freshness of wet leaves and grass, drifted in at the open window. Yvette rose from her knees, took off her cold sodden clothes, without thinking at all of what she did, and got into bed. She fixed her eyes on the growing daylight, then wept again, then tried to think.

Her mother! With a lover! The shame of it! But she had read so many books in which women, even mothers, abandoned themselves in like fashion, only to rise once more to honour in the last few pages, that she was not utterly dumbfounded to find herself involved in a drama like all the dramas in the stories she read. The violence of her first misery, her first cruel bewilderment, was already slightly lessened by her confused recollections of similar situations. Her thoughts had roamed among so many tragic adventures, gracefully woven into their stories by the authors of romances, that gradually her horrible discovery began to seem the natural continuation of a novelette begun the night before.

“I will save my mother,” she said to herself.

Almost calmed by this heroic resolution, she felt herself strong, great, ready upon the instant for sacrifice and combat. She thought over the means she must employ. Only one seemed good to her, and accorded with her romantic nature. And she rehearsed, like an actress before the performance, the interview she would have with her mother.

The sun had risen and the servants were up and about. The maid came with her chocolate. Yvette had the tray set down on the table, and said:

“Tell my mother that I’m not well, that I shall stay in bed till the gentlemen leave; tell her I did not sleep last night and that I wish not to be disturbed, because I must try to sleep.”

The astonished maid caught sight of the soaked dress, thrown like a rag on the carpet.

“Mademoiselle has been out, then?” she said.

“Yes, I went for a walk in the rain to clear my head.”

The servant picked up the petticoats, stockings, and muddy shoes, and went out carrying them gingerly on her arm with an expression of disgust; they were dripping like the clothes of a drowned women.

Yvette waited, knowing well that her mother would come.

The Marquise entered, having leapt out of bed at the first words of the maid, for she had endured a vague uneasiness ever since that cry of “Mother!” pierced the darkness.

“What’s the matter?” she said.

Yvette looked at her and faltered.

“I’ve⁠ ⁠… I’ve⁠ ⁠…”

Then, overcome by violent and sudden emotion, she began to sob.

The astonished Marquise asked again:

“What’s the matter with you?”

Then, forgetting all her schemes and the phrases so carefully prepared, the young girl hid her face in her hands and sobbed:

“Oh, mother! Oh, mother!”

Madame Obardi remained standing by the bed, too excited to understand fully, but guessing with that subtle instinct wherein her strength lay, almost everything there was to know.

Yvette, choked with sobs, could not speak, and her mother, exasperated at last and feeling the approach of a formidable revelation, asked sharply:

“Come, what’s the matter with you? Tell me.”

With difficulty Yvette stammered:

“Oh! Last night⁠ ⁠… I saw⁠ ⁠… your window.”

“Well, what then?” asked the Marquise, very pale.

Her daughter repeated, still sobbing:

“Oh, mother! Oh, mother!”

Madame Obardi, whose fear and embarrassment were changing to anger, shrugged her shoulders and turned to go.

“I really think you must be mad. When it’s all over, let me know.”

But suddenly the young girl parted her hands and disclosed her tear-stained face.

“No.⁠ ⁠… Listen.⁠ ⁠… I must speak to you.⁠ ⁠… Listen. Promise me⁠ ⁠… we’ll both go away, far away, into the country, and we’ll live like peasants and no one will know what’s become of us. Will you, mother? Please, please, I beg you, mother, I implore you!”

The Marquise, abashed, remained in the middle of the room. She had the hot blood of the people in her veins. Then shame, the shame of a mother, mingled with her vague sensation of fear and the exasperation of a passionate woman whose love is menaced. She shivered, equally ready to implore forgiveness or to fly into a rage.

“I don’t understand you,” she said.

“I saw you, mother,” continued Yvette, “last night.⁠ ⁠… You must never again⁠ ⁠… Oh, if you knew⁠ ⁠… we’ll both go away.⁠ ⁠… I’ll love you so much that you’ll forget.⁠ ⁠…

“Listen, my child,” said Madame Obardi in a trembling voice, “there are some things you don’t yet understand. Well, never forget⁠ ⁠… never forget⁠ ⁠… that I forbid you⁠ ⁠… ever to speak to me⁠ ⁠… of⁠ ⁠… of⁠ ⁠… of those matters.”

But the young girl caught desperately at her role of saviour and went on:

“No, mother, I’m no longer a child, and I have the right to know. I know all sorts of disreputable people, adventurers, come to our house, and that that’s why we are not respected; and I know more than that. Well, it mustn’t be, I won’t endure it. We’ll go away; you can sell your jewels; we’ll work if necessary, and we’ll live like honest women somewhere far away. And if I manage to get married, so much the better.”

Her mother looked at her out of angry black eyes, and answered:

“You’re mad. Be good enough to get up and come out to lunch with the rest of us.”

“No, mother. There’s someone here, you know whom, whom I won’t see again. He must go out of this house, or I will. You must choose between us.”

She was sitting up in bed, and raised her voice, speaking like a character on the stage; at last she had entered upon the drama so long dreamed of, and her grief was almost forgotten in absorption in her mission.

“You must be mad,” repeated the astonished Marquise again, finding nothing else to say.

“No, mother,” the young girl added, with dramatic verve, “that man will leave this house or I shall go; I shall not weaken.”

“And where will you go?⁠ ⁠… What will you do?”

“I don’t know; it doesn’t matter much⁠ ⁠… I want us to be honest women.”

The repetition of that phrase “honest women” aroused in the Marquise the fury of a drab.

“Silence!” she shouted. “I won’t be spoken to like that. I’m as good as any other woman, do you hear? I’m a harlot, it’s true, and I’m proud of it; I’m worth a dozen of your honest women.”

Yvette, overwhelmed, looked at her and stammered:

“Oh, mother!”

But the Marquise became frenzied with excitement.

“Yes, I am a harlot. What then? If I weren’t a harlot, you’d be a kitchen-maid today, as I was once, and you’d work for twenty sous a day, and you’d wash the dishes, and your mistress would send you out on errands to the butcher’s, d’you hear, and kick you out if you were idle; whereas here you are, idling all day long, just because I am a harlot. There! When you’re only a poor servant-girl with fifty francs of savings, you must get away from it somehow if you don’t want to rot in the workhouse; and there’s only one way for women, only one way, d’you hear, when you’re a servant! We can’t make fortunes on the stock exchange or at high finance. We’ve nothing but our bodies, nothing but our bodies.”

She beat her breast like a penitent at confession, and advanced towards the bed, flushed and excited:

“So much the worse for a pretty girl; she must live on her looks or grind along in poverty all her life long⁠ ⁠… all her life.⁠ ⁠… There’s no alternative.”

Then, returning hastily to her old idea: “And your honest women, do they go without? It’s they who are sluts, because they’re not forced. They’ve money to live on and amuse themselves with; they have their lovers out of pure wantonness. It’s they who are sluts!”

She stood beside Yvette’s bed; Yvette, utterly overcome, wanted to scream for help and run away; she was crying noisily, like a beaten child.

The Marquise was silent, and looked at her daughter; seeing the girl’s utter despair, she was herself overcome by sorrow, remorse, tenderness, and pity; and falling upon the bed with outstretched arms, she too began to sob, murmuring:

“My poor darling, my poor darling, if you only knew how you hurt me.”

And for a long time they both wept.

Then the Marquise, whose grief never lasted very long, rose gently, and said very softly:

“Well, darling, that’s how it is; it can’t be helped. It can’t be altered now. Life must be taken as it comes.”

But Yvette continued to cry; the shock had been too severe and too unexpected for her to be able to reflect upon it calmly and recover herself.

“Come, get up, and come down to breakfast, so that nothing will be noticed,” said her mother.

The young girl shook her head, unable to speak; at last she said very slowly, her voice choked with sobs:

“No, mother, you know what I said; I won’t change my mind. I will not leave my room till they have gone. I won’t see any of those people again, never, never. If they come back, I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… you won’t see me again.”

The Marquise had dried her eyes and, worn out with her emotion, murmured:

“Come now, think it over, be sensible about it.” Then again, after a minute’s silence: “Yes, you had better rest this morning. I’ll come and see you in the afternoon.”

She kissed her daughter on the forehead and went away to get dressed, quite calm again.

As soon as her mother had disappeared, Yvette ran to the door and bolted it, so as to be alone, quite alone; then she began to reflect.

About eleven o’clock the maid knocked at the door and asked:

“Madame la Marquise wishes to know if you want anything, Mademoiselle, and what will you have for lunch?”

“I’m not hungry,” replied Yvette; “I only want to be left alone.”

She stayed in bed as though she were really ill. About three o’clock there was another knock.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

“It’s I, darling,” answered her mother’s voice; “I’ve come to see how you are.”

She hesitated. What should she do? She opened the door and got back into bed. The Marquise came close, speaking softly as though to an invalid.

“Well, are you feeling better? Won’t you eat an egg?”

“No, thank you, nothing.”

Madame Obardi had sat down beside the bed. Neither spoke for some time; then, at last, as her daughter remained immobile, her hands resting inertly on the sheets, the Marquise added:

“Aren’t you going to get up?”

“Yes, presently,” answered Yvette. “I’ve thought a great deal, mother,” she continued slowly and seriously, “and this⁠ ⁠… this is my decision. The past is the past; let us say no more about it. But the future will be different⁠ ⁠… or else⁠ ⁠… or else I know what I shall have to do. And now let us have done with this subject.”

The Marquise, who had thought that the explanation was all over, felt somewhat irritated. She had had more than enough. This great goose of a girl ought to have understood long ago. But she made no answer, only repeating:

“Are you going to get up?”

“Yes, I’m ready now.”

The mother acted as maid to her daughter, bringing her her stockings, her corset, and her petticoats. Then she kissed her.

“Shall we go for a walk before dinner?”

“Yes, mamma.”

And they walked along the bank of the river, talking almost entirely of the most trivial affairs.

IV

Next morning Yvette went off alone to sit in the place where Servigny had read over the history of the ants.

“I will not leave it,” she said to herself, “until I have come to a decision.”

The river ran at her feet, the swift water of the main stream; it was full of eddies and great bubbles which swirled silently past her.

She had already envisaged every aspect of the situation and every means of escape from it. What was she to do if her mother failed to hold scrupulously to the condition she had laid down, if she did not give up her life, her friends, everything, to take refuge with her in some distant region?

She might go alone⁠ ⁠… away. But whither? How? What could she live on? By working? At what? Whom should she ask for work? And the melancholy and humble life of the working girl, of the daughters of the common folk, seemed to be a little shameful, and unworthy of her. She thought of becoming a governess, like the young ladies in novels, and of being loved and married by the son of the house. But for that role she should have been of noble descent, so that when an irate parent reproached her for stealing his son’s heart, she could have answered proudly:

“My name is Yvette Obardi.”

She could not. And besides, it was a rather commonplace, threadbare method.

A convent was scarcely any better. Besides, she felt no call towards a religious life, having nothing but an intermittent and fleeting piety. No one⁠—since she was the thing she was⁠—could save her by marrying her, she could not take help from a man, there was no possible way out and no certain resource at all.

She wanted something violent, something really great, really brave, something that would be held up for all to see: and she decided to die.

She came to this resolution quite suddenly, quite calmly, as though it were a question of a journey, without reflecting, without seeing what death means, without realising that it is an end without a new beginning, a departure without a return, an eternal farewell to earth, to life.

She was attracted immediately by this desperate decision, with all the impulsiveness of a young and ardent spirit. And she pondered over the means she should employ. They all appeared to be painful and dangerous to carry out, and to demand, too, a violence which was repulsive to her.

She soon gave up the idea of dagger or pistol, which might only wound, maim, or disfigure her, and which required a steady and practised hand⁠—rejected hanging as vulgar, a pauper’s sort of suicide, ridiculous and ugly⁠—and drowning because she could swim. Poison was all that remained, but which poison? Almost all would hurt her or make her sick. She did not want to suffer, or to be sick. Then she thought of chloroform, having read in a newspaper of a young woman who suffocated herself by this means.

At once she felt something like pleasure in her resolve, a secret self-praise, a prick of vainglory. They should see the manner of woman she was!

She returned to Bougival and went to the chemist’s, where she asked for a little chloroform for an aching tooth. The man, who knew her, gave her a very small phial of the drug. Then she walked over to Croissy, where she procured another little phial of poison. She got a third at Chaton, and a fourth at Rueil, and returned home late for lunch. As she was very hungry after her walk, she ate a hearty meal, with the sharp enjoyment of a hungry athlete.

Her mother, glad to see her excellent appetite, felt now quite confident, and said to her as they rose from the table:

“All our friends are coming to spend Sunday here. I’ve invited the prince, the chevalier, and Monsieur de Belvigne.”

Yvette turned slightly pale, but made no answer. She left the house almost at once, went to the railway station, and took a ticket to Paris.

Throughout the afternoon she went from chemist to chemist, buying a few drops of chloroform from each.

She returned in the evening, her pockets full of little bottles. Next day she continued her campaign, and happening to go into a druggist’s, she was able to buy half a pint all at once. She did not go out on Saturday⁠—it was stuffy and overcast; she spent the whole of it on the veranda, lying in a long cane chair. She thought about nothing, filled with a placid resolution.

The next day, wishing to look her best, she put on a blue frock which became her marvellous well. And as she viewed herself in the mirror she thought suddenly: “Tomorrow I shall be dead.” A strange shiver ran through her body. “Dead! I shall not speak, I shall not think, no one will see me any more. And I shall never see all this again.” She scrutinised her face carefully, as though she had never seen it before, examining, above all, the eyes, discovering a thousand aspects of herself, a secret character in her face that she did not know, astonished to see herself, as though she were face to face with a stranger, a new friend.

“It is I,” she said to herself, “it is I, in that glass. How strange it is to see oneself. We should never recognise ourselves, if we had no mirrors. Everyone else would know what we looked like, but we should have no idea of it.”

She took the thick plaits of her hair and laid them across her breast, gazing at her own gestures, her poses and movements.

“How pretty I am!” she thought. “Tomorrow I shall be dead, there, lying on my bed.”

She looked at her bed, and imagined that she saw herself lying on it, white as the sheets.

Dead! In a week that face, those eyes, those cheeks, would be nothing but black rottenness, shut up in a box underground.

A frightful spasm of anguish constricted her heart.

The clear sunlight flooded the landscape, and the sweet morning air came in at the window.

She sat down and thought. Dead⁠—it was as though the world was disappearing for her sake; and yet it was not like that, for nothing in the world would change, not even her room. Yes, her room would stay just the same, with the same bed, the same chairs, the same dressing-table, but she would be gone forever, and no one would be sorry, except perhaps her mother.

People would say: “How pretty she was, little Yvette!” and that was all. And when she looked at her hand resting on the arm of her chair, she thought again of the rottenness, the black and evil-smelling corruption that her flesh would become. And again a long shudder of horror ran through her whole body, and she could not understand how she could disappear without the whole world coming to an end, so strong was her feeling that she herself was part of everything, of the country, of the air, of the sun, of life.

A burst of laughter came from the garden, a clamour of voices, shouts, the noisy merriment of a country-house party just beginning, and she recognised the sonorous voice of Monsieur de Belvigne, singing:

“Je suis sous ta fenêtre,
Ah! daigne enfin paraître.”

She rose without thinking and went to look out. Everyone clapped. They were all there, all five of them, with two other gentlemen she did not know.

She drew back swiftly, torn by the thought that these men had come to enjoy themselves in her mother’s house, in the house of a courtesan.

The bell rang for lunch.

“I will show them how to die,” she told herself.

She walked downstairs with a firm step, with something of the resolution of a Christian martyr entering the arena where the lions awaited her.

She shook hands with them, smiling pleasantly but a little haughtily. Servigny asked her:

“Are you less grumpy today, Mam’zelle?”

“Today,” she replied in a strange, grave voice, “I am for the wildest pleasures. I’m in my Paris mood. Take care.” Then, turning to Monsieur de Belvigne: “You shall be my pet today, my little Malvoisie. After lunch I’m taking you all to the fair at Marly.”

Marly fair was indeed in full swing. The two newcomers were presented to her, the Comte Tamine and the Marquis de Boiquetot.

During the meal she hardly spoke, bending every effort of will to her resolve to make merry all that afternoon, so that none might guess, so that there should be all the more surprise; they would say: “Who would have thought it? She seemed so gay, so happy! One can never tell what is going on in their heads!”

She forced herself not to think of the evening, the hour she had chosen, when they would all be on the veranda.

She drank as much wine as she could get down, to sharpen her courage, and took two small glasses of brandy; when she left the table she was flushed and a little giddy; she felt herself warmed in body and spirit, her courage high, ready for adventure.

“Off we go!” she cried.

She took Monsieur de Belvigne’s arm, and arranged the order of the rest.

“Come along, you shall be my regiment. Servigny, I appoint you sergeant; you must march on the right, outside the ranks. You must make the Foreign Legion march in front, our two aliens, the prince and the chevalier, and behind them the two recruits who have joined the colours today. Quick march!”

They went off, Servigny playing an imaginary bugle, and the two new arrivals pretending to play the drum. Monsieur de Belvigne, somewhat embarrassed, said to Yvette:

“Do be a little reasonable, Mademoiselle Yvette. You’ll get yourself talked about.”

“It’s you I’m compromising, Raisiné,” she replied. “As for myself, I don’t care a rap. It will be all the same tomorrow. So much the worse for you; you shouldn’t go about with girls like me.”

They went through Bougival, to the amazement of the people in the streets. Everyone turned round and stared; the local inhabitants came to their doors; the travellers on the little railway which runs from Rueil to Marly yelled at them; the men standing on the platforms shouted:

“To the river!⁠ ⁠… To the river!⁠ ⁠…”

Yvette marched with a military step, holding Servigny by the arm, as if she were leading a prisoner. She was far from laughter; she wore an air of pale gravity, a sort of sinister immobility. Servigny interrupted his bugle solo in order to shout orders. The prince and the chevalier were enjoying themselves hugely, judging it all vastly diverting and very witty. The two recruits steadily played the drum.

On their arrival at the fairground they caused quite a sensation. The girls clapped, all the young folk giggled; a fat man arm in arm with his wife said to her enviously:

“They’re enjoying life, they are.”

Yvette caught sight of a merry-go-round, and made De Belvigne mount a wooden horse on her right, while the rest of the squad clambered on to horses behind them. When their turn was over she refused to get off, making her escort remain upon the back of her childish steed for five turns running. The delighted crowd flung witticisms at them. Monsieur de Belvigne was very white when he got off, and felt sick.

Then she began careering through the stalls. She made each of the men get weighed before the eyes of a large crowd. She made them buy absurd toys, which they had to carry in their arms. The prince and the chevalier very soon had more than enough of the jest; Servigny and the two drummers alone kept up their spirits.

At last they reached the far end, and she looked at her followers with a curious expression, a glint of malice and perversity in her eyes. A strange fancy came into her head; she made them all stand in a row on the right bank overlooking the river, and said:

“Let him who loves me most throw himself into the water.”

No one jumped. A crowd had formed behind them; women in white aprons gaped at them, and two soldiers in red breeches laughed stupidly.

“Then not one of you is ready to throw himself into the water at my request?” she repeated.

“So much the worse, damn it,” murmured Servigny, and leapt, upright, into the river.

His fall flung drops of water right up to Yvette’s feet. A murmur of surprise and amusement ran through the crowd. Then the young girl bent down, picked up a little piece of wood, and threw it into the river, crying: “Fetch it.”

The young man began to swim, and seizing the floating stick in his mouth, like a dog, he brought it to land, clambered up the bank, dropped on one knee, and offered it to her.

“Good dog,” she said, taking it, and patting his head.

“How can they do it?” cried a stout lady, vastly indignant.

“Nice goings-on,” said another.

“Damned if I’d take a ducking for any wench,” said a man.

She took Belvigne’s arm again, with the cutting remark: “You’re a noodle; you don’t know what you’ve missed.”

As they went home she threw resentful glances at the passersby.

“How stupid they all look,” she observed; then, raising her eyes to her companion’s face, added: “And you too, for the matter of that.”

Monsieur de Belvigne bowed. Turning round, she saw that the prince and the chevalier had disappeared. Servigny, wretched and soaked to the skin, was no longer playing the bugle, but walked with a melancholy air beside the two tired young men, who were not playing the drum now.

She began to laugh dryly.

“You seem to have had enough. That’s what you call fun, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve come here for. I’ve given you your money’s worth.”

She walked on without another word, and suddenly De Belvigne saw that she was crying.

“What’s the matter?” he asked in alarm.

“Leave me alone,” she murmured. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

But he insisted foolishly: “Now, now, Mademoiselle, what is the matter with you? Has anybody hurt you?”

“Be quiet,” she said irritably.

Abruptly, unable to withstand the terrible sorrow flooding her heart, she broke into such a violent fit of sobbing that she could not walk any further. She covered her face with her hands, and gasped for breath, choking, strangled, stifled by the violence of her despair.

Belvigne stood helplessly beside her, repeating:

“I don’t understand at all.”

But Servigny rushed towards her. “Come along home, Mam’zelle, or they’ll see you crying in the street. Why do you do these silly things, if they make you so unhappy?”

He led her forward, holding her arm. But as soon as they reached the gate of the villa she ran across the garden and up to her room, and locked herself in.

She did not reappear until dinnertime; she was pale and very grave. All the rest were gay enough, however. Servigny had bought a suit of workman’s clothes in the neighbourhood, corduroy trousers, a flowered shirt, a jersey, and a smock, and was talking like a peasant.

Yvette was in a fever for the ending of the meal, feeling her courage ebbing. As soon as coffee was over she went again to her room. She heard laughing voices under her window. The chevalier was telling jokes, foreign witticisms and puns, crude and not very savoury. She listened in despair. Servigny, slightly drunk, was imitating a tipsy workman, and was addressing the Marquise as “Mrs. Obardi.” Suddenly he said to Saval: “Hullo, Mr. Obardi.” Everyone laughed.

Then Yvette made up her mind. First she took a sheet of her notepaper and wrote:

“Bougival, Sunday, 9 p.m.

“I die so that I may not become a kept woman.

“Yvette.”

Then a postscript:

“Goodbye, mother dear. Forgive me.”

She sealed up the envelope, and addressed it to Madame la Marquise Obardi.

Then she moved her armchair up to the window, set a little table within reach of her hand, and placed upon it the large bottle of chloroform, with a handful of cotton wool beside it.

An immense rose-tree in full bloom, planted near the veranda and reaching right up to her window, filled the night with little gusts of faint, sweet fragrance; for some moments she sat breathing in the perfumed air. The crescent moon swung in the dark sky, its left side gnawed away, and veiled now and again with small clouds.

“I’m going to die,” thought Yvette. “I’m going to die!” Her heart, swollen with sobs, bursting with grief, choked her. She longed to cry for mercy, to be reprieved, to be loved.

Servigny’s voice came up to her; he was telling a shady story, constantly interrupted by bursts of laughter. The Marquise seemed more amused than any of them; she repeated gaily: “No one can tell a story like that as well as he can.”

Yvette took the bottle, uncorked it, and poured a little of the liquid on to the cotton wool. It had a queer, pungent, sweet smell, and as she lifted the pad of cotton wool to her lips, she swallowed the strong, irritating flavour of it, and it made her cough.

Then, closing her mouth, she began to breathe it in. She took long draughts of the deadly vapour, shutting her eyes, and compelling herself to deaden every impulse of her mind, so that she would no longer think nor realise what she was doing.

At first she felt as though her heart were swelling and growing, as though her spirit, just now heavy and burdened with sorrow, were growing light, as light as if the weight oppressing it had been raised, lessened, removed.

A lively and pleasant sensation filled her whole body, penetrating to the tips of her fingers and toes, entering into her flesh, a hazy drunkenness, a happy delirium.

She saw that the cotton wool was dry, and was surprised that she was not yet dead. Her senses were sharpened, intensified and more alert. She heard every word uttered on the veranda. Prince Kravalow was relating how he had killed an Austrian general in a duel.

Far away, in the heart of the country, she heard the noises of the night; the intermittent barking of a dog, the short croak of toads, the faint shiver of the leaves.

She took up the bottle, soaked the little piece of cotton wool, and began again to breathe it in. For some moments she felt nothing; then the languid, delightful, secure contentment that she had felt at first took hold of her once more.

Twice she poured out more chloroform, greedy now of the physical and mental sensation, the drowsy languor in which her senses were drowning. She felt as though she no longer had bones or flesh or arms or legs. All had been gently taken from her, and she had felt nothing. The chloroform had drained away her body, leaving nothing but her brain, wider, freer, more lively, more alert than she had ever felt it before.

She remembered a thousand things she had forgotten, little details of her childhood, trifles which gave her pleasure. Her mind, suddenly endowed with an agility hitherto unknown to it, leapt from one strange idea to another, ran through a thousand adventures, wandered at random in the past, and rambled through hopes of the future. This rapid, careless process of thought filled her with a sensual delight; she enjoyed a divine happiness in her dreams.

She still heard the voices, but could no longer distinguish the words, which seemed to her to take on another sense. She sank down and down, wandering in a strange and shifting fairyland.

She was on a large boat which glided beside a very pleasant country filled with flowers. She saw people on the banks, and these people were talking very loudly, and then she found herself on land again, without wondering how she got there, and Servigny, dressed like a prince, came to take her to a bullfight. The streets were full of people talking, and she listened to their conversations, which did not in the least surprise her, but were as though she had always known them; for through her dreamy intoxication she still heard her mother’s friends laughing and chatting on the veranda.

Then all grew dim.

Then she awoke, deliciously sleepy, and had some difficulty in recalling herself to consciousness.

So she was not dead yet.

But she felt so rested, and in such comfort and in such peace of mind, that she was in no hurry to finish the affair. She would have liked this glorious languor to last forever.

She breathed slowly, and looked at the moon facing her above the trees. Something in her soul was changed. Her thoughts were no longer those of a short while ago. The chloroform, soothing her body and mind, had assuaged her grief, and put to sleep her will to die.

Why not live? Why should she not be loved? Why should she not live happily? Everything now seemed possible, easy, sure. Everything in life was sweet, was good and charming. But because she wished to go on dreaming forever, she poured more of this dream-water on to the cotton wool, and again began to breathe it in, occasionally removing the poison from her nostrils, so that she would not take too much, so that she would not die.

She looked at the moon, and saw a face in it, a woman’s face. She began once more to roam about the country, adrift in the hazy visions of an opium dream. The face hung in the centre of the sky; then it began to sing; in a well-known voice it sang the “Alleluia d’Amour.” It was the Marquise, who had just gone indoors to play the piano.

Yvette had wings now. She was flying through the night, a beautiful clear night, over woods and rivers. She flew with vast delight, opening and beating her wings, wafted by the wind as by a caressing touch. She whirled through the air, which kissed her skin, and glided along so fast, so fast, that she had no time to see anything below her, and she found herself sitting beside a pond, with a line in her hand⁠—she was fishing.

Something tugged at the line; she pulled it in and brought up the magnificent pearl necklace she had once desired. She was not in the least astonished at the catch, and looked at Servigny, who had appeared beside her, though she did not know how, and was fishing too; he was just landing a wooden roundabout horse.

Then once again she felt that she was waking, and heard them calling to her from below.

Her mother had said: “Blow out the candle.”

Then Servigny’s voice, clear and humorous: “Mam’zelle Yvette, blow out your candle.”

They all took up the cry in chorus.

“Mam’zelle Yvette, blow out your candle.”

Again she poured chloroform on to the cotton wool, but, as she did not want to die, she kept it at some distance from her face, so that she could breathe the fresh air while filling her room with the asphyxiating odour of the narcotic, for she knew that someone would come upstairs. So she arranged herself in a charming attitude of abandonment, a mimicking of the abandon of death, and waited.

“I’m a little uneasy,” said the Marquise. “The foolish child has gone to sleep leaving the candle alight on the table. I’ll send Clémence up to blow it out and to shut her balcony window, which she has left wide open.”

In a few moments the maid knocked at the door and called:

“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!”

After an interval of silence she began again: “Mademoiselle, Madame la Marquise says please will you blow out your candle and shut the window.”

Again she waited, then knocked more loudly and called:

“Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!”

As Yvette did not answer, the servant departed and told the Marquise:

“Mademoiselle has certainly gone to sleep; her door is bolted and I can’t wake her.”

“But surely she won’t go on sleeping like that?” murmured Madame Obardi.

On Servigny’s advice they all assembled under the young girl’s window and shouted in chorus:

“Hip-Hip-Hurrah⁠—Mam’zelle Yvette!”

The cry rang out in the still night, piercing the clear moonlit air, and died away in the sleeping countryside; they heard it fade away like the noise of a train that has gone by.

As Yvette did not reply, the Marquise said:

“I hope nothing’s the matter with her; I’m beginning to be alarmed.”

Then Servigny snatched the red roses and the still unopened buds from the big rose-tree that grew up the wall, and began to hurl them through the window into her room. At the first which struck her, Yvette started and nearly cried out. Some fell on her dress, some in her hair, others flew over her head and landed on the bed, covering it with a rain of flowers.

Once more the Marquise cried in a choking voice:

“Come, Yvette, answer!”

“Really, it’s not normal,” declared Servigny. “I’ll climb up by the balcony.”

But the chevalier was indignant.

“Pardon me, pardon me, but that’s too much of a favour, I protest; it’s too good a way⁠—and too good a time⁠—for making a rendezvous!”

And all the others, thinking that the young girl was playing a trick on them, cried out:

“We protest. It’s a put-up affair. He shan’t go up, he shan’t go up.”

But the Marquise repeated in her agitation:

“Someone must go and see.”

“She favours the duke; we are betrayed,” declared the prince, with a dramatic gesture.

“Let’s toss for the honour,” suggested the chevalier, and took a gold hundred-franc piece from his pocket.

He began with the prince. “Tails,” he called. It was heads. The prince in his turn threw the coin, saying to Saval:

“Call, please.”

“Heads,” called Saval.

It was tails.

The prince proceeded to put the same question to all the others. All lost. Servigny, who alone remained facing him, drawled insolently:

“Damn it, he’s cheating!”

The Russian placed his hand on his heart and offered the gold coin to his rival, saying:

“Spin it yourself, my dear duke.”

Servigny took it and tossed it, calling: “Heads!”

It was tails. He bowed, and pointed to the pillar of the balcony.

“Up you go, prince,” he said.

But the prince was looking about him with a troubled air.

“What are you looking for?” asked the chevalier.

“I⁠ ⁠… I should like a⁠ ⁠… a ladder.”

There was a general roar of laughter, and Saval came forward, saying: “We’ll help you.”

He lifted the man in his Herculean arms, with the advice: “Hold on to the balcony.”

The prince promptly caught hold of it and, Saval letting go, he remained suspended, waving his legs. Servigny caught hold of the wildly struggling limbs that were groping for a foothold, and tugged at them with all his strength; the hands loosed their grip and the prince fell like a log on to the stomach of Monsieur de Belvigne, who was hurrying forward to help support him.

“Whose turn now?” asked Servigny, but no one offered.

“Come on, Belvigne, a little courage.”

“No, thank you, my boy. I’d sooner keep my bones whole.”

“Well, you, then, chevalier? You should be used to scaling fortresses.”

“I leave it to you, my dear duke.”

“Well⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠… I don’t know that I’m so keen on it as all that.” And Servigny walked round the pillar with a scrutinising eye. Then he leapt, caught hold of the balcony, hauled himself up like a gymnast on the horizontal bar, and clambered over the rail.

All the spectators applauded, with uplifted faces. But he reappeared directly, crying: “Come at once! Quickly! Yvette’s unconscious!”

The Marquise screamed loudly and dashed up the stairs.

The young girl, her eyes closed, lay like one dead. Her mother rushed wildly into the room and threw herself upon her.

“What is it? Tell me, what is it?” she asked.

Servigny picked up the bottle of chloroform which had fallen on the floor. “She’s suffocated herself,” he said. He set his ear to her heart, then added: “But she’s not dead; we’ll soon bring her round. Have you any ammonia here?”

“Any what⁠ ⁠… any what⁠ ⁠… sir?” said the distracted maid.

“Any sal volatile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fetch it at once, and leave the door open, to make a draught.”

The Marquise had fallen upon her knees and was sobbing. “Yvette! Yvette! My child, my little girl, my child, listen, answer me, Yvette! My child! Oh! my God, my God, what is the matter with her?”

The frightened men wandered aimlessly about the room, bringing water, towels, glasses, and vinegar.

Someone said: “She ought to be undressed.”

The Marquise, who was almost out of her wits, tried to undress her daughter, but she no longer knew what she was doing. Her trembling hands fumbled uselessly at the clothing, and she moaned: “I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I can’t, I can’t.”

The maid had returned with a medicine bottle; Servigny uncorked it and poured out half of its contents on to a handkerchief. He thrust it under Yvette’s nose, and she began to choke.

“Good; she’s breathing,” he said. “It’s nothing.”

He bathed her temples, her cheeks, and her neck with the strong-smelling liquid. Then he signed to the maid to unlace the young girl, and when nothing but a petticoat was left over her chemise, he took her in his arms and carried her to the bed; he was shaken, his senses maddened by the fragrance of her half-naked body, by the touch of her flesh, and the softness of the half-seen breasts on which he pressed his lips.

When she was in bed he rose to his feet, very pale.

“She’s coming to,” he said; “it’s nothing,” for he had heard that her breathing was continuous and regular. But seeing the men’s eyes fixed upon Yvette stretched across the bed, a spasm of jealous fury seized him. He went up to them, saying:

“Gentlemen, there are too many of us in this room. Be good enough to leave Monsieur Saval and myself alone with the Marquise.”

His voice was sharp and authoritative. The other men left at once.

Madame Obardi had seized her lover in her arms and, with her face raised to his, was crying:

“Save her!⁠ ⁠… Oh, save her!”

But Servigny, who had turned round, saw a letter on the table. With a swift movement he picked it up and read the address. He guessed the whole affair at once and thought: “Perhaps the Marquise had better not know about this.” And tearing open the envelope, he read at a glance the two lines which it contained:

I die so that I may not become a kept woman.

Yvette.

Goodbye, mother dear. Forgive me.

“Deuce take it,” he said to himself. “This needs thinking over”; and he hid the letter in his pocket. He returned to the bedside, and at once the thought came to him that the young girl had regained consciousness, but dared not show it, out of shame, humiliation, and a dread of being questioned.

The Marquise had fallen on her knees and was weeping, her head resting on the foot of the bed. Suddenly she exclaimed:

“A doctor! We must have a doctor!”

But Servigny, who had been whispering to Saval, said to her:

“No, it’s all right now. Just go out for a minute and I promise you that she’ll be ready to kiss you when you come back.”

The baron took Madame Obardi’s arm and led her away. Servigny sat down beside the bed and took Yvette’s hand.

“Listen to me, Mam’zelle,” he said.

She did not answer. She felt so happy, so comfortable, so cosy and warm that she would have liked never to move or speak again, but to live on in this state. A sense of infinite well-being possessed her, like no sensation she had ever known. The warm night air drifted into the room in a gentle, caressing breeze, and from time to time its faint breath blew sweetly across her face. It was a caress, the wind’s kiss, the soft refreshing breath of a fan made of all the leaves in the wood, all the shadows of the night, all the mists of the river, and all the flowers, for the roses strewn upon the floor and the bed, and the rose-tree that clung to the balcony, mingled their languid fragrance with the healthy tang of the night breeze.

She drank in the good air, her eyes closed, her senses still half adrift in the intoxication of the drug; she no longer felt a wish to die, but a strong, imperious desire to live, to be happy, no matter how, to be loved, yes, loved.

“Mam’zelle Yvette, listen to me,” repeated Servigny.

She decided to open her eyes. Seeing her thus revived, he went on:

“Come now, what’s all this foolishness?”

“I was so unhappy, Muscade,” she murmured.

He gave her hand a benevolent squeeze.

“Well, this has been a deuce of a lot of use to you, now, hasn’t it? Now promise me not to try again.”

She did not answer, but made a little movement of her head, and emphasised it with a smile that he felt rather than saw.

He took from his pocket the letter he had found on the table.

“Am I to show this to your mother?” he asked.

“No,” she signed with a movement of her head.

He did not know what more to say, for there seemed no way out of the situation.

“My dear little girl,” he murmured, “we must all accept our share of things, however sad. I understand your grief, and I promise⁠ ⁠…”

“You’re so kind⁠ ⁠…” she stammered.

They were silent. He looked at her. There was tenderness and surrender in her glance, and suddenly she raised her arms, as if she wished to draw him to her. He bent over her, feeling that she was calling him, and their lips met.

For a long time they stayed thus with closed eyes. But he, realising that he was on the point of losing control, raised his head and stood up. She was smiling at him now with real tenderness, and, gripping his shoulders with both hands, she tried to hold him back.

“I’m going to fetch your mother,” he said.

“One more second,” she murmured. “I’m so happy.”

Then, after a brief interval of silence, she said very softly, so softly that he hardly heard her:

“You will love me very much, won’t you?”

He knelt down by the bedside and kissed her wrist, which she held out to him.

“I adore you.”

But there were footsteps at the door. He sprang up and cried in his ordinary voice, with its faint note of irony:

“You can come in. It’s all over now.”

The Marquise flung herself upon her daughter with open arms, and embraced her frantically, covering her face with tears. Servigny, his heart full of joy and his body on fire with love, stepped out on to the balcony to breathe deeply of the cool night air, humming:

“Souvent femme varie;
Bien fol est qui s’y fie.”20

Mad?

When I was told: “You know that Jacques Parent has died mad in the asylum,” a painful shiver, a shiver of fear and anguish, ran through my frame; and suddenly I saw him again, the tall, queer fellow, mad for many years perhaps, a disturbing, even a frightening, maniac.

He was a man of forty, tall, thin, slightly stooping, with the eyes of one suffering from hallucinations, black eyes so black that the pupils were imperceptible, expressive, wandering, morbid, haunted eyes. A strange, disturbing creature, bringing with him and spreading round him a vague uneasiness of soul and body, one of those incomprehensible nervous disorders that make supernatural influences seem credible.

He had an irritating mannerism: a mania for hiding his hands. He scarcely ever let them wander, as we all do, over objects or on tables. He never handled things lying about with that familiar gesture possessed by almost all men. He never left them naked, his long, bony, delicate, slightly feverish hands.

He thrust them into his pockets, or folded his arms and tucked them under his armpits. You would have said he was afraid they would fall against his will to some forbidden task, perform some shameful or absurd action if he left them free and masters of their own movements.

When obliged to use them for the ordinary purposes of existence, he moved them in abrupt jerks, with swift movements of his arm, as though he was not going to let them have time to act by themselves, defy his will, and do some other thing. At table, he would snatch his glass, his fork or his knife so swiftly that one never had time to foresee what he meant to do before it was done.

Now one evening I got the explanation of this amazing malady that preyed on his soul.

From time to time he would come and spend a few days with me in the country, and that evening he seemed unusually agitated!

A storm was rising in the sky, stifling and black, after a day of appalling heat. No breath of air stirred the leaves. A hot, furnace-like vapour blew in our faces: it made us breathe in gasps. I felt ill at ease, agitated, and was anxious to go to bed.

When he saw me rise to go, Jacques Parent seized my arm with a frightened gesture.

“Oh! no; stay a little longer,” he said.

I stared at him in surprise, murmuring:

“This storm is affecting my nerves.”

“Mine too!” he moaned, or rather shrieked. “I beg you to stay; I do not want to be alone.”

He seemed to be quite out of his wits.

“What is the matter with you?” said I; “are you off your head?”

“Yes, sometimes,” he stammered, “in evenings like this, electric evenings.⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I am afraid⁠ ⁠… afraid of myself⁠ ⁠… don’t you understand? I am endowed with a faculty⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… a power⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… a force⁠ ⁠… Well I don’t know what to call it, but I have inside me such an extraordinary magnetic action that I am afraid, yes, afraid of myself, as I said just now!”

And with frantic shudders he hid his quivering hands under the lapels of his coat. I suddenly realised that I too was trembling with a vague, overmastering, horrible fear. I wanted to get away, escape, fly from the sight of him: I did not want to see his wandering eye pass over me, then avert itself, gaze round the ceiling, and seek some dark corner of the room to stare at, as though he wanted to hide his fatal glance too.

“You never told me that before,” I stammered.

“Do I ever tell a soul?” he answered. “But tonight I cannot keep silent, and I would rather you knew all; besides, you might be able to help me.

“Magnetism! Do you know what it is? No. No one knows. But it is known that there is such a thing. It is recognised, doctors practise it, and one of the most famous, M. Charcot, teaches it; so there can be no doubt that it exists.

“A man, a human being, has the power, terrifying and incomprehensible, of putting another human being to sleep by the strength of his will, and, while he is asleep, of stealing his mind as one would steal a purse. He steals his mind, that is to say, his soul, the soul, the sanctuary, the secret of the Ego, the soul, that deepest part of man, once thought impenetrable, the soul, the asylum of thoughts that cannot be confessed, of everything a man hides, everything he loves, everything he would conceal from all human creatures. That sanctuary he opens, violates, displays and flings to the public! Is it not frightful, criminal, infamous?

“Why, and how, is this done? Does anyone know? But what is known?

“It is all a mystery. We only communicate with things by means of our wretched, incomplete, infirm senses, so weak that they scarcely have the power to discover the world around us. It is all a mystery. Think of music, the divine art, the art that stirs the soul to its depths, ravishes, intoxicates it, maddens it. What is it? Nothing.

“You don’t understand? Listen. Two bodies meet. The air vibrates. These vibrations are more or less numerous, more or less rapid, more or less violent, according to the nature of the shock. Now we have in our ears a little membrane that receives these vibrations of the air and transmits them to the brain in the form of sound. Imagine a glass of water turning to wine in your mouth. The drum of the ear accomplishes that incredible metamorphosis, the astounding miracle of turning movement into sound. That’s all.

“Music, that complex and mysterious act, precise as algebra and vague as a dream, an art made of mathematics and the wind, only happens, then, as the result of the properties of a little membrane. If that membrane did not exist, sound would not exist either, since in itself it is merely vibration. Can one imagine music without the ear? No. Well, we are surrounded with things whose existence we never suspect, because we lack the organs that would reveal them to us.

“Magnetism is perhaps one of these. We can but have presentiments of that power, try fearfully to get in touch with these spirits who neighbour us, and catch glimpses of this new secret of nature, because we do not ourselves possess the revealing instrument.

“As for myself.⁠ ⁠… As for myself, I am endowed with a horrible power. You might think there was another creature imprisoned within me, always longing to escape, to act in defiance of me; it moves, and gnaws at me, and wears me out. What sort of thing is it? I do not know, but there are two of us in my poor body, and it is often the other thing that is the stronger, as it is tonight.

“I need only look at people to send them to sleep as though I had given them a draught of opium. I need only stretch out my hands to produce⁠ ⁠… terrible⁠ ⁠… terrible things. If you knew? Yes. If you knew? And my power extends not merely over men, but over animals and even over⁠ ⁠… over objects.⁠ ⁠…

“It tortures me and terrifies me. Often I have longed to tear out my eyes and cut off my hands.

“But I will⁠ ⁠… I want you to know everything. Look, I’ll show it you⁠ ⁠… not on human beings, that is done everywhere, but on⁠ ⁠… on⁠ ⁠… animals. Call Mirza.”

He was walking in long strides, with the air of a man suffering from hallucinations, and he exposed his hands hidden in his breast. They seemed to me terrifying, as though he had bared two swords.

And I obeyed him mechanically, subjugated, quivering with terror and consumed by a kind of impetuous desire to see. I opened the door and whistled to my dog, who was lying in the hall. At once I heard the hurried sound of her claws on the stairs, and she appeared, wagging her tail with pleasure.

Then I signed to her to lie down in a chair; she jumped on it, and Jacques began to caress her, gazing at her.

At first she seemed restless; she shivered, turning her head to avoid the man’s fixed stare, and seemed agitated by a growing fear. Suddenly she began to tremble, as dogs tremble. Her whole body palpitated, shaken by long-drawn shudders, and she tried to escape. But he laid his hand on the animal’s head, and, at his touch, she uttered a long howl such as is heard at night in the country.

I myself felt drowsy, giddy, as one is on board ship. I saw the furniture sway, and the walls move. “Enough, Jacques, enough,” I stammered. But he was no longer listening to me, and stared at Mirza in a steady, frightening way. She closed her eyes now and let her head fall as though going to sleep. He turned to me.

“It is done,” he said; “now look.”

And, throwing his handkerchief to the other side of the room, he cried: “Fetch it!”

At that the animal rose and, tottering along as though blind, moving her legs like a cripple, she went towards the piece of linen that was a white blotch by the wall. Several times she tried to take it in her mouth, but her jaws closed on one side of it, as though she had not seen it. At last she seized it, and returned with the same swaying somnambulistic gait.

It was a terrifying sight. “Lie down,” he ordered. She lay down. Then, touching her forehead, he said: “A hare: seize him, seize him!” And the beast, still lying on her side, tried to run, stirring like a dog in the middle of a dream, and uttering strange little ventriloquial barks, without opening her mouth.

Jacques seemed to have gone mad. The sweat poured from his brow. “Bite him, bite your master,” he cried. She gave two or three frightened twitches. One would have sworn she was resisting, struggling. “Bite him,” he repeated. Then, rising, my dog came towards me, and I retreated towards the wall, shaking with terror, with my foot raised to kick her, to keep her off.

But Jacques commanded: “To me, at once.” She turned back towards him. Then, with his two great hands, he began to rub her head, as though he were freeing her from invisible bonds.

Mirza opened her eyes again. “It is finished,” he said.

I dared not touch her, and pushed the door for her to go out. She went out slowly, trembling, exhausted, and again I heard her claws on the stairs.

But Jacques returned to me: “That is not all. It is this which frightens me most; look. Things obey me.”

On my table was a sort of dagger that I used as a paper-cutter. He stretched out his hand towards it, and the hand seemed to crawl slowly towards it; and suddenly I saw, yes, I saw the knife itself quiver, then move, then slide gently, of itself, over the wood towards the hand, that lay still, waiting for it; it placed itself between his fingers.

I screamed with terror. I thought I was going mad myself, but the shrill sound of my own voice calmed me at once.

“All things come to me like that,” continued Jacques. “That is why I hide my hands. What is it? Magnetism, electricity, the loadstone principle? I do not know, but it is horrible.

“And do you realise why it is horrible? When I am alone, as soon as I am alone, I cannot restrain myself from attracting everything that surrounds me.

“And I spend whole days changing the positions of things, never wearying of testing my abominable power, as if to see whether it has not left me.”

He had buried his great hands in his pockets, and stared into the night. A slight sound, a faint quivering, seemed to pass through the trees.

It was the rain beginning to fall.

“It is frightening,” I murmured.

“It is horrible,” he repeated.

A murmur ran through the leaves, like a gust of wind. It was the storm, a heavy, torrential downpour.

Jacques began to breathe in great gasps that made his breast heave.

“Leave me,” he said; “the rain will calm me. I want to be alone now.”

Unmasked

The boat was crowded with people. The crossing promised to be calm, and the Havre people were going to make an excursion to Trouville.

The ropes were cast off; a final shriek from the whistle announced our departure, and at the same moment the ship shuddered through her whole body, and along her flanks rose the sound of water rushing.

The paddles revolved for some seconds, stopped, and started again slowly: then the captain, standing on his bridge, shouted into the telephone that goes down into the bowels of the engine room, “Right away,” and they began to churn up the sea at full speed.

We glided along past the quay, crowded with people. The people on the boat waved their handkerchiefs as if they were setting out for America, and their friends on shore waved back in like manner.

The burning July sun poured down on red sunshades, on light frocks, on happy faces, on the almost unruffled sea. Once outside the harbour, the little boat swung sharply round, turning her narrow nose towards the far-off coast half seen through the morning haze.

On our left gaped the mouth of the Seine, twenty kilometres across. Here and there large buoys marked the position of the sandbanks, and from this distance we could see the smooth discoloured waters of the river that did not mix with the salt water but stretched out in long yellow ribbons across the vast clear green spaces of the open sea.

As soon as I am aboard a ship, I feel an irresistible impulse to stride up and down, like a sailor keeping his watch. Why? I don’t know. So I begin to tramp round the bridge through the crowd of travellers.

Suddenly I heard my name. I turned round. It was an old friend of mine, Henri Sidoine, whom I had not seen for ten years.

We shook hands and, talking of one thing and another, we began to prowl up and down again together like bears in a cage, much as I had been doing alone just before. And as we talked we eyed the two rows of travellers seated along both sides of the bridge.

All at once Sidoine, his face distorted with anger, exclaimed:

“This boat is full of English people! The swine!”

It really was full of English people. The men stood up and looked at the horizon through their glasses, with a portentous air, as who should say: “We, we English, are the rulers of the waves. Boom, boom, look at us now!”

And all the white sun veils floating from their white hats looked like the waving flags of their complete self-sufficiency.

The gawky young ladies, whose footgear resembled their country’s dreadnoughts, clasped shawls of many colours round their stiff bodies and skinny arms, and smiled vacantly at the brilliant seascape. Their tiny heads, pushed out at the ends of these long bodies, bore queer-shaped English hats, and the meagre rolls of hair resting on the nape of their necks looked like coiled snakes.

And the ancient spinsters, even skinnier, exposing their British jawbones to the widest extent, looked as if they were threatening the universe with their monstrous yellow teeth.

Walking past them, one caught a whiff of india-rubber and mouthwash.

With growing indignation, Sidoine repeated:

“The swine! Why can’t we stop their coming into France?”

I smiled and asked him:

“Why do you want to do that? As far as I’m concerned, they’re a matter of complete indifference.”

He retorted:

“It’s all very well for you. But I, I married an Englishwoman. And there you have it.”

I stood still and laughed in his face.

“Oh, the devil you did! Tell me about it. She makes you very unhappy, does she?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“No, not exactly.”

“Then⁠ ⁠… she⁠ ⁠… she⁠ ⁠… deceives you?”

“Unfortunately no. That would give me grounds for divorce and I should be vastly relieved thereby.”

“Well, I don’t understand it, then.”

“You don’t understand? That doesn’t surprise me. Well, it’s nothing more than the fact that she has learned French! Listen:

“I had not the least desire in the world to get married when two years ago I went to spend the summer at Étretat. There’s nothing so fatal as these seaside towns. One overlooks the fact that slips of girls look their best in these places. Paris suits women and the country suits young girls.

“The donkey rides, the morning bathe, picnic luncheons, are so many matrimonial snares. And really there is nothing more charming than an eighteen-year-old child running across a field or gathering flowers by the roadside.

“I made the acquaintance of an English family staying at the same hotel as I was. The father looked like the men you see over there, and the mother like all other Englishwomen.

“There were two sons, the type of bony youth that plays violent games from morning to evening, with balls, sticks, or rackets; then two girls, the eldest a dry stick, another of those Englishwomen like preserved fruits; the younger a marvellous creature. A fair, or rather a flaxen-haired, girl, with a head conceived in heaven. When these pretty rogues make themselves charming, they are divine. This one had blue eyes, eyes of that blueness which seems to hold all the poetry, all the romance, all the ideals, all the joy of earth.

“What a world of infinite dreams is opened to you by a woman’s eyes, such eyes as those! How it calls to the eternal longings and confused desires of our hearts!

“You must remember, too, that we French adore foreigners. As soon as we meet a Russian, Italian, Swedish, Spanish, or English woman with the least claims to beauty, we fall instantly in love. Everything that comes from abroad delights us extravagantly⁠—broadcloth, hats, gloves, guns, and⁠—women.

“We are wrong, however.

“But I believe that what attracts us most in strange women is their broken speech. Immediately a woman speaks our language badly, we find her charming; if she uses quite the wrong French words, she is entrancing, and if she babbles a quite unintelligible dialect she become irresistible.

“You cannot imagine how charming it is to hear an adorable rosy mouth say: ‘J’aime bôcoup la gigotte.’

“My little English Kate spoke a language like nothing on earth. For the first few days I couldn’t understand it at all, she invented so many amazing words; then I became completely infatuated with this absurd lighthearted jargon.

“In her mouth all the odd, mangled, and ridiculous phrases became utterly fascinating; and every evening on the terrace of the Casino we held long conversations which were no more than a succession of enigmatic phrases.

“I married her! I loved her to distraction, as a dream can be loved. For what your true lover adores is always a dream in the form of a woman.

“You remember the admirable verses of Louis Bouilhet:

“Tu n’as jamais été, dans tes jours les plus rares,
Qu’un banal instrument sous mon archet vainqueur,
Et, comme un air qui sonne au bois creux des guitares,
J’ai fait chanter mon rêve au vide de ton coeur.21

“Ah, well, my dear, the only mistake I made was to give my wife a French teacher.

“As long as she murdered our vocabulary, and tortured our grammar, I was fond of her.

“Our conversations were simple. They revealed to me the amazing beauty of her person, the incomparable grace of her gestures; they presented her to me in the guise of a wonderful speaking toy, a flesh-and-blood puppet made for kisses, able to stammer a few words to tell what she loved, sometimes to utter quaint exclamations, and to express in a fashion adorable because so incomprehensible and unexpected, her emotions and her unsophisticated sensations.

“She was like nothing but those pretty playthings that say ‘papa’ and ‘mamma,’ pronouncing them Bab-ba and Mab-ma.

“How could I have believed that⁠ ⁠…

“She can speak, now.⁠ ⁠… She can speak⁠ ⁠… badly⁠ ⁠… very badly.⁠ ⁠… She makes quite as many mistakes.⁠ ⁠… But she can make herself understood⁠ ⁠… yes, I understand her⁠ ⁠… I know what she says⁠ ⁠… I know her.⁠ ⁠…”

“I have broken my doll to look at her inside.⁠ ⁠… I have seen it.⁠ ⁠… And still I have to go on talking to her, my dear!

“Oh, you can have no idea of the opinions, the notions, the theories of a young and well brought-up English girl, whom I have no cause to reproach, and who recites to me from morning to night all the phrases out of a phrase-book for the use of schoolgirls and young persons.

“You have seen those cotillion favours, those pretty gilded paper packets which contain utterly detestable bonbons. I got one of them. I tore it open. I wanted to eat the contents, and now I am all the time so savagely disgusted that I feel a positive nausea at the mere sight of one of her countrymen.

“I have married a woman who is like nothing but a parrot that an old English governness has taught to speak French: do you understand?”

We were in sight of the crowded wooden quays of Trouville Harbour.

I said:

“Where is your wife?”

“I have taken her to Étretat,” he declared.

“And you, where are you going?”

“I? I am going to Trouville to distract my mind.”

Then, after a pause, he added:

“You simply cannot imagine how utterly stupid some women can be.”

The Dowry

No one was surprised at the marriage of Maître Simon Lebrument and Mlle. Jeanne Cordier. Maître Lebrument had just bought the practice of Maître Papillon, the notary; he needed money, of course, with which to pay for it; and Mlle. Jeanne Cordier had three hundred thousand francs clear, in notes and bearer bonds.

Maître Lebrument was a handsome fellow, who had style, the style of a notary, a provincial style, but, after all, some style, which was a rare thing at Boutigny-le-Rebours.

Mlle. Cordier had grace and freshness, grace which was a little awkward, and freshness a little artificial; but she was, nevertheless, a pretty girl, desirable and entertaining.

The wedding ceremonies turned Boutigny topsy-turvy. The married couple were much admired, and they returned to the conjugal domicile to conceal their happiness, having resolved simply to take a little trip to Paris, after they had spent a few days together.

These few days together were charming, for Maître Lebrument knew how to manage his early relations with his wife with a delicacy, a directness, and a sense of fitness that was remarkable. He took for his motto: “Everything comes to him who waits.” He knew how to be patient and energetic at the same time. His success was rapid and complete.

After four days Madame Lebrument adored her husband. She could not bear to be a moment away from him. He must be near her all day long, that she might caress his hands, his beard, his nose, etc. She would sit upon his knees and, taking him by the ears, would say: “Open your mouth and shut your eyes.” He opened his mouth with confidence, shut his eyes halfway, and then would receive a very long, sweet kiss that gave him great shivers down his back. And in his turn, he never had enough caresses, enough lips, enough hands, enough of anything with which to enjoy his wife from morning until evening, and from evening until morning.

As soon as the first week had passed away he said to his young companion:

“If you wish, we might leave for Paris next Tuesday. We shall be like lovers who are not married; go about to the theatres, the restaurants, the open-air concerts, and everywhere, everywhere.”

She jumped for joy. “Oh! yes, yes,” she replied, “let us go as soon as possible.”

“And, as we must not forget anything, you might ask your father to have your dowry ready; I will take it with me, and at the same time pay Maître Papillon.”

She answered: “I will speak to him about it tomorrow morning.”

Then he seized her in his arms and renewed those little tendernesses she had learned to love so much in eight days.

The following Tuesday, the father-in-law and the mother-in-law accompanied to the station their daughter and son-in-law who were leaving for the capital. The father-in-law remarked:

“I tell you it is imprudent to carry so much money in your pocketbook.” And the young notary smiled.

“Do not be disturbed, father-in-law,” he answered, “I am accustomed to these things. You know that in my profession it often happens that I have nearly a million about me. By carrying it with me, we escape a lot of formalities and delays, to say the least. Do not worry yourself.”

Then the porter cried out: “Paris train. All ready!” and they hurried into a compartment where they found themselves with two old ladies.

Lebrument murmured in his wife’s ear: “How annoying! Now I cannot smoke.”

She answered in a low tone: “I am sorry too, but not on account of your cigar.”

The engine puffed and started. The journey lasted an hour, during which they could not say anything of importance, because the two old ladies did not go to sleep.

When they were in the Saint-Lazare station, in Paris, Maître Lebrument said to his wife:

“If you wish, my dear, we will first go and breakfast on the Boulevard, then return at our leisure to find our trunk and give it to the porter of some hotel.”

She consented immediately: “Oh! yes,” said she, “let us breakfast in some restaurant. Is it far from here?”

“Yes, rather far, but we will take an omnibus.” She was astonished: “Why not a cab?” she asked.

He began smilingly to scold her: “Is that the way you economise? A cab for five minutes’ ride, at six sous per minute! You do not deprive yourself of anything!”

“That is true,” said she, a little confused.

A large omnibus was passing, with three horses at a trot. Lebrument hailed it: “Conductor! eh, conductor!”

The heavy vehicle stopped. The young notary pushed his wife inside, saying hurriedly, in a low voice:

“You get inside while I go up on top and smoke at least a cigarette before breakfast.”

She had not time for any answer. The conductor, who had seized her by the arm to aid her in mounting the steps, pushed her into the bus, where she landed, half-frightened, upon a seat, and in a sort of stupor watched the feet of her husband through the windows at the back, as he climbed to the top.

She remained motionless between a large gentleman who smelled of a pipe and an old woman who smelled of a dog. All the other travellers, in two mute lines⁠—a grocer’s boy, a workman, a sergeant of infantry, a gentleman with gold-rimmed spectacles and a silk hat with an enormous brim, like a gutter, and two ladies with an important, mincing air, which seemed to say: We are here, although we should be in a better place. Then there were two nuns, a little girl in long hair, and an undertaker. The assemblage looked like a collection of caricatures in a freak museum, a series of expressions of the human countenance, like a row of grotesque puppets which one knocks down at a fair.

The jolts of the carriage made them toss their heads a little, and as they shook, the flesh of their cheeks trembled; and the disturbance of the rolling wheels gave them an idiotic or sleepy look.

The young woman remained inert: “Why did he not come with me?” she asked herself. A vague sadness oppressed her. He might, indeed, have deprived himself of that cigarette!

The nuns gave the signal to stop. They alighted, one after the other, leaving an odour of old and faded skirts.

Soon after they were gone another stopped the bus. A cook came in, red and out of breath. She sat down and placed her basket of provisions upon her knees. A strong odour of dishwater pervaded the omnibus.

“It is further than I thought,” said the young woman to herself.

The undertaker got out and was replaced by a coachman who smelled of a stable. The girl in long hair was succeeded by an errand-boy who exhaled the odours of his deliveries.

The notary’s wife perceived all these things, ill at ease and so disheartened that she was ready to weep without knowing why.

Some others got out, still others came in. The omnibus went on through the interminable streets, stopped at the stations, and began its route again.

“How far it is!” said Jeanne. “Especially when one has nothing to amuse oneself, and cannot sleep!” She had not been so much fatigued for many days.

Little by little all the travellers got out. She remained alone, all alone. The conductor shouted:

“Vaugirard!”

As she blushed, he again repeated: “Vaugirard!”

She looked at him, not understanding that this must be addressed to her as all her neighbours had gone. For the third time the man said: “Vaugirard!”

Then she asked: “Where are we?”

He answered in a gruff voice: “We are at Vaugirard, of course; I’ve told you twenty times already.”

“Is it far from the Boulevard?” she asked.

“What Boulevard?”

“The Boulevard des Italiens.”

“We passed that a long time ago.”

“Ah! Will you be kind enough to tell my husband?”

“Your husband? Where is he?”

“On the outside.”

“On the outside! It has been a long time since there was anybody there.”

She made a terrified gesture. Then she said:

“How can it be? It is not possible. He got up there when I entered the omnibus. Look again; he must be there.”

The conductor became rude: “Come, kid, that’s enough talk. If there is one man lost, there are ten to be found. Be off, now! You will find another in the street.”

The tears sprang to her eyes. She insisted: “But, sir, you are mistaken, I assure you that you are mistaken. He had a large pocketbook in his hand.”

The employee began to laugh: “A large pocketbook? I remember. Yes, he got out at the Madeleine. That’s right! He’s left you behind! Ha! ha!”

The carriage was standing still. She got down and looked up, in spite of herself, to the roof, with an instinctive movement of the eye. It was totally deserted.

Then she began to weep aloud, without thinking that anyone was looking at or listening to her. Finally she said:

“What is going to become of me?”

The inspector came up and inquired: “What’s the matter?”

The conductor answered in a jocose fashion:

“This lady’s husband has left her on the way.”

The other replied: “All right. It doesn’t matter. Attend to your own business.” And he turned on his heels.

Then she began to walk ahead, too much frightened, too much excited to think even where she was going. Where was she going? What should she do? How could such an error have occurred? Such an act of carelessness, of disregard, of unheard-of distraction!

She had two francs in her pocket. To whom could she apply? Suddenly she remembered her cousin Barral, who was a clerk in the Ministry of Marine.

She had just enough to hire a cab; she would go to him. And she met him just as he was starting for his office. Like Lebrument, he carried a large pocketbook under his arm.

She leaned out of the carriage and called: “Henry!”

He stopped, much surprised.

“Jeanne,” said he, “here?⁠—and alone? Where do you come from? What are you doing?”

She stammered, with her eyes full of tears: “My husband is lost somewhere⁠—”

“Lost? where?”

“On the omnibus.”

“On the omnibus! Oh!”

And she related to him the whole story, weeping much over the adventure.

He listened reflectively, and then asked:

“This morning? And was his head perfectly clear?”

“Oh! yes! And he had my dowry.”

“Your dowry? The whole of it?”

“Yes, the whole of it⁠—in order to pay for his practice.”

“Well, my dear cousin, your husband, whoever he is, is probably well on his way towards the Belgian frontier by this time.”

She did not yet comprehend. She stammered: “My husband⁠—you say⁠—”

“I say that he has run off with your⁠—your capital⁠—and that’s all about it.”

She remained standing there, choking with grief, murmuring:

“Then he is⁠—he is⁠—is a wretch!”

Then, overcome with emotion, she fell on her cousin’s shoulder, sobbing violently.

As people were stopping to look at them, he guided her gently into the doorway of his house, and with his arm around her waist, he helped her up the stairs. When his astonished servant opened the door he said:

“Sophie, run to the restaurant and bring breakfast for two persons. I shall not go to the office today.”

Mohammed-Fripouille

“Shall we have our coffee on the roof?” asked the captain.

“Yes, by all means,” I replied.

He rose. It was already dark in the room, lighted only by the inner courtyard, as is the custom in Moorish houses. In front of the high, pointed windows, creepers fell from the wide balcony on which the warm summer evenings were spent. Nothing but fruit remained upon the table, huge African fruits, grapes as large as plums, soft figs with purple flesh, yellow pears, long fat bananas, dates from Tougourt in a basket of esparto grass.

The Moorish servant opened the door, and I ascended the staircase, upon whose sky-blue walls fell from above the gentle light of the dying day.

Soon I uttered a deep sigh of contentment, as I reached the balcony. It dominated Algiers, the harbour, the roadstead, and the distant coastline.

The house which the captain had purchased was an ancient Arab dwelling, situated in the centre of the old town, amid the labyrinthine lanes in which swarms the strange population of the coasts of Africa.

Below, the flat square roofs descended like a giant’s staircase to the sloping roofs of the European quarter. Beyond these could be seen the masts of the ships at anchor, and then the sea, the open sea, blue and calm under the calm blue sky.

We lay down on mats, our heads supported by cushions; while slowly sipping the delicious native coffee, I watched the earliest stars come out in the darkening blue. They were dimly to be glimpsed, so distant, so pale, as yet scarcely lit.

A light, winged warmth caressed our skins. There were occasional hotter, more oppressive gusts, bearing in their bosoms a vague scent, the scent of Africa; they seemed the nearby breath of the desert, come over the peaks of the Atlas Mountains. The captain, lying on his back, observed:

“What a country, my dear fellow! How sweet life is here! how vastly delightful to rest! Nights like these are made for dreaming!”

I was still watching the birth of the stars, with a curiosity at once indolent and lively, with drowsy happiness.

“You really ought to tell me something about your life in the South,” I murmured.

Captain Marret was one of the oldest officers in the African army, a soldier of fortune, formerly a spahi, who had carved his career with the point of his sword.

Thanks to him, and to his relatives and friends, I had been able to make a magnificent trip in the desert; and I had come that night to thank him before returning to France.

“What kind of story would you like?” he said. “I’ve had so many adventures during my twelve years in the sand that I no longer remember any separate one.”

“Tell me about the Arab women,” I replied.

He did not answer, but remained lying on his mat, his arms bent back and his hands beneath his head; now and then I caught the scent of his cigar, the smoke of which rose straight up towards the sky in the windless night.

Suddenly he burst out laughing.

“Yes, I’ll tell you a funny incident that dates from my earliest days in Algeria. In those days we had some queer specimens in the African army; they’re no longer to be seen, they no longer happen. They’d have interested you enough to make you spend your whole life in this country.

“I was a plain spahi, a little fellow of twenty, a fair-haired young devil, supple and active, a real Algerian soldier. I was attached to the military post at Boghar. You know Boghar, the place they call the balcony of the South. From the summit of the fort you’ve seen the beginning of that land of fire, devastated, naked, tortured, stony, and reddened. It’s the real antechamber of the desert, the superb blazing frontier of that immense stretch of tawny empty spaces.

“There were forty of us spahis at Boghar, a company of convict soldiers, and a squadron of African lancers, when the news came that the Ould-Berghi tribe had murdered an English traveller. Lord knows how he got into the country; the English are possessed of the devil.

“Justice had to be done for this crime against a European, but the commanding officer hesitated to send out an expedition, thinking that an Englishman really wasn’t worth so much fuss.

“Well, as he was talking the matter over with the captain and the lieutenant, a spahi cavalry sergeant, who was waiting for the dispatch, suddenly offered to go and punish the tribe if he were given six men only.

“In the South, as you know, things are freer than in a garrison town, and there’s a sort of comradeship between the officer and his men which you don’t find elsewhere. The captain burst out laughing.

“ ‘You, my lad?’

“ ‘Yes, captain, and if you like I’ll bring back the whole tribe prisoners.’

“The C.O. was a whimsical fellow, and took him at his word.

“ ‘You’ll start tomorrow with six men of your own choosing, and if you don’t perform your promise, look out for trouble!’

“The sergeant smiled under his moustache.

“ ‘Have no fears, colonel. My prisoners will be here by noon on Wednesday at the latest.’

“This sergeant, Mohammed-Fripouille, as he was called, was a truly amazing fellow, a Turk, a real Turk, who had entered the service of France after a somewhat obscure and no doubt chequered career. He had travelled in many lands, in Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Palestine, and must have left behind him a pretty thick trail of misdeeds. He was a real Bashi-Bazouk, a bold rapscallion, ferocious, and gay with a placid Oriental gaiety. He was stout, very stout in fact, but as supple as a monkey, and rode superbly. His moustaches were unbelievably long and thick, and always gave me a confused impression of a crescent moon and a scimitar. He had an exacerbated hatred for the Arabs, and treated them with cunning and horrible cruelty, perpetually inventing new tricks, ghastly turns of calculated treachery.

“He was also unbelievably strong and preposterously daring.

“ ‘Choose your men, my lad,’ said the C.O. to him.

“Mohammed took me. The gallant fellow trusted me, and I remained devoted to him, body and soul, as a result of his choice of me, which gave me as much pleasure as the cross of honour that I won later on.

“Well, we started off next morning at dawn, just the seven of us. My comrades were of that bandit pirate class whose members, after leading the life of vagabond marauders in every possible country, end by taking service in some foreign legion. In those days our army in Africa was full of these rascals, splendid soldiers, but utterly unscrupulous.

“Mohammed had given each of us some ten pieces of cord to carry, each about a yard long. I was also loaded, as being the youngest and lightest, with a whole length of rope, a hundred yards long. When he was asked what he proposed to do with all this string, he replied with his sly calm air:

“ ‘It’s for fishing for Arabs.’

“And he winked maliciously, a trick he had learnt from a veteran Parisian chasseur d’Afrique.

“He rode at the head of our troop, his head swathed in the red turban he always wore in the desert, smiling with pleasure under his enormous moustache.

“He was a fine sight, that huge Turk, with his powerful belly, his colossal shoulders, and his placid expression. He was mounted on a white horse, of medium size, but very strong, and the rider seemed ten times too big for his mount.

“We had entered a little ravine, stony, bare, and yellow, which drops down to the valley of the Chélif, and were talking of our expedition. My comrades spoke with every conceivable different accent, for among them were to be found a Spaniard, two Greeks, an American, and three Frenchmen. As for Mohammed-Fripouille, he had an unbelievable lisp.

“The sun, the terrible sun, the sun of the South, quite unknown on the other side of the Mediterranean, fell upon our shoulders; we went forward at a walking pace, as always in those parts.

“All day we advanced without meeting either a tree or an Arab.

“At about one in the afternoon we had halted beside a little spring which flowed between the stones, and eaten the bread and dried mutton which we carried in our haversacks; then, after twenty minutes’ rest, we had started off again.

“At last, at about six in the evening, after a long detour imposed upon us by our leader, we discovered a tribe encamped behind a conical hill. The low brown tents made dark spots upon the yellow ground, and looked like large desert mushrooms growing at the foot of the red hillock calcined by the sun.

“They were our men. A little further on, at the edge of a dark-green field of esparto grass, the tethered horses were feeding.

“ ‘Gallop,’ ordered Mohammed, and we arrived in the centre of the encampment like a hurricane. The frenzied women, clad in white rags which drooped and billowed round them, hastily entered their dens of canvas, crouching and crawling, shrieking like hunted animals. The men, on the contrary, came up from all sides, attempting to defend themselves.

“We rode straight for the loftiest tent, the chief’s.

“We kept our swords sheathed, following the example of Mohammed, who was galloping in a curious manner; he remained absolutely immobile, bolt upright on the little horse, which struggled madly to support his mighty bulk. The tranquillity of the rider, with his long moustaches, contrasted strangely with the liveliness of the animal.

“The native chief came out of his tent as we arrived in front of it. He was a tall thin man, black, with a shining eye, a bulging forehead, and eyebrows shaped like the arc of a circle.

“ ‘What do you want?’ he cried in Arabic.

“Mohammed reined in his horse with a jerk, and answered in the same language:

“ ‘Was it you that killed the English traveller?’

“ ‘You’ve no right to question me,’ said the agha in a loud voice.

“All around me was a sound like the muttering of a storm. The Arabs came up from all sides, hustled us, made a ring round us, shouted wildly. They looked like fierce birds of prey, with their great hooked noses, their thin bony faces, their wide garments shaken by their gestures.

“Mohammed was smiling, his turban on one side, excitement showing in his eye; I saw little quivers of pleasure run through his sagging fleshy wrinkled cheeks.

“In a voice of thunder which dominated the clamour, he replied:

“ ‘Death to him who has given death.’

“He thrust his revolver into the agha’s brown face. I saw a little smoke rise from the barrel; then a pink froth of brains and blood gushed from the chief’s forehead. As though struck by lightning he collapsed upon his back, throwing his arms apart, which raised the trailing skirts of his burnous-like wings.

“I thought my last hour had come, the tumult around us was so frightful.

“Mohammed had drawn his sabre; we followed his example. With windmill strokes he held off those who pressed him most closely, shouting:

“ ‘I’ll spare the lives of those who surrender; death to the rest.’

“And seizing the nearest in his herculean fists, he laid him across the saddle and bound his hands, shouting to us:

“ ‘Do as I do, and sabre those who resist.’

“In five minutes we had captured some twenty Arabs, whose wrists we fastened securely. Then we pursued the fugitives, for at sight of our naked swords there had been a general flight. We collected about thirty more captives.

“The plain was filled with white, scurrying figures. The women dragged their children along, uttering shrill screams. The yellow dogs, like jackals, leapt round us, barking and showing their white fangs.

“Mohammed, who seemed out of his wits with joy, dismounted at one bound, and seizing the rope I had brought, said:

“ ‘Careful, now, boys; two of you dismount.’

“Then he made a ludicrous and ghastly thing; a necklace of prisoners, or rather a necklace of hanged men. He had firmly bound the two wrists of the first captive, then he made a noose round his neck with the same cord, with which he next secured the second captive’s arms, and then knotted it round that man’s neck. Our fifty prisoners soon found themselves bound in such a manner that the slightest attempt to escape on the part of one of them would have strangled both him and his two neighbours, and they were forced to march at an exactly even pace, without altering the gap between each of them by the slightest hair’s-breadth, or else be promptly caught like hares in a snare.

“When this curious task was accomplished, Mohammed began to laugh, the silent laugh which shook his belly without a sound coming from his mouth.

“ ‘That’s the Arab chain,’ he said.

“We too began to roar with laughter at the prisoners’ scared piteous faces.

“ ‘Now, boys,’ cried our leader, ‘fasten a stake at each end.’

“We attached a stake to each end of this ribbon of ghostlike captives, who remained as motionless as though turned to stone.

“ ‘And now for dinner,’ announced the Turk.

“A fire was lit and a sheep roasted, which we divided with our bare hands. Then we ate some dates found in the tents, drank some milk procured in the same way, and picked up some silver jewellery left behind by the fugitives.

“We were peacefully finishing our meal when I perceived, on the hill facing us, a singular assemblage. It was the women who had recently fled, only the women. And they were running towards us. I pointed them out to Mohammed-Fripouille.

“He smiled.

“ ‘It’s our dessert,’ he cried.

“ ‘Quite so, the dessert!’

“They came up, galloping madly, and soon we were bombarded with stones, which they flung at us without pausing in their onrush. We saw that they were armed with knives, tent-pegs, and broken pottery.

“ ‘Get on your horses,’ yelled Mohammed.

“It was high time. The attack was terrible. They were come to free the prisoners, and strove to cut the rope. The Turk, realising the danger, flew into a mad rage and shouted: ‘Sabre them!⁠—sabre them!⁠—sabre them!’ And as we remained inactive, uneasy at this new sort of attack, hesitating to kill women, he rushed upon the invaders.

“Alone he charged that battalion of ragged females; the brute proceeded to put them to the sword, working like a galley-slave, in such a frenzy of rage that a white form dropped every time his arm swept down.

“His onslaught was so terrible that the frightened women fled as quickly as they had come, leaving behind them a dozen dead or wounded wretches, whose crimson blood stained their white garments.

“Mohammed returned towards us with a distorted face, repeating:

“ ‘Off with you, boys, off we go; they’re coming back.’

“And we fought a rearguard action, slowly leading our prisoners, who were paralysed with the fear of being strangled.

“It was striking twelve next day when we arrived at Boghar with our chain of throttled captives. Only six had died on the way. But we had frequently to undo the knots from one end of the convoy to another, for every shock promptly strangled ten or more captives.”

The captain paused. I did not answer. I thought of the strange country wherein such things were to be seen, and gazed at the black sky and its innumerable company of shining stars.

The Legacy

Monsieur and Madame Serbois were lunching, sitting opposite each other. Both looked gloomy.

She, a little blonde with rosy skin and blue eyes and a gentle manner, was eating slowly without raising her head, as though she were haunted by some sad and persistent thought. He, tall, broad, with side-whiskers and the air of a statesman or business man, seemed nervous and preoccupied. Finally he said, as though speaking to himself, “Really, it’s astonishing.”

“What is?” his wife asked.

“That Vaudrec shouldn’t have left us anything.”

Madame Serbois blushed; she blushed instantly, as though a rosy veil had suddenly been drawn over the skin of her throat and face. “Perhaps there is a will at the notary’s,” she said. “It is too early for us to know.”

She said it with assurance, and Serbois answered reflectively: “Yes, that is possible. After all, he was the best friend of both of us, always here, staying for dinner every other day. I know he gave you many presents⁠—that was perhaps his way of repaying our hospitality⁠—but really, one does think of friends like us in a will. I know that if it had been I who had not felt well, I would have made some provision for him, even though you are my natural heir.”

Mme. Serbois lowered her eyes. And as her husband carved a chicken she touched her handkerchief to her nose the way one does in weeping.

He continued. “Yes, it is possible that there is a will at the notary’s, and a little legacy for us. I wouldn’t expect anything much, just a remembrance, nothing but a remembrance, a thought, to prove to me that he had an affection for us.”

Then his wife said, in a hesitant voice: “If you like, after lunch we might call on Maître Lemaneur, and we would know where we stand.”

“An excellent idea,” said M. Serbois. “That is what we shall do.” He had tied a napkin around his neck to keep from spotting his clothes with gravy, and he had the look of a decapitated man continuing to talk; his fine black whiskers stood out against the white of the linen, and his face was that of a very superior butler.

When they entered the notary’s office there was a slight stir among the clerks, and when M. Serbois announced himself⁠—even though he was perfectly well known⁠—the chief clerk jumped to his feet with noticeable alacrity and his assistant smiled. Then they were shown into Lemaneur’s private office.

He was a round little man, his head looked like a ball fastened to another ball, to which in turn were fastened a pair of legs so very short and round that they too almost seemed like balls. He greeted them, pointed to chairs, and said, with a slightly significant glance at Mme. Serbois: “I was just going to write you to ask you to come in. I wanted to acquaint you with M. Vaudrec’s will. It concerns you.”

M. Serbois could not refrain from saying, “Ah! I was sure of it.”

The notary said, “I will read you the document. It is very short.” And taking up a paper he read:

“I, Paul-Emile-Cyprien Vaudrec, the undersigned, being of sound body and mind, do hereby express my last wishes.

“Since death can come at any moment, unexpectedly, I wish to take the precaution of writing my last will and testament, which will be deposited with my notary, Maître Lemaneur.

“Being without direct heirs, I bequeath my entire estate, consisting of securities amounting to 400,000 francs, and real property amounting to about 600,000 francs, to Mme. Clair-Hortense Serbois, unconditionally. I beg her to accept this gift from a friend who has died, as proof of his devoted, profound and respectful affection.

“Signed in Paris, June 15, 1883.

“Vaudrec.”

Mme. Serbois had lowered her head and sat motionless, whereas her husband was glancing with stupefaction at her and at the notary. Maître Lemaneur continued, after a moment: “Madame cannot, of course, accept this legacy without your consent, Monsieur.”

M. Serbois rose. “I must have time to think,” he said.

The notary, who was smiling with a certain air of malice, agreed. “I understand the scruples that make you hesitate; society sometimes judges unkindly. Will you come back tomorrow at the same time and give me your answer?”

M. Serbois bowed. “Until tomorrow.”

He took a ceremonious leave of the notary, offered his arm to his wife, who was redder than a peony and kept her eyes obstinately lowered, and he left the office with so imposing an air that the clerks were positively frightened.

Once inside their own house, behind closed doors, M. Serbois curtly declared: “You were Vaudrec’s mistress.”

His wife, taking off her hat, turned toward him with a spasmodic movement. “I?” she cried. “Oh!”

“Yes, you. No one leaves his entire estate to a woman unless⁠ ⁠…”

She had gone utterly pale, and her hands trembled a little as she tried to tie the long ribbons together to keep them from trailing on the floor. After a moment she said, “But⁠ ⁠… You’re crazy, crazy⁠ ⁠… An hour ago weren’t you yourself hoping that he would⁠—would leave you something?”

“Yes⁠—he could have left me something. Me⁠—not you.”

She looked at him deeply, as though trying to capture that unknown something in another human being which can scarcely be sensed even during those rare moments when guards are down, and which are like half-open gateways to the mysterious recesses of the soul. Then she said, slowly, “But it seems to me that if⁠—that a legacy of such a size would have looked just as strange coming from him to you, as to me.”

“Why?”

“Because⁠ ⁠…” She turned her head in embarrassment, and did not go on.

He began to pace the room, and said: “Surely you cannot accept?”

She answered with indifference: “Very well. But in that case there is no need to wait until tomorrow. We can write Maître Lemaneur now.”

Serbois stopped his pacing, and for several moments they stared at each other, trying to see, to know, to understand, to uncover and fathom the depths of each other’s thoughts, in one of those ardent, mute questionings between two people who live together, who never get to know each other, but who constantly suspect and watch.

Then he suddenly murmured, close to her ear: “Admit that you were Vaudrec’s mistress.”

She shrugged. “Don’t be stupid. Vaudrec loved me, I think, but he was never my lover.”

He stamped his foot. “You lie. What you say is impossible.”

She said calmly, “Nevertheless, it is true.”

He resumed his pacing, then, stopping again, said, “Then explain to me why he left you everything.”

She answered nonchalantly. “It is very simple. As you yourself said earlier, we were his only friends, he lived as much with us as in his own home, and when the time came to make his will he thought of us. Then, out of gallantry, he wrote my name because my name came to him naturally, just as it was always to me that he gave presents⁠—not to you. He had the habit of bringing me flowers, of giving me a little gift on the fifth of every month, because it was the fifth of a month that we met. You know that. He almost never gave you anything⁠—he didn’t think of it. Men give remembrances to the wives of their friends⁠—not to the husbands⁠—so he left his last remembrance to me rather than to you. It is as simple as that.”

She was so calm, so natural, that Serbois hesitated. Then: “Still, it would make a very bad impression. Everyone would believe the other thing. We cannot accept.”

“Then we won’t accept. It will be a million less in our pockets, that’s all.”

He began to talk the way one thinks aloud, without addressing his wife directly. “Yes, a million⁠—impossible⁠—our reputations would be ruined⁠—too bad⁠—he should have left half to me⁠ ⁠… that would have taken care of everything.” And he sat down, crossed his legs and played with his whiskers⁠—always his behavior at moments of deep meditation.

Mme. Serbois opened her work basket, took out a bit of embroidery and began to sew. “I don’t in the least insist on accepting. It is up to you to think about it.”

For a long time he did not answer; then, hesitantly: “Look⁠—there would be one way, perhaps. You could sign half over to me, by deed of gift. We have no children: it would be perfectly legal. In that way nobody could talk.”

She said, seriously: “I don’t quite see how that would keep them from talking.”

He lost his temper: “You must be stupid. We’ll tell everyone that he left each of us half: and it will be true. No need to explain that the will was in your name.”

Once again she gave him a piercing look. “As you like. I am willing.”

Then he rose and resumed his pacing. He appeared to hesitate again, although by now his face was radiant. “No⁠—perhaps it would be better to renounce it altogether⁠—more dignified⁠—still⁠—in this way nothing could be said.⁠ ⁠… Even the most scrupulous could find nothing to object to.⁠ ⁠… Yes⁠—that solves everything.⁠ ⁠…”

He stood close to his wife. “So, if you like, my darling, I’ll go back alone to Maître Lemaneur and consult him and explain. I will tell him that you prefer this arrangement, that it is more fitting, that it will stop gossip. My accepting half shows that I am on sure ground, perfectly acquainted with the whole situation, that I know everything to be honorable and clear. It is as though I said to you, ‘Accept, my dear: why shouldn’t you, since I do?’ Otherwise it would really be undignified.”

“As you wish,” said Mme. Serbois, simply.

He went on, speaking fluently now: “Yes, by dividing the legacy everything is made crystal clear. We inherit from a friend who wanted to make no difference between us, who didn’t want to seem to be saying, ‘I prefer one of you to the other after my death, just as I did during my life.’ And you may be sure that if he had reflected a little, that is what he would have done. He didn’t think, he didn’t foresee the consequences. As you rightly said, it was to you that he always gave presents. It was to you that he wanted to offer a last remembrance.”

She stopped, a shade impatiently. “All right, I understand. You don’t have to do so much explaining. Now go to the notary.”

He stammered, blushing, suddenly confused. “You’re right. I’m going.”

He took his hat, and approaching her he held out his lips for a kiss, murmuring, “I’ll be back soon, my darling.”

She held up her forehead and he gave her a big kiss, his thick whiskers tickling her cheeks.

Then he went out, beaming happily.

And Madame Serbois let her embroidery fall and began to weep.

The Keeper

After dinner we were recounting shooting adventures and accidents.

An old friend of ours, Monsieur Boniface, a great slayer of beasts and drinker of wine, a strong and debonair fellow, full of wit, sense, and a philosophy at once ironical and resigned, which revealed itself in biting humour and never in melancholy, spoke abruptly:

“I know a shooting story, or rather a shooting drama, that’s queer enough. It’s not in the least like the usual tale of the kind, and I’ve never told it before; I didn’t suppose that anyone would be interested in it.

“It’s not very pleasant, if you know what I mean. I mean to say that it does not possess the kind of interest which affects, or charms, or agreeably excites.

“Anyhow, here it is.

“In those days I was about thirty-five, and mad on shooting. At that time I owned a very lovely piece of land on the outskirts of Jumièges, surrounded by forests and excellent for hares and rabbits. I used only to spend four or five days there a year, by myself, the limited accommodation not permitting of my bringing a friend.

“I had installed there as keeper an old retired policeman, a good man, hot-tempered and very conscientious in the performance of his duties, a terror to poachers, and afraid of nothing. He lived by himself, some way out of the village, in a little house, or rather a hovel, consisting of two ground-floor rooms, a kitchen and a small storeroom, and of two more rooms on the first floor. One of these, a sort of box just large enough for a bed, a chest of drawers, and a chair, was reserved for me.

“Old Cavalier occupied the other. In saying that he was alone in this cottage, I expressed myself badly. He had taken with him his nephew, a hobbledehoy of fourteen, who fetched the provisions from the village two miles off, and helped the old man in his daily duties.

“This youth was tall, thin, and somewhat stooping; his hair was so pale a yellow that it looked like the down on a plucked hen, and so thin that he appeared to be bald. He had enormous feet and colossal hands, the hands of a giant.

“He squinted a little and never looked anyone straight in the face. He gave one the impression that he occupied in the human race the place that the musk-secreting beasts hold in the animal kingdom. He was a polecat or a fox, was that boy.

“He slept in a sort of hole at the top of the little staircase which led to the two rooms. But during my short visits to the Pavilion⁠—I called this hovel the Pavilion⁠—Marius gave up his nest to an old woman from Écorcheville named Céleste, who came in to cook for me, old Cavalier’s concoctions being by no means good enough.

“Now you know the characters and the setting. Here is the story.

“It was in 1854, the fifteenth of October: I remember the date, and I shall never forget it.

“I left Rouen on horseback, followed by my dog, a big Dalmatian from Poitou, broad-chested and heavy-jowled, who rummaged about in the bushes like a Pont Audemer spaniel.

“My bag was slung on the saddle behind me, and I carried my gun by the sling. It was a cold day, with a high and mournful wind, and dark clouds rode in the sky.

“While ascending the slope of Canteleu I gazed at the broad valley of the Seine, through which the river meandered with serpentine twists as far as the horizon. On the left all the steeples of Rouen lifted to the sky, and on the right the view was blocked by the far-off tree-clad hills. I passed through the forest of Roumare, going now at a trot, now at a walking pace, and at about five o’clock I arrived at the Pavilion, where old Cavalier and Céleste were waiting for me.

“For the last ten years, at the same season, I had been presenting myself in the same way, and the same mouths welcomed me with the same words:

“ ‘Good day, your honour. Your honour’s health is good?’

“Cavalier had scarcely altered at all. He stood up to the passage of time like an old tree; but Céleste, especially in the last four years, was becoming almost unrecognisable.

“She was bent nearly double, and although still active, she walked with the upper part of her body so bowed that it formed almost a right angle with her legs.

“The old woman was very devoted to me; she always seemed much affected at seeing me again, and whenever I left she used to say:

“ ‘Think, this is maybe the last time, your honour.’

“And the poor servant’s heartbroken, frightened farewell, her desperate resignation to inevitable death, so surely close upon her, stirred my heart strangely each year.

“I dismounted, and while Cavalier, with whom I had shaken hands, was leading my horse to the little shed which did duty for a stable, I entered the kitchen, which also served as the dining room, followed by Céleste.

“Then the keeper joined us again. Right from the first I saw that his face had not its customary expression. He seemed preoccupied, ill at ease, worried.

“ ‘Well, Cavalier,’ I said to him, ‘is everything going on all right?’

“ ‘Yes and no,’ he murmured. ‘There’s something that isn’t at all all right.’

“ ‘Well, what is it, man?’ I asked. ‘Tell me all about it.’

“But he shook his head.

“ ‘No, monsieur, not yet. I don’t want to pester you with my worries like this, when you’ve only just arrived.’

“I insisted, but he absolutely refused to tell me about it before dinner. His expression, however, told me that it was serious.

“Not knowing what to say to him, I asked:

“ ‘And what about the game? Have we plenty?’

“ ‘Oh, yes, there’s plenty of game, plenty. I kept my eyes open, thanks be to God.’

“He said this with such desperate seriousness that it was positively comical. His large grey moustaches looked ready to fall off his lips.

“Suddenly I realised that I had not yet seen his nephew.

“ ‘And Marius, where has he gone to? Why hasn’t he shown up?’

“The keeper started; he wheeled sharply and faced me.

“ ‘Well, monsieur, I’d sooner tell you the story straight out; yes, I’d sooner do that. It’s about him that this thing’s on my mind.’

“ ‘Ah. Well, where is he?’

“ ‘In the stable, monsieur; I’m expecting him to turn up any moment.’

“ ‘Well, what has he been doing?’

“ ‘This is the story, monsieur⁠ ⁠…’

“But the keeper hesitated none the less, his voice was changed and shook, his face was suddenly graven with deep wrinkles, the wrinkles of old age.

“Slowly he continued:

“ ‘Here it is. I noticed this winter that someone was laying snares in the wood of Roseraies, but I couldn’t catch the man. I spent night after night there, monsieur; but no good. And during that time snares began to appear on the Écorcheville side. I grew thin with rage. But as for catching the thief, impossible! You would have said the scoundrel was warned beforehand of my visits and my plans.

“ ‘But one day, while brushing Marius’s breeches, his Sunday breeches, I found forty sous in his pocket. Now where had the boy got that from?

“ ‘I thought it over for a week, and I noticed that he was in the habit of going out; he used to go out just when I came back to bed, monsieur.

“ ‘Then I watched him, but I hadn’t a doubt of the truth, oh, not a doubt of it. And one morning, when I had gone to bed just before he went off, I promptly got up again, and tracked him. And as for tracking, there’s no one to touch me, monsieur.

“ ‘And I caught him, monsieur, setting snares on your land⁠—Marius, my nephew, your keeper’s nephew!

“ ‘My blood rushed through my body in one flood, and I nearly killed him on the spot. I gave him such a thrashing⁠—oh, Lord! how I did beat him; and I promised him that when you came he would have another from me in your presence, for the sake of the lesson.

“ ‘That’s all. I’ve gone thin with grief. You know what it means to be crossed like that. But what would you have done, now? He’s got no father or mother. I’m the only one of his own blood the boy’s got; I’ve brought him up; I couldn’t turn him out, could I?

“ ‘But I’ve told him that if he does it again, it’s the end, the end, more’s the pity. There! Was I right, monsieur?’

“I held out my hand to him, and replied:

“ ‘You were right, Cavalier; you’re a good fellow.’

“He rose.

“ ‘Thank you, monsieur. Now I’ll go and fetch him; he must be punished, for the sake of the lesson.’

“I knew that it was useless to attempt to dissuade the old man from any plan he had already formed. So I let him have his own way.

“He went off to fetch the lad, and brought him back, holding him by the ear.

“I was seated on a cane chair, wearing the grave visage of a judge. Marius appeared to me to have grown; he was even uglier than the year before, with his evil, cunning expression. And his great hands looked monstrous.

“His uncle shoved him in front of me, and said in his military voice:

“ ‘Ask pardon from the master.’

“The boy did not utter a word.

“Then, seizing him under the arms, the ex-policeman lifted him off the ground and began to thrash him with such violence that I got up to stop the blows.

“The child was now bawling:

“ ‘Mercy!⁠—mercy!⁠—mercy! I promise⁠ ⁠…’

“Cavalier lowered him on to the ground and, forcing him on to his knees by pressing upon his shoulders, said:

“ ‘Ask pardon.’

“ ‘I ask pardon,’ murmured the young scamp, with downcast eyes.

“Thereupon his uncle lifted him to his feet and dismissed him with a blow which nearly knocked him down again.

“He made off, and I did not see him again that evening.

“But Cavalier seemed terribly distressed.

“ ‘He’s a bad character,’ he said, and throughout dinner he kept on saying:

“ ‘Oh! how it grieves me, monsieur; you don’t know how it grieves me.’

“I tried to console him, but in vain. I went up to bed early, so as to be out shooting at break of day. My dog was already asleep upon the floor at the foot of my bed, when I blew out my candle.

“I was awakened in the middle of the night by the furious barking of Bock. I realised at once that my room was full of smoke. I leapt out of bed, lit the light, ran to the door, and opened it. A swirl of flames entered. The house was on fire.

“I promptly shut the strong oak door again, and dragging on my breeches, I first of all lowered my dog from the window with a rope made of twisted sheets; then, throwing down my clothes, my game-bag, and my gun, I made my escape in the same way.

“Then I began to shout with all my might:

“ ‘Cavalier! Cavalier! Cavalier!’

“But the keeper did not wake; the old policeman was a heavy sleeper.

“Through the lower windows I saw that the whole ground-floor was nothing but a blazing furnace, and I saw too that it had been filled with straw to assist the fire.

“So it had been purposely fired!

“I resumed my furious shouts:

“ ‘Cavalier!’

“Then the thought came to me that the smoke was suffocating him. An idea leaped into my mind; slipping two cartridges into my gun, I fired straight at his window.

“The six panes crashed into the room in a welter of splintered glass. This time the old man had heard, and his terrified figure appeared at the window, clad in his nightshirt; he was terrified more than anything by the violent glare which lit up the whole front of his dwelling.

“ ‘Your house is on fire,’ I shouted. ‘Jump out of the window, quick, quick!’

“The flames suddenly darted through the lower windows, licked the wall, reached him, were on the point of surrounding him. He jumped and landed on his feet like a cat.

“It was high time. The thatched roof cracked in the middle, above the staircase, which formed a sort of chimney for the fire below; an immense red sheaf of flame rose in the air, widened, like the jet of a fountain, and sowed a shower of sparks round the cottage. In a few seconds it was nothing but a mass of flames.

“ ‘How did it catch fire?’ asked Cavalier, bewildered.

“ ‘Someone set fire to the kitchen,’ I replied.

“ ‘Who could have done it?’ he murmured.

“Suddenly I guessed.

“ ‘Marius!’ I said.

“The old man understood.

“ ‘Oh! Holy Mother of God!’ he stammered; ‘that’s why he didn’t come in again.’

“But a horrible thought ran through my brain. I cried:

“ ‘And Céleste? Céleste?’

“He did not answer, but the house collapsed before our eyes, forming nothing but a huge brazier, blinding, bleeding; a terrible pyre in which the poor woman could be no more than a glowing cinder, a cinder of human flesh.

“We had not heard a single cry.

“But, as the fire was reaching the neighbouring shed, I suddenly thought of my horse, and Cavalier ran to set it free.

“He had scarcely opened the stable-door when a swift, supple form passed between his legs, throwing him flat on his nose. It was Marius, running for all he was worth.

“In a second the man picked himself up. He wanted to run after the wretch, but realising that he could not hope to catch him and maddened with an ungovernable rage, he yielded to one of those momentary, thoughtless impulses which can be neither foreseen nor restrained. He picked up my gun, which was lying upon the ground close by, set it to his shoulder, and before I could move, pulled the trigger, without even knowing whether the gun was loaded.

“One of the cartridges which I had put in to give warning of the fire had not gone off; the charge caught the fugitive full in the back, and flung him on his face, covered with blood. He began to scrabble at the ground with hands and knees, as though he was eager to go on running upon all fours, like mortally wounded hares when they see the hunter come up.

“I dashed to him. The child was already in his death-throes. He died before the flames were extinguished, without having uttered a word.

“Cavalier, still in his nightshirt, with bare legs, stood near us, motionless, bewildered.

“When the people arrived from the village, they took away my keeper, who was like a madman.

“I appeared at the trial as a witness, and narrated the facts in detail, without altering a single incident. Cavalier was acquitted. But he left the district the same day, and disappeared.

“I have never seen him again.

“That’s my shooting story, gentlemen.”

Berthe

My old friend⁠—sometimes one has friends much older than oneself⁠—my old friend Doctor Bonnet had often invited me to stay with him at his house at Riom. I did not know Auvergne at all, and I decided to go and see him about the middle of the summer of 1876.

I arrived on the morning train, and the first figure I saw upon the station platform was the doctor’s. He was dressed in grey, and wore a round black broad-brimmed soft felt hat, whose very high crown narrowed as it rose, like the chimney of an anthracite stove; it was a true Auvergne hat, and positively smelt of charcoal-burning. Clad thus, the doctor had the appearance of an old young man, with his slender body wrapped in the light-coloured coat, and his large head with its white hair.

He embraced me with the manifest pleasure of a provincial greeting the arrival of a long-desired friend. Extending his arm and pointing all round him he exclaimed proudly:

“Here is Auvergne.”

I saw nothing but a line of mountains in front of me, whose summits, like truncated cones, must have been extinct volcanoes.

Then, raising his finger towards the name of the town written upon the front of the station, he said:

“Riom, fatherland of magistrates, pride of the law courts, which should rather have been the fatherland of doctors.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Why?” he answered with a laugh. “Turn the name round and you have ‘mori’⁠—to die⁠ ⁠… That’s why I installed myself in this neighbourhood, young man.”

And, delighted with his jest, he led me away, rubbing his hands.

As soon as I had swallowed a cup of coffee, I had to go and see the old city. I admired the chemist’s house, and the other notable houses, all black, but as pretty as toy houses, with their fronts of carved stone. I admired the statue of the Virgin, patron saint of butchers, and even heard, in this connection, the story of an amusing adventure which I will relate some other day, when Doctor Bonnet said to me:

“Now I must beg five minutes in which to go and see a patient, and then I will take you up the hill of Châtel-Guyon, so as to show you, before lunch, the general view of the town and of the whole range of the Puy-de-Dôme. You can wait on the pavement; I’m only going straight up and down again.”

He left me opposite one of those old provincial mansions, dark, closed, silent, gloomy. This one seemed to me to have a particularly melancholy physiognomy, and I soon discovered the reason. All the large windows on the first floor were blocked up to half their height by stout wooden shutters. Only the top halves opened, as though someone had wished to prevent the creatures shut up in this vast stone box from seeing into the street.

When the doctor came down again, I told him what I had noticed.

“You were not mistaken,” he replied; “the poor creature shut up in there must never see what is going on outside. She’s a madwoman, or rather an idiot, or an imbecile⁠—what you Normans call a ‘Niente.’

“Yes, it’s a sad story, and an extraordinary pathological case into the bargain. Would you like me to tell it you?”

I told him yes.

“Well,” he went on, “here it is, then. Twenty years ago now, the owners of that house, my employers, had a child, a girl, just like any other girl.

“But I soon saw that although the body of the little creature was developing admirably, her intelligence was remaining dormant.

“She walked at a very early age, but she absolutely refused to speak. At first I thought her deaf; then, later, I found out that she could hear perfectly, but did not understand. Violent noises made her tremble; they frightened her, but she could never trace the cause of them.

“She grew up; she was superb, and dumb, dumb through lack of intelligence. I tried every means to bring a gleam of light into her brain; nothing was of avail. I fancied that she recognised her nurse; once weaned, she did not recognise her mother. She never knew how to speak that word, the first uttered by children, the last murmured by soldiers dying on the battlefield: ‘Mother.’ Sometimes she attempted inarticulate mutterings, but nothing more.

“When the weather was fine, she laughed all the time, uttering gentle cries like the twittering of a bird; when it rained, she wept and groaned in a melancholy, terrifying way like the mourning of dogs howling round a corpse.

“She liked to roll in the grass like a young animal, and run about like a mad creature, and every morning she clapped her hands if she saw the sun coming into her room. When the window was opened, she clapped her hands and moved about in her bed, so as to make them dress her at once.

“She seemed to draw no distinction between people, between her mother and her servant, between her father and me, between the coachman and the cook.

“I was fond of her unhappy parents, and went to see them almost every day. I often dined with them, which made me notice that Berthe (she had been named Berthe) appeared to recognise the dishes and prefer some to others.

“She was twelve years old at that time. She looked like a girl of eighteen, and was taller than I am.

“So the idea came into my head of developing her greed, and of attempting by this means to introduce a sense of difference into her mind, of forcing her, by the difference between tastes, by the scale of flavours, if not to think, at least to make instinctive distinctions, which would be if nothing else a physical stirring of her brain.

“In appealing to her senses, and carefully choosing those which would best serve our purpose, we were bound to produce a sort of recoil of the body upon the intelligence, and thus gradually augment the insentient working of her brain.

“One day, therefore, I set in front of her two plates, one of soup, one of very sweet vanilla custard. I made her taste them alternately. Then I left her free to make a choice. She ate the plateful of custard.

“I soon made her very greedy, so greedy that she seemed to have nothing in her head but the idea, or rather the desire, of eating. She recognised dishes perfectly, holding out her hand towards those which she liked and eagerly seizing them. She cried when they were taken away.

“Then I had the notion of teaching her to come to the dining room at the sound of the bell. It took a long time, but I succeeded. In her vague understanding became firmly established a connection between the sound and the taste, a relation between two senses, an appeal from one to the other, and consequently a kind of concatenation of ideas, if one can call this sort of instinctive link between two organic functions an idea.

“I carried my experiment still further, and taught her⁠—with what pains!⁠—to recognise mealtimes on the dial of the clock.

“For a long time I was unable to call her attention to the hands, but I succeeded in making her notice the striking mechanism. The method I employed was simple: I stopped the ringing of the bell, and everyone rose to go to table when the little brass hammer struck twelve.

“I tried in vain to teach her to count the strokes. Every time she heard the chime she ran to the door; but little by little she must have realised that all the chimes had not the same value with regard to meals; and her eye, guided by her ear, was often fixed upon the dial.

“Noticing this, I took care to go every day at twelve and at six, and as soon as it came to the moment she was waiting for, I placed my finger on the figure twelve and on the figure six. I soon observed that she was following attentively the advance of the little brass hands, which I had often pushed round in her presence.

“She had understood! Or, it would be truer to say, she had grasped it. I had succeeded in awakening in her the knowledge, or rather the sensation, of time, in the same way as one succeeds with carp, though they have not the advantage of clocks, by feeding them at exactly the same moment every day.

“Once this result had been attained, all the timepieces in the house occupied her attention to the exclusion of everything else. She spent her life in looking at them, listening to them, waiting for the hours. A rather funny incident happened. The strike of a pretty Louis XVI clock, that was hanging over the head of her bed, ran down, and she noticed it. For twenty minutes she stared at the hands, waiting for ten o’clock to strike. But when the hand had passed the figure, she was left bewildered at hearing nothing, so bewildered that she remained sitting there, stirred no doubt by one of those strong emotions which lay hold on us in the face of great catastrophes. And she had the curious patience to sit in front of that little instrument until eleven o’clock, to see what would happen. Again she heard nothing, very naturally. Then, seized abruptly with the mad rage of a creature deceived and tricked, or with the terror inspired by a frightful mystery, or with the furious impatience of a passionate creature confronted by an obstacle, she seized the tongs from the fireplace and struck the clock with such force that she smashed it to pieces instantly.

“Her brain worked then, and calculated, in an obscure way, it is true, and within a very limited range, for I could not make her distinguish between people as she did between hours. In order to produce a stirring of intelligence in her mind, it was necessary to appeal to her passions, in the physical sense of the word.

“We soon had another proof of this; alas! it was a terrible one.

“She had grown into a superb creature; she was a true type of the race, an admirable stupid Venus.

“She was now sixteen, and I have rarely seen such perfection of form, suppleness, and regularity of features. I said she was a Venus; so she was, a fair, full-figured, vigorous Venus, with large eyes, clear and empty, blue like flax-flowers, and a large mouth with round, greedy, sensual lips, a mouth made for kisses.

“One morning her father came into my room with a curious expression, and sat down without even replying to my greeting.

“ ‘I want to speak to you about a very serious matter,’ he said. ‘Could⁠ ⁠… Berthe get married?’

“I started with surprise.

“ ‘Berthe get married!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s impossible!’

“ ‘Yes,’ he resumed, ‘I know⁠ ⁠… but think, doctor⁠ ⁠… you see⁠ ⁠… perhaps⁠ ⁠… we had hoped⁠ ⁠… if she had children⁠ ⁠… it would be a great shock for her, a great happiness⁠ ⁠… and who knows whether motherhood might not awaken her intelligence?’

“I was very perplexed. It was true. It was possible that the novelty of the experience, the wonderful maternal instinct which throbs in the hearts of beasts as strongly as in the hearts of women, which makes the hen fling herself upon the jaws of the dog in order to protect her little ones, might lead to a revolution, a violent disturbance in that dormant brain, might even set going the motionless mechanism of her mind.

“Suddenly, too, I remembered an example from my own experience. Some years previously I had owned a little bitch, a retriever, so stupid that I could get nothing out of her. She had puppies, and became in one day, not intelligent, but almost the equal of many poorly developed dogs.

“I had scarcely perceived this possibility before the longing increased in me to get Berthe married, not so much out of friendship for her and for her poor parents as out of scientific curiosity. What would happen? It was a strange problem.

“So I said to the father:

“ ‘You may be right⁠ ⁠… we might try⁠ ⁠… try by all means⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… you’ll never find a man who’ll consent to it.’

“ ‘I have found one,’ he said in a low voice.

“I was amazed.

“ ‘A decent fellow?’ I stammered. ‘A man in your own walk of life?’

“ ‘Yes⁠ ⁠… absolutely,’ he replied.

“ ‘Ah.⁠ ⁠… And⁠ ⁠… might I ask you his name?’

“ ‘I was just coming to tell you and ask your advice. It is Monsieur Gaston du Boys de Lucelles.’

“I nearly exclaimed: ‘The swine!’ but I kept my mouth shut, and after a pause I murmured:

“ ‘Yes, quite all right. I see no obstacle.’

“The poor man shook my hand.

“ ‘They shall be married next month,’ he said.

“Monsieur Gaston du Boys de Lucelles was a young scamp of good family who had consumed his paternal inheritance and had run into debt in a thousand disreputable ways; he was now hunting for a new method of obtaining money.

“He had found this one.

“He was a good-looking lad, well set up, but a rake, one of the loathsome tribe of provincial rakes. He seemed to give promise of being an adequate husband, and one that an allowance would easily remove again.

“He came to the house to press his suit and show himself off before the beautiful idiot, whom he seemed to like. He brought her flowers, kissed her hands, sat at her feet and gazed at her with tender eyes; but she took no notice of any of his attentions, and in no way distinguished him from any of the people among whom she lived.

“The marriage took place.

“You will understand to what a degree my curiosity was inflamed.

“The next day I went to see Berthe, to judge from her face whether any inner part of her had been stirred. But I found her just the same as on other days, solely preoccupied with the clock and dinner. Her husband, on the contrary, seemed very fond of her, and tried to rouse her gaiety and affection by little teasing games such as one plays with kittens.

“He had found nothing better.

“I then started to pay frequent visits to the newly married couple, and I soon perceived that the young woman recognised her husband and directed upon him the greedy looks which hitherto she had lavished only upon sweet things to eat.

“She followed his movements, distinguished his step on the stairs, or in a neighbouring room, clapped her hands when he came in, and her transfigured countenance burned with a flame of profound happiness and desire.

“She loved him with all her body, with all her soul, her poor feeble soul, with all her heart, the poor heart of a grateful animal.

“She was truly an admirable innocent picture of simple passion, of passion at once carnal and modest, such as nature had set in human beings before man complicated and distorted it with all the subtleties of sentiment.

“As for the man, he quickly wearied of the beautiful, passionate, dumb creature. He no longer spent more than a few hours of each day with her, finding it enough to devote his nights to her.

“And she began to suffer.

“From morning to night she waited for him, her eyes fixed on the clock, not even paying attention to meals, for he always went away for his meals, to Clermont, Châtel-Guyon, Royat, anywhere so as not to be at home.

“She grew thin.

“Every other thought, every other desire, every other interest, every other vague hope, vanished from her mind; the hours in which she did not see him became for her hours of terrible torment. Soon he began to sleep away from her. He spent his nights at the Casino at Royat with women, coming home early at the first gleam of day.

“She refused to go to bed before he returned. She stayed motionless on a chair, her eyes vaguely fixed on the little brass hands which turned round and round in slow, regular progress, round the china dial whereon the hours were inscribed.

“She heard the distant trotting of his horse, and would start up with a bound; then, when he came into the room, she would raise her fingers to the clock with a ghostly gesture, as though to say to him: ‘Look how late it is!’ He began to be afraid in the presence of this loving, jealous idiot; he became possessed of a slow resentment, as an animal might be. One night he struck her.

“I was sent for. She was screaming in a terrible fit of grief, rage, passion, I knew not what. How can one tell what is going on in these rudimentary brains?

“I calmed her with injections of morphine; and I forbade her ever to see the man again, for I realised that the marriage would inevitably end in her death.

“Then she went mad! Yes, my dear fellow, that idiot girl went mad. She thinks of him always, and waits for him. She waits for him all day and all night, every moment, waking or sleeping, perpetually. As I saw her growing thinner and thinner, and as her obstinate gaze never left the faces of the clocks, I had all these instruments for measuring time removed from the house. Thus I have taken from her the possibility of counting the hours, and of forever searching her dim memory for the moment at which once upon a time he had been wont to come home. I hope in the long run to kill the remembrance of it in her, and to extinguish the spark of reason that I took such trouble to set alight.

“The other day I tried an experiment. I offered her my watch. She took it and studied it for some time; then she began to scream in a terrible way, as though the sight of the little instrument had suddenly reawakened the memory that was beginning to slumber.

“She is thin in these days, pitifully thin, with shining hollow eyes. She walks up and down unceasingly, like a caged beast.

“I have had two bars put on the windows, have put up high screens, and have fixed the chairs to the floor, to prevent her from looking into the street to see if he is coming back.

“Oh, the poor parents! What a life they have and will have had!”

We had arrived at the top of the hill; the doctor turned round and said to me:

“Look at Riom from here.”

The sombre town wore the aspect of an ancient walled city. In the background, as far as the eye could reach, stretched a green, wooded plain, dotted with villages and towns, and drowned in a thin blue vapour which made the horizon a delight to the eyes. On the right, in the distance, was a line of high mountains with a succession of peaks, rounded or cut off sharply as with a sword-cut.

The doctor began to enumerate the places and peaks, telling me the history of each.

But I did not listen to him; I thought only of the mad woman, saw nothing but her. She seemed to hover like a melancholy ghost over all this wide country.

“What has become of the husband?” I asked abruptly.

My friend, somewhat surprised, answered after a pause:

“He’s living at Royat on the allowance made to him. He’s happy; he leads a gay life.”

As we were walking slowly homewards, both of us saddened and silent, an English dogcart passed us from behind, a fast-trotting thoroughbred in the shafts.

The doctor gripped my arm.

“There he is,” he said.

I saw nothing but a grey felt hat, tilted over one ear, above a pair of broad shoulders, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

Bombard

Life often seemed very hard to Simon Bombard! He was born with an incredible capacity for doing nothing and with an immoderate desire to follow this vocation. All effort, whether moral or physical, every movement accomplished for a purpose, appeared to him beyond his strength. As soon as he heard anyone speak of anything serious he became confused, his mind being incapable of tension or even attention.

The son of a linen-draper in Caen, he took things easily, as they said in the family, until he was twenty-five years of age. But as his parents were always nearer bankruptcy than fortune, he suffered greatly for want of money.

He was a big, tall fine-looking fellow, with red whiskers, cut Norman fashion, of florid complexion, blue eyes, with the first signs of a paunch, and dressed with the swagger elegance of a provincial on a holiday. He laughed and gesticulated on every occasion, displaying a noisy good nature with all the assurance of the commercial traveler. He considered that life was made principally for love and laughter, and as soon as it became necessary to curb his noisy enjoyment, he fell into a kind of chronic somnolence, being incapable of sadness.

His need of money harassed him until he formed the habit of repeating a phrase now celebrated in his circle of acquaintance: “For ten thousand francs a year, I would become an executioner.”

Now, he went each year to Trouville for a fortnight. He called this “spending the season.” He would install himself at the house of his cousins, who gave him the use of a room, and from the day of his arrival to that of his departure he would promenade along the board walk which extends along the great stretch of seashore.

He walked with an air of confidence, his hands in his pockets or crossed behind his back, always clothed in ample garments, with light waistcoats and showy cravats, his hat somewhat over his ear and a cheap cigar in one corner of his mouth.

He went along, brushing up against the elegantly dressed women and staring contemptuously at the men like a fellow ready for a fight, and seeking⁠—seeking⁠—seeking.

He was after a wife, counting entirely upon his face and his physique. He said to himself: “Why the devil, in all the crowd that comes here, should I not be able to find what I want?” And he hunted with the scent of a foxhound, with the keen instinct of a Norman, sure that he would recognize her, the woman who would make him rich, the moment he perceived her.

One Monday morning he murmured: “Hello! hello! hello!” The weather was superb, one of those yellow and blue days of the month of July, when one might say that there was a deluge of heat. The vast shore covered with people, costumes, colours, had the air of a garden of women; and the fishing boats with their brown sails, almost immovable upon the blue water which reflected them upside down, seemed asleep under the great sun at ten o’clock in the morning. There they remained, opposite the wooden pier, some near, some further off, some still further, as if overcome by a summer day idleness, too indifferent to seek the open sea, or even to return to port. And in the distance one could vaguely perceive in the mist the coast of Havre, showing two white points on its summit, the lighthouses of Sainte-Adresse.

He said to himself: “Hello, hello, hello!” For he had passed her now for the third time and perceived that she had noticed him, this mature woman, experienced and courageous, who was making a bid for his attention. He had noticed her before, because she seemed also in quest of someone. She was an Englishwoman, rather tall, a little thin, an audacious Englishwoman whom circumstances and much journeying had made a kind of man. Not bad, on the whole, walking along slowly with short steps, soberly and simply clothed, but wearing a queer sort of hat as Englishwomen always do. She had rather pretty eyes, high cheekbones, a little red, teeth that were too long and always visible.

When he came to the pier, he retraced his steps to see if she would meet him again. He met her and threw her an ardent glance, a glance which seemed to say: “Here I am!”

But how should he speak to her? He returned a fifth time, and when he was again face to face with her she dropped her parasol. He rushed forward, picked it up and presented it to her, saying:

“Permit me, Madame⁠—”

She responded: “Oh, you are very kind!”

And then they looked at each other. They had nothing more to say. But she blushed. Then becoming courageous, he said:

“We are having beautiful weather here.”

And she answered: “Oh, delicious!”

And then they again faced each other, embarrassed, neither thinking of going away. It was she who finally had the audacity to ask: “Are you going to be here long?”

He answered, laughing: “Oh! yes, about as long as I care to.” Then suddenly he proposed: “Would you like to go down to the pier? It is pretty there on a day like this.”

She simply said: “I should be much pleased.”

And they walked along side by side, she with her stiff, rigid movements, he with the rolling swagger of a gander showing off in a farmyard.

Three months later the leading merchants of Caen received one morning a square white card which said:

“M. and Mme. Prosper Bombard have the honour to announce the marriage of their son, M. Simon Bombard, to Mme. Kate Robertson.”

and on the other side:

“Mme. Kate Robertson has the honour of announcing her marriage to M. Simon Bombard.”

They settled in Paris. The fortune of the wife amounted to fifteen thousand francs a year free of incumbrances. Simon wished to have four hundred francs a month for his personal expenses. He had to prove that his tenderness merited this amount; he did prove it easily and obtained what he asked for.

At first everything went well. Young Mme. Bombard was no longer young, assuredly, and her freshness had undergone some wear; but she had a way of exacting things which made it impossible for anyone to refuse her. She would say, with her grave, wilful, English accent: “Oh! Simon, now we must go to bed,” which made Simon start toward the bed like a dog that had been ordered, “To your kennel.” And she knew how to have her way by day and night, in a manner there was no resisting.

She did not get angry; she made no scenes; she never raised her voice; she never had the appearance of being irritated or hurt, or even disturbed. She knew how to talk, that was all; and she spoke to the point, and in a tone that admitted no contradiction.

More than once Simon was on the point of rebelling; but against the brief and imperious desires of this singular woman he found himself unable to stand out. Nevertheless, when the conjugal kisses began to be meagre and monotonous, and he had in his pocket what would bring to him something greater, he paid for satiety, but with a thousand precautions.

Mme. Bombard perceived all this, without his knowing how; and one evening she announced to him that she had rented a house at Mantes where they would live in the future.

Then existence became harder. He tried various kinds of pastimes which did not at all compensate for the feminine conquests for which he longed.

He fished, learned how to tell the places which the gudgeon liked, which the roach and carp preferred, the favourite spots of the bream and the kinds of bait that the different fish will take.

But in watching his floater as it trembled on the surface of the water, other visions haunted his mind. Then he became the friend of the chief of the office of the Subprefect and the captain of the police; and they played whist in the evening at the Café du Commerce, but his sorrowful eye would disrobe the queen of clubs or of diamonds, while the problem of the absent legs on these two-headed figures would confuse the images awakened in his mind.

Then he conceived a plan, a typical specimen of Norman cunning. He would have his wife take a maid who suited him; not a beautiful girl, a coquette, fond of clothes, but a gawky woman, rough and strong-backed, who would not arouse suspicions and whom he had carefully coached in his plans.

She was recommended to them by the collector of tolls, his accomplice and obliging friend, who guaranteed her in every way. And Madame Bombard accepted with confidence the treasure they brought to her.

Simon was happy, happy with precaution, with fear, and with unbelievable difficulties. He could never escape the watchful eye of his wife, except for a few short moments from time to time, and then without security. He sought some plan, some stratagem, and he ended by finding one that succeeded perfectly.

Madame Bombard, who had nothing to do, retired early, while Bombard, who played whist at the Café du Commerce, returned each evening at half past nine, exactly. He got Victorine to wait for him in the passageway of his house, under the vestibule steps, in the darkness.

He only had five minutes or more for he was always in fear of a surprise; but five minutes from time to time sufficed for his ardour, and he slipped a louis into the servant’s hand, for he was generous in his pleasures, and she would quickly remount to her garret.

And he laughed, he triumphed all alone, and repeated aloud, like King Midas’s barber fishing for whitebait from the reeds on the river bank: “Fooled, old girl!”

And the happiness of having fooled Madame Bombard made up to him in great part for the imperfection and incompleteness of his salaried conquest.

One evening he found Victorine waiting for him as was her custom, but she appeared to him more lively, more animated than usual, and he remained perhaps ten minutes at the rendezvous in the corridor.

When he entered the conjugal chamber, Madame Bombard was not there. He felt a cold chill run down his back and sank into a chair, tortured with fear.

She appeared with a candlestick in her hand. He asked trembling:

“You have been out?”

She answered quietly: “I went to the kitchen for a glass of water.”

He forced himself to calm his suspicions of what she might have heard; but she seemed tranquil, happy, confident, and he was reassured.

When they entered the dining room for breakfast the next morning, Victorine put the cutlets on the table. As she turned to go out, Madame Bombard handed her a louis which she held up delicately between her two fingers, and said to her, with her calm, serious accent:

“Here, my girl, here are twenty francs which I deprived you of last night. I return them to you.”

And the flabbergasted girl took the gold piece, gazing at it stupidly, while the terrorized Bombard looked at his wife with wide-open eyes.

The Confession

The entire population of Véziers-le-Réthel had followed Monsieur Badon-Leremincé to his grave; in every memory lingered still the last words of the prefect’s funeral oration: “At least he was a man of unquestioned honesty.”

Honest he had been in every notable action throughout his life, honest in his speech, in the example he set, in his appearance, in his bearing, in his gait, in the cut of his beard and the shape of his hats. He had never spoken a word which did not contain a precept, never given alms without adding a piece of advice, never held out his hand without the air of bestowing a benediction.

He left two children, a son and a daughter; his son was on the town council, and his daughter, who had married a solicitor, Monsieur Poirel de la Voulte, moved in the best circles in Véziers.

They were inconsolable at their father’s death, for they loved him sincerely.

As soon as the ceremony was over, they returned to the house of death. All three, son, daughter, and son-in-law, shut themselves up in a room and opened the will, which was to be unsealed by them alone, and only after the coffin had been deposited in its resting-place. This request was conveyed to them by a brief note on the envelope.

Monsieur Poirel de la Voulte opened the envelope, in his capacity as a lawyer accustomed to such proceedings. After adjusting his spectacles, he read it out to them in a dry voice fitted for the recital of legal details.

“My children, my dear children, I could not rest quietly in my last sleep did I not make this confession to you from beyond the grave. It is the confession of a crime which I have regretted with a bitterness that has poisoned my life. Yes, I am guilty of a crime, a frightful, appalling crime.

“I was twenty-six years old at the time, and had just been called to the bar in Paris. There I lived like any other young provincial stranded in the city without acquaintances, friends, or relatives.

“I took a mistress. How many people there are whom the word ‘mistress’ revolts! Yet there are people who cannot live alone. I am one of them. Solitude fills me with a frightful agony, solitude at night, at home by the fireside. At such times I feel as though I were alone on earth, terribly alone, but surrounded with vague dangers, strange fearful perils. The thin wall which separates me from my neighbour, the neighbour I do not know, keeps me as far from him as from the stars I see from my window. I am overcome with a sort of fever, a fever of impatience and fear, and the silent walls terrify me. It is so deep and so sad, the silence of a room in which one lives alone. It is not only a silence round about the body, but a silence about the soul, and when a piece of furniture creaks, a shiver runs through the heart, for in this sorrowful place any sound comes as a surprise.

“More than once, unnerved and distracted by this mute and terrifying silence, I have begun to speak, to babble words without sense or reason, just for the sake of making a noise. At these times my voice sounded so strange that I was afraid of it too. Is there anything more terrifying than talking to oneself in an empty house? One’s voice seems to be another’s, an unknown voice speaking, without cause, speaking to nobody, in the hollow air, with no human ear to hear. For one knows, even before they escape into the solitude of the room, the words which are about to come from one’s mouth, and when they resound mournfully in the silence, they sound no more than an echo, the strange echo of words murmured in an undertone by the brain.

“I took a mistress, a young girl just like all the young girls who work in Paris at a profession too poorly paid to keep them. She was a sweet, good little thing; her parents lived at Poissy. Occasionally she would go to spend a few days with them.

“For a year I lived uneventfully with her, fully intending to leave her as soon as I should find a girl attractive enough for me to marry. I proposed to leave her a small income, for among people of our class it is commonly acknowledged that a woman’s love must be paid for, in cash when she is poor, in presents when she is rich.

“But one day she informed me that she was going to have a child. I was aghast; in a flash I foresaw the ruin of my whole life. I saw the chain I was doomed to drag with me till the day of my death, everywhere I went, in my future family life, in my old age, forever: the chain of the woman bound to my life by the child, the chain of this child which must be brought up, watched, protected, while all the time the secret must be kept from it and from the world. I was utterly cast down by the news, and a vague desire⁠—a desire I never expressed, but felt in my heart ready to leap out, like men hidden behind doors waiting the word to spring⁠—a criminal desire lurked in the recesses of my mind. Supposing there were an accident. So many of these little creatures die before they are born.

“Oh! I had no wish to see my mistress die. Poor girl, I loved her well. But perhaps I desired the death of the other, before I saw it.

“The child was born. In my little bachelor apartment was a family, a sham family with a child; an unnatural thing. The child was like all babies. I did not love it. Fathers, you know, do not love till later. They have not the natural passionate tenderness that belongs to mothers; their affections have to wake little by little, their souls come upon love little by little, through those bonds which each day draws closer between human beings who share each other’s lives.

“Another year went by; I was shunning now my cramped little house, littered with linen and swaddling-clothes and socks the size of gloves, a thousand objects of all kinds lying on a table, on the arms of a chair, everywhere. Above all I kept away so as not to hear him cry, for he cried on every occasion, when his clothes were changed, when he was washed, when he was put to bed, indeed always.

“I had made some friendships, and in a drawing room one day I met your mother. I fell in love with her, and the desire to marry her woke in my heart. I wooed her and asked her hand in marriage; it was granted me.

“And there I was, caught in a trap. I must marry this young girl I adored, already having a child of my own⁠—or I must tell the truth and renounce her, my happiness, my future, everything; for her parents, who were very strict, would never have consented to the marriage if they had known all.

“I spent a terrible month of agonising moral torment, a month during which a thousand terrible thoughts haunted me. And ever growing within me I felt a hatred for my son, for that little scrap of living, weeping flesh who barred my way, cut my life in two, and condemned me to a cheerless existence without any one of the vague hopes which are the charm of youth.

“Then my mistress’ mother fell ill, and I was left alone with the child.

“It was December, and frightfully cold. What a night! My mistress had just gone; I had dined alone in the little parlour, and softly entered the room where the baby slept.

“I sat before the fire in an armchair. A dry, icy wind blew outside and rattled the windowpanes, and through the window I could see the stars glitter with that keen light they have on frosty nights.

“Then the obsession which for the last month had haunted me entered into my head anew. The moment I sat still it descended upon me and gnawed my brain. It gnawed me as fixed ideas do, as cancer must gnaw the flesh. I felt it there in my head, in my heart, in my whole body; it devoured me like a wild beast. I tried to hunt it down, to drive it away, to open my mind to other thoughts, to new hopes, as one opens a window in the morning to let out the tainted air of the night; but not for a single instant could I chase it from my brain. I do not know how to describe this torture. It nibbled at my soul, and I felt every movement of its teeth with horrible pain, a veritable anguish of body and soul.

“My life was over! How was I to escape from this dilemma? How draw back and how confess?

“And I loved your mother madly; that made the insurmountable obstacle still more frightful.

“A terrible rage grew in me, tightening my throat, a rage which was akin to madness⁠ ⁠… madness! Yes, I was mad, that night!

“The child was asleep. I rose and watched it sleeping. It was he, that abortion, that mite, that nothing, who condemned me to hopeless misery.

“He slept, with his mouth open, under a heap of blankets, in a cradle near the bed I could not sleep in.

“How did I do what I did? Do I know? What force led me on, what evil power possessed me? Oh, the temptation came to me without my realising how it made its presence known. I remember only that my heart beat furiously, so violently that I heard it like the strokes of a hammer from behind a wall. That is all I remember⁠—my heart beating. In my head was a strange confusion, a tumult, a routing of all reason, all common sense. I was in one of those hours of terror and hallucination wherein man has no longer knowledge of his actions nor control of his will.

“Softly I raised the coverings which hid my child’s body; I threw them on the foot of the cradle, and saw him stark naked. He did not wake. Then I went to the window, softly, so softly; and I opened it.

“A blast of icy air rushed in like a murderer, so bitter cold that I fell back before it; and the two candles flickered. And I remained standing by the window, not daring to turn round, as if not to see what was happening behind me, and always feeling, gliding over my temples, my cheeks, my hands, the deathly air which flowed into the room in a steady stream. It went on a long time.

“I did not think, I considered nothing. Suddenly a little cough sent a dreadful shiver through me from head to foot, a shiver I can feel at this moment, in the roots of my hair. With a wild movement I slammed the window down and, turning round, ran to the cradle.

“He was still asleep, with open mouth, stark naked. I touched his legs; they were frozen, and I pulled up the coverings.

“My heart suddenly softened, snapped, was filled with pity, tenderness, and love for the poor innocent wretch I had wanted to kill. I pressed a long kiss on his thin hair, then sat down again by the fireside.

“I thought with stupor, with horror, of what I had done; I wondered whence came these tempests of the soul wherein man loses all awareness of things, all control over himself, and acts under a kind of mad intoxication, not knowing what he does, nor where he goes, like a ship in a hurricane.

“The child coughed once more, and my heart was rent in two. If he were to die! Oh, my God! my God! What would become of me?

“I got up to go and look at him; and, a candle in my hand, I bent over him. Seeing him breathing quietly, I was reassured; he coughed a third time, and I was seized with a terrible shudder, and started so violently back⁠—as a man might when distracted at the sight of some frightful happening⁠—that I let the candle fall.

“When I straightened myself after picking it up I observed that my temples were drenched with the sweat of agony, a sweat hot and icy at once, as though some part of the frightful moral suffering and unspeakable torture, which does actually burn like fire and freeze like ice, were oozing out through the skin and bone of my skull.

“Till daybreak I remained beside the cradle, calming my fears when he remained quiet for a long stretch, and enduring terrible agonies when a feeble cough issued from his mouth.

“He awoke with red eyes and a sore throat, obviously ill.

“When the charwoman came, I sent her out at once for a doctor. He came at the end of an hour, and after examining the child, he said:

“ ‘Has he not been cold?’

“ ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I stammered, trembling like a very old man.

“Then I asked:

“ ‘What is it? Is it serious?’

“ ‘I cannot tell yet,’ he answered. ‘I will come back again this evening.’

“He did come back again that evening. My son had lain almost all day in a deep slumber, coughing from time to time.

“During the night inflammation of the lungs set in.

“It lasted ten days. I cannot tell you what I suffered during those interminable hours which separate dawn from dusk and dusk from dawn.

“He died⁠ ⁠…

“And since then, since that moment, I have not passed an hour, no, not one hour, without that poignant, fearful memory, that memory which gnaws and twists and rends my spirit, stirring within me like a ravenous beast imprisoned in the bottom of my soul.

“Oh, if I had only been able to go mad!”

Monsieur Poirel de la Voulte pushed up his spectacles: it was a gesture customary with him when he had finished reading a deed; and the three looked at one another in silence, pale and motionless.

After a moment the lawyer said: “This must be destroyed.”

The other two nodded their assent. He lit a candle, carefully separated the pages containing the dangerous confession from those containing the monetary dispositions, then placed them in the flame of the candle and threw them into the grate.

They watched the white pages burn up. Soon they were only a small black heap. Several letters could still be distinguished, standing out white against the blackened paper, so the daughter crushed the thin shrivelled layer of ash with nervous movements of her toe, and stamped it down among the cold cinders.

For some time longer the three of them stayed watching as though they were afraid that the burnt secret would escape up the chimney.

The Revenge

Scene I

M. de Garelle, alone, lying back in an armchair.

Here I am at Cannes, a gay bachelor, which is humorous enough. I’m a bachelor. At Paris I hardly realised it. Away from home, it’s another thing. Upon my word, I’m not complaining about it.

And my wife is married again!

I wonder if my successor is happy, happier than I am. What sort of a fool must he be to have married her after me! For the matter of that, I was no less a fool for marrying her first. She had her points, however, certain good points⁠ ⁠… physical ones⁠ ⁠… quite remarkably good, but she had serious moral blemishes too.

What a sly wench, what a liar, what a flirt she was, and how attractive to men who were not her husband! Was I a cuckold? God, it’s sheer torture to be wondering that from morning to evening, and never to know for sure.

What plots and counterplots I laid to watch her, without learning anything! In any case, if I was a cuckold, I’m one no longer, thanks to Naquet. How easy divorce is after all! It cost me ten francs for a riding-whip, and a stiffness in my right arm, not counting the pleasure it gave me to lay on to my heart’s content on a woman whom I strongly suspect of deceiving me.

What a thrashing, what a thrashing I gave her!⁠ ⁠…

He stands up, laughing, takes a few steps, and sits down again.

True, the verdict was given in her favour and against me⁠ ⁠… but what a thrashing!

Now I am spending the winter in the South, a gay bachelor. What luck! It’s delightful to travel when you can always hope to meet a new love round every corner. Whom shall I meet, in this hotel, now, or on the Croisette, or perhaps in the street? Where is she, the woman who will love me tomorrow and whose lover I shall be? What will her eyes be like, her lips, her hair, her smile? What will she be like, the first woman who will give me her mouth and be folded in my arms? Dark or fair? Tall or short? Gay or grave? Plump or⁠ ⁠… ? She will be plump!

Oh! how I pity people who don’t know, people who no longer know the exquisite pleasure of anticipation! The woman I really love is the Unknown, the Hoped-for, the Desired, she who haunts my heart, whom my eyes have never seen in the flesh, she whose charms are augmented by every ideal perfection. Where is she? In this hotel, behind this door? In one of the rooms of this house, quite near, or still far away? What matter, so long as I desire her, so long as I am certain of meeting her! And I shall assuredly meet her, today or tomorrow, this week or the next, sooner or later; it is absolutely inevitable that I shall find her.

And I shall have, in all their charm, the divine joy of the first kiss, the first caresses, all the maddening ecstasy of lovers’ discoveries, all the mystery of the unexplored, as desirable the first day as a conquered maidenhood. Oh! the fools who do not understand the adorable sensation of veils raised for the first time! Oh, the fools who marry⁠ ⁠… since⁠ ⁠… the said veils⁠ ⁠… ought not to be raised too often⁠ ⁠… on the same sight!⁠ ⁠…

Here comes a woman.

A woman crosses the far end of the corridor, elegant, slender, with a tapering waist.

Damn her, she has a figure, and an air. Let’s try to catch sight of⁠ ⁠… her face.

She passes near him without seeing him, buried in the depths of the armchair. He murmurs:

Hell, it’s my wife! My wife, or rather not my wife, Chantever’s wife. What a charming hussy she is, after all!⁠ ⁠…

Am I going to want to marry her again now?⁠ ⁠… Good, she’s sitting down and she’s reading Gil Blas. I’ll lie low.

My wife! What a queer feeling it gives me! My wife! As a matter of fact, it’s a year, more than a year, since she ceased to be my wife.⁠ ⁠… Yes, she had her points, physically speaking⁠ ⁠… very fine ones; what a leg! It makes me tremble only to think of it. And what a bosom, oh, perfect! Ouf! In the old days we used to play at drill, left⁠—right⁠—left⁠—right⁠—what a bosom! Left or right, it was superb.

But what a holy terror⁠ ⁠… where her morals were concerned!

Has she had lovers? What I suffered from that suspicion! Now, pouf! It doesn’t worry me in the least.

I have never seen a more seductive creature when she was getting into bed. She had a way of jumping up and slipping between the sheets⁠ ⁠…

Good, I am going to fall in love with her again.⁠ ⁠…

Suppose I spoke to her?⁠ ⁠… But what shall I say to her?

And then she would shout for help, because of the thrashing she got. What a thrashing! Perhaps I was a little brutal after all.

Suppose I speak to her? That would be amusing and rather an achievement after all. Damn it, yes, I’ll speak to her, and perhaps if I do it very well⁠ ⁠… We shall soon see.⁠ ⁠…

Scene II

He approaches the young woman, who is deep in the study of Gil Blas, and in a sweet voice:

M. de Garelle
Will you allow me, madame, to recall myself to your memory?

Mme. de Chantever lifts her head sharply, cries out, and starts to run away. He bars her way, and says humbly:

M. de Garelle
You have nothing to fear, madame. I am not your husband now.

Mme. de Chantever
Oh, you dare! After⁠ ⁠… after what has happened!

M. de Garelle
I dare⁠ ⁠… and I daren’t.⁠ ⁠… You see.⁠ ⁠… Explain it to please yourself. When I caught sight of you, I found it impossible not to come and speak to you.

Mme. de Chantever
I hope this joke may now be considered at an end?

M. de Garelle
It is not a joke.

Mme. de Chantever
A bet, then, unless it’s merely a piece of insolence. Besides, a man who strikes a woman is capable of anything.

M. de Garelle
You are hard, madame. It seems to me, however, that you ought not to reproach me today for an outburst that⁠—moreover⁠—I regret. On the contrary, I was, I confess, expecting to be thanked by you.

Mme. de Chantever
Astonished. What? You must be mad! Or else you’re making fun of me as if I were a little girl from the country.

M. de Garelle
Not at all, madame, and if you don’t understand me, you must be very unhappy.

Mme. de Chantever
What do you mean?

M. de Garelle
That if you were happy with the man who has taken my place, you would be grateful to me for the violence that allowed you to make this new union.

Mme. de Chantever
You are pushing the joke too far, sir. Please leave me alone.

M. de Garelle
But, madame, think of it! If I had not committed the infamous crime of striking you, we should still be dragging our chains today.

Mme. de Chantever
Wounded. The fact is that you did me a service by your cruelty.

M. de Garelle
I did, didn’t I? A service that deserves better than your recent greeting.

Mme. de Chantever
Possibly. But your face is so disagreeable to me⁠ ⁠…

M. de Garelle
I will not say the same of yours.

Mme. de Chantever
Your compliments are as distasteful to me as your brutalities.

M. de Garelle
Well, what am I to do, madame? I have lost the right to beat you: I am compelled to make myself agreeable.

Mme. de Chantever
Well, that’s at least frank. But if you want to be really agreeable, you will go away.

M. de Garelle
I’m not carrying my wish to please you to those lengths yet.

Mme. de Chantever
Then what is it you expect of me?

M. de Garelle
To redress my wrongs by admitting that I had wrongs.

Mme. de Chantever
Indignant. What? By admitting that you have had them? You must be losing your wits. You thrashed me cruelly and perhaps you consider that you behaved towards me in the most suitable manner possible.

M. de Garelle
Perhaps I did!

Mme. de Chantever
What? Perhaps you did?

M. de Garelle
Yes, madame. You know the comedy called the Mari Cocu, Battu et Content. Very well, was I or was I not a cuckold?⁠—that’s the whole question! In any case, it is you who were beaten, and not happy⁠ ⁠…

Mme. de Chantever
Getting up. Sir, you insult me.

M. de Garelle
Eagerly. I implore you to listen to me a moment. I was jealous, very jealous, which proves that I loved you. I beat you, which is a still stronger proof of it, and beat you severely, which proves it up to the hilt. Very well, if you were faithful, and beaten, you have real grounds for complaint, indisputably real, I confess, and⁠ ⁠…

Mme. de Chantever
Don’t pity me.

M. de Garelle
What do you mean by that? It can be taken in two ways. Either you mean that you scorn my pity or that it is undeserved. Very well, if the pity of which I acknowledge you to be worthy is undeserved, then the blows⁠ ⁠… the violent blows you have had from me were more than deserved.

Mme. de Chantever
Take it as you please.

M. de Garelle
Good, I understand. So, when I was your husband, madame, I was a cuckold.

Mme. de Chantever
I’m not saying that.

M. de Garelle
You leave it to be understood.

Mme. de Chantever
I am leaving it to be understood that I don’t want your pity.

M. de Garelle
Don’t quibble, confess honestly that I was⁠ ⁠…

Mme. de Chantever
Don’t say that shameful word, which revolts and disgusts me.

M. de Garelle
I’ll let you off the word, but you must acknowledge the thing itself.

Mme. de Chantever
Never, it’s not true.

M. de Garelle
Then, I pity you with all my heart, and the suggestion I was going to make to you has now no possible justification.

Mme. de Chantever
What suggestion?

M. de Garelle
It’s no use telling you about it, since it’s only feasible if you did deceive me.

Mme. de Chantever
Well, suppose for a moment that I did deceive you.

M. de Garelle
That’s not sufficient. You must confess it.

Mme. de Chantever
I confess it.

M. de Garelle
That’s not sufficient. I must have proof.

Mme. de Chantever
Smiling. You’re asking too much now.

M. de Garelle
No, madame. As I have said, I was going to make a very serious suggestion to you, very serious; if I hadn’t intended to do so, I should not have come in search of you like this after what we have done to each other, what you did to me in the first place, and I to you afterwards. This suggestion, which can have the most serious consequences, for us both, is worthless if you did not deceive me.

Mme. de Chantever
You are an amazing man. But what more do you want? I have deceived you⁠—there.

M. de Garelle
I must have proof.

Mme. de Chantever
But what proofs do you want me to give you? I haven’t them on me, or rather I no longer have them.

M. de Garelle
It doesn’t matter where they are. I must have them.

Mme. de Chantever
But one can’t keep proof of things of that kind⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… or, at any rate, of a flagrant délit. After a pause. I think my word ought to be enough for you.

M. de Garelle
Bowing. Then, you are ready to swear to it.

Mme. de Chantever
Lifting her hand. I swear it.

M. de Garelle
Gravely. I believe you, madame. And with whom did you deceive me?

Mme. de Chantever
Oh, but now you’re asking too much.

M. de Garelle
It is absolutely necessary that I know his name.

Mme. de Chantever
It is impossible to give it to you.

M. de Garelle
Why?

Mme. de Chantever
Because I am a married woman.

M. de Garelle
Well?

Mme. de Chantever
And in the case of a professional secret?

M. de Garelle
You’re quite right.

Mme. de Chantever
Besides, it was with M. de Chantever that I deceived you.

M. de Garelle
That’s not true.

Mme. de Chantever
Why not?

M. de Garelle
Because he would not have married you.

Mme. de Chantever
Insolent creature! And this suggestion?⁠ ⁠…

M. de Garelle
It’s this. You have just confessed that, thanks to you, I was one of those ridiculous creatures, always regarded as laughingstocks whatever they do⁠—comic if they keep their mouths shut, and more grotesque still if they show their resentment⁠—that people call deceived husbands. Well, madame, it is beyond question that the number of cuts with a riding-whip you received are far from being an adequate compensation for the outrage and the conjugal injury I have experienced by your act, and it is no less beyond question that you owe me a more substantial compensation and a compensation of a different nature, now that I am no longer your husband.

Mme. de Chantever
You’re losing your senses. What do you mean?

M. de Garelle
I mean, madame, that you ought to restore to me today the delightful hours you stole from me when I was your husband to offer them to I don’t know whom.

Mme. de Chantever
You’re mad.

M. de Garelle
Not at all. Your love belonged to me, didn’t it? Your kisses were owing to me, all your kisses, without exception. Isn’t that so? You diverted a part of them for the benefit of another man. Well, it’s a matter of the utmost importance to me now that restitution should be made, made without any scandal, secret restitution, as free from scandal and as secret as were the shameless thefts.

Mme. de Chantever
What do you take me for?

M. de Garelle
For the wife of M. de Chantever.

Mme. de Chantever
Upon my word, this is too bad.

M. de Garelle
Pardon me, the man with whom you deceived me must have taken you for the wife of M. de Garelle. It’s only just that my turn should come. What is too bad is to refuse to restore what is legitimately due.

Mme. de Chantever
And if I said yes⁠ ⁠… you would⁠ ⁠…

M. de Garelle
Certainly.

Mme. de Chantever
Then, what purpose would the device have served?

M. de Garelle
The revival of our love.

Mme. de Chantever
You never loved me.

M. de Garelle
I am giving you the strongest possible proof of it, however.

Mme. de Chantever
In what way?

M. de Garelle
You ask me in what way. When a man is fool enough to offer himself to a woman first as her husband and then as her lover, it proves that he loves her, or I don’t know anything about love.

Mme. de Chantever
Oh, don’t let us confuse two different things. To marry a woman is a proof either of love or desire, but to make her your mistress is a proof of nothing but⁠ ⁠… scorn. In the first case, a man undertakes all the expense, all the tediums, all the responsibilities of love; in the second case, he leaves those burdens to the legitimate owner and keeps only the pleasure, with the privilege of disappearing the moment the woman ceases to please. The two cases are hardly on a par.

M. de Garelle
My dear girl, your logic is very weak. When a man loves a woman, he ought not to marry her, because if he marries her he can be sure she will deceive him, as you did, in my case. There’s the proof. While it’s incontestable that a mistress remains faithful to the lover with the same desperate intensity of purpose she adopts to deceive her husband. Isn’t it so? If you want to create an indissoluble bond between a woman and yourself, arrange for another man to marry her, marriage is only a slender thread to be cut at will, and become that woman’s lover: free love is a chain that is never broken⁠—we have cut the thread, I offer you the chain.

Mme. de Chantever
You’re very amusing. But I refuse.

M. de Garelle
Then, I shall warn M. de Chantever.

Mme. de Chantever
You will warn him of what?

M. de Garelle
I shall tell him that you deceived me.

Mme. de Chantever
That I deceived you.⁠ ⁠… You⁠ ⁠…

M. de Garelle
Yes, when you were my wife.

Mme. de Chantever
Well?

M. de Garelle
Well, he’ll never forgive you for it.

Mme. de Chantever
He?

M. de Garelle
Well, dammit, it’s not the sort of thing to reassure him.

Mme. de Chantever
Laughing. Don’t do that, Henry.

A voice on the staircase calling: “Mathilde!”

Mme. de Chantever
Softly. My husband! Goodbye.

M. de Garelle
Getting up. I am going to escort you to him and introduce myself.

Mme. de Chantever
Don’t do that.

M. de Garelle
You watch me.

Mme. de Chantever
Please don’t.

M. de Garelle
You accept the chain?

The Voice
Mathilde!

Mme. de Chantever
Please go.

M. de Garelle
When shall I see you again?

Mme. de Chantever
Here⁠—this evening⁠—after dinner.

M. de Garelle
Kissing her hand. I love you.⁠ ⁠…

She runs away.

M. de Garelle returns calmly to his armchair and sinks into it.

M. de Garelle
Well, it’s true. I like this role better than the previous one. She’s charming, quite charming, and far more charming still since I have heard M. de Chantever’s voice calling her “Mathilde” like that, in the proprietary tone that husbands have.

Country Courts

The courthouse of the Gorgeville justice of the peace is full of country folk, seated impassively round the walls, awaiting the opening of the court.

Among them are large and small, ruddy fat fellows and thin ones looking as though they were carved out of a block of apple wood. They have placed their baskets on the ground, and there they sit placidly, silent, absorbed in their own affairs. They have brought with them the smells of the stable, of sweat, of sour milk and manure. Flies are buzzing about under the white ceiling. Through the open door you can hear the cocks crowing.

On a kind of platform stands a long table, covered with a green cloth. Seated at the very end on the left, a wrinkled old man is writing. At the end on the right, a policeman, stiffly erect in his chair, is gazing vacantly into space. On the bare wall, a large wooden Christ, writhing in an anguished attitude, seems still to offer up his eternal agony on behalf of these louts who smell of beasts.

His Honour the Justice of the Peace at length enters the court. Corpulent, and ruddy-complexioned, with every quick step of his fat hurried body he jerks his large black magistrate’s robe: he sits down, places his cap on the table, and looks round the assembled company with an air of deep disgust.

He is a provincial scholar, a local wit, one of those who translate Horace, relish the minor verse of Voltaire, and know Vert-Vert by heart as well as the obscene poems of Parny.

He opens proceedings.

“Now then, Monsieur Potel, call the cases.”

Then, with a smile, he murmurs:

“Quidquid tentabam dicere versus erat.”

The clerk of the court, raising his bald head, stammers out in an unintelligible voice: “Madame Victorie Bascule versus Isidore Paturon.”

A huge woman comes forward, a country woman, a woman from the county town, wearing a beribboned hat, a watch-chain festooned across her stomach, rings on her fingers, and earrings shining like lighted candles.

The justice of the peace greets her with a glance of recognition not without a gleam of mockery, and says:

“Madame Bascule, enumerate your complaints.”

The party of the other part stands on the opposite side. It is represented by three people. In the middle a young peasant, twenty-five years of age, chubby as an apple and red as a poppy in the corn. On his right, his wife, quite young, puny, slight, very like a bantam hen, with a flat narrow head, crowned as with a crest by a rose-coloured bonnet. She has a round eye, apprehensive and choleric, which looks out sideways like a bird’s. On the boy’s left stands his father, an old bent man, whose twisted body is lost in his starched smock, as if it were under a bell-glass.

Madame Bascule holds forth:

“Your Honour, for fifteen years I have looked after this boy here. I have brought him up and loved him like a mother, I have done everything for him, I have made a man of him. He had promised me, he had sworn never to leave me, he even drew up a deed to say so, in return for which I have given him a small property, my bit of land in Bec-de-Mortin, which is valued in the six thousands. And now that baggage, that low-down good-for-nothing, that dirty hussy⁠ ⁠…”

The Justice of the Peace: “Restrain yourself, Madame Bascule.”

Madame Bascule: “A miserable⁠ ⁠… a miserable⁠ ⁠… I know quite well she has turned his head, has done I don’t know what to him, no, I really don’t know what⁠ ⁠… and he is going to marry her, the fool, the great blockhead, and he will bring her my property as a dowry, my bit of land in Bec-de-Mortin.⁠ ⁠… But not if I know it, not if I know it⁠ ⁠… I have a paper, there it is.⁠ ⁠… Let him give me back my property, then. We made a lawyer’s deed for safety’s sake, and a private agreement on paper for friendship’s sake. One is as good as the other. Each has his rights, isn’t that true?” (She holds out to the justice of the peace a stamped paper opened out wide.)

Isidore Paturon: “It’s not true.”

The Justice: “Silence! You shall speak in due course.” (He reads.)

“I, the undersigned, Isidore Paturon, promise by these presents my benefactress, Madame Bascule, never to leave her during my life, and to serve her with devotion.

“Gorgeville, August 5th, 1883.”

The Justice: “There is a cross for signature: you don’t know how to write, then?”

Isidore: “No. Can’t write a bit.”

The Justice: “It was you who made it⁠—this cross?”

Isidore: “No. Not me.”

The Justice: “Who did make it, then?”

Isidore: “She did.”

The Justice: “You are prepared to take your oath that you did not make this cross?”

Isidore (in an outburst): “By my dad’s head, my ma’s, my grandfer’s, my gran’ma’s, and the good God’s, who hears me, I swear it isn’t me.” (He raises his hands and spits aside to emphasize his oath.)

The Justice (smiling): “What then were your relations with Madame Bascule, here present?”

Isidore: “She served me for a whore.” (Laughter in court.)

The Justice: “Restrain your language. You mean that your relations were not so innocent as she claims.”

Paturon, Senior (breaking in): “He wasn’t fifteen, not fifteen, your Honour, when she debouched him⁠ ⁠…”

The Justice: “You mean ‘debauched’?”

The Father: “How do I know? He wasn’t fifteen years old. And she’d fed him out of her own hand for four years then, stuffed him like a fatted fowl, crammed him with food fit to burst, saving your Honour. And then when the time came that he seemed to her ready, she disrupted him.⁠ ⁠…”

The Justice: “Corrupted.⁠ ⁠… And you let it happen?”

The Father: “It was her or some other woman, it was bound to happen!⁠ ⁠…”

The Justice: “Very well, then, what do you complain of?”

The Father: “Nothing! Oh, I’ve nothing to complain of myself, nothing, only that he doesn’t want any more of it himself, and he is quit of her. I demand protection according to the law.”

Madame Bascule: “These people are heaping lies on me, your Honour. I made a man of him.”

The Justice: “Quite!”

Madame Bascule: “And he is going back on me, deserting me, stealing my property.⁠ ⁠…”

Isidore: “It isn’t true, your Honour. I wanted to leave her five years ago, because she had fattened beyond all bounds, and that didn’t suit me a bit. That displeased me, and why not? Didn’t I say to her then I was going to leave her? And then she wept like a gutter-spout and promised me her property at Bec-de-Mortin to stay a few more years, only four or five. Of course I said ‘Yes,’ for sure. What would you have done yourself?

“So I stayed five years, every day and every hour of it. I had kept my promise. Give the devil his due! That was full value, that was!”

Isidore’s wife, silent till then, cries out with the piercing scream of a parrot:

“Just look at her, look at her, your Honour, the old haystack, and say if that wasn’t full value!”

The father nodded his head as one convinced, and repeated:

“Gosh, yes, full value that!” (Madame Bascule subsides on the bench behind her, and begins to weep.)

The Justice (in a fatherly tone): “What did you expect, my good woman? I can do nothing. You have given him your bit of land at Bec-de-Mortin by deed in a perfectly legal way. It is his, absolutely his. He has an indisputable right to do what he has done, and to bring it to his wife as dowry. I am not going to embark on questions of⁠ ⁠… of⁠ ⁠… delicacy. I can only regard the facts from the point of view of the law. I can do absolutely nothing in the matter.”

Father Paturon (proudly): “It’ll be all right to get back home, then?”

The Justice: “Certainly.” (They go out, followed by the sympathetic looks of the country folk, with the air of people who have won their case. Madame Bascule sobs on her bench.)

The Justice (smiling): “Compose yourself, my good woman. Come now, come now, compose yourself⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… and if I have any advice to give you, it is, look for another⁠ ⁠… another pupil⁠ ⁠…”

Madame Bascule (in the midst of her tears): “I shall never find one⁠ ⁠… never⁠ ⁠…”

The Justice: “I am sorry I cannot put you in the way of one.” (She throws a look of despair towards the Christ, suffering and writhing on the cross, then she rises and goes out, with mincing steps, hiccuping her discomfiture, hiding her face in her handkerchief.)

The Justice turns towards his clerk, and in a bantering voice: “Calypso could not console herself for the departure of Ulysses.” Then, in solemn tones:

“Call the next case.”

The clerk to the court stammers out:

“Célestin Polyte Lecacheur⁠—Prosper Magloire Dieulafait⁠ ⁠…”

Room No. Eleven

“What! You do not know why President Amandon was transferred?”

“No, not at all.”

“As far as that is concerned, neither did he ever know it. But it is a story of the strangest sort.”

“Tell it to me.”

“I am sure you remember Madame Amandon, that pretty brunette, thin, and so distinguished and pretty that she was called Madame Marguerite in all Perthuis-le-Long?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Very well, then. You recall also how much she was respected and considered, and better loved than anyone in the town; she knew how to receive, how to organize a fête or a charity fair, how to find money for the poor, and how to please the young people in a thousand ways.

“She was very elegant and very coquettish, nevertheless, but in a Platonic fashion, and with the charming elegance of the provinces, for she was a provincial, this pretty little woman, an exquisite provincial.

“The poets and writers, who are all Parisian, sing to us of the Parisian woman and of her charm, because they know only her; but I declare here that the woman from the provinces is worth a hundred times more, when she is of superior quality.

“The provincial has an attraction all her own, more discreet than that of the Parisienne, more humble, promising nothing and giving much, while the Parisienne, for the most part, promises much but gives nothing when she is undressed.

“The Parisian woman is the elegant and brazen triumph of artificiality; the provincial, an example of the modesty of truth.

“Yet the wide-awake provincial, with her air of homely alertness, her deceitful, schoolgirl candour, her smile which means nothing, and her good little passions, direct and tenacious, is capable of a thousand times more deceit, artifice, and feminine invention than all the Parisiennes together, for gratifying her own tastes or vices, and that without awakening suspicion, or scandal, or gossip in the little town which watches her with all its eyes from all its windows.

“Madame Amandon was a type of this rare but charming race. Never had anyone suspected her, never had anyone thought that her life was not as limpid as her look, a sly look, transparent and warm, but seemingly so honest⁠—you should have seen it!

“Then she had admirable tact, a marvellous ingenuity and power of invention, and unbelievable simplicity.

“She picked all her lovers from the army and kept them three years, the time of their sojourn in the garrison. In short, she gratified, not her heart but her senses.

“When some new regiment arrived at Perthuis-le-Long, she informed herself about all the officers between thirty and forty years of age⁠—for, before thirty one is not discreet, and after forty, one is often feeble.

“Oh! she knew the list of officers as well as the Colonel did. She knew all, all the habits, manners, instruction, education, physical qualities, the power of resistance to fatigue, the character, whether patient or violent, the fortune, and the tendency to closeness or prodigality of each of them. Then she made her choice. She gave preference to men of calm exterior, like herself, but they must be handsome. She also wished them to have had no previous entanglements, any passion having the power to leave traces, or that had made any trouble. Because the man whose loves are mentioned is never very discreet.

“After having decided upon the one she would love for the three years of his regulation sojourn, it only remained for her to set her cap at him.

“How many women would find themselves embarrassed, would have taken ordinary means, following the way of others, having court paid them, marking off all the stages of conquest and resistance, allowing their fingers to be kissed one day, their wrist the next, their cheek the following, then the lips, then the rest. She had a method more prompt, more discreet, and more sure. She gave a ball.

“The chosen officer was invited to dance with the mistress of the house. Then, in waltzing, led on by the rapid movement, bewildered by the intoxication of the dance, she would press against him as if surrendering herself, and hold his hand with a nervous, continued pressure.

“If he did not understand, he was only a fool, and she passed on to the next, classed as number two, on the list of her desires.

“If he understood, the thing was done, without fuss, without compromising gallantries, without numerous visits.

“What could be simpler or more practical?

“How well women might follow a similar procedure, in order to let us know that they like us! How many difficulties, hesitations, misunderstandings that would obviate! How often we pass by, without knowing it, a possible happiness, without suspecting it, because we are unable to penetrate the mystery of thought, the secret abandon of the will, the mute appeal of the flesh, the unknown soul of a woman whose mouth preserves silence, whose eye is impenetrable and clear.

“When the man understood, he asked for a rendezvous. But she always made him wait a month or six weeks in order to watch and be sure that he had no dangerous faults.

“During this time he was racking his brain to think of some place where they could meet without peril, and imagining combinations difficult and unsafe.

“Then, at some official feast, she would say to him in a whisper:

“ ‘Go on Tuesday evening, at nine o’clock, to the Hôtel du Cheval d’Or, near the ramparts, on the Vouziers road, and ask for Mademoiselle Clarisse. I shall be waiting for you. And be sure to be in mufti.’

“For eight years she had in fact rented this furnished room by the year, in this obscure inn. It was an idea of her first lover which she found practical, and after the man departed, she kept the nest.

“Oh! it was a mediocre nest; four walls covered with gray paper adorned with blue flowers, a pine bedstead under muslin curtains, an armchair bought at her order by the innkeeper’s wife, two chairs, a bedside rug, and some necessary articles for the toilette⁠—what more was needed?

“Upon the walls were three large photographs. Three colonels on horseback; the colonels of her lovers! Why not? It would not do to preserve the true likeness, the exact likeness, but she could perhaps keep some souvenirs by proxy.

“And she had never been recognized by anyone in all these visits to the Cheval d’Or, you ask?

“Never, by anyone!

“The means she employed were admirable and simple. She had thought out and organized some charity reunions and religious meetings, some of which she attended, others she did not. Her husband, knowing her good works, which cost him dear, lived without suspicions. Then, when a rendezvous had been agreed upon, she would say at dinner, before the servants:

“ ‘I am going this evening to the Association for making flannel bandages for the paralysed old men.’

“And she went out about eight o’clock, went straight to the Association, came out again immediately, passed through diverse streets, and, finding herself alone in some little street, in some sombre corner without a light, she would take off her hat, replace it by a maid’s cap which she carried under her cape, fold a kerchief after the same fashion and tie it over her shoulders, carrying her hat and the garment she had worn in a napkin; she would go trotting along, full of courage, her hips uncovered, like a good little maid that had been sent upon some errand; and sometimes she would even run, as if she were in a great hurry.

“Who could have recognized in this trim servant the lively wife of President Amandon?

“She would arrive at the Cheval d’Or, go up to her room, to which she had the key, and the big proprietor, Maître Trouveau, seeing her pass his desk, would murmur:

“ ‘There is Mademoiselle Clarisse coming to meet some lover.’

“He had indeed guessed something, the rogue, but did not try to learn more, and he would certainly have been much surprised to find that his client was Madame Amandon, or Madame Marguerite, as she was called in Perthuis-le-Long. And this is how the horrible discovery took place.

“Never had Mademoiselle Clarisse come to her meeting-place two evenings in succession, never! being too nice and too prudent for that. And Maître Trouveau knew this well, since not once in eight years had he seen her come the next day after a visit. Often, therefore, in days of need, he had disposed of her room for a night.

“Now, last summer, Monsieur Amandon absented himself from home for a week. It was in July. Madame was ardently in love, and as there was no fear of being surprised, she asked her lover, the handsome Major Varangelles, one Tuesday evening on leaving him, if he wished her to return the next day.

“He replied: ‘How can you ask!’

“And it was agreed that they should return at the usual hour on Wednesday. She said to him in a low tone:

“ ‘If you arrive first, my dear, you can wait for me in bed.’

“Then they embraced and separated. The next day, as Maître Trouveau sat reading Les Tablettes de Perthuis, the Republican organ of the town, he cried out to his wife, who was plucking a fowl in the courtyard:

“ ‘Here! the cholera has broken out in the country. There was a man died yesterday of it in Vauvigny.’ But he thought no more about it, his inn being full of people, and business very good.

“Towards noon a traveller presented himself on foot, a kind of tourist, who ordered a good breakfast, after having drunk two absinthes. And, as he was very warm, he absorbed a bottle of wine and two bottles of water at least. Then he took his coffee and his little glass of liqueur, or rather three little glasses, and feeling rather drowsy he asked for a room where he might sleep for an hour or two. There was no longer a vacant room, and the proprietor, after consulting his wife, gave him Mademoiselle Clarisse’s.

“The man went in there and, about five o’clock, as he had not been seen coming out, the landlord went to wake him. What was his astonishment to find him dead!

“The innkeeper descended to find his wife: ‘Listen,’ he whispered to her, ‘the tourist I put in number 11, I believe is dead.’

“She raised her arms, crying: ‘It’s not possible! Lord God! It is the cholera!’

“Maître Trouveau shook his head:

“ ‘I should rather believe that it was a cerebral congestion, seeing that he is as black as the dregs of wine.’

“But the mistress was frightened and kept repeating:

“ ‘We must not mention it. We must not talk of it. People will say it is cholera. Go and make the report and say nothing. They will take him away in the night, and no one will know about it. “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” ’

“The man murmured: ‘Mademoiselle Clarisse was here yesterday, the room will be free this evening.’

“And he found the doctor who made out the certificate, ‘From congestion after a copious repast.’ Then he made an agreement with the commissioner of police to remove the dead body towards midnight, so that there might be no suspicion about the hotel.

“It was scarcely nine o’clock when Madame Amandon went secretly up the staircase of the Cheval d’Or, without being seen by anyone. She reached her room, opened the door, and entered. A candle was burning upon the chimneypiece. She turned toward the bed. The major, she thought, was already there and had closed the curtains.

“She said to him: ‘One minute, darling, and I am coming.’

“And she undressed with a feverish haste, throwing her boots upon the floor and her corset upon the armchair. Then, her black dress and skirts having fallen in a circle around her, she stood in her red silk chemise like a flower that has just blossomed.

“As the major said not a word, she asked:

“ ‘Are you asleep, my big dear?’

“He did not answer, and she began to laugh, murmuring:

“ ‘Wait! He is asleep. It is too funny!’

“She kept on her black silk openwork stockings and, running to the bed, slipped in quickly, seizing him full in her arms and kissing him on the lips, in order to wake him suddenly. It was the cold dead body of the traveller.

“For one second she remained immovable, too frightened to comprehend anything. But the cold of this inert flesh penetrated her own, giving her an atrocious fright before her mind had time to reflect.

“She made a bound out of the bed, trembling from head to foot; then running to the chimneypiece, she seized the candle, returned, and looked! And she perceived a frightful face that she had never before seen, black, swollen, with eyes closed, and a horrible grimace of the jaw.

“She uttered a cry, one of those piercing interminable cries which women utter in their fright, and, letting fall the candle, she opened the door and fled, unclothed, down the passage, continuing to scream in frightful fashion. A commercial traveller, in his socks, who occupied room number 4, came out immediately and received her in his arms.

“He asked, much startled: ‘What is the matter, pretty dear?’

“She stammered out, terrified: ‘Someone has been killed⁠—in⁠—my room!’

“Other guests appeared. The landlord himself ran out.

“And suddenly the tall figure of the major appeared at the end of the corridor. When she saw him, she threw herself toward him, crying:

“ ‘Save me, save me, Gontran⁠—someone has been killed in our room.’

“Explanations were difficult. Maître Trouveau, however, told the truth and demanded that they release Mademoiselle Clarisse, for whom he vouched with his own head. But the commercial traveller in socks, having examined the dead body, declared that a crime had been committed, and he convinced the other guests that Mademoiselle Clarisse and her lover should not be allowed to depart.

“They were obliged to await the arrival of the police commissioner, who gave them their liberty, but was not discreet.

“The following month, President Amandon received promotion with a new place of residence.”

The Closet

After dinner we were talking about women, for what else is there to talk about, among men? One of us said:

“By the way, I had a curious adventure of that kind.” And this is what he told us:

“One evening last winter, I was suddenly taken with one of those depressing, overwhelming fits of lassitude, which seize upon one, body and soul, from time to time. I was at home alone, and I knew well that if I remained there I should have a frightful attack of despondency, of the kind that leads to suicide when they return often.

“I put on my overcoat and went out, without knowing at all what I was going to do. Having descended to the Boulevard, I began to walk along past the cafés, nearly empty, for it was raining. One of those fine rains was falling that dampen the spirits as much as the clothes; not one of those good showers, striking one in a cascade and driving pedestrians into doorways out of breath, but a rain so fine that one does not feel the drops, a humid rain that unceasingly deposits upon you imperceptible droplets and covers your clothing with a cold, penetrating moisture.

“What should I do? I went up and down, seeking some place to spend a couple of hours, and discovering, for the first time, that there was not a place of amusement in all Paris in the evening. Finally, I decided to enter the Folies-Bergères, that amusing woman market.

“There were very few people in the huge auditorium. In the long, semicircular promenade there were only people of no importance, whose vulgarity was apparent in their walk, their clothing, the cut of their hair and beard, their hats, and their complexion. There was hardly one man who looked clean, perfectly clean, and whose clothes were not odd. As for the girls they are always the same, as you know, plain, weary, drooping, walking with that quick step and that air of imbecile disdain which they assume, I know not why.

“I said to myself that truly not one of these flagging creatures, greasy rather than fat, either bloated or very thin, with the paunch of a prelate and their long legs bowed, was worth the louis that they obtained with much difficulty after having demanded five.

“But suddenly I perceived one of them, a little one that looked nice; not very young, but fresh, droll, and provoking. I stopped her and, stupidly, without thinking, set my price for the night. I did not wish to return home alone, all alone; I preferred rather the company and embraces of this creature.

“And so I followed her. She lived in a big, big house in the Rue des Martyrs. The gas was already extinguished on the staircase. I mounted slowly, constantly lighting wax-matches, striking the steps with my feet, stumbling and ill at ease, following a petticoat, the rustle of which I heard before me.

“She stopped at the fourth story, and having shut again the outside door, she asked:

“ ‘And you wish to remain until tomorrow?’

“ ‘Yes. You know that was the agreement.’

“ ‘All right, my dear, I only wanted to know. Wait for me here a minute, I will return immediately.’

“And she left me in the darkness. I heard her close two doors, then it seemed to me she was speaking with somebody. I was surprised and disturbed. The idea of blackmail occurred to me. But I have fists and solid muscles. ‘We shall see,’ thought I.

“I listened with all attention, both of ear and mind. Someone was moving, walking about, but with great precaution. Then another door was opened, and it seemed to me that I still heard talking, but in a very low voice.

“She returned, bringing a lighted candle. ‘You can enter now,’ she said.

“She spoke familiarly, as a sign of possession. I entered, and after having crossed a dining room, where it was evident nobody ever dined, I entered a chamber like that of all these girls, a furnished room, with rep curtains, and eiderdown silk quilt with suspicious-looking spots.

“She continued: ‘Make yourself at home, my dear.’

“I inspected the apartment with an eye of suspicion. There seemed nothing disquieting, however. She undressed herself so quickly that she was in bed before I had my overcoat off. Then she began to laugh:

“ ‘Well, what is the matter with you? Are you changed into a pillar of salt? Come! Make haste!’

“I imitated her and joined her. Five minutes later I had a foolish desire to dress again and go out. But the overwhelming lassitude which had seized me at my house, returned to me, depriving me of all strength to move, and I remained, in spite of the disgust which I had for this public bed. The sensual charm which I fancied I saw down there, under the lights of the theatre, had disappeared in my arms, and I had with me, flesh to flesh, only a vulgar girl, like all the rest, whose indifferent and complaisant kiss had an aftertaste of garlic.

“I began to talk to her:

“ ‘Have you been here long?’ said I.

“ ‘Six months the fifteenth of January.’

“ ‘Where were you before that?’

“ ‘I was in the Rue Clauzel. But the concierge made so much trouble that I left.’

“And she began to relate an interminable story of the concierge who had made some scandal about her.

“Suddenly I heard something moving near us. At first there was a sigh, then a slight but distinct noise, as if someone had stirred in a chair.

“I sat up quickly in bed and asked: ‘What was that noise?’

“She answered with tranquil assurance: ‘Don’t disturb yourself, my dear, it is my neighbour. The partition is so thin that we hear everything as if they were here. What rotten holes these are. They are made of pasteboard.’

“My indolence was so strong that I got down under the clothes again. We continued our talk. Incited by the curiosity which drives all men to question these creatures upon their first adventure, to wish to raise the veil from their first fault in order to find in them some far-off trace of innocence, that we may find something to love, perhaps, in the rapid recital evoked by their candour and the shame of long ago, I asked her about her first lover.

“I knew that she would lie. What did it matter? Among all the lies I might discover, perhaps, some sincere or touching incident.

“ ‘Come,’ said I, ‘tell me who he was.’

“ ‘He was an oarsman.’

“ ‘Ah! Tell me about it. Where were you?’

“ ‘I was at Argenteuil.’

“ ‘What were you doing there?’

“ ‘I was maid in a restaurant.’

“ ‘What restaurant?’

“ ‘At the Marin d’Eau Douce. Do you know it?’

“ ‘Well, yes; Bonanfan’s.’

“ ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

“ ‘And how did he pay his court, this oarsman?’

“ ‘While I was making his bed. He forced me.’

“But suddenly I recalled the theory of a doctor of my acquaintance, an observing, philosophic doctor who, in his practice in a great hospital, had daily examples of these girl-mothers and prostitutes, and knew all the shame and misery of women, the poor women who become the hideous prey of the wandering male with money in his pocket.

“ ‘Invariably,’ he told me, ‘a girl is debauched by a man of her own class and station in life. I have made volumes of observations upon it. It is customary to accuse the rich of culling the flower of innocence from the children of the people. That is not true. The rich pay for the culled bouquet. They cull also, but at the second flowering; they never cut the first.’

“Then turning toward my companion, I began to laugh:

“ ‘Come now, I know all your story by heart. The oarsman was not the first, as you well know.’

“ ‘Oh! yes, my dear, I swear it!’

“ ‘You are lying.’

“ ‘Oh! no, I promise you I am not.’

“ ‘You lie. Come, tell me the truth.’

“She seemed to hesitate, astonished. I continued:

“ ‘I am a sorcerer, my good child, a hypnotist. If you do not tell me the truth, I shall put you to sleep, and then I can find it out.’

“She was afraid, being stupid like her kind. She murmured:

“ ‘How did you ever guess it?’

“I replied: ‘Come, speak.’

“ ‘Oh! the first time, it was almost nothing. There was a country holiday and a chef was called in for the occasion, M. Alexander. As soon as he came he had it all his own way in the house. He ordered everybody, even the master and mistress, as if he had been a king. He was a tall, handsome man who had hardly enough room to stand in front of the stove. He was always shouting: “Here, some butter⁠—some eggs⁠—some Madeira!” And you had to run to him with everything at once, or he would get angry and say things to you that would make you blush all over your body.

“ ‘When the day’s work was done he installed himself in front of the door and began to smoke. And, as I passed in front of him with a pile of plates, he said to me: “Hello, kid, won’t you come down to the edge of the river and show me the country?” I went, like a fool; and scarcely had we arrived at the bank when he forced me so quickly that I did not even know that it was done. And then he went away by the nine o’clock train, and I never saw him again after that.’

“I asked: ‘Is that all?’

“She stammered: ‘Oh! I believe Florentin belongs to him.’

“ ‘Who is Florentin?’

“ ‘He is my little boy.’

“ ‘Ah! very well. And you made the oarsman believe that he was the father, did you not?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Had this oarsman money?’

“ ‘Yes, he left me an income of three hundred francs for Florentin’s support.’

“I began to be amused, and continued:

“ ‘Very well, my girl, very well. You are all less stupid than one would believe. And how old is Florentin now?’

“She answered: ‘Twelve years old. He will take his first communion in the spring.’

“ ‘That is good; and since that you have conscientiously followed your profession?’

“She sighed resignedly: ‘One does what one can.’

“A loud noise in another part of the room made me leap out of bed with a bound; it was the noise of someone falling, then rising and groping with his hands upon the wall. I had seized the candle and was looking about, frightened and furious. She got up also and tried to hold me back, saying:

“ ‘It is nothing, my dear, I assure you it is nothing.’

“But I had discovered on which side of the wall this strange noise was. I went straight toward a concealed door at the head of the bed and opened it suddenly⁠—and perceived there a poor little boy, trembling and staring at me with frightened eyes, a pale, thin little boy beside a large chair filled with straw, from which he had fallen.

“When he saw me, he began to cry and, opening his arms to his mother:

“ ‘It was not my fault, mamma, it was not my fault. I was asleep and I fell. You mustn’t scold me, for it was not my fault.’

“I turned toward the woman and said:

“ ‘What does he mean?’

“She seemed sad and embarrassed. But finally she said in a broken voice:

“ ‘What can you expect? I do not earn enough to put the child to school! I must take care of him somehow, and I cannot afford to hire another room. He sleeps with me when I have no one. When someone comes for an hour or two, he can stay in the closet very well and keep quiet; he knows how. But when one remains all night, as you have, his muscles are fatigued from sleeping on the chair⁠—and it is not the child’s fault. I would like to see you⁠—you⁠—sleep all night on a chair⁠—you would sing another song⁠—’

“She was angry, wrought up, and was shouting.

“The child was still crying. A poor child, delicate and timid, the child of the closet, of the cold, dark closet, a child who came from time to time to get a little warmth in the bed when, for a moment, it was empty.

“I, too, had an inclination to weep.

“I returned home to my own bed.”

Military Honors

There was no noise in the forest except the light trembling of the snow falling upon the trees. It had fallen since midday: a soft, fine snow which powdered the branches with a glittering moss and threw upon the dead leaves of the thicket a covering of silver, spreading along the way an immense carpet, soft and white, and making still greater the illimitable silence in this ocean of trees.

Before the door of the forest house a young woman with bare arms was cutting wood, between the heavy blows of the ax and a great stone. She was tall, thin, and strong, a daughter of the forest, daughter and wife of foresters.

A voice cried from the interior of the house: “We are alone tonight, Berthine, you must come in, for it is getting dark and the Prussians or wolves may be prowling around.”

The woodcutter responded, striking a stump a great blow and then another, which obliged her to straighten her neck at each movement of the arms:

“I have finished, mamma. I’m coming, I’m coming, have no fear; it is still day.”

Then she entered with some fagots and the logs of wood and piled them up beside the fireplace, going out again to close the outer doors, enormous doors of the heart of oak, and finally came in and pushed the bolts.

Her mother was knitting before the fire, a wrinkled old woman whom age had rendered full of fear. “I do not like it when your father is away,” said she. “Two women are not very strong.”

The young woman answered: “Oh! I could kill a wolf or a Prussian, the one as well as the other.”

And she cast her eye at a large revolver hanging above the hearth. Her husband had been drafted into the army at the beginning of the Prussian invasion, and the two women were left alone with the father, the old keeper, Nicholas Pichon, called “Longlegs,” who had absolutely refused to leave his dwelling and go into the town.

The nearest town was Rethel, an old stronghold perched upon a rock. They were patriotic there; and the citizens, having decided to resist the invaders, had shut themselves up in their houses for a siege, according to the traditions of the city. Twice already, under Henry IV and under Louis XIV, the inhabitants of Rethel had distinguished themselves for their heroic defense. They could do it again this time, be sure of that! or they would let themselves be burned within their walls.

So, they had bought some cannons and some guns, equipped a milita, formed some battalions and companies and drilled them every day in the square. Everybody, bakers, grocers, woodcutters, notaries, attorneys, carpenters, librarians, chemists even, took turns in the role at regular hours under the orders of Monsieur Lavigne, a former sub-officer of dragoons, now a merchant, having married the daughter and inherited the shop of the elder Monsieur Ravaudan.

He took the rank of major, and as all the young men were away in the army, he enrolled all others who had any power of resistance. The large ones were no longer in the streets but were now always in the gymnasium trying to reduce their fat and prolong their breath, the weak striving to increase their strength and harden their muscles.

And now they were waiting for the Prussians. But the Prussians nowhere appeared. They were not far off, nevertheless; for twice already their spies had pushed across the woods as far as the house of Nicholas Pichon, the forester, called “Longlegs.”

The old keeper, who could run like a fox, had come to warn the town. The cannons were pointed but the enemy did not show itself. The dwelling of the forester, in the Aveline forest, served as an outpost of the citizen soldiers. And Nicholas, twice a week, went for provisions and brought the news of the surrounding country.

He had set out on this particular day to announce that a small detachment of German infantry had stopped at his house on the day before, toward two o’clock in the afternoon, and had immediately gone away again. The sub-officer could speak French.

When the old man left home, he always led with him his two big dogs, with jaws like lions, from fear of the wolves, which were beginning to be ferocious, and left the two women to depend upon barricading themselves in the house at the approach of night. The young woman was afraid of nothing, but her mother was always afraid, saying:

“It will end badly, all this. You will see that will end badly.”

On this particular evening she was more disturbed than usual:

“Do you know what time your father will return?” she asked.

“Oh! not before eleven o’clock, surely. When he dines with the commander, he always returns late.”

And she was about to put her saucepan over the fire to make the soup, when she stopped short, listening to a vague noise that seemed to come through the chimney.

She murmured: “There is somebody walking through the woods, as many as seven or eight men, at least.”

The mother, frightened, stopped her spinning, stammering:

“Oh! Lord-’a-mercy! and your father is not here yet.”

She had not finished speaking when violent blows made the door tremble. As the women did not respond, a strong guttural voice cried:

“Oben!” Then after a silence, the same voice continued: “Oben, or I will preak the door.”

Then Berthine slid into the pocket of her skirt the great revolver and, having placed her ear against the crack of the door, asked:

“Who are you?”

The voice responded: “I am the tetachment of the other day.”

The young woman asked: “What is it you wish?”

“I am lost since this morning in the woods, with my tetachment. Oben, or I preak the door down.”

The forest woman had no choice; she quickly slipped the great bolt, then drawing back the heavy folding door, she perceived in the pale light of the snow six men, Prussian soldiers, the same that were there the day before. In a resolute tone she asked:

“Why have you come here at this hour?”

The sub-officer answered: “I am lost, entirely lost, and I regognized the house. I have had nothing to eat since morning, no more has my tetachment.”

Berthine declared: “It happens that I am all alone with my mother this evening.”

The soldier, who appeared to be an honest fellow, answered: “That is no matter. I shall do no harm, but you will gif us something to eat. We are dying of hunger and fatigue.”

The woman of the forest drew back, saying: “Enter.”

They entered, powdered with snow, carrying on their helmets a kind of creamy moss, which made them look as if covered with meringue. They seemed weary and exhausted.

The young woman showed them wooden benches beside the large table. “Sit down,” she said, “it is true that you are worn out. I am going to make soup for you.”

Then she replaced the bolts of the door. Again she took up the saucepan, threw in some butter and some potatoes, then taking down a piece of bacon that hung in the chimney, she cut off half and plunged it into the water.

The six men followed every motion, with an awakened hunger in their eyes. They had placed their guns and their helmets in the corner, and were waiting, with as wise a look as children on school benches.

The mother began to spin again, casting every moment a look at the invaders. Nothing could be heard the but light rumble of the wheel and the crackling of the fire and the murmur of the boiling water.

But suddenly a strange noise made them all tremble, something like a raucous breath under the door, strong and wheezing. The German officer made a bound for his gun. The forester’s daughter stopped him with a gesture, smiling: “It is the wolves,” said she. “They are hungry like you, they are wandering around and are hungry.”

The man, incredulous, wished to see for himself, and as soon as the outer door was opened, he perceived two great gray beasts running away at a rapid trot. He returned, and murmured as he sat down:

“I would not haf pelieved it.” And he waited till his supper was ready.

They ate voraciously, with mouths open to the ears in order to swallow more at a time, their round eyes opening wide in unison with the jaw, and a noise in their throats like the gurgling in a rainspout.

The two silent women watched the rapid movements of their great red beards, the potatoes having the appearance of forcing themselves into the moving fleece. And as they were thirsty, the daughter of the forest descended to the cellar to draw some cider. She was there a long time. It was a little arched cave which, during the Revolution, was said to have served as a prison and a place of concealment. It was reached by means of a flight of steep steps which closed with a trapdoor at the end of the kitchen.

When Berthine reappeared, she laughed to herself with a sly air. And she gave to the Germans her pitcher of drink. Then she ate her supper, with her mother, at the other end of the kitchen.

The soldiers had finished eating and were asleep, all six of them, about the table. From time to time, a head would fall upon the board with a heavy sound, then the man, brusquely awakened, would sit up again.

Berthine said to the officer, “Lie down before the fire, pray, there is room enough there for six. As for me, I shall climb up to my room with my mother.”

And the two women mounted to the loft. They were heard locking the door and walking about for some time; then there was no more sound.

The Prussians stretched out upon the floor, feet to the fire, their heads supported by their knapsacks, and soon were snoring, all six of them, in six different tones, weak or sonorous, but continued and formidable.

They must have been asleep a long time when a gunshot resounded, so powerful that one would believe it had been fired into the walls of the house. The soldiers were on their feet in an instant. Again two shots were heard, followed by three others.

The door at the staircase opened suddenly and the forester’s daughter appeared, barefooted, in a chemise and a short petticoat, a candle in her hand, with an air of fright.

“Here are the French,” she stammered, “at least two hundred of them. If they find you here they will burn the house. Go down into the cellar quickly, and make no noise. If you make any noise, we are lost.”

The officer, much frightened, murmured: “I will so, I will so, but where can we descend?”

The young woman raised the trapdoor with haste, and the six men disappeared by the little flight of steps, forcing themselves into the hole one after the other, backward, testing each step with the feet.

When the point of the last helmet had disappeared, Berthine replaced the heavy plank of oak, thick as a wall, hard as steel, held in place by some hinges and dungeon lock, of which she gave two long turns to the key, and then she laughed, a mute, triumphant laugh, with a mad desire to dance over the heads of the prisoners.

They made no noise, shut in there as in a solid box of stone, receiving the air only from the venthole, which was protected by bars of iron.

Berthine immediately relighted the fire, put on the saucepan again, and made some more soup, murmuring: “Father will be tired tonight.” Then she sat down and waited. The pendulum of the clock, going back and forth with its regular ticktack, alone broke the silence.

From time to time the young woman cast a look at the dial, an impatient look which seemed to say: “You don’t go quickly enough!”

But soon there seemed to be a murmuring under her feet. Some low, confused words came to her through the arch of the cellar. The Prussians had surmised her ruse, and the officer now mounted the steps and began to pound on the trapdoor with his fists. He cried anew: “Oben!”

She got up and approached him, imitating his accent:

“What iss it you vant?”

“Oben!”

“I vill not oben.”

The man was angry. “Oben or I vill preak the door.”

She began to laugh. “Break, my good man, break,” she said.

He began to strike with his gun upon the oaken trapdoor closed over his head. But it would have resisted the blows of a catapult.

The woman of the forest heard him descend again. Then the soldiers came, one after the other, to try their strength and inspect the opening. But, without doubt judging their attempts useless, they descended again into the cellar and began to talk among themselves.

The young woman listened to them, and then she opened the outside door and hearkened out into the night. She heard a barking afar off. She whistled as a hunter does, and presently two enormous dogs bounded out of the shadow upon her, frisking about in joy. She seized them by the neck and hindered them from running, crying with all her force:

“Oh! Father!”

A voice afar off responded: “Berthine!”

She waited a few seconds, then repeated:

“Oh! Father!”

The voice nearer repeated:

“Oh! Berthine!”

The daughter shouted: “Don’t pass before the venthole. There are Prussians in the cellar.”

And suddenly the great silhouette of a man outlined itself at the left, stopped between the trunks of two trees, and a voice cried hurriedly:

“Prussians in the cellar? What are they doing there?”

The young woman began to laugh: “They are those of yesterday,” she answered. “They were lost in the forest, and I have put them in the cellar to keep fresh.”

And she related the adventure, how she had frightened them with the shots from the revolver and shut them up.

The old man gravely asked: “What do you want me to do now?”

She answered: “Go and get Monsieur Lavigne with his troops. He will take them prisoners. That will please him greatly.”

And father Pichon smiled: “It is true, it would please him.”

His daughter continued: “Take some soup, eat quickly, and then go.”

The old keeper seated himself and began to eat, after placing two platefuls on the floor for the dogs.

The Prussians, hearing them talk, were silent.

Father “Longlegs” set out a quarter of an hour later, and Berthine waited, her head in her hands.

The prisoners began to stir again. They now cried out, they called, and beat furiously against the unbreakable trapdoor with their guns, unceasingly. Then they began to shoot off their guns through the venthole, hoping without doubt to be heard by some German detachment that might be passing in the neighborhood.

The forester’s daughter did not move. But all this noise unnerved and irritated her. A wicked anger awoke in her; she wished to assassinate them, the scoundrels, in order to make them silent. Then, as her impatience grew, she fell to watching the clock and counting the minutes.

Her father had been gone an hour and a half. He had now reached the town. She believed she saw him. He was relating the story to Monsieur Lavigne, who paled with emotion and rung up his maid to get his uniform and his arms. She heard, it seemed to her, the drum as it went beating through the streets. Frightened heads appeared at the windows. The citizen soldiers came out of their houses, scarcely clothed, breathless, buckling their belts, and running, at gymnastic pace, toward the house of their commander.

Then the troop, “Longlegs” at the head, began to march, through the snow toward the forest. She looked at the clock. “They can get here in an hour,” she thought.

A nervous impatience took possession of her. The minutes seemed interminable.

Finally, the time that she had fixed for arrival was marked by the clock. Again she opened the door to see whether she could hear them approaching. She perceived a shadow moving with precaution. She was frightened and uttered a cry. It was her father. He said:

“They sent me ahead to see if anything had changed.”

“No, nothing.”

Then he sent into the night air a prolonged and strident whistle. And immediately something dark came toward him, approaching slowly from the shadow of trees: it was the advance guard of ten men.

“Longlegs” called out instantly: “Do not pass before the venthole.”

Then the first detachment showed to the next the dangerous venthole. Finally, the whole troop showed itself, two hundred men in all, each carrying two hundred cartridges.

Monsieur Lavigne, disturbed and trembling, placed them in such a way as to watch the house and leave a large free space before the little black hole where the sod was cleared to give air to the cellar.

Then he entered the dwelling and informed himself with regard to the force and attitude of the enemy, now so mute that one could have believed that they had disappeared, vanished, escaped through the venthole.

Monsieur Lavigne struck the trapdoor and called: “Mr. Prussian officer!”

The German did not answer.

The commander repeated: “Mr. Prussian officer!”

It was in vain. For twenty minutes he summoned this silent officer to surrender his arms and baggage, promising to spare his life and the lives of his men, and military honors for him and his soldiers. But he obtained no sign of consent or of hostility. The situation was becoming difficult.

The citizen soldiers stamped their feet in the snow, struck their shoulders great blows with their arms, like cabmen trying to keep warm, and looked at the venthole with a growing and childish desire to pass before it.

One of them, finally, Potdevin by name, took the hazard, as he was very swift. He made a leap and ran past it like a deer. The feat was a success. The prisoners seemed dead.

One voice cried: “There is no one there.”

And then another soldier crossed the free space before the dangerous hole. Then it was like a game. From minute to minute some man would throw himself past the troop, as children play jumping bars, hurling behind them lumps of snow from their swiftly moving feet. For comfort, someone lighted a great fire of dead wood, which seemed to illuminate this profile of the national guard in its rapid journey from the camp on the right to the camp on the left.

Someone cried: “Now you, Maloison!”

Maloison was a big baker whose rotundity was a source of laughter to his comrades. He hesitated. They teased him. Then, straightening up, he started, with the little, regular, gymnastic step, puffing so that it shook his powerful corporosity.

All the detachment laughed until they cried. To encourage him, they called out: “Bravo, bravo, Maloison!”

He had made about two thirds of his distance when a long flame, rapid and red, sprang out of the venthole. A report sounded, and the vast body of the baker fell face downward, while he gave a frightful cry.

No one dared go to his aid. They saw him dragging himself along on all fours, in the glistening snow, and, when he had passed the terrible opening, he vanished.

He had received a ball in the thick part of the thigh, but near the surface.

After the first surprise and the first fright, a new laugh went round. But Commander Lavigne appeared upon the doorsill of the forest house. He came to stop his plan of attack. In a vibrating voice, he commanded:

“The zinc-worker and his workmen come here.”

Three men approached.

“Unfasten the gutters of the house.”

In a quarter of an hour they had carried to the commander twenty meters of gutter pipe. Then he made them, with a thousand precautions, fit one into a little round hole at the edge of the trapdoor, and, attaching a pipe from the pump to this conduit, he declared, with an enchanted air:

“Now we are going to drink to the health of these German gentlemen.”

A frenzied hurrah of admiration went up, followed by shouts of joy and wild laughter. The commander organized squads for the work, who should relieve each other every five minutes. Then he gave the order:

“Pump!”

The iron handle having been put in motion, a little sound glided along the length of pipe and fell into the cellar with the murmur of a cascade.

They listened. One hour passed, then two, then three.

The commander walked about the kitchen in a feverish state of mind, placing his ear to the floor from time to time, seeking to find out what the enemy was doing, and asking himself if they were going to capitulate.

Now the enemy was moving about. They heard them moving the barrels and talking. Then, toward eight o’clock in the morning: a voice came from the venthold:

“I vish to speak to the French officer.”

Lavigne responded from the window, without putting his head too far out: “What do you wish?”

“I surrender myself.”

“Pass out the guns, then.”

And immediately a gun came out of the hole upon the snow, then two, three, and all the others. The same voice said:

“I hav no more. Hurry! I am drowning.”

The commander ordered:

“Stop pumping.”

The handle of the pump fell motionless. And, having filled the kitchen with soldiers armed to the teeth, he slowly raised the oaken trapdoor.

Four heads appeared, soaked, four blond heads with long, pale hair; and they saw come out, rushing as if frightened, six Germans, shivering with cold.

They were seized and bound. Then, as they feared a surprise from another detachment, they formed into two convoys, one conducting the prisoners and the other carrying Maloison on a mattress placed upon poles.

They returned triumphant into Rethel.

Monsieur Lavigne was decorated for having captured an advance guard of the Prussians, and the great baker received a military medal for wounds received before the enemy.

For Sale

To set out on foot, when the sun is just rising, and walk through the dew, by the side of the fields, at the verge of the quiet sea, what ecstasy!

What ecstasy! It enters in through the eyes with the radiant light, through the nostrils with the sharp air, through the skin with the caressing wind.

Why do we retain, so clear, so precious, so sharp a memory of a few moments of passionate union with the Earth, the memory of a swift divine emotion, of the almost caressing greeting of a countryside revealed by a twist of the road, at the mouth of a valley, at the edge of a river, just as if we had come upon a charming and complaisant young girl?

I remember one day, among many. I was walking along the coast of Brittany towards the outthrust headland of Finistère. I walked quickly, thinking of nothing at all, along the edge of the water. This was in the neighbourhood of Quimperlé, in the loveliest and most adorable part of Brittany.

It was a morning in spring, one of those mornings in which one is again just twenty, a morning to revive dead hopes and give back the dreams of first youth.

I walked between the cornfields and the sea, along a road no better than a path. The corn was quite motionless, and the waves lifted very gently. The air was filled with the fragrance of ripening fields and the salt scent of the seaweed. I walked without a thought in my head, straight forward, continuing a journey begun fifteen days before, a tramp round the coast of Brittany. I felt gloriously fit, content, light of feet and light of heart. I just walked.

I thought of nothing. Why think of anything in hours filled by an instinctive happiness, a profound physical happiness, the happiness of the beasts of the fields and the birds soaring in the blue spaces beneath the sun? I heard the far-off sound of hymn-singing. A procession perhaps, since this was Sunday. Then I rounded a little headland, stood still, amazed with delight. Five large fishing-boats came into sight, filled with people, men, women, and children, on their way to the Indulgence at Plouneven.

They hugged the coast, moving slowly, helped scarcely at all by the soft, hardly breathing wind which swelled the brown sails faintly and then, as if wearied out, let them fall, all slack, round the masts.

The clumsy boats moved slowly, filled with such a crowd of folk. And the whole crowd was singing. The men standing against the sides of the boats, their heads covered with wide hats, sang their deep notes lustily, the women shrilled the treble air, and the thin voices of the children pierced that devout and monstrous uproar like the tuneless squeak of fifes.

The voyagers in all five boats shouted the same hymn, whose monotonous rhythm rose to the quiet sky, and the five boats sailed one behind the other, close together.

They passed close by in front of me, and I saw them draw away, I heard their song sink and die upon the air.

And I fell dreaming delightful dreams, as youth will dream, absurd divine dreams.

How swiftly it is gone, the age of dreams, the only happy age in a whole lifetime. No one is ever lonely, ever sad, ever gloomy or cast down, who bears within himself that most wonderful power of wandering, as soon as he is left to himself, into a world of happy dreams. What a faery world, where anything may happen in the audacious imagination of the dreamer who roams therein! How adorable life appears covered in the gold dust of dreams.

Alas, those days are done!

I fell dreaming. Of what? Of all that a man never ceases to hope for, all that he desires, riches, honour, women.

And I walked on, taking great strides, my hand caressing the yellow locks of the corn which bowed itself under my fingers and thrilled my skin as if I had touched living hair.

I made my way round a little promontory and saw, at the end of a narrow open beach, a whitewalled house built above three terraces that came down to the shore.

Why does this house send through me a shiver of delight? Do I know it? Sometimes, in such wanderings, we come upon corners of the country that we seem to have known for a very long time, so familiar are they to us, so do they wake a response in our hearts. Is it possible that we have never seen them before, that we have not lived in them in some former life? Everything about them stirs us, fills us with the most profound delight, the gentle swell of the horizon, the ordered trees, the colour of the soil.

A charming house, rising from its high steps. Large fruit-trees had established themselves along the terraces which came down to the water, like giant stairs. And on the rim of each terrace, like a crown of gold, ran a border of Spanish broom in full flower.

I halted in my tracks, possessed with a sudden love for this dwelling-place. How I would have liked to own it, to live there, forever!

I drew near the door, my heart beating quickly with envious desire, and saw, on one of the pillars of the gate, a big placard: “For Sale.”

I felt a sharp thrill of delight, as if this dwelling had been offered to me, as if I had been given it. Why, yes, why? I do not know.

“For Sale.” Then it no longer belonged to any special person, could belong to anyone on earth, to me, to me! Why this joy, this sense of utter delight, deep incomprehensible delight? I knew well enough, however, that I could not buy it. How could I pay for it? No matter, it was for sale. The caged bird belongs to its owner, the bird in the air is mine, not being man’s.

I went into the garden. Oh, what a delightful garden, with its terraces lifted one above the other, its espaliers with arms stretched out like crucified martyrs, its clumps of golden broom, and two old fig-trees at the end of each terrace!

When I stood on the last, I looked all round me. The shore of the little bay stretched at my feet, curved and sandy, separated from the open sea by three massive brown rocks, which closed the entry to the bay and must have acted as a breakwater on rough days.

On the headland, right opposite, two great stones, one upright, the other lying in the grass, a Menhir and a Dolmen, like two strange beings, husband and wife, turned to stone by an evil spell, seemed to watch unwinkingly the small house that they had seen built⁠—they who for centuries had known this onetime solitary cove⁠—the small house that they would see fall, crumple, vanish little by little and altogether disappear, the little house that was for sale.

Oh, old Dolmen and old Menhir, how I love you!

I knocked at the door as if I had been knocking at my own door. A woman came to open it, a servant, a little old servant, black-gowned, white-bonneted, looking like a working nun. It seemed to me as if I knew her too, this woman.

I said to her:

“You are not a Breton woman, are you?”

She answered:

“No, sir, I come from Lorraine.”

She added:

“You have come to look over the house?”

“Oh, yes, certainly.”

And I went in.

It seemed to me that I knew it all, the walls, the furniture. I was almost surprised not to find my own walking-sticks in the hall.

I made my way into the drawing room, a charming drawing room carpeted with rush mats, which looked out over the sea through its three large windows. On the mantel shelf, Chinese vases and a large photograph of a woman. I went to it at once, convinced that I recognised her too. And I did recognise her, although I was certain that I had never met her. It was she, the inexpressible she, she for whom I was waiting, whom I desired, she whom I summoned, whose face haunted my dreams. She, she whom one seeks always, in every place, she whom one is every moment just going to see in the street, just going to discover on a country road the instant one’s glance falls on a red sunshade over the cornfield, she who must surely already be in the hotel when I enter it on my travels, in the railway carriage I am just getting into, in the drawing room whose door is just opening to me.

It was she, assuredly, past all manner of doubt, it was she. I recognised her by her eyes which were looking at me, by her hair arranged English fashion, but above all by her mouth, by that smile which long ago I had surmised.

I asked at once:

“Who is this lady?”

The nun-like servant answered dryly:

“That is Madame.”

I continued:

“She is your mistress?”

In her austere conventional fashion, she replied:

“Oh, no, sir.”

I sat down and said firmly:

“Tell me about her.”

She stood amazed, motionless, obstinately silent.

I persisted:

“She is the owner of the house, then?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Then whose is this house?”

“It belongs to my master, Monsieur Tournelle.”

I pointed a finger towards the photograph.

“And this lady, who is she?”

“That is Madame.”

“Your master’s wife?”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“His mistress, then?”

The nun had nothing to say. I went on, pricked by a vague jealousy, by a confused anger against this man who found this woman first.

“Where are they now?”

The servant murmured:

“Monsieur the gentleman is in Paris, but about Madame I know nothing.”

I shivered.

“Ah. They are no longer together?”

“No, sir.”

I became wily, and said solemnly:

“Tell me what happened, probably I could be of service to your master. I know this woman, she’s a bad lot.”

The old servant looked at me, and seeing my honest expression, she trusted me.

“Oh, sir, she did my master a bad turn. He made her acquaintance in Italy and he brought her away with him as if he had married her. She sang beautifully. He loved her so much, sir, that it was pitiful to see him. They were travelling in this district last year. And they discovered this house which had been built by a fool, an old fool who wanted to settle five miles from the village. Madame wanted to buy it outright, so that she could stay here with my master. And he bought the house to please her.

“They lived here all last summer, sir, and almost all the winter.

“And then, one morning at breakfast-time, Monsieur called me.

“ ‘Césaire, has Madame come in?’

“ ‘No, sir.’

“We waited for her the whole day. My master was like a madman. We sought everywhere; we did not find her. She had gone, sir, we never knew where or how.”

Oh, what a tide of joy surged in me! I would have liked to embrace the nun, to seize her round the waist and make her dance in the drawing room.

Oh, she had gone, she had escaped, she had left him, utterly wearied, disgusted with him! How happy I was!

The old woman went on:

“Monsieur almost died of grief, and he has gone back to Paris, leaving me here with my husband to sell the house. He is asking twenty thousand francs for it.”

But I was no longer listening. I was thinking of her. And all at once it struck me that I had only to set out again to come upon her, that this very springtime she would have been driven to come back to the place, to see the house, this charming house that she must have loved so dearly, to see it emptied of him.

I flung ten francs into the old woman’s hand. I snatched the photograph and rushed off at a run, pressing desperate kisses on the adorable face that looked up from the cardboard.

I regained the road and began to walk on, looking at her, her very self. How glorious that she was free, that she had got away! Without doubt I should meet her today or tomorrow, this week or next, now that she had left him. She had left him because my hour had come.

She was free, somewhere, in the world. I had only to find her now that I knew her.

And all the while I touched caressingly the bowed locks of ripe corn, I drank in the sea air that filled out my lungs, I felt the sun kissing my face. I had walked on, I walked on wild with joy, drunk with hope. I walked on, certain that I was going to meet her soon and lead her back to enjoy our turn in that charming home “For Sale.” How she would revel in it, this time!

’Toine

I

Everybody for ten leagues round knew old ’Toine, “Big ’Toine,” ’Toine-Ma-Fine, Antoine Mâcheblé, also nicknamed Brulot⁠—the tavern-keeper of Tournevent.

He had given celebrity to that little hamlet, hidden in a wrinkle of the valley which sloped down to the sea⁠—a poor little peasant-village composed of ten Normandy cottages surrounded by ditches and trees.

They stood⁠—all those houses⁠—as if trying to shrink out of sight among the tall grass and reeds of the ravine⁠—behind the curve which had given the place its name, Tournevent. They seemed to have hunted for this shelter for themselves, just as those birds that hide in plowed furrows on days of tempest seek to shelter themselves from the great wind of the sea, the ocean-wind⁠—rough and salty⁠—which gnaws and burns like fire, which dries up and destroys like the winter frosts.

But the entire hamlet seemed to be the property of Antoine Mâcheblé, nicknamed Brulot, also very often called ’Toine, and ’Toine-Ma-Fine, because of a certain phrase that was forever in his mouth:

“My fine is the best in all France.”

His fine was his cognac, let it be understood.

For twenty years he had been slaking the thirst of the country with his fine and his brûlots; for whenever anybody would ask him:

“What had I better take, Father Antoine?”

He invariably responded:

“A burnt brandy, son-in-law;⁠—it warms up the tripes and clears up the head;⁠—nothing better for the inside!”

He also had the habit of calling everyone “son-in-law”⁠—although he never had a married daughter, nor even a daughter to marry.

Yes, indeed! everybody knew ’Toine Brulot, the biggest man in the canton, and even in the whole arrondissement. His little house seemed ridiculously too narrow and too low to contain him; and when you saw him standing at his door, as he would do for a whole day at a time, you could not have helped wondering how he would ever manage to get inside again. But inside he would get⁠—somehow or other⁠—every time a customer came; for it was ’Toine’s acknowledged right to levy a treat upon everyone who drank in his house.

The name of his tavern, painted upon the sign was “Au Rendezvous des Anis”; and a good name it was, seeing that Father ’Toine was the friend, sure enough, of everybody in the whole country. Folks came from Fécamp and from Montivillers to see him and to joke with him and to listen to his talk; for that big fat old fellow could have made a tombstone laugh. He had a way of his own of joking at folks without making them mad⁠—a way of winking his eye to express what he never said⁠—a way of slapping his own thigh when he got to laughing, so funny that at every slap he was bound to make you also laugh with him, whether you wanted to or not. And then it was good fun only just to see him drink. He would drink every time anybody asked him, and drink everything offered him⁠—with a look of joy in his mischievous eye⁠—a joy of twofold origin, inspired first by the pleasure of being treated, and secondly by the delight of piling away so many big coppers paid down as the price of the fun.

The jokers of the neighbourhood used to say to him:

“Why don’t you drink up the sea, Pap ’Toine?”

He would answer:

“There’s two things prevent me⁠—first thing is that it’s salty, and then besides it would have to be bottled, because my abdomen isn’t elastic enough for me to trust myself to drink out of such a cup as that.”

And then you ought to have heard him quarrelling with his wife! It was better than a play! Every single day during the whole thirty years they had been married they used to fight regularly. Only ’Toine would just joke, while his wife would get really mad. She was a tall peasant woman, who walked with great long steps like a crane⁠—and whose slabsided, skinny body supported a head that looked like the head of a mad owl. She spent her whole time in raising chickens in a little backyard behind the tavern; and she was renowned for her skill in fattening fowl.

Whenever they gave a big dinner at Fécamp, up the coast, it was always considered essential to eat one of Mother ’Toine’s boarders⁠—otherwise it would be no dinner at all.

But she had been born in a bad humour, and she had remained all her life cross with everything and everybody. And while she was ill-humoured with the world in general, she was particularly ill-humoured with her husband. She was mad at him for his good humour, for his renown, for his good health, and for his fatness. She called him a good-for-nothing, because he was able to make money without doing anything;⁠—she called him a hog, because he ate and drank as much as ten ordinary men;⁠—and she never passed a day of her life without declaring:

“Wouldn’t he look better in the pigpen, a beggar like that!⁠—Makes my stomach sick to see the fat of him!”

And she would go and scream in his face:

“Wait!⁠—you wait a bit! We’ll see what’ll happen to you!⁠—we’ll see soon enough! You’ll bust like a grain-sack, you big, puffed-up good-for-nothing!”

Then ’Toine would slap his fat stomach, and laugh with all his might, and answer:

“Eh! Mother ’Toine, my old plank⁠—you just try to fatten up your chickens like that⁠—you just try it on for the fun of the thing!”

And, pulling up his shirtsleeve to show his enormous arm, he would cry:

“Now there’s a wing for you, mother!⁠—that’s what you can call a wing.”

And the customers would yell with delight, and thump the table with their fists, and stamp the earthen floor with their feet, and spit on the ground in the craziness of their merriment.

The furious old woman would yell again:

“Wait a bit!⁠—you just wait a bit.⁠ ⁠… I know what’s going to happen to you;⁠—you’ll bust like a grain sack!”

And off she would go, pursued by the laughter of the customers.

’Toine was indeed wonderful to behold⁠—so heavy and thick and red and puffy he had become. He was one of those enormous beings whom Death seems to select to amuse himself with⁠—to practise all his tricks and jokes and treacherous buffooneries upon, so that his slow work of destruction may be rendered for once irresistibly funny. Instead of showing himself in his ordinary aspect to such a one, this rascally old Death forbears to manifest his presence in grey hairs or in withered limbs or in wrinkles or in that general crumbling down which makes folks exclaim⁠—“Bigre!⁠—how changed he is!”⁠—instead of thus acting, Death takes pleasure in fattening such a man, in making him monstrous and absurd, in colouring him up with red and blue, in puffing him out, in giving him an aspect of superhuman health; and all those deformities which in other beings seem pitiable or ghastly, become in his person laughable, droll, amusing.

“Wait a bit!⁠—wait a bit!” repeated Mother ’Toine, “we’ll see what you’ll come to yet!”

II

Well, it came to pass that ’Toine got a paralytic stroke. They put the colossus to bed in the little chamber behind the partition of the barroom⁠—so that he could hear what the folks were saying on the other side, and could talk with his friends; for his head was all right, although his body⁠—the enormous body, impossible to move or to lift⁠—was stricken with immobility. At first it was hoped that he would be able to move his big legs again; but this hope vanished in a very short time; and ’Toine-Ma-Fine passed his days as well as his nights in bed⁠—the bed that was only made up once a week, with the assistance of four neighbours, who lifted out the tavern-keeper by his four limbs, while the mattress was being turned.

He kept his good humour still; but it was a different jollity from that of the old times⁠—more humble, more timid⁠—and he was childishly afraid of his wife, who kept yelping all day long:

“There!⁠—the big hog;⁠—there he is, the good-for-nothing, the lazy lout, the nasty drunkard! Ah! the nasty fellow, the nasty beast!”

He never answered her any more. He would only wink his right eye when her back was turned, and then turn himself over in bed⁠—the only movement in his power to make. He called this exercise “taking a turn to the North,”⁠—“taking a turn to the South.”

His great amusement now was to listen to the gossip in the tavern, and to shout dialogues through the partition whenever he could recognize the voices of friends. He would yell:

“Hey, son-in-law!⁠—that you, Célestin?”

And Célestin Maloisel would answer:

“That’s me, Pap ’Toine. So you’re on the way to gallop again, eh, you old rascal?”

’Toine-Ma-Fine would answer:

“Not to gallop⁠—no! not yet! But I’ve not lost flesh; the old shell’s solid as ever.”

After awhile he began to call his most particular friends into his room; and they kept him company pleasantly enough⁠—though it worried him a great deal to see them drinking without his being able to join. He kept saying:

“What kills me, son-in-law⁠—what just kills me is not being able to taste my fine, nom d’un nom. As for the rest, I don’t care a doggone⁠—but it just kills me to think I can’t take a horn.”

And the owl-face of old mother ’Toine appeared at the door. She screamed:

“Look at him!⁠—look at him now, the lazy big lummox that has to be fed⁠—that has to be washed⁠—that has to be cleaned like an overgrown hog!”

And when the old woman was not there, a red cock would sometimes jump up on the window, stare into the room with his little round carrion’s eye, and crow sonorously. Sometimes also, one or two chickens would fly in as far as the foot of the bed, to look for crumbs.

’Toine-Ma-Fine’s friends soon abandoned the barroom for the bedroom⁠—where they would assemble shortly after noon every day, to chat at the fat man’s bedside.

Helpless as he was, that devil-of-a-joker ’Toine, he could make them all laugh still. He would have made Old Nick himself laugh, the old humbug. There were three men in particular who came to see him every day: Célestin Maloisel, a tall lean fellow, a little crooked like the trunk of an apple tree; Prosper Horslaville, a dried-up little man, with a nose like a ferret, mischievous and sly as a fox; and Césaire Paumelle, who never said anything himself, but had lots of fun for all that.

They used to get a plank out of the yard, place it on the edge of the bed, and they would play dominoes pardi⁠—great old games of dominoes, which would last from two o’clock until six.

But Mother ’Toine soon made herself insufferable. She could not endure to see her big fat lummox of a husband still amuse himself, and playing dominoes in bed; and whenever she saw they were going to begin a game, she would rush in furiously, knock the plank over, seize the dominoes and take them into the barroom;⁠—declaring that it was bad enough to have to feed that great lump of tallow without seeing him amuse himself just for spite⁠—just to torment the poor folks who had to work hard all day.

Célestin Maloisel and Césaire Paumelle would bow their heads to the storm; but Prosper Horslaville found great fun in teasing the old woman, in exciting her still more.

One day that she seemed more than usually exasperated, he cried out:

“Hey, mother!⁠—do you know what I’d do if I was in your place⁠—eh!”

She waited for him to explain himself, and watched his face with her owlish eye.

He said:

“Say, that man of yours never’s going to get out of bed, and he’s as warm as an oven. Well now, if I was you, I’d set him to hatching eggs.”

She stood speechless for a moment, thinking he was making fun of her⁠—closely watching the thin cunning face of the peasant, who continued:

“Yes, I’d put five eggs under one arm, and five under the other⁠—just the same time as I’d put them under a hen to set on. Them things does be born of themselves. When they’d be hatched, I’d take your old man’s chicks and give them to the hen to take care of. Tell you, mother⁠—that way you’d soon have a slew of chickens running around!”

Astonished, the old woman said:

“But can that be done?”

“Can it be done? I’d like to know why it couldn’t be done. If you can hatch eggs in a warm box, why couldn’t you hatch them in a bed?”

The old woman was greatly impressed by this reasoning, and she went off, more thoughtful than usual, and quite calmed down.

Eight days later she walked into ’Toine’s room one morning with her apron full of eggs. And she said:

“I’ve just put the yellow hen in the nest with ten eggs under her. Now here’s ten for you. See that you don’t break them.”

’Toine, completely dumbfounded, asked:

“What do you want now?”

She answered:

“I want you to hatch them⁠—you good-for-nothing.”

He laughed at first; but when he found she was serious he got mad, he resisted, he positively objected to letting her put the eggs under his arms to be hatched.

But the old woman cried out in a passion:

“Then you shan’t have a bit of grub until you take them. Now we’ll see if you hatch them or not!”

’Toine got uneasy and didn’t answer.

When he heard the clock strike twelve, he cried out:

“Hey, mother⁠—got the soup ready yet?”

The old woman screamed from the kitchen:

“Got no soup for you, you overgrown lazy lout.”

He thought she was only joking, and he waited awhile;⁠—then he begged, implored, swore, took a desperate turn to the North and a desperate turn to the South, hammered the wall with his fist⁠—but he was obliged to yield and to let her put five eggs against his left side. Then he got his soup.

When his friends came, he looked so queer and so uneasy that they thought he must be sick.

Then they proceeded to play the daily game. But ’Toine seemed to find no fun in it, and he put out his hand very slowly⁠—with infinite precaution.

“Got your arm tied up?” asked Horslaville.

’Toine responded:

“I’ve got a sort of a numbness in my shoulder.”

Suddenly they heard somebody entering the barroom. They stopped playing.

It was the mayor and the adjutant. They asked for two glasses of fine, and began to chat about public affairs. As they were talking very low, ’Toine wanted to put his ear against the partition to hear them, and as he gave a sudden “turn to the North,” forgetting the eggs, he found himself lying upon an omelette.

At the sound of the great oath which he swore, the old woman rushed in, and suspecting the disaster, discovered it with one pull at the bedclothes. At first she did nothing;⁠—she was too indignant, too suffocated with fury at the sight of the yellow cataplasm smeared upon her old man’s side.

Then, trembling with rage, she flung herself upon the paralytic; and began to thump him with all her might on the stomach, just as if she was beating dirty linen at the pool. Her fists came down alternately with a dull thud⁠—rapidly as the paws of a rabbit drumming.

The three friends of ’Toine laughed to split their sides⁠—sneezed, coughed, screeched; as the big fat man parried his wife’s attacks with great caution, for fear of breaking the five eggs on the other side.

III

’Toine was vanquished. He had to hatch; he had to give up playing dominoes; he had to give up all active existence;⁠—for the old woman ferociously cut off his rations every time he broke an egg.

So he lived upon his back, with his eyes on the ceiling⁠—motionless⁠—his arms lifted up like wings⁠—while the chicken-germs were warmed against his sides.

He only talked in whispers, as if he were as afraid of noise as he was of motion; and he began to feel an anxious sympathy for the yellow hen that followed the same occupation as himself.

He would ask his wife:

“Did the yellow one eat last night?”

And the old woman would keep running from her husband to her chickens, and from her chickens to her husband⁠—terribly busy with the chickens that were being hatched in the nest and in the bed.

The country folk who knew the story would come, very seriously and full of curious interest to ask after ’Toine. They would enter on tiptoe as if they were coming into a sick room, and say:

“Well, how is it?”

’Toine would answer:

“Well, it’s doing good enough; but it gives me the itch to be so hot;⁠—makes all my skin creep.”

Now, one morning his wife came in, very much excited, and said:

“The yellow one has seven. There were three bad.”

’Toine felt his heart beat. He wondered how many he was going to have.

He asked.

“How long before it’ll happen.”

The old woman would answer angrily⁠—herself anxious through fear of a failure.

“Got to hope so.”

They waited. Friends who knew the time was approaching, became anxious.

They talked about it everywhere; folks went from house to house to ask for news.

About three o’clock in the afternoon, ’Toine fell asleep. He had got into the habit of sleeping half the day. He was suddenly awakened by a tickling under his right arm. He put down his hand and seized a little creature covered with yellow down, which moved in his fingers.

His excitement was such that he yelled, and let go the chicken which began to run all over the bedclothes. The tavern was full of people. The customers all rushed in, and thronged in a circle as if round a mountebank’s performance; and the old woman came to carefully gather up the little bird which had hidden itself under her husband’s beard.

Nobody spoke. It was a warm April day. Through the open window could be heard the clucking of the old hen, calling her chickens.

’Toine, who was sweating with excitement, constraint, and anxiety, murmured:

“I’ve another under the left arm⁠—right now!”

His wife plunged her long thin hand under the covers, and brought forth a second chick.⁠ ⁠…

The neighbours all wanted to see it. It was passed round from hand to hand, and carefully examined like a phenomenon.

For twenty minutes there were no more births;⁠—then four chicks got out of their shells simultaneously.

And there was a great hum through the assembly. And ’Toine smiled, delighted with his success⁠—beginning to feel quite proud of this queer paternity. You might say what you please, you never saw many men like him! He was a queer case⁠—wasn’t he?

He observed:

“That makes six. Nom de nom!⁠—what a christening!”

And a great burst of laughter went up. A number of strangers entered the tavern. Others were still waiting outside for their chance. People asked each other:

“How many’s he got?”

“Got six.”

Mother ’Toine carried this new family to the yellow hen; and the hen clucked crazily, bristled up her feathers, and opened her wings as wide as she could to shelter the ever-increasing multitude of her little ones.

“There’s another!” yelled ’Toine.

He was mistaken⁠—there were three more! It was a triumph! The last chick burst open its shell at seven o’clock that evening. All the eggs were hatched. And ’Toine, wild with joy, free again, glorious, kissed the little creature on the back⁠—nearly smothered it with his lips. He wanted to keep that one in his bed⁠—just that one⁠—until next day, feeling seized with a natural affection for the tiny thing to which he had given life; but the old woman took it away like the others in spite of his supplications.

All those present were delighted, and as they went home they talked of nothing else. Horslaville, the last to linger, asked:

“Say, Pap ’Toine⁠—going to invite me to fricassee the first, eh?”

The face of ’Toine grew radiant at the idea of a fricassee; and the fat man answered:

“For sure, I’ll invite you⁠—for sure, my son-in-law.

The Christening

“Now, doctor, a little cognac.”

“With pleasure.”

And the old naval doctor, holding out his little glass, watched the precious liquor rising to the brim, flecked with golden gleams.

Then he lifted it to the level of his eye, passed it in front of the light from the lamp, sniffed it, sucked in a few drops that he rolled a long time on his tongue and on the moist, sensitive flesh of his palate, then said:

“Oh, the divine poison! Or rather, the seductive assassin, the adorable destroying angel!

“You know nothing about it, you people. You have read, it is true, that excellent book called L’Assommoir, but you have not seen, as I have, drink exterminate a whole tribe of savages, a small Negro kingdom, drink carried in kegs landed, with the most peaceful air, by red-bearded English sailors.

“But now listen. I have seen, with my own eyes, the strangest and most amazing drama of strong drink, and quite near here, in Brittany, in a little village in the neighbourhood of Pont l’Abbé.

“I was living at the time, on a year’s leave, in a country-house left me by my father. You know that flat coast where the wind whistles day and night over the gorse bushes, and where one still sees here and there, upright or lying along the ground, those monstrous stones which were once gods and which have retained something disturbing in their attitude, in their aspect, their shape. They always look to me as if they were just going to come alive, and I should see them set out across the countryside, with slow heavy steps, the steps of granite giants, or fly off on vast wings, stone wings, towards a Druid heaven.

“The sea encloses and dominates the horizon, the restless sea, full of black-headed rocks, always covered with a slaver of foam, like dogs who lie in wait for the fishermen.

“And they, these men, they go down to this terrible sea which overturns their fishing-cobbles with one shake of his blue-green back, and swallows them down like pellets. They go out in their small boats, day and night, brave, anxious, and drunk. Drunk they most often are. ‘When the bottle is full,’ they say, ‘you see the reef; but when it’s empty, you see it no more.’

“Go into the thatched cottages. You’ll never find the father there. And if you ask the wife what has become of her man, she stretches her arm towards the sombre sea, muttering and frothing out its white saliva along the shore. He slept below it one evening when he had drunk a little too deeply. And the eldest son as well. She has four boys left, four tall striplings, fair-skinned and sturdy. Their turn next.

“I was living then in a country-house near Pont l’Abbé. I lived alone with my servant, an old sailor, and a Breton family who took care of the property in my absence. It consisted of three people, two sisters and the man who had married one of them, and who looked after my garden.

“This same year, about Christmas-time, my gardener’s spouse was brought to bed of a boy.

“The husband came to ask me to stand godfather. I could hardly refuse, and he borrowed ten francs, for christening-expenses, he said.

“The ceremony was arranged for the second of January. For eight days the ground had been covered with snow, a vast carpet, colourless and sombre, which seemed, in this low flat country, to stretch out over illimitable wastes. The sea, far beyond the white plain, looked black; and we could see it moving restlessly, shaking its back, rolling its waves, as if it wanted to fling itself on its pale neighbour, who seemed dead, so quiet, so sad, so cold she lay.

“At nine o’clock in the morning, Papa Kérandec arrived in front of my door with his sister-in-law, the big Kermagan, and the nurse who was carrying the child rolled up in a quilt.

“And then we all set out for the church. It was cold enough to split the dolmens, one of those piercing cold days which crack the skin and cause frightful pain with their bitter cold that burns like fire.

“As for me, I was thinking of the poor little creature who was being carried in front of us, and I thought to myself that this Breton race really was made of iron, since children were able, from the moment they were born, to survive such excursions.

“We arrived in front of the church, but the door remained shut. The priest was late.

“Thereupon the nurse, resting herself on one of the boundary stones near the porch, began to undress the infant. I thought at first that he had wetted his napkin, but I saw that they were stripping him naked, the poor little wretch, stark naked, in the icy air. I ran forward, horrified at the insensate act.

“ ‘Are you mad! You’ll kill him.’

“The woman answered placidly:

“ ‘Oh, no, honoured sir, he must come before the good God quite naked.’

“The father and the aunt looked on at the performance with the utmost calm. It was the custom. If it were not followed, ill luck would befall the infant.

“I worked myself up into a rage, I cursed the man, I threatened to go home, I tried forcibly to cover up the frail little body. It was all no use. The nurse escaped from me, running through the snow, and the poor little devil’s body turned purple.

“I was just going to leave the cruel wretches when I saw the priest coming across the fields, followed by the sacristan and a country lad.

“I ran to meet him, and expressed my indignation to him, without mincing my words. He was not surprised, he did not quicken his pace, he made no attempt to hurry himself. He answered:

“ ‘What do you expect, sir? It’s the custom. They all do it, we can’t hinder them.’

“ ‘But at least get a move on!’ I shouted.

“He replied:

“ ‘I can’t come any quicker.’

“And he entered the vestry, while we remained on the threshold of the church, where I swear I suffered more than the little creature howling under the lash of the bitter cold.

“The door opened at last. We went in. But the child had to remain naked throughout the whole ceremony.

“It was interminable. The priest blundered on through the Latin syllables that issued from his mouth, falsely scanned. He walked with a slow gait, with the slow gait of a pious tortoise, and his white surplice froze my heart, like another fall of snow in which he had wrapped himself to torture, in the name of a cruel and barbarous God, this human grub racked by the cold.

“The christening was at last accomplished according to the proper rites, and I saw the nurse roll up again in its wide quilt the frozen child, who was moaning in a thin pitiful voice.

“The priest said to me:

“ ‘Will you come and sign the register?’

“I turned to my gardener:

“ ‘Now get back as quickly as you can, and get that child warm at once.’

“And I gave him some advice how to ward off inflammation of the lungs if there were still time to do it.

“The man promised to carry out my recommendation, and he went away with his sister-in-law and the nurse. I followed the priest into the vestry.

“When I had signed, he demanded five francs of me for expenses.

“Having given the father ten francs, I refused to pay again. The priest threatened to tear out the leaf and annul the ceremony. I threatened him, on my side, with the Public Prosecutor.

“The quarrel lasted a long time. I ended by paying.

“The instant I got home, I wanted to make sure that no further misfortune had happened. I ran to Kérandec’s house, but the father, the sister-in-law, and the nurse had not yet returned.

“The woman who had given birth to the child, left all alone, was sobbing with cold in her bed, and she was hungry, having had nothing to eat since the night before.

“ ‘Where the devil have they gone?’ I said.

“She answered, without surprise or resentment:

“ ‘They’ve gone off to celebrate the occasion.’

“It was the custom. Then I remembered my ten francs which ought to have paid for the christening and which was doubtless now paying for drink.

“I sent in some soup for the mother and I ordered a good fire to be made in her fireplace. I was anxious and angry, promising myself to let those devils have it hot and strong, and asking myself with horror what would become of the wretched brat.

“At six o’clock in the evening they had not returned.

“I ordered my servant to wait for them and I went to bed.

“I fell asleep very quickly, for I sleep like an old sea-dog.

“I was roused about daybreak, by my servant, who brought me some warm water for shaving.

“As soon as I had my eyes open, I demanded:

“ ‘And Kérandec?’

“The man hesitated, then he stammered:

“ ‘Oh, he came back, sir, after midnight, so drunk he could not walk, and the big Kesmagan woman too, and the nurse too. I verily believe they had slept in a ditch, so that the little baby was dead, which they hadn’t even noticed.’

“I leaped out of bed, shouting:

“ ‘The child is dead!’

“ ‘Yes, sir. They carried it to Mother Kérandec. When she saw it, she began to cry; then they made her drink to comfort her.’

“ ‘What, they made her drink?’

“ ‘Yes, sir. But I only learned that this morning, just now. As Kérandec had neither brandy nor money, he took the lamp oil that you had given them, sir, and all four of them drank it, as much as was left in the bottle. And now the Kérandec woman is very ill.’

“I had flung on my clothes with all haste, and, snatching up a stick, with the determination to thrash all these human beasts, I ran to my gardener’s house.

“The woman in the bed was rolling in agony, stupefied with paraffin, beside the blue corpse of the child.

“Kérandec, the nurse, and the big Kesmagan woman were snoring on the ground.

“I had to look to the wife, who died towards noon.”

The old doctor was silent. He took up the bottle of brandy, poured out a fresh glass and, once more flashing the lamplight across the tawny liquor so that it seemed to fill his glass with the translucent essence of dissolved topazes, he swallowed the treacherous and gleaming liquid at a gulp.

The Unknown

We were talking of lucky adventures and each of us had an odd happening to relate, delightful and unexpected encounters, in a railway carriage, in a hotel, abroad, on a seashore. Seashores, said Roger des Annettes, were uncommonly propitious for a love-affair.

Gontran, who had said nothing, was appealed to.

“Paris is still the happiest hunting-ground of all,” said he. “With a woman, as with a book, we appreciate one more highly in a place where we never expected to find one; but the finest specimens are found only in Paris.”

He was silent for some moments, then added:

“God, how adorable they are! Go out into our streets on any spring morning. They look as if they had come up like flowers, the little darlings pattering along beside the houses. What a charming, charming, charming sight! The scent of violets reaches us from the pavement; the bunches of violets that pass us in the slow-moving carts pushed on by the hawkers. The town is alive with spring, and we look at the women. Christ, how tempting they are in their light frocks, thin frocks through which their skin gleams! One strolls along, nose down to the scent and senses on fire; one strolls along and one sniffs them out and waylays them. Such mornings are utterly divine.

“You notice her approaching in the distance, a hundred paces away you can find out and recognise the woman who will be delightful at close range. By a flower in her hat, a movement of her head, the swing of her body, you know her. She comes. You say to yourself: ‘Attention, eyes front!’ and walk past her with your eyes devouring her.

“Is she a slip of a girl running errands for a shop, a young woman coming from church or going to visit her lover? What’s the odds! Her breast shows rounded under her transparent bodice. Oh, if only one might thrust a finger down beneath it⁠—a finger, or one’s lips! Does she look shy or bold, is her head dark or fair? What’s the odds! The swift passage of this woman, as she flits past, sends a thrill down your spine. And how desire haunts us until evening for the woman we have met in such fashion! I’ll swear I’ve treasured the memory of a round twenty, of the dear creatures seen once or ten times like this, and I would have fallen madly in love with them if I had known them more intimately.

“But there you are, the women we cherish most fiercely are the ones we never know. Have you noticed it? It’s very odd. Every now and then one catches a glimpse of women the mere sight of whom rouses in us the wildest desire. But one never more than glimpses them. For my part, when I think of all the adorable creatures whom I have jostled in the streets of Paris, I could hang myself for rage. Where are they? Who are they? Where could I find them again, see them again? There is a proverb which says that we are always rubbing elbows with happiness, and I’ll take my oath that I’ve more than once walked past the woman who could have snared me like a linnet with the allure of her fragrant body.”

Roger des Annettes had been listening with a smile, and answered:

“I know all that as well as you. Listen what happened to me, yes, to me. About five years ago I met for the first time, on the Pont de la Concorde, a tall and rather sturdy young woman who made on me an impression⁠ ⁠… oh, an altogether amazing impression! She was a brunette, a plump brunette, with gleaming hair growing low on her forehead and eyebrows that bracketed both eyes, under their high arch that stretched from temple to temple. The shadow of a moustache on her lip set one dreaming⁠ ⁠… dreaming⁠ ⁠… as the sight of a bunch of flowers on a table stirs dreams of a beloved wood. She had a shapely figure, firm rounded breasts held proudly like a challenge, offering themselves as a temptation. Her eyes were like inkstains on the gleaming white of her skin. This girl’s eyes were not eyes, but shadowed caverns, deep open caverns in her head, through which one saw right into her, entered into her. What a veiled empty gaze, untroubled by thought and utterly as lovely!

“I imagined her to be a Jewess. I followed her. More than one man turned to look after her. She walked with a slightly swaggering gait, a little graceless but very disturbing. She took a cab in the Place de la Concorde. And I stood there like a stuck pig, beside the Obelisk; I stood transfixed by the fiercest passion of longing that had ever assailed me in my life.

“I remembered her for at least three weeks, then I forgot her.

“Six months later I saw her again in the Rue de la Paix, and at sight of her my heart leaped as if I had caught sight of some mistress whom I had loved to distraction. I halted the better to watch her approach. As she passed me, almost touching me, I seemed to be standing in the mouth of a furnace. Then, as she drew away, I felt as if a cool wind were blowing across my face. I did not follow her. I was afraid of committing some folly, afraid of myself.

“Again and again I saw her in my dreams. You know what such obsessions are.

“It was a year before I found her again; then, one evening at sunset, about the month of May, I recognised her in a woman who was walking in front of me up the Champs-Élysées.

“The Arc de l’Étoile lifted its sombre outline against the flaming curtain of the sky. A golden dust, a mist of rosy light hung in the air, it was one of those glorious evenings which are the immortal glory of Paris.

“I followed her, wild with the longing to speak to her, to kneel at her feet, to tell her of the emotion which was choking me.

“Twice I walked past her in order to turn and meet her again. Twice, as I passed her, I experienced again that sensation of fiery heat which had come over me in the Rue de la Paix.

“She looked at me. Then I saw her enter a house in the Rue de Presbourg. I waited two hours in a doorway. She did not come out. At last I decided to question the concierge. He did not appear to understand me. ‘She must have been a caller,’ he said.

“And it was eight months before I saw her again.

“Then one January morning, during a spell of Arctic cold, I was on my way down the Boulevard Malesherbes and running to warm myself, when at the corner of a street I collided so violently with a woman that she dropped a small parcel.

“I began apologies. It was she!

“For a moment I stood still, stunned by the suddenness of the shock; then, giving her back the parcel she had been carrying in her hand, I said abruptly:

“ ‘I am distressed and overjoyed, madame, to have rushed into you like this. Will you believe me that for more than two years I have noticed you, admired you, longed cruelly to make your acquaintance, and I could not manage to find out who you were nor where you lived? Pardon words like these, ascribe them to my passionate desire to be numbered among those who have the right to speak to you. Such a feeling could not wrong you, could it? You do not know me. I am Baron Roger des Annettes. Make your own inquiries: you will be told that I am a man you can admit to your house. If you refuse my request now, you will make me the most miserable wretch alive. I implore you, be kind, give me, allow me the chance to visit you.’

“She regarded me intently, out of her strange lustreless eyes, and answered smiling:

“ ‘Give me your address. I will come to your house.’

“I was so utterly dumbfounded that I must have shown it. But I am never long in recovering from such shocks and I hastened to give her a card, which she slipped into her pocket with a swift gesture, with a hand evidently used to manipulating clandestine letters.

“Becoming bold, I stammered:

“ ‘When shall I see you?’

“She hesitated, as if she had to make a complicated calculation, no doubt trying to recollect just what she had to do with each hour of her time; then she murmured:

“ ‘Sunday morning, is that right for you?’

“ ‘I am quite sure that it is all right.’

“Then she went away, after she had searched my face, judged me, summed me up, dissected me with that heavy insensible stare that seemed to leave something on one’s skin, a kind of viscous fluid, as if her glance flung out on to human beings one of those dense liquids which devilfish use to cloud the water and lull their prey to sleep.

“All the time until Sunday, I gave myself up to the most desperate cudgelling of my wits, in the effort to make up my mind what she was and ascertain the correct attitude to adopt to her.

“Ought I to give her money? How much?

“I decided to buy a piece of jewellery, an uncommonly charming piece of jewellery too, and I placed it, in its case, on the mantelshelf.

“I waited for her, after a restless night.

“She arrived about ten o’clock, quite calm, quite placid, and gave me her hand as if we were old friends. I offered her a seat, I relieved her of her hat, her veil, her furs, her muff. Then, slightly embarrassed, I began to press her somewhat more hardily, for I had no time to lose.

“She asked for nothing better, and we had not exchanged twenty words before I began to undress her. She herself continued this ticklish business that I never succeed in finishing: I prick myself on pins, I twist strings into inextricable knots instead of undoing them; I mismanage and confuse everything, I delay it all and I lose my head.

“Do you know any moment in life, my dear, more marvellous than the moments when you are watching⁠—standing just far enough away and using just enough discretion to avoid startling that ostrich modesty all women affect⁠—a woman who is stripping herself for you of all the rustling garments that fall round her feet, one after another?

“And what is prettier, too, than the gestures with which they put off those adorable garments that slip to the ground, empty and stretched indolently out as if they had just been struck dead? How glorious and intoxicating is the revelation of her flesh, her naked arms and breasts after her bodice is off, and how disturbing the lines of her body glimpsed under the last veil of all!

“But all at once I saw an amazing thing, a black stain between her shoulders; for she had turned her back to me: a wide stain standing vividly out, black as night. I had promised, moreover, not to look at her.

“What was it? I had not the least doubt what it was, however, and the memory of that clearly visible moustache, the eyebrows joined above the eyes, of that mop of hair which covered her head like a helmet, ought to have prepared me for this shock.

“I was none the less dumbfounded and my mind was thronged suddenly with swift thoughts and strange remembered things. I imagined that I was looking at one of those enchantresses from the Thousand and One Nights, one of those fatal and faithless creatures who exist only to drag mortal men into unknown abysses. I thought of Solomon making the Queen of Sheba walk over a mirror to assure himself that she had not a cloven hoof.

“And⁠ ⁠… and when it came to the point of singing her my song of love, I discovered that I had no voice left, not even a trickle of sound, my dear. Or let’s say I had a voice like a eunuch, which at first astonished and at last thoroughly displeased her, for she remarked, clothing herself with all dispatch:

“ ‘There was not much point in putting me to this trouble, was there?’

“I wanted her to accept the ring bought for her, but she said deliberately and very stiffly: ‘What do you take me for, Monsieur?’ so that I crimsoned to the ears under this accumulation of humiliations. And she departed without adding another word.

“And that is all there is to my adventure. But the worst of it is that, now, I am in love with her, and madly in love.

“I cannot see a woman without thinking of her. All others repel me, disgust me, in so far as they do not resemble her. I cannot press a kiss on another cheek without seeing her cheek beside the one that I am caressing, and without suffering agonies from the unappeased desire which torments me.

“She is present at all my rendezvous, at all the caresses that she spoils for me and renders hateful to me. She is always there, clothed or naked, my real mistress; she is there, pressed close to the other woman, standing or lying down, visible and unattainable. And I believe now that she was in very truth a woman under a spell, bearing between her shoulders a mysterious talisman.

“Who is she? Even now I do not know. I have met her twice again. I bowed to her. She made not the slightest return to my greeting, she pretended not to know me at all. Who is she? An Asiatic perhaps? Most likely an Eastern Jewess. Yes, a Jewess. I am convinced she is a Jewess. But why? Yes, why indeed? I do not know.”

Blue and White

Slowly, slowly, over the heavy blue water, transparently, liquidly, blue, my boat, my dear little boat, all white with a blue border, was gliding through the blue light.

The villas, the pretty white villas, gazed out through their open windows upon the Mediterranean, that lapped the walls of their gardens, their beautiful gardens, filled with palm-trees and aloes, trees forever green, and eternally blooming plants.

I told the sailor who was rowing me lazily to stop at the little door of my friend Pol. And I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Pol, Pol, Pol!”

He appeared on his balcony, a little bewildered, like a man roused from sleep.

The blazing noonday sun was blinding and he raised his hand to his eyes.

I shouted: “Do you care to take a row?”

He replied: “I will be down in a moment.”

And a few minutes later he entered my little skiff.

I instructed the sailor to pull out to the open sea.

Pol had brought his newspaper, which he had not read that morning, and lying at the bottom of the boat, he began to peruse it.

I was looking at the coast. As we pulled away from the shore, the entire town rose before us, the pretty white town, that lay in a circle at the edge of the water. Above it rose the first mountain, the first ledge, covered by a great pine forest, dotted with villas, with white villas, that looked like the scattered eggs of some gigantic bird. The villas became scarcer toward the summit of the mountain and at the very top was one large, square one, a hotel no doubt, so white that it appeared to have been freshly painted.

My sailor was rowing leisurely, like the calm Southerner that he was; and as the sun, the great blazing sun in the middle of the blue sky, hurt my eyes, I gazed at the water, the deep, blue water, churned by the oars.

And I saw, behind the green mountain, away in the distance, the huge white mountain appear. It could not be seen a moment ago. Now, it began to show its great wall of snow, its high shining wall, enclosing with a circle of icy summits, of white summits, sharp as pyramids or round as shields, the coast, the warm, perfumed coast, with its palms and its anemones.

I said to Pol: “There is the snow; look.” And I showed him the Alps.

The great white chain unrolled itself endlessly and grew in size with every stroke of the oar. The snow seemed so close, so thick, so threatening, that I was afraid and felt chilled.

Then, farther down, we discovered a straight black line, which cut the mountain in two, there where the fiery sun had said to the icy snow: “Thou shalt not go farther.”

Pol, who was holding his newspaper, said: “The news from Pie’mont is terrible. The avalanches have destroyed eighteen villages. Listen to this”; and he read aloud:

“The news from the valley of Aosta is appalling. The crazed population knows no rest. Village upon village is being buried beneath the snow. In the valley of Lucerne, the casualties are as numerous. At Locane, seven deaths; at Sparone, fifteen; at Romborgogno, eight; at Ronco, Valprato, Campiglia, which is buried in snow, lie thirty-two corpses. At Pirrone, at Saint-Damien, at Musternale, at Demonte, at Masselo, at Chiabrano, many deaths have also been reported. The village of Balziglia has completely disappeared under the avalanche. In the memory of man there has not been such a terrible calamity.

“Horrible details are reported on every side: Here is one in a thousand.

“A man of Groscavallo lived with his wife and two children.

“The wife had been sick for a long time. On Sunday, the day of the disaster, the father was taking care of his wife, aided by the daughter, while the son was visiting a neighbor.

“Suddenly, an enormous avalanche covered the hut and crushed it. A big log cut the man almost in two, and he died instantly.

“The mother was spared by the same log, but one of her arms was pinned under it and crushed.

“With her free hand she was able to reach her daughter, also pinned under the mass of debris. The poor child screamed for help nearly a day and a half. Now and then she would say: ‘Mother, put a pillow under my head, it hurts so.’

“Only the mother survived.”

We contemplated the mountain, the enormous white mountain that grew and grew, while the other one, the green one, seemed now only a dwarf at its feet.

The town had vanished in the distance.

Nothing surrounding us but the blue sea, which extended under us, and before us, while behind us rose the white Alps, the colossal Alps, in their heavy mantles of snow.

Above our heads, a light blue sky suffused by golden sunlight! What a beautiful day!

Pol resumed: “It must be a terrible death, to be buried alive under that crushing mass!”

Gently rocked by the waves, lulled by the rhythm of the oars, far from the land whose white crest was no longer visible, I thought of the poor little human beings swarming over this grain of sand lost in the magnitude of the universe; of the miserable flock of beings mowed down by disease, crushed by avalanches, shaken and terrified by earthquakes; of those poor little creatures that cannot be distinguished a mile away, and that are so vain, so quarrelsome, so foolish, and have but a few days of life. I compared the gnats that subsist a few hours, to the beasts that live a season, to the men who live a few years, to the worlds that endure a few centuries. What is it all?

Paul remarked: “I know a good snow story.”

And I asked him to tell it.

He began: “Do you remember big Radier, Jules Radier, the handsome Jules?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“Well, you know how proud he was of his hair, his face, his physique, his strength, his mustache. All his attractions were greater than other men’s, in his eyes. And he was a heartbreaker, one of these handsome dummies that are very successful, one does not know exactly why. They are neither intelligent, nor clever, nor refined, but they possess the attributes of gallant ruffians. That is sufficient.

“Last winter, Paris was buried in snow and I went to a ball given by a demimondaine you know, the beautiful Sylvia Raymond.”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“Jules Radier was there, having been brought by a friend, and I could see that our hostess liked him very well. So I thought: ‘Here is a chap who will not be greatly bothered by the snow tonight.’

“Then I turned my attention to finding a subject of attraction in the crowd of pretty girls.

“But I did not succeed. Not every man is a Jules Radier, and so I left all alone, about one o’clock in the morning.

“As I lived quite near, I thought I would walk home. Suddenly, at the corner of the street, I saw a strange sight:

“A tall black shadow, a man, was walking up and down in the snow, stamping his feet. Was he a lunatic? I approached him with caution. It was Jules. He was holding his pumps in one hand, and his socks in the other. His trousers were pulled above his knees, and he was running around in a circle, like in a riding-ring, soaking his bare feet in the icy mire, seeking the spots where the snow was clean, and white, and deep. And he was jumping around like a crazy man and executing a series of steps like a floor-polisher.

“I was bewildered.

“I muttered: ‘Gracious! Have you lost your mind?’

“Without pausing in his evolutions, he replied: ‘Not at all, I am washing my feet. Do you know that I have captured Sylvia? What luck! And I believe that I am to be favored this very night. One must strike the iron while it is hot. Of course, I had not looked forward to this, otherwise I should have taken a bath.’ ”

Pol concluded: “So you see that snow has some use after all.”

My sailor, tired out, had stopped rowing. Our boat was motionless on the smooth water.

I said to the man: “Turn back.” And he took up his oars.

As we neared the coast, the tall white mountain shrank, disappearing behind the other mountain, the green one.

The town reappeared, similar to foam, white foam edging blue water. The villas showed again between the trees. A white line of snow, composed of the mountaintops that lost themselves to the right, toward Nice, was alone visible.

Then, a lone crest remained, a tall mountain crest fast disappearing behind the neighboring coast.

And soon nothing could be seen but the shores and the town, the white town, and the blue sea, over which my little boat, my dear little boat, glided to the rhythmic splashing of the oars.

Our Friends the English

A small leather-bound on the upholstered seat of the railway carriage. I took it up and opened it. It was a traveller’s diary, dropped by its owner.

Here are the last three pages of it copied out.

February 1st. Mentone, capital of the Consumptives, noted for its pulmonary tubercles. Quite different from the potato tubercle, which lives and grows in the earth for the purpose of nourishing and fattening men, this variety lives and grows in man for the purpose of nourishing and fattening the earth.

I got this scientific definition from a friendly doctor here, a very learned man.

Am looking for an hotel. Am directed to the Grrrrand Hotel of Russia, England, Germany, and the Netherlands. Pay homage to the landlord’s cosmopolitan intellect and book a room in this caravanserai, which looks empty, it is so big.

Walk round the town, which is pretty and admirably situated at the foot of an imposing mountain peak (see guidebook). Meet various people who look ill, being taken for a walk by others who look bored. Have observed several people wearing comforters (note this, all naturalists who may be becoming anxious at the disappearance of these garments!).

Six p.m. Return for dinner. The tables are laid in an enormous room which could shelter three hundred guests; as a matter of fact, it holds just twenty-two. They come in one after another. The first is a tall thin clean-shaven Englishman. He is wearing a frock-coat with a long skirt, fitting closely at the waist. His thin arms are enveloped in its sleeves like an umbrella sheathed in its cover. This garment reminds me at the same time of an ecclesiastical cassock and the civilian uniforms worn by ex-army captains and army pensioners. Down the front elevation runs a row of buttons clad in black serge like their master, and sewn very close to one another; they look like an army of woodlice. The buttonholes stand in a row opposite and have the air of making unseemly advances to the modest little buttons.

The waistcoat fastens on the same system. The owner of the garment does not look precisely a sporty boy.

He bows to me; I return the compliment.

Next item⁠—three ladies, all English, a mother and two daughters. Each wears a helping of whipped white of egg on the top of her head; rather remarkable. The daughters are old, like the mother. The mother is old, like the daughters. All three are thin, flat-chested, tall, stiff, and tired-looking; their front teeth are designed to intimidate plates and men.

Other residents arrive, all English. A solitary one is fat and red-faced, with white whiskers. Every woman (there are fourteen) has a helping of white of egg on her head. I observe that this crowning delicacy is made of white lace (or is it tulle? I don’t know). It appears to be unsweetened. All the ladies look as though they were pickled in vinegar, although there are several young girls, not bad-looking, but with no figures and with no apparent promise of them. I am reminded of Bouilhet’s lines:

Qu’importe ton sein maigre, ô mon objet aimé!
On est plus près du coeur quand la poitrine est plate;
Et je vois comme un merle en sa cage enfermé,
L’amour entre les os, rêvant sur une patte.22

Two young men, younger than the first, are likewise imprisoned in sacerdotal frock-coats. They are lay priests, with wives and children; they are called parsons. They look more serious, less unbending, less kindly than our own priests. I would not take a hogshead of them for a pint of ours. But that’s a matter of taste.

As soon as all the residents are present, the head-parson begins to speak, and recites, in English, a sort of long benedicite; the whole table listens to it with that pickled look in their faces.

My dinner being thus dedicated, despite me, to the God of Israel and Albion, all started their soup.

Solemn silence reigned in the huge room⁠—a silence which was surely not normal. I suppose the chaste sheep were annoyed at the invasion of a goat.

The women especially retain a stiff, starched look, as though they were afraid of dropping their headdress of whipped cream into the soup.

The head-parson, however, addresses a few words to his neighbour, the under-parson. As I have the misfortune to understand English, I observe with amazement that they are continuing a conversation, interrupted before dinner, on the texts of the prophets. Everyone listens attentively.

I am fed, always against my will, upon unbelievable quotations.

“I will provide water for him that thirsteth,” said Isaiah.

I did not know it. I knew none of the truths uttered by Jeremiah, Malachi, Ezekiel, Elijah, and Gagachias. These simple truths crawled down my ears and buzzed in my head like flies.

“Let him that is hungry ask for food!”

“The air belongeth to the birds, as the sea belongeth to the fish.”

“The fig-tree produceth figs, and the date-palm dates.”

“He who will not hear, to him knowledge is denied.”

How much greater and more profound is our great Henry Monnier, who through the lips of one man, the immortal Prud’homme, has uttered more thrilling truths than have been compiled by all the goodly fellowship of the prophets.

Confronted by the sea, he exclaims: “How beautiful is the ocean, but what a lot of good land spoilt!”

He formulates the everlasting policy of the world: “This sword is the light of my life. I can use it to defend the Power that gave it to me, and, if need be, to attack It also.”

Had I had the honour to be introduced to the English people surrounding me, I would certainly have edified them with quotations from our French prophet.

Dinner over, we went into the lounge.

I sat alone, in a corner. The British nation appeared to be hatching a plot on the other side of the room.

Suddenly a lady went to the piano.

“Ah,” thought I, “a little mee-usic. So much the better.”

She opened the instrument and sat down; the entire colony ranked itself round her like an army, the women in front, the men in the rear rank.

Were they going to sing an opera?

The head-parson, now turned choirmaster, raised his hand, then lowered it; a frightful din rose up from every throat. They were singing a hymn.

The women squalled, the men barked, the windows shook. The hotel dog howled in the yard. Another answered him from a room.

I went off in a furious temper. I went for a walk round the town. No theatre. No casino. No place of amusement. I had to go back to the hotel.

The English were still singing.

I went to bed. They went on singing. Till midnight they sang the praises of the Lord in the harshest, most hateful, most out-of-tune voices I ever heard. Maddened by the horrible spirit of imitation which drives a whole nation to such orgies, I buried my head beneath the sheets and sang:

“Je plains le Seigneur, le Seigneur dieu d’Albion,
Dont on chante la gloire au salon.
Si le Seigneur a plus d’oreille
Que son peuple fidèle,
S’il aime le talent, la beauté,
La grâce, l’esprit, la gaieté,
L’excellente mimique
Et la bonne musique,
Je plains le Seigneur
De tout mon coeur.”23

When I finally dropped off to sleep, I had fearful nightmares. I saw prophets riding upon parsons, eating white of egg off the heads of corpses.

Horrible! Horrible!

February 2nd. As soon as I was up, I asked the landlord if these barbarian invaders of his hotel made a daily practice of this frightful diversion.

“Oh, no, sir,” he answered with a smile. “Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday is a holy day to them, you know.”

I answered:

“Rien n’est sacré pour un pasteur,
Ni le sommeil du voyageur,
Ni son dîner, ni son oreille;
Mais veillez que chose pareille
Ne recommence pas, ou bien
Sans hésiter, je prends le train.”24

Somewhat surprised, the landlord promised to look into the matter.

During the day I made a delightful excursion in the hills. At night, the same benedicite. Then the drawing room. What will they do? Nothing, for an hour.

Suddenly the same lady who accompanied the hymns the day before, goes to the piano and opens it. I shiver with fright.

She plays⁠ ⁠… a waltz.

The girls begin to dance.

The head-parson beats time on his knee from force of habit. The Englishmen one after another invite the ladies; the white of egg whirls round and round and round; will it turn into sauce?

This is much better. After the waltz comes a quadrille, then a polka.

Not having been introduced, I remain alone in a corner.

February 3rd. Another charming walk to the old castle, a picturesque ruin in the hills, on every peak of which remain the remnants of ancient buildings. Nothing could be more beautiful than the ruined castles among the chaos of rocks dominated by Alpine snow-peaks (see guidebook). Wonderful country.

During dinner I introduce myself, after the French fashion, to the lady next to me. She does not answer⁠—English politeness.

In the evening, another English ball.

February 4th. Excursion to Monaco (see guidebooks).

In the evening, English ball. I am present, in the role of plague-spot.

February 5th. Excursion to San Remo (see guidebooks).

In the evening, English ball. Still in quarantine.

February 6th. Excursion to Nice (see guidebooks).

In the evening, English ball. Bed.

February 7th. Excursion to Cannes (see guidebooks).

In the evening, English ball. Have tea in my corner.

February 8th. Sunday; my revenge. Am waiting for them.

They have resumed their pickled Sunday faces, and are preparing their throats for hymns.

So before dinner I slip into the drawing room, pocket the key of the piano, and say to the porter: “If the parsons want the key, tell them I have it, and ask them to see me.”

During dinner various doubtful points in the Scriptures are discussed, texts elucidated, genealogies of biblical personages evolved.

Then they go to the drawing room. The piano is approached. Sensation.⁠—Discussion; they seem thunderstruck. The white of egg nearly flies off. The head-parson goes out, then returns. More discussion. Angry eyes are turned on me; here are the three parsons, bearing down on me in line. They are ambassadorial, really rather impressive. They bow. I get up. The eldest speaks:

“Mosieu, on me avé dit que vô avé pris la clef de la piano. Les dames vôdraient le avoir, pour chanté le cantique.”

I answer: “Sir, I can perfectly well understand the request these ladies make, but I cannot concede to it. You are a religious man, sir; so am I, and my principles, stricter, no doubt, than yours, have determined me to oppose this profanation of the divine in which you are accustomed to indulge.

“I cannot, gentlemen, permit you to employ in the service of God an instrument used on weekdays for girls to dance to. We do not give public balls in our churches, sir, nor do we play quadrilles upon the organ. The use you make of this piano offends and disgusts me. You may take back my answer to the ladies.”

The three parsons retired abashed. The ladies appeared bewildered. They sing their hymns without the piano.

February 9th. Noon. The landlord has just given me notice; I am being expelled at the general request of the English people.

I meet the three parsons, who seem to be supervising my departure. I go straight up to them and bow.

“Gentlemen,” I say, “you seem to have a deep knowledge of the Scriptures. I myself have more than a little scholarship. I even know a little Hebrew. Well, I should like to submit to you a case which profoundly troubles my Catholic conscience.

“You consider incest an abominable crime, do you not? Very well, the Bible gives us an instance of it which is very disturbing. Lot, fleeing from Sodom, was seduced, as you know, by his two daughters, and yielded to their desires, being deprived of his wife, who had been turned into a pillar of salt. Of this appalling and doubly incestuous connection were born Ammon and Moab, from whom sprang two great peoples, the Ammonites and the Moabites. Well, Ruth, the reaper who disturbed the sleep of Boaz in order to make him a father, was a Moabite.

“Do you not know Victor Hugo’s lines?

“… Ruth, une moabite,
S’était couchée aux pieds de Booz, le sein nu,
Espérant on ne sait quel rayon inconnu,
Quand viendrait du réveil la lumière subite.25

“The ‘hidden ray’ produced Obed, who was David’s ancestor.

“Now then, was not Our Lord Jesus Christ descended from David?”

The three parsons looked at one another in consternation, and did not answer.

“You will say,” I went on, “that I speak of the genealogy of Joseph, the lawful but ineffectual husband of Mary, mother of Christ. Joseph, as we all know, had nothing to do with his son’s birth. So it was Joseph who was descended from a case of incest, and not the Divine Man. Granted. But I will add two further observations. The first is that Joseph and Mary, being cousins, must have had the same ancestry; the second, that it is a disgrace that we should have to read ten pages of genealogical tree for nothing.

“We ruin our eyes learning that A begat B, who begat C, who begat D, who begat E, who begat F, and when we are almost driven off our heads by this interminable rigmarole, we come to the last one, who begat nothing. That, gentlemen, may well be called the kernel of the mystery.”

The three parsons, as one man, abruptly turned their backs on me, and fled.

Two p.m. I catch the train for Nice.

There the diary ended. Although these remarks reveal the author’s very bad taste, uninspired wit, and uncommon coarseness, yet I think they might put certain travellers on their guard against the peril of the Englishman abroad.

I should add that there are undoubtedly charming Englishmen; I have often met them. But they are rarely our fellow-guests at hotels.

Letter from a Madman

My dear doctor: I am putting myself in your hands. Do with me as you please.

I am going to tell you very frankly my strange state of mind, and you will decide whether it might not be better to have me cared for, during a certain time, in a sanitarium, rather than leave me prey to the hallucinations and sufferings that harass me.

This is the story, long and exact, of the strange sickness of my soul.

I used to live like everyone else, looking at life with man’s open, blind eyes, without wonder and without understanding. I lived as animals live, as we all live, fulfilling all the functions of existence, looking and thinking that I saw, thinking that I knew and understood what surrounded me; when one day I realized that all is false.

It was a phrase of Montesquieu’s that suddenly illuminated my mind. Here it is: “One organ more or less in our mechanism would have caused us to have a different intelligence.⁠ ⁠… In short, all laws established on the basis of our mechanism being of a certain kind would be different if our mechanism were not of this kind.”

I reflected on that for months, for months and months, and little by little I was permeated by a strange clarity, and this clarity has brought on darkness.

Actually, our organs are the only intermediaries between the external world and ourselves. That is to say, our internal existence, what constitutes the I, makes contact by means of certain networks of nerves, with the external existence that constitutes the world.

Now, not to mention the fact that we fail to comprehend this external existence because of its proportions, its duration, its innumerable and impenetrable properties, its origins, its future or its ends, its distant forms and its infinite manifestations, our organs supply us, concerning that portion of it which we are able to understand at all, with information as uncertain as it is sparse.

Uncertain, because it is solely the properties of our organs which determine for us the apparent properties of matter.

Sparse, because since our senses are but five, the field of their investigations and the nature of their revelations are very restricted.

Let me explain. The eye acquaints us with dimensions, forms, and colors. It deceives us on these three points.

It can reveal to us only objects and beings of medium dimensions, in proportion to human size⁠—thus causing us to apply the word large to certain things and the word small to certain others, solely because its weakness does not permit it to comprehend what is too vast or too minute for it. As a result, it knows and sees almost nothing; almost the entire universe remains hidden from it⁠—the star in space and the animalcule in a drop of water.

Even if it had a hundred million times its normal power, if it perceived in the air we breathe all the races of invisible beings, as well as the inhabitants of neighboring planets, there would still exist infinite numbers of races of yet smaller beings, and worlds so very distant that it could not reach them.

Thus all our ideas of proportion are false, since there is no possible limit of largeness or smallness.

Our estimation of dimensions and forms has no absolute value, being determined solely by the power of one organ and by constant comparison with ourselves.

Furthermore, the eye is also incapable of seeing the transparent. It is deceived by a flawless sheet of glass. It confuses it with the air, which it also does not see.

Let us go on to color.

Color exists because our eye is so constituted that it transmits to the brain, in the form of color, the various ways in which bodies absorb and decompose, according to their chemical composition, the light rays which strike them.

The varying degrees of this absorption and decomposition constitute shades and tints.

Thus this organ imposes on the mind its manner of seeing, or rather its arbitrary manner of recording dimensions and estimating the relations between light and matter.

Let us examine hearing.

Even to a greater extent than with the eye, we are the dupes and playthings of this whimsical organ.

Two colliding bodies produce a certain disturbance of the atmosphere. This movement causes to vibrate in our ear a certain small membrane which immediately changes into sound what is really only vibration.

Nature is mute. But the eardrum possesses the miraculous property of transmitting to us in the form of a sense, a sense that differs according to the number of vibrations, all the quiverings of the invisible waves in space.

This metamorphosis accomplished by the auditory nerve in the short journey from ear to brain has enabled us to create a strange art, music, the most poetic and the most precise of the arts, vague as a dream and exact as algebra.

What shall we say of taste and smell? Would we know the flavors and the quality of foods if it were not for the bizarre properties of our nose and our palate?

Humanity could, however, exist without hearing, without taste, and without smell⁠—that is, without any notion of sound, taste, or odor.

Thus, if we had several fewer organs, we would be ignorant of things that are admirable and strange, but if we had several additional organs, we should discover about us an infinity of other things that we should never suspect due to lack of means of ascertaining them.

Thus, we are deceived when we judge what we know, and we are surrounded by unexplored things that we do not know.

Thus, everything is uncertain and capable of being estimated in different ways.

Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.

Let us formulate that certainty by making use of the old dictum: “What is true on one side of the Pyrenees is false on the other.”

And let us say: “What is true within the field of our organism is false outside it.”

Two and two do not necessarily make four outside our atmosphere.

What is true on earth is false beyond, whence I conclude that such imperfectly perceived mysteries as electricity, hypnotic sleep, thought transference, suggestion, all the magnetic phenomena, remain hidden from us only because nature has not furnished us with the organ or organs necessary for their understanding.

After having convinced myself that everything revealed to me by my senses exists, as I perceive it, only for me, and would be totally different for another being otherwise constituted, after having concluded that a humanity differently made would have, concerning the world, concerning life, concerning everything, ideas absolutely opposed to ours, because agreement of beliefs results only from the similarity of human organs, and divergences of opinion only from the slight differences in the functioning of our nervous systems, I made a superhuman effort of thought to infer the impenetrable that surrounds me.

Have I gone mad?

I told myself: I am enclosed in things unknown. I thought of a man without ears inferring sound, as we infer so many hidden mysteries, a man establishing the existence of acoustical phenomena of which he could determine neither the nature nor the source. And I became afraid of everything around me, afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment all is limitless, what remains? The void⁠—is it not so? What is there in that apparent void?

And that confused terror of the supernatural that has haunted mankind since the birth of the world is legitimate, since the supernatural is nothing but that which remains veiled from us!

Then I understood dread. It seemed to me that I was on the verge of discovering a secret of the universe.

I tried to sharpen my organs, to excite them, to make them momentarily perceive the invisible.

I told myself: Everything is a being. The cry that passes through the air is a being comparable to an animal, since it is born, moves, transforms itself and dies. Thus the fearful mind that believes in non-corporeal beings is not wrong. What are they?

How many men have a presentiment of them, shudder at their approach, tremble at their barely perceptible contact! We feel them near us, all about us, but we cannot distinguish them, for we haven’t the eye that could see them, or rather the unknown organ that could detect them.

Then, more than anyone else, I felt them, these supernatural passersby. Beings or mysteries? I do not know. I could not say what they were, but I could always distinguish their presence. And I have seen⁠—seen⁠—an invisible being, as much as one can see such a thing.

I passed entire nights sitting motionless at my table, my head in my hands, thinking of them. Often I believed than an intangible, or rather an imperceptible body, was hovering over my hair. It did not touch me, not being of fleshy essence, but of an essence that was imponderable, unknowable.

Then, one night, I heard my floor creak behind me. It creaked in a strange way. I shuddered. I turned. I saw nothing. And I thought no more of it.

But the next night, at the same hour, I heard the same sound. I was so frightened that I stood up, sure, sure, sure that I was not alone in my room. Nothing, however, was to be seen. The air was limpid, transparent everywhere. My two lamps made every corner bright.

The sound did not begin again, and I gradually became calmer; still, I remained uneasy, and often turned to look.

The next night I shut myself in my room early, wondering how I might succeed in seeing the Invisible that was visiting me.

And I saw It. I almost died of terror.

I had lit all the candles on my mantel and in my chandelier. The room was lighted as though for a party. My two lamps were burning on my table.

Opposite me, my bed, an old oak four-poster. To the right, my fireplace. To the left, my door, which I had locked. Behind me, a very large closet with mirrored doors. I looked at myself in the mirrors for a moment. My eyes were strange, the pupils very dilated.

Then I sat at my table as usual.

The sound had occurred, the preceding nights, at nine twenty-two. I waited. When the exact moment arrived, I was conscious of an indescribable sensation, as though a fluid, an irresistible fluid, had penetrated every part of my body, drowning my soul in a dread that was excruciating and rapturous. And the floor creaked, just behind me.

I jumped up, turning so fast that I almost fell. All was as clear as daylight, and I did not see myself in the mirror! It was empty, bright, full of light. I was not in it, and yet I was just opposite it. I stared, terrified. I dared not go near it, sensing full well that it was between us, it, the Invisible, and that it was concealing me from the glass.

Oh! How terrified I was! And then I began to see myself, as in a fog, in the depths of the mirror, as though through water; and it seemed to me that this water was sliding from left to right, slowly, making my image more precise from second to second. It was like the end of an eclipse. What was hiding me had no outlines, but a sort of opaque transparency, gradually becoming clearer.

And finally I was able to see myself perfectly, as I do every day when I look at myself.

So, I have seen it!

And I have never seen it again.

But I am waiting for it, and I feel that I am losing my mind as I wait.

I spend hours, nights, days, weeks, before my mirror, waiting! It does not come.

It knew that I had seen it. But I feel that I shall wait for it always, until death; that I shall wait without rest before that mirror, like a huntsman on the watch.

And in that mirror I am beginning to see mad images, monsters, hideous corpses, all sorts of frightful beasts, dreadful beings, all the unlikely visions that must haunt the minds of madmen.

That is my confession, Doctor. Tell me: what must I do?

Old Mongilet

In the office old Mongilet was looked upon as an eccentric. He was an old employee, a good-natured creature, who had never been outside Paris but once in his life.

It was the end of July, and each of us, every Sunday, went to roll in the grass, or bathe in the river in the country near by. Asnières, Argenteuil, Chatou, Bougival, Maisons, Poissy, had their habitués and their ardent admirers. We argued about the merits and advantages of all these places, celebrated and delightful to all employees in Paris.

Old Mongilet would say:

“You are like a lot of sheep! A nice place, this country you talk of!”

And we would ask:

“Well, how about you, Mongilet? Don’t you ever go on an excursion?”

“Yes, indeed. I go in an omnibus. When I have had a good luncheon, without any hurry, at the wine shop below, I look up my route with a plan of Paris, and the timetable of the lines and connections. And then I climb up on top of the bus, open my umbrella and off we go. Oh, I see lots of things, more than you, I bet! I change my surroundings. It is as though I were taking a journey across the world, the people are so different in one street and another. I know my Paris better than anyone. And then, there is nothing more amusing than the entresols. You would not believe what one sees in there at a glance. One can guess a domestic scene simply at the sight of the face of a man who is roaring; one is amused on passing by a barber’s shop, to see the barber leave his customer whose face is covered with lather to look out in the street. One exchanges heartfelt glances with the milliners just for fun, as one has no time to alight. Ah, how many things one sees!

“It is the drama, the real, the true, the drama of nature, seen as the horses trot by. Heavens! I would not give my excursions in the omnibus for all your stupid excursions in the woods.”

“Come and try it, Mongilet, come to the country once just to see.”

“I was there once,” he replied, “twenty years ago, and you will never catch me there again.”

“Tell us about it, Mongilet.”

“If you wish to hear it. This is how it was: You knew Boivin, the old clerk, whom we called Boileau?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“He was my office chum. The rascal had a house at Colombes and always invited me to spend Sunday with him. He would say:

“ ‘Come along, Maculotte (he called me Maculotte for fun). You will see what a nice walk we shall take.’

“I let myself be entrapped like an animal, and set out, one morning by the 8 o’clock train. I arrived at a kind of town, a country town where there is nothing to see, and I at length found my way to an old wooden door with an iron bell, at the end of an alley between two walls.

“I rang, and waited a long time, and at last the door was opened. What was it that opened it? I could not tell at the first glance. A woman or an ape? The creature was old, ugly, covered with old clothes that looked dirty and wicked. It had chickens’ feathers in its hair and looked as though it would devour me.

“ ‘What do you want?’ she said.

“ ‘M. Boivin.’

“ ‘What do you want of him, of M. Boivin?’

“I felt ill at ease on being questioned by this fury. I stammered: ‘Why⁠—he expects me.’

“ ‘Ah, it is you who are coming to lunch?’

“ ‘Yes,’ I stammered, trembling.

“Then, turning toward the house, she cried in an angry tone:

“ ‘Bovin, here is your man!’

“It was my friend’s wife. Little Boivin appeared immediately on the threshold of a sort of barrack of plaster covered with zinc, that looked like a foot-warmer. He wore white duck trousers covered with stains and a dirty Panama hat.

“After shaking my hands warmly, he took me into what he called his garden. It was at the end of another alleyway enclosed by high walls and was a little square the size of a pocket-handkerchief, surrounded by houses that were so high that the sun could reach it only two or three hours in the day. Pansies, pinks, wallflowers and a few rose bushes were languishing in this well without air, and hot as an oven from the refraction of heat from the roofs.

“ ‘I have no trees,’ said Boivin, ‘but the neighbours’ walls take their place. I have as much shade as in a wood.’

“Then he took hold of a button of my coat and said in a low tone:

“ ‘You can do me a service. You saw the wife. She is not agreeable, eh? Today, as I had invited you, she gave me clean clothes; but if I spot them all is lost. I counted on you to water my plants.’

“I agreed. I took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves, and began to work the handle of a kind of pump that wheezed, puffed and rattled like a consumptive as it emitted a thread of water like a Wallace drinking fountain. It took me ten minutes to fill the watering-pot, and I was in a bath of perspiration. Boivin directed me:

“ ‘Here⁠—this plant⁠—a little more; enough⁠—now this one.’

“The watering-pot leaked and my feet got more water than the flowers. The bottoms of my trousers were soaking and covered with mud. And twenty times running I kept it up, soaking my feet afresh each time, and perspiring anew as I worked the handle of the pump. And when I was tired out and wanted to stop, Boivin, in a tone of entreaty, said as he put his hand on my arm:

“ ‘Just one more watering-pot full⁠—just one, and that will be all.’

“To thank me he gave me a rose, a big rose, but hardly had it touched my buttonhole than it fell to pieces, leaving only a hard little green knot as a decoration. I was surprised, but said nothing.

“Mme. Boivin’s voice was heard in the distance: ‘Are you ever coming? When I tell you lunch is ready!’

“We went towards the foot-warmer. If the garden was in the shade, the house, on the other hand, was in the blazing sun, and the sweating room in the Turkish bath is not so hot as was my friend’s dining room.

“Three plates at the side of which were some half-washed forks, were placed on a table of yellow wood in the middle of which stood an earthenware dish containing warmed-up boiled beef and potatoes. We began to eat.

“A large water bottle full of water lightly colored with wine attracted my attention. Boivin, embarrassed, said to his wife:

“ ‘See here, my dear, just on a special occasion, are you not going to give us some plain wine?’

“She looked at him furiously.

“ ‘So that you may both get tipsy, is that it, and stay here gabbing all day? Thanks for the special occasion!’

“He said no more. After the stew she brought in another dish of potatoes cooked with bacon. When this dish was finished, still in silence, she announced:

“ ‘That is all! Now get out!’

“Boivin looked at her in astonishment.

“ ‘But the pigeon⁠—the pigeon you plucked this morning?’

“She put her hands on her hips:

“ ‘Perhaps you have not had enough? Because you bring people here is no reason why we should devour all that there is in the house. What is there for me to eat this evening?’

“We rose. Boivin whispered:

“ ‘Wait for me a second, and we will skip.’

“He went into the kitchen where his wife had gone, and I overheard him say:

“ ‘Give me twenty sous, my dear.’

“ ‘What do you want with twenty sous?’

“ ‘Why, one does not know what may happen. It is always better to have some money.’

“She yelled so that I should hear:

“ ‘No, I will not give it to you! As the man has had luncheon here, the least he can do is to pay your expenses for the day.’

“Boivin came back to fetch me. As I wished to be polite I bowed to the mistress of the house, stammering:

“ ‘Madame⁠—many thanks⁠—kind welcome.’

“ ‘That’s all right,’ she replied. ‘But do not bring him back drunk, for you will have to answer to me, you know!’

“We set out. We had to cross a perfectly bare plain under the burning sun. I attempted to gather a flower along the road and gave a cry of pain. It had hurt my hand frightfully. They call these plants nettles. And, everywhere, there was a smell of manure, enough to turn your stomach.

“Boivin said, ‘Have a little patience and we will reach the river bank.’

“We reached the river. Here there was an odour of mud and dirty water, and the sun blazed down on the water so that it burned my eyes. I begged Boivin to go under cover somewhere. He took me into a kind of shanty filled with men, a river boatmen’s tavern.

“He said:

“ ‘This does not look very grand, but it is very comfortable.’

“I was hungry. I ordered an omelet. But lo and behold, at the second glass of wine, that beggar, Boivin, lost his head, and I understand why his wife gave him water diluted.

“He got up, declaimed, wanted to show his strength, interfered in a quarrel between two drunken men who were fighting, and, but for the landlord, who came to the rescue, we should both have been killed.

“I dragged him away, holding him up until we reached the first bush, where I deposited him. I lay down beside him and, it seems, I fell asleep. We must certainly have slept a long time, for it was dark when I awoke. Boivin was snoring at my side. I shook him; he rose but he was still drunk, though a little less so.

“We set out through the darkness across the plain. Boivin said he knew the way. He made me turn to the left, then to the right, then to the left. We could see neither sky nor earth, and found ourselves lost in the midst of a kind of forest of wooden stakes, that came as high as our noses. It was a vineyard and these were the supports. There was not a single light on the horizon. We wandered about in this vineyard for about an hour or two, hesitating, reaching out our arms without coming to the end, for we kept retracing our steps.

“At length Boivin fell against a stake that tore his cheek and he remained in a sitting posture on the ground, uttering with all his might long and resounding hallos, while I screamed ‘Help! Help!’ as loud as I could, lighting wax-matches to show the way to our rescuers, and also to keep up my courage.

“At last a belated peasant heard us and put us on our right road. I took Boivin to his home, but as I was leaving him on the threshold of his garden, the door opened suddenly and his wife appeared, a candle in her hand. She frightened me horribly.

“As soon as she saw her husband, whom she must have been waiting for since dark, she screamed, as she darted toward me:

“ ‘Ah, scoundrel, I knew you would bring him back drunk!’

“My, how I made my escape, running all the way to the station, and as I thought the fury was pursuing me I shut myself in an inner room as the train was not due for half an hour.

“That is why I never married, and why I never go out of Paris.”

Roger’s Method

I was walking with Roger one day when a street-hawker bawled in our ears:

“New method of getting rid of mothers-in-law! Buy, oh buy!”

I stopped, and said to my companion:

“Now that reminds me of a question I’ve long wanted to ask you. What is this ‘Roger’s method’ your wife talks about so often? She jokes about it in such a gay, confidential way that I take it to be some magic potion of which you hold the secret. Whenever she’s told of some young man who is exhausted and has lost his nervous strength, she turns to you and says with a smile: ‘Ah, you ought to show him Roger’s method.’ And the funniest thing of all is that you always blush.”

“Well, there’s a reason for it,” answered Roger. “If my wife really knew what she was talking about, she’d stop it mighty quick. I’ll tell you the story in strict confidence. You know I married a widow with whom I was very much in love. Now my wife has always been very free of speech, and before she became my wife we often had rather spicy little talks. After all, that’s possible with widows; they have the taste of it in their mouths, you see. She has a perfectly honest liking for good smoking-room stories. The sins of the tongue do very little harm; she’s bold, and I’m bashful; and before our wedding she liked to embarrass me with jokes and questions which were not easy for me to answer. Perhaps it was her forwardness which made me fall in love with her. And, talking of love, I was absolutely devoted to her from head to toe, and she knew it too, the little baggage.

“We decided on a quiet wedding and no honeymoon. After the religious ceremony the witnesses were to lunch with us, and then we were to go for a drive, returning to my house in the Rue du Helder for dinner. Well, the witnesses left, and off we went in the carriage; I told the coachman to take us to the Park. It was the end of June, and gorgeous weather.

“As soon as we were alone, she began to laugh.

“ ‘My dear Roger,’ she said, ‘now’s the time to show yourself gallant. See what you can do.’

“This invitation absolutely paralysed me. I kissed her hand; I told her I loved her. I even had the pluck to kiss the nape of her neck twice, but the passersby embarrassed me. And she kept on saying with a funny provoking little air: ‘What next?⁠ ⁠… What next?⁠ ⁠…’

“This ‘what next?’ drained all my strength away. After all, in a carriage, in the Park, in broad daylight, one could hardly⁠ ⁠… well, you know what I mean.

“She was amused by my obvious embarrassment. From time to time she remarked: ‘I’m very much afraid I’ve drawn a blank. You make me very uneasy.’

“I too began to be uneasy⁠—about myself. As soon as I’m scared, I become perfectly useless.

“At dinner she was charming. In order to regain my courage, I’d sent away my servant, who embarrassed me. Oh, we were perfectly well-behaved, but you know how foolish lovers are. We drank from the same glass, we ate off the same plate, with the same fork. We amused ourselves by beginning one biscuit from both ends, so that our lips met in the middle.

“ ‘I should like a little champagne,’ she said.

“I had forgotten the bottle on the sideboard. I took it, untwisted the wires, and pressed the cork to make it fly off. It wouldn’t go. Gabrielle smiled and murmured: ‘An evil omen.’

“I pushed the swollen end of the cork with my thumb, I twisted it to the right, I twisted it to the left, but in vain, and suddenly I broke it right at the lip of the bottle.

“ ‘Poor Roger,’ sighed Gabrielle.

“I took a corkscrew and screwed it into the piece left in the neck. I couldn’t pull it out; I had to call Prosper back. My wife was now shrieking with laughter and saying: ‘Well, well; I see I can depend on you.’ She was a little tipsy.

“By the time we came to the coffee, she was half seas over.

“A widow does not need to be put to bed with the maternal solicitude accorded to young girls, and Gabrielle calmly went to her room, saying: ‘Smoke your cigar for a quarter of an hour.’

“When I rejoined her, I had lost confidence in myself, I admit. I felt unnerved, worried, ill at ease.

“I took my lawful place. She said nothing. She looked at me with a smile upon her lips, obviously desiring to chaff me. Irony, at such a moment, was the last straw. I must confess that it made me helpless hand and foot.

“When Gabrielle observed my⁠ ⁠… embarrassment, she did nothing to reassure me. On the contrary, she asked me with an air of detachment: ‘Are you always as full of beans as this?’

“I could not help answering: ‘Shut up; you’re unbearable.’

“She went on laughing, but in an unrestrained, maudlin, exasperating way.

“True, I cut a sorry figure, and must have looked a proper fool.

“From time to time, between new fits of merriment, she would say, choking with laughter: ‘Come on⁠—be brave⁠—buck up, you poor boy.’

“Then she continued to laugh so immoderately that she positively screamed.

“Finally I was so exhausted, so furious with myself and her, that I realised I should smack her unless I went away.

“I jumped out of bed and dressed myself quickly in a fiendish temper, without a word to her.

“She became grave at once and, seeing that I was angry, asked: ‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’

“I did not answer, and went down into the street. I wanted to kill someone, to have my revenge, to do some quite insane thing. I strode straight ahead at a great rate, and suddenly the idea came to me to go off with a woman. Who knows?⁠—it would be a trial, an experience, practice perhaps. At all events it would be revenge. And if I were ever deceived by my wife, I should at least have deceived her first.

“I did not hesitate. I knew of a house not far from my own house; I ran there and went in like a man who throws himself into deep water to see if he can still swim.

“Well, I could swim; I swam very well. I stayed there a long time, enjoying my secret and subtle revenge. Then I found myself in the street once more, at the cool hour before dawn. I now felt calm and sure of myself, contented, tranquil, and still ready, I thought, for deeds of valour.

“I went slowly home, and quietly opened the door of my room.

“Gabrielle was reading, her elbow propped up on the pillow. She raised her head and asked in a frightened voice: ‘Ah, there you are; where have you been?’

“I made no answer. I undressed with an air of assurance. I returned like a victorious lord to the place whence I had abjectly fled.

“She was amazed, and was convinced that I had made use of some mysterious secret.

“And now on every occasion she speaks of ‘Roger’s method’ as though she were referring to some infallible scientific device.

“Well, well, it’s ten years ago now, and I’m afraid the same attempt would not have much chance of success today, for me at any rate.

“But if any friend of yours is nervous about his wedding-night, tell him of my stratagem, and tell him, too, that from twenty to thirty-five there’s nothing like it for loosening the shoulders, as the squire of Brantôme would have said.”

In a Railway Carriage

The sun was vanishing behind the vast chains of hills whose loftiest peak is the Puy de Dôme, and the shadow of the crests filled the deep valley of Royat.

Several people were strolling in the park, round the bandstand. Others were still sitting together in groups, in spite of the sharp evening air.

In one of these groups an animated discussion was in progress, for a grave problem had arisen, and one which seriously perturbed Mesdames de Sarcagnes, de Vaulacelles, and de Bridoie. In a few days the holidays would begin, and the discussion centred round the means of bringing home their sons, now at Jesuit and Dominican colleges.

Now, these ladies had not the least desire to undertake a journey to bring back their offspring, and they did not know exactly who could be entrusted with this delicate task. The last days of July were already on them. Paris was empty. They tried in vain to recall any name which offered the necessary guarantees.

Their concern was the greater because an unsavoury episode had occurred in a railway carriage some few days before. And these ladies were firmly convinced that all the women of the town spent their whole time in the express trains between Auvergne and the Gare de Lyon in Paris. According to Madame de Bridoie, the columns of personal gossip in Gil Blas, moreover, announced the presence at Vichy, at Mont Dore, and La Bourboule of every known and unknown pretty lady. The fact that they were there, was proof that they must have come in a railway carriage; and they would assuredly return in a railway carriage; they must indeed be compelled to go on returning in order to come back again every day. It was a continual coming and going of damaged goods on this abominable line. The ladies lamented that access to the stations was not forbidden to disreputable women.

Besides, Roger de Sarcagnes was fifteen years old, Gontran de Vaulacelles thirteen, and Roland de Bridoie eleven years. What was to be done? They could not, under any circumstances, expose their darlings to the risk of meeting such creatures. What might they hear, what might they see, and what might they find out if they were to spend a whole day, or a night, in a compartment which held also one or two of these vicious women with one or two of their companions!

There seemed no way out of the difficulty, and then Madame de Martinsec happened to come past. She stopped to greet her friends, who poured their woes into her ears.

“But what could be easier?” she cried. “I’ll lend you the abbé. I can quite well spare him for forty-eight hours. Rodolphe’s education will not suffer during that short time. He will go for your children and bring them home.”

So it was arranged that Father Lecuir, a young and cultured priest, and Rodolphe de Martinsec’s tutor, should go to Paris the following week to take charge of the young people.

So the priest set out on Friday; and on Sunday morning he was at the Gare de Lyon, ready, with his three youngsters, to take the eight o’clock express, the new through express which had started to run only a few days before, in response to the unanimous demands of all the people taking the waters in Auvergne.

He walked down the platform, followed by his schoolboys, like a hen and her chicks, in search of a compartment either empty or occupied by people whose appearance was quite irreproachable, for his mind retained a lively sense of all the meticulous commands laid upon him by Mesdames de Sarcagnes, de Vaulacelles, and de Bridoie.

Suddenly he saw, standing outside the door of one compartment, an old gentleman and an old white-haired lady talking to another lady seated inside the carriage. The old gentleman was an officer of the Legion of Honour, and they were all unmistakably gentlefolk. “This is the place for me,” thought the abbé. He helped his three pupils in and followed them.

The old lady was saying:

“Be sure to take the greatest care of yourself, my child.”

The younger lady answered:

“Oh, yes, mamma, don’t be anxious.”

“Call in the doctor as soon as ever you feel yourself in pain.”

“Yes, yes, mamma.”

“Then goodbye, my daughter.”

“Goodbye, mamma.”

They embraced each other warmly, then a porter shut the door and the train began to move.

They were alone. The abbé, in high delight, congratulated himself on his clever management, and began to talk to the young people entrusted to his care. The day he left, it had been arranged that Madame de Martinsec should allow him to give the three boys lessons during the whole of the holidays, and he was anxious to test the abilities and dispositions of his new pupils.

The eldest, Roger de Sarcagnes, was one of those tall schoolboys who have shot up too rapidly, thin and pale, with joints that seemed to fit badly. He spoke slowly, with an air of simplicity.

Gontran de Vaulacelles, on the contrary, had remained short in stature, and squat; he was spiteful, sly, mischievous, and queer-tempered. He made fun of everyone, talked like a grown man, making equivocal answers that caused his parents some uneasiness.

The youngest, Roland de Bridoie, did not seem to have any aptitude for anything at all. He was a jolly little animal and resembled his father.

The abbé had warned them that they would be under his orders during the two summer months, and he read them a carefully worded lecture on their duty to him, on the way in which he intended to order their ways, and on the manner that he would adopt towards them.

He was an upright and simple-minded priest somewhat sententious and full of theories.

His conversation was interrupted by a loud sigh uttered by their fair neighbour. He turned his head towards her. She was sitting still in her corner, her eyes staring in front of her, her cheeks slightly pale. The abbé turned back to his disciples.

The train rushed on at full speed, running through plains and woods, passing under bridges and over bridges, and in its shuddering onrush shaking violently the long chain of travellers shut up in the carriages.

Meanwhile Gontran de Vaulacelles was questioning Father Lecuir about Royat and the amusements the place had to offer. Was there a river? Could you fish in it? Would he have a horse, as he had last year? And so on.

Abruptly, the young woman uttered something like a cry, an “Oh” of pain, quickly smothered. Uneasy, the priest asked her:

“You are feeling unwell, Madame?”

She answered:

“No, no, Father, it is nothing, a passing indisposition, nothing at all. I have been ailing for some time, and the motion of the train wearies me.”

Her face had indeed become livid.

He insisted:

“Is there anything I can do for you, Madame?”

“Oh, no, nothing at all, Father. Thank you so much.”

The priest returned to his conversation with his pupils, accustoming them to his methods of teaching and discipline.

The hours went by. Now and then the train stopped and went on once more. The young woman seemed to be sleeping now, and she never moved, ensconced in her corner. Although the day was more than half gone, she had not yet eaten anything. The abbé thought: “This young lady must be very ill indeed.”

The train was only two hours away from Clermont-Ferrand, when all at once the fair traveller began to moan. She looked as if she might fall from her seat, and, supporting herself on her hands, with wild eyes and distorted face, she repeated: “Oh, my God, oh, my God!”

The abbé rushed to her.

“Madame⁠ ⁠… Madame⁠ ⁠… Madame, what is the matter?”

She stammered:

“I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… think that⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠… that my baby is going to be born.” And thereupon she began to cry out in the most terrifying fashion. From her lips issued a long-drawn and frantic sound which seemed to tear its way through her throat, a shrill frightful sound, with an ominous note in it that told her agony of mind and bodily torture.

The unfortunate priest, dazed, stood in front of her, and did not know what to do or what to say or what effort to make; he murmured: “My God, if I had only known!⁠ ⁠… my God, if I had only known!” He had crimsoned to the very whites of his eyes; and his three pupils stared in utter bewilderment at this outstretched moaning woman.

Suddenly, she writhed, lifting her arms over her head, and a strange shuddering seized her limbs, a convulsion that shook her from head to foot.

The abbé thought that she was going to die, to die there before him, deprived of help and care by his incompetence. So he said in a resolute voice:

“I will help you, Madame. I don’t know what to do⁠ ⁠… but I will help you as best I can. I owe aid to all suffering creatures.”

Then, swinging round on the three youngsters, he cried:

“As for you, you are going to put your heads out of the windows, and if one of you turns round, he will copy out for me a thousand lines of Virgil.”

He lowered the three windows himself, pushed the three heads into their places, drew the blue curtains round their necks, and repeated:

“If you stir as much as once, you shall not be allowed a single outing during the whole of the holidays. And don’t forget that I never change my mind.”

And he turned back to the young woman, rolling up the sleeves of his cassock.

Her moans came ceaselessly, with now and then a scream. The abbé, his face crimson, helped her, exhorted her, spoke words of comfort to her, and lifted his eyes every minute towards the three youngsters, who kept turning swift glances, quickly averted, towards the mysterious task performed by their new tutor.

“Monsieur de Vaulacelles, you will copy out for me the verb ‘to disobey’ twenty times!” he cried.

“Monsieur de Bridoie, you shall have no sweets for a month!”

Suddenly the young woman ceased her monotonous wailing, and almost in the same instant a strange thin cry, like a yelp or a meow, brought the three schoolboys round in one wild rush, sure that they had just heard a newly born puppy.

In his hands the abbé was holding a little naked babe. He regarded it with startled eyes; he seemed at once satisfied and abashed, near laughter and near tears; he looked like a madman, so expressively distorted was his face by the rapid movement of his eyes, his lips, and his cheeks.

He observed, as if he were announcing an amazing piece of news to his pupils:

“It’s a boy.”

Then he added immediately:

“Monsieur de Sarcagnes, pass me the bottle of water in the rack. That’s right. Take out the stopper. That’s quite right. Pour me out a few drops in my hand, only a few drops.⁠ ⁠… That’s enough.”

And he scattered the water on the bald forehead of the little creature he was holding, and announced:

“I baptise thee in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

The train drew into the station of Clermont. The face of Madame de Bridoie appeared in the doorway. Then the abbé, quite losing his head, presented her with the tiny human animal that he had just acquired, and murmured:

“This lady has had a slight accident on the journey.”

He conveyed the impression that he had picked the child up in a gutter; and, his hair wet with sweat, his bands round on his shoulder, his gown soiled, he repeated:

“They saw nothing⁠ ⁠… nothing at all⁠—I’ll answer for that.⁠ ⁠… All three of them looked out of the window.⁠ ⁠… I’ll answer for that⁠ ⁠… they saw nothing.”

And he descended from the compartment with four boys instead of the three he had gone to fetch, while Mesdames de Bridoie, de Vaulacelles, and de Sarcagnes, very pale, exchanged stupefied glances and found not a word to utter.

That evening, the three families dined together to celebrate the homecoming of the schoolboys. But no one had anything much to say; fathers, mothers, and children alike seemed preoccupied.

Suddenly the youngest, Roland de Bridoie, asked: “Tell me, mamma, where did the abbé find that little boy?”

His mother evaded a direct answer:

“Come, get on with your dinner, and let us alone with your questions.”

He was silent for some minutes, and then went on:

“There was no one there except the lady who had stomachache. The abbé must be a conjurer, like Robert Houdin who made a bowl full of fishes come under a cloth.”

“Be quiet now. It was God who sent him.”

“But where did God put him? I didn’t see anything. Did he come in by the door? Tell me.”

Madame de Bridoie, losing patience, replied:

“Come now, that’s enough, be quiet. He came from under a cabbage, like all little babies. You know that quite well.”

“But there wasn’t a cabbage in the carriage.”

Then Gontran de Vaulacelles, who was listening with a sly look on his face, smiled and said:

“Yes, there was a cabbage. But no one saw it except the abbé.”

The Little Soldier

Every Sunday, as soon as they were off duty, the two little soldiers set out for a walk.

On leaving the barracks, they turned to the right, crossed Courbevoie with quick strides as if they were marching on parade; then, as soon as they had left the houses behind, they walked at a quieter pace down the bare dusty high road to Bezons.

They were small, thin, lost in army coats that were too large and too long, with sleeves falling over their hands, and embarrassed by red trousers so uncomfortably baggy that they were compelled to stretch their legs wide apart in order to walk at a good pace. And under the tall stiff shakos, hardly a glimpse was visible of their faces, two humble sunken Breton faces, innocent like the faces of animals, with gentle placid blue eyes.

They spoke no word during the whole journey, walking straight on, with the same thought in both their heads, which did instead of conversation, for on the edge of the little wood of Champioux they had found a spot that reminded them of their own country, and they felt happy nowhere else.

At the crossroads from Colombes to Chatou, where the trees begin, they took off the hats that crushed their heads, and mopped their brows.

They always stopped for a short while on Bezons bridge to look at the Seine. They lingered there two or three minutes, bent double, hanging over the parapet; they looked long at the wide reaches of Argenteuil, where the white leaning sails of the clippers raced over the water, bringing to their minds perhaps the Breton sea, the port of Vannes near their own homes, and the fishing-boats sailing across the Morbihan to the open sea.

As soon as they had crossed the Seine, they bought their provisions from the pork butcher, the baker, and the man who sold the light wine of the district. A piece of black pudding, four ha’p’orth of bread, and a pint of cheap claret made up their rations and were carried in their handkerchiefs. But, once beyond the village, they sauntered very slowly on and began at last to talk.

In front of them a stretch of poor land, dotted with clumps of trees, led to the wood, to the little wood which they had thought like Kermarivan wood. Corn and oats bordered the narrow path lost under the green shoots of the crops, and every time they came, Jean Kerderen said to Luc Le Ganidec:

“It is just like Plounivon.”

“Yes, it’s just like it.”

They wandered on, side by side, their minds filled with vague memories of their own place, filled with new-awakened pictures, crude and simple pictures like those on cheap picture postcards. They saw in thought a corner of a field, a hedge, an edge of moor, a crossroads, a granite cross.

Each time they came, they stopped beside the stone marking the boundaries of an estate, because it had a look of the dolmen at Locneuven.

Every Sunday, when they reached the first clump of trees, Luc Le Ganidec cut himself a switch, a hazel switch; he began carefully peeling off the thin bark, thinking all the time of people at home.

Jean Kerderen carried the provisions.

Now and then Luc mentioned a name, recalled an incident of their childhood, in words that, few as they were, woke long thoughts. And by slow degrees their country, their beloved far-off country, took them back to herself, filled their thoughts and senses, sent them across the space between, her shapes, her sounds, her known horizons, her scents, the scent of green plains swept by the salt sea air.

No longer did they feel the smoky breath of Paris that feeds the trees of her suburbs, but the scent of gorse drawn up on the salt breeze and carried out to the wide sea. And the sails of the pleasure boats, seen above the banks, looked to them like the sails of the small coasting-boats, seen beyond the wide plain that stretched from their doorstep to the very edge of the waves.

They walked slowly on, Luc Le Ganidec and Jean Kerderen, happy and sad, filled with a sweet melancholy, the dull, deep-seated melancholy of a caged beast that remembers.

And by the time Luc had finished stripping the slender switch of its skin, they reached the corner of the wood where every Sunday they ate their lunch.

They found again the two bricks they had hidden in a coppice, and they lit a little fire of branches to cook their black puddings on the point of their knife.

And when they had lunched, eaten their bread to the last crumb, and drunk their wine to the last drop, they remained sitting side by side in the grass, silent, gazing absently into space, eyes drowsily half closed, stretched out beside the field poppies; the leather of their shakos and the leather of their buttons gleamed under the burning sun and fascinated the larks that hovered singing above their heads.

As it drew towards noon, they began to throw occasional glances in the direction of Bezons village, for it was nearly time for the cowgirl to come.

She came past them every Sunday, on her way to milk her cow and take it back to its shed; it was the only cow in the district that was out at grass; it was pastured in a narrow meadow further along, on the fringe of the wood.

Very soon they caught sight of the servant-girl, the only human being walking across the fields, and they were filled with joy by the dazzling flashes of light reflected from the tin pail in the blazing sunshine. They never talked about her. They were content just to see her, without understanding why.

She was a tall lusty wench, auburn-haired and burnt by the heat of days spent in the open air, a tall bold wench of the Parisian countryside.

Once, seeing them always sitting in the same spot, she said to them:

“Good morning; d’you always come here?”

Luc Le Ganidec, the more daring, stammered:

“Yes, we come for a rest.”

That was all. But next Sunday she laughed when she saw them, she laughed in the protective, good-humoured fashion of an experienced woman fully conscious of their timidity, and she cried:

“What d’you sit there for? Are you watching the grass grow?”

Luc smiled joyously back:

“Maybe so.”

She retorted:

“Well, it’s slow enough.”

He replied, laughing all the time:

“It is that.”

She went on. But when she came back with her pail full of milk, she stopped again in front of them, and said:

“Would you like a drop? It’ll remind you of your home.”

With the instinctive understanding of a woman of their own class, herself far from her native place perhaps, she had put into words their deepest emotions.

They were both touched. Then, not without difficulty, she poured a little milk down the narrow neck of the pint bottle in which they carried their wine; and Luc drank first, in little gulps, stopping every moment to see whether he was taking more than his share. Then he gave the bottle to Jean.

She remained standing in front of them, hands on hips, her pail resting on the ground at her feet, happy in the pleasure she was giving them.

Then she went off, crying:

“Well, goodbye! See you next Sunday.”

And as long as they could see it, their eyes followed her tall figure getting farther away and smaller, as if it were merging itself in the green shadows of the trees.

When they left the barracks on the Sunday after that, Jean said to Luc:

“Oughtn’t we to buy her something nice?”

They could not make up their minds in this exceedingly awkward matter of choosing a delicacy for the cowgirl.

Luc was in favour of a scrap of chitterlings, but Jean preferred caramels, for he loved sweets. His advice carried the day, and they bought a pennyworth of red and white sweets at the grocer’s.

They ate their lunch faster than usual, excited by the thought of what was coming.

Jean saw her first.

“There she is,” he said.

Luc added:

“Yes, there she is.”

She began laughing a long way off, as soon as she saw them, and cried:

“And how are you? All right?”

They answered in one breath:

“How’s yourself?”

Then she chatted away, she talked of the simple things that interested them, of the weather, the crops, of her employers.

They dared not offer their sweets, which were melting nicely in Jean’s pocket.

At last Luc plucked up heart and murmured:

“We’ve brought something.”

She demanded:

“What is’t, then?”

So Jean, red to the ears, drew out the tiny twist paper and offered it to her.

She began eating the little bits of sugar, rolling them from one cheek to the other and forming little swollen lumps under the flesh. The two soldiers sat in front of her and watched her, excited and very pleased.

Then she went on to milk her cow, and, as she came back, gave them some milk again.

They thought of her all week and spoke of her more than once. Next Sunday she sat down beside them for a longer chat, and the three of them, sitting side by side, stared absently into space, hugging their knees with clasped hands, and told each other little tales and little details of the villages where they were born, while farther off the cow, seeing the servant-girl pausing on her way, stretched towards her its clumsy head with its moist nostrils, and lowed patiently to attract her attention.

Before long the girl consented to eat a bite with them and drink a mouthful of wine. Often she brought them plums in her pocket, for the plum season had begun. Her presence set the two little Breton soldiers very much at their ease, and they chattered away like two birds.

Then one Wednesday, Luc Le Ganidec applied for a pass out of barracks, a thing which he had never done before, and he did not come in until ten o’clock at night.

Thoroughly disturbed, Jean racked his brains to imagine why his comrade had dared to go out like that.

On the following Friday, Luc borrowed ten sous from the man who slept next him, and again asked and got leave to absent himself for some hours.

And when he set out with Jean for their Sunday walk, he wore a very sly preoccupied, and altogether different air. Kerderen did not understand it, but he was vaguely suspicious of something, without guessing what it might be.

They never said a word until they reached their accustomed resting-place, where they had worn away the grass by sitting always in the same spot; and they ate their lunch slowly. Neither of them was hungry.

Very soon the girl came into sight. They watched her coming as they did every Sunday. When she was quite near them, Luc got up and took two steps. She placed her pail on the ground and hugged him. She hugged him violently, throwing her arms round his neck, quite regardless of Jean, not dreaming he was there, not even seeing him.

Poor Jean sat there bewildered, so bewildered that he did not understand it at all, his mind in a turmoil, his heart broken, still unable to realise it.

Then the girl sat down beside Luc, and they began to chatter.

Jean did not look at them; he guessed now why his comrade had gone out twice during the week, and he felt within himself a burning anguish, a sort of wound, the dreadful tearing agony of betrayal.

Luc and the girl got up and went off together to see to the cow.

Jean followed them with his eyes. He saw them getting farther and farther away, side by side. His comrade’s scarlet trousers formed a dazzling patch on the road. It was he who took up the mallet and hammered in the stake to which the beast was fastened.

The girl squatted down to do the milking, while he caressed the animal’s bony spine with a careless hand. Then they left the pail on the grass and withdrew into the wood.

Jean saw nothing but the leafy wall through which they had gone; and he felt so distressed that if he had tried to get up, he would certainly have dropped where he stood.

He sat perfectly still, quite senseless with amazement and misery, a profound unreasoning misery. He longed to cry, to run away, to hide himself, never to see anyone again.

Suddenly he saw them coming out of the coppice. They walked back happily, hand in hand, like village sweethearts. It was Luc who carried the pail.

They embraced again before they parted, and the girl went off, throwing Jean a friendly good night and a knowing smile. Today she never remembered to give him any milk.

The two little soldiers remained there side by side, motionless as always, silent and calm, their placid faces revealing nothing of the emotions that raged in their hearts. The sun went down on them. Now and then the cow lowed, watching them from far off.

They got up to go back at the usual hour.

Luc peeled a switch. Jean carried the empty bottle. He left it with the wine-seller in Bezons. Then they made for the bridge, and, as they did every Sunday, halted halfway across to watch the water slip past a while.

Jean leaned over, leaned farther and farther over the iron railing, as if he had seen something in the rushing stream that fascinated him. Luc said to him:

“Do you want to drink a mouthful?”

As the last word left his mouth, the rest of Jean followed his head, his lifted legs described a circle in the air, and the little blue and red soldier dropped like a stone, struck the water, and disappeared in it.

Luc’s throat contracted with agony and he tried vainly to shout. Farther downstream he saw something move; then his comrade’s head rose to the surface of the river to sink again.

Farther down still he caught one more glimpse, a hand, only a hand thrust out of the water and sucked down again. Then nothing more.

The watermen who came running up did not find the body that day.

Luc returned to barracks alone, running, completely distracted, and related the accident, eyes and voice full of tears, and blowing his nose furiously. “He leaned over⁠ ⁠… he⁠ ⁠… he leaned over⁠ ⁠… so far⁠ ⁠… so far that his head did a somersault⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… there he was fallen over⁠ ⁠… fallen over⁠ ⁠…”

Emotion choked him and he could not say any more. If he had only known.⁠ ⁠…

Checkmate

I was going to Turin by way of Corsica. At Nice I took ship for Bastia, and as soon as we were out at sea I saw a charming, quietly dressed young woman sitting on the bridge: she was looking out to sea. “Ah,” I said to myself, “there’s my friend for the voyage.”

I took a seat opposite her and looked at her, my mind filled with the questions that leap into any man’s mind when he sees an unknown and interesting woman: what was her class, her age, what sort of a woman was she? Then, from what he can see, he speculates on what he can’t see. Eye and mind peer through the bodice and under the gown. He observes the line of the bust when she is seated: he tries to catch a glimpse of her ankle: he notes the texture of her hand, which reveals the fineness of the rest of her limbs, and the shape and size of her ear, which is a truer indication of birth than a birth certificate, that must always be open to dispute. He tries to hear her speak, to get at the character of her mind and the tenderness of her heart through the tones of her voice. For, to the experience observer, the pitch and all the subtle gradations of the spoken word reveal the mysterious structure of the soul: difficult though it may be to grasp it, there is always perfect accord between thought itself and the organ of its expression.

So I observed my neighbour with grave attention, watching the signs, analysing her movements, keeping my eyes open for the revelations her every attitude would make.

She opened a small bag and took out a newspaper. I rubbed my hands: “Tell me what you read, and I will tell you what you are.”

She began at the leading article with the air of a person savouring a delicate pleasure. The name of her paper leaped to my eyes: Echo de Paris. I was puzzled. She was reading one of Scholl’s scandalous commentaries. Devil take her, she read Scholl.⁠ ⁠… Scholl. She began to smile: a pointed jest. So she was not a prude, or an innocent. So much the better. A reader of Scholl⁠—yes, a lover of our native wit, its fine shades, and its salt, even its pepper. A good sign. I thought: let us try her on another tack.

I went and sat near her, and began to read, no less attentively, a volume of poetry that I had bought for the journey: the Chanson d’amour by Félix Frank.

I observed that she had snatched up the name on the binding with one rapid glance, like a bird on the wing snatching up a fly. Several passengers, men, walked past us to look at her. But she seemed to think of nothing but her column of town scandal. When she had finished it, she laid her paper down between us.

I bowed and said:

“May I glance through your paper?”

“Certainly.”

“Do you care to look at this volume of verse in the meantime?”

“Yes, certainly. Is it amusing?”

The question puzzled me slightly. It is not usual to ask if a collection of verse is amusing. I answered:

“It’s better than that; it’s charming, delicate, and the work of an artist.”

“Give it to me, then.”

She took the book, opened it, and began to glance through it with a vaguely surprised air that made it clear she rarely read verse.

Some of it seemed to move her, some made her smile, but a different smile from the one she had worn when reading her paper.

I asked her suddenly:

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, but I like amusing things myself, very amusing things: I’m not sentimental.”

We began to talk. I learned that she was the wife of a captain of dragoons, stationed at Ajaccio, and that she was going to join her husband.

I very soon guessed that she had little love for this husband of hers. She did love him, but with the mild affection a woman retains for a husband who has not fulfilled the hopes roused in courting days. He had drifted from garrison to garrison, through a number of small, dull towns, such very dull towns. Now he was stationed in this island, which must be very gloomy indeed. No, everyone’s life was not amusing. She would rather have gone on living at Lyons with her parents, for she knew everyone in Lyons. But now she had to go to Corsica. The minister was not inclined to favour her husband, who had, nevertheless, an excellent service record.

And we discussed the places where she would have liked to live.

“Do you like Paris?” I asked.

“Oh,” she cried, “do I like Paris? How can you ask such a question?”

And she began talking about Paris with such ardent enthusiasm, such wild envy, that I thought: “This is the right string to touch.”

She adored Paris from afar, with a passion of repressed gluttony, with the exaggerated longing of a provincial and the maddened impatience of a caged bird who all day looks at a wood from the window where he hangs.

She began to question me, stammering in an agony of impatience: she wanted to be told everything, everything, in five minutes. She knew the names of all the famous people, and of many others whom I had never heard mentioned.

“How is M. Gounod? And M. Sardou? Oh, how I love M. Sardou’s plays! How amusing and witty they are! Every time I see one, I dream of it for a week. I’ve read a book of M. Daudet’s, too, which I enjoyed enormously. Sapho⁠—do you know it? Is M. Daudet nice-looking? Have you seen him? And M. Zola, what is he like? If you only knew how Germinal made me cry! Do you remember the little child who dies in the dark? How terrible that is! It nearly made me ill. There’s nothing to laugh at in that, my word. I’ve read a book of M. Bourget’s, too, Cruelle Enigme. I have a cousin who was so excited about this novel that she wrote to M. Bourget. I thought the book too romantic. I like something humorous better. Do you know M. Grévin? And M. Coquelin? And M. Damala? And M. Rochefort? They say he’s a great wit. And M. de Cassagnac? Is it true that he fights a duel every day?⁠ ⁠…”

Somewhere about the end of an hour, her stock of questions began to run low, and having satisfied her curiosity by the wildest flights of imagination, I was able to talk myself.

I told her stories about the doings of society, Parisian society, real society. She listened with all her ears and all her heart. She must indeed have gathered a pretty picture of the fair and famous ladies of Paris. There was nothing but love affairs, assignations, speedy conquests and impassioned defeats. She kept asking me:

“Oh, is real society like that?”

I smiled as one who knows:

“Of course. It’s only the middle-class women who lead a dull, monotonous life for the sake of their virtue, a virtue for which no one thanks them.”

And I set myself to undermine virtue with tremendous strokes of irony, philosophy and nonsense. I made magnificent and graceful fun of the poor wretches who let themselves grow old without ever having known the good things of life, the sweet, tender, gallant things that life offers, without ever having savoured the delicious pleasure of long, burning stolen kisses, and all just because they have married a worthy dolt of a husband, the reserve of whose marital embraces allows them to go to their graves in ignorance of all the refinements of sensual pleasure and all the delicate ecstasies of love.

Then I cited further anecdotes, anecdotes of cabinets particuliers, intrigues which I swore were common knowledge. And the refrain of all my tales was a discreet, veiled eulogy of swift, secret love, of sensations snatched in passing, like fruit, and forgotten as soon as enjoyed.

Night fell, a calm, warm night. The big ship, shaken from stem to stern by its engines, glided over the sea, under the vast roof of the wine-dark sky, starred with fire.

The little provincial was not talking now. She drew slow breaths and sometimes sighed. Suddenly she rose.

“I’m going to bed,” said she. “Good night, monsieur.”

She shook hands with me.

I knew that on the following evening she would have to take the coach that runs from Bastia to Ajaccio across the mountains, making the journey by night.

I answered:

“Good night, madame.”

And I too betook myself to the bunk in my cabin.

First thing next day, I took three places inside the coach, all three places, for myself.

As I was climbing into the old carriage that was going to leave Bastia at nightfall, the conductor asked me if I would not agree to give up one corner to a lady.

I asked brusquely:

“To what lady?”

“To the wife of an officer going to Ajaccio.”

“Tell the lady that I shall be glad if she will occupy one of the seats.”

She arrived, having, she said, been asleep all day. She apologised, thanked me and got in.

The coach was a sort of hermetically sealed box, into which light entered only through the two doors. So there we were shut up together inside. The carriage proceeded at a trot, a quick trot; then began to follow the mountain road. A fresh, powerful scent of aromatic herbs drifted in through the lowered panes, the heady scent that Corsica so pours out into the surrounding air that sailors passing out at sea smell it, a pungent scent like the smell of bodies, like the sweat of the green earth impregnated with perfumes drawn out by the ardent sun and given to the passing wind.

I began to talk of Paris again, and again she listened to me with feverish attention. My stories grew daring, subtly décolleté: I used allusive, two-edged words, words that set the blood on fire.

The night was on us. I could see nothing now, not even the white patch that had been the girl’s face. Only the coachman’s lantern flung a ray of light over the four horses that were climbing the road at a walking pace.

Sometimes for a little while, until it died away in the distance behind us, we heard the sound of a torrent dashing over the rocks, and mingling with the sound of little bells.

Gently I stretched out my foot and met hers, which was not withdrawn. Then I sat still, waiting, and suddenly, changing my tune, I talked tenderly, affectionately. I had reached out my hand and touched hers. She did not withdraw that either. I went on talking, nearer her ear, very near her mouth. Already I felt her heart beating against my breast. It was beating quickly and loudly⁠—a good sign⁠—then, slowly, I pressed my lips on her neck, sure that I had her, so sure that I would have wagered any money on it.

But all at once she started as if she had awakened, started so violently that I reeled to the other end of the coach. Then, before I was able to understand, to reflect, to think at all, I first of all received five or six staggering slaps, then a shower of blows rained on me, sharp, savage blows that struck me all over, unable as I was to parry them in the profound darkness that covered the struggle.

I put out my hands, trying vainly to seize her arms. Then, not knowing what else to do, I turned sharply round, and presented my back to her furious attack, hiding my head in the corner of the panels.

She seemed to guess, perhaps from the sound of her blows, this despairing manoeuvre, and abruptly ceased to beat me.

A few seconds later she was back in her corner and had begun to cry and she sobbed wildly for an hour at least.

I had seated myself again, very distressed and very much ashamed. I would have liked to speak to her, but what should I say? I could think of nothing! Apologise? That would be absurd. What would you have said! No more than I did, I’ll take my oath.

She was crying softly now, and sometimes uttering deep sighs that filled me with grief and compassion. I would have liked to comfort her, to caress her as if she had been an unhappy child, to ask her pardon, kneel to her. But I did not dare.

These situations are too stupid.

She grew quiet at last, and we remained each in our own corner, still and silent, while the carriage rolled on, stopping now and then for fresh horses. We both shut our eyes very quickly at these halts, to avoid seeing one another when the bright light of a stable lantern shone into the coach. Then the coach set out again; and all the time the pungent, scented air of the Corsican mountains caressed our cheeks and our lips, and went to my head like wine.

Christ, what a glorious journey it would have been if⁠ ⁠… if my companion had not been such a little fool.

But gradually light filtered into the carriage, the pale light of early dawn. I looked at my neighbour. She was pretending to be asleep. The sun, risen behind the mountains, filled with its radiance a vast blue gulf set around with great granite-crested peaks. On the edge of the bay a white town came into sight, still lying in shadow.

Then my neighbour pretended to wake, she opened her eyes (they were red), she opened her mouth as if she were yawning and had been asleep a long time. She hesitated, blushed and stammered:

“Shall we be there soon?”

“Yes, madame, in an hour or so.”

She added, gazing into space:

“It is very tiring to spend the night in a carriage.”

“Yes, it breaks one’s back.”

“Especially after a crossing.”

“Yes.”

“Is not that Ajaccio in front of us?”

“Yes, madame.”

“I wish we were there.”

“I am sure you do.”

Her voice sounded a little troubled; her manner was rather awkward, her glance did not meet mine very readily. But she seemed to have forgotten the whole episode.

I admired her. What instinctive intriguers these bitches are! What diplomatists!

We did indeed arrive in another hour; and a tall dragoon, with the figure of a Hercules, was standing in front of the office; he waved a handkerchief as the coach came in sight.

My neighbour flung herself wildly into his arms, and kissed him at least twenty times, repeating:

“Are you all right? How I have been aching to see you again!”

My trunk was handed down from the roof and I was discreetly withdrawing when she cried:

“Oh, you are going away without saying goodbye to me.”

I stammered:

“Madame, I did not wish to intrude on your happiness.”

Then she said to her husband:

“Thank this gentleman, darling: he has been most kind to me on the journey. He even offered me a place in the coach which he had reserved for himself. It is nice to meet with such friendly companions.”

The husband shook my hand and thanked me warmly.

The young wife watched us with a smile. I must have looked a rare fool.

Joseph

They were both tipsy, quite tipsy, the little Baroness Andrée de Fraisières and the little Comtesse Noëmi de Gardens.

They had dined alone together in the many-windowed morning room looking out over the sea. Through the open windows came the soft breeze of a summer evening, warm and cool at once, a breeze with the tang of the sea in it. The two young women, lying at full length in their long chairs, were now sipping chartreuse and smoking cigarettes, and regaling one another with intimate confidences, confidences that only their charming and amazing intoxication could bring to their lips.

Their husbands had returned to Paris that afternoon, leaving them alone at the deserted little seaside place they had chosen in order to avoid the attentions of the floating crowd of gay young men at the fashionable resorts. Away five days out of seven, the two men feared the country excursions, the picnic lunches, the swimming-lessons, and the rapid acquaintances that spring up in the holiday atmosphere of seaside towns. Dieppe, Étretat and Trouville thus seemed places to be shunned, and they had taken a house, built and abandoned by some eccentric man, in the valley of Roqueville, near Fécamp, and had buried their wives there for the whole summer.

They were tipsy. Unable to think of any amusement, the Baroness had proposed to the Countess that they should have a special dinner, with champagne. To begin with, they had amused themselves vastly by cooking the dinner with their own hands; then they had eaten merrily and drunk hard to appease the thirst induced by the heat of the kitchen range. Now they were engaged in a chorus of frivolous nonsense, smoking cigarettes and using chartreuse as a mouthwash. And they really did not know what they were saying.

The Countess, her legs in the air on the back of a chair, was even further gone than her friend.

“To round off this sort of evening,” she was saying, “we ought to have lovers. If I’d only foreseen it earlier, I’d have sent to Paris for a couple and let you have one of them.”

“Oh, I can always find them,” replied the other; “even this evening, if I wanted one, I should have one.”

“What! At Roqueville, my dear? It must be a peasant, then.”

“No, not exactly.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“What do you want me to tell you about?”

“Your lover.”

“My dear, I couldn’t live without being loved. If no one were in love with me, I should think I was dead.”

“So should I.”

“Yes, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Men don’t understand that; our husbands least of all!”

“No, they don’t understand in the least. But can you expect anything else? The sort of love we need is an affair of amusing episodes, attentions and gallantries. They are the food of our hearts, indispensable to our lives, quite indispensable.”

“Yes, indispensable.”

“I must feel that someone is thinking of me, always, everywhere. When I am going to sleep, or waking up, I must know that someone somewhere is in love with me, dreaming of me, desiring me. Without it I should be miserable, utterly miserable⁠—so miserable I should be crying all the time.”

“I feel just the same.”

“It could not be otherwise. When a husband has been kind for six months, or a year, or two years, he is bound to become a brute in the end, yes, a real brute.⁠ ⁠… He gets absolutely shameless and inconsiderate, he shows himself in his true colours, he makes scenes about the bills, about every single one. You can’t love a man you’re living with all the time.”

“That’s very true.”

“Yes, isn’t it?⁠ ⁠… Now where was I? I can’t remember.”

“You were saying that all husbands are brutes!”

“Yes, so they are⁠ ⁠… all of them.”

“True.”

“And after that?⁠ ⁠…”

“What do you mean, ‘after that’?”

“What was I saying after that?”

“How do I know? You never said it.”

“But I had something to tell you.”

“Yes, I remember now; wait.⁠ ⁠…”

“Wait. Ah! I’ve got it.”

“Go on; I’m listening.”

“I was saying that I can find lovers anywhere.”

“How do you do it?”

“I’ll tell you. Follow me closely. When I arrive at a strange place, I take notes and make my choice.”

“Make your choice?”

“Yes, of course. I take notes first. I get all the information. A man must be discreet, rich, and generous before all, mustn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And then, he must be pleasing to me as a man.”

“Of course.”

“Then I angle for him.”

“Angle?”

“Yes, like catching fish. Have you never done any fishing?”

“No, never.”

“What a pity; you should. It’s great fun. And instructive too. Well, I angle for him.”

“How?”

“Don’t be silly. A woman catches the man she wants to catch, doesn’t she? As though they had any choice in the matter! And the poor fools still think it is they who choose. But it is we who choose⁠ ⁠… always.⁠ ⁠… Women like us, who are not ugly, and no fools, have all men for our suitors, all without exception. We pass them all in review from morning till night, and when we’ve picked one out we angle for him.”

“But you’re not telling me how you do it.”

“How do I do it?⁠ ⁠… Why, I do nothing. I just let myself be looked at.”

“You let yourself be looked at?”

“Yes. It is quite sufficient. When you’ve let yourself be looked at several times running, a man promptly finds you to be the prettiest and most attractive of women. Then he begins to pay court to you. I let him understand that he’s not such a bad sort, but of course I don’t actually say anything; and he falls at my feet. I’ve got him. It depends on his character how long it lasts.”

“And do you get all the men you want like that?”

“Almost all.”

“Then there are some who hold out against you.”

“Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Why? There are three reasons which make a man a Joseph. Because he is very much in love with another woman, because he is extraordinarily timid, or because he is⁠ ⁠… how shall I put it?⁠ ⁠… incapable of carrying the conquest of a woman to its end.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, my dear!⁠ ⁠… Do you think?⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… I’m sure of it.⁠ ⁠… There are many, very, very many of the last kind, far more than you’d think. Oh! they look like everyone else⁠ ⁠… they are dressed like the rest⁠ ⁠… they parade up and down like peacocks.⁠ ⁠… When I say peacocks⁠ ⁠… I’m wrong;⁠ ⁠… they couldn’t spread their tails.”

“Really, dear!⁠ ⁠…”

“As for the timid ones, their folly is sometimes invincible. There must be men who can’t undress, even when going to bed by themselves, if they have a mirror in their rooms. With these, you have to take strong measures, and use your eyes and your hands. Even that is sometimes no use. They never know how or where to begin. When you faint in their presence, as a last resort⁠ ⁠… they try to revive you.⁠ ⁠… And if you delay returning to your senses⁠ ⁠… they go and fetch help.

“I prefer men who are other women’s lovers. I carry them off at⁠ ⁠… at the point of the bayonet, my dear!”

“That’s all very well, but what do you do when there are no men, as here, for instance?”

“I find them.”

“But where?”

“Oh, anywhere. Why, that reminds me of my story.

“Two years ago now, my husband sent me off to spend the summer at his place at Bougrolles. There’s absolutely nothing there, nothing whatever. There are a few revolting bumpkins in the nearby houses; they spend their lives hunting fur, shooting feather, and live in houses with no bathrooms; they perspire, and then sleep with it all, and you couldn’t improve them because their principles are fundamentally filthy.

“Guess what I did.”

“I can’t.”

“Ha! ha! I’d just been reading a pile of novels by George Sand, written in praise of the man of the people, books in which the workmen are sublime and all the gentlemen are criminals. In addition to that, I’d seen Ruy Blas that winter, and it had impressed me frightfully. Well, one of our farmers had a son, a good-looking lad of twenty-two who had been trained as a priest, but had left the seminary in disgust. Well, I engaged him as a servant!”

“Oh!⁠ ⁠… And what then?”

“Then⁠ ⁠… then, my dear, I treated him very loftily, and showed him a great deal of my person. I did not angle for the country lad; I just inflamed him!”

“Oh! Andrée!”

“Yes, and very good fun it was, too. They say servants don’t count. Well, he didn’t. I rang for him to get his orders every morning when my maid was dressing me, and every evening when she was undressing me.”

“Oh! Andrée!”

“My dear, he flamed up like a thatched roof. After that, at table, during meals, I spoke of nothing but clean livers, the care of the body, douches and baths. And it was so effective that at the end of a fortnight he was bathing in the river, morning and evening, and using so much scent that he was fairly poisoning the house. I was obliged to forbid him the use of scent, and told him, with an air of being in an awful temper, that men should never use anything but eau de cologne.”

“Oh! Andrée!”

“Then I got the idea of organising a country library. I sent for several hundred moral novels, and lent them all to our farm labourers and to my servants. Into this collection there had slipped a few books⁠ ⁠… poetical books⁠ ⁠… the sort of book that disturbs the souls⁠ ⁠… of schoolboys and undergraduates.⁠ ⁠… I gave them to my footman. They taught him life⁠ ⁠… a queer sort of life.”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… Andrée!”

“Then I began to grow familiar towards him, and address him in intimate terms. I had named him Joseph. My dear, he was in such a state⁠ ⁠… in an awful state.⁠ ⁠… He grew as thin as⁠ ⁠… as a cock, and his eyes were quite wild. I was frightfully amused. It was one of the best summers I ever spent.⁠ ⁠…”

“And after that?⁠ ⁠…”

“After⁠ ⁠… yes. Well, one day, when my husband was away, I told him to harness the wicker chaise and take me to the woods. It was very hot, very hot indeed.⁠ ⁠… That’s all!”

“Oh! Andrée, do tell me all about it.⁠ ⁠… It’s so interesting.”

“Have another glass of chartreuse, or I shall finish the decanter by myself. Well, after that, I was taken ill on the way.”

“How did that happen?”

“How stupid you are! I told him I was going to be ill and that he must carry me on to the grass. And when I was on the grass I gasped for breath and told him to unlace my stays. And when my stays had been unlaced, I fainted.”

“Fainted right away?”

“Oh, no, not at all.”

“Well?”

“Well, I had to stay unconscious nearly an hour. He could not find a remedy. But I was patient, and I never opened my eyes again until after his fall.”

“Oh! Andrée.⁠ ⁠… And what did you say to him?”

“I? Nothing. How could I know anything about it, if I was unconscious? I thanked him. I told him to put me back in the chaise, and he took me home. But he nearly upset us, turning in at the gate!”

“Oh! Andrée! And is that all?⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s all.⁠ ⁠…”

“You only fainted once?”

“Yes, only once, of course! I didn’t want to make the clodhopper my lover.”

“And did you keep him long afterwards?”

“Oh! yes. I still have him. Why should I have dismissed him? I had nothing to complain of.”

“Oh, Andrée! And does he still love you?”

“Of course.”

“Where is he?”

The Baroness extended her arm and touched the electric bell. The door opened almost at once, and a tall footman entered, spreading round him a strong scent of eau de cologne.

“Joseph, my boy,” said the Baroness, “I’m not feeling very well; go and fetch my maid.”

The man stood motionless, like a soldier in the presence of an officer, and fixed his burning eyes upon his mistress, who added:

“Hurry up, you great booby; we’re not in the woods today, and Rosalie will look after me better than you.”

He turned on his heel and left the room.

“And what will you tell your maid?” asked the startled Countess.

“I shall say I’m better! No, I think I’ll have my stays loosened all the same. It will be a relief; I can’t breathe. I’m drunk⁠ ⁠… my dear⁠ ⁠… so drunk I should fall right over if I tried to stand up.”

Finis

As the Count of Lormerin finished dressing he cast a parting glance at the large mirror which occupied a whole panel in his dressing-room, and smiled.

He was really a fine-looking man, although quite grey. Tall, slight, elegant, with a small moustache of a doubtful shade that might be called fair, he had a presence, distinction, an aristocratic bearing, a “chic” in short, that indefinable quality that makes a greater difference between two men than the possession of millions of money. He murmured: “Lormerin is still alive!” and entered the big room where his correspondence awaited him.

On his table, where everything had its place⁠—the worktable of a gentleman who never works⁠—some dozen letters were lying beside three papers representing different political opinions. With a single touch he spread the letters out like a gambler giving the choice of a card, and he scrutinised the handwriting, a habit he indulged in every morning, before opening the envelopes.

This was the moment of delightful expectancy, of inquiry and of vague anxiety. What were these sealed, mysterious letters bringing to him? What pleasure, happiness, or sorrow did they contain? He surveyed them with a quick glance, recognised the writing, picked them out, sorted them into two or three bundles according to what he expected from them. Here were the friends; there those that were indifferent; and, farther on, the unknown correspondents. The last always caused him a slight uneasiness. What could they want? What hand had traced those curious characters, full of thought, of promises, or of threats?

That day one letter in particular caught his eye. There was nothing unusual in its appearance, but he looked at it uneasily with a kind of chill at his heart. He thought: “From whom can it be? I certainly know the writing, and yet I can’t identify it.”

He picked it up, holding it gingerly in his fingers, trying to read through the envelope, unable to make up his mind to open it.

Then he smelt it, took up a little magnifying-glass to study the peculiarities of the writing. He felt unnerved: “From whom is it? I know the handwriting very well. I must have read it often, very often. But it must be very, very old. Who the devil can it be from? Pshaw! a request for money.”

He tore open the envelope and read:

“My Dear Friend:

“You must have forgotten me, for we have not met for twenty-five years. I was young: I am old. When I said goodbye I was leaving Paris to follow my husband, my old husband, whom you called ‘my hospital,’ into the provinces. Do you remember? He has been dead five years and now I am returning to Paris to marry my daughter, for I have a daughter, a lovely girl of eighteen, whom you have never seen. I sent you word of her birth, but I am sure you paid little attention to so insignificant an event.

“You, you are still the handsome Lormerin, so I am told. Well, if you still remember little Lise, whom you called Lison, come and dine with her this evening, with the elderly Baroness de Vance, your ever faithful friend, who, full of emotion and very happy, holds out a devoted hand which you may clasp, but no longer kiss, my poor Jaquelet.

“Lise de Vance.”

Lormerin’s heart began to beat rapidly. He remained sunk in his armchair, the letter on his knees, staring straight in front of him, shrinking from the stab of bitter-sweetness that brought the tears to his eyes!

If he had ever loved any woman in his life, it had been her, little Lise, Lise de Vance, whom he called Flower of Ashes because of her curious colour hair and her pale grey eyes. Oh! what a dainty, pretty, charming creature this frail Baroness had been; the wife of the old gouty pimply Baron who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut her up, kept her in seclusion, and all for jealousy of the handsome Lormerin. Yes, he had loved her and he had been loved in return, so he believed. She had an adorable way of calling him Jaquelet. A thousand forgotten memories crowded upon him, far off, and sweet, and full of sadness they were. One evening she had called on him on her way home from a ball and they had gone for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in her ball dress, and he in his dressing-jacket. It was springtime and the weather was mild and the fragrance from her frock and skin scented the warm air. It was a divine night! When they reached the lake, as the moon was dipping into the water over the branches she began to cry. Rather taken aback, he asked the reason and she replied:

“I don’t know; the moon and the water always affect me. Every time I see anything beautiful it plucks at my heartstrings, and I cry.” He had smiled, for he too was infected with the beauty around him: he thought the susceptibility of this poor, distractedly emotional little woman both stupid and charming. And he had embraced her passionately, murmuring: “My little Lise, you are delightful.”

What a charming love affair⁠—short-lived and dainty⁠—it had been; so soon over too, cut short in the midst of its ardour by that old brute of a baron who had carried off his wife, and never shown her to anyone again.

To be sure, Lormerin had forgotten her at the end of two or three weeks. In Paris one woman soon drives out another, when one is a bachelor. No matter, he had kept a little altar for her in his heart, for she had been his only love! Very clearly now he recognised that.

He got up and said aloud: “Certainly, I’ll go and dine there this evening.” And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself. He reflected: “She must have aged considerably, more than I have,” and felt pleased to think that he would appear to her still handsome, still vigorous, and surprise her, perhaps, soften her heart and make her regret the bygone days, so far, so far away! He returned to his other letters, which were of no importance. The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of the past. What would she be like? How strange to meet again after twenty-five years! But would he recognise her?

He dressed himself as carefully as a woman would have done, put on a white waistcoat which suited him better with his swallowtails than a black one, sent for the hairdresser to give his hair a touch with the tongs⁠—for his hair was still thick⁠—and set off early to show how eager he was to meet her again.

The first thing he saw on entering the newly furnished, charming drawing room, was his own portrait, an old faded photograph dating from the days of his triumph, hanging on the wall in a dainty old brocade frame.

He sat down and waited. At last a door opened behind him; he rose hurriedly and, turning round, saw an old lady with white hair, holding both hands out to him.

He seized them kissing first one, then the other, then raised his head to gaze at his old friend.

Yes, she was an old lady, a strange old lady who wanted to cry, but nevertheless smiled.

He could not help murmuring: “Is it you, Lise?”

She replied: “Yes, it is I, truly it is I.⁠—You would not have recognised me, would you? I have had so much sorrow⁠—so much.⁠—Grief has eaten into my life.⁠—Here I am⁠—look at me⁠—or, rather, no⁠—don’t look at me.⁠—But how handsome you still are, you⁠—and young too! If I had met you accidentally in the streets, I would have called out at once: ‘Jaquelet!’ Now sit down and let us have a chat first. Then I’ll call my daughter, my grown-up daughter. You’ll see she’s very like me⁠—or, rather, I was very like her⁠—no, that’s still not right: she is just like the ‘me’ of former days⁠—you’ll see! But I wanted to be alone, just at first; I was afraid I might break down. Now it’s all right, it’s over. Do sit down, old friend.”

He sat beside her, holding her hand, but he did not know what to say; he did not know this woman; he felt that he had never seen her before. What was he doing in this house? What could he talk about? Of the past? What had the two of them in common? He forgot all that had been, in the presence of this grandmother; all the nice, sweet, tender, heart-wringing things he had felt so intensely when he was thinking of that other woman: little Lise, the dainty Flower of Ashes. What had become of her, of this former sweetheart, this well-beloved? She of the far-off dream, the blonde with grey eyes, the young girl who had so sweetly called him Jaquelet?

They remained quite still side by side, feeling awkward, unhappy and ill at ease.

As they were only exchanging commonplaces and that with difficulty, she rose and pressed the bell-push, saying: “I am going to call Renée.”

First there was the sound of a door opening, then the rustle of skirts, and then a young voice exclaiming: “Here I am, mother!”

Lormerin looked as scared as if he had seen a ghost, and stammered: “Good afternoon, Mademoiselle⁠ ⁠… ,” and, turning towards the mother, said: “Yes, it’s you!”

It was indeed she, the girl of the past, the Lise who had vanished and who had now returned! He had found her again, exactly as she had been when taken from him twenty-five years ago⁠—though this girl was even younger, fresher, more of a child.

He felt a wild desire to open his arms, to clasp her again to his heart and whisper in her ear: “Good morning, Lison!”

A manservant announced: “Dinner is served, Madame!” and they proceeded to the dining room.

What happened during dinner? What was said to him and what replies did he make? He was in one of those curious dreamlike states bordering on insanity. He looked at the two women, obsessed by an idea, the diseased idea of a madman: “Which is the real one?” Smiling all the time, the mother repeated over and over again: “Do you remember?” But it was the girl’s bright eyes which revealed the past to him. At least twenty times he was going to say: “Do you remember, Lison?” quite forgetting the white-haired woman who was tenderly looking at him.

And yet there were moments when he felt uncertain, when he lost his head completely; he saw that the girl of today was not exactly like the girl of long ago. The other, the former love, had something in her voice, her look, her whole being which he missed, and made an enormous effort to recapture what was escaping him, the something that this resuscitated love did not possess.

The Baroness said: “My dear friend, you have lost your old vivacity,” to which he replied: “I have lost many other things, too!”

But his heart was in a ferment, he felt his old love springing to life again, like a wild beast ready to tear him to pieces.

The young girl chatted away, and he recognised tricks of the voice, familiar phrases used by the mother, which she had taught him, the way of thinking and speaking, the resemblance in mind and manner that comes from living together, these all combined to torment him body and soul. All these memories of the past took possession of him, making a bleeding wound in his awakened passion.

He left early and went for a stroll on the Boulevard. But the young girl’s image followed him, haunting him, crystallising his feelings and inflaming his blood. Separated from the two women, he now saw only one, the young one⁠—the old one back again⁠—and he loved her as he had loved her in the past. He loved her more passionately after the interval of twenty-five years.

He went home to reflect on the strange and terrible thing that had happened and to think over what could be done.

But as, candle in hand, he passed in front of the looking-glass, the big looking-glass in which he had looked at and admired himself before he started, he caught sight of an elderly man with grey hair, and suddenly remembered what he had been like in the old days, the days of little Lise, and he saw himself young and charming again, as in the days when he had been loved. Then, holding the candle nearer, he looked at himself more closely, much as one examines some strange object through a magnifying-glass, tracing the wrinkles and recognising the frightful wreckage that he had never noticed before.

He sat down opposite his reflection, crushed at the sight of his wretched appearance, murmuring: “Finis, Lormerin!”

The Hairpin

I will not record the name either of the country or of the man concerned. It was far, very far from this part of the world, on a fertile and scorching seacoast. All morning we had been following a coast clothed with crops and a blue sea clothed in sunlight. Flowers thrust up their heads quite close to the waves, rippling waves, so gentle, drowsing. It was hot⁠—a relaxing heat, redolent of the rich soil, damp and fruitful: one almost heard the rising of the sap.

I had been told that, in the evening, I could obtain hospitality in the house of a Frenchman, who lived at the end of a headland, in an orange grove. Who was he? I was still in ignorance. He had arrived one morning, ten years ago; he had bought a piece of ground, planted vines, sown seed; he had worked, this man, passionately, furiously. Then, month by month, year by year, increasing his demesne, continually fertilising the lusty and virgin soil, he had in this way amassed a fortune by his unsparing labour.

Yet he went on working, all the time, people said. Up at dawn, going over his fields until night, always on the watch, he seemed to be goaded by a fixed idea, tortured by an insatiable lust for money, which nothing lulls to sleep, and nothing can appease.

Now he seemed to be very rich.

The sun was just setting when I reached his dwelling. This was indeed built at the end of an outthrust cliff, in the midst of orange-trees. It was a large plain-looking house, built foursquare, and overlooking the sea.

As I approached, a man with a big beard appeared in the doorway. Greeting him, I asked him to give me shelter for the night. He held out his hand to me, smiling.

“Come in, sir, and make yourself at home.”

He led the way to a room, put a servant at my disposal, with the perfect assurance and easy good manners of a man of the world; then he left me, saying:

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

We did indeed dine alone, on a terrace facing the sea. At the beginning of the meal, I spoke to him of this country, so rich, so far from the world, so little known. He smiled, answering indifferently.

“Yes, it is a beautiful country. But no country is attractive that lies so far from the country of one’s heart.”

“You regret France?”

“I regret Paris.”

“Why not go back to it?”

“Oh, I shall go back to it.”

Then, quite naturally, we began to talk of French society, of the boulevards, and people, and things of Paris. He questioned me after the manner of a man who knew all about it, mentioning names, all the names familiar on the Vaudeville promenade.

“Who goes to Tortoni’s now?”

“All the same people, except those who have died.”

I looked at him closely, haunted by a vague memory. Assuredly I had seen this face somewhere. But where? but when? He seemed weary though active, melancholy though determined. His big fair beard fell to his chest, and now and then he took hold of it below the chin and, holding it in his closed hand, let the whole length of it run through his fingers. A little bald, he had heavy eyebrows and a thick moustache that merged into the hair covering his cheeks. Behind us the sun sank in the sea, flinging over the coast a fiery haze. The orange-trees in full blossom filled the air with their sweet heady scent. He had eyes for nothing but me, and with his intent gaze he seemed to peer through my eyes, to see in the depths of my thoughts the far-off, familiar, and well-loved vision of the wide shady pavement that runs from the Madeleine to the Rue Drouot.

“Do you know Boutrelle?”

“Yes, well.”

“Is he much changed?”

“Yes, he has gone quite white.”

“And La Ridamie?”

“Always the same.”

“And the women? Tell me about the women. Let me see. Do you know Suzanne Verner?”

“Yes, very stout. Done for.”

“Ah! And Sophie Astier?”

“Dead.”

“Poor girl! And is⁠ ⁠… do you know⁠ ⁠…”

But he was abruptly silent. Then in a changed voice, his face grown suddenly pale, he went on:

“No, it would be better for me not to speak of it any more, it tortures me.”

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

“Shall we go in?”

“I am quite ready.”

And he preceded me into the house.

The rooms on the ground floor were enormous, bare, gloomy, apparently deserted. Napkins and glasses were scattered about the tables, left there by the swart-skinned servants who prowled about this vast dwelling all the time. Two guns were hanging from two nails on the wall, and in the corners I saw spades, fishing-lines, dried palm leaves, objects of all kinds, deposited there by people who happened to come into the house, and remaining there within easy reach until someone happened to go out or until they were wanted for a job of work.

My host smiled.

“It is the dwelling, or rather the hovel, of an exile,” said he, “but my room is rather more decent. Let’s go there.”

My first thought, when I entered the room, was that I was penetrating into a secondhand dealer’s, so full of things was it, all the incongruous, strange, and varied things that one feels must be momentoes. On the walls two excellent pictures by well-known artists, hangings, weapons, swords and pistols, and then, right in the middle of the most prominent panel, a square of white satin in a gold frame.

Surprised, I went closer to look at it and I saw a hairpin stuck in the centre of the gleaming material.

My host laid his hand on my shoulder.

“There,” he said, with a smile, “is the only thing I ever look at in this place, and the only one I have seen for ten years. Monsieur Prudhomme declared: ‘This sabre is the finest day of my life!’ As for me, I can say: ‘This pin is the whole of my life!’ ”

I sought for the conventional phrase; I ended by saying:

“Some woman has made you suffer?”

He went on harshly:

“Put it that I suffer like a wretch.⁠ ⁠… But come on to my balcony. A name came to my lips just now, that I dared not utter, because if you had answered ‘dead,’ as you did for Sophie Astier, I should have blown out my brains, this very day.”

We had gone out on to a wide balcony looking towards two deep valleys, one on the right and the other on the left, shut in by high sombre mountains. It was that twilight hour when the vanished sun lights the earth only by its reflection in the sky.

He continued:

“Is Jeanne de Limours still alive?”

His eye was fixed on mine, full of shuddering terror.

I smiled.

“Very much alive⁠ ⁠… and prettier than ever.”

“You know her?”

“Yes.”

He hesitated:

“Intimately?”

“No.”

He took my hand:

“Talk to me about her.”

“But there is nothing I can say: she is one of the women, or rather one of the most charming and expensive gay ladies in Paris. She leads a pleasant and sumptuous life, and that’s all one can say.”

He murmured: “I love her,” as if he had said: “I am dying.” Then abruptly:

“Ah, for three years, what a distracting and glorious life we lived! Five or six times I all but killed her; she tried to pierce my eyes with that pin at which you have been looking. There, look at this little white speck on my left eye. We loved each other! How can I explain such a passion? You would not understand it.

“There must be a gentle love, born of the swift mutual union of two hearts and two souls; but assuredly there exists a savage love, cruelly tormenting, born of the imperious force binding together two discordant beings who adore while they hate.

“That girl ruined me in three years. I had four millions which she devoured quite placidly, in her indifferent fashion, crunching them up with a sweet smile that seemed to die from her eyes on to her lips.

“You know her? There is something irresistible about her. What is it? I don’t know. Is it those grey eyes whose glance thrusts like a gimlet and remains in you like the barb of an arrow? It is rather that sweet smile, indifferent and infinitely charming, that dwells on her face like a mask. Little by little her slow grace invades one, rises from her like a perfume, from her tall slender body, swaying a little as she moves, for she seems to glide rather than walk, from her lovely drawling voice that seems the music of her smile, from the very motion of her body, too, a motion that is always restrained, always just right, taking the eye with rapture, so exquisitely proportioned it is. For three years I was conscious of no one but her. How I suffered! For she deceived me with everyone. Why? For no reason, for the mere sake of deceiving. And when I discovered it, when I abused her as a light-o’-love and a loose woman, she admitted it calmly. ‘We’re not married, are we?’ she said.

“Since I have been here, I have thought of her so much that I have ended by understanding her: that woman is Manon Lescaut come again. Manon could not love without betraying; for Manon, love, pleasure, and money were all one.”

He was silent. Then, some minutes later:

“When I had squandered my last sou for her, she said to me quite simply: ‘You realise, my dear, that I cannot live on air and sunshine. I love you madly, I love you more than anyone in the world, but one must live. Poverty and I would never make good bedfellows.’

“And if I did but tell you what an agonising life I had lead with her! When I looked at her, I wanted to kill her as sharply as I wanted to embrace her. When I looked at her⁠ ⁠… I felt a mad impulse to open my arms, to take her to me and strangle her. There lurked in her, behind her eyes, something treacherous and forever unattainable that made me execrate her; and it is perhaps because of that that I loved her so. In her, the Feminine, the detestable and distracting Feminine, was more puissant than in any other woman. She was charged with it, surcharged as with an intoxicating and venomous fluid. She was Woman, more essentially than any one woman has ever been.

“And look you, when I went out with her, she fixed her glance on every man, in such a way that she seemed to be giving each one of them her undivided interest. That maddened me and yet held me to her the closer. This woman, in the mere act of walking down the street, was owned by every man in it, in spite of me, in spite of herself, by virtue of her very nature, although she bore herself with a quiet and modest air. Do you understand?

“And what torture! At the theatre, in the restaurant, it seemed to me that men possessed her under my very eyes. And as soon as I left her company, other men did indeed possess her.

“It is ten years since I have seen her, and I love her more than ever.”

Night had spread its wings upon the earth. The powerful scent of orange-trees hung in the air.

I said to him:

“You will see her again?”

He answered:

“By God, yes. I have here, in land and money, from seven to eight hundred thousand francs. When the million is complete, I shall sell all and depart. I shall have enough for one year with her⁠—one entire marvellous year. And then goodbye, my life will be over.”

I asked:

“But afterwards?”

“Afterwards, I don’t know. It will be the end. Perhaps I shall ask her to keep me on as her body-servant.”

The Secret

The little Baroness de Grangerie was drowsing on her couch, when the little Marquise of Rennedon entered abruptly, looking very disturbed, her bodice a little rumpled, her hat a little on one side, and dropped into a chair, exclaiming:

“Ouf, I’ve done it!”

Her friend, who had never seen her anything but placid and gentle, sat bolt upright in amazement. She demanded:

“What is it? What have you done?”

The Marchioness, who did not seem able to remain in one place, got to her feet, and began to walk about the room; then she flung herself on the foot of the couch where her friend was resting and, taking her hands, said:

“Listen, darling, promise me never to repeat what I am going to tell you.”

“I promise.”

“On your immortal soul.”

“On my immortal soul.”

“Well, I have just revenged myself on Simon.”

The other woman exclaimed:

“Oh, you’ve done right!”

“Yes, haven’t I? Just think, during the past six months he has become more intolerable than ever, beyond words intolerable. When I married him, I knew well enough how ugly he was, but I thought that he was a kindly man. What a mistake I made! He must certainly have thought that I loved him for himself, with his fat paunch and his red nose, for he began to coo like a turtledove. You can imagine that it made me laugh, I nicknamed him ‘Pigeon’ for it. Men really do have the oddest notions about themselves. When he realised that I felt no more than friendship for him, he became suspicious, he began to speak bitterly to me, to treat me as if I were a coquette or a fast woman, or I don’t know what. And then it became more serious because of⁠ ⁠… of⁠ ⁠… it’s not very easy to put it into words.⁠ ⁠… In short, he was very much in love with me, very much in love⁠ ⁠… and he proved it to me often, far too often. Oh, my dearest, what torture it is to be⁠ ⁠… made love to by a clown of a man!⁠ ⁠… No, really, I couldn’t bear it any longer⁠ ⁠… not any longer at all⁠ ⁠… it is just like having a tooth pulled every evening⁠ ⁠… much worse than that, much worse. Well, imagine among your acquaintances someone very ugly, very ridiculous, very repellent, with a fat paunch⁠—that’s the frightful part⁠—and great hairy calves. You can just imagine him, can’t you? Now imagine that this someone is your husband⁠ ⁠… and that⁠ ⁠… every evening⁠ ⁠… you understand. No, its loathsome!⁠ ⁠… loathsome! It made me sick, positively sick⁠ ⁠… sick in my basin. Really, I can’t bear it any longer. There ought to be a law to protect wives in such cases. Just imagine it yourself, every evening!⁠ ⁠… Pah, it’s beastly!

“It’s not that I have been dreaming of romantic love-affairs⁠—not ever. There aren’t any nowadays. All the men in our world are like stable-boys or bankers; they care for nothing but horses or money; and if they love women, they love them only as they love horses, just to display them in their drawing rooms as they show off a pair of chestnuts in the Bois. Nothing else. Life today is such that romantic feelings can play no part.

“We should show ourselves merely as matter-of-fact and unemotional women. Intercourse is now no more than meetings at stated times, at which the same thing is always repeated. Besides, for whom could one feel any affection or tenderness? Men, our men, are generally speaking only correct tailor’s dummies altogether wanting in intelligence and sensibility. If we look for any intellectual graces, like a person looking for water in a desert, we call the artists to our side; and we behold the arrival of intolerable poseurs or underbred Bohemians. As for me, like Diogenes I have been looking for a man, one real man in the whole of Parisian society; but I am already quite convinced that I shall not find him, and it will not be long before I blow out my lantern. To return to my husband, since it fairly turned my stomach to see him coming into my room in his shirt and drawers, I used all means, all, you understand me, to alienate him and to⁠ ⁠… disgust him with me. At first he was furious, and then he became jealous, he imagined that I was deceiving him. In the early days he contented himself with watching me. He glared like a tiger at all the men who came to the house, and then the persecution began. He followed me everywhere. He used abominable means to take me off guard. Then he never left me alone to talk with anyone. At all the balls, he remained planted behind me, poking out his clumsy hound’s head as soon as I said a word. He followed me to the buffet, forbidding me to dance with this man and that man, taking me away in the very middle of the cotillion, making me look foolish and ridiculous, and appear I don’t know what sort of a person. It was after this that I ceased to go anywhere.

“In this intimacy, he became worse still. Would you believe that the wretch treated me as⁠ ⁠… as I daren’t say it⁠ ⁠… as a harlot.

“My dear!⁠ ⁠… he said to me one evening: ‘Whose bed have you been sharing today?’ I wept and he was delighted.

“And then he became worse still. The other week he took me to dine in the Champs-Élysées. Fate ordained that Baubiguac should be at the neighbouring table. Then, if you please, Simon began to tread furiously on my feet and growl at me over the melon: ‘You have given him a rendezvous, you slut! Just you wait!’ Then⁠—you could never guess what he did, my dear⁠—he had the audacity to pull my hatpin gently out and he drove it into my arm. I uttered a loud cry. Everybody came running up. Then he staged a detestable comedy of mortification. You can imagine it.

“At that very moment I said to myself: ‘I’ll have my revenge, and before very long, too.’ What would you have done?”

“Oh, I would have revenged myself!”

“Very well, that’s what I’ve done to him.”

“How?”

“What! Don’t you understand?”

“But, my dear⁠ ⁠… still⁠ ⁠… well, yes.”

“Yes, what? Gracious, just think of his head! Can’t you just see him, with his fat face, his red nose, and his side-whiskers hanging down like dog’s ears.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I said to myself: ‘I shall revenge myself for my own pleasure and Marie’s,’ for I always intended to tell you, but never anyone but you, mind. Just think of his face and then remember that he⁠ ⁠… that he⁠ ⁠… he is⁠ ⁠…”

“What⁠ ⁠… you’ve⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, darling, never, never tell a soul, promise me again! But think how funny it is⁠ ⁠… think.⁠ ⁠… He has looked quite different to me since that very moment⁠ ⁠… and I burst out laughing all alone⁠ ⁠… all alone.⁠ ⁠… Just think of his head.”

The Baroness looked at her friend, and the wild laughter that welled up in her breast burst between her lips; she began to laugh, but she laughed as if she were hysterical, and with both hands pressed to her breast, her face puckered up, her breath strangled in her throat, she leaned forward as if she would fall over on her face.

Then the little Marquise herself gave way to a stifling outburst of mirth. Between two cascades of little cries she repeated:

“Think⁠ ⁠… do think⁠ ⁠… isn’t it funny? Tell me⁠ ⁠… think of his head⁠ ⁠… think of his side-whiskers!⁠ ⁠… of his nose⁠ ⁠… just think⁠ ⁠… isn’t it funny? but whatever you do, don’t tell anyone⁠ ⁠… don’t⁠ ⁠… tell⁠ ⁠… about it⁠ ⁠… ever!”

They continued for some minutes very nearly suffocated, unable to speak, weeping real tears in their ecstasy of amusement.

The Baroness was the first to recover her self-control, and still shaking:

“Oh!⁠ ⁠… tell me how you did it⁠ ⁠… tell me⁠ ⁠… it’s so funny⁠ ⁠… so funny!”

But the other woman could not speak⁠ ⁠… she stammered:

“When I had made up my mind⁠ ⁠… I said to myself:⁠ ⁠… ‘Now⁠ ⁠… hurry up⁠ ⁠… you must make it happen at once.’⁠ ⁠… And I⁠ ⁠… did it⁠ ⁠… today⁠ ⁠…”

“Today!”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… right at once⁠ ⁠… and I told Simon to come and look for me at your house for our especial amusement.⁠ ⁠… He’s coming⁠ ⁠… at once⁠ ⁠… he’s coming.⁠ ⁠… Just think⁠ ⁠… think⁠ ⁠… think of his head when you see him.⁠ ⁠…”

The Baroness, a little sobered, panted as if she had just finished running a race. She answered:

“Oh, tell me how you did it⁠ ⁠… tell me.”

“It was quite easy. I said to myself: ‘He is jealous of Baubiguac; very well, Baubiguac it shall be. He is as clumsy as his feet, but quite honourable; incapable of gossiping.’ Then I went to his house, after breakfast.”

“You went to his house. On what excuse?”

“A collection⁠ ⁠… for orphans⁠ ⁠…”

“Tell me the whole tale me⁠ ⁠… quickly⁠ ⁠… tell me the whole tale.⁠ ⁠…”

“He was so astounded to see me that he could not speak. And then he gave me two louis for my collection, and then as I got up to go away, he asked news of my husband; then I pretended to be unable to contain my feelings any longer, and I told him everything that was on my mind. I painted him even blacker than he is, look you.⁠ ⁠… Then Baubiguac was very touched, he began to think of ways in which he might help me⁠ ⁠… and as for me, I began to cry⁠ ⁠… but I cried as a woman cries⁠ ⁠… when she is crying on purpose.⁠ ⁠… He comforted me⁠ ⁠… he made me sit down⁠ ⁠… and then, as I didn’t stop, he put his arm round me.⁠ ⁠… I said: ‘Oh, my poor friend my poor friend!’ He repeated: ‘My poor friend, my poor friend!’ and he went on embracing me⁠ ⁠… all the time⁠ ⁠… until we reached the closest embrace of all.⁠ ⁠… There.

“When it was over, I made a terrible display of despair and reproaches. Oh, I treated him, I treated him as if he were the lowest of the low.⁠ ⁠… But I wanted to burst out laughing madly. I thought of Simon, of his head, of his side-whiskers. Imagine it⁠ ⁠… just imagine it! I’ve done it to him. Even if he comes in this minute, I’ve done it to him. And he was so afraid of it happening. Come wars, earthquakes, epidemics, even if we all die⁠ ⁠… I’ve done it to him. Nothing can ever prevent it now! Think of his head⁠ ⁠… and say to yourself that I’ve done it to him!”

The Baroness, who was almost choking to death, demanded:

“Shall you see Baubiguac again?”

“No, never. Certainly not.⁠ ⁠… I’ve had enough of him⁠ ⁠… he’s no more desirable than my husband.”

And they both began to laugh again so violently that they reeled like epileptics.

The ringing of a bell silenced their mirth.

The Baroness murmured:

“It’s he⁠ ⁠… look closely at him.”

The door opened, and a stout man appeared, a ruddy-faced man with thick lips and drooping side-whiskers; he rolled incensed eyes.

The two young women regarded him for a moment; then they flung themselves wildly down on the couch, in such a delirium of laughter that they groaned as if they were in the most dreadful agony.

And he repeated in a stupefied voice: “Upon my word, are you mad?⁠ ⁠… mad?⁠ ⁠… are you mad?”

My Twenty-Five Days

I had just taken possession of my room in the hotel⁠—a narrow slip between two papered partitions through which I could hear everything my neighbours were doing⁠—and was arranging my clothes in the wardrobe when I opened the middle drawer and noticed a roll of paper. I straightened it out and read the title:

My Twenty-Five Days.

It was the diary of a visitor at the watering-place, of the last occupant of my cabin-like room, forgotten at the last moment.

These notes may be of interest to the wise and healthy who never leave their homes. It is for their benefit that I am making this copy without altering a single line.

Châtel-Guyon, 15 July.

At the first glance this country is not gay. However, I am going to spend twenty-five days here for the good of my stomach and my liver, and to get thinner. The twenty-five days of anyone who takes the waters are very like the twenty-eight days of the reservist; they are spent entirely in drudgery, and at its worst. I have done nothing today except settle down, meet the doctor, and look around. Châtel-Guyon consists of a stream of yellow water flowing between several low hills dotted about with a casino, houses, and stone crosses.

On the bank of the stream at the end of the valley there is a square building with a small garden; this is the Bathing Establishment round which sad-faced beings⁠—the sick⁠—wander. A great silence reigns in the walks shaded by trees, for this is not a pleasure resort, but a real health centre where you make a business of taking care of yourself, and you get cured, so it seems.

Those who know even affirm that the mineral waters work miracles, but no votive offerings hang in the cashier’s office.

Occasionally men and women go up to the slate-covered pavilion which shelters a sweet, smiling woman, and where a spring bubbles in a cement basin. No words are exchanged between the invalid and the custodian of the healing water. The latter hands a little glass in which air bubbles sparkle in the transparent liquid, to the visitor, who drinks and departs with solemn steps to resume the interrupted walk under the trees.

There is no sound in the little park, no breath of air in the leaves, no voice passing through the silence. A notice should be put up: “No one ever laughs here, care of the health is the only diversion.” Those who do talk look like the dumb who move their lips in imitation of speech, for they are afraid of allowing their voices to be heard.

In the hotel the same silence reigns. It is a big hotel where you dine solemnly between well-bred folk who have nothing to say to each other. Their manners show good breeding, and their faces reflect the conviction of a superiority that it would perhaps be difficult for some of them to justify.

At two o’clock I go up to the Casino, a little wood hut perched on a hillock reached by a goat path, the view from which is magnificent. Châtel-Guyon is situated in a very narrow valley right between the plain and the mountain. To the left I can see the first big rolling waves of the mountain-range of Auvergne covered with trees, and extensive grey patches dotted about here and there: hard masses of lava, for we lie at the foot of the old volcanic craters. To the right through the narrow cut of the valley I can see a plain vast as the sea, bathed in a bluish mist that leaves one to guess at the presence of villages, towns, fields gold with ripe corn, and the green stretches of meadow-land lying in the shadow of apple trees. It is Limagne, an immense fertile plain always enveloped in a light mist.

Night has fallen, and after dining alone I am writing this beside the open window. From the other side of the road I can hear the little orchestra of the casino playing tunes like a stupid bird singing its lonely song in the desert.

Now and then I hear a dog bark. The great stillness does one good. Good night.

16 July.⁠—Nothing. I took a bath and after that a shower-bath. I drank three glasses of water and I have tramped the paths in the park, allowing fifteen minutes between each glass and half an hour after the last. I have begun my twenty-five days.

17 July.⁠—I noticed two pretty women who take their baths and their meals when all the others have finished.

18 July.⁠—Nothing.

19 July.⁠—Again saw the two pretty women. They have style and an indescribable air that fills me with pleasure.

20 July.⁠—Long walk in a charming, wooded valley as far as the Hermitage of Sans-Souci. The country is delightful although melancholy; it is so peaceful, so sweet, so green. On the mountain roads you meet narrow wagons laden with hay, slowly drawn by two cows or curbed with great difficulty by their heads, which are yoked together, when going down the slopes. A man wearing a big black hat leads them with a thin stick by tapping either their flanks or their heads; and often with a simple, energetic, grave gesture he brings them to a halt when the over-heavy load pushes them down the very steep slopes.

The air is refreshing in these valleys and when it is very hot the dust has a faint, vague odour of vanilla and cow-byres, for so many cows are pastured on these routes that you are reminded of their presence all the time; and this odour is a perfume, whereas it would be a stench if it came from any other animal.

21 July.⁠—Excursion to the valley of Enval, a narrow gorge enclosed between superb rocks at the foot of the mountain, with a stream running in and out of the piles of stones.

As I was reaching the bottom of the ravine I heard women’s voices, and caught sight of the two mysterious ladies of the hotel, seated on a boulder, talking.

It seemed a good opportunity, so I introduced myself without hesitation. My advances were received quite naturally and we returned together to the hotel. We talked about Paris; apparently they know many people I know too. Who can they be?

I shall see them again tomorrow. There is nothing more amusing than such meetings.

22 July.⁠—Spent nearly the whole day with the two unknown. They are, indeed, very pretty, the one dark, the other fair. They say they are widows. H’m?⁠—I suggested taking them to Royat tomorrow and they have accepted the invitation.

Châtel-Guyon is not so melancholy as I thought when I arrived.

23 July.⁠—Spent the day at Royat. Royat is a collection of hotels at the bottom of a valley near to Clermont-Ferrand. Lots of people. A big park full of life. A superb view of the Puy-de-Dôme seen at the end of a series of valleys.

My companions attract a great deal of attention, which is flattering to me. The man who escorts a pretty woman thinks he is crowned with a halo, all the more so, then, when he is accompanied by two pretty women. Nothing is so pleasant as to dine in a well-frequented restaurant with a woman friend that everybody stares at, besides which nothing is more likely to raise a man in the estimation of his neighbours.

To drive in the Bois behind a broken-down horse or to walk in the Boulevard accompanied by a plain woman are the two most humiliating things in life to anyone sensitive about public opinion. Of all luxuries, woman is the rarest and the most distinguished, the one that costs the most and that is the most envied; therefore the one that we prefer to exhibit to the eyes of a jealous world.

To appear in public with a pretty woman on your arm arouses all the jealousy of which man is capable; it means: see, I am rich because I possess this rare and costly object; I have taste because I discovered this pearl; I may even be loved by her⁠—that is to say, if she is not deceiving me, which, after all, would only prove that others consider her charming, too.

But what a disgrace to be seen with an ugly woman!

How much humiliation it implies!

On principle she is supposed to be your wife, for you can’t admit that you have an ugly mistress? A real wife may be ill-favoured but her ugliness is the cause of all kinds of disagreeable incidents. To begin with, you are taken for a notary or a magistrate, the two professions that hold the monopoly of grotesque, well-dowered wives. Well, is that not painful for a man? Besides, it seems like shouting aloud that you have the appalling courage, and even are under legal obligation, to caress that ridiculous face and that misshapen body, and that doubtless you will be so lost to shame as to make this undesirable being a mother⁠—which is the very height of absurdity.

24 July.⁠—I never leave the two unknown widows, whom I am beginning to know quite well. This country is delightful and our hotel is excellent. A good season. The treatment is doing me an immense amount of good.

25 July.⁠—Drove in a landau to the Lake of Tazenat. An unexpected, exquisite treat, decided upon at lunch. Hurried departure on leaving the table. After a long drive through the mountains we suddenly caught sight of a lovely little lake⁠—very round and very blue, as clear as glass⁠—tucked away at the bottom of an extinct crater. One side of this immense basin is arid, the other is wooded. There is a little house surrounded by trees, where a man lives who is both lively and kind: a wise soul who spends his life in this Virgilian spot. He made us welcome. An idea came into my head, and I exclaimed:

“Supposing we bathe!”

“Yes⁠—but⁠—what about costumes?”

“Bah! We are in the desert.” So we bathed⁠—!

If I were a poet I would describe the unforgettable vision of the two young, naked bodies in the transparent water. The shelving, upright cliff enclosed the still waters of the lake, round and shining like a silver coin; the sun poured into it a flood of warm light, and by the rocks the blonde swimmers glided about apparently suspended in the air, by the hardly visible waves. Their movements were reflected on the sand at the bottom of the lake.

26 July.⁠—Some of the people seem to regard my rapid friendship with the two widows with disapproval and condemnation! There are evidently people so constituted that they think the right thing in life is to be bored. Everything that appears amusing at once becomes either a breach of good manners or of morality. For them duty is subject to rigid and deadly gloomy rules.

I would like to point out with all humility that the standard of duty differs for the Mormons, Arabs, Zulus, Turks, the English or the French, and that good people are to be found amongst them all.

I will give an example. In regard to women, a sense of duty is developed at the age of nine in England, whereas in France it does not exist until the age of fifteen. As for me, I take a little from each country, the result being on the lines of the teaching of the saintly King Solomon.

27 July.⁠—Good news. I have lost over a pound in weight. Excellent, this Châtel-Guyon water! I am taking the widows to dine at Riom, a melancholy town whose anagram makes it an undesirable neighbour to healing springs: Riom, Mori.

28 July.⁠—Crash! Bang! Two men have come to fetch my two widows. Two widowers, of course.⁠—They are leaving this evening, they wrote to tell me.

29 July.⁠—Alone! Long excursion on foot to the extinct crater of Nachère. Superb view.

30 July.⁠—Nothing. Am following the treatment.

31 July. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

This beautiful country is full of disgusting streams. I am drawing the careless town council’s attention to the abominable sewer which poisons the road in front of the hotel. All the kitchen refuse of this place is thrown into it. It makes a good breeding-ground for cholera.

1 August.⁠—Nothing. Treatment.

2 August. Lovely walk to Châteauneuf, centre for rheumatic patients where everybody is lame. Nothing could be funnier than this population of people on crutches.

3 August.⁠—Nothing. Treatment.

4 August.⁠—Ditto. Ditto.

5 August.⁠—Ditto. Ditto.

6 August.⁠—Despair!⁠—I have just been weighed and have put on over half a pound. Well; what then?⁠—

7 August.⁠—Over sixty-six miles’ drive in the mountains. I won’t mention the name of the country out of respect for its women.

This excursion had been suggested to me as beautiful and uncommon. I reached a rather pretty village on the bank of a river, surrounded by a lovely wood of walnut-trees after a four hours’ drive. Hitherto I had never seen so extensive a walnut forest in Auvergne. Moreover, it constitutes all the wealth of the district, for it is planted on common land. Formerly this land was nothing but a bare hillside covered with brushwood. The authorities tried in vain to get it cultivated; it barely sufficed to feed a few sheep.

Today it is a superb wood, thanks to the women, and has a curious name: it is called “The Sins of the Curé.”

It must be acknowledged that the women of this mountain district have the reputation of being loose in character, more so than those of the plain. A boy who meets one anywhere owes her at least one kiss and if he does not take more he is a fool.

To be quite frank, this is the only reasonable and logical way of approaching the question. Since it is recognised that woman’s natural mission is to please man⁠—whether the woman be town or countrybred⁠—the least man can do is to show her that she does please him. If he refrains from any display of feeling, it means that he considers her ugly, which amounts to an insult. If I were a woman I would never receive a man a second time who had not been wanting in respect at the first meeting; I would consider that he had failed to appreciate my beauty, my charm, my essential womanhood.

So the bachelors of the village X often proved to the women of the district that they found them to their taste, and the curé, who could not succeed in preventing these gallant and perfectly natural demonstrations, decided to turn them to some profit. So every woman who made a slip had to do penance by planting a walnut on the common land, and, night after night, lanterns might be seen twinkling on the hillside like will-o’-the-wisps; for the guilty were not anxious to make atonement in broad daylight.

In two years’ time there was no more room on the land belonging to the village, and there are now said to be over three thousand magnificent trees whose foliage conceals the belfry that calls the faithful to prayer and praise. These are “The Sins of the Curé.”

A way to reafforest France has been sought for so eagerly that the Administration of Forests might come to an understanding with the clergy and use the simple method invented by this humble curé.

7 August.⁠—Treatment.

8 August.⁠—I am packing up and bidding farewell to this charming spot, so peaceful and silent, to the green mountain, the quiet valleys, the deserted casino from whence you can see the immense plain of Limagne, always veiled in its light, bluish mist. I shall leave tomorrow.

There the manuscript stopped. I will add nothing to it, my impressions of the country not being quite the same as my predecessor’s; for I did not find the two widows there!

A Madman

He died a high-court judge, an upright magistrate whose irreproachable life was held up to honour in every court in France. Barristers, young puisne judges, judges, greeted with a low bow that marked their profound respect, his thin white impressive face, lighted up by two fathomless gleaming eyes.

He had given up his life to the pursuit of crime and the protection of the weak. Swindlers and murderers had had no more formidable enemy, for he seemed to read, in the depths of their souls, their most secret thoughts, and penetrate at a glance the dark twistings of their motives.

He had died, in his eighty-second year, everywhere honoured, and followed by the regrets of a whole nation. Soldiers in scarlet trousers had escorted him to his grave, and men in white ties had delivered themselves round his coffin of grief-stricken speeches and tears that seemed sincere.

And then came the strange document that the startled solicitor discovered in the desk where he had been accustomed to keep the dossiers of famous criminals.

It had for title:

“Why?”

June 20th, 1851. I have just left the court. I have condemned Blondel to death. Why did this man kill his five children? Why? Often, one comes across people to whose temperaments the taking of life affords a keen physical pleasure. Yes, yes, it must be a physical pleasure, perhaps the sharpest of all, for is not killing an act more like the act of creation than any other? To make and to destroy. In these two words is contained the history of the universe, the history of all worlds, of all that exists, all. Why is it so intoxicating to kill?

June 25th. To think that there is a living being in there⁠—loves, walks, runs! A living being. What is a living being? This thing possessed of life, bearing within itself the vital power of motion and a will that orders this motion. It is kin to nothing, this human being. Its feet do not belong to the ground. It is a germ of life wandering over the earth; and this germ of life, come I know not whence, can be destroyed at will. Then nothing, forever nothing. It decays, it is ended.

June 26th. Then why is it a crime to kill? Yes, why? It is, on the contrary, a law of nature. The ordained purpose of every being is to kill: he kills to live, and he kills for the sake of killing. To kill is in our nature: we must kill. The beasts kill continually, every day, at every moment of their existence. Man kills continually to feed himself, but as he must also kill for sheer sensual satisfaction, he has invented sport. A child kills the insects that he finds, the little animals that come his way. But that does not satisfy the irresistible lust for wholesale killing, which is in us. It is not enough to kill beasts; we must kill men too. In other days, we satisfied this need by human sacrifice. Today the necessities of living in a community have made murder a crime. We condemn it and punish the assassin. But since we cannot live without yielding to the innate and imperious instinct of death, we assuage it from time to time by wars in which one whole race butchers another. War is a debauch of blood, a debauch in which the armies sate themselves and on which not only plain citizens are drunken, but women, and the children who every evening read under the lamp the hysterical recital of the massacres.

One would have imagined that scorn would be meted out to those destined to accomplish these slaughterings of men. No. They are heaped with honours. They are clad in gold and gorgeous raiment; they wear feathers on their heads, decorations on their breasts; and they are given crosses, rewards, honours of all kinds. They are haughty, respected, adored of women, acclaimed by the mob, and solely because their mission in life is to shed human blood. They drag through the streets their instruments of death, which the black-coated passerby regards with envy. For killing is the glorious law thrust by nature into the profoundest impulse of our being. There is nothing more lovely and more honourable than to kill.

June 30th. To kill is the law; because nature loves immortal youth. She seems to cry through all her unconscious acts: “Hasten! Hasten! Hasten!” As she destroys, so she renews.

July 2nd. Being⁠—what is being? All and nothing. For thought, it is the reflection of all things. For memory and for science, it is an epitome of the world, the tale of which it bears within itself. Mirror of things, and mirror of deeds, each human being becomes a little universe within the universe.

But travel; look at the people swarming everywhere, and man is nothing now, nothing now, nothing! Get into a ship, put a wide space between yourself and the crowded shore, and you will soon see nothing but the coast. The infinitesimal speck of being disappears, so tiny it is, so insignificant. Traverse Europe in a swift train and look out through the window. Men, men, always men, innumerable, inglorious, swarming in the fields, swarming in the streets; dull-witted peasants able to do no more than turn up the earth; ugly women able to do no more than prepare food for their men, and breed. Go to India, go to China, and you will see scurrying about more thousands of creatures, who are born, live, and die without leaving more trace than the ant crushed to death on the road. Go to the country of black men, herded in their mud huts; to the country of fair-skinned Arabs sheltered under a brown canvas that flaps in the wind, and you will understand that the solitary individual being is nothing, nothing. The race is all. What is the individual, the individual member of a wandering desert tribe? And men who are wise do not trouble themselves overmuch about death. Man counts for nothing with them. A man kills his enemy: it is war. That, in the old days, was the way of the world, in every great house, in every province.

Yes, journey over the world and watch the swarming of the innumerable and nameless human beings. Nameless? Aye, there’s the rub! To kill is a crime because we have enumerated human beings. When they are born, they are registered, named, baptised. The law takes charge of them. Very well, then! The man who is not registered is of no account: kill him in the desert, kill him in the hills or in the plain, what does it matter! Nature loves death: she will not punish it.

What is verily sacred, is the social community. That’s it! It is that which protects man. The individual is sacred because he is a member of the social community. Homage to the social state, the legal God. On your knees!

The State itself can kill because it has the right to alter the social community. When it has had two hundred thousand men butchered in a war, it erases them from the community, it suppresses them by the hands of its registrars. That is the end of it. But we who cannot alter the records of the town halls, we must respect life. Social community, glorious divinity who reigns in the temples of the municipalities, I salute you. You are stronger than nature. Ah! Ah!

July 3rd. To kill must be a strange pleasure and of infinite relish to a man. To have there, standing before him, a living thinking being: to thrust in him a little hole, only a little hole, to see pouring out that red stuff which we call blood, which makes life, and then to have in front of one only a lump of nerveless flesh, cold, inert, emptied of thought.

August 5th. I who have spent my life in judging, condemning, in killing by uttered words, in killing by the guillotine such as have killed by the knife, I, I, if I did as do all the assassins whom I have struck down, I, I, who would know it?

August 10th. Who would ever know it? Who would suspect me, me, especially if I chose a creature in whose removal I have no interest?

August 15th. The temptation. The temptation has entered into me like a worm that crawls. It crawls, it moves, it roves through my whole body, in my mind, which thinks only of one thing⁠—to kill; in my eyes which lust to see blood, to see something die; in my ears, where there sounds continually something strange, monstrous, shattering, and stupefying, like the last cry of a human creature; in my legs which tingle with desire to go, to go to the spot where the thing could come to pass; in my hands which tremble with lust to kill. What a glorious act it would be, a rare act, worthy of a free man, greater than other men, captain of his soul, and a seeker after exquisite sensations!

August 22nd. I could resist no longer. I have killed a small beast just to try, to begin with.

Jean, my man, had a goldfinch in a cage hung in a window of the servant’s room. I sent him on an errand and I took the little bird in my hand, in my hand where I felt the beating of his heart. He was warm. I went up to my room. From time to time, I clutched him harder, his heart beat faster; it was frightful and delicious. I all but choked him. But I should not have seen the blood.

Then I took the scissors, short nail-scissors, and I cut his throat in three strokes, so cleverly. He opened his beak, he struggled to escape me, but I held him fast, oh, I held him; I would have held a mad bulldog, and I saw the blood run. How beautiful blood is, red, gleaming, clear! I longed to drink it. I wetted the end of my tongue with it. It was good. But he had so little of it, the poor little bird! I have not had time to enjoy the sight of it as I would have liked. It must be glorious to see a bull bleed to death.

And then I did all that assassins do, that real ones do. I washed the scissors, I washed my hands, I threw out the water, and I carried the body, the corpse, into the garden to bury it. I hid it in the strawberry bed. It will never be found. Every day I shall eat a strawberry from that plant. In very truth, how one can enjoy life when one knows how!

My man wept; he supposed that his bird had flown. How could he suspect me? Ah! Ah!

Aug. 25th. I must kill a man. I must.

Aug. 30th. It is done. What a simple thing it is!

I went to take a walk in the Bois de Vernes. I was thinking of nothing, no, of nothing. And there was a child on the road, a little boy eating a slice of bread and butter.

He stood still to let me pass and said:

“Good day, Monsieur le président.”

And the thought came into my head: “Suppose I were to kill him?”

I replied:

“Are you all alone, my boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All alone in the wood?”

“Yes, sir.”

The desire to kill intoxicated me like strong drink. I approached him stealthily, sure that he would run away. And then I seized him by the throat⁠ ⁠… I squeezed him, I squeezed him with all my strength. He looked at me with terrified eyes. What eyes! Quite round, fathomless, clear, terrible. I have never experienced so savage an emotion⁠ ⁠… but so short. He clutched my wrists with his little hands, and his body writhed like a feather in the fire. Then he moved no more.

My heart thudded, ah! the bird’s heart! I flung the body in a ditch, then grasses over him.

I went home again; I dined well. What an utterly simple affair!

That evening I was very gay, lighthearted, young again. I spent the rest of the evening at the Prefect’s house. They found me good company.

But I have not seen blood. I am calm.

Aug. 30th. The corpse has been found. They are searching for the murderer. Ah! Ah!

Sept. 1st. They have arrested two tramps. Proofs are lacking.

Sept. 2nd. The parents have been to see me. They wept. Ah! Ah!

Oct. 6th. They have discovered nothing. Some wandering vagabond must have struck the blow. Ah! Ah! If I had only seen the blood flow, I think I should now be quiet in my mind.

Oct. 10th. The lust to kill possesses my every nerve. It is like the furious passions of love that torture us at twenty.

Oct. 20th. Yet another. I was walking along the river, after breakfast. And I saw, under a willow, a fisherman fast asleep. It was high noon. A spade was stuck, it might have been for the purpose, in a nearby field of potatoes.

I took it, I came back; I lifted it like a club and, cutting through it with a single blow, I split the fisherman’s head right open. Oh, how he bled! Crimson blood, full of brains. It trickled into the water, very gently. And I went on my way at a solemn pace. If anyone had seen me! Ah! Ah! I should have made an excellent assassin.

Oct. 25th. The affair of the fisherman has roused a great outcry. His nephew, who used to fish with him, has been accused of the murder.

Oct. 26th. The examining magistrate declares that the nephew is guilty. Everyone in the town believes it. Ah! Ah!

Oct. 27th. The nephew has put up a poor defence. He declares that he had gone to the village to buy bread and cheese. He swears that his uncle was killed in his absence. Who believes him?

Oct. 28th. The nephew is as good as condemned, so utterly have they made him lose his head. Ah! Ah! Justice!

Nov. 15th. Crushing evidence accumulates against the nephew, who will inherit from his uncle. I shall preside at the assizes.

Jan. 25th. To death! To death! To death! I have condemned him to death. Ah! Ah! The solicitor-general spoke like an angel. Ah! Ah! Yet another. I shall go to see him executed.

March 20th. It is done. He was guillotined this morning. He made a good end, very good. It gave me infinite pleasure. How sweet it is to see a man’s head cut off! The blood spurted out like a wave, like a wave. Oh, if I could, I would have liked to have bathed in it! What intoxicating ecstasy to crouch below it, to receive it in my hair and on my face, and rise up all crimson, all crimson! Ah, if people knew!

Now I shall wait, I can afford to wait. So little a thing might trip me up.

The manuscript contained several more papers, but without relating any fresh crime.

The alienists, to whom it was entrusted, declare that there exist in the world many undetected madmen, as cunning and as redoubtable as this monstrous maniac.

Indiscretion

Before marriage, they had loved each other with a pure love, their heads in the stars.

It had begun in a pleasant acquaintance made on a sea front. He had found her entirely charming, this young girl, like a rose, with her transparent sunshades and her pretty gowns, drifting past the vast background of the sea. He had loved her, fair and delicately slender, in her frame of blue waves and illimitable sky. And he confounded the compassionate tenderness roused in him by this virginal child, with the vague powerful emotion stirred in his soul, his heart, his very veins by the sharp salt air and the wide countryside filled with sun and sea.

The girl herself had loved him, because he wooed her, because he was young, rich enough, well-bred and fastidious. She had loved him because it is natural for young girls to love young men who speak to them of love.

Then for three months they had spent their time together, eyes looking into eyes and hand touching hand. The mutual happiness that they felt⁠—in the morning before the bath, in the freshness of a new day, and their farewells at night, in the shore, under the stars, in the soft warm of the quiet night, farewells murmured softly, very softly⁠—had already the character of kisses, though their lips had never met.

They dreamed of one another in the instant of sleep, thought of one another in the instant of waking, and, without a word exchanged, called to each other, and desired each other with all the force of their souls and all the force of their bodies.

After their marriage, their adoration had come to earth. It had been at first a kind of sensuous and insatiable fury of possession, then an exalted affection wrought of flesh and blood romance, of caresses already a little sophisticated, of ingenious and delicately indelicate lovemaking. Their every glance had a lascivious significance, all their gestures roused in them thoughts of the ardent intimacy of their nights.

Now, without acknowledging it, perhaps without yet realising it, they had begun to weary of one another. They loved each other dearly, still; but there were no longer any revelations to share, nothing to do that they had not done many times, nothing to discover about one another, not even a new word of love, an unpremeditated ecstasy, an intonation that might make more poignant the familiar words, so often repeated.

None the less they made every effort to feed the dying flame of their first fierce caresses. Every day they invented affectionate pretences, artless or subtle little comedies, a whole series of desperate attempts to reawake the insatiable ardour of first love in their hearts, and the burning desire of the bridal month in their blood.

Sometimes, by dint of exciting their passions, they enjoyed again an hour of unreal ecstasy, followed at once by a mood of fatigue and aversion.

They had tried moonlit nights, walks under the trees in the gentle air of evening, the poetry of riversides veiled in mist, the excitement of public festivities.

Then, one morning, Henrietta said to Paul:

“Will you take me to dine in a cabaret?”

“Of course, darling.”

“In a really well-known cabaret?”

“Of course.”

He looked at her, with a questioning air, quite aware that she was thinking of something that she did not care to say aloud.

She added:

“You know, in a cabaret⁠ ⁠… how shall I put it?⁠ ⁠… in a really gay cabaret⁠ ⁠… in the sort of cabaret where people arrange to meet each other alone?”

He smiled.

“Yes, I understand. In a private room of a fashionable café.”

“That’s it. But a fashionable café where you are known, where you have perhaps already had supper⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… dinner⁠ ⁠… and don’t you know⁠ ⁠… you know⁠ ⁠… I should like⁠ ⁠… no, I’ll never dare say it.”

“Tell me, darling; what can anything matter, between you and me? We don’t hide little things from each other.”

“No, I dare not.”

“Really now, don’t pretend to be shy. What is it?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠… I would like⁠ ⁠… I would like to be taken for your mistress⁠ ⁠… and that the waiters, who don’t know that you are married, should suppose me your mistress, and you too⁠ ⁠… that you should think me your mistress, for one hour, just in that room which must have memories for you.⁠ ⁠… Don’t you see? And I shall believe, myself, that I am your mistress⁠ ⁠… I shall be doing a dreadful thing⁠ ⁠… I shall be deceiving you⁠ ⁠… with yourself. Don’t you see? It is very wicked.⁠ ⁠… But I should like⁠ ⁠… don’t make me blush⁠ ⁠… I feel myself blushing.⁠ ⁠… You can’t imagine how it would⁠ ⁠… would excite me to dine like that with you, in a place that’s not quite nice⁠ ⁠… in a cabinet particulier where people make love⁠ ⁠… every evening.⁠ ⁠… It is very wicked⁠ ⁠… I’m as red as a peony. Don’t look at me.”

He laughed, very amused, and answered:

“Yes, we’ll go, this evening, to a really smart place, where I am known.”

About seven o’clock they walked up the staircase of a fashionable boulevard café, he all smiles like a conqueror, she shy, veiled, delighted. As soon as they had entered a private room furnished with four armchairs and a vast couch of red velvet, the head waiter, black-clad, came in and presented the card. Paul offered it to his wife.

“What would you like to eat?”

“Oh, but I don’t know what’s the right thing to order here.”

So he read down the list of dishes as he took off his overcoat, which he handed to the footman. Then he said:

“A very spicy dinner⁠—potage bisque⁠—poulet à la diable, râble de lièvre, bomard à l’américaine, salade de légumes bien épicée, and dessert. We will drink champagne.”

The head waiter turned a smiling regard on the young woman. He picked up the card, murmuring:

“Will Monsieur Paul have sweet or dry?”

“Champagne, very dry.”

Henrietta was delighted to observe that this man knew her husband’s name.

They sat side by side on the couch, and began to eat.

They had the light of ten wax candles, reflected in a large mirror marked all over by thousands of names traced on it by diamonds: they flung over the gleaming crystal what looked like an immense spider’s web.

Henrietta drank steadily, to enliven her, though she felt giddy after the first glass. Paul, excited by his memories, kissed his wife’s hand every moment. His eyes shone.

She was oddly excited by this not very reputable place, disturbed, happy, a little wanton but very thrilled. Two grave silent footmen, accustomed to see all and forget all, to present themselves only when necessary, and to remove themselves at moments when emotions ran dangerously high, came and went swiftly and deftly.

By the middle of dinner Henrietta was half drunk, more than half drunk, and Paul, very merry, was madly pressing her knee. She was babbling wildly now, impudently gay, with flushed cheeks and suffused burning eyes.

“Now, Paul, own up, don’t you know I simply must know everything?”

“Well, darling?”

“I daren’t say it.”

“Say anything you want to.”

“Have you had mistresses⁠ ⁠… many mistresses⁠ ⁠… before me?”

He hesitated, a little dubious, not sure whether he ought to keep quiet about his triumphs or boast of them.

She added:

“Oh, I implore you, do tell me, have you had ever so many?”

“Well, I’ve had several.”

“How many?”

“Well, I really don’t know⁠ ⁠… a man can’t really be sure about these things, don’t you know?”

“You didn’t keep count of them?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, so you must have had ever so many.”

“Of course.”

“But about how many?⁠ ⁠… only just about?”

“But I haven’t the least idea, darling. Some years I had ever so many, and there were other years when I had very few.”

“How many a year, do you suppose?”

“Sometimes twenty or thirty, sometimes only four or five.”

“Oh, that makes more than a hundred women altogether.”

“Well, yes, about that.”

“Oh, it’s revolting!”

“Why do you call it revolting?”

“Because of course it is revolting, when you think of it⁠ ⁠… all those women⁠ ⁠… naked⁠ ⁠… and always⁠ ⁠… always the same thing. Oh, how revolting it is, all the same, more than a hundred women!”

He was shocked that she found it disgusting, and answered her with that superior manner which men assume to make women realise that they are talking nonsense.

“Well, upon my word, that’s a queer thing to say; if it’s disgusting to have a hundred women, it is just as disgusting to have one.”

“Oh, no, nothing of the kind.”

“Why not?”

“Because one woman, that is a real union, a real love which holds you to her, while a hundred women is just lust or misconduct. I don’t understand how a man can press himself against all those dirty wenches⁠ ⁠…”

“They’re not, they are very clean.”

“It’s impossible for them to be clean, living the life they do.”

“But, on the contrary, it is just because of the life they live that they are so clean.”

“Oh, fie, when you think that only the night before they were doing the same thing with another man! It’s shameful.”

“It’s no more shameful than drinking out of this glass which was drunk from this morning by goodness knows who, and which you may be sure has at any rate been well washed.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, be quiet, you disgust me.”

“Then why did you ask me if I had had mistresses?”

“Tell me, these mistresses of yours, were they all girls of that sort?”

“No, no, of course not.”

“What were they, then?”

“Well, actresses⁠ ⁠… some⁠ ⁠… some little shopgirls⁠ ⁠… and some⁠ ⁠… several society women.”

“How many society women?”

“Six.”

“Only six?”

“Yes.”

“Were they pretty?”

“Of course.”

“Prettier than the girls?”

“No.”

“Which did you like best, the girls or the society women?”

“The girls.”

“Oh, what nasty tastes you have! Why?”

“Because I don’t care for amateur performers.”

“Oh, horrible! You really are detestable, you know. But tell me, did it amuse you to go from one to the other?”

“Of course.”

“Very much?”

“Very much.”

“What is it that amused you? Aren’t they all alike?”

“Of course not.”

“Oh, women are not all alike?”

“Not at all alike.”

“Not in anything?”

“Not in anything.”

“How odd! How do they differ?”

“Altogether.”

“In their bodies?”

“Yes, of course, in their bodies.”

“All over their bodies?”

“All over their bodies.”

“And what else?”

“Well, in their way of⁠ ⁠… of making love, of talking, of saying even little things.”

“And⁠ ⁠… and it is very amusing to have change?”

“Of course.”

“And do men, too, vary?”

“I couldn’t tell you that.”

“You can’t tell me?”

“No.”

“They must vary.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… no doubt.⁠ ⁠…”

She sat sunk in thought, the glass of champagne in her hand. It was full, she drank it off at a gulp; then, placing it on the table, she flung both arms round her husband’s neck, murmuring against his heart:

“Oh, my darling, I love you so!⁠ ⁠…”

He took her in a passionate embrace. A waiter who was entering withdrew, shutting the door; and the serving of the courses was suspended for about five minutes.

When the head waiter reappeared, solemn and dignified, carrying the sweet, she was holding another full glass between her fingers, and, peering into the tawny translucent depths of the liquid, as if she saw there strange imagined things, she was murmuring in a reflective tone:

“Yes, it must be very amusing, all the same.”

Mister Belhomme’s Beast

The Havre stagecoach was just leaving Criquetot and all the passengers were waiting in the yard of the Commercial Hotel, kept by young Malandain, for their names to be called out.

The coach was yellow, on wheels that once were yellow too, but now almost turned grey with accumulated layers of mud. The front wheels were quite small: those at the back, large and rickety, bore the well of the coach, which was unshapely and distended like the paunch of an animal.

Three white hacks harnessed in tandem, whose huge heads and large round knees were the most noticeable things about them, had to pull this conveyance, which had something monstrous in its build and appearance. Already the horses in front of this strange vehicle seemed to be asleep.

The driver, Césaire Horlaville, a corpulent little man but agile enough nevertheless, by virtue of continually mounting the wheels and climbing on to the roof of his coach, with a face reddened by the open air of the countryside, by rain and storm and many brandies, and eyes always blinking as if still under the lash of wind and hail, appeared at the door of the hotel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Large round hampers, full of scared poultry, stood in front of the solid countrywomen. Césaire Horlaville took these one by one and put them up on the roof of his vehicle; then, more carefully, he put up those which were filled with eggs: finally he tossed up from below a few little sacks of seed and small parcels wrapped in handkerchiefs, bits of cloth or paper. Then he opened the door at the back and, taking a list from his pocket, he called out from it:

“The reverend Father from Gorgeville.”

The priest came forward, a tall powerful man, broad, stout, purple in the face, and kindly. He lifted up his cassock to free his foot for stepping up, just as women lift up their skirts, and climbed into the rickety old coach.

“The schoolmaster from Rollebosc-les-Grinets.”

The schoolmaster hurried forward, a tall and hesitating fellow, with a frock-coat down to his knees; and disappeared in his turn through the open door.

“Mister Poiret, two seats.”

Poiret takes his place, tall and stooping, bent with drudgery, grown thin through lack of food, bony, and with a skin all withered from neglected ablutions. His wife followed him, small and wizened, looking very like a tired jade, and clutching in both hands a huge green umbrella.

“Mister Rabot, two seats.”

Rabot, by nature irresolute, hesitated. He asked:

“Was it me you were calling?”

The driver, who had been nicknamed “Foxy,” was going to make a joking reply, when Rabot took a header towards the door of the coach, thrust forward by a shove from his wife, a tall buxom wench with a belly as big and round as a barrel, and hands as large as a washerwoman’s beetle.

And Rabot slipped into the coach like a rat into his hole.

“Mister Caniveau.”

A huge peasant, more beefy than a bull, summoned all his energy and was, in his turn, swallowed up inside the yellow well of the coach.

“Mister Belhomme.”

Belhomme, a tall skeleton of a man, drew near, his neck awry, his aspect dolorous, a handkerchief applied to his ear as if he suffered from very severe toothache.

All of them wore blue smocks over antique and peculiar jackets of black or green cloth, garments, worn on special occasions, which they would uncover in the streets of Havre; and their heads were covered with caps made of silk, as high as towers⁠—the final elegance in that Norman countryside.

Césaire Horlaville shut the door of his coach, climbed on to his box, and cracked his whip.

The three horses seemed to wake up, and, shaking their necks, made audible a vague murmur of tiny bells.

Then the driver, bawling out “Gee up!” from the bottom of his lungs, lashed the animals with a sweep of the arm. They were roused, made an effort, and set off along the road at a slow and halting jog-trot. And behind them the vehicle, jolting its loose panes and all the old iron of its springs, made an astounding jangle of tin and glassware, whilst each row of passengers, tossed and rocked by the jolts, surged up and down with every fall or rise of their uneven progress.

At first silence reigned, out of respect for the parish priest, whose presence put a restraint on their loquacity. He made the first remark, being of a garrulous and friendly disposition.

“Well, Mister Caniveau,” he said, “are you getting on all right?”

The big countryman, whose similarity of build, appearance, and paunch formed a bond between the priest and himself, replied, smiling:

“Much as usual, Father, much as usual, and how’s yourself?”

“Oh, as for me, I can always get along!”

“And you, Mr. Poiret?” asked the reverend gentleman.

“I’d be all right, except for the colzas which have had nothing at all of a crop this year, and in business it is by the crops of colza that we make up our losses, as a rule.”

“Well, well, times are hard!”

“Lord, yes, they’re hard!” declared Mr. Rabot’s hefty wife, in a voice like a policeman.

As she came from a neighbouring village, the priest knew nothing of her but her name.

“Are you the Blondel girl?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s me. I married Rabot.”

Rabot, skinny, nervous, and complacent, saluted the priest with a smile; he saluted him by bowing his head deeply forward, as if to say: “Yes, this is really Rabot, whom the Blondel girl has married.”

Abruptly, Mister Belhomme, who kept his handkerchief over his ear, began to groan in a lamentable manner. He ground his teeth horribly, stamping his feet to express the most frightful suffering.

“Your toothache seems to be very bad?” demanded the priest.

The peasant stopped moaning for an instant to reply:

“Not a bit of it, Father. It’s not my teeth, it’s my ear, right down inside my ear.”

“What’s the matter with your ear then? An abscess?”

“I don’t know whether it’s an abscess, but I know it’s a beast, a filthy beast, which got itself inside me when I was asleep on the hay in the loft.”

“A beast! Are you sure?”

“Am I sure? As sure as heaven, Father, seeing it’s gnawing away the inside of my ear. It’ll eat out my head, for sure, it’ll eat out my head. Oh, ger-ow, ger-ow, ger-ow!”⁠ ⁠… And he began stamping his feet again.

His audience was roused to the keenest interest. Each of them proffered different advice. Poiret would have it that it was a spider, the schoolmaster that it was a caterpillar. He had seen such a case before at Campemuret, in the Orme county, where he had lived for six years; though in this case the caterpillar had got into the head and come out through the nose. But the man had remained deaf in that ear, because the eardrum was split.

“It must have been a worm,” declared the priest.

Mister Belhomme, his head tilted on one side, and leaning it against the carriage door, for he had been the last to get in, went on groaning:

“Oh, ger-ow, ow, ow, I’m scared to death it’s an ant, a big ant, it’s gnawing so. There, Father, it’s galloping and galloping⁠ ⁠… oh⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… it hurts like the devil!”

“Haven’t you seen the doctor?” demanded Caniveau.

“Lord, no!”

“What for haven’t you?”

Fear of doctors seemed to cure Belhomme.

He sat up, without however removing his handkerchief.

“What for haven’t I? You’ve got money to waste on them, have you, for them good-for-nothings? You take yourself to them, once, twice, three times, four times, five times. And for that, a couple of crowns of a hundred sous apiece, two crowns at least. And you tell me what he’d have done for me, the good-for-nothing, you tell me what he’d have done! D’you know that?”

Caniveau laughed.

“Now how would I know? Where are you going anyway?”

“I’m off to Havre to see Chambrelan.”

“What Chambrelan?”

“The healer, of course.”

“What healer?”

“The healer who cured my dad.”

“Your dad.”

“Yes, my dad, in his time.”

“What was the matter with your dad?”

“A great wind in his back, so as he could move nor foot nor leg.”

“And what did your Chambrelan do for him?”

“He kneaded his back as if he was going to make bread of it, with both his hands. And it was all right again in a couple of hours.”

Belhomme was quite sure in his mind that Chambrelan had also pronounced certain words over it, but he dared not say as much before the priest.

Laughing, Caniveau persisted.

“How d’you know it’s not a rabbit you’ve got in your ear? It might have taken that earhole of yours for its burrow, seeing the undergrowth you’ve got growing outside. You wait. I’ll make it run for its life.”

And Caniveau, shaping his hands into a speaking-trumpet, began to imitate the crying of hounds hot on the scent. He yelped, howled, whimpered, and bayed. Everybody in the coach began to laugh, even the schoolmaster who never laughed.

However, as Belhomme appeared irritated at being made fun of, the priest turned the conversation, and speaking to Rabot’s lusty wife, said:

“I dare say you have a big family?”

“Yes, indeed, Father. And how hard it is to rear them!”

Rabot nodded his head, as if to say: “Oh, yes, it’s hard to rear them.”

“How many children have you?”

She stated magisterially, in a harsh deliberate voice:

“Sixteen children, Father. Fifteen of them by my good man.”

And Rabot’s smile broadened, as he knuckled his forehead. He managed fifteen children all by himself, he, Rabot. His wife said so. And there was no doubting her. He was proud of it, by George!

By whom was the sixteenth? She did not say. Probably it was the first. Perhaps everyone knew about it, for no one was surprised. Even Caniveau remained unmoved.

But Belhomme began to groan.

“Oh, ow⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… it fair tears me to bits. Hell!”

The coach drew up outside the Café Polyte. The priest said:

“If we were to drop a little water in your ear, it might bring the thing out with it. Would you like to try it?”

“For sure. I’m willing.”

Everyone got down to assist at the operation.

The priest called for a basin, a napkin, and a glass of water; and he ordered the schoolmaster to hold the patient’s head well over to one side, and then, as soon as the liquid should have penetrated into the passage, to swing it rapidly over the other way.

But Caniveau, who had straightway applied himself to Belhomme’s ear to see whether he could not discover the beast with his naked eye, cried out:

“God bless my soul, what a sticky mess! You’ll have to get that out, my boy. No rabbit could get out through that conglomeration of stuff. He’d stick fast with all four feet.”

The priest examined the passage in his turn and realised that it was too narrow and too stuffed with wax to attempt the expulsion of the beast. It was the schoolmaster who cleared the path with a match and a bit of rag. Then, amid general anxiety, the priest poured down this scoured channel half a glass of water which ran over Belhomme’s face and hair and down his neck. Then the schoolmaster turned the head sharply back over the basin, as if he were trying to unscrew it. A few drops fell out into the white vessel. All the travellers flung themselves upon it. No beast had emerged.

However, Belhomme announcing: “I can’t feel anything,” the priest, triumphant, cried:

“It is certainly drowned!”

Everyone was pleased. They all got back into the coach.

But hardly had they got under way again when Belhomme burst out with the most terrible cries. The beast had wakened up and had become quite frantic. He even swore that it had now got into the head, that it was devouring his brain for him. He accompanied his howls with such contortions that Poiret’s wife, believing him possessed of the devil, began to cry and make the sign of the cross. Then, the pain abating a little, the afflicted man related that it was now careering round his ear. He described with his finger the movements of the beast, seeming to see it, and follow it with a watchful eye.

“Look at it now, there it goes up again!⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… ow⁠ ⁠… oh, hell!”

Caniveau lost patience.

“It’s the water has sent it crazy, that beast of yours. Likely it’s more used to wine.”

His listeners burst out laughing. He added:

“As soon as you and me reach the Café Bourboux, give it a small brandy and I’ll warrant it’ll worry you no more.”

But Belhomme could no longer endure his misery. He began to cry out as if his very inside was being torn out. The priest was obliged to support his head for him. His companions begged Césaire Horlaville to stop at the first house on the way.

It turned out to be a farm, lying near the roadside. Belhomme was carried to it; then they stretched him out on the kitchen table to begin the operation again. Caniveau persisted in advising Memboux brandy with the water, in order to make the beast either tipsy or drowsy, or perhaps kill it outright. But the priest preferred vinegar.

This time they poured in the liquid drop by drop, so that it would reach the farthest corner; then they left it for some minutes in the inhabited organ.

Another basin having been brought, Belhomme was turned bodily over by that lusty pair, the priest and Caniveau, while the schoolmaster banged with his finger on the healthy ear, the better to empty out the other.

Césaire Horlaville himself, whip in hand, had come in to watch.

All at once they saw in the bottom of the basin a small brown speck, no bigger than an onion seed. It was moving, however. It was a flea! Cries of surprise burst forth, then shouts of laughter. A flea! Oh, this was rich, this was very rich! Caniveau slapped his thigh, Césaire Horlaville cracked his whip, the priest burst into guffaws like the braying of an ass, the schoolmaster gave vent to a laugh like a sneeze, and the two women uttered little cries of merriment like nothing but the clucking of hens.

Belhomme was sitting on the table, and, resting the basin on his knees, he contemplated with grave intentness, and a gleam of angry joy in his eye, the vanquished beastie which turned and twisted in its drop of water.

He grunted: “So there you are, you swine,” and spit at it.

The driver, beside himself with amusement, repeated:

“A flea, a flea! Oh, look at it, the little devil of a flea, the little devil of a flea!”

Then, his exuberance wearing off a little, he cried:

“Come now, let’s be off. We’ve wasted enough time.”

And the travellers, still laughing, made their way to the coach.

But Belhomme, last to come, declared:

“I’m off back to Criquetot. I’ve nowt to do at Havre.”

The driver told him:

“Never mind that, pay your fare.”

“I don’t owe no more than half, seeing I’ve not done half the journey.”

“You owe as much as if you’d done the lot.”

And a dispute began which very soon became a furious quarrel. Belhomme swore that he would pay no more than twenty sous, Césaire Horlaville declared that he would have forty.

They shouted at each other, thrusting their faces close together and glaring into each other’s eyes. Caniveau clambered out of the coach.

“In the first place you owe forty sous to the priest, d’ye hear, and then drinks round to everyone, that makes it fifty-five, and out of that you’ll have to give Césaire twenty. How’s that, Foxy?”

The driver, delighted at the idea of Belhomme’s having to screw out three francs seventy-five, replied:

“Right you are.”

“Now then, pay up.”

“I’ll not pay. The priest’s not a doctor, anyhow.”

“If you don’t pay, I’ll put you back in the coach with Césaire and take you to Havre.”

And seizing Belhomme round the waist, the giant lifted him up as if he had been a child.

The other realised that he would have to give in. He drew out his purse and paid.

Then the coach set off again for Havre, while Belhomme turned back towards Criquetot and all the travellers, silent now, watched his blue peasant’s smock, rolling along on his long legs down the white road.

The Woodcocks

My dearest, you ask me why I do not come back to Paris; you are amazed, and you are almost angry. The reason that I am going to offer will doubtless disgust you: Can a sportsman return to Paris at the beginning of the woodcock season?

Assuredly, I understand and I am fond of the life of the town, which revolves between house and street, but I prefer a free life, the simple autumn life of the sportsman.

In Paris I feel as if I were never in the open air; for the streets are, after all, no more than vast public apartments, without ceilings. Is a man in the open air, held between two walls, his feet on stone or wooden pavements, his outlook everywhere bounded by buildings, without any prospect of meadow, plain, or wood? Thousands of fellow creatures elbow you, push you, greet you, and talk to you; and the mere fact of receiving the rain on an umbrella when it rains is not enough to give me the impression and the sense of space.

Here I remark very sharply and delightfully the distinction between inside and outside.⁠ ⁠… But that is not what I want to say to you.⁠ ⁠…

It is the woodcock season.

I must tell you that I live in a big Norman house, in a valley, near a little stream, and that I get some shooting almost every day.

Other days, I read. I read just the books that Parisians have no time to know, very serious, very profound, very strange, books written by a brilliant and inspired scientist, a foreigner who has spent the whole of his life in studying the one problem, and has observed all the facts relative to the influence on our minds of the functioning of our physical organism.

But I want to tell you about the woodcock. My two friends, then, the d’Orgemol brothers and I, live here during the shooting-season, waiting for the first frost. Then, as soon as it freezes, we set out for their farm at Cannetot, near Fécamp, because there, there is a delightful little wood, a divine little wood, where all the woodcocks halt in their flight.

You know the d’Orgemols, both of them giants, both real early Normans, both of them men of that old powerful race of conquerors who invaded France, took and held England, settled themselves along every coast of the old world, built towns everywhere, passed like a wave over Sicily, leaving behind the monuments of a marvellous art, pulled down kings, pillaged the proudest cities, engaged Popes in priestly intrigues and, craftier than those Italian pontiffs, beat them at their own game; and, more important to the world than all, left children behind them in the beds of every race. The d’Orgemols are two Normans of the purest and oldest stock, they have every Norman characteristic, voice, accent, manner, fair hair, and eyes the hue of the sea.

When we are together, we talk in the dialect, we live, think, and act like Normans, we become landed Normans more peasant-like than our farmers.

Well, fifteen days we have been expecting the woodcock.

Every morning Simon, the eldest, says to me:

“Hullo, the wind’s coming round to the east, it’ll freeze. They’ll be here in two days.”

The younger, Gaspard, more cautious, waits until the frost comes to announce its arrival.

Well, last Friday, he came into my room at daybreak, shouting:

“It’s come, the ground is covered with white! Two more such days, and we go to Cannetot!”

Two days later, as a matter of fact, we do set out for Cannetot. You would have laughed to see us. We move in a strange hunting-coach which my father had constructed some time ago. “Construct” is the only word I can use to speak of this travelling tomb, or rather this moving earthquake. It contains everything: holds for the stores, holds for the weapons, holds for the trunks, boxes with peepholes for the dogs. Everything is in shelter, except the human passengers, perched on railed seats outside as high as a three-storied house and carried on four gigantic wheels. You scramble up there as best you can, using feet, hands, and even teeth on occasion, for no ladder gives access to that erection.

Very well, the two d’Orgemols and I reach this mountain, rigged out like Laplanders. We are clad in sheepskins, we wear enormous woollen stockings over our breeches, and gaiters over our woollen stockings; we have black fur caps and white fur gloves. When we are installed, Jean, my man, throws us up three basset-hounds, Pif, Paf, and Moustouche. Pif belongs to Simon, Paf to Gaspard, and Moustouche to me. They are like three small hairy crocodiles. They are long, low, hollow in the back, and bowlegged, and so shaggy that they look like yellow bushes. Their black eyes are hardly visible under their eyebrows, or their white teeth under their beards. We never shut them in the rolling kennels in the coach. Each of us keeps his own dog under his feet for the sake of warmth.

And so we set off, shaken almost to pieces. It is freezing, freezing hard. We are happy. We arrive about five o’clock. The farmer, Monsieur Picot, is waiting for us in front of the door. He is a jovial fellow, not very tall, but plump, thickset, active as a mastiff, cunning as a fox, always smiling, always happy and very sharp after the money.

It is a fine holiday for him, in the woodcock season.

The farm is immense, an old building in an orchard, encircled by four rows of beech-trees which struggle the year round against the sea wind.

We enter the kitchen, where a monstrous fire is blazing in our honour.

Our table is set close to the lofty fireplace, where in front of the limpid flames a plump bird is turning and roasting, while the juice drips into an earthen plate.

The farmer’s wife greets us now, a tall silent woman, always busied with household cares, her head full of deals and calculations, of sheep and cattle. She is a methodical woman, levelheaded and austere, highly respected in the district.

Along the end of the kitchen runs the big table where will shortly seat themselves the hired men and women of every class, certain ploughmen, labourers, farm wenches, shepherds; and all those folk eat in silence under the quick eye of the mistress and watch us dine with Farmer Picot, who lets off jests that make us all laugh. Then, when all her household has been fed, Madame Picot will take, alone, her hasty and frugal meal on a corner of the table, keeping an eye on the servant-girl meanwhile.

On ordinary days, she dines with her household.

The three of us, the d’Orgemols and I, sleep in a white room, bare, whitewashed, and containing only our three beds, three chairs, and three basins.

Gaspard always wakes first and sounds a ringing reveille. And in half an hour everyone is ready and we set off with old Picot, who shoots with us.

Monsieur Picot prefers me to his masters. Why? Doubtless because I am not his master. Then you may see us both making for the wood from the right, while the two brothers advance on it from the left. Simon has the dogs in his charge, leading them, all three held at the end of a cord.

For we are not out after woodcock but rabbits. We are convinced that we must not look for woodcock, but just come across them. We stumble on them and kill them, don’t you know! When you want especially to find them, you never set eyes on one. It is a strange and lovely thing to hear in the clear morning air the sharp report of the gun, then Gaspard’s thunderous voice filling the whole countryside and roaring: “Woodcock⁠—here they come!”

I am wily. When I have brought down a woodcock, I call out: “Rabbit!” And I rejoice exceedingly when we lay out the bag at lunch.

There we are, old Picot and I, in the little wood where the leaves fall with a soft ceaseless murmur, a harsh murmur, a little sad, they are dead. It is cold, a thin sharp cold that pricks eyes, nose, ears, and has powdered the edges of the grass and the brown ploughed fields with a fine white moss. But we are warm in all our limbs, under the thick sheepskin. The sun sparkles in the blue air; it has little or no warmth, but it sparkles. It is good to shoot over the woods on a keen winter morning.

Yonder a dog breaks into a shrill barking. It is Pif. I know his thin voice. Then, silence. Now another outburst, then another; and Paf gives tongue in his turn. But what is Moustouche doing? Ah, there he goes whimpering like a chicken whose neck is being wrung. They have started a rabbit. Now, Farmer Picot!

They draw apart, then close in, separate again, then run back; we follow their haphazard goings, running along narrow paths, every sense on the alert, fingers on the triggers of our guns.

They make back towards the common, we make back too. Suddenly a grey streak, a shadow crosses the path. I bring my gun to my shoulder and fire. The faint smoke clears away in the blue air, and I see on the grass a morsel of white fur that moves. Then I shout at the top of my voice: “Rabbit, rabbit! Here it is!” And I show it to the three dogs, to the three shaggy crocodiles, who congratulate me with wagging tails; they then go off in search of another.

Old Picot has rejoined me. Moustouche begins to yelp. The farmer says:

“That’s surely a hare, let’s go to the edge of the common.”

But just as I emerged from the wood, I saw, standing ten paces from me, Gargan, the deaf-mute, Monsieur Picot’s herdsman, wrapped round in a voluminous yellowish cloak, with a woollen bonnet on his head, and knitting away at a stocking, as do all the shepherds of these parts.

“Good morning, shepherd,” I said, as we always do.

And he lifted his head in greeting, although he had not heard my voice, but he had seen my lips moving.

I have known this shepherd for fifteen years. For fifteen years I have seen him every autumn, standing on the edge or in the middle of a field, his body motionless and his hands ceaselessly knitting. His flock follow him like a pack of hounds, seeming to obey his eye.

Old Picot grasped my arm:

“You know that the shepherd has killed his wife?”

I was dumbfounded.

“Gargan? The deaf-mute?”

“Yes, this last winter, and he was brought to trial at Rouen. I will tell you about it.”

And he drew me into the copse, for the herdsman was able to pick up the words from his master’s lips as if he had heard them. He understood no one else; but, face to face with him, he was no longer deaf; and his master, on the other hand, read like a wizard every meaning of the mute’s dumbshow, all the gestures of his fingers, the wrinklings of his cheeks, and the flashes of his eyes.

Listen to this simple story, a melancholy piece of news, just such a one as happens in the country, time and again.

Gargan was the son of a marl-digger, one of those men who go down into the clay pits to dig out that sort of soft stone, white and viscous, that we scatter on the fields. Deaf and dumb from birth, he had been brought up to keep the cows along the roadside ditches.

Then, employed by Picot’s father, he had become a shepherd at the farm. He was an excellent shepherd, zealous and honest, and he could set dislocated limbs, though he had not been taught anything of the kind.

When Picot came into the farm in his time, Gargan was thirty years old and looked forty. He was tall, thin, and bearded, bearded like a patriarch.

Then, just about this time, Martel, an honest country woman, died, leaving a young girl of fifteen, who had been nicknamed “A Wee Drop,” because of her immoderate liking for brandy.

Picot took in this ragged young wretch and employed her in light tasks, feeding her without paying her wages, in return for her work. She slept in the barn, in the cattle-shed or in the stable, on straw or dung, any place, no matter where, for no one bothers to find a bed for these ragamuffins. She slept anywhere, with anyone, perhaps with the carter or the labourer. But it soon came about that she attached herself to the deaf-mute and formed a more lasting union with him. How did these two poor wretches come together? How did they understand each other? Had he ever known a woman before this barn rat, he who had never talked to a soul? Was it she who sought him out in his rolling hut and seduced him at the edge of the road, a hedge-side Eve? No one knows. It only became known, one day, that they were living together as man and wife.

No one was surprised. And Picot even found this union quite natural.

But now the parish priest learned of this union without benefit of clergy, and was angry. He reproached Madame Picot, made her conscience uneasy, menaced her with mysterious penalties. What was to be done? It was quite simple. They were taken to the church and the town hall to be married. Neither of them had a penny to his name; he not a whole pair of trousers, she not a petticoat that was all of a piece. So nothing hindered the demands of State and Church from being satisfied. They were joined together, before mayor and priest, within one hour, and everything seemed arranged for the best.

But would you believe that, very soon, it became a joke in the countryside (forgive the scandalous word) to cuckold poor Gargan? Before the marriage, no one thought of lying with the Wee Drop; and now, everyone wanted his turn just for fun. For a brandy she received all comers, behind her husband’s back. The exploit was even so much talked of in the district round that gentlemen came from Goderville to see it.

Primed with a pint, the Wee Drop treated them to the spectacle with anyone, in a ditch, behind a wall, while at the same time the motionless figure of Gargan was in full view a hundred paces away, knitting a stocking and followed by his bleating flock. People laughed fit to kill themselves in all the inns in the countryside; in the evening, round the fire, nothing else was talked about; people hailed each other on the roads, asking: “Have you given your drop to the Wee Drop?” Everyone knew what that meant.

The shepherd seemed to see nothing. But then one day young Poirot from Sasseville beckoned Gargan’s wife to come behind a haystack, letting her see a full bottle. She understood and ran to him, laughing; then, hardly were they well on the way with their evil work when the herdsman tumbled on them as if he had fallen from a cloud. Poirot fled, hopping on one leg, his trousers about his heels, while the mute, growling like a beast, seized his wife’s throat.

People working on the common came running up. It was too late; her tongue was black and her eyes starting out of her head; blood was running out of her nose. She was dead.

The shepherd was tried by the court at Rouen. As he was dumb, Picot served him as interpreter. The details of the affair were very amusing to the audience. But the farmer had only one idea, which was to get his herdsman acquitted, and he went about it very craftily.

He told them first the whole history of the deaf-mute and of his marriage; then, when he came to the crime, he himself cross-examined the murderer. The whole court was silent.

Picot said slowly:

“Did you know that she was deceiving you?”

And at the same time, he conveyed his question with his eyes.

The other made a sign, “no,” with his head.

“She was lying in the haystack when you found her?”

And he gesticulated like a man who sees a revolting sight.

The other made a sign, “yes,” with his head.

Then the farmer, imitating the gestures of the mayor performing the civil ceremony and of the priest uniting them in the name of God, asked his servant if he had killed his wife because she was joined to him before man and God.

The shepherd made a sign, “yes,” with his head.

Picot said to him:

“Now, show us how it happened.”

Then the deaf-mute himself acted the whole scene. He showed how he was sleeping in the haystack, how he had been awakened by feeling the movement of the straw, how he had looked round carefully, and had seen the thing.

He was standing stiffly between two policemen, and all at once he imitated the obscene actions of the criminal pair clasped together in front of him.

A great shout of laughter went up in the court, then stopped dead; for the shepherd, his eyes wild, working his jaws and his great beard as if he had been gnawing something, his arms stretched out, his head thrust forward, repeated the ghastly gesture of a murderer who is strangling a person.

And he howled horribly, so maddened with rage that he imagined himself still grasping her, and the policemen were forced to seize him and push him forcibly into a seat to quiet him.

A profound and agonised shudder ran through the court. Then Farmer Picot, placing his hand on his servant’s shoulder, said simply:

“He has his honour, this man before you.”

And the shepherd was acquitted.

As for me, my dearest, I was listening with deep emotion to the end of this strange affair that I have told you crudely enough, so as not to alter the farmer’s way of telling it, when a gunshot rang out in the middle of the wood; and Gaspard’s great voice roared through the wind, like the thunder of a cannon:

“Woodcock! Here they come!”

And that is how I spend my time, watching for the arrival of the woodcock while you too go out to watch the first winter dresses arrive in the Bois.

Monsieur Parent

Little Georges, on all fours on the path, was making sand castles. He shovelled the sand together with both hands, heaped it up into a pyramid, and planted a chestnut leaf on the top.

His father, seated on an iron chair, was watching him with concentrated and loving attention, and had no eyes for anyone else in the small crowded park.

All along the circular path which runs past the lake, encircles the lawn, and comes back again by way of the Church of the Trinity, other children were thus busied, like young animals at their sport, while the bored nursemaids gazed into the air with their dull stupid eyes, or the mothers talked together, casting incessant, watchful glances on the troop of youngsters.

Nurses walked gravely up and down, two by two, trailing behind them the long bright ribbons of their caps, and carrying in their arms white objects wrapped in lace, while little girls in short dresses revealing their bare legs held grave conversations between two hoop races, and the keeper of the garden, in a green tunic, wandered through this crowd of children, constantly stepping aside lest he should demolish the earthworks and destroy the ant-like labours of these tiny human larvae.

The sun was sinking behind the roofs of the Rue Saint-Lazare, and throwing its great slanting rays upon the myriad-hued crowd of children. The chestnut-trees were lit up with gleams of yellow, and the three cascades in front of the lofty portals of the church looked as though they ran liquid silver.

Monsieur Parent watched his son squatting in the dust; he followed lovingly his slightest gestures, and seemed to throw kisses from his lips to Georges’s every movement.

But raising his eyes to the clock on the steeple, he discovered that he was five minutes slow. Thereupon he rose, took the little boy by the arm, shook his earthy garments, wiped his hands, and led him away towards the Rue Blanche. He hastened his steps, anxious not to reach home later than his wife, and the youngster, who could not keep up with him, trotted along at his side.

His father accordingly took him in his arms and, quickening his pace still more, began to pant with exhaustion as he mounted the sloping pavement. He was a man of forty, already grey, somewhat stout, and he bore uneasily before him the round jolly paunch of a gay bachelor rendered timid by circumstances.

Some years earlier he had married a young woman whom he had loved tenderly, and who was now treating him with the insolence and authority of an all-powerful despot. She was incessantly scolding him for everything he did, and everything he omitted to do, bitterly upbraiding him for his slightest actions, his habits, his simple pleasures, his tastes, his ways, his movements, the rotundity of his figure, and the placid tones of his voice.

He still loved her, however, but he loved yet more the child she had given him, Georges, now three years old, the greatest joy and the most precious burden of his heart. Possessed of a modest income, he lived on his twenty thousand francs a year without having to work, and his wife, who had had no marriage portion, lived in a state of perpetual fury at her husband’s inaction.

At last he reached his house and, setting the child down on the first step of the staircase, wiped his forehead and began to ascend.

At the second story, he rang the bell.

An old servant who had brought him up, one of those servant-mistresses who become family tyrants, came and opened the door.

“Has Madame come in yet?” he asked in an agony of fear.

The servant shrugged her shoulders.

“When has Monsieur ever known Madame to be in by half past six?” she answered.

He replied with some embarrassment:

“That’s good, so much the better: it gives me time to change my clothes, for I’m very hot.”

The servant stared at him with angry and contemptuous pity.

“Oh, yes, I can see that,” she grumbled; “Monsieur is streaming with perspiration; Monsieur has been running; carrying the little one, very likely, and all in order to wait for Madame till half past seven. As for me, no one will ever persuade me to be ready to time, now. I get dinner for eight o’clock, and if people have to wait, so much the worse for them; a joint must not be burnt!”

Monsieur Parent pretended not to listen.

“Very good, very good,” he murmured; “Georges’s hands must be washed; he’s been making sand castles. I will go and change. Tell the maid to give the little one a thorough cleaning.”

And he went to his room. Once there, he thrust home the bolt, so as to be alone, quite alone. He was so accustomed by now to seeing himself bullied and ill-used that he only judged himself safe when under the protection of a lock. He no longer even dared to think, to reflect, or to reason with himself, unless he felt secure against the eyes and imaginations of others by the turn of a key. He collapsed into a chair in order to get a little rest before putting on a clean shirt, and realised that Julie was beginning to be a new peril in the house. She hated his wife, that was plainly to be seen. Above all, she hated his chum Paul Limousin, who had continued to be that rare thing, an intimate and familiar friend in the home, after having been the inseparable comrade of his bachelor life. It was Limousin who acted as oil and buffer between Henriette and himself, who even defended him with vigour and sternness against the undeserved reproaches, the painful scenes, all the miseries which made up his daily existence.

For nearly six months now, Julie had been constantly indulging in malicious remarks and criticisms of her mistress. She was perpetually condemning her, declaring twenty times a day: “If I were Monsieur, I wouldn’t let myself be led by the nose like that. Well, well⁠ ⁠… there it is⁠ ⁠… everyone according to his own nature.”

One day she had even insulted Henriette to her face, who had been contented with saying to her husband that night: “You know, the first sharp word I get from that woman, out she goes.” She seemed, however, to be afraid of the old servant, though she feared nothing else; and Parent attributed this meekness to her esteem for the nurse who had brought him up and had closed his mother’s eyes.

But this was the end; things could not go on any longer, and he was terrified at the thought of what would happen. What was he to do? To dismiss Julie seemed to him a decision so formidable that he dared not let his thoughts dwell upon it. It was equally impossible to admit her right and his wife wrong; and before another month had gone by, the situation between the two of them would become insupportable.

He sat there, his arms hanging down, vaguely searching his mind for a method of complete conciliation, and finding none. “Luckily I have Georges,” he murmured. “Without him I should be utterly wretched.”

Then the idea came to him to ask Limousin for his advice; he decided to do so, but immediately the remembrance of the enmity between his servant and his friend made him fear that his friend would suggest her dismissal; and he fell once more into an agony of indecision.

The clock struck seven. He started. Seven o’clock, and he had not yet changed his shirt! Scared and panting, he undressed, washed, put on a white shirt, and hurriedly dressed again, as though he were being awaited in the next room on a matter of urgent importance.

Then he went into the drawing room, happy to feel that he needn’t be afraid of anything now.

He glanced at the newspaper, went and looked into the street, and came back and sat down on the sofa; but a door opened and his son came in, washed, his hair combed, and smiling. Parent took him in his arms and kissed him with passionate emotion. He kissed him first on the hair, then on the eyes, then on the cheeks, then on the mouth, and then on the hands. Then he made him jump up in the air, lifting him up to the ceiling, at the full stretch of his arms. Then he sat down again, tired by these exertions, and, taking Georges on his knee, he made him play “ride a-cockhorse.”

The child laughed with delight, waved his arms, and uttered shrieks of joy, and his father laughed as well, and shrieked with pleasure, shaking his great paunch, enjoying himself even more than the little boy.

This poor, weak, resigned, bullied man loved the child with all his kind heart. He loved him with wild transports of affection, with violent, unrestrained caresses, with all the shamefaced tenderness hidden in the secret places of his heart that had never been able to come into the light and grow, not even in the first few hours of his married life; for his wife had always been cold and reserved in her behaviour.

Julie appeared in the doorway, her face pale and her eyes gleaming, and announced, in a voice trembling with exasperation:

“It is half past seven, Monsieur.”

Parent threw an anxious and submissive glance at the clock, and murmured:

“Yes, it certainly is half past seven.”

“Well, dinner’s ready now.”

Seeing the storm imminent, he tried to dispel it:

“But didn’t you tell me, when I came in, that you would only have dinner ready at eight?”

“At eight!⁠ ⁠… Why, you can’t be thinking what it means! You don’t want to give the child his dinner at eight! One says eight, but, Lord, that’s only a manner of speaking. Why, it would ruin the child’s stomach to make him eat at eight. Oh, if it were only his mother that was concerned! She takes good care of her child! Oh, yes, talk of mothers, she’s a mother, she is! It’s down right pitiful to see a mother like that!”

Parent, positively quivering with anguish, felt that he must cut short this threatening scene.

“Julie,” he said, “I will not have you speak of your mistress like that. You hear, don’t you? Don’t forget for the future.”

The old servant, breathless with astonishment, turned on her heel and went out, pulling the door to with such violence that all the crystals on the chandelier jingled. For a few seconds a sound like the soft murmurous ringing of little invisible bells fluttered in the silent air of the drawing room.

Georges, surprised at first, began to clap his hands with pleasure, and, puffing out his cheeks, uttered a loud Boom with all the strength of his lungs, in imitation of the noise of the door.

Then his father began to tell him stories; but his mind was so preoccupied that again and again he lost the thread of his narrative, and the child, no longer understanding, opened his eyes wide in amazement.

Parent’s eyes never left the clock. He fancied he could see the hand moving. He would have liked to stop the clock, to make time stand still until his wife returned. He did not blame Henriette for being late, but he was afraid, afraid of her and Julie, afraid of everything that might happen. Ten minutes more would suffice to bring about an irreparable catastrophe, revelations, and scenes of violence that he dared not even imagine. The mere thought of the quarrel, the sudden outbursts of voices, the insults rushing through the air like bullets, the two women staring into one another’s eyes, hurling bitter remarks at one another, made his heart beat and his mouth feel as dry as if he were walking in the sun; it made him as limp as a rag, so limp that he lost the strength to lift up the child and make him jump upon his knee.

Eight o’clock struck; the door reopened and Julie reappeared. She no longer wore her air of exasperation, but an air of cold, malicious resolution still more formidable.

“Monsieur,” she said, “I served your mother till her last day; I brought you up from your birth to this very day. I may say that I’m devoted to the family.⁠ ⁠…”

She awaited a reply.

“Why, yes, my good Julie,” stammered Parent.

“You know very well,” she continued, “that I’ve never done aught for the sake of money, but always in your interests, that I’ve never deceived you or lied to you; that you’ve never had any fault to find with me.⁠ ⁠…”

“Why, yes, my good Julie.”

“Well, Monsieur, this can’t go on any longer. It was out of friendship for you that I never spoke, that I left you in your ignorance; but it is too much; the neighbourhood is making too merry at your expense. You can do what you like about it, but everybody knows; and I must tell you too, though it goes sore against the grain. If Madame comes home at these absurd hours, it’s because she’s doing abominable things.”

He sat there bewildered, not understanding. He could only stammer:

“Be silent.⁠ ⁠… You know I forbade you⁠ ⁠…”

She cut him short with ruthless determination.

“No, Monsieur, I must tell you all now. For a long time now Madame has been deceiving you with Monsieur Limousin. More than twenty times I’ve caught them kissing behind doors. Oh, don’t you see? If Monsieur Limousin had been rich, it would not have been Monsieur Parent that Madame married. If Monsieur would only remember how the marriage came about, he would understand the business from beginning to end.”

Parent had risen, livid, stammering:

“Be silent.⁠ ⁠… Be silent⁠ ⁠… or⁠ ⁠…”

“No,” she continued, “I will tell you all. Madame married Monsieur for his money; and she has deceived him from the very first day. Why, Lord-a-mercy, it was an understood thing between them; a minute’s thought is enough to realise that. Then, as Madame was not pleased at having married Monsieur, whom she did not love, she made his life a burden to him, such a burden that it broke my heart to see it.⁠ ⁠…”

He advanced two steps, his fists clenched, repeating:

“Be silent.⁠ ⁠… Be silent⁠ ⁠…” for he could find no reply.

The old servant did not draw back; she looked ready to go to any lengths.

But Georges, at first bewildered, then frightened by these harsh voices, began to utter shrill cries. He stood there behind his father, and howled, with his mouth wide open and his face puckered up.

Parent was exasperated by his son’s uproar; it filled him with courage and rage. He rushed upon Julie with uplifted arms, prepared to smite with both hands, and crying:

“You wretch! You’ll turn the child’s brain.”

His hands were almost on her; she flung the words in his face.

“Monsieur can strike me if he likes, me that brought him up: it won’t stop his wife deceiving him, nor her child not being his.”

He stopped dead, and let his arms fall to his sides; and stood facing her, so astounded that he no longer understood what she was saying.

“You’ve only to look at the little one to recognise the father,” she added. “Why, Lord-a-mercy, he’s the living image of Monsieur Limousin. You’ve only to look at his eyes and his forehead. Why, a blind man wouldn’t be deceived.⁠ ⁠…”

But he had seized her by the shoulders and was shaking her with all his strength, muttering:

“Viper⁠ ⁠… viper! Out of here, viper!⁠ ⁠… Be off, or I’ll kill you!⁠ ⁠… Be off!⁠ ⁠… Be off!⁠ ⁠…”

With a desperate effort he flung her into the next room. She fell upon the table set for dinner, and the glasses tumbled and smashed; then she got up again and put the table between herself and her master, and while he pursued her in order to seize her again, spat hideous remarks at him.

“Monsieur has only to go out⁠ ⁠… this evening, after dinner⁠ ⁠… and come back again at once.⁠ ⁠… He will see!⁠ ⁠… he will see if I have lied!⁠ ⁠… Let Monsieur try⁠ ⁠… he will see.”

She had reached the door of the kitchen and fled through it. He ran after her, rushed up the back stairs to her bedroom, where she had locked herself in, and, beating on the door, cried out:

“You will leave the house this instant.”

“You may be sure I shall,” she replied through the panel. “Another hour, and I’ll be gone.”

At that he slowly descended the stairs again, clinging to the banisters to keep from falling, and went back to the drawing room where Georges was crying, sitting on the floor.

Parent collapsed into a chair and stared dully at the child. He could not understand anything now; he was no longer conscious of anything; he felt dazed, stupefied, crazy, as though he had just fallen on to his head; he could scarcely remember the horrible things his servant had told him. Then, little by little, his reason, like a turbid pool, grew calm and clear, and the revolting secret he had learned began to turn and twist in his breast.

Julie had spoken so clearly, with such vigour, certainty, and sincerity, that he did not question her good faith, but he persisted in questioning her perspicacity. She might well have been mistaken, blinded by her devotion to him, impelled by an unconscionable hatred of Henriette. But the more he tried to reassure and convince himself, a thousand little facts awakened in his memory, remarks made by his wife, glances of Limousin’s, a host of trifles, unnoticed, almost unperceived, departures late at night, simultaneous absences, even gestures, almost insignificant, but strange, movements he had not been able to see or understand, and which now assumed vast importance in his eyes, and became evidence of complicity between them. Everything which had occurred since his wedding rose up suddenly in a memory sharpened by pain. It all recurred to him, the strange intonations, the suspicious attitudes. The slow mind of this quiet, kindly man, harassed now with doubt, displayed to him as certainties things which could not as yet be more than suspicions.

With furious pertinacity he rummaged amid the five years of his married life, striving to recall everything, month by month, day by day; and each disturbing fact he discovered pierced his heart like a wasp’s sting.

He gave no thought to Georges, who was quiet now, lying on his back on the carpet. But, seeing that no attention was being paid to him, the child began to cry again.

His father started up, seized him in his arms, and covered his head with kisses. His child, at any rate, remained to him! What did the rest matter? He held him, clasped him, his mouth buried in the fair hair, comforted, consoled, murmuring: “Georges⁠ ⁠… my little Georges, my dear little Georges!⁠ ⁠…” But suddenly he remembered what Julie had said!⁠ ⁠… Yes, she had said that he was Limousin’s child.⁠ ⁠… Oh, it was not possible, it couldn’t be possible! No, he could not believe it, could not even suspect it for one moment. This was one of the odious infamies that germinate in the mean minds of servants! “Georges,” he repeated, “my dear Georges!” The boy was silent again now, under his caresses.

Parent felt the warmth of his little breast penetrate through the clothes to his own. It filled him with love, with courage, with joy; the child’s sweet warmth caressed him, strengthened him, saved him.

Then he thrust the beloved head with its curly hair a little further from him, and gazed at it passionately. He stared at it hungrily, desperately; the sight of it intoxicated him.

“Oh, my little one⁠ ⁠… my little Georges!” he repeated over and over again.

Suddenly he thought: “Supposing he were like Limousin⁠ ⁠… all the same!”

The thought was a strange cruel thing entering into him, a poignant, violent sensation of cold through his body, in all his limbs, as though his bones were suddenly turned to ice. Oh, if he were like Limousin!⁠ ⁠… and he continued to gaze at Georges, who was now laughing. He gazed at him with wild, distressed, haggard eyes. And he searched his features, the brow, the nose, the mouth, the cheeks, to see whether he could not find in them something of Limousin’s brow, nose, mouth, or cheeks.

His thoughts wandered, like the thoughts of a man going mad; and the face of his child altered beneath his eyes, and took on strange appearances and preposterous resemblances.

Julie had said: “A blind man would not be deceived.” There must be something striking, something quite undeniable! But what? The brow? Yes, perhaps. But Limousin’s brow was narrower! The mouth, then? But Limousin wore a full beard! How could one establish a resemblance between the child’s fat chin and this man’s hairy one?

Parent thought: “I cannot see it, I cannot look at it any longer; I am too distressed; I could not recognise anything now.⁠ ⁠… I must wait; I must look properly tomorrow morning, when I get up.”

Then he thought: “But if he were like me, I should be saved, saved!”

He crossed the room in two strides, in order to examine his child’s face side by side with his own in the mirror.

He held Georges seated on his arm, in order that their faces might be close together, and spoke out loud, so great was his bewilderment.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… we have the same nose⁠ ⁠… the same nose⁠ ⁠… perhaps⁠ ⁠… I’m not sure⁠ ⁠… and the same eyes.⁠ ⁠… No, his eyes are blue.⁠ ⁠… Then⁠ ⁠… Oh, my God!⁠ ⁠… my God!⁠ ⁠… my God!⁠ ⁠… I’m going mad.⁠ ⁠… I will not look any more.⁠ ⁠… I’m going mad!”

He fled from the mirror to the other end of the room, fell into an armchair, set the child down in another, and burst into tears. He wept with great, hopeless sobs. Georges, frightened by the sound of his father’s moans, began to cry too.

The front door bell rang. Parent bounded up as though pierced by a bullet.

“There she is,” he said. “What am I to do?”

He ran and shut himself up in his room, so as to have time at least to wipe his eyes. But after some moments, another peal at the bell gave him a second shock; then he remembered that Julie had left and that the housemaid had not been told. So no one would go and open the door? What was to be done? He went himself.

Suddenly he felt brave, resolute, able to play his own part and face the inevitable scene. The appalling shock had matured him in a few moments. And, besides, he wanted to know, he wanted the truth with the fury of a timid man, with the obstinacy of an easygoing man come to the end of his patience.

Nevertheless, he was trembling. Was it with terror? Yes.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps he was still afraid of her? Who knows how much goaded cowardice has gone to the making of a bold move?

He stopped behind the door that he had reached with furtive steps, and listened. His heart was beating furiously, and he could hear nothing but the sound of it, great dull blows in his chest, and the shrill voice of Georges still crying in the drawing room.

Suddenly the noise of the bell ringing over his head shook him like an explosion; at that he seized the door-handle and, panting, fainting, turned the knob and opened the door.

His wife and Limousin were standing facing him, on the staircase.

“So you are opening the door, now,” she said with an air of astonishment in which a trace of irritation was apparent; “then where is Julie?”

His throat was contracted and his breathing hurried; he strove to answer, unable to utter a word. “Have you gone dumb?” she continued. “I asked you where Julie was.”

At that he stammered:

“She⁠ ⁠… she⁠ ⁠… she has gone.”

His wife was beginning to be angry.

“What, gone? Where? Why?”

He was gradually regaining his balance, and felt stirring in him a mordant hatred of this insolent woman standing before him.

“Yes, gone for good.⁠ ⁠… I dismissed her.”

“You have dismissed her?⁠ ⁠… Julie?⁠ ⁠… You must be mad.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, I dismissed her because she was insolent⁠ ⁠… and because she⁠ ⁠… because she ill-treated the child.”

“Julie?”

“Yes.⁠ ⁠… Julie.”

“What was she insolent about?”

“About you.”

“About me?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… because dinner was burnt and you had not come in.”

“She said⁠ ⁠… ?”

“She said⁠ ⁠… offensive things about you⁠ ⁠… which I should not⁠ ⁠… which I could not listen to.⁠ ⁠…”

“What things?”

“It is of no use to repeat them.”

“I want to know.”

“She said that it was very sad for a man like me to marry a woman like you, unpunctual, with no sense of order, careless, a bad housekeeper, a bad mother, and a bad wife.⁠ ⁠…”

The young woman had entered the hall, followed by Limousin, who remained silent before this unexpected situation. She shut the door abruptly, threw down her coat on a chair, and walked up to her husband, stammering in exasperation:

“You say⁠ ⁠… you say⁠ ⁠… that I’m⁠ ⁠… ?”

He was very pale, very calm.

“I say nothing, my dear,” he replied; “I am only telling you what Julie said, because you wanted to know; and I want you to realise that it was precisely on account of these remarks that I dismissed her.”

She trembled with her violent desire to tear out his beard and rend his cheeks with her nails. She felt his revulsion from her in his voice, in his expression, in his manner, and she could not outface it; she strove to regain the offensive by some direct and wounding phrase.

“Have you had dinner?” she asked.

“No, I waited.”

She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

“It is stupid to wait after half past seven. You ought to have known that I was detained, that I was busy, engaged.”

Then, suddenly, she felt the need to explain how she had passed the time, and related, in short, haughty words, that, having been obliged to get some articles of furniture a long way off, a very long way, in the Rue de Rennes, she had met Limousin, after seven o’clock, in the Boulevard Saint-Germain, on her way home, and had asked him to come in with her and have something to eat in a restaurant which she did not like to enter by herself, although she was faint with hunger. That was how she came to have dinner with Limousin, if it could be called a dinner, for they had only had soup and half a chicken, they were in such haste to get home.

“But you were quite right,” replied Parent simply; “I was not blaming you.”

Then Limousin, who had remained silent hitherto, almost hidden behind Henriette, came up and offered his hand, murmuring:

“You are well?”

“Yes, quite well,” replied Parent, taking the outstretched hand and shaking it limply.

But the young woman had seized upon a word in her husband’s last sentence.

“Blame⁠ ⁠… why do you say ‘blame’? One might think you meant⁠ ⁠…”

“No, not at all,” he said, excusing himself. “I simply meant to say that I was not at all uneasy at your lateness and was not trying to make a crime of it.”

She took it haughtily, seeking a pretext for a quarrel:

“My lateness?⁠ ⁠… Anyone would think it was one o’clock in the morning and I had been out all night.”

“No, my dear, I said ‘lateness’ because I had no other word. You should have been home by half past six, and you come in at half past eight. That is lateness! I quite understand; I⁠ ⁠… I’m not⁠ ⁠… not even surprised.⁠ ⁠… But⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… it is difficult for me to use any other word.”

“But you pronounce it as though I had slept away from home.”

“No⁠ ⁠… not at all.”

She saw that he meant to go on yielding the point and was about to enter her room when at last she noticed that Georges was crying.

“What is the matter with the child?” she asked, with a troubled look on her face.

“I told you that Julie had been rather rough with him.”

“What has the creature been doing to him?”

“Oh, hardly anything! She pushed him and he fell.”

She was eager to see her child, and rushed into the dining room; then stopped dead at sight of the table covered with spilt wine, broken bottles and glasses, and overturned saltcellars.

“What is the meaning of this scene of destruction?”

“Julie⁠ ⁠…”

But she cut short his utterance in a rage:

“This is too much, the last straw! Julie treats me as though I were a dissolute woman, beats my child, breaks my crockery, and turns my house upside down, and you seem to think it perfectly natural.”

“No, I don’t.⁠ ⁠… I dismissed her.”

“Really!⁠ ⁠… You actually dismissed her! Why, you ought to have put her in charge. The police are the people to go to on these occasions!”

“But, my dear,” he stammered, “I⁠ ⁠… couldn’t very well⁠ ⁠… there was no reason.⁠ ⁠… It was really very awkward.”

She shrugged her shoulders in infinite contempt.

“Ah, well, you’ll never be anything but a limp rag, a poor, miserable creature with no will of your own, no energy, no firmness. Your precious Julie must have been pretty outrageous for you to have made up your mind to get rid of her. How I wish I could have been there for a minute, just a single minute!”

She had opened the drawing room door, and ran to Georges, lifted him up, and clasped him in her arms, kissing him and murmuring: “Georgy, what’s the matter, my lamb, my little love, my duck?”

He stopped crying, at his mother’s caresses.

“What’s the matter?” she repeated.

The frightened eyes of the child perceived that there was trouble.

“It was Zulie, who beat daddy,” he replied.

Henriette turned to her husband, bewildered at first. Then a wild desire to laugh woke in her eyes, quivered on her thin cheeks, curved her lip, curled the outer edges of her nostrils, and finally issued from her mouth in a clear bubbling rush of merriment, a cascade of gaiety, as melodious and lively as the trill of a bird.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she repeated, with little malicious cries that escaped between her white teeth and inflicted a biting agony on Parent. “She b⁠ ⁠… b⁠ ⁠… beat you.⁠ ⁠… Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!⁠ ⁠… How funny!⁠ ⁠… how funny!⁠ ⁠… Do you hear, Limousin? Julie beat him⁠ ⁠… beat him⁠ ⁠… Julie beat my husband.⁠ ⁠… Ha!⁠ ⁠… Ha!⁠ ⁠… Ha!⁠ ⁠… How funny!”

“No! No!” stammered Parent. “It’s not true⁠ ⁠… it’s not true.⁠ ⁠… It was I, on the contrary, who flung her into the dining room, so hard that she knocked the table over. The child couldn’t see. It was I who beat her.”

“Tell me again, ducky,” said Henriette to her son. “It was Julie who beat Papa?”

“Yes, it was Zulie,” he replied.

Then, passing suddenly to another thought, she went on:

“But hasn’t the child had his dinner? Haven’t you had anything to eat, darling?”

“No, mummy.”

At that she turned furiously upon her husband.

“You’re mad, absolutely crazy! It’s half past eight and Georges has not had his dinner!”

He made excuses, hopelessly lost in the scene and his explanation, crushed at the utter ruin of his life.

“But we were waiting for you, my dear. I did not want to have dinner without you. You always come in late, so I thought you would come in any moment.”

She threw her hat, which she had kept on until this point, into an armchair and broke out in a tone of exasperation:

“Really, it’s intolerable to have to deal with people who can’t understand anything or guess anything or do anything for themselves. If I had come home at midnight, I suppose the child would not have had anything to eat at all. As if you could not have understood, when it was half past seven, that I’d been hindered, delayed, held up!⁠ ⁠…”

Parent was trembling, feeling his anger getting the upper hand; but Limousin intervened, and, turning to the young woman, remarked:

“You are quite unjust, dear. Parent could not guess that you would be so late, for you never have been; and, besides, how could he manage everything by himself, after dismissing Julie?”

But Henriette had thoroughly lost her temper, and replied:

“Well, he’ll have to manage somehow, for I won’t help him. Let him get out of the mess as best he can!”

And she ran into her room, having already forgotten that her son had had nothing to eat.

Limousin became suddenly strenuous in aiding his friend. He gathered up and removed the broken glass with which the table was covered, put the knives and forks back, and settled the child in his little high chair, while Parent went in search of the housemaid and told her to serve dinner.

She arrived in some surprise; she had been working in Georges’s room and had heard nothing.

She brought in the soup, an overcooked leg of mutton, and mashed potatoes.

Parent had sat down beside his child, his brain in a whirl, his reason undermined by the catastrophe. He gave the little boy his food, and tried to eat himself; he cut up the meat, chewed it, and swallowed it with an effort, as though his throat were paralysed.

Then, little by little, there awoke in his soul a wild longing to look at Limousin, who was sitting opposite him, rolling little pills of bread. He wanted to see if he were like Georges. But he dared not raise his eyes. He made up his mind, however, and looked abruptly up at the face he knew so well, although it seemed to him that he had never studied it, so much it differed from his imagination of it. Time and again he cast a swift glance over the man’s face, trying to recognise the faintest lines and features and their significance; then, instantly, he would look at his son, pretending that he was merely giving him his food.

Two words roared in his ears: “His father! His father! His father!” They hummed in his temples with every beat of his heart. Yes, that man, that man sitting calmly on the other side of the table, was perhaps the father of his son, Georges, his little Georges. Parent stopped eating; he could not eat any longer. A frightful pain, the sort of pain that makes a man cry out, roll on the ground, and bite the furniture, tore at the very depths of his body. He longed to take his knife and plunge it into his belly. It would be a relief, it would save him; all would be over.

For how could he go on living now? How could he live, get up in the morning, eat his meals, walk along the streets, go to bed in the evening, and sleep at night, with this thought drilled into him, as with a gimlet: “Limousin, Georges’s father”? No, he would no longer have strength to walk one step, put on his clothes, think of anything, speak to anyone! Every day, every hour, every second, he would be asking himself that question, seeking to know, to guess, to surprise the horrible secret. And the child, his dear child⁠—he could no longer see him without enduring the fearful agony of this uncertainty, without feeling himself torn to the bowels, tortured to the marrow of his bones. He would have to go on living here, stay in this house, side by side with the child he would love and hate. Yes, assuredly he would end by hating him. What torment! Oh, if only he were certain that Limousin was the father, perhaps he might succeed in growing calm, in falling asleep amid his misery, his grief! But not to know was intolerable!

Not to know, always to be trying to find out, always suffering, and every moment embracing the child, another man’s child, taking him for walks in the town, carrying him in his arms, feeling the caress of his soft hair against his lips, adoring him, and endlessly thinking: “Perhaps he is not mine?” Would it not be better to see no more of him, to abandon him, lose him in the streets, or flee far away, so far that he would never again hear anyone speak of anything?

He started, as the door opened. His wife came in.

“I’m hungry,” she said; “are you, Limousin?”

“Yes, by Jove, I am,” replied Limousin with some hesitation.

She had the mutton brought back.

“Have they had dinner,” Parent wondered, “or were they late because they’ve been lovemaking?”

Both were now eating with an excellent appetite. Henriette, quite calm, was laughing and joking. Her husband kept her under observation too, looking quickly at her and as quickly away again. She wore a pink tea-gown trimmed with white lace, and her fair hair, her white neck, and her plump hands emerged from the pretty, dainty, scented gown as from a sea shell edged with foam. What had she been doing all day long with that man? Parent saw them kissing, murmuring passionate words. How was it possible for him not to know, not to guess, seeing them thus side by side, facing him?

How they must be mocking at him, if he had been their dupe since the very first day! Was it possible that a man, a good man, should be thus tricked, merely because his father left him a little money? Why were such things not visible in the sinners’ souls, how was it possible that nothing revealed the deceit of the wicked to the upright heart, that the same voice should lie and adore, and the sly eyes of deceit look the same as the eyes of truth?

He watched them, waiting for a gesture, a word, an intonation. Suddenly he thought: “I will surprise them this evening.”

“My dear,” he said, “as I have just dismissed Julie, I must start today to try and find another servant. I’m going out directly, so as to get someone for tomorrow morning. I may be back rather late.”

“Very well, go,” she replied, “I shan’t move from here. Limousin will keep me company. We will wait for you.” And, turning to the housemaid, she added:

“Put Georges to bed, then you can clear the table and go to bed yourself.”

Parent had risen. He was swaying upon his legs, dazed, tottering. “See you again presently,” he murmured, and reached the door by dint of leaning against the wall, for the floor was heaving like a ship.

Georges had gone off in the arms of the maid. Henriette and Limousin passed into the drawing room.

“Are you mad,” he said, as soon as the door was shut, “that you bully your husband so?”

She turned to him.

“You know, I’m beginning to find your long established habit of setting up Parent as a martyr rather trying.”

Limousin sat down in an armchair and, crossing his legs, replied:

“I’m not setting him up as a martyr in the least, but I do think that, as things are, it’s preposterous to defy the man from morning to night.”

She took a cigarette from the mantelpiece, lit it, and answered:

“But I don’t defy him⁠—on the contrary; only he irritates me by his stupidity⁠ ⁠… and I treat him as he deserves.”

“What you are doing is extraordinarily silly,” replied Limousin impatiently, “but all women are alike. Here you have an excellent fellow, too good, idiotic in his faith and goodness, who in no way annoys us, does not for one instant suspect us, and leaves us as free and easy as we could wish; and you do all that you can to make him lose his temper and ruin our lives.”

“You disgust me,” she said, turning towards him. “You’re a coward, like all men! You’re afraid of the fool!”

He sprang up, and burst out furiously:

“If it comes to that, I should very much like to know how he has treated you, and what possible grudge you can have against him! Does he make you unhappy? Does he beat you? Does he deceive you? No, it really is too much to make that poor chap suffer just because he’s too kind, and have a grudge against him simply because you are deceiving him.”

She went up to Limousin and, staring into his eyes, answered:

“And it is you who blame me for deceiving him⁠—you, you? Must you be utterly beastly too?”

He defended himself, rather shamefacedly.

“But I don’t blame you at all, my dear, I only ask you to treat your husband with a little consideration, because we both of us need his trust. I thought you would realise that.”

They were standing close to one another; he, tall and dark, with drooping whiskers, and the rather vulgar carriage of a good-looking fellow very pleased with himself; she, dainty, pink and fair, a little Parisian, half cocotte and half suburban young woman, born in the back room of a shop, brought up to stand on its doorstep and entice customers with her glances, and married off, by the happy chance of this accomplishment, to the innocent passerby who fell in love with her because he saw her standing there at the door every day as he went in the morning and came home in the evening.

“But, you great booby,” she said, “you don’t understand that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says, everything that he does, everything that he thinks, gets on my nerves. Every instant he exasperates me by the stupidity you call his kindness, by the dullness you call his trust, and, above all, because he is my husband, instead of you. Although he hardly troubles us, I feel him between us. And then?⁠ ⁠… And then?⁠ ⁠… No, he really is too big a fool to suspect anything. I wish he were at least a little jealous; there are moments when I long to shout at him: ‘Can’t you see anything, you ass? Don’t you realise that Paul is my lover?’ ”

Limousin burst out laughing.

“In the meantime you would do better to keep your mouth shut, and leave our existence untroubled.”

“Oh, I won’t trouble it. There is nothing to fear from that imbecile. But it really is incredible that you should not realise how hateful he is to me, how he grates on my nerves. You always seem to love him, to shake hands frankly with him. Men are extraordinary creatures at times.”

“One must know how to dissemble, my dear.”

“It’s not a question of dissimulation, dear, but of feeling. When you men deceive another man, anyone would think you immediately began to like him better; we women hate him from the very moment that we have deceived him.”

“I don’t in the least see why a man should hate a good sort of fellow whose wife he’s taking.”

“You don’t see?⁠ ⁠… you don’t see? All you men are lacking in decent feeling. Well, it’s one of those things one feels and cannot express. And, anyhow, I oughtn’t to try.⁠ ⁠… No, it’s no use, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve no intuition, you men.”

She smiled, the gay, malicious smile of a wanton, and set her hands upon his shoulders, holding up her lips to his; he bowed his head to hers as he caught her in his arms, and their lips met. And as they were standing in front of the mirror on the mantelpiece, another couple exactly like them embraced behind the clock.

They had heard nothing, neither the sound of the key nor the creaking of the door; but suddenly Henriette uttered a shrill scream and thrust Limousin away with both arms; and they saw Parent watching them, livid, with clenched fists, his shoes off, and his hat over his brow.

He looked at them, first at one and then at the other, with a quick movement of the eyes, without turning his head. He seemed mad; without uttering a word he rushed at Limousin, took him in his arms as though to stifle him, and flung him into the corner of the drawing room with such a furious onslaught that the other, losing his footing and clawing the air with his hands, struck his head roughly against the wall.

But when Henriette realised that her husband was going to murder her lover, she threw herself on Parent and seized him by the throat. With the strength of a madman she sent her thin pink fingers into his flesh, and squeezed so tightly that the blood spurted from beneath her nails. She bit his shoulder as though she wanted to rend it to pieces with her teeth. Parent, choked and stifling, let go of Limousin in order to shake off the woman clinging to his throat; putting his arms round her waist he hurled her with one mad effort to the other end of the room.

Then, with the short-lived rage of the easygoing and the quickly spent strength of the weak, he remained standing between the two of them, panting, exhausted, not knowing what he ought to do. His brutal fury had escaped in this effort like the froth of an uncorked bottle, and his unwonted energy ended in mere gasping for breath.

“Get out!” he stammered, as soon as he could speak. “Get out, both of you, at once!”

Limousin remained motionless in his corner, huddled against the wall, too bewildered to understand anything as yet, too frightened to move a finger. Henriette, her hands resting on a table, her head thrust forward, her hair dishevelled, and her dress torn so that her bosom was bared, was waiting, like an animal about to spring.

“Get out at once!” repeated Parent more loudly. “Get out!”

Seeing that his first fury was calmed, his wife plucked up courage, stood up, took two paces towards him, and said, in a voice already almost insolent:

“Have you lost your wits?⁠ ⁠… What’s the matter with you?⁠ ⁠… Why this unjustifiable assault?”

He turned on her, raising his fist as though to strike her down.

“Oh!⁠ ⁠… Oh!” he faltered. “This is too much⁠ ⁠… too much! I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I heard all⁠ ⁠… all⁠ ⁠… do you understand?⁠ ⁠… all! You vile creature!⁠ ⁠… you vile creature!⁠ ⁠… You are both vile!⁠ ⁠… Get out!⁠ ⁠… both of you!⁠ ⁠… At once!⁠ ⁠… I could kill you!⁠ ⁠… Get out!”

She realized that it was all over, that he knew, that she could no longer play the innocent, but must give way. But all her impudence had come back to her, and her hatred for the man, doubled now, urged her to boldness, and woke in her an impulse to defiance and bravado.

“Come, Limousin,” she said in a clear voice, “since I am to be turned out, I will go home with you.”

But Limousin did not move. Parent, attacked by a fresh access of rage, cried:

“Clear out, then!⁠ ⁠… Get out, you vile creatures⁠ ⁠… or else⁠ ⁠… or else⁠ ⁠… !”

He snatched up a chair and whirled it above his head.

Henriette rapidly crossed the drawing room, took her lover by the arm, dragged him away from the wall, to which he appeared to be fixed, and led him to the door, repeating:

“Come along, dear, come along.⁠ ⁠… You can see that the man is mad⁠ ⁠… come along!”

In the doorway she turned to her husband, trying to think what she could do, what she could imagine, that would wound him to the heart, as she left the house. And an idea came to her, one of those venomous deadly ideas in which the sum of feminine treachery ferments.

“I want to take my child away,” she said firmly.

“Your⁠ ⁠… your child?” stammered Parent in bewilderment. “You dare to speak of your child⁠ ⁠… after⁠ ⁠… after⁠ ⁠… Oh! oh! oh! it is too much!⁠ ⁠… You dare?⁠ ⁠… Clear out, you scum! Clear out!”

She went up to him, almost smiling, almost revenged already, and defied him at close quarters, face to face.

“I want my child⁠ ⁠… and you have no right to keep him, because he’s not yours.⁠ ⁠… Do you hear?⁠ ⁠… He’s not yours.⁠ ⁠… He’s Limousin’s.”

“You’re lying, wretch, you’re lying!” cried Parent desperately.

“You idiot,” she replied, “everyone knows it except you. I tell you that that man there is his father. You’ve only to look in order to see.⁠ ⁠…”

Parent recoiled before her, tottering. Then suddenly he turned round, snatched up a candle, and dashed into the next room.

He came back almost immediately, carrying little Georges wrapped in his bedclothes. The child, awakened with a start, was crying with terror. Parent flung him into his wife’s hands and, without adding a word, thrust her roughly out on to the staircase where Limousin was prudently awaiting her.

Then he shut and double-locked the door and thrust home the bolts. He had scarcely regained the drawing room when he fell full length upon the floor.

II

Parent lived alone, entirely alone. During the first few weeks following his separation, the strangeness of his new life prevented him from thinking much. He had resumed his bachelor life, his loafing habits, and had his meals at a restaurant, as in the old days. Anxious to avoid scandal, he made his wife an allowance regulated by their lawyers. But, little by little, the remembrance of the child began to haunt his thoughts. Often, when he was alone at home in the evenings, he would imagine that he suddenly heard Georges cry “Daddy.” In a moment his heart would begin to beat and he would promptly rise and open the front door, to see if by any chance the little boy had returned. Yes, he might have come home again as dogs and pigeons do. Why should a child have less natural instinct than an animal?

Then, realising his error, he would return and sit down in his armchair, and think of the child. He thought of him for whole hours, whole days. It was no mere mental obsession, but a yet stranger physical obsession as well, a need of the senses and the nerves to embrace him, hold him, feel him, take him on his knee and dandle him. He grew frantic at the feverish remembrance of past caresses. He felt the little arms clasping his neck, the little mouth pressing a great kiss on his beard, the little hair tickling his cheek. The longing for these sweet vanished endearments, for the delicate, warm, dainty skin held to his lips, maddened him like the desire for a woman beloved and departed.

He would suddenly burst into tears in the street as he thought that he might have had fat little Georgy trotting along beside him on his little legs, as in the old days when he took him for walks. Then he would go home and sob till evening, his head between his hands.

Twenty times, a hundred times a day, he asked himself this question: “Was he, or was he not, Georges’s father?” But it was chiefly at night that he gave himself up to interminable speculation on this subject. As soon as he was in bed, he began, every evening, the same series of desperate arguments.

After his wife’s departure he had at first had no doubts: the child was assuredly Limousin’s. Then, little by little, he began to hesitate again. Henriette’s statement certainly had no value. She had defied him in an attempt to make him desperate. When he came coolly to weigh the pros and the cons, there was many a chance that she was lying.

Limousin alone, perhaps, could have told the truth. But how was he to know it, to question him, to get him to confess?

Sometimes Parent would get up in the middle of the night, resolved to go and find Limousin, to beseech him, to offer him anything he wanted, if he would only put an end to his abominable anguish. Then he would return hopelessly to bed, reflecting that doubtless the lover would lie too! It was positively certain that he would lie in order to hinder the real father from taking back his child.

Then what was he to do? Nothing!

He was heartbroken that he had precipitated events like this, that he had not reflected or been more patient, had not had the sense to wait and dissemble for a month or two, until his own eyes might have informed him. He ought to have pretended to have no suspicions, and have left them calmly to betray themselves. It would have been enough for him to have seen the other man kiss the child to guess, to understand. A friend’s kiss is not the same as a father’s. He could have spied on them from behind doors. Why had he not thought of it? If Limousin, left alone with Georges, had not promptly seized him, clasped him in his arms, and kissed him passionately, if he had left him to play without taking any interest in him, no hesitation would have been possible; it would have meant that he was not the father, did not believe himself or feel himself to be the father.

With the result that Parent could have turned out the mother and kept his son, and he would have been happy, perfectly happy.

He would go back to bed, perspiring and tormented, ransacking his memory for Limousin’s behaviour with the child. But he could remember nothing, absolutely nothing, no gesture, no glance, no word, no suspicious caress. Nor did the mother take any notice of her child. If he had been the fruit of her lover, doubtless she would have loved him more.

He had been separated from his son, then, out of revenge, out of cruelty, to punish him for having surprised them.

He would make up his mind to go at dawn and ask the magistrate to give him the right to claim Georgy.

But he had scarcely formed this resolve when he would feel himself overcome by a certainty of the contrary. From the moment that Limousin had been Henriette’s lover, her beloved lover from the first day, she must have given herself to him with the passionate ardent abandon that makes a woman a mother. And was not the cold reserve which she had always brought to her intimate relations with himself an obstacle against the likelihood of his having given her a child?

So he was about to claim, take home, and perpetually cherish another man’s child? He could never look at him, kiss him, hear him say “daddy” without being struck and torn by the thought: “He is not my son at all.” He was about to condemn himself for all time to this torture, this miserable existence! No, better to dwell alone, live alone, grow old alone, and die alone!

Every day and every night were renewed these abominable uncertainties and sufferings that nothing could assuage or end. Above all he dreaded the darkness of the falling dusk, the melancholy of twilight. It was then that there fell upon his heart with the darkness a shower of grief, a flood of despair, drowning him, maddening him. He was afraid of his thoughts, as a man fears criminals, and he fled before them like a hunted animal. Above all he dreaded his empty dwelling, so dark and dreadful, and the streets, also deserted, where here and there a gas-lamp glimmers, and the lonely passerby heard in the distance is like a prowling marauder and your pace quickens or slackens as he follows you or comes towards you.

In spite of himself, Parent instinctively sought out the main streets, well lighted and populous. The lights and the crowds attracted him, occupied his mind and dulled his senses. When he was weary of wandering idly through the throng, when the passersby became fewer and the pavements emptier, the terrors of solitude and silence drove him to some large café full of customers and glare. He would rush to it like a moth to the flame, sit down at a little round table, and order a bock. He would drink it slowly, disturbed in mind by every customer who rose to leave. He would have liked to take him by the arm, to hold him back, to beg him to stay a little longer, so afraid was he of the moment when the waiter would stand in front of him and remark with a wrathful air: “Closing time, Monsieur.”

For, every evening, he was the last to go. He saw the tables carried inside, and, one by one, the gas-jets turned down, all except two, his own and the one at the counter. Miserably he would watch the cashier count the money and lock it up in the drawer; and he would depart, thrust out by the staff, who would mutter: “There’s a limpet for you; anyone might think he had nowhere to sleep.”

And as soon as he found himself in the street once more, he would begin to think of little Georges again, ransacking his tortured brain to discover whether he was or was not the father of his child.

In this way he caught the beerhouse habit; there the perpetual jostling of the drinkers keeps you familiar but silent company, and the heavy smoke of the pipes quiets uneasy thoughts, while the heavy beer dulls the mind and calms the heart.

He lived in these places. As soon as he got up, he went off thither to find his eyes and his thoughts. Then, out of laziness, he soon took to having his meals there. At about midday he would rap his saucer on the marble table, and the waiter would speedily bring a plate, a glass, a napkin, and that day’s lunch. As soon as he had finished eating, he would slowly drink his coffee, his eyes fixed on the decanter of brandy which would soon give him an hour of blessed sottishness. First of all he would moisten his lips with the brandy, as though to take the taste of it, merely culling the flavour of the liquor with the tip of his tongue. Then he would pour it into his mouth, drop by drop, letting his head fall back; he would let the strong liquor run slowly over his palate, over his gums, over the membrane of his cheeks, mingling it with the clear saliva which flowed freely at its contact. Then, refreshed by the mixture, he swallowed it unctuously, feeling it run all the way down his throat to the pit of his stomach.

After every meal he would spend more than an hour in sipping thus three or four glasses, which numbed his brain little by little. Then he would sink his head on to his chest, close his eyes, and doze. He would wake up in the middle of the afternoon and promptly reach for the bock which the waiter had set before him while he was asleep; then, having drunk it, he would sit up straight on the red velvet seat, pull up his trousers and pull down his waistcoat so as to cover up the white line which had appeared between them, shake his coat collar, pull down his cuffs, and then would take up the papers he had already read in the morning. He went through them again from the first line to the last, including the advertisements, the “situations wanted” column, the personal column, the stock exchange news and the theatre programs.

Between four and six he would go for a walk along the boulevards, to take the air, as he used to say; then he would come back to the seat which had been kept for him and order his absinth.

Then he would chat with the regular customers whose acquaintance he had made. They would comment on the topics of the day, the news items and the political events; this led up to dinner. The evening passed like the afternoon, until closing time. This was for him the terrible moment when he had to go home in the dark to his empty room, full of terrible memories, horrible thoughts and agonising griefs. He no longer saw any of his old friends, any of his relations, anyone who might remind him of his past life.

But as his lodgings became a hell to him, he took a room in a big hotel, a large room on the ground floor, so that he could see the passersby. He was no longer alone in this vast public dwelling-place; he felt people swarming round him; he heard voices behind the partitions; and when his old grief harassed him too cruelly, between his bed with the sheet drawn back and his lonely fireside, he would go out into the broad passages and walk up and down like a sentry, past all the closed doors, looking sadly at the pairs of boots in couples before each of them, the dainty boots of the women squatting beside the strong ones of the men; and he would reflect that all these people were happy, no doubt, and sleeping lovingly, side by side or in each other’s arms, in the warmth of their beds.

Five years went by in this fashion, five mournful years with no events but an occasional two hours of bought love.

One day, as he was going for his customary walk between the Madeleine and the Rue Drouot, he suddenly noticed a woman whose bearing struck him. A tall man and a child were with her. All three were walking in front of him. “Where have I seen those people?” he wondered, and all of a sudden he recognised a gesture of the hand: it was his wife, his wife with Limousin and with his child, his little Georges.

His heart beat so that he was almost stifled, but he did not stop; he wanted to see them, and he followed them. Anyone would have said that they were a family party, a decent family of decent middle-class people. Henriette was leaning on Paul’s arm, talking softly to him and occasionally looking at him from beside him. At these times Parent saw her profile, and recognised the graceful line of her face, the movements of her mouth, her smile, and the caress of her eyes. The child in particular drew his attention. How big he was and strong! Parent could not see his face, but only the long fair hair which fell upon his neck in curling locks. It was Georges, this tall bare-legged boy walking like a little man beside his mother.

As they stopped in front of a shop, he suddenly saw all three. Limousin had gone grey, older, and thinner; his wife, on the contrary, was younger than ever, and had put on flesh; Georges had become unrecognisable, so different from the old days!

They set off again. Parent followed them once more, then hurried past them in order to turn back and see their faces at close quarters. When he passed the child, he felt a longing, a mad longing to seize him in his arms and carry him off. He touched him, as though by chance. The child turned his head and looked angrily at this clumsy fellow. At that Parent fled, struck, pursued, wounded by his glance. He fled like a thief, overcome by the horrible fear that he had been seen and recognised by his wife and her lover. He raced to his beerhouse and fell panting into his chair.

That evening he drank three absinths.

For four months he bore the scar of that meeting on his heart. Every night he saw them all again, happy and carefree father, mother, and child, walking along the boulevard before going home to dinner. This new vision effaced the old one. It was a new thing, a new hallucination, and a new grief, too. Little Georges, his little Georges, whom he had loved so well and kissed so much in the old days, was vanishing into a distant and ended past, and he saw a new Georges, like a brother of the old one, a little boy with bare calves, who did not know him! He suffered terribly from this thought. The child’s love was dead; there was no longer any bond between them; the child had not stretched out his arms at sight of him. He had given him an angry look.

Then little by little his soul grew calm again; his mental torments grew less keen; the image which appeared before his eyes and haunted his nights became vague, rarer. He began to live more like the rest of the world, like all the men of leisure who drink their bocks at marble-topped tables and wear out the seats of their trousers on the threadbare velvet seats.

He grew old amid the pipe-smoke, and bald in the gaslight, made quite an event of his weekly bath, his fortnightly haircut, the purchase of new clothes or a new hat. When he arrived at the beerhouse wearing a new hat, he would contemplate himself in the mirror for a long time before sitting down, would take it off and put it on several times in succession, would set it at different angles, and would finally ask his friend, the lady at the counter, who was looking at it with interest: “Do you think it suits me?”

Two or three times a year he would go to the theatre; and, in the summer, he would sometimes spend the evening at an open-air concert in the Champs-Élysées. He carried the tunes in his head; they sang in the depths of his memory for weeks; he would even hum them, beating time with his foot, as he sat at his bock.

The years followed one another, slow and monotonous, and short because they were empty.

He did not feel them slipping over his head. He advanced towards death without stirring, without exciting himself, sitting at a beerhouse table; only the great mirror against which he leaned a head that every day was a little balder, witnessed to the ravages of time, who runs swift-footed, devouring man, poor man.

By this time he seldom thought of the terrible drama in which his life had been wrecked, for twenty years had gone by since that ghastly evening.

But the life he had fashioned for himself ever since had worn him out, enervated him, exhausted him; often the proprietor of the beerhouse, the sixth proprietor since his first coming to the place, would say to him: “You need shaking up a bit, Monsieur Parent; you ought to get fresh air, go to the country; I assure you you’ve changed a great deal in the last few months.”

And as his client left, the man would pass on his reflections to the cashier: “Poor Monsieur Parent is in a bad way; staying in Paris all the time is doing him no good. Get him to go out into the country and have a fish dinner from time to time; he thinks a lot of your opinion. Summer’s coming soon; it’ll put some life into him.”

And the cashier, full of pity and kindly feeling for the obstinate customer, would every day repeat to Parent: “Now, Monsieur, make up your mind to get into the open air. It’s so lovely in the country when the weather’s fine! If I only could, I’d spend all my life there, I would.”

And she would tell him her dreams, the simple and poetical dreams of all the poor girls who are shut up from one year’s end to another behind the windows of a shop, and watch the glittering noisy stream of life go by in the street outside, and dream of the calm, sweet life of the fields, of life under the trees, under the radiant sun falling upon the meadows, the deep woods, the clear rivers, the cows lying in the grass, and all the various flowers, all the wild, free blossoms, blue, red, yellow, violet, lilac, pink, and white, so charming, so fresh, so sweet-scented, all the flowers of nature waiting there to be picked by the passerby and heaped into huge bunches.

She found pleasure in talking to him always of her perpetual longing, unrealised and unrealisable; and he, poor hopeless wretch, found pleasure in listening to her. He came and sat now beside the counter, so as to talk to Mademoiselle Zoé and discuss the country with her. Little by little a vague desire came over him to go and see, just once, whether it really was as nice as she said it was, outside the walls of the great city.

One morning he asked her:

“Do you know any place in the suburbs where one can get a good lunch?”

“Yes,” she replied; “go to La Terrasse at Saint-Germain. It’s so pretty.”

He had been there long ago, when he was engaged to Henriette. He decided to go again.

He chose a Sunday, for no particular reason, but merely because the usual thing is to go off for the day on a Sunday, even when the whole week is unoccupied.

So one Sunday morning he went off to Saint-Germain.

It was early in July, a hot, sunny day. Sitting in the corner of the railway carriage, he watched the passing of the trees and the strange little houses on the outskirts of Paris. He felt sad, annoyed with himself for having yielded to this new desire and broken his habits. The landscape, changing, yet always the same, wearied him. He was thirsty; he would gladly have got off at every station in order to sit down in the café that he saw outside, drink a bock or two, and take the next train back to Paris. And the journey seemed to him to be long, very long. He used to spend whole days sitting still with the same motionless objects before his eyes, but he found it enervating and wearisome to remain seated while moving about, to watch the country moving while he himself did not stir.

He took some interest in the Seine, nevertheless, whenever they crossed it. Under the bridge at Chatou he saw skiffs darting along at the powerful strokes of bare-armed oarsmen, and thought: “Those chaps must be having a good time.”

The long ribbon of river that unrolls from both sides of the bridge of Pecq aroused a vague desire in the depths of his heart to walk along the banks. But the train plunged into the tunnel which precedes Saint-Germain station and soon stopped at the arrival platform.

Parent got out and, weighed down by fatigue, went off in the direction of La Terrasse, his hands behind his back. Having reached the iron railing, he stopped to look at the view. The vast plain was spread out before him, boundless as the sea, a green expanse dotted with large villages as populous as towns. White roads ran across this wide country, patches of forest wooded it in various places, the pools of the Vésinet gleamed like silver medals, and the distant slopes of Sannois and Argenteuil hovered behind the light bluish mist like shadows of themselves. The warm, abundant light of the sun was bathing the whole broad landscape, faintly veiled by the morning mist, by the sweat of the heated earth exhaled in thin fog, and by the damp vapours of the Seine, gliding endlessly like a serpent across the plains, encircling the villages, and skirting the hills.

A soft breeze, laden with the odour of leaves and sap, caressed the skin, penetrated deep into the lungs, and seemed to rejuvenate the heart, ease the mind, and invigorate the blood.

Parent, surprised, drank deeply of it, his eyes dazzled by the vast sweep of the landscape.

“Yes, it’s very nice here,” he murmured.

He walked forward a few steps, and stopped again to stare. He fancied he was discovering new and unknown things, not the things which his eyes saw, but those of which his soul foretold him, events of which he was unaware, glimpses of happiness, unexplored pleasures, a whole view of life whose existence he had not suspected, suddenly revealed to him as he gazed at this stretch of boundless plains.

All the appalling melancholy of his existence appeared to him, brilliantly illumined by the radiance flooding the earth. He saw the twenty years of café life, drab, monotonous, heartbreaking. He might have travelled like other men, gone hither and thither among strange peoples in little-known lands across the seas, taken an interest in everything that fascinates other men, in art and in science; he might have lived life in a thousand forms, life the mysterious, delightful, agonising, always changing, always inexplicable and strange.

But now it was too late; he would go on swilling beer till the day of his death, without family, without friends, without hope, without interest in anything. Infinite wretchedness overwhelmed him, and a longing to run away, hide, go back to Paris, to his beerhouse and his sottishness. All the thoughts, all the dreams, all the desires slumbering in the sloth of a stagnant heart had been awakened, stirred to life by this ray of country sunlight.

He felt that he would go out of his mind if he stayed any longer in this place, and hastened to the Pavillon Henri IV for lunch, to dull his mind with wine and spirits and at least to talk to someone.

He chose a small table in one of the arbours, whence he could overlook all the surrounding country, chose his meal, and asked to be served at once.

Other excursionists arrived and sat down at nearby tables. He felt better; he was no longer alone. In another arbour three persons were lunching. He had glanced at them several times without really seeing them, as one looks at strangers.

Suddenly the voice of a woman gave him one of those thrills which penetrate to the very marrow.

“Georges,” said the voice, “will you carve the chicken?”

“Yes, Mother,” answered another voice.

Parent raised his eyes; he realised, guessed at once who these people were! He would never have known them again. His wife was very stout and quite white-haired, a grave, virtuous old lady. She thrust her head forward as she ate, for fear of staining her dress, although she had covered her bosom with a napkin. Georges had become a man. He had a beard, the uneven, almost colourless beard that lies like soft curling down upon the cheeks of youths. He wore a high hat, a white waistcoat, and a monocle, no doubt for fashion’s sake. Parent stared at him in amazement! Was this his son Georges? No, he did not know this young man; there could be nothing in common between them.

Limousin’s back was turned towards him; he was busy eating, his shoulders rather bowed.

Well, they all three seemed happy and contented; they had come to lunch in the country at a well-known restaurant. Their existence had been calm and pleasant, they had lived like a happy family in a nice, warm, well-filled house, filled with all the trifles that make life pleasant, all the delights of affection, all the tender words constantly exchanged by those who love each other. And it was thanks to him that they had lived thus, thanks to his money, after deceiving, robbing, and ruining him. They had condemned him, the innocent, simple, kindhearted victim, to all the horrors of loneliness, to the revolting life he led between pavement and bar, to every form of moral torment and physical misery. They had made of him a useless, ruined creature, lost in the world, a poor old man without any possible happiness or expectation of it, with no hope left in anything or person. For him the earth was empty, for there was nothing on earth that he loved. He might pass through crowds or along streets, go into every house in Paris, open every room, but never would he find, on the other side of the door, a face beloved or desired, the face of a woman or child that would smile at the sight of him. It was this idea especially that worked upon his mind, the image of a door that one opens in order to find and embrace someone behind it.

And it was all the fault of these three wretches; of that vile woman, that treacherous friend, and that tall fair lad with his assumption of haughtiness.

He bore as great a grudge now against the child as against the two others! Was he not Limousin’s son? If not, would Limousin have kept him, loved him? Would not Limousin have speedily dismissed the mother and the child, had he not known full well that the child was his? Does anyone bring up another man’s child?

And there they were, the three malefactors who had made him suffer so much.

Parent gazed at them, tormenting and exciting himself by the recollection of all his woes, all his agony, all the moments of despair he had known. He was exasperated, above all, by their air of placid self-satisfaction. He longed to kill them, to throw his siphon of soda-water at them, to smash in Limousin’s head, which every moment bobbed down towards his plate and instantly rose again.

And they would continue to live in this fashion, free from care, free from any sign of uneasiness. No, no! It was too much! He would have his revenge, have it now, since he had them here at hand. But how? He ransacked his mind, dreaming of appalling deeds such as happen in sensational novels, but could think of nothing practical. He drank glass after glass, to excite and encourage himself, so that he should not let slip an opportunity that certainly would never return.

Suddenly he had an idea, a terrible idea; he stopped drinking, in order to mature it. A smile creased his lips. “I’ve got them. I’ve got them,” he murmured. “We shall see. We shall see.”

“What would Monsieur like to follow?” asked a waiter.

“Nothing. Coffee and brandy, the best.”

He watched them as he sipped his liqueur. There were too many people in the restaurant for his purpose; he would wait; he would follow them; they were sure to go for a walk on the terrace or in the woods. When they had gone some distance away he would join them, and then he would have his revenge; yes, he would have his revenge! It was none too soon, after twenty-three years of suffering. Ah, they didn’t suspect what was going to befall them!

They were quietly finishing their lunch, chatting with no sense of anxiety. Parent could not hear their words, but he could see their calm gestures. The face of his wife was particularly exasperating to him. She had acquired a haughty air, the appearance of a fat and unapproachable nun, armour-plated with moral principles, casemated in virtue.

They paid their bill and rose. Then he saw Limousin. He looked for all the world like a retired diplomat, he wore such an air of importance, with his handsome whiskers, soft and white, whose points fell to the lapels of his frock-coat.

They departed. Georges was smoking a cigar, and wore his hat over one ear. Parent promptly followed them.

At first they walked along the terrace, regarding the landscape with the placid admiration of the well-fed; then they went into the forest.

Parent rubbed his hands and continued to follow them, at a distance, concealing himself so as not to rouse their notice too soon.

They walked with short steps, basking in the warm air and the greenery. Henriette was leaning on Limousin’s arm and was walking, very upright, at his side, like a wife sure and proud of herself. Georges was knocking leaves down with his cane, and occasionally leapt lightly over the ditches at the side of the road, like an eager young horse on the point of dashing into the foliage.

Little by little Parent caught them up, panting with emotion and weariness, for he never walked now. Soon he came up with them, but a confused, inexplicable fear had seized hold of him, and he went past them, so as to turn round and meet them face to face.

He walked on with a beating heart, feeling them now behind him, and kept saying to himself: “Come! Now is the time; courage, courage! Now is the time!”

He turned round. All three had sat down at the foot of a large tree, and were still chatting.

At that he made up his mind, and went back with rapid steps. Stopping in front of them, he stood in the middle of the road and stammered in a voice broken with emotion.

“It is I! Here I am! You were not expecting me, were you?”

All three stared at the man, whom they thought mad.

“Anyone might think you did not know me,” he continued. “Look at me! I am Parent, Henri Parent. You were not expecting me, eh? You thought it was all over; that you would never see me again, never. But no, here I am again. Now we will have it out.”

Henriette, terrified, hid her face in her hands, murmuring: “Oh, my God!”

Seeing this stranger apparently threatening his mother, Georges had risen, ready to take him by the throat.

Limousin, dumbfounded, was looking with terrified eyes at this man come from the dead, who waited for a few seconds to regain his breath and went on:

“So now we’ll have it out. The moment has come! You deceived me, condemned me to the life of a convict, and you thought I should never catch you!”

But the young man took him by the shoulders and, thrusting him away, said:

“Are you mad? What do you want? Get along with you at once or I’ll lay you out!”

“What do I want?” replied Parent. “I want to tell you who those people are.”

But Georges, furious now, shook him and raised his hand to strike him.

“Let go,” he said. “I am your father.⁠ ⁠… Look and see if those wretches recognise me now!”

Horribly startled, the young man loosened his grasp and turned to his mother.

Parent, freed, walked up to her.

“Well? Tell him who I am! Tell him that my name is Henri Parent, and that I am his father, since his name is Georges Parent, since you are my wife, since all three of you are living on my money, on the allowance of ten thousand francs which I have been giving you ever since I threw you out of my house. And tell him also why I threw you out of my house. Because I surprised you with that wretch, that scoundrel, your lover!⁠—Tell him what I was, I, a good man whom you married for his money, and deceived from the first day. Tell him who you are and who I am.⁠ ⁠…”

He stammered and panted, overcome with rage.

“Paul, Paul!” cried the woman in a piercing voice. “Stop him; make him be silent! Stop him saying these things in the presence of my son!”

Limousin had risen in his turn.

“Be silent, be silent,” he murmured in a very low voice. “Realise what you are doing.”

“I know what I am doing!” replied Parent furiously. “That is not all. There is one thing I want to know, a thing which has been tormenting me for twenty years.”

He turned towards Georges, who was leaning against a tree, bewildered.

“Listen,” he continued. “When she left my house, she thought it was not enough to have betrayed me; she wanted to leave me hopeless too. You were my only consolation; well, she took you away, swearing that I was not your father, but that he was! Was she lying? I do not know. For twenty years I have been wondering.”

He went right up to her, a tragic, terrible figure, and, tearing away the hand with which she covered her face, cried:

“Well! I summon you today to tell me which of us is this young man’s father⁠—he or I: your husband or your lover. Come, come, tell me!”

Limousin flung himself upon him. Parent thrust him back.

“Ah!” he sniggered furiously; “you are brave today; braver than the day when you fled on to the staircase because I was going to strike you. Well, if she won’t answer, answer yourself. Tell me, are you the boy’s father? Come, speak!”

He turned back to his wife.

“If you will not tell me,” he said, “at least tell your son. He is a man now. He has a perfect right to know who his father is. I do not know, I never have known, never! I cannot tell you, my boy.”

He grew more and more furious, and his voice grew shrill. He waved his arms like a man in an epileptic fit.

“Now!⁠ ⁠… Answer.⁠ ⁠… She does not know⁠ ⁠… I’ll wager she does not know.⁠ ⁠… No⁠ ⁠… she does not know.⁠ ⁠… By God! she slept with both of us! Ha! Ha! Ha!⁠ ⁠… Nobody knows⁠ ⁠… nobody⁠ ⁠… do people know these things?⁠ ⁠… You will not know either, my boy, you will not know any more than I do⁠ ⁠… ever⁠ ⁠… ask her!⁠ ⁠… Ask her! You will see that she does not know. Nor do I⁠ ⁠… nor does he⁠ ⁠… nor do you⁠ ⁠… nobody knows.⁠ ⁠… You can take your choice⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… you can take your choice⁠ ⁠… him or me.⁠ ⁠… Choose.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye⁠ ⁠… that is all.⁠ ⁠… If she decides to tell you, let me know, won’t you, at the Hôtel des Continents.⁠ ⁠… I should like to know.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye.⁠ ⁠… I wish you every happiness⁠ ⁠…”

And he departed gesticulating, talking to himself, under the tall trees, in the cool, quiet air filled with the fragrance of rising sap. He did not turn round to look at them. He walked on, spurred on by fury, in an ecstasy of passion, his mind completely overturned by his obsession.

Suddenly he found himself at the station. A train was starting. He boarded it. During the journey his anger cooled, he regained his senses, and arrived back in Paris amazed at his boldness.

He felt crushed, as though his bones were broken. Nevertheless he went and had a look at his beerhouse.

Seeing him come in, Mademoiselle Zoé, surprised, inquired:

“Back already? Are you tired?”

“Yes,” he replied, “… yes very tired⁠ ⁠… very tired.⁠ ⁠… You see⁠ ⁠… when a man’s not used to going out! It’s the end; I’ll never go to the country again. I should have done better to stay here. From this time forward I’ll never stir out.”

And she was unable to get him to tell her about his excursion, though she was very eager to hear.

That evening, for the first time in his life, he got completely drunk, and had to be carried home.

Ça Ira

I had alighted at Barvilles only because I had read in a guide (I don’t know which): “Fine gallery, two Rubenses, one Teniers, one Ribera.”

So I thought: Let’s go and see it. I will dine at the Hôtel de l’Europe, which the guide declares to be admirable, and set out again tomorrow.

The gallery was closed: it was opened only when travellers asked to see it; it was opened now at my request, and I could contemplate some obscure daubs attributed by a highly imaginative caretaker to the finest masters of painting.

Then I found myself all alone, in the long street of a small town quite strange to me, built in the very middle of illimitable plains; and, having absolutely nothing to do, I walked the whole length of this artery, I investigated several uninteresting shops; then, as it was only four o’clock, I was seized by one of those despondent moods which overwhelm the most spirited of us.

What could I do? Heaven help me, what could I do? I would have given twenty pounds for the suggestion of any conceivable amusment. Finding my mind barren of ideas, I decided merely to smoke a good cigar, and I went in search of the tobacco shop. I recognised it very shortly by its red lantern, and I went in. The saleswoman proffered me several boxes to choose from; having glanced at the cigars, which I perceived to be as bad as possible, I directed my attention, quite by chance, to the woman in charge.

She was a woman of about forty-five years of age, stout and turning grey. She had a plump, decent-looking face, which seemed to me somehow familiar. However, I did not know this lady. No, most assuredly I did not know her. But could it be that I had met her? Yes, that was possible. The face in front of me must be an acquaintance known only to me by sight, an old acquaintance since lost to view, changed now, and certainly grown much stouter.

I murmured:

“Forgive me, Madame, for staring at you like this, but I seem to have known you for a long time.”

She answered, blushing:

“It’s funny. I feel the same.”

I gave a cry:

“Oh! Ça ira!”

She flung up both hands in exaggerated despair, absolutely overwhelmed by my words, and stammered:

“Oh, suppose someone hears you.”

Then she herself cried suddenly:

“Well, I never! It’s you, George!”

Then she looked round in terror lest anyone were listening. But we were alone, quite alone.

“Ça ira.” How ever had I succeeded in recognising Ça ira, the skinny Ça ira, the forlorn Ça ira in this placid and stout official of the Government?

Ça ira. What memories woke to sudden life in my heart: Bougival, La Grenouillère, Chatou, the Restaurant Fournaise, long days spent in skiffs along the riverside, ten years of my life spent in this corner of the country, on this delightful stretch of river.

At that time we were a company of twelve, living in Galopois’ place, at Chatou, and leading there a queer enough life, always half naked and half drunk. The habits of the present-day boating man are considerably changed. Nowadays these gentlemen wear monocles.

In our set we had a score of river girls, regulars and casuals. Some Sundays we had four; on other Sundays they were all there. Some of them were, so to speak, members of the family; the others came when they had nothing better to do. Five or six lived in communal fashion on the men who had no women, and among these was Ça ira.

She was a thin and wretched girl, and walked with a limp. This lent her the charms of a grasshopper. She was nervous, awkward, graceless in everything she did. She attached herself fearfully to the meanest, the most insignificant, the most poverty-stricken of us, who would keep her for a day or a month, according to his means. How she came to be one of us no one knew. Had we met her one Sunday evening, at the Rowing-Club ball, and rounded her up in one of those drives of women that we often made? Had we asked her to a meal, seeing her sit lonely at a little table in a corner? None of us could have said; but she was one of the gang.

We had christened her Ça ira, because she was always bewailing her fate, her misfortune, and her mortifications. Every Sunday we said to her:

“Well, Ça ira, is life treating you better?”

And she made an unvarying reply:

“No, not much, but we’ll hope things will get better one of these days.”

How came this wretched, unattractive, and graceless creature to be following a profession that demands infinite attractions, confidence, skill, and beauty? A mystery. Paris, moreover, is full of harlots ugly enough to disgust a policeman.

What did she do during the remaining six days of the week? She had told us on several occasions that she went to work. At what? We did not care to know; we were quite indifferent to the way in which she managed to exist.

Later, I had almost lost sight of her. Our little company gradually dispersed, leaving the way open for another generation, to whom we also left Ça ira. I heard about it on the odd occasions when I went to lunch at the Fournaise.

Our successors, unaware of our reason for bestowing that name upon her, had supposed it to be an Oriental name and they named her Zaira: then in their turn they bequeathed their canoes and some of their river girls to the next generation.

(Generally speaking, one generation of boating men lives on the water for three years, and then leaves the Seine to take up law, medicine, or politics.)

Zaira then became Zara, and, later still, Zara was modified into Sarah. By this time, she was supposed to be a Hebrew.

The latest of all, the gentlemen with the monocles, now called her simply, “The Jewess.”

Then she disappeared.

And here I had found her again, selling tobacco at Barvilles.

I said to her:

“Well, things are better now, eh?”

She answered:

“A little better.”

I was seized with curiosity about this woman’s life.

In those earlier days, I had cared nothing at all about it; today I felt intimately concerned, held, vividly interested. I asked her:

“How did you manage to find an opportunity?”

“I don’t know. It happened just when I was least expecting it.”

“Was it at Chatou that you came upon it?”

“Oh, no.”

“Then where was it?”

“At Paris, in the boardinghouse where I lived.”

“Ah, so you did have a place in Paris?”

“Yes, I was with Madame Ravelet.”

“And who is Madame Ravelet?”

“You don’t know Madame Ravelet? Oh!”

“Indeed I don’t.”

“The dressmaker, the fashionable dressmaker in the Rue de Rivoli.”

Whereupon she began to tell me about a thousand little phases of her old life, a thousand hidden phases of Parisian life, the inside working of a fashionable dressmaker’s, the life led by these wenches, their adventures, their notions, the intimate psychology of a workgirl, that street hawk flitting along the sidewalks in the morning on her way to the shop, strolling bareheaded after the midday meal, and on her way home in the evening.

Delighted to talk of old times, she said:

“If you knew how terrible we were⁠ ⁠… and what awful things we did! We used to tell each other our adventures every day. We don’t think anything of men, I can tell you.

“As for me, the first trick I pulled off was over an umbrella. I had an old alpaca one, a disgraceful object. As I came in one rainy day, shutting it up, tall Louise says to me:

“ ‘I don’t know how you dare go out with that thing.’

“ ‘But I haven’t another, and at the moment funds are low.’

“The funds were always low!

“ ‘Go and pick one up at the Madeleine,’ she answers.

“That surprises me.

“She goes on:

“ ‘That’s where we all get them: there are as many as you want.’

“She explains the method to me. It is simple enough.

“So I go off with Irma to the Madeleine. We find the verger and explain to him that the week before we forgot an umbrella. Then he asks us if we remember what the handle was like, and I describe to him a handle with an agate knob. He takes us into a room where there were more than fifty lost umbrellas; we look through them all and we don’t find mine, but I choose a fine one, a very fine one with a handle of carved ivory. Louise went and claimed it some days later. She described it before she saw it, and they gave it to her without the least suspicion.

“For this sort of work, we dressed ourselves very smartly.”

And she laughed, opening and dropping the hinged lid of the big tobacco box.

She went on:

“Oh, we played our little games, and very queer some of them were too. You see, there were five of us in the workroom, four ordinary girls and one quite different, Irma, the lovely Irma. She looked like a gentlewoman, and she had a lover in the State Council. That did not prevent her from being very friendly with the rest of us. There was one winter when she said to us:

“ ‘You don’t know what a jolly good thing we’re going to pull off.’

“And she unfolded her idea to us.

“Irma, you know, was so shapely that she simply went to men’s heads, and she had such a figure too, and hips that made your mouth water. And now she had thought of a way for each of us to wangle a hundred francs to buy ourselves rings, and she planned it out like this:

“You know I wasn’t well off just then, and the others were no better; we hardly made a hundred francs a month in the workshop, no more. We had to make the rest on the side.

“Of course each of us had two or three regular lovers who gave us a little money, but only a little. Sometimes during our noonday stroll we managed to catch the eye of a gentleman who came back again next day; we’d play him up for a fortnight and then give in. But these fellows didn’t bring in much. And the fellows at Chatou were merely recreation. Oh, if you knew the tricks we were up to! They’d make you die of laughing. So when Irma said she’d thought of a way for us to make a hundred francs, we were wild with joy. It’s a disgraceful tale I’m going to tell you, but I don’t care; you know a thing or two, since you’ve lived at Chatou for four years.⁠ ⁠…

“Well, she said to us:

“ ‘We are going to pick up at the Opera ball the very best, most distinguished, and richest specimen of manhood in Paris. I know them all.’

“At first we couldn’t believe it would come off, because that sort of man isn’t really open to dress makers; to Irma, yes, but not to us. Oh, she had style, had Irma. You know, we always said in the workroom that if the Emperor had known her, he would certainly have married her.

“For this business, she made us put on our smartest clothes, and she said:

“ ‘Now you won’t come to the ball, you are each of you going to wait in a cab in one of the streets near by. A gentleman will come and get into your carriage. As soon as he gets in, you will embrace him as enticingly as you know how, and then you will scream to make him understand you’ve made a mistake and are expecting someone else. The pigeon will be thoroughly excited to think he’s taking another man’s place and he’ll want to insist on staying; you’ll resist him, you’ll struggle like the devil to get out⁠ ⁠… and then⁠ ⁠… you will go and have supper with him.⁠ ⁠… Then of course he’ll have to give you something for your trouble.’

“You still don’t understand? Well, this is what she did, the sly little devil.

“She made all four of us get into four carriages, real private carriages, very swagger carriages, and then she sent us into the streets near the Opera. Then she went to the ball by herself. As she knew all the most famous men in Paris by name, because Madame dressed their wives, she picked one of them out and played him. She said all kinds of things to him; my word, she was witty too. When she saw that he was well worked up, she dropped her mask and there he was caught in a noose. Then he wanted to take her off with him at once, and she gave him an appointment in half an hour’s time in a carriage standing opposite Number 20 in the Rue Taitbout. In the carriage was me! I was all wrapped up and my face veiled. Suddenly a gentleman put his head in at the window and said:

“ ‘Is it you?’

“I answered softly:

“ ‘Yes, it’s me, come in quickly.’

“He comes in, and I take him in my arms and hug him, hug him until he couldn’t breathe; then I go on:

“ ‘Oh, how happy I am, how happy I am!’

“And then all at once I cry:

“ ‘But it’s not you! Oh, heavens! Heavens!’

“And I begin to weep.

“Imagine how embarrassed the man is! At first he tries to console me; he apologises, and protests that he has made a mistake himself.

“I went on weeping, but less bitterly, and then sighed deeply. Then he talked tenderly to me. He was everything a gentleman should be, and now he was delighted to see my tears gradually stopping.

“In short, one thing led to another, and he suggested my going to supper with him. I refused; I tried to jump out of the carriage; he caught me round the waist, and then held me, as I had held him when he came in.

“And then⁠ ⁠… and then⁠ ⁠… we had⁠ ⁠… we had supper⁠ ⁠… you understand⁠ ⁠… and he gave me⁠ ⁠… guess, just guess⁠ ⁠… he gave me five hundred francs.⁠ ⁠… Believe me, some men are free with their money!

“Well, it came off all right with every one of us. Louise did least well with two hundred francs. But, you know, Louise really was too thin.”

The tobacco-shop woman chattered on, pouring out in one wild rush all the memories stored so long in her heart, the cautiously closed heart of a Government licensee. All the days of poverty and adventure stirred in her memory. She thought with regret of the gay bohemian life of the Paris streets, a life of privation and sold kisses, of laughter and misery, of trickery and love that was not always feigned.

I said to her:

“But how did you get your licence to sell tobacco?”

She smiled:

“Oh, that’s quite a story. I must tell you that in my boardinghouse I had right next door to me a law student; but, don’t you know, one of those students who never study. This one lived in cafés from morning to night, and he adored billiards, as I have never known anyone adore it.

“When I was alone we sometimes spent the evening together. It was by him that I had Roger.”

“Who’s Roger?”

“My son.”

“Oh.”

“He allowed me a little money to bring up the brat, but I knew very well that the fellow wouldn’t be any real good to me; I was the surer of it because I’d never seen a man so slack, except him, never. At the end of ten years he hadn’t got through his first exam. When his people saw that he would never come to anything, they sent for him to come back home somewhere in the provinces; but we kept up a correspondence about the child. And then would you believe it? at the last election, two years ago, I heard that he had been made a deputy for his district. And then he spoke in the Chamber. It’s quite true what they say, that in the kingdom of the blind⁠ ⁠… Well, to cut the story short, I sought him out and made him get a tobacco shop for me at once, on the strength of my being the daughter of a deported man. It’s quite true that my father was deported, but I never thought that would be any use to me.

“In short⁠ ⁠… but here’s Roger.”

There came in a tall young man, a correct, serious, self-conscious young man.

He dropped a kiss on his mother’s forehead, and she said to me:

“Now, Monsieur, this is my son, head clerk at the town hall. You know what that means⁠ ⁠… future assistant prefect.”

I greeted this functionary with all proper respect, and departed to go to my hotel after gravely pressing the hand held out to me by Ça ira.

Saved

I

The little Marquise de Rennedon burst into the room like a ball crashing through a window, and began to laugh before she had said a word; she laughed until she cried, just as she had laughed a month before when she came to tell her friend that she had deceived the marquis to revenge herself, for no reason but to revenge herself, and only once, because he really was too stupid and too jealous.

The little Baronne de Grangerie had thrown down on her vast couch the book she was reading, and she stared curiously at Annette, laughing already herself.

At last she asked:

“What have you done now?”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… my dear⁠ ⁠… my dear⁠ ⁠… it’s too funny⁠ ⁠… too funny⁠ ⁠… think of it⁠ ⁠… I’m saved⁠ ⁠… saved⁠ ⁠… saved.”

“What do you mean, saved?”

“Yes, saved.”

“From what?”

“From my husband, darling, saved! Delivered! Free!⁠ ⁠… free!⁠ ⁠… free!”

“How are you free? In what way?”

“In what way? Divorce! Yes, divorce! I can get a divorce.”

“You’re divorced?”

“No, not yet. How silly you are! You can’t get divorced in three hours! But I’ve got evidence⁠ ⁠… evidence⁠ ⁠… evidence that he is deceiving me⁠ ⁠… absolutely caught in the act⁠ ⁠… think!⁠ ⁠… in the act.⁠ ⁠… I can prove it.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, tell me about it. So he has deceived you?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… that’s to say, no⁠ ⁠… yes and no. Oh, I’ve been clever, vastly clever. For the last three months he has been detestable, utterly detestable, brutal, coarse, tyrannical, too mean to live. I said to myself: This can’t go on, I must get a divorce! But how? It wasn’t easy. I tried to get him to beat me. He wouldn’t. He crossed me from morning to night, made me go out when I didn’t want to, and stay at home when I was longing to drive in town; he made my life unbearable from one week’s end to another, but he didn’t beat me.

“Then I tried to find out if he had a mistress. Yes, he had one, but he took every precaution when he went to visit her. It simply wasn’t possible to take them together. So, guess what I did.”

“I can’t guess.”

“Oh, you’d never guess. I begged my brother to get me a photograph of his girl.”

“Of your husband’s mistress?”

“Yes. It cost Jacques fifteen louis, the price of one evening, from seven o’clock to twelve, dinner included, three louis an hour. He got the photograph thrown in.”

“I should have thought he could have got it cheaper by any other method, and without⁠—without⁠—without being obliged to take the original as well.”

“Oh, but she’s pretty. Jacques didn’t mind it at all. And besides, I wanted to know all sorts of physical details about her figure, her breast, her skin, and all that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will in a minute. When I had found out all I wanted to know, I went to a man⁠ ⁠… what shall I call him?⁠ ⁠… a very clever man⁠ ⁠… you know⁠ ⁠… one of those men who arrange things of all⁠ ⁠… of all kinds⁠ ⁠… one of those agents who can get you detectives and accomplices⁠ ⁠… one of those men⁠ ⁠… now do you understand?”

“Yes, I think so. And what did you say to him?”

“I showed him the photograph of Clarisse (she’s called Clarisse) and I said: ‘I want a lady’s maid like this photograph. She must be pretty, graceful, neat, clean. I’ll pay any price you like. If it costs me ten thousand francs, so much the worse for me. I shan’t need her for more than three months.’

“The man looked most surprised. ‘You want a girl with a good character, madam?’ he asked.

“I blushed and stammered: ‘Yes, certainly, so far as knowing her duties is concerned.’

“ ‘And as far as her morals?’ he added. I didn’t dare to answer. I could only shake my head to mean ‘No.’ And all at once I realised that he had a dreadful suspicion, and I lost my head and cried: ‘Oh, Monsieur, it’s for my husband⁠ ⁠… he is deceiving me⁠ ⁠… he’s deceiving me up in town⁠ ⁠… and I want⁠ ⁠… I want him to deceive me at home⁠ ⁠… you see⁠ ⁠… so that I can catch him at it.’

“Then the man burst out laughing. And I saw by his face that I had regained his opinion of me. He even thought me rather splendid. I’d have been ready to bet that he wanted to shake hands with me on the spot.

“ ‘I’ll arrange it for you within the week, madam,’ he said. ‘And if necessary we’ll change the attraction. I’ll guarantee success. You won’t pay me until we have been successful.⁠ ⁠… So this is the photograph of your husband’s mistress?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘She’s got a good figure, not so thin as she appears. And what scent?’

“I didn’t understand. ‘How do you mean, what scent?’ I repeated.

“He smiled. ‘Yes, madam, scent is of the first importance in seducing a man; because it stirs hidden memories that prepare his mind for the necessary impulse; scent works a subtle confusion in his mind, disturbs him and weakens his defence by reminding him of past pleasures. You should also try to find out what your husband usually eats when he dines with this lady. You could arrange to give him the same dishes the evening you put it over him. Ah, we’ll pull it off, madam, we’ll pull it off!’

“I went away delighted. I really had discovered a most intelligent man.

II

“Three days later, a tall dark girl presented herself before me; she was very beautiful, with an expression at once demure and provocative, a strangely sophisticated expression. Her manner to me was correctness itself. As I didn’t know quite on what footing to put her, I called her ‘Mademoiselle’; then she said: ‘Oh, Madame need not call me anything but Rose.’ We began to talk.

“ ‘Well, Rose, you know why you are here?’

“ ‘I know quite well, Madame.’

“ ‘Excellent, my girl.⁠ ⁠… And you⁠ ⁠… you don’t mind at all?’

“ ‘Oh, Madame, this is the eighth divorce I’ve helped to arrange; I’m used to it.’

“ ‘That’s splendid. Will it take you long to bring it off?’

“ ‘Oh, Madame, that depends entirely on the gentleman’s temperament. As soon as I have seen him alone for five minutes, I shall be able to tell you with some certainty.’

“ ‘You shall see him at once, my child. But I warn you that he’s not beautiful.’

“ ‘That doesn’t matter to me, Madame. I’ve come between wives and some very ugly husbands before this. But I must ask Madame if she has ascertained what scent I ought to use.’

“ ‘Yes, my good Rose⁠ ⁠… vervain.’

“ ‘So much the better, Madame: I’m very fond of that scent. And perhaps Madame can also tell me if her husband’s mistress wears silk.’

“ ‘No, my child; very fine lawn trimmed with lace.’

“ ‘Oh, she must be very smart. Silk is beginning to be so common.’

“ ‘I quite agree with you.’

“ ‘Very well, Madame, I’ll begin my duties.’

“She did begin her duties on the spot, as if she had never done anything else in all her life.

“An hour later my husband came in again. Rose didn’t even look at him, but he looked at her. She was already smelling strongly of vervain. After five minutes she left the room.

“ ‘Who’s that girl?’ he asked me at once.

“ ‘That⁠ ⁠… oh, that’s my new maid.’

“ ‘Where did you get her?’

“ ‘The Baronne de Grangerie sent her to me, with an excellent recommendation.’

“ ‘Well, she’s pretty enough.’

“ ‘You think so?’

“ ‘I do⁠ ⁠… for a lady’s maid.’

“I was overjoyed. I was sure he was nibbling already.

“The same evening Rose said to me: ‘I can now promise Madame that it won’t take a fortnight. The gentleman is very easy.’

“ ‘Ah, you’ve tried already?’

“ ‘No, Madame, but its obvious at a glance. Even now he’d like to put his arms round me as he walks past.’

“ ‘He hasn’t said anything to you?’

“ ‘No, Madame, he has only asked my name⁠ ⁠… to hear the sound of my voice.’

“ ‘Excellent, my good Rose. Get on as quickly as you can.’

“ ‘Don’t be afraid of that, Madame. I shall resist just long enough not to make myself cheap.’

“By the end of the week my husband hardly left the house at all. I used to see him all afternoon wandering about the house; and what was more significant than anything else of his state of mind, was that he no longer stopped me from going out. I was out all day, I was⁠ ⁠… to⁠ ⁠… to leave him free.

“On the ninth day, as Rose was undressing me, she said meekly:

“ ‘It’s happened, Madame⁠—this morning.’

“I was a little surprised, even a little distressed, not by the thing itself, but by the way in which she had said it to me. I stammered:

“ ‘And⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… it went off all right?’

“ ‘Oh, very well, Madame. He has been urging me for three days now, but I didn’t want to go too quickly. Perhaps Madame will tell me what time she would like the flagrante delicto.’

“ ‘Yes, my girl; let’s see⁠ ⁠… we’ll make it Friday.’

“ ‘Friday then, Madame. I’ll not allow any more liberties until then, so as to keep Monsieur eager.’

“ ‘You’re sure you won’t fail?’

“ ‘Oh, yes, Madame, quite sure. I’ll go on keeping Monsieur from the point, so that he’s just ready to come to it at any hour Madame likes to fix.’

“ ‘Let’s say five o’clock, my good Rose.’

“ ‘Five o’clock, Madame; and where?’

“ ‘Well⁠—in my room.’

“ ‘Right, in Madame’s room.’

“Well, my dear, you see what I did. I went and brought papa and mamma first, and then my uncle d’Orvelin, the president, and then Monsieur Raplet, the judge and a friend of my husband. I didn’t warn them what I was going to show them. I made them all creep on tiptoe to the door of my room. I waited until five o’clock, exactly five o’clock. Oh, how my heart was beating! I made the concierge come up too, so as to have one more witness. Then⁠ ⁠… then, the moment the clock began to strike, bang, I flung the door open.⁠ ⁠… Oh, oh, oh, there they were in the very middle of it, my dear!⁠ ⁠… Oh, what a face⁠ ⁠… what a face, if you had only seen his face!⁠ ⁠… And he turned round, the fathead. Oh, it was funny! I laughed, and laughed.⁠ ⁠… And papa was furious and wanted to whip my husband. And the concierge, an excellent servant, helped him to dress himself again⁠ ⁠… in front of us⁠ ⁠… in front of us⁠ ⁠… he buttoned his braces for him⁠ ⁠… it was wildly funny.⁠ ⁠… As for Rose, she was perfect, quite perfect.⁠ ⁠… She cried⁠ ⁠… she cried beautifully. She’s a priceless girl⁠ ⁠… if ever you want a girl like that, remember her!

“And here I am.⁠ ⁠… I came away at once to tell you all about it⁠ ⁠… at once⁠—I’m free. Hurrah for divorce!”

She began to dance in the middle of the drawing room, while the little Baronne murmured, in a voice full of dreamy disappointment:

“Why didn’t you invite me to see it?”

Little Roque

Médéric Rompel, postman, familiarly addressed as Méderi by the country folk, left the post office of Roüy-le-Tors at his usual hour. He passed through the little town with the long strides of an old campaigner, and cut across the meadows of Villaumes to reach the bank of the Brindille. Following the course of the stream, he reached the village of Carvelin, where his delivery began.

He went at a rapid pace, keeping alongside the narrow brook, which threaded its way, frothing, gurgling, and eddying, over a weedy bed, beneath an arch of willows. The great boulders that blocked its passage were each encircled by a little noose of water, a kind of cravat finished off with a knot of foam. Occasionally there were cascades a foot deep, often unseen, but falling on a sonorous note, fretful yet soothing, under the green roof of leaves and creepers. Further on, the banks widened out into a small quiet lake, where the trout swam through green tresses of weed that waved under the gentle current.

Médéric went steadily forward, observing nothing, and thinking only: “My first letter is for the Poivrons, and then I have one for Monsieur Renardet; I shall have to go through the copse, then.”

His blue blouse, caught tightly round his waist in a black leather belt, moved with steady speed past the green line of willows; his stick, a stout branch of holly, moved at his side with the same action as his legs.

He crossed the Brindille by a bridge made of a single tree-trunk, thrown across from one bank to the other; its only rail was a rope supported by stakes sunk into the banks.

The copse belonged to Monsieur Renardet, the mayor of Carvelin, and the most important landowner in the district. It was almost a wood of huge old trees, as straight as pillars, and stretched the length of half a league along the brook that bounded this vast leafy vault. Along the waterside large shrubs had sprung up under the sun’s heat, but deep in the copse nothing was to be found but moss, thick, sweet, and soft, filling the still air with a faint odour of decay and rotten wood.

Médéric slowed down, took off his black cap with its scarlet trimming, and wiped his brow, for, though it was not yet eight o’clock in the morning, it was already hot in the meadows. He had just put on his hat, and was resuming his rapid stride, when he noticed, at the foot of a tree, a small knife, a child’s knife. As he picked it up, he found a thimble too, then, two steps farther on, a needle case.

He picked them up and thought: “Better give them to the mayor”; and continued his journey, but now with his eyes wide open, expecting all the time to find something more.

Suddenly he stopped dead, as though he had bumped into a wooden barrier, for ten paces in front of him there lay upon its back the body of a child, stark naked on the moss. It was the body of a little girl about twelve years old; her arms were flung wide apart, her feet were separated, and her face was covered with a handkerchief. A little blood stained her legs.

Médéric crept forward on tiptoe, as though he feared to make a sound, scenting danger. His eyes were wide open.

What was this? She must be asleep. Then he reflected that people do not sleep naked like that at half past seven in the morning, in a cold wood. She was dead, then, and he was in the presence of a crime. At this thought, old soldier as he was, a cold shiver ran up his back. Murder, and child-murder at that, was so rare a happening in the district that he could not believe his eyes. But there was no wound upon her, nothing but the blood congealed upon her leg. How long had she been killed?

He had stopped quite close to her, and was looking at her, leaning on his stick. He must know her, since he knew all the local inhabitants, but, not being able to see her face, he could not guess her name. He bent down to remove the handkerchief from her face, then stopped, with outstretched hand, restrained by a sudden thought.

Had he the right to interfere in any way with the disposition of the body before the judicial inquiry? He imagined the law as a kind of general whose notice nothing can escape, and who attaches as much importance to a lost button as to a stab in the stomach. Beneath that handkerchief damning evidence might be found; a real clue, which might well lose its value if touched by a clumsy hand.

So he rose, to run to the mayor’s house. A second thought held him back. Suppose that by any chance the little girl were still alive, he could not leave her like this. Quickly he knelt down at a discreet distance from her and, thrusting out his hand, touched her foot. It was cold, frozen into that ghastly chill that makes dead flesh so terrifying, and leaves no room for doubt. The touch of it put the heart across him, as he expressed it later, and the saliva dried in his mouth. He rose at once and began to run through the wood towards Monsieur Renardet’s house.

He ran with the gait of an athlete, his stick under his arm, his fists closed, his head thrust forward; his leather bag, full of letters and newspapers, pounded rhythmically against his back.

The mayor’s house was at the end of the wood whose trees served as its park. One corner of the surrounding wall was washed by the Brindille, which here ran into a small pond.

It was a large square house of grey stone. It was very old, and in former times had been beseiged; at the far end of it was a huge tower, sixty feet high and built in the water. Once, from the summit of this keep, watch had been kept over all the district. It was called the Tower of Renard, no one knew quite why. It was doubtless from this name that the name Renardet came, borne by all the owners of this property, which had been in the same family, it was said, for more than two hundred years. For the Renardets belonged to that almost noble yeoman class so often found in the country before the Revolution. The postman rushed into the kitchen where the servants were having breakfast, shouting: “Is the Mayor up? I must speak to him at once.”

Médéric was known for a man of weight and authority, and they knew at once that something serious had happened.

Monsieur Renardet was notified, and ordered the man to be brought in. Pale and out of breath, the postman, cap in hand, found the mayor seated at a long table covered with scattered papers.

He was a tall, stout man, with an unwieldy figure and a ruddy skin. He was as strong as a bull, and much loved in the locality, for all his quick temper. About forty years of age, and for the past six months a widower, he lived on his land in the style of a country nobleman. His impetuous nature had landed him in many awkward places, from which he had always been rescued by his indulgent and tactful comrades, the magistrates of Roüy-le-Tors. Was it not he, indeed, who one fine day threw the driver of the mail coach from his box, because the fellow had almost run over his pointer Micmac? Had he not broken the ribs of a gamekeeper who prosecuted him for carrying his gun across a piece of land belonging to a neighbour? Had he not even arrested the subprefect who was stopping in the village in the pursuit of his administrative duties⁠—styled by Monsieur Renardet an electioneering campaign, because it was opposed to the good old tradition of government by the family?

“What’s the matter, Médéric?” asked the mayor.

“I’ve found a little girl in your wood, dead.”

Renardet rose, his face brick-red.

“What did you say⁠ ⁠… a little girl?”

“Yes, sir, a little girl, quite naked, lying on her back, and there was some blood; she’s dead as a doornail.”

“My God,” swore the mayor, “I bet it’s Madame Roque’s little girl! I’ve just been told that last night she never came home to her mother’s. Where did you find her?”

The postman began a detailed explanation, and offered to guide the mayor to the spot.

But Renardet turned gruff. “No, I don’t need you. Send the constable, the town clerk, and the doctor to me as soon as you can, and go on with your delivery. Hurry, man, hurry, and tell them to meet me in the wood.”

The postman, accustomed to discipline, obediently withdrew, angry and disgusted at being excluded from the inquiry.

The mayor thereupon went too, taking his hat, a large soft hat of grey felt, with a very broad brim. He halted a moment upon the threshold of his dwelling. Before him stretched a wide lawn where gleamed three great splashes of red, blue, and white, three monstrous baskets of flowers in full bloom, one right opposite the house, the other two at the sides. In the background thrust the first few trees of the wood; on the left, on the far side of the Brindille which here widened into a pool, a wide expanse of meadows lay open to his view, a green, flat landscape intersected by ditches and hedges of pollard willows. These fantastic tree-creatures, standing there like ghosts or hunchbacks, bore upon their short thick trunks a waving fan of little branches.

On the right were the stables, the outhouses, and all the buildings dependent upon the property; behind them began the village, a prosperous little place chiefly inhabited by cattle-breeders.

Renardet walked slowly down his steps and, turning to the left, reached the bank of the stream, which he followed at a slow pace, his hands behind his back. His head was bent, and from time to time he sent a piercing glance round him in search of the men he had sent for.

When he reached the shelter of the trees, he stopped, took off his hat, and wiped his brow, as Médéric had done; for the blazing July sun fell like a rain of fire upon the earth. Then the mayor resumed his journey, stopped once more, and retraced his steps. Suddenly he bent down and soaked his handkerchief in the stream running at his feet. He spread it upon his head, under his hat; drops of water trickled over his temples, over his purple ears, over his strong red neck, and, one after another, ran beneath the white collar of his shirt.

As no one had yet appeared, he began to tap with his foot; then he shouted: “Hey! Hey!”

From the right a voice answered: “Hey! Hey!”

The doctor appeared under the trees. He was a small thin man, once an army surgeon, with a local reputation for great skill. He was lame, having been wounded on active service, and walked with a stick. The constable and the town clerk appeared next; they arrived together, having both received the news at the same time. They ran up panting, with scared faces, walking and running by turns in their haste, and waving their arms so wildly that they seemed to do more work with them than with their legs.

“You know what the trouble is?” said Renardet to the doctor.

“Yes, a dead child found in the wood by Médéric.”

“That’s right. Come along.”

They set off side by side, following the other pair. Their steps made no sound upon the moss, their eyes continually searched the ground in front of them.

Suddenly Doctor Labarbe stretched out his arm: “There it is.”

Far off, under the trees, something bright could be seen. Had they not known what it was, they would never have guessed. So shining white it looked that anyone would have thought it a sheet dropped on the ground, for a sunbeam came through the branches and lit up the pale flesh with a great ray flung obliquely over the stomach of the corpse. As they drew near, they gradually made out the form, the veiled head turned towards the water, and the two arms flung wide apart as in a crucifixion.

“I’m damned hot,” said the mayor, and, stooping down to the Brindille, he again wetted his handkerchief and replaced it on his head.

The doctor hurried on, interested by the discovery. As soon as he reached the corpse, he bent down to examine it, without touching it at all. He had put on his glasses, as one does when studying a curiosity, and he walked quietly round it.

Without rising he said: “Rape and murder. We’ll verify it directly. The girl’s almost a woman too: look at her throat.”

The two breasts, already well formed, sagged on the bosom that death had robbed of its firmness.

Carefully the doctor lifted the handkerchief that covered the head. The face was black and ghastly, with tongue and eyes protruding. “Strangled,” he said, “as soon as the job was done.”

He felt the neck: “Strangled with the bare hands; there’s no special trace besides, no nail-mark or fingerprint. That’s that, and it is Madame Roque’s little girl.”

Gingerly he replaced the handkerchief. “I can do nothing; she’s been dead for at least twelve hours. The police must be told.”

Renardet was standing up with his hands behind his back, gazing at the little body laid upon the ground. “Poor little thing!” he muttered. “We must find her clothes.”

The doctor felt her hands, her arms, her legs. “She’d just had a bathe,” he said. “They must be on the riverbank.”

The mayor gave his orders. “You, Principe”⁠—this to the town clerk⁠—“you hunt along the stream for her clothes. And you, Maxim”⁠—this to the constable⁠—“you run to Roüy-le-Tors and fetch me the examining magistrate and the police. They must be here within an hour. You understand?”

The two men departed quickly, and Renardet said to the doctor: “What blackguard in the district could do such a thing?”

“Who can say?” the doctor murmured. “Everyone is capable of it. Everyone in particular, and no one in general. It must have been a tramp, some fellow out of work. Now we’re a Republic, they are the only people you meet on the roads.”

Both were supporters of the Bonapartist cause.

“Yes,” answered the mayor, “it must have been a passing stranger, a vagabond without hearth or home.”

“Or wife,” added the doctor with a faint smile. “Having neither supper nor bed, he got himself the rest. There are I don’t know how many men on this earth who are capable, at any moment, of committing a crime. Did you know that the little girl was missing?”

With the end of his stick he touched, one after another, the dead child’s stiffened fingers, pressing on them as on the keys of a piano.

“Yes. The mother came to see me last night, about nine o’clock, as the child had not come in at seven for her supper. We shouted for her on the roads till midnight, but we never thought of the wood. Besides, we needed daylight to make a really effective search.”

“Have a cigar,” said the doctor.

“No, thanks. I don’t want to smoke. This business has given me rather a turn.”

The two remained standing, in front of the frail young body, so pale upon the dark moss. A great bluebottle walked up one thigh, stopped at the bloodstains, and went on up the body, running over the hip with its hurried, jerky little steps. It climbed up one breast, then came down again and explored the other, seeking for something to drink. The two men watched the roving black speck.

“How pretty it is,” said the doctor, “a fly on human skin! The ladies of the last century were quite right to wear them on their faces. I wonder why the custom has gone out.”

The mayor, lost in thought, appeared to hear nothing. Abruptly, he swung round, startled by a noise. A woman in a blue bonnet and apron came running through the trees. It was the mother, Madame Roque. As soon as she caught sight of Renardet she began to scream: “My little darling, where’s my little darling?” so wild with grief that she never looked down. Suddenly she saw her darling, and stopped dead. She clasped her hands and flung up her arms: piercing and heartrending screams came between her lips, the screams of a wounded animal.

She flung herself upon her knees beside the body, and snatched at the handkerchief with a violent gesture. When she saw that dreadful face, black and distorted, she drew back shuddering, then buried her face in the moss, her body shaken with ceaseless heartbreaking sobs.

The clothes clung round her tall bony frame that heaved and shook. They could see the ghastly quivering of her thin ugly ankles and her withered calves, in their coarse blue stockings. Her crooked fingers burrowed in the earth as though she would make a hole and hide in it.

The doctor, deeply moved, murmured: “Poor old thing!”

Renardet felt a curious disturbance in his stomach; then he uttered a sort of violent sneeze, vented simultaneously from nose and mouth. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and cried noisily into it, choking, sobbing, and blowing his nose. “M⁠—m⁠—m⁠—my God,” he blubbered, “I’d I⁠—I⁠—like to see them g⁠—guillotine the swine that did it!”

But Principe returned empty-handed and disconsolate. “I’ve found nothing, sir,” he muttered to the mayor, “nothing anywhere.”

“What can’t you find?” the other demanded thickly.

“The little girl’s clothes.”

“W⁠—well, go on looking⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… and f⁠—find them, or you’ll get into trouble with me.”

Knowing that there was no opposing the mayor, the fellow went off again with a discouraged air, casting a timid sideways glance at the body.

Distant voices were heard among the trees, a confused din, the uproar of an approaching crowd; for on his round Médéric had spread the news from door to door. The country folk, at first dumbfounded, had talked it over in the street on one another’s doorsteps. Then they gathered together, and, after twenty minutes’ chattering, discussion, and comment, were coming to see it for themselves.

They arrived in groups, a little hesitant and uneasy, fearing their own feelings at first sight of the body. When they saw it they stopped, not daring to come closer, and talking in low tones. Then they grew bold, advanced a few steps, stopped again, advanced a few more, and soon grouped themselves round the dead child, the mother, the doctor, and Renardet. They formed a deep circle, swaying and clamorous, and pushed ever closer by the sudden onrush of the latecomers. In a few moments they were touching the body; some of them even bent down to handle it. The doctor kept them at a distance. But the mayor, roused suddenly from his stupor, became furious; seizing Doctor Labarbe’s stick, he fell upon his subjects, stammering: “Clear out!⁠ ⁠… Clear out!⁠ ⁠… Pack of beasts!⁠ ⁠… Clear out!⁠ ⁠…” In one second the circle of inquisitive spectators widened by two hundred yards.

Madame Roque had risen and turned round, and was now sitting weeping, with her hands in front of her face.

The crowd was discussing the affair, and the boys’ greedy eyes devoured the nude young body. Renardet noticed it and, hastily tearing off his linen coat, he threw it over the girl’s form, which was completely hidden by that huge garment.

The inquisitive spectators drew quietly nearer; the wood was getting fuller and fuller; a continuous murmur of voices rose to the thick foliage of the tall trees.

The mayor stood there in his shirtsleeves, stick in hand, in a pugnacious attitude. He seemed exasperated by the curiosity of the crowd, and repeated: “If one of you comes a step nearer, I’ll break his head like a dog’s.”

The peasants had a wholesome dread of him, and kept clear. Doctor Labarbe, who was smoking, sat down beside Madame Roque and talked to her, trying to distract her attention. The old woman promptly took her hands from her face and answered him in a rush of tearful words, venting her grief in the sheer flood of her speech. She told him her whole life-history, her marriage, the death of her husband, a cowherd, gored to death, her daughter’s childhood, her wretched existence as a widow with a child and no resources. She was all she had, was little Louise, and now she’d been killed, killed here in this wood. Suddenly she felt a wish to see her child again and, dragging herself to the body upon her knees, she lifted a corner of the garment that covered it; then let it fall again and broke into fresh sobs. The crowd was silent, gazing eagerly at the mother’s every movement.

There was a sudden disturbance; and a cry of “The police, the police!”

Two policemen appeared in the distance, advancing at a rapid trot, escorting their captain and a short, ginger-whiskered gentleman, who bobbed up and down like a monkey on his big white mare.

The constable had found Monsieur Pictoin, the examining magistrate, at the very moment when he was mounting his horse to take his daily ride; it was his ambition to be taken for a smart young fellow, which vastly amused the officers.

He dismounted, with the captain, and shook hands with the mayor and the doctor, casting a sneaking glance at the linen coat on the ground, filled out as it was by the body lying beneath it.

When he had been thoroughly acquainted with the facts of the case, his first act was to disperse the crowd, which the police cleared out of the wood, but which soon reappeared in the meadow and formed a hedge, a long hedge of excited, moving heads, all along the Brindille, on the far side of the brook.

In his turn the doctor made his statement, and Renardet wrote it down with a pencil in his notebook. All the verifications were made, registered, and commented upon, without any discovery being made. Maxim had returned also, without finding a trace of the missing clothes.

Everyone was amazed at their disappearance; no one could explain it except by the theory of robbery, and, since the rags were not worth a shilling, even this theory was inadmissible.

The examining magistrate, the mayor, the captain, and the doctor searched in couples, looking between even the smallest twigs along the waterside.

“How is it,” said Renardet to the magistrate, “that the wretch hid or stole the clothes, yet left the body right in the open, in full view?”

The other was crafty and sagacious. “Aha,” he answered, “possibly a trick. This crime was committed either by a brute or by a very sly dog. Anyhow, we’ll soon find him all right.”

The sound of carriage wheels made them turn their heads. The deputy, the doctor, and the clerk of the police station were arriving. The search continued, amid animated conversation.

Renardet said suddenly: “You know you’re all lunching with me?”

Everyone accepted with smiles; the examining magistrate, thinking that they had had enough, for that day, of Madame Roque’s little girl, turned to the mayor.

“I can have the body taken to your house, can’t I? You have a room there where it can be kept till tonight.”

The mayor was distressed, and stammered: “Yes⁠ ⁠… no, no. To tell you the truth, I’d sooner not have it⁠ ⁠… on account of the servants, you know. They’re already talking of⁠ ⁠… of ghosts and things⁠ ⁠… in my tower, the tower of Renard. You know what it is.⁠ ⁠… I couldn’t get one to stay on.⁠ ⁠… No⁠ ⁠… I’d sooner not have it in the house.”

The magistrate smiled: “Very well.⁠ ⁠… I’ll get it taken straight to Roüy for the inquest.” And turning to the deputy, he said: “I may have the use of your carriage, may I not?”

“Certainly.”

They all came back to the body. Madame Roque was seated beside her daughter now, holding her hand and staring in front of her with wild, blurred eyes. The two doctors tried to lead her away, so that she should not see the child taken from her. But she understood at once what they were about to do and, throwing herself upon the body, seized it with both arms. Lying beside it, she shrieked: “You shan’t have it, it’s mine, mine, now. They’ve killed my child; I’ll keep her, you shan’t have her.”

The men, disturbed and irresolute, stood round her. Renardet went down on his knees to speak to her. “Listen, we must have her, so as to know who killed her. Otherwise we shan’t know; we must find him to punish him. You shall have her back when we’ve found him, I promise you.”

This reason moved her; hate burned in her crazed eyes. “Then he’ll be caught?” she said.

“Yes, I promise you he will.”

She rose, determined to let them have their own way. But, hearing the captain murmur, “Curious that her clothes can’t be found,” a new and strange idea entered the peasant woman’s brain.

“Where are her clothes?” she asked. “They’re mine, I want ’em. Where’ve they been put?”

It was explained to her that they were still lost, whereupon she persisted with despairing obstinacy, weeping and moaning, demanding: “They’re mine, I want ’em. Where are they? I want ’em.”

The more they tried to calm her, the more obstinately she sobbed. She did not want the body any longer, only the clothes, her daughter’s clothes, perhaps less from maternal affection than from the blind cupidity of a wretch to whom a single coin represents a fortune.

And when the little body, rolled in a wrap fetched from Renardet’s house, disappeared into the carriage, the old woman stood under the trees, supported by the mayor and the captain, and cried: “I’ve got nothing, nothing, nothing at all, nothing, not even her li’l bonnet! I’ve got nothing, nothing, nothing, not even her li’l bonnet!”

The parish priest had now come on the scene; he was still quite young but already very plump. He undertook to get Mother Roque away, and they set off together towards the village. The mother’s grief abated under the honeyed consolation of God’s servant, who promised her a thousand assuagements. But she repeated incessantly: “If only I had her li’l bonnet,” clinging stupidly to this thought, which now completely obsessed her.

Renardet shouted after them: “You’ll lunch with us, Father? In an hour’s time.”

The priest turned his head and replied: “Willingly, Mr. Mayor. I’ll be there about twelve.”

All the guests made their way towards the house that lifted over the trees its grey front and the great tower built beside the Brindille.

The meal was a long one: they talked about the crime. Everyone there held the same theory: it had been the work of some tramp, who had happened to wander that way while the child was bathing.

Then the magistrates returned to Roüy, after announcing that they would return early next day; the doctor and the parish priest went home, while Renardet took a long walk through the meadows and came back to the copse, where he walked up and down until nightfall, with slow steps, his hands clasped behind his back.

He went to bed very early and the next morning he was still asleep when the examining magistrate entered his bedroom. He was rubbing his hands, and his face expressed great satisfaction.

“Ah,” he said, “you’re still in bed. Well, my dear fellow, we’ve news this morning.”

The mayor sat up in bed.

“What is it?”

“Oh, an odd enough thing. You’ll remember that yesterday the mother was making a terrible fuss about wanting something to remind her of her daughter, particularly her little bonnet. Well, when she opened her door this morning, she found on the doorstep the child’s two little wooden shoes. This proves that the crime was committed by someone in the district, by someone who now feels sorry for her. Besides, postman Médéric has brought me the dead girl’s thimble, knife, and needle-case. There’s no doubt that the man was carrying off her clothes to hide them when he dropped the things in the pocket. For my part, I attach especial importance to the incident of the wooden shoes, which points to a degree of moral sensibility and a quality of compassion in the murderer. If you are ready, we will therefore consider in turn the leading people of your district.”

The mayor got out of bed. He rang for hot water to shave himself. “Very well,” he said, “but it will be a long job, and we can begin at once.”

Monsieur Pictoin straddled across his chair, indulging his passion for equestrian exercises even indoors.

Renardet, staring at himself in the glass, was now covering his chin with a white foam; then he drew his razor over the skin and went on: “The name of the leading citizen of Carvelin is Joseph Renardet, mayor, well-to-do landowner, a hot-tempered man who beats keepers and drivers.⁠ ⁠…”

The examining magistrate laughed aloud: “That’s enough; go on to the next.”

“The next in importance is Monsieur Pelledent, deputy mayor, cattle farmer, quite as well-to-do a landowner, a shrewd peasant, uncommon tricky, uncommon sharp in money matters, but in my opinion incapable of such a monstrous crime.”

“Next,” said Monsieur Pictoin.

So Renardet shaved and washed, and went through his inspection of the morals of all the inhabitants of Carvelin. After debating for two hours, their suspicions narrowed down to three sufficiently dubious characters: a poacher called Cavalle, one Paquet who dealt in trout and crabs, and a cowherd called Clovis.

II

The investigations went on all summer: the criminal was not discovered. The men suspected and arrested were easily able to prove their innocence, and the police had to abandon their search for the guilty man.

But this murder seemed in some strange fashion to have stirred the whole countryside. An uneasy feeling lurked in people’s hearts, a vague fear, an inexplicable sense of terror, sprung not only from the impossibility of discovering any clue, but also and in a special degree from that strange discovery of the wooden shoes at Mother Roque’s doorstep on the next morning. The certainty that the murderer had been present at the discussions, that he must still be living in the village, haunted and obsessed all minds, seemed to hover over the countryside like a perpetual menace.

The copse, besides, had become a terrifying place, it was avoided, and they believed it haunted. Before the murder, the villagers used to walk there every Sunday afternoon. They sat on the moss below great tall trees, or wandered contentedly along the stream, peering at the trout gliding under the grasses. The lads played at bowls, skittles, cork pool, and ball in special places which they had taken for themselves, levelling the ground and treading it down hard and firm; and the girls walked up and down, arms linked, in groups of four and five, twittering their village romances in shrill voices that grated on the ear: the tuneless notes shivered the quiet air and set the listeners’ teeth on edge like drops of vinegar. Nowadays the villagers ventured no more under the high thick vault, as if they expected to find dead bodies lying there every day.

Autumn came, the leaves were falling. Day and night they fell, curled and fluttering, twirling as they came down past the great trees. Sometimes, when a gust of wind swept over the tops of the trees, the slow ceaseless rain grew suddenly heavier and became a confused and rushing downpour covering the moss with a thick yellow carpet that crackled faintly under the feet. The almost inaudible murmuring, the fluttering ceaseless murmur of their falling, so sweet and so sad, seemed a lament, and these ever-dropping leaves seemed tears, great tears poured out by the great sad trees weeping day and night for the end of the year, for the end of warm dawns and quiet dusks, for the end of hot breezes and blazing suns, and perhaps too for the crime they had seen committed under their shadow, for the child violated and killed at their feet. They wept in the silence of the deserted empty wood, the shunned forsaken wood, where the soul, the little soul of the dead child surely wandered, lonely.

Tawny and angry-looking, swollen by the storms, the Brindille ran swifter between its dried-up banks, between two rows of slender bare willows.

Suddenly Renardet took to walking in the copse again. Every day at nightfall he left his house, slowly descended the steps of the terrace, and disappeared between the trees with a dreamy air, his hands in his pockets. He strode for a long time over the soft wet moss, while an army of crows who had gathered from the country round to nest in the lofty treetops, swept out across the sky like a vast mourning veil floating in the wind, with a monstrous sinister clamour.

Sometimes they settled, a horde of black spots clustered on the tangled branches against the red sky, the bloodred sky of an autumn twilight. Then all at once they flew off again, cawing frenziedly and spreading above the wood again the long sombre line of flying wings.

They sank at last in the highest tops and little by little ceased their crying while the advancing darkness merged their black feathers with the blackness of the hollow night.

Still Renardet wandered slowly under the trees; then, when the shadows drew so thickly down that he could no longer walk about, he returned home and fell heavily into his big chair before the glowing chimneypiece, stretching towards the hearth damp feet that steamed in front of the flames for hours.

Then, one morning, startling news ran through the countryside: the mayor had given orders to cut down his copse.

Twenty woodcutters were already at work. They had begun with the corner nearest the house, and under the master’s eye were progressing at a great rate.

First of all, the men who were to lop off the branches scrambled up the trunk.

Fastened to the tree by a rope round their bodies, they first take a grip of it with their arms, then raise one leg and drive the steel spike fixed to the soles of their boots firmly into the trunk. The point pierces the tree, and is wedged there, and as if he were walking the man raises himself and drives in the spike of the other foot: then he supports himself on this one and makes a fresh advance with the first foot.

And at each step he carries higher the rope that holds him to the tree; at his waist the steel hatchet dangles and glitters. He climbs gently and steadily like a parasite animal attacking a giant, he mounts clumsily up the vast column, twisting his arm round it and digging in his spurs to raise himself high enough to decapitate it.

As soon as he reaches the first branches, he stops, detaches the sharp ax from his thigh, and strikes. He strikes with slow regular blows, severing the limb close to the trunk; and all of a sudden the branch cracks, bends, hangs, tears apart, and rushes down, brushing past the surrounding trees in its fall. Then it is dashed on the earth with a crash of shattered wood, and for a long time all its smallest twigs quiver and shake.

The earth is covered with fallen branches that the rest of the men take and saw into smaller pieces, fastening them in bundles and piling them in heaps, while the trees still left standing look like monstrous pillars of wood, gigantic stakes amputated and shorn by the sharp steel of the axes.

And when the last branch has fallen, the woodman leaves the noose of rope he has carried up with him fastened to the peak of the straight slender pillar; then, digging in his spurs, he climbs down the pillaged trunk and the woodcutters proceed to attack it at the foot, striking heavy blows that echo all through the forest.

When the cut at the foot seems deep enough, a number of men haul on the rope fastened to the top, shouting all together with each heave, and the great mast suddenly cracks and falls to the earth with the hollow vibrating roar of a distant cannon-shot.

And day by day the wood grew less, losing its felled trees as an army loses its soldiers.

Renardet never left it; he stayed there from morning to evening, immobile, his hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the slow death of his forest. When a tree had fallen, he placed his foot on it as if it were a dead body. Then he turned his gaze to the next with a kind of secret and dispassionate impatience, as if he expected something, hoped for something to come of this massacre.

Meanwhile, they drew near the place where little Roque had been found. They came to it at last, one evening, at dusk.

As the shadows were drawing down under a darkened sky, the woodcutters wanted to stop work, and put off until tomorrow the felling of an enormous beech, but the owner refused to allow it and insisted that they should forthwith lop off its branches and haul down the monstrous tree that had lent its shadow to the crime.

When the man had stripped it bare of all its branches and made it ready for its doom, when the woodcutters had undermined its base, five men began to haul on the rope fastened to the summit.

The tree resisted; hacked half through as it was, the powerful trunk was rigid as an iron girder. The workmen, lying right back on the rope, pulled all together, heaving steadily, and accompanied every pull with a breathless shout.

Two woodcutters stood near the giant, grasping their axes, like two executioners ready to strike another blow, and Renardet, motionless, his hand on the bark, waited for the fall in the grip of a nervous agitation.

One of the men said to him: “You are standing too close, Mr. Mayor; when it falls, you might get hurt.”

He neither replied nor drew back; he looked prepared to fling himself upon the beech with both arms and throw it like a wrestler throwing his man.

At the foot of the great wooden column, there was a sudden rending that seemed to run through it to the very top like a mournful shudder; and it swayed a little, on the verge of falling, but resisting still.

With tense bodies and straining arms, the men gave another and mightier heave; and as the shattered tree swayed over, Renardet made a sudden step forward, then stopped, his shoulders braced to take the inevitable shock, the fatal shock that would crush him to the ground.

But the tree, falling a little to one side, only grazed his body, flinging him face downwards five yards away.

The workmen rushed forward to lift him up; he had already raised himself on his knees; he was dazed, with eyes staring wildly, and he drew his hand across his forehead as if he had come to his senses after an access of madness.

When they had helped him to his feet, the astonished men questioned him, unable to understand what he had done. Stammering, he told them that for a moment he had lost his head, or, rather, slipped for a second back into his childhood, and he had imagined that he had time to cross beneath the tree as youngsters rush across in front of hurrying carriages, that he had played at taking risks, that for a week he had felt the desire to do it growing in him, and every time a tree cracked as it fell had wondered if one could run under it without being touched. It was a fool’s trick, he admitted; but everyone has these moments of insanity and these puerile and idiotic temptations.

He explained all this very slowly in a muffled voice, hesitating for words; then he went off, saying: “We’ll be here again tomorrow, my men, tomorrow.”

As soon as he reached his room, he sat down at his table, flooded with light reflected from the shade of the lamp, and wept, his face between his hands.

He wept for a long time, then he dried his eyes, lifted his head, and looked at his clock. It was not yet six. He thought: “I have time before dinner,” and he went and locked his door. Then he came back and sat down again at his table. He pulled out the middle drawer, took a revolver from inside, and placed it on his papers, in the full glare of the lamp. The steel of the weapon gleamed, and threw out flashes of light like flames.

Renardet stared at it for a time with the uncertain eye of a drunken man; then he stood up and began to walk about.

He walked from one end of the room to the other, and from time to time he stopped, to begin again at once. Suddenly he opened the door of his dining room, soaked a napkin in the water jug, and wiped his forehead, as he had done on the morning of the crime. Then he began to walk about again. Every time he walked past his table, the shining weapon attracted his glance, almost fitted itself into his hand; but he kept his eye on the clock and thought: “I have still time.”

Half past six struck. Then he grasped the revolver, and, his face twisted into a horrible grimace, he opened his mouth and thrust the barrel inside as if he wanted to swallow it. He stood so for some moments, motionless, finger on the trigger; then, seized with a sudden shuddering horror, he spat the pistol out on to the carpet.

He dropped into his chair, shaken with sobs: “I can’t. I daren’t. My God, my God! What shall I do to get the courage to kill myself?”

There was a knock at the door; he leaped to his feet in a frenzy. A servant said: “Dinner is ready, sir.” “Very well,” he answered, “I’m coming down.”

So he picked up the weapon, shut it away in the drawer again, then looked at himself in the glass over the chimneypiece to assure himself that his face was not too convulsed. He was flushed, as always, a little more flushed perhaps. That was all. He went downstairs and sat down to dinner.

He ate slowly, like a man anxious to prolong a meal, anxious not to be left alone with himself. Then he smoked several pipes in the dining room while the table was cleared. Then he went back to his room.

As soon as he had shut himself in it, he looked under his bed, opened every cupboard, explored every corner, moved every piece of furniture to look behind it. After that he lit the wax candles on the chimneypiece, and swung round time and again, his eyes peering into every corner of the room in an agony of fear that distorted his face, for he knew that he would assuredly see, as every night he saw, little Roque, the little girl he had violated and after strangled.

Every night, the horrible scene enacted itself. It began with a sort of muttering in his ears, like the noise of a grinding-machine or the sound of a distant train crossing a bridge. Then his breath came in gasps; he stifled, and had to unbutton the collar of his shirt, and his belt. He walked about to stir the blood in his veins, he tried to read, he tried to sing; it was all in vain; willy-nilly, his mind went back to the day of the murder and forced him to live it over again in every secret detail, and to suffer again all its most violent emotions from the first minute of the day to the last.

When he rose that morning, the morning of that dreadful day, he had felt a slight dizziness and a headache which he attributed to the heat, and for that reason remained in his room until he was called for lunch. The meal over, he had taken a nap; then, towards the end of the afternoon, he had gone out to enjoy the fresh and cooling breeze under the trees of the copse.

But as soon as he was outside the house, the heavy burning air of the flat countryside oppressed him more than ever. The sun, still high in heaven, poured floods of blazing sunshine down on the burnt-up earth, dry and dying of thirst. No breath of wind stirred the leaves. Beasts, birds, even the grasshoppers were silent. Renardet reached the great trees and began to walk over the moss where a faint fresh odour rose from the Brindille under the vast roof of branches. But he felt ill at ease. It seemed to him that an unknown invisible hand was clutching his throat; and he hardly thought of anything, having at all times very few ideas in his head. Only, a vague thought had been obsessing him for three months, the thought of marrying again. He suffered from a solitary life, suffered in body and soul. Accustomed for ten years to feel a woman near him, accustomed to her constant presence, to her daily embrace, he felt the need, a confused and overmastering need, of her perpetual nearness and her habitual kiss. Since Madame Renardet’s death, he suffered all the time, hardly understanding why; he suffered because he missed her dress brushing past his leg every hour of the day, and especially because he could no longer find peace and ease of body in her arms. He had been a widower for barely six months and already he was looking round the neighbourhood for some young girl or some widow he might marry when his period of mourning was at an end.

His soul was chaste, but it was housed in the powerful body of a Hercules, and carnal visions began to trouble his sleep and the hours when he lay awake. He drove them from him; they returned; and now and then he murmured, smiling to himself: “I’m a Saint Anthony, I am.”

On this particular morning he had had several of these persistent visions, and a sudden desire seized him to bathe in the Brindille to refresh himself and cool the heat of his blood.

A little farther on, he knew a wide deep stretch of river where the country folk sometimes came to dip themselves in summer. He went there.

Thick-grown willows hid this clear pool, where the current paused and drowsed a little before rushing on again. As he drew near, Renardet thought he heard a slight sound, a faint lapping sound which was not the river lapping against its banks. He parted the leaves carefully and looked through. A very young girl, quite naked, showing white through the translucent water, was splashing the water with both hands, making little dancing movements in the water, turning and swaying with gracile gestures. She was no longer a child, and she was not yet a woman grown; she was plump and shapely, and had withal the air of a precocious child, developed beyond her years, almost mature. He did not stir, transfixed with amazement and a dreadful pain, the breath strangled in his throat by a strange and poignant emotion. He stood there, his heart beating as if one of his sensual dreams had just come to life, as if an evil faery had conjured up before him this disturbing and too youthful creature, this little peasant Venus, rising from the ripples of the stream as that other diviner Venus from the sea waves.

The child finished her bathe suddenly; she did not see him, and came towards him to get her clothes and dress herself. As she came nearer and nearer to him, taking little delicate steps to avoid the sharp stones, he felt himself driven towards her by an irresistible force, a mad animal lust that pricked his flesh, filled his mind with madness, and made him tremble from head to foot.

For a moment she stood still behind the willow where he was hiding. Then he lost all self-control, and, parting the branches, he flung himself on her and seized her in his arms. She fell down, too terrified to resist, too stunned to call out, and he possessed her without realising what he was doing.

He woke from his criminal madness like a man waking from a nightmare. The child began to cry.

“Hush,” he said, “hush then. I’ll give you some money.”

But she did not listen; she went on sobbing.

He began again: “Now hush then. Hush then. Hush then.”

She screamed and writhed in the effort to escape.

Abruptly he realised that he was lost; and he seized her by the throat to silence on her lips those terrible rending sounds. As she went on struggling with the desperate strength of a creature trying to fly from death, he tightened his great hand on the little throat swelling with her cries, and so savagely did he grip her that he had strangled her in a few seconds without ever dreaming of killing her, wanting only to silence her.

Then he got to his feet, dazed with horror.

She lay stretched out before him, stained with blood, and her face black. He was on the point of rushing away, when the confused mysterious instinct that prompts all human beings in their moments of peril, stirred in his distraught mind.

He was about to throw the body in the water, but a second impulse drove him to make a small parcel of the clothes. He had some string in his pockets, and he tied it up and hid it in the stream in a deep hole under the trunk of a tree whose foot was washed by the waters of the Brindille.

Then he strode rapidly away, reached the meadows, made a wide detour in order to be seen by the peasants living far from the place at the other side of the district, and returned home for dinner at the usual hour, telling his servants where his walk had taken him.

That night he slept; he fell into a profound sodden sleep, such a sleep as must sometimes visit men condemned to death. He did not open his eyes until the first gleams of dawn, and, tortured by fear of the discovery of the hideous crime, lay waiting for the hour at which he always rose.

Afterwards he had to be present at all the investigations. He went through these like a somnambulist, in a half-crazed state in which he saw men and things like the figments of a dream, his clouded mind hardly conscious, in the grip of that sense of unreality which oppresses all our faculties in times of appalling disaster.

Nothing but the mother’s agonised cry found its way to his heart. At that moment he was ready to fling himself at the old woman’s knees and cry: “I did it.” But he stifled the impulse. He did, however, go during the night to fish out the dead girl’s sabots and carry them to her mother’s doorstep.

So long as the inquest lasted, and so long as he had to direct and mislead justice, he was calm, master of himself, cunning and smiling. With the magistrates he discussed placidly all the theories which they conceived, disputed their opinions, confounded their reasoning. He even found a certain bitter and melancholy pleasure in upsetting their examinations of the accused, in confusing their ideas on the subject, and proving the innocence of the men they suspected.

But from the very day when the inquiries were given up, he became gradually more nervous, more excitable than ever before, carefully as he controlled his bursts of rage. Sudden noises made him start fearfully; he shuddered at the least thing, sometimes shaking from head to foot when a fly settled on his face. Then an overmastering desire for movement seized on him, impelled him to long, violent walks, kept him walking about his room through whole nights.

It was not that he was torn with remorse. His gross and unreasoning mind was not susceptible to any refinement of sentiment or moral fear. A man of action, even a violent man, born to fight, to ravage conquered countries and massacre the conquered, full of the savage instincts of the hunter and the soldier, he had little or no respect for human life. Although for political reasons he supported the Church, he believed neither in God nor the devil, and consequently did not look to any life after death for either punishment or reward for his deeds in this life. He believed in nothing but a vague philosophy made up of all the notions of the encyclopaedists of the previous century; and he regarded Religion as a moral sanction of the Law, both of them having been invented by men to regulate social relationships.

To kill a man in a duel, or in war, or in a quarrel, or by accident, or for revenge, or even in an ambush, he found an amusing and laudable affair, and it would have left no more impression on his mind than a shot fired at a hare; but the murder of this child had stirred the very depths of his heart. He had done the deed in a madness of uncontrollable lust, in something like a storm of physical desire that swept aside his reason. And he had kept still in his heart, kept in his flesh, kept on his lips, kept even in his murderous fingers, something like a gross and brutal love and a frightful horror of this young girl surprised and foully killed by him. His thoughts recurred perpetually to the horrible scene; and although he compelled himself to dismiss the vision, although he rejected it in terror and disgust, he felt it wandering in his mind, twisting in his thoughts, waiting relentlessly for the chance to reappear.

Then he grew afraid of the evenings, afraid of the darkness creeping round him. He did not know yet why he found the shadows terrifying; but he had an instinctive dread of them; he felt that they were peopled with frightful things. The light of day did not encourage horrors. Things and creatures alike were clearly visible in it; moreover, only such things and creatures as can show themselves in full light are ever encountered by day. But night, shadowy night, thicker than walls and empty, infinite night, so black, so vast, was filled with frightful things that brushed his skin in passing; he felt that a mysterious horror was abroad and roving about at night, and he thought the darkness hid an unknown danger, imminent and threatening. What was it?

Before long he knew. Late one sleepless night, as he sat in his chair, he thought he saw the curtains at his window move. He waited, uneasy, with a beating heart; the hangings stirred no more; then, all at once, they shook again; at least he thought they shook. He dared not rise from his chair; he did not dare even to breathe; and yet he was a brave man; he had fought many times and he would have rejoiced at finding thieves in the house.

Had the curtains really moved? He asked himself the question, afraid that his eyes were playing him tricks. Besides, it was the very least movement, a faint quiver of the drapery, a sort of trembling of the folds rather than such a lifting movement as the wind makes. Renardet sat there with staring eyes and outthrust neck; and abruptly, ashamed of his fear, he stood up, took four steps, seized the hangings in both hands and drew them wide apart. At first he saw nothing but the black panes, as black as squares of gleaming ink. Night, the vast impassable space of night, stretched beyond them to the unseen horizon. He stood thus looking out on to illimitable darkness; and suddenly he noticed a gleam, a gleam that moved and seemed a long way off. Then he pressed his face against the glass, thinking that a crab-fisher must be poaching in the Brindille, for it was past midnight, and this gleam was moving along the edge of the water under the trees of the copse. Renardet was still unable to make it out and he shaded his eyes with his hands; in a flash the gleam became a bright light, and he saw little Roque naked and bleeding on the moss.

He shrank back, convulsed with horror, hurling his chair aside and falling on his back. He lay there for some minutes, his brain reeling, then he sat up and began to reflect. He had had an hallucination, that was all, an hallucination caused by nothing more alarming than a night robber prowling along the edge of the stream with his lantern. What could be less surprising, indeed, than that the memory of his crime should sometimes call up in his mind the image of the dead girl?

He got up, drank a glass of water, and seated himself in his chair. He thought: “What shall I do, if it begins again?” And it would begin again: he felt it, he was sure of it. Even now the window was tempting him to lift his eyes, calling to them, drawing them. He turned his chair round so that he should not see it; then he took up a book and tried to read; but soon he thought he heard something moving behind him, and he swung his chair round violently on one leg. The curtain was moving again; there was no doubt this time that it had moved; he could doubt it no longer; he rushed at it and grasped it so violently that he tore it down, rod and all, then he pressed his face desperately against the pane. There was nothing to see. All outside was dark; and he drew his breath again as gladly as a man rescued from imminent death.

Then he went back and sat down again; but almost at once he was seized with a desire to look out of the window again. Now that the curtain was down, it looked like a shadowy hole opening on to the darkened countryside; it fascinated and terrified him. To keep himself from yielding to this fatal temptation, he undressed, blew out his light, lay down in bed, and closed his eyes.

Hot and wet with sweat, he lay there stiff on his back and waited for sleep. Suddenly a bright light fell on his eyelids. He opened them, thinking the house was on fire. All was dark, and he lifted himself on one elbow, and tried to make out the window that still beckoned him relentlessly. Straining his eyes to see it, he saw at last a few stars; and he got out of bed, groped across the room, found the windowpanes with his outstretched hands, and rested his forehead against them. There below, under the trees, the body of the young girl shone with a phosphorescent glow, lighting up the shadows round it.

With a great cry, Renardet rushed back to his bed, where he remained until morning, his head hidden under the pillow.

From that night, his life was intolerable. His days were filled with dread of his nights; and every night the vision came again. As soon as he had shut himself in his room, he tried to struggle against it; but in vain. An irresistible force dragged him to his feet and thrust him to the window as if to summon the phantom, and he saw it at once, lying at first in the place where he had commited the crime, lying with arms outstretched and legs apart, just as the body had lain when it was found. Then the dead child rose and drew near with little delicate steps, just as the child had done when she came out of the river. She drew near, very lightly, her straight small limbs moving over the grass and the carpet of drooping flowers; then she rose in the air towards Renardet’s window. She came towards him, as she had come on the day of the crime, towards her murderer. The man drew back before the apparition, he drew back as far as his bed and there collapsed, well knowing that the little girl had come in and now was standing behind the curtain that would move in a moment. He watched the curtain until daybreak, with staring eyes, waiting all the time to see his victim emerge. But she did not show herself any more; she stayed there, behind the hangings, and now and then a faint trembling shook them. Renardet, his fingers twisted in the bedclothes, gripped them as he had gripped little Roque’s throat. He listened to the striking of the hours: in the silence he heard the ticking of his clock and the loud beating of his heart. And he suffered, poor wretch, more than any man had ever suffered before.

Then, when a streak of light crept across the ceiling and announced the coming of day, he felt himself released, alone at last, alone in his room; and he lay down to sleep. He slept now for some hours, a restless fevered sleep, and often in his dreams he again saw the frightful vision of his waking nights.

Afterwards, when he came downstairs for lunch, he felt bowed down like a man who has been enduring the most exhausting labour; he ate little, perpetually haunted by dread of what he would see when night fell again.

At the same time he knew quite well that it was not an apparition, that the dead do not return, and that it was his sick mind, obsessed by one thought and by one unforgettable memory, and only his mind that evoked the dead child itself had raised from the dead, had summoned and had set before his eyes, branded as they were with an ineffaceable sight. But he knew too that he would not be made whole again, that he would never escape from the frightful lash of this memory, and he determined to die rather than endure these torments any longer.

He began to seek a means of killing himself. He wanted to find some simple natural way that would not rouse suspicions of a suicide. For he valued his reputation and the name handed down by his ancestors, and if people found the manner of his death suspicious they would certainly recall the inexplicable crime, and the undiscovered murderer, and it would not be long before they were accusing him of the vile deed.

A strange thought came into his head: he would have himself crushed to death by the tree at whose foot he had killed little Roque. So he decided to have his copse cut down, and to stage an accident. But the beech refused to break his back.

Back in his house, he had endured a frightful despair; he had seized his revolver and then he had been afraid to fire.

Dinnertime came, he had eaten, and then come upstairs again. And he did not know what he was going to do. After escaping once, he felt a coward now. In that moment by the beech, he was ready, strengthened, resolute, master of his courage and his determination; now he was weak and as afraid of death as of the dead.

He stammered: “I daren’t do it now, I daren’t do it now,” and he looked with equal horror at the weapon on the table and the curtain that hid his window. He thought too that some frightful thing would have happened as soon as life had left him. Some thing? What? Perhaps he would have met her again? She was spying on him, waiting for him, calling him, and it was because she wanted to trap him now, to take him in the snare of her revenge and force him to die that she showed herself to him like this every evening.

He began to cry like a child, repeating: “I daren’t do it now, I daren’t do it now.” Then he fell on his knees, stammering: “My God, my God!” He did not believe in God, for all that. And now he dared neither look at the window where he knew the apparition crouched, nor at the table on which his revolver lay gleaming.

He stood up again and said aloud: “This can’t go on, I must put an end to it.” A shudder of fear ran through his limbs at the sound of his voice in the silent room; but he decided to make no more resolutions, knowing too well that the fingers of his hand would always refuse to press the trigger of the weapon, and so he took refuge with his head under the bedclothes, and considered what to do.

He must find some expedient that would compel him to die, he must plan a trick against himself that would remove every possibility of further hesitation, delay, or regret. He envied the condemned led to the scaffold in a guard of soldiers. Oh, if he could but implore someone to shoot him, if he could but confess his state of mind, confess his crime to some friend who would never divulge it, and take at his hands the boon of death! But from what man could he ask so terrible a service? What man? He sought among all the men he knew. The doctor? No. Wouldn’t he be sure to tell the whole story later? And all at once a fantastic thought flashed across his mind. He would write to the examining magistrate, who was his intimate friend, and denounce himself. He would tell him everything in the letter, the crime, the tortures he endured, his resolution to die, his hesitation, and the means he was employing to stimulate his weakening courage. He would beg him in the name of their old friendship to destroy the letter as soon as the news was brought him that the guilty man had done justice on himself. Renardet could count on the magistrate, he knew him steadfast, discreet, absolutely incapable of a careless speech. He was one of those men whose inflexible conscience is controlled and directed and ordered by pure reason.

The plan had hardly taken shape in his mind when a fantastic joy flooded his heart. Now he was at peace. He would write his letter, leisurely, then when day broke he would put it in the box nailed to the wall of his farm, then he would climb to the top of his tower so that he could see the postman come, and when that blue-bloused man had gone, he would throw himself head first on to the rocks from which rose the foundations of the tower. He would take care to be seen first by the workmen who were cutting down his wood. Then he would climb out on to the jutting platform that carried the flagstaff for the flags on holidays. He would break the flagstaff with a sudden shake and crash to the ground along with it. Who would doubt that it was an accident? And considering his weight and the height of the tower, he would be killed on the spot.

He rose from his bed at once, went to his table, and began to write; he forgot nothing, no detail of the crime, no detail of his life of agony, no detail of the tortures his heart had endured, and he ended by declaring that he had sentenced himself to death, that he was going to execute the criminal, and he begged his friend, his old friend, to take care that no one ever insulted his memory.

As he finished the letter, he saw that day had come. He closed it, sealed it, wrote the address, then walked lightly downstairs and almost ran to the little white box nailed to the wall at the corner of the farm. The paper was heavy in his hand; he dropped it inside the box, came quickly back, drew the bolts of the great door, and climbed to the top of his tower to wait for the coming and going of the postman who would carry away his death sentence.

Now he felt calm, set free, saved!

A cold dry wind, an icy wind blew in his face. He drew a deep greedy breath, his mouth open, drinking in its bitter caress. The sky was red, with the fiery red of a winter sky, and all the white frost-bound plain glittered in the early rays as though it were powdered with crushed glass. Upright, bareheaded, Renardet looked out over the wide countryside; there were meadows on his left hand, and on his right lay the village; from its chimneys spirals of smoke rose from the fires lit for breakfast.

He saw the Brindille running below him, between the rocks where he would very soon lie crushed. He felt newborn in this lovely frozen dawn, full of vigour and full of life. He was bathed in light, wrapped round in it, filled with it as with hope. A thousand memories assailed him, memories of other such mornings, of swift walks over the hard earth that rang under his feet, of good sport on the edge of the marshes where the wild duck nested. All the pleasant things he loved, the pleasant things of life, rushed through his memory, stabbed him with fresh desires, woke all the sharp appetites of his powerful active body.

And he was going to die? Why? Was he going to kill himself violently because he was afraid of a shadow? Afraid of nothing? He was rich and still young. What madness! All he needed to help him to forget was some distraction, to go away for a while, to travel. This very night he had not seen the child, because his mind had been preoccupied and lost itself in other thoughts. Perhaps he would never see her again? And if she continued to haunt him in this house, she would certainly not follow him anywhere else. The earth was wide and the future long. Why should he die?

His glance wandered over the meadows, and he caught sight of a blue patch in the path that ran by the Brindille. It was Médéric coming to deliver the letters from town and take away the village letters.

Renardet started violently as a pang of grief ran through him, and he rushed down the winding staircase to take back his letter, to make the postman give it to him. Little he cared now whether he was seen or not; he ran across the grass covered with the frozen crystals of the night’s frosts and he reached the box at the corner of the farm at the same moment as the postman.

The man had opened the little wooden box and was taking out several letters put there by the people of the parish.

“Good day, Médéric,” Renardet said to him.

“Good day, Mr. Mayor.”

“I say, Médéric, I’ve dropped a letter in the box that I want. I’ve come to ask you to give it me back.”

“Certainly, Mr. Mayor, I’ll give it to you.”

And the postman raised his eyes. He was thunderstruck at the sight of Renardet’s face; his cheeks were purple, his eyes were restless, black-rimmed, and sunk in his head, his hair wild, his beard tangled, his tie awry. It was evident that he had not been to bed.

“Are you ill, Mr. Mayor?” the man demanded.

The other man realised in a flash that he must present an odd appearance; he became confused and stammered: “No⁠ ⁠… no. It’s only that I jumped out of bed to ask you for that letter.⁠ ⁠… I was asleep.⁠ ⁠… Don’t you see?”

A vague suspicion crossed the old soldiers’ mind.

“What letter?” he answered.

“The one you’re going to give me back.”

Médéric was hesitating now; he did not think the mayor’s manner was natural. Perhaps there was a secret, a political secret in the letter. He knew that Renardet was not a republican, and he knew all about the queer shifts and all about the underhand dealings in use at elections.

“Who’s this letter addressed to?” he demanded.

“To Monsieur Pictoin, the examining magistrate. You know him quite well, my friend Monsieur Pictoin.”

The postman sought among the letters and found the one he was being asked to return. Then he began to scrutinise it, turning it over and over in his fingers, very perplexed, very disturbed between his fear of committing a serious fault and his fear of making an enemy of the mayor.

Seeing his hesitation, Renardet made a movement to seize the letter and snatch it from him. This abrupt gesture convinced Médéric that he had stumbled on an important secret, and he decided to carry out his duty at all costs.

So he threw the envelope in his bag, shut it up, and answered:

“No, I can’t, Mr. Mayor. As soon as ever it’s been posted to the judge, I can’t do anything about it.”

Renardet’s heart contracted with a frightful anguish.

“But you know me quite well,” he babbled. “You can recognise my writing itself. I need that letter, I tell you.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Come, Médéric, you know that I’m not the sort of man to deceive you, and I tell you I need it.”

“No, I can’t.”

A sudden anger clouded Renardet’s violent mind.

“You’d better mind what you’re doing, damn you: I mean what I say and well you know it, and I can lose your job for you, my good man, and that before you’re much older, too. Besides, I’m mayor of the district after all, and I order you now to give me that letter.”

The postman answered firmly: “No, I can’t do it, Mr. Mayor.”

Then Renardet lost his head; he seized him by the arm and tried to snatch his bag; but the man shook himself free and, stepping back, lifted his thick holly stick. He was quite unmoved. “Don’t lay a hand on me, Mr. Mayor,” he said deliberately, “or I’ll lay this across you. Be careful. I intend to do my duty.”

Renardet felt that he was lost; suddenly he became humble, soft-voiced, imploring like a tearful child.

“Come, come, my friend, give me that letter, I’ll reward you, I’ll give you some money, wait, wait, I’ll give you a hundred francs⁠—do you hear?⁠—a hundred francs.”

The man swung on his heels and began to walk off.

Renardet followed him, panting, babbling.

“Médéric, Médéric, listen, I’ll give you a thousand francs⁠—do you hear?⁠—a thousand francs.”

The other man held on his way, without a word. Renardet went on: “I’ll make your fortune⁠ ⁠… do you hear? I’ll give you anything you like.⁠ ⁠… Fifty thousand francs.⁠ ⁠… Fifty thousand francs for that letter.⁠ ⁠… What do you say to that? You don’t want it? Well, a hundred thousand francs⁠ ⁠… do you understand?⁠ ⁠… a hundred thousand francs⁠ ⁠… a hundred thousand francs.”

The postman turned round, his face hard and his glance unrelenting. “And that’ll do, and I’ll take care to repeat to the judge all you’ve just been saying to me.”

Renardet stopped dead. It was all over. He had no hope left. He turned round and rushed towards the house, running like a hunted animal.

And now Médéric himself stood still and regarded his flight in amazement. He saw the mayor reenter his house, and he went on waiting in the certain expectation of some astonishing happening.

And before long, indeed, the tall figure of Renardet appeared at the summit of Renard’s tower. He ran round the flat parapet like a madman; then he grasped the flagstaff and shook it furiously without managing to break it; then all at once, his hands flung out like a swimmer making a dive, he leaped into space.

Médéric rushed to his help. As he crossed the park, he saw the woodcutters going to work. He hailed them with shouts of the accident; and at the foot of the walls they found a bleeding body with its head crushed on a rock. The Brindille flowed round the rock, and just here, where its waters widened out, clear and calm, they saw, trickling through the water, a long scarlet thread of blood mixed with brains.

The Wreck

It was yesterday, December the thirty-first.

I had just lunched with my old friend, Georges Garin. The servant brought him a letter covered with seals and foreign stamps.

“May I?” Georges asked.

“Certainly.”

And he began to read eight pages written in a large English hand and crossed in all directions. He read it slowly with a grave intentness, and the deep interest we take in the things that lie near our hearts.

Then he placed the letter on a corner of the chimneypiece and said:

“Well, that’s a queer story and one I’ve never told you; a love story too, and it happened to me. A queer New Year’s Day I had, that year. It’s twenty years since.⁠ ⁠… I was thirty then, and now I’m fifty!

“In those days I was an inspector of the Maritime Insurance Company that today I direct. I had arranged to spend New Year’s Day on holiday in Paris, since it’s usual to keep holiday that day, when I had a letter from the director ordering me to set out immediately for the island of Ré, where a three-master of St. Nazaire, insured by us, had run aground. It was then eight o’clock in the morning. I reached the Company’s offices at ten to receive my orders, and the same evening I took the express, which landed me at La Rochelle the following day, December the thirty-first.

“I had two hours to spare before going aboard the boat belonging to Ré, the Jean-Guiton. I took a walk round the town. La Rochelle really is a fantastic and strangely individual town, with its twisting labyrinthine streets, where the pavements run under endless galleries with covered arcades, like those of the Rue de Rivoli; but these stooping galleries and arcades are low and mysterious and look as if they had been built and left there as a setting for conspirators, the ancient and impressive setting of old wars, heroic, savage wars of religion. It is indeed the old Huguenot city, grave, discreet, not superbly built, and with none of those splendid monuments that make Rouen so magnificent, but remarkable by virtue of its whole air of austerity and a lurking cunning that it wears, this city of hard-fought battles, fated to hatch fantastic causes, this town which saw the rise of the Calvinist faith, and gave birth to the conspiracy of the four sergeants.

“When I had wandered for some time through these odd streets, I went aboard a little steam tug, black and tubby, which was to take me to the island of Ré. She moved out, in an irritated sort of way, her whistle blowing off, slipped between the two old towers that guard the harbour, crossed the roadstead, got through the breakwater built by Richelieu, with enormous stones that are visible at the surface of the water and shut in the town like a vast collar; then she veered to the right.

“It was one of those melancholy days that oppress and crush the mind, weigh on the heart, and deaden in us all strength and energy; a grey bitter day, darkened by a thick fog, as wet as rain, as cold as ice, and as unhealthy to breathe as a whiff from the sewers.

“Under this roof of low-hanging, sinister haze, the yellow sea, the shallow sandy sea of these endless beaches, lay without a ripple, motionless, lifeless, a sea of discoloured, oily, stagnant water. The Jean-Guiton drove forward, rolling a little, as she always did; she cut through the sleek cloudy surface, leaving behind her a few waves, a brief heaving of the water, a slight rippling that shortly died away.

“I began to talk to the captain, a short, almost limbless man, as tubby as his ship and with just such a rolling gait. I wanted to gather some details of the loss that I was going to examine. A big square-built three-master of St. Nazaire, the Marie-Joseph, had run aground during a wild night, on the sandy shore of the island of Ré.

“The owner wrote that the storm had flung the vessel so high up that it had been impossible to refloat her, and that it would be necessary to get everything off her that could be got off. It was my duty to examine the situation of the wreck, to form an opinion as to what must have been her condition before the disaster, and to judge whether every effort had been made to get her off. I had come as the Company’s agent, to be a witness for the defence, if need be, in the legal inquiry.

“On receiving my report, the director had to take such measures as he judged necessary to protect our interests.

“The captain of the Jean-Guiton knew all the details of the affair, having been summoned to help, with his boat, in the attempts at salvage.

“He told me the story of the loss, a perfectly simple story. The Marie-Joseph, running before a furious gale, lost in the darkness, steering as best she could through a foaming sea⁠—‘a milk-soup sea,’ the captain called it⁠—had run aground on the vast sandbanks which at low tide turn the coasts of these parts into endless Saharas.

“As I talked, I looked round me and in front of me. Between the sea and the louring sky was a clear space that gave a good view ahead. We were hugging a coast.

“ ‘Is this the island of Ré?’ I asked.

“ ‘Yes, sir.’

“And all at once the captain stretched his right hand in front of us and showed me an almost indistinguishable object lying right out at sea.

“ ‘Look, there’s your ship,’ he said.

“ ‘The Marie-Joseph?’

“ ‘Yes, that’s her.’

“I was astounded. This almost invisible object, which I had taken for a reef, seemed to me to lie at least three kilometres from land.

“ ‘But, Captain,’ I answered, ‘there must be a hundred fathoms of water at the place you’re pointing out.’

“He burst out laughing.

“ ‘A hundred fathoms, my friend!⁠ ⁠… There aren’t two, I tell you.’

“He was from Bordeaux. He went on:

“ ‘It will be high tide at twenty minutes to ten. You go out on the shore, your hands in your pockets, after you’ve launched at the Dauphin, and I promise you that at ten to three, or three at the latest, you’ll be able to walk dryfoot to the wreck, my friend, and you’ll have an hour and three-quarters to two hours to stay on board, not more, mind: you’d be caught by the tide. The farther out the sea goes, the faster it comes in. This coast is as flat as a louse. Mark my words and start back at ten to five; at half past seven you come on board the Jean-Guiton, which will land you this same evening on the quay at La Rochelle.’

“I thanked the captain, and I went and sat down in the bows of the tug to look at the little town of Saint-Martin with which we were rapidly coming up.

“It was like all the miniature ports that serve as chief towns to every barren little island lying off the coasts of continents. It was a large fishing-village, one foot in the sea, one foot on land, living on fish and poultry, vegetables and cockles, turnips and mussels. The island is very low-lying, and sparsely cultivated; it seems to be thickly peopled none the less, but I did not penetrate inland.

“After lunch, I crossed a little headland; then, as the tide was rapidly going out, I walked across the sands to a sort of black rock which I could see above the water, far, far away.

“I walked quickly on this yellow plain, which had the resilience of living flesh and seemed to sweat under my feet. A moment ago the sea had been there; now I saw it slipping out of sight in the distance, and I could no longer distinguish the verge that separated sand and sea. I felt that I was watching a gigantic and supernatural transformation scene. One moment the Atlantic was in front of me, and then it had disappeared in the shore, as stage scenery disappears through trapdoors, and now I was walking through a desert. Only the scent and the breath of the salt sea was still round me. I caught the smell of seaweed, the smell of salt water, the sharp healthy smell of the land. I walked quickly: I was no longer cold; I looked at the stranded wreck which grew larger as I approached and now looked like a huge stranded whale.

“She seemed to spring from the ground, and in this vast flat yellow plain she assumed surprising proportions. She lay over on her side, split, broken, and through her sides, like the sides of a beast, showed her broken bones, bones of tarred wood pierced with great nails. The sand had already invaded her, entering by all the rents; it held her, possessed her, would never let her go again. She looked as if she had taken root in it. Her bows were deeply buried in this soft treacherous beach, while her stern, lifted clean off the ground, seemed to fling to heaven, like a desperate and appealing cry, the two white words on the black bulwarks: Marie-Joseph.

“I scrambled into this corpse of a ship over the lower side; then I reached the bridge and explored below. The daylight, coming in through the shattered hatches and the rents in the sides, flooded the long, sombre, cave-like spaces, full of smashed woodwork, with a dim light. There was nothing left inside her but the sand that formed the flooring of this wooden-walled underworld.

“I began to make notes on the state of the vessel. I sat down on an empty broken barrel, and I wrote by the light of a large porthole through which I could see the boundless stretch of shore. Every now and again, I felt my skin contract with a strange shudder of cold and loneliness; and sometimes I stopped writing to listen to the vague mysterious sounds of the wreck: the sound of crabs scratching at the bulwarks with their hooked claws, the sound of a thousand small sea-creatures already at work on the body of this death, and the gentle regular sound of the teredo worm ceaselessly gnawing, like the grinding of a gimlet, in every part of the old timers, eating out their insides and devouring them all together.

“Suddenly I heard human voices quite near me. I leaped up as if I had seen a ghost. For a brief moment I verily thought I was going to see two drowned men rising from the bottom of this sinister shell to tell me the manner of their death. You may be sure it did not take me long to climb in all haste to the bridge, and I saw standing beside the ship a tall gentleman with three young girls, or rather a tall Englishman with three little English girls. They were certainly far more frightened than I had been when they saw a man rush violently up from the depths of the deserted three-master. The youngest of the little girls ran away; the two others clutched their father with both arms; as for him, his mouth opened; he gave no other sign of surprise.

“Then, after a brief pause, he spoke:

“ ‘Are you the owner of this vessel, sir?’

“ ‘Yes, sir.’

“ ‘Can I look over her?’

“ ‘Yes, sir.’

“He then delivered himself of a long sentence in English, of which I could distinguish only the one word ‘gracious,’ recurring several times.

“He looked round for a place to climb on board and I pointed him out the best place and offered him a hand. He got up; then we helped up the three little girls, now recovered from their fright. They were charming, especially the eldest, a fair-haired girl of eighteen, fresh as a flower, and so dainty, so adorably slender. Upon my word, a pretty English girl is like nothing so much as a frail sea flower. This one might just have sprung from the sand, and kept its gold in her hair. The exquisite freshness of these English girls makes one think of the faintly lovely colours of rosy shells, of mother of pearl, rare and mysterious, hidden in the fathomless depths of the seas.

“She spoke French a little better than the father, and interpreted between us. I had to tell the story of the wrecking in all its details, which I extemporised as if I had been present at the disaster. Then the whole family descended into the interior of the wreck. Little cries of astonishment broke from them as soon as they entered this dim shadowy gallery; and in a moment father and all three daughters were displaying sketching-books which they had doubtless had concealed in their bulky waterproofs, and they all set themselves forthwith to make four pencil sketches of this strange and gloomy place.

“They sat side by side on a jutting beam, and the four sketching-books supported on eight knees were covered with little black lines which evidently represented the gaping belly of the Marie-Joseph.

“The eldest girl talked to me as she worked, and I continued my inspection of the skeleton of the ship.

“I learned that they were spending the winter at Biarritz and that they had come to the island of Ré on purpose to look at this foundered three-master. These people had none of the English insolence; they were just jolly, kindhearted idiots, born wanderers such as England sends out over the whole world. The father, lank, lean, his red face encased in drooping white whiskers, for all the world like an animated sandwich, a slice of ham in the shape of a human head, between two little hair cushions; the daughters, long-legged, like half-grown storks, as lean as their father, except the eldest, and all three of the girls charming, but especially the eldest.

“She had such a quaint way of speaking, of describing things, of understanding and failing to understand, of lifting to question me eyes as blue as the deep sea, of stopping the sketch to study the scene of her efforts, of setting to work again, and of saying ‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ that time went unheeded while I stood there watching and listening to her.

“Suddenly she murmured:

“ ‘I hear something moving lightly on this boat.’

“I listened carefully, and at once I heard a faint sound, a strange regular sound. What was it? I got up and went to look out of the porthole, and a wild shout broke from me. The sea had come up with us; it was on the point of surrounding us.

“We rushed to the bridge. It was too late. The sea was all round us, and running in towards the shore at a terrific speed. No, it didn’t run, it slid, it glided over the ground, spread out like a monstrous stain. Only a few inches of water covered the sand, but the swiftly moving verge of the stealthy flood was already beyond our sight.

“The Englishman was in favour of plunging through it, but I restrained him; flight was impossible, on account of the deep pools that we had had to pick our way round as we came, and into which we should fall on the way back.

“We felt a sudden pang of mortal agony. Then the little English girl managed to smile and murmured:

“ ‘We’re shipwrecked now.’

“I wanted to laugh; but I was paralysed with fear, a frightful cowardly fear, as vile and treacherous as this advancing sea. In one moment of insight I saw all the dangers we were running. I wanted madly to cry: ‘Help!’ But who was there to hear me?

“The two smaller English girls huddled against their father, who was looking in consternation at the vast stretch of water round us.

“And night was falling, as swiftly as the sea was swelling, a heavy damp icy night.

“ ‘There’s nothing for it but staying on the boat,’ I said.

“ ‘Oh, yes,’ the Englishman answered.

“We stayed up there a quarter of an hour, half an hour, I really don’t know how long, watching the yellow water that deepened all round us, and swirled and seemed to boil and leap for joy over the wide recaptured shore.

“One of the little girls was cold, and we conceived the idea of going below to shelter from the small but icy wind that blew lightly in our faces and pricked our skin.

“I leaned over the hold. The ship was full of water, so we were forced to crouch against the aft bulwark, which afforded us a little shelter.

“Now the shadows of night were falling round us, and we pressed close together, surrounded by the darkness and the waters. I felt the English girl’s shoulder trembling against my shoulder; her teeth chattered a little; but I felt too the gentle warmth of her body through her clothes, and this warmth thrilled me like a caress. We did not talk now; we stayed there motionless, mute, crouching as beasts in a ditch crouch against a storm.

“And yet, in spite of everything, in spite of the night, in spite of the terrible and growing damp, I began to feel glad to be there, glad of cold and danger, glad to be spending long hours of darkness and terror on this narrow hulk, close to this pretty and adorable young girl.

“I wondered why I was filled with so strange a sense of well-being and joy.

“Why? Who knows? Because she was there? And who was she? An unknown little English girl. I did not love her, I did not know her, and a passion of pity for her filled me, overwhelmed me. I longed to save her, to devote myself to her, to commit a thousand follies. A strange thing! How is it that the nearness of a woman bowls us over like this? Is it her grace that enslaves and enfolds us? The seductive charm of youth and beauty mounting to our heads like wine?

“Isn’t it rather a fugitive touch of love, this mysterious love that never ceases to drive human beings into each other’s arms, that tries its power the moment a man and a woman meet, piercing their hearts with a vague and deep and secret emotion, as the earth is given water that it may bear flowers?

“But the silence of the night and the sky grew terrifying, for we heard surging faintly round us the gentle swishing of wide waters, the hollow murmur of the rising sea, and the monotonous lapping of the tide against the boat.

“Suddenly I heard sobs. The smallest of the English girls was crying. Then the father tried to comfort her, and they began to talk in their own tongue, which I did not understand. I guessed that he was reassuring her, and that she was still afraid.

“ ‘You are not too cold?’ I asked my neighbour.

“ ‘Oh, I’m dreadfully cold.’

“I wanted to give her my cloak; she declined it, but I had taken it off. I wrapped it round her in spite of her protests. In the brief struggle, I touched her hand and a marvellous thrill ran through my whole body.

“For some little time the air had been growing sharper and the water surging with more violence against the sides of the boat. I stood up; a great gust of wind blew in my face. The wind was rising.

“The Englishman noticed it at the same moment, and said simply:

“ ‘This is bad for us, this is.’

“It was bad indeed: it was certain death if a swell, even a light swell, got up to batter and shake the boat, already so broken and knocked about that the first fair-sized wave would carry it away in fragments.

“Our misery increased every moment as the gusts of wind grew more and more violent. The waves were breaking a little now, and through the shadows I saw white lines, lines of foam, rise and vanish, while each surge struck the hulk of the Marie-Joseph and sent through her a brief shudder that communicated itself to us.

“The English girl was trembling; I felt her shivering against me, and I felt a wild desire to seize her in my arms.

“In the distance, ahead of us, to left and right of us, and behind us, the lamps of lighthouses shone out down the coasts, white lights, yellow lights, red lights, revolving lights, like enormous eyes, like giant eyes watching us, spying on us, waiting hungrily to see us disappear. I found one of them particularly maddening. It went out and flashed on again every third second; it really was an eye, with an ever-winking eyelid dropping over its fiery glance.

“Every now and then the Englishman struck a match to look at the time; then he replaced the watch in his pocket. All at once he spoke to me over his daughters’ heads, with the utmost seriousness:

“ ‘Sir, I wish you a happy new year.’

“It was midnight. I held out my hand, and he shook it; then he spoke a few words of English, and suddenly he and his daughters began to sing ‘God Save the King’; the sound rose in the darkness, in the silent air, and died in the vast gulf of space.

“For a moment I wanted to laugh; then a strange fierce emotion seized me.

“There was something at once menacing and superb in this song sung by these doomed and shipwrecked people; it was a prayer and it was magnificent, and worthy of that ancient glorious Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant.

“When they had finished, I asked my neighbour to sing something alone, a song, a hymn, anything she liked, to help us forget our woes. She consented, and a moment later her clear young voice sounded out in the darkness. She sang what must have been a plaintive song, for the notes were long-drawn, fell slowly from her lips and fluttered like wounded birds above the waves.

“The sea was rising: it was flinging itself against the wreck now. But I was conscious of nothing but this voice. I thought of the sirens too. If a boat had passed close by us, what would the sailors have said? My troubled mind lost itself in a dream. A siren. Was she not in very truth a siren, this sea maiden, who had kept me on this worm-eaten ship and in a little time would plunge with me into the waters?⁠ ⁠…

“The whole five of us were flung violently across the bridge, for the Marie-Joseph had rolled over on her right side. The English girl fell on top of me; I had seized her in my arms and I pressed passionate kisses on her cheek, the hollow of her temple, her hair, madly, not knowing or realising what I was doing, thinking my last moment had come. The boat did not roll again; nor did we stir hand or foot.

“ ‘Kate,’ said her father. The girl in my arms answered, ‘Yes,’ and made a movement to draw away. I swear that at that moment I could have wished the boat to break in two, so that she and I fell into the water together.

“ ‘A little seesaw,’ the Englishman added. ‘It’s nothing. I have my three daughters safe.’

“Not seeing the eldest, he had at first believed her lost.

“I stood up slowly, and all at once I saw a light on the sea, quite near us. I shouted: there was an answering shout. It was a boat in search of us: the landlord of the hotel had foreseen our imprudence.

“We were saved. I was very sorry for it. They got us off our raft and took us back to Saint-Martin.

“The Englishman was rubbing his hands, and muttering:

“ ‘Now for a good supper! Now for a good supper!’

“We had supper. I was not happy. I was regretting the Marie-Joseph.

“Next day we had to go our separate ways, after many embraces and promises to write. They set off for Biarritz. For two pins I’d have followed them.

“I was a silly ass: I all but asked that young girl to marry me. I give you my word that if we had spent eight days together, I should have married her. How weak and incomprehensible man often is!

“Two years passed before I heard a word about them; then I received a letter from New York. She was married, and wrote to tell me so. And since then we have written every year, on the first of January. She tells me of her life, talks to me about her children, her sisters, never about her husband. Why? Ah, why?⁠ ⁠… As for me, I write to her of nothing but the Marie-Joseph. She is perhaps the only woman that I have loved⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… that I would have loved.⁠ ⁠… Ah, well⁠ ⁠… who knows?⁠ ⁠… Life hurries us on.⁠ ⁠… And then⁠ ⁠… and then⁠ ⁠… nothing is left.⁠ ⁠… She must be old now.⁠ ⁠… I shouldn’t recognise her.⁠ ⁠… Ah, the girl of those days⁠ ⁠… the girl of the wreck⁠ ⁠… what a woman⁠ ⁠… divine! She wrote to me that her hair is quite white.⁠ ⁠… My God⁠ ⁠… that hurts me intolerably.⁠ ⁠… Her hair white.⁠ ⁠… No, the girl I knew no longer exists.⁠ ⁠… How sad it is⁠ ⁠… all this!⁠ ⁠…”

Mademoiselle Pearl

I

It really was an odd notion of mine to choose Mademoiselle Pearl for queen that particular evening.

Every year I went to eat my Twelfth Night dinner at the house of my old friend Chantal. My father, whose most intimate friend he was, had taken me there when I was a child. I had continued the custom, and I shall doubtless continue it as long as I live, and as long as there is a Chantal left in the world.

The Chantals, moreover, lead a strange life; they live in Paris as if they were living in Grasse, Yvetot, or Pont-à-Mousson.

They owned a small house with a garden, near the Observatory. There they lived in true provincial fashion. Of Paris, of the real Paris, they knew nothing and suspected nothing; they were far, very far away. Sometimes, however, they made a journey, a long journey. Madame Chantal went to the big stores, as they called it among themselves. And this is the manner of an expedition to the big stores.

Mademoiselle Pearl, who keeps the keys of the kitchen cupboards⁠—for the linen cupboards are in the mistress’s own charge⁠—Mademoiselle Pearl perceives that the sugar is coming to an end, that the preserves are quite finished, and that there’s nothing worth talking about left in the coffee-bag.

Then, put on her guard against famine, Madame Chantal passes the rest of the stores in review, and makes notes in her memorandum book. Then, when she has written down a quantity of figures, she first devotes herself to lengthy calculations, followed by lengthy discussions with Mademoiselle Pearl. They do at last come to an agreement and decide what amount of each article must be laid in for a three months’ supply: sugar, rice, prunes, coffee, preserves, tins of peas, beans, crab, salt and smoked fish, and so on and so forth.

After which they appoint a day for making the purchases, and set out together in a cab, a cab with a luggage rack on top, to a big grocery store over the river in the new quarters, with an air of great mystery, and return at dinnertime, worn out but still excited, jolting along in the carriage, its roof covered with packages and sacks like a removal van.

For the Chantals, all that part of Paris situated at the other side of the Seine constituted the new quarters, quarters inhabited by a strange noisy people, with the shakiest notions of honesty, who spent their days in dissipation, their nights feasting, and threw money out of the windows. From time to time, however, the young girls were taken to the theatre to the Opéra Comique or the Française, when the play was recommended by the paper Monsieur Chantal read.

The young girls are nineteen and seventeen years old today; they are two beautiful girls, tall and clear-skinned, very well trained, too well trained, so well trained that they attract no more attention than two pretty dolls. The idea never occurred to me to take any notice of them or to court the Chantal girls; I hardly dared speak to them, they seemed so unspotted from the world; I was almost afraid of offending against the proprieties in merely raising my hat.

The father himself is a charming man, very cultured, very frank, very friendly, but desirous of nothing so much as repose, quiet, and tranquillity, and mainly instrumental in mummifying his family into mere symbols of his will, living and having their being in a stagnant peacefulness. He read a good deal, from choice, and his emotions were easily stirred. His avoidance of all contact with life, common jostlings and violence had made his skin, his moral skin, very sensitive and delicate. The least thing moved and disturbed him, hurt him.

The Chantals had some friends, however, but friends admitted to their circle with many reserves, and chosen carefully from neighbouring families. They also exchanged two or three visits a year with relatives living at a distance.

As for me, I dine at their house on the fifteenth of August and on Twelfth Night. That is as sacred a duty to me as Easter communion to a Catholic.

On the fifteenth of August a few friends were asked, but on Twelfth Night I was the only guest and the only outsider.

II

Well, this year, as in every other year, I had gone to dine at the Chantals’ to celebrate Epiphany.

I embraced Monsieur Chantal, as I always did, Madame Chantal, and Mademoiselle Pearl, and I bowed deeply to Mesdemoiselles Louise and Pauline. They questioned me about a thousand things, boulevard happenings, politics, our representatives, and what the public thought of affairs in Tonkin. Madame Chantal, a stout lady whose thoughts always impressed me as being square like blocks of stone, was wont to enunciate the following phrase at the end of every political discussion: “All this will produce a crop of misfortunes in the future.” Why do I always think that Madame Chantal’s thoughts are square? I don’t really know why; but my mind sees everything she says in this fashion: a square, a solid square with four symmetrical angles. There are other people whose thoughts always seems to me round and rolling like circles. As soon as they begin a phrase about something, out it rolls, running along, issuing in the shape of ten, twenty, fifty round thoughts, big ones and little ones, and I see them running behind each other out of sight over the edge of the sky. Other persons have pointed thoughts.⁠ ⁠… But this is somewhat irrelevant.

We sat down to table in the usual order, and dinner passed without anyone uttering a single memorable word. With the sweets, they brought in the Twelfth Night cake. Now, each year, Monsieur Chantal was king. Whether this was a series of chances or a domestic convention I don’t know, but invariably he found the lucky bean in his piece of cake, and he proclaimed Madame Chantal queen. So I was amazed to find in a mouthful of pastry something very hard that almost broke one of my teeth. I removed the object carefully from my mouth and I saw a tiny china doll no larger than a bean. Surprise made me exclaim: “Oh!” They all looked at me and Chantal clapped his hands and shouted: “Gaston’s got it. Gaston’s got it. Long live the king! Long live the king!”

The others caught up the chorus: “Long live the king!” And I blushed to my ears, as one often does for no reason whatever, in slightly ridiculous situations. I sat looking at my boots, holding the fragment of china between two fingers, forcing myself to laugh, and not knowing what to do or what to say, when Chantal went on: “Now he must choose a queen.”

I was overwhelmed. A thousand thoughts and speculations rushed across my mind in a second of time. Did they want me to choose out one of the Chantal girls? Was this a way of making me say which one I liked the better? Was it a gentle, delicate, almost unconscious feeler that the parents were putting out towards a possible marriage? The thought of marriage stalks all day and every day in families that possess marriageable daughters; it takes innumerable shapes and guises and adopts every possible means. I was suddenly dreadfully afraid of compromising myself, and extremely timid too, before the obstinately correct and rigid bearing of Mesdemoiselles Louise and Pauline. To select one of them over the head of the other seemed to me as difficult as to choose between two drops of water; and I was horribly disturbed at the thought of committing myself to a path which would lead me to the altar willy-nilly, by gentle stages, and incidents as discreet, as insignificant, and as easy as this meaningless kingship.

But all at once I had an inspiration, and I proffered the symbolic little doll to Mademoiselle Pearl. At first everyone was surprised, then they must have appreciated my delicacy and discretion, for they applauded furiously, shouting: “Long live the queen! Long live the queen!”

As for the poor old maid, she was covered with confusion; she trembled and lifted a terrified face. “No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠…” she stammered; “not me⁠ ⁠… I implore you⁠ ⁠… not me⁠ ⁠… I implore you.”

At that, I looked at Mademoiselle Pearl for the first time in my life, and wondered what sort of a woman she was.

I was used to seeing her about this house, but only as you see old tapestried chairs in which you have been sitting since you were a child, without ever really noticing them. One day, you couldn’t say just why, because a ray of sunlight falls across the seat, you exclaim: “Why, this is a remarkable piece of furniture!” and you discover that the wood has been carved by an artist and that the tapestry is very uncommon. I had never noticed Mademoiselle Pearl.

She was part of the Chantal family, that was all; but what? What was her standing? She was a tall thin woman who kept herself very much in the background, but she wasn’t insignificant. They treated her in a friendly fashion, more intimately than a housekeeper, less so than a relation. I suddenly became aware now of various subtle shades of manner that I had never troubled about until this moment. Madame Chantal said: “Pearl.” The young girls: “Mademoiselle Pearl,” and Chantal never called her anything but “Mademoiselle,” with a slightly more respectful air perhaps.

I set myself to consider her. How old was she? Forty? Yes, forty. She was not old, this maiden lady, she made herself look old. I was suddenly struck by this obvious fact. She did her hair, dressed herself, and got herself up to look absurd, and in spite of it all she was not at all absurd. So innately graceful she was, simply and naturally graceful, though she did her best to obscure it and conceal it. What an odd creature she was, after all! Why hadn’t I paid more attention to her? She did her hair in the most grotesque way in ridiculous little grey curls; under this crowning glory of a middle-aged Madonna, she had a broad placid forehead, graven with two deep wrinkles, the wrinkles of some enduring sorrow, then two blue eyes, wide and gentle, so timid, so fearful, so humble, two blue eyes that were still simple, filled with girlish wonder and youthful emotions, and griefs endured in secret, softening her eyes and leaving then untroubled.

Her whole face was clear-cut and reserved, one of those faces grown worn without being ravaged or faded by the weariness and the fevered emotions of life.

What a pretty mouth, and what pretty teeth! But she seemed as if she dared not smile.

Abruptly, I began to compare her with Madame Chantal. Mademoiselle Pearl was undoubtedly the better of the two, a hundred times better, nobler, more dignified.

I was astounded by my discoveries. Champagne was poured out. I lifted my glass to the queen and drank her health with a pretty compliment. I could see that she wanted to hide her face in her napkin; then, when she dipped her lips in the translucent wine, everyone cried: “The queen’s drinking, the queen’s drinking!” At that she turned crimson and choked. They laughed; but I saw clearly that she was well liked in the house.

III

As soon as dinner was over, Chantal took me by the arm. It was the hour for his cigar, a sacred hour. When he was alone, he went out into the street to smoke; when he had someone to dinner, he took them to the billiard room, and he played as he smoked. This evening they had lit a fire in the billiard room, since it was Twelfth Night; and my old friend took his cue, a very slender cue which he chalked with great care; then he said:

“Now, sonny.”

He always spoke to me as if I were a little boy: I was twenty-five years old but he had known me since I was four.

I began to play; I made several cannons; I missed several more; but my head was filled with drifting thoughts of Mademoiselle Pearl, and I asked abruptly:

“Tell me, Monsieur Chantal, is Mademoiselle Pearl a relation of yours?”

He stopped playing, in astonishment, and stared at me.

“What, don’t you know? Didn’t you know Mademoiselle Pearl’s story?”

“Of course not.”

“Hasn’t your father ever told you?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, well, that’s queer, upon my word, it’s queer. Oh, it’s quite an adventure.”

He was silent, and went on:

“And if you only knew how strange it is that you should ask me about it today, on Twelfth Night!”

“Why?”

“Why, indeed! Listen. It’s forty-one years ago, forty-one years this very day, the day of Epiphany. We were living then at Roüy-le-Tors, on the ramparts; but I must first tell you about the house, if you’re to understand the story properly. Roüy is built on a slope, or rather on a mound which thrusts out of a wide stretch of meadow land. We had there a house with a beautiful hanging garden, supported on the old ramparts. So that the house was in the town, on the street, while the garden hung over the plain. There was also a door opening from this garden on to the fields, at the bottom of a secret staircase which went down inside the thick masonry of the walls, just like a secret staircase in a romance. A road ran past this door, where a great bell hung, and the country people brought their stuff in this way, to save themselves going all the way round.

“Can you see it all? Well, this year, at Epiphany, it had been snowing for a week. It was like the end of the world. When we went out on to the ramparts to look out over the plain, the cold of that vast white countryside struck through to our very bones; it was white everywhere, icy cold, and gleaming like varnish. It really looked as if the good God had wrapped up the earth to carry it away to the lumber room of old worlds. It was rare and melancholy, I can tell you.

“We had all our family at home then, and we were a large family, a very large family: my father, my mother, my uncle and my aunt; my two brothers and my four cousins; they were pretty girls; I married the youngest. Of all that company, there are only three left alive: my wife, myself, and my sister-in-law at Marseilles. God, how a family dwindles away: it makes me shiver to think of it. I was fifteen years old then, and now I’m fifty-six.

“Well, we were going to eat our Twelfth Night dinner and we were very gay, very gay. Everybody was in the drawing room waiting for dinner, when my eldest brother, Jacques, took it into his head to say: ‘A dog’s been howling out in the fields for the last ten minutes; it must be some poor beast that’s got lost.’

“The words were hardly out of his mouth when the garden bell rang. It had a heavy clang like a church bell and reminded you of funerals. A shiver ran through the assembled company. My father called a servant and told him to go and see who was there. We waited in complete silence, we thought of the snow that lay over the whole countryside. When the man came back, he declared he had seen nothing. The dog was still howling: the howls never stopped, and came always from the same direction.

“We went in to dinner, but we were a little uneasy, especially the young ones. All went well until the joint was on the table, and then the bell began to ring again; it rang three times, three loud long clangs that sent a thrill to our very fingertips and stopped the breath in our throats. We sat staring at each other, our forks in the air, straining our ears, seized by fear of some supernatural horror.

“At last my mother said: ‘It’s very queer that they’ve been so long coming back; don’t go alone, Baptiste; one of the gentlemen will go with you.’

“My uncle François got up. He was as strong as Hercules, very proud of his great strength and afraid of nothing on earth. ‘Take a gun,’ my father advised him. ‘You don’t know what it might be.’

“But my uncle took nothing but a walking-stick, and went out at once with the servant.

“The rest of us waited there, shaking with terror and fright, neither eating nor speaking. My father tried to comfort us. ‘You’ll see,’ he said, ‘it’ll be some beggar or some passerby lost in the snow. He rang once, and when the door wasn’t opened immediately, he made another attempt to find his road: he didn’t succeed and he’s come back to our door.’

“My uncle’s absence seemed to us to last an hour. He came back at last, furiously angry, and cursing:

“ ‘Not a thing, by God, it’s someone playing a trick. Nothing but that cursed dog howling a hundred yards beyond the walls. If I’d taken a gun, I’d have killed him to keep him quiet.’

“We went on with our dinner, but we were still very anxious; we were quite sure that we hadn’t heard the last of it; something was going to happen, the bell would ring again in a minute.

“It did ring, at the very moment when we were cutting the Epiphany cake. The men leaped to their feet as one man. My uncle François, who had been drinking champagne, swore that he was going to murder it, in such a wild rage that my mother and my aunt flung themselves on him to hold him back. My father was quite calm about it; he was slightly lame too (he dragged one leg since he had broken it in a fall from his horse), but now he declared that he must know what it was, and that he was going out. My brothers, who were eighteen and twenty years old, ran in search of their guns, and as no one was paying any attention to me, I grabbed a rook rifle and got ready to accompany the expedition myself.

“It set off at once. My father and my uncle led off, with Baptiste, who was carrying a lantern. My brothers Jacques and Paul followed, and I brought up the rear, in spite of the entreaties of my mother, who stayed behind in the doorway, with her sister and my cousins.

“Snow had been falling again during the last hour and it lay thick on the trees. The pines bent under the heavy ghostly covering, like white pyramids or enormous sugar loaves; the slighter shrubs, palely glimmering in the shadows, were only dimly visible through the grey curtain of small hurrying flakes. The snow was falling so thickly that you couldn’t see more than ten paces ahead. But the lantern threw a wide beam of light in front of us. When we began to descend the twisting staircase hollowed out of the wall, I was afraid, I can tell you. I thought someone was walking behind me and I’d be grabbed by the shoulder and carried off; I wanted to run home again, but as I’d have had to go back the whole length of the garden, I didn’t dare.

“I heard them opening the door on to the fields; then my uncle began to swear: ‘Blast him, he’s gone. If I’d only seen his shadow, I wouldn’t have missed him, the b⁠⸺!’

“The look of the plain struck me with a sense of foreboding, or rather the feel of it in front of us, for we couldn’t see it; nothing was visible but a veil of snow hung from edge to edge of the world, above, below, in front of us, to left of us and right of us, everywhere.

“ ‘There, that’s the dog howling,’ added my uncle. ‘I’ll show him what I can do with a gun, I will. And that’ll be something done, at any rate.’

“But my father, who was a kindly man, answered: ‘We’d do better to go and look for the poor animal: he’s whining with hunger. The wretched beast is barking for help; he’s like a man shouting in distress. Come on.’

“We started off through the curtain, through the heavy ceaseless fall, through the foam that was filling the night and the air, moving, floating, falling; as it melted, it froze the flesh on our bones, froze it with a burning cold that sent a sharp swift stab of pain through the skin with each prick of the little white flakes.

“We sank to our knees in the soft cold feathery mass, and we had to lift our legs right up to get over the ground. The farther we advanced, the louder and clearer grew the howling of the dog. ‘There he is!’ cried my uncle. We stopped to observe him, like prudent campaigners coming upon the enemy at night.

“I couldn’t see anything; then I came up with the others and I saw him; he was a terrifying and fantastic object, that dog, a great black dog, a shaggy sheepdog with a head like a wolf, standing erect on his four feet at the far end of the long track of light that the lantern flung out across the snow. He didn’t move; he stared at us with never a sound.

“ ‘It’s queer he doesn’t rush at us or away from us,’ said my uncle. ‘I’ve the greatest mind to stretch him out with a shot.’

“ ‘No,’ my father said decidedly, ‘we must catch him.’

“ ‘But he’s not alone,’ my brother Jacques added. ‘He has something beside him.’

“He actually had something behind him, something grey and indistinguishable. We began to walk cautiously towards him.

“Seeing us draw near, the dog sat down on his haunches. He didn’t look vicious. He seemed, on the contrary, pleased that he had succeeded in attracting someone’s attention.

“My father went right up to him and patted him. The dog licked his hands; and we saw that he was fastened to the wheel of a small carriage, a sort of toy carriage wrapped all round in three or four woollen coverings. We lifted the wrappings carefully; Baptiste held his lantern against the opening of the carriage⁠—which was like a kennel on wheels⁠—and we saw inside a tiny sleeping child.

“We were so astonished that we couldn’t get out a single word. My father was the first to recover: he was warmhearted and somewhat emotional; he placed his hand on the top of the carriage and said: ‘Poor deserted thing, you shall belong to us.’ And he ordered my brother Jacques to wheel our find in front of us.

“ ‘A love-child,’ my father added, ‘whose poor mother came and knocked at my door on Epiphany night, in memory of the Christ-child.’

“He stood still again, and shouted into the darkness four times, at the top of his voice, to all the four corners of the heavens: ‘We have got him safe.’ Then he rested his hand on his brother’s shoulder and murmured: ‘Suppose you’d fired at the dog, François?’

“My uncle said nothing, but crossed himself earnestly in the darkness; he was very devout, for all his swaggering ways.

“We had loosed the dog, who followed us.

“Upon my word, our return to the house was a pretty sight. At first we had great difficulty in getting the carriage up the rampart staircase; we succeeded at last, however, and wheeled it right into the hall.

“How comically surprised and delighted and bewildered mamma was! And my poor little cousins (the youngest was six) were like four hens round a nest. At last we lifted the child, still sleeping, from its carriage. It was a girl about six weeks old. And in her clothes we found ten thousand francs in gold, yes, ten thousand francs, which papa invested to bring her in a dowry. So she wasn’t the child of poor parents⁠ ⁠… she may have been the child of a gentleman by a respectable young girl belonging to the town, or even⁠ ⁠… we made innumerable speculations, and we never knew anything⁠ ⁠… except that⁠ ⁠… never a thing⁠ ⁠… never a thing.⁠ ⁠… Even the dog wasn’t known to anyone. He didn’t belong to the district. In any event, the man or woman who had rung three times at our door knew very well what sort of people my parents were, when they chose them for their child.

“And that’s how Mademoiselle Pearl found her way into the Chantal house when she was six weeks old.

“It was later that she got the name of Mademoiselle Pearl. She was first christened Marie Simone Claire, Claire serving as her surname.

“We certainly made a quaint entry into the dining room with the tiny wide-awake creature, looking round her at the people and the lights, with wondering troubled blue eyes.

“We sat down at the table again, and the cake was cut. I was king and I chose Mademoiselle Pearl for queen, as you did just now. She hadn’t any idea that day what a compliment we were paying her.

“Well, the child was adopted, and brought up as one of the family. She grew up: years passed. She was a charming, gentle, obedient girl. Everyone loved her and she would have been shamefully spoiled if my mother had not seen to it that she wasn’t.

“My mother had a lively sense of what was fitting and a proper reverence for caste. She consented to treat little Claire as she did her own children, but she was none the less insistent that the distance between us should be definitely marked and the position clearly laid down.

“So as soon as the child was old enough to understand, she told her how she had been found, and very gently, tenderly even, she made the little girl realise that she was only an adopted member of the Chantal family, belonging to them but really no kin at all.

“Claire realised the state of affairs with an intelligence beyond her years and an instinctive wisdom that surprised us all; and she was quick to take and keep the place allotted to her, with so much tact, grace, and courtesy that she brought tears to my father’s eyes.

“My mother herself was so touched by the passionate gratitude and timid devotion of this adorable and tenderhearted little thing that she began to call her ‘My daughter.’ Sometimes, when the young girl had shown herself more than commonly sweet-natured and delicate, my mother pushed her glasses on to her forehead, as she always did when much moved, and repeated: ‘The child’s a pearl, a real pearl.’ The name stuck to little Claire: she became Mademoiselle Pearl for all of us from that time and for always.”

IV

Monsieur Chantal was silent. He was sitting on the billiard table, swinging his feet; his left hand fiddled with a ball and in his right hand he crumpled the woollen rag we called “the chalk rag,” and used for rubbing out the score on the slate. A little flushed, his voice muffled, he was speaking to himself now, lost in his memories, dreaming happily through early scenes and old happenings stirring in his thoughts, as a man dreams when he walks through old gardens where he grew up, and where each tree, each path, each plant, the prickly holly whose plump red berries crumble between his fingers, evoke at every step some little incident of his past life, the little insignificant delicious incidents that are the very heart, the very stuff of life.

I stood facing him, propped against the wall, leaning my hands on my useless billiard cue.

After a moment’s pause he went on: “God, how sweet pretty she was at eighteen⁠—and graceful⁠—and perfect! Oh, what a pretty⁠—pretty⁠—pretty⁠—sweet⁠—gay⁠—and charming girl! She had such eyes⁠ ⁠… blue eyes⁠ ⁠… limpid⁠ ⁠… limpid⁠ ⁠… clear⁠ ⁠… I’ve never seen any like them⁠ ⁠… never.”

Again he was silent. “Why didn’t she marry?” I asked.

He didn’t answer me: he answered the careless word “marry.”

“Why? why? She didn’t want to⁠ ⁠… didn’t want to. She had a dowry of ninety thousand francs too, and she had several offers⁠ ⁠… she didn’t want to marry. She seemed sad during those years. It was just at the time I married my cousin, little Charlotte, my wife, to whom I’d been engaged for six years.”

I looked at Monsieur Chantal and thought that I could see into his mind, and that I’d come suddenly upon the humble cruel tragedy of a heart at once honourable, upright, and pure, that I’d seen into the secret unknown depths of a heart that no one had really understood, not even the resigned and silent victims of its dictates.

Pricked by a sudden savage curiosity, I said deliberately:

“Surely you ought to have married her, Monsieur Chantal?”

He started, stared at me, and said:

“Me? Marry whom?”

“Mademoiselle Pearl.”

“But why?”

“Because you loved her more than you loved your cousin.”

He stared at me with strange, wide, bewildered eyes, then stammered:

“I loved her?⁠ ⁠… I?⁠ ⁠… how? What are you talking about?”

“It’s obvious, surely? Moreover, it was on her account that you delayed so long before marrying the cousin who waited six years for you.”

The cue fell from his left hand, and he seized the chalk rag in both hands and, covering his face with it, began to sob into its folds. He wept in a despairing and ridiculous fashion, dripping water from eyes and nose and mouth all at once like a squeezed sponge. He coughed, spat, and blew his nose on the chalk rag, dried his eyes, choked, and overflowed again from every opening in his face, making a noise in his throat like a man gargling.

Terrified and ashamed, I wanted to run away, and I did not know what to say, or do, or try to do.

And suddenly Madame Chantal’s voice floated up the staircase: “Have you nearly finished your smoke?”

I opened the door and called: “Yes, ma’am, we’re coming down.”

Then I flung myself on her husband, seized him by the elbows, and said: “Monsieur Chantal, Chantal my friend, listen to me; your wife is calling you, pull yourself together, pull yourself together, we must go downstairs; pull yourself together.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠…” he babbled. “I’m coming⁠ ⁠… poor girl⁠ ⁠… I’m coming⁠ ⁠… tell her I’m just coming.”

And he began carefully drying his face on the rag that had been used to rub the score off the slate for two or three years; then he emerged, white and red in streaks, his forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin dabbled with chalk, his eyes swollen and still full of tears.

I took his hands and led him towards his bedroom, murmuring: “I beg your pardon, I humbly beg your pardon, Monsieur Chantal, for hurting you like this⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… I didn’t know⁠ ⁠… you⁠ ⁠… you see.”

He shook my hand. “Yes⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… we all have our awkward moments.”

Then he plunged his face in his basin. When he emerged, he was still hardly presentable, but I thought of a little ruse. He was very disturbed when he looked at himself in the glass, so I said “You need only tell her you’ve got a speck of dust in your eye, and you can cry in front of everyone as long as you like.”

He did at last go down, rubbing his eyes with his handkerchief. They were all very concerned; everyone wanted to look for the speck of dust, which no one could find, and they related similar cases when it had become necessary to call in a doctor.

I had betaken myself to Mademoiselle Pearl’s side and I looked at her, tormented by a burning curiosity, a curiosity that became positively painful. She really must have been pretty, with her quiet eyes, so big, so untroubled, so wide that you’d have thought they were never closed as ordinary eyes are. Her dress was a little absurd, a real old maid’s dress, that hid her real charm but could not make her look graceless.

I thought that I could see into her mind as I had just seen into the mind of Monsieur Chantal, that I could see every hidden corner of this simple humble life, spent in the service of others; but I felt a sudden impulse to speak, an aching persistent impulse to question her, to find out if she too had loved, if she had loved him; if like him she had endured the same long bitter secret sorrow, unseen, unknown, unguessed of all, indulged only at night in the solitude and darkness of her room. I looked at her, I saw her heart beating under her high-necked frock, and I wondered if night after night this gentle wide-eyed creature had stifled her moans in the depths of a pillow wet with her tears, sobbing, her body torn with long shudders, lying there in the fevered solitude of a burning bed.

And like a child breaking a plaything to see inside it, I whispered to her: “If you had seen Monsieur Chantal crying just now, you would have been sorry for him.”

She trembled: “What, has he been crying?”

“Yes, he’s been crying.”

“Why?”

She was very agitated. I answered:

“About you.”

“About me?”

“Yes. He told me how he loved you years ago, and what it had cost him to marry his wife instead of you.”

Her pale face seemed to grow a little longer; her wide quiet eyes shut suddenly, so swiftly that they seemed closed never to open again. She slipped from her chair to the floor and sank slowly, softly, across it, like a falling scarf.

“Help, quick, quick, help!” I cried. “Mademoiselle Pearl is ill.”

Madame Chantal and her daughters rushed to help her, and while they were bringing water, a napkin, vinegar, I sought my hat and hurried away.

I walked away with great strides, sick at heart and my mind full of remorse and regret. And at the same time I was almost happy; it seemed to me that I had done a praiseworthy and necessary action.

Was I wrong or right? I asked myself. They had hidden their secret knowledge in their hearts like a bullet in a healed wound. Wouldn’t they be happier now? It was too late for their grief to torture them again, and soon enough for them to recall it with a tender pitying emotion.

And perhaps some evening in the coming spring, stirred by moonlight falling through the branches across the grass under their feet, they will draw close to one another and clasp each other’s hands, remembering all their cruel hidden suffering. And perhaps, too, the brief embrace will wake in their blood a faint thrill of the ecstasy they have never known, and in the hearts of these two dead that for one moment are alive, it will stir the swift divine madness, the wild joy that turns the least trembling of true lovers into a deeper happiness than other men can ever know in all their life.

The Hermit

Together with some friends, we had been to see the old hermit living on an ancient tumulus, covered with great trees, in the midst of the vast plain that stretches from Cannes to La Napoule.

On the way back, we talked about these strange solitary layman, once so numerous, whose kind have now almost disappeared from the earth. We sought for the moral motives, and made an effort to realise what could be the nature of the sorrows that formerly drove men into solitary places.

One of our companions said abruptly:

“I’ve known two recluses, a man and a woman. The woman must be still living. For five years she lived at the summit of an absolutely deserted hill on the Corsican coast, fifteen or twenty miles from any other house. She lived there with a nurse; I went to see her. She must undoubtedly have been a well-known woman of the world. She received us with courtesy, even with pleasure, but I knew nothing about her, and I discovered nothing.

“The man, now, well, I’ll tell you his unfortunate fate.

“Turn round. Away over there, you see the peaked and wooded hill that stands out behind La Napoule, thrust up by itself in front of the peaks of the Esterel; its local name is the Hill of Serpents. That’s where my recluse lived for about twelve years, within the walls of a small ancient temple.

“When I heard of him, I decided to make his acquaintance, and one March morning I set out for Cannes on horseback. I left my mount at the Napoule inn, and began to climb this strange conical hill on foot; it is perhaps a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards high and covered with aromatic plants, mostly cytisus, whose scent is so strong and pungent that it is quite overpowering and makes you feel positively ill. The ground is stony and you often see long vipers slithering over the stones and disappearing in the grass. That’s what gives the place its well-merited nickname of the Hill of Serpents. There are some days when the ground under your feet seems to give birth to these reptiles as you climb the bare, sun-scorched slope. They are so numberless that you daren’t walk any farther; you are conscious of a strange uneasiness, not fear, for the creatures are harmless, but a kind of mystic terror. Several times I have had an odd sense that I was climbing a hill sacred of old, a fantastic hill, scented, mysterious, covered with and peopled by serpents and crowned with a temple.

“The temple is still there. At least, I am told that it was a temple. And I have refrained from trying to find out more about it, because I don’t want to destroy the emotional appeal it has for me.

“Well, I climbed it that March morning, ostensibly to admire the scenery. As I approached the top I did indeed see walls, and, sitting on a stone, a man. He was hardly more than forty-five years old, although his hair was quite white; but his beard was still almost black. He was stroking a cat that curled on his knees, and he appeared to take no interest in me. I explored the ruins; a corner of them, roofed over, enclosed behind a construction of branches, straw, grass, and stones, formed his dwelling-place; then I returned and stood beside him.

“The view from the hill is splendid. On the right the Esterel hills lift their strange truncated peaks; beyond them the rimless sea stretches to the far-off Italian coast with its innumerable headlands, and over against Cannes the flat green islands of Lérins seem to float on the water, the farther of them thrusting into the open sea a massive great castle, ancient and battlemented, its walls rising from the waves.

“Then the Alps, their heads still hooded in the snows, rear their great bulk and dominate the green coast with its string of villas and white tree-fast towns that at this distance look like innumerable eggs laid on the edge of the shore.

“I murmured: ‘Gad, what a view!’

“The man lifted his head and said: ‘Yes, but when you see it every day and all day, it gets monotonous.’

“So he could speak, my recluse, he could talk and he was bored. I had him.

“I did not stay very long that day, and I did not try to do more than find out the form his misanthropy took. The impression he made on me was that of a man utterly weary of his fellow creatures, tired of everything, hopelessly disillusioned, and disgusted with himself and with the rest of mankind.

“I left him after half an hour’s conversation. But I came back a week later, and once again the following week, and then every week; so that long before the end of two months we were friends.

“Then, one evening in late May, I decided that the moment had come, and I carried up some food to have dinner with him on the Hill of Serpents.

“It was one of those southern evenings heavy with the mingled perfume of flowers that this countryside grows as the north grows corn, to make almost all the scents that women use for their bodies and their clothes: an evening when old men’s senses stir and swoon in dreams of love born of the fragrance of innumerable orange-trees filling the gardens and all the folds of the valley.

“My recluse greeted me with obvious pleasure, and willingly consented to share my dinner.

“I made him drink a little wine, to which he had long been unused; it exhilarated him and he began to talk of his past life. I got the impression that he had always lived in Paris, and the life of a gay bachelor.

“I asked him abruptly: ‘What mad impulse made you come and perch on this hilltop?’

“He answered readily: ‘Oh, because I had the severest blow a man could have. But why should I hide my unhappy fate from you? It might make you pity me, perhaps. And besides⁠ ⁠… I have never told anyone⁠ ⁠… never⁠ ⁠… and I should like to know⁠ ⁠… just once⁠ ⁠… how it struck another person⁠ ⁠… what he thought of it.

“ ‘I was born in Paris, educated in Paris, and I grew up and lived in that city. My parents had left me a few thousand francs’ income, and I had enough influence to get a quiet subordinate post which made me well off, for a bachelor.

“ ‘Since early youth I had led the life of a bachelor. You know what that’s like. Free, with no family ties, determined never to burden myself with a wife, I spent now three months with one woman, now six months with another, then a companionless year, sipping honey among the multitude of girls on offer or on sale.

“ ‘This easygoing manner of life, call it commonplace if you like, suited me well enough, and satisfied my natural love of change and novelty. I lived on the boulevard, in theatres and cafés, always out, almost homeless, although I had a comfortable house. I was one of the thousands of people who let themselves drift through life, like corks, for whom the walls of Paris are the walls of the world, who trouble themselves for nothing, since there is nothing they ardently desire. I was what you call a good sort, with no outstanding virtues and no vices. There you have me. And I’ve a quite accurate knowledge of myself.

“ ‘So, from the time I was twenty to my fortieth year, my life ran on, slow or fast, with nothing to disturb its even flow. They go so quickly, those uneventful Parisian years when nothing ever happens that the mind remembers as a turning-point, those long crowded years, gay trivial years when you eat and drink and laugh without knowing why, and desiring nothing, yet touch your lips to all the savour of life and every kiss that offers. You were young; and then you are old without having done any of the things that other men do, without any ties, any roots, any place in life, almost without friends, without parents, without wives, without children.

“ ‘Well, I reached the fortieth year of my easy pleasant life; and to celebrate this anniversary I invited myself to a good dinner in one of the best restaurants. I was alone in the world; it pleased my sense of what was fitting to celebrate the day alone.

“ ‘Dinner over, I could not decide what to do next. I rather wanted to go to a theatre; and then I was struck with the idea of making a pilgrimage to the Quartier Latin where I studied law. So I made my way across Paris and wandered unthinkingly into one of those cafés where you are served by girls.

“ ‘The one who looked after my table was very young, pretty, and bubbling over with laughter. I offered her a drink, which she readily accepted. She sat down opposite me and looked me over with an expert eye, unable to make out what kind of masculine creature she had to deal with. She was fair-haired, fair altogether; she was a clear-skinned, healthy girl, and I guessed her to be plump and rosy under the swelling folds of her bodice. I murmured all the meaningless gallantries that one always says to these girls, and as she was really very charming, the whim suddenly seized me to take her out⁠ ⁠… just to celebrate my fortieth birthday. It was neither long nor difficult to arrange. She was unattached⁠ ⁠… had been for a fortnight, she told me⁠ ⁠… and she at once agreed to come and have supper with me at the Halles when her work was over.

“ ‘As I was afraid that she wouldn’t stick to me⁠—you never know what will happen, nor who’ll come into these beershops, nor what a woman will take into her head to do⁠—I stayed there the whole evening, waiting for her.

“ ‘I had been unattached myself for a month or two, and as I watched this adorable neophyte of Love flitting from table to table, I wondered if I shouldn’t do as well to take her on for a time. What I’m describing to you is one of the daily commonplace adventures in a Parisian’s life.

“ ‘Forgive these crude details; men who have never known an ideal love take and choose their woman as they choose a chop at the butcher’s, without bothering about anything but the quality of their flesh.

“ ‘Well, I went with her to her house⁠—for I’ve too much respect for my own sheets. It was a workgirl’s tiny room, on the fifth floor, clean and bare; I spent two delightful hours there. She had an uncommonly graceful and charming way with her, that little girl.

“ ‘When I was ready to go, I walked towards her mantelshelf to deposit thereon the usual present. I had arranged a day for a second interview with the little wench, who was still lying in bed. I saw dimly a clock under a glass case, two vases of flowers, and two photographs, one of which was very old, one of those negatives on glass called daguerreotypes. I bent casually to look at this portrait, and I stood there paralysed, too surprised to understand.⁠ ⁠… It was myself, my first portrait, one that I had had made long ago when I was a student living in the Quartier Latin.

“ ‘I snatched it up to examine it more closely. I’d made no mistake⁠ ⁠… and I felt like laughing, it struck me as so queer and unexpected.

“ ‘ “Who is this gentleman?” I demanded.

“ ‘ “That’s my father, whom I never knew,” she answered. “Mamma left it to me and told me to keep it, because it would be useful to me some day.⁠ ⁠…”

“ ‘She hesitated, burst out laughing, and added: “I don’t know what for, upon my word. It’s not likely he’ll come and recognise me.”

“ ‘My heart leaped madly, like the galloping of a runaway horse. I laid the picture on its face on the mantelshelf, put two hundred-franc notes that I had in my pocket on top of it, without at all thinking what I was doing, and hurried out crying: “See you again soon!⁠ ⁠… Goodbye, my dear⁠ ⁠… goodbye!”

“ ‘I heard her answer: “On Wednesday.” I was on the darkened stairs and groping my way down them.

“ ‘When I got outside, I saw that it was raining, and I set off with great strides, taking the first road.

“ ‘I walked straight on, dazed, bewildered, raking my memory. Was it possible? Yes, I suddenly remembered a girl who had written to me, about a month after we had broken off relations, that she was with child by me. I had torn up or burned the letter, and forgotten the whole thing. I ought to have looked at the photograph of the woman on the little girl’s mantelshelf. But should I have recognised her? I had a vague memory of it as the photograph of an old woman.

“ ‘I reached the quay. I saw a bench and sat down. It was raining. Now and then people hurried past under umbrellas. Life had become for me hateful and revolting, full of miserable shameful things, infamies willed or predestined. My daughter⁠ ⁠… perhaps I had just possessed my own daughter. And Paris, vast sombre Paris, gloomy, dirty, sad, black, with all its shuttered houses, was full of suchlike things, adulteries, incests, violated children. I remembered all I’d been told of bridges haunted by vicious and degraded wretches.

“ ‘Without wishing or knowing it, I had sunk lower than those vile creatures. I had climbed into my daughter’s bed.

“ ‘I could have thrown myself in the water. I was mad. I wandered about until daybreak, then I went back to my house to think things out.

“ ‘I decided on what seemed to me the most prudent course. I would have a solicitor send for the girl and ask her under what circumstances her mother had given her the portrait of the man she believed to be her father: I would tell him that I was acting on behalf of a friend.

“ ‘The solicitor carried out my instructions. It was on her deathbed that the woman had made a statement about the father of her child, and before a priest whose name I was given.

“ ‘Then, always in the name of this unknown friend, I made half my fortune over to this child, about a hundred and forty thousand francs, arranging it so that she could only touch the interest of it; then I sent in my resignation, and here I am.

“ ‘I was wandering along this coast, and I found this hill and stopped here⁠ ⁠… since⁠ ⁠… I have forgotten how long since that was.

“ ‘What do you think of me?⁠ ⁠… and of what I did?’

“I gave him my hand and answered:

“ ‘You did the right thing. There are plenty of men who would have attached less importance to such a vile accident.’

“ ‘I know that,’ he replied, ‘but I almost went mad. I must have had a tender conscience without ever guessing it. And I’m afraid of Paris now, as believers must be afraid of hell. I’ve had a blow on the head, that’s all, a blow like a tile falling on you as you walk down the street. Time is making it more bearable.’

“I left my recluse. His story disturbed me profoundly.

“I saw him again twice, then I went away, because I never stay in the south after the end of May.

“When I came back the following year, the man was no longer living on the Hill of Serpents, and I have never heard a word about him since.

“That’s the story of my hermit.”

On Cats

Cape of Antibes.

Seated on a bench, the other day at my door, in the full sunlight, with a cluster of anemones in flower before me, I read a book recently published, an honest book, something uncommon and charming⁠—The Cooper by George Duval. A large white cat that belonged to the gardener jumped upon my lap, and by the shock closed the book, which I placed at my side in order to caress the animal.

The weather was warm; a faint suggestive odor of new flowers was in the air, and at times came little cool breezes from the great white summits that I could see in the distance. But the sun was hot and sharp, and the day was one of those that stir the earth, make it alive, break open the seed in order to animate the sleeping germs, and cleave the buds so that the young leaves may spring forth. The cat rolled itself on my knees, lying on its back, its paws in the air, with claws protruding, then receding. The little creature showed its pointed teeth beneath its lips, and its green eyes gleamed in the half-closed slit of its eyelids. I caressed and rubbed the soft, nervous animal, supple as a piece of silk, smooth, warm, delicious, dangerous. She purred with satisfaction, yet was quite ready to scratch, for a cat loves to scratch as well as to be petted. She held out her neck and rolled again, and when I took my hand from her, she raised herself and pushed her head against my lifted hand.

I made her nervous, and she made me nervous also, for, although I like cats in a certain way, I detest them at the same time⁠—those animals so charming and so treacherous. It gives me pleasure to fondle them, to rub under my hand their silky fur that sometimes crackles, to feel their warmth through this fine and exquisite covering. Nothing is softer, nothing gives to the skin a sensation more delicate, more refined, more rare, than the warm, living coat of a cat. But this living coat also communicates to me, through the ends of my fingers, a strange and ferocious desire to strangle the animal I am caressing. I feel in her the desire she has to bite and scratch me. I feel it⁠—that same desire, as if it were an electric current communicated from her to me. I run my fingers through the soft fur and the current passes through my nerves from my fingertips to my heart, even to my brain; it tingles throughout my being and causes me to shut my teeth hard.

And if the animal begins to bite and scratch me, I seize her by the neck, I give her a turn and throw her far from me, as I would throw a stone from a sling, so quickly and so brutally that she never has time to revenge herself.

I remember that when I was a child I loved cats, yet I had even then that strange desire to strangle them with my little hands; and one day at the end of the garden, at the beginning of the woods, I perceived suddenly something gray rolling in the high grass. I went to see what it was, and found a cat caught in a snare, strangling, suffocating, dying. It rolled, tore up the ground with its claws, bounded, fell inert, then began again, and its hoarse, rapid breathing made a noise like a pump, a frightful noise which I hear yet. I could have taken a spade and cut the snare, I could have gone to find the servant or tell my father. No, I did not move, and with beating heart I watched it die with a trembling and cruel joy. It was a cat! If it had been a dog, I would rather have cut the copper wire with my teeth than let it suffer a second more. When the cat was quite dead, but yet warm, I went to feel of it and pull its tail!

These little creatures are delicious, notwithstanding, delicious above all, because in caressing them, while they are rubbing against our skin, purring and rolling on us, looking at us with their yellow eyes which seem never to see us, we realize the insecurity of their tenderness, the perfidious selfishness of their pleasure.

Some women, also, give us that sensation⁠—women who are charming, tender, with clear yet false eyes, who have chosen us entirely for their gratification. Near them, when they open their arms and offer their lips, when a man folds them to his heart with bounding pulses, when he tastes the joy of their delicate caress, he realizes well that he holds a perfidious, tricky cat, with claws and fangs, an enemy in love, who will bite him when she is tired of kisses.

Many of the poets have loved cats. Baudelaire has sung of them divinely.

I had one day the strange sensation of having inhabited the enchanted palace of the White Cat, a magic castle where reigned one of those undulant, mysterious, troubling animals, the only one, perhaps, of all living creatures that one never hears walk.

This adventure occurred last year on this same shore of the Mediterranean. At Nice there was atrocious heat, and I asked myself as to whether there was not, somewhere in the mountains above us, a fresh valley where one might find a breath of fresh air.

Thorence was recommended to me, and I wished to see it immediately. To get there I had first to go to Grasse, the town of perfumes, concerning which I shall write some day, and tell how the essences and quintessences of flowers are manufactured there, costing up to two thousand francs the liter. I passed the night in an old hotel of the town, a poor kind of inn, where the quality of the food was as doubtful as the cleanliness of the rooms. I went on my way in the morning.

The road went straight up into the mountains, following the deep ravines, which were overshadowed by sterile peaks, pointed and savage. I thought that my advisers had recommended to me a very extraordinary kind of summer excursion, and I was almost on the point of returning to Nice the same day, when I saw suddenly before me, on a mountain which appeared to close the entrance to the entire valley, an immense and picturesque ruined castle, showing towers and broken walls, of a strange architecture, in profile against the sky. It proved to be an ancient castle that had belonged to the Templars, who, in bygone days, had governed this country of Thorence.

I made a detour of this mountain, and suddenly discovered a long, green valley, fresh and reposeful. Upon its level were meadows, running waters, and willows; and on its sides grew tall pine-trees. In front of the ruins, on the other side of the valley, but standing lower, was an inhabited castle, called the Castle of the Four Towers, which was built about the year 1530. One could not see any trace of the Renaissance period, however. It was a strong and massive square structure, apparently possessing tremendous powers of resistance, and it was supported by four defensive towers, as its name would indicate.

I had a letter of introduction to the owner of this manor, who would not permit me to go to the hotel. The whole valley is one of the most charming spots in summer that one could dream of. I wandered about there until evening, and after dinner I went to the apartment that had been reserved for me. I first passed through a sort of sitting-room, the walls of which were covered by old Cordova leather; then went through another room, where, by the light of my candle, I noticed rapidly, in passing, several old portraits of ladies⁠—those paintings of which Théophile Gautier has written.

I entered the room where my bed was, and looked around me. The walls were hung with antique tapestries, where one saw rose-colored donjons in blue landscapes, and great fantastic birds sitting under foliage of precious stones! My dressing-room was in one of the towers. The windows wide on the inside and narrowed to a mere slit on the outside, going through the entire thickness of the walls, were, in reality, nothing but loopholes, through which one might kill an approaching enemy.

I shut my door, went to bed, and slept. Presently I dreamed; usually one dreams a little of something that has passed during the day. I seemed to be traveling; I entered an inn, where I saw at a table before the fire a servant in complete livery, and a mason⁠—a strange association which did not astonish me. These people spoke of Victor Hugo, who had just died, and I took part in their conversation. At last I went to bed in a room, the door of which I could not shut; and suddenly, I saw the servant and the mason, armed with sabers, coming softly toward my bed.

I awoke at once, and a few moments passed before I could recollect where I was. Then I recalled quickly my arrival of the day before at Thorence, the occurrences of the evening, and my pleasant reception by the owner. I was just about to close my eyes, when I saw distinctly in the darkness, in the middle of my room, at about the height of a man’s head, two fiery eyes watching me.

I seized a match, and while striking it I heard a noise, a light, soft noise, like the sound of a wet rag thrown on the floor, but after I had lighted the candle I saw nothing but a tall table in the middle of the room. I rose, went through both apartments, looked under the bed and into the closets, and found nothing. I thought then that perhaps I had continued dreaming after I was awake, and so I went to sleep again, but not without trouble.

I dreamed again. This time I traveled once more, but in the Orient, in the country that I love. I arrived at the house of a Turk, who lived in the middle of a desert. He was a superb Turk⁠—not an Arab, but a Turk, fat, friendly, and charming. He was dressed in Turkish attire, with a turban on his head, and a whole shopful of silk on his back⁠—a real Turk of the Théâtre Français, who made me compliments while offering me sweetmeats, sitting on a voluptuous divan.

Then a little black boy took me to a room⁠—all my dreams ended in this fashion in those days! It was a perfumed room decorated in sky blue, with skins of wild beasts on the floor, and before the fire⁠—the idea of fire pursued me even in the desert⁠—on a low chair, was a woman, lightly clothed, who was waiting for me. She was of the purest Oriental type, with stars tattooed on her cheeks and forehead and chin; she had immense eyes, a beautiful form, and slightly brown skin⁠—a warm and exciting skin.

She looked at me, and I thought: “This is what I understand to be the true meaning of the word hospitality. In our stupid and prudish northern countries, with their hateful mawkishness of ideas, and silly notions of morality, a man would never receive a stranger in this fashion.”

I went up to the woman and spoke to her, but she replied only by signs, not knowing a word of my language, which the Turk, her master, understood so well. All the happier that she would be silent, I took her by the hand and led her toward my couch, where I placed myself by her side.⁠ ⁠…

But one always awakens at those moments! So I opened my eyes and was not greatly surprised to feel beneath my hand something soft and warm, which I caressed lovingly. Then, my mind clearing, I recognized that it was a cat, a big cat rolled up against my cheek, sleeping there with confidence. I left it there and composed myself to sleep once more. When daylight appeared he was gone; and I really thought I had dreamed he had been with me; for I could not understand how he could have come in and gone out, as my door was locked.

When I related my dream and my adventure to my agreeable host (not the whole of it!) he began to laugh, and said: “He came in through his own door,” and raising a curtain, he showed me a little round hole in the wall. I learned then that the old habitations of this country have long narrow runways through the walls, which go from the cellar to the garret, from the servants’ rooms to the rooms of the seigneur, and these passages render the cat king and master of the interior of the house. He goes where it pleases him, visits his domain at his pleasure, sleeps in all the beds, sees all, hears all, knows all the secrets, all the habits, all the shames of the house. Everywhere he is at home, the animal that moves without noise, the silent prowler, the nocturnal rover of the hollowed walls. And I thought of Baudelaire.

Rosalie Prudent

There certainly was in this affair an element of mystery which neither the jury, nor the president, nor the Attorney-General himself could understand.

The girl Prudent (Rosalie), a maid employed by the Varambot family, of Mantes, became pregnant unknown to her employers, was brought to bed during the night in her attic bedroom, and had then killed and buried her child in the garden.

The story was like all other stories of every infanticide committed by a servant. But one fact remained inexplicable. The investigations conducted in the girl Prudent’s bedroom had led to the discovery of a complete set of baby clothes, made by Rosalie herself, who for three months had spent her nights in cutting out and sewing them. The grocer, from whom, out of her own wages, she had bought the candles burned in this long labour had come forward as a witness. Moreover, it was known that the local midwife, whom the girl had informed of her condition, had given her all instructions and practical advice necessary in case her time happened to come at a moment when no help was at hand. She had further sought a place at Poissy for the girl Prudent, who foresaw her dismissal, since the Varambot couple took questions of morality very seriously.

They were there present at the assizes the man and his wife, an ordinary provincial middle-class couple of small means, furiously annoyed with this slut who had defiled their house. They would have liked to see her guillotined on the spot, without a trial, and they overwhelmed her with malicious evidence that in their mouths became veritable accusations.

The guilty woman, a fine strapping girl from Basse-Normandie, with as much education as a girl of her class would have, wept incessantly and made no reply.

There was nothing for it but to suppose that she had committed this barbarous action in a moment of despair and madness, since everything pointed to the fact that she had hoped to keep and rear her child.

The president made one more attempt to get her to speak, to wring a confession from her. He urged her with the utmost kindliness, and at last made her understand that all these men come together to judge her did not wish for her death and could even pity her.

Then she made up her mind.

“Come,” he asked, “tell us first who is the father of this child.”

So far she had obstinately withheld this information.

She answered suddenly, staring angrily at the employers who had spoken with much malice against her.

“It was Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot’s nephew.”

The couple started violently and cried out with one voice: “It’s a lie! She’s lying! It’s a vile slander!”

The president silenced them and added: “Go on, please, and tell us how it happened.”

Then she poured out a sudden flood of words, comforting her shut heart, her poor lonely bruised heart, spilling out her grief, the full measure of her grief, before the severe men whom until this moment she had looked upon as enemies and inflexible judges.

“Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year.”

“What does Monsieur Joseph Varambot do?”

“He’s an N.C.O. in the artillery, sir. He spent two months in the house, you see. Two summer months. I didn’t think anything of it, I didn’t, when he began staring at me, and then saying sweet things to me, and then coaxing me all day long. I let myself be taken in, I did, sir. He kept on telling me that I was a fine girl, that I was nice to look at⁠ ⁠… that I was his sort.⁠ ⁠… I was pleased with this; I was, for sure. What’ud you expect? You listen to these things when you’re alone⁠ ⁠… all alone⁠ ⁠… like me. I’m alone in the world, sir.⁠ ⁠… I’ve no one to talk to⁠ ⁠… no one to tell about things that vexed me.⁠ ⁠… I haven’t a father, or mother, or brother, or sister, no one. I felt as if he was a brother who’d come back when he began talking to me. And then he asked me to go down to the river bank with him one evening, so we could talk without being heard. I went. I did.⁠ ⁠… How did I know what I was doing? How did I know what I did after that? He put his arm round me.⁠ ⁠… I’m sure I didn’t want to⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… no.⁠ ⁠… I couldn’t.⁠ ⁠… I wanted to cry, it was such a lovely night⁠ ⁠… the moon was shining.⁠ ⁠… I couldn’t⁠ ⁠… he did what he wanted.⁠ ⁠… It went on like that for three weeks, as long as he stayed.⁠ ⁠… I would have followed him to the end of the world⁠ ⁠… he went away.⁠ ⁠… I didn’t know I was going to have a baby, I didn’t⁠ ⁠… I didn’t know until a month after.”

She broke into such a passion of weeping that they had to give her time to control herself again.

Then the president spoke to her like a priest in the confessional: “Come now, tell us everything.”

She went on with her tale:

“When I saw I was pregnant, I went and told Madame Boudin, the midwife, who’s there to tell you I did, and I asked her what I ought to do supposing it happened when she wasn’t there. And then I made all the little clothes, night after night, until one o’clock in the morning, every night; and then I looked out for another place, for I knew quite well I’d be dismissed, but I wanted to stay in the house up to the very last, to save my bit of money, seeing I hardly had any and I had to have all I could, for the little baby.⁠ ⁠…”

“So you didn’t want to kill it?”

“Oh, for sure I didn’t, sir.”

“Then why did you kill it?”

“It’s like this. It happened sooner than I’d have believed. The pains took me in my kitchen, as I was finishing my washing up.

“Monsieur and Madame Varambot were already asleep; so I went upstairs, not without pain, dragging myself from step to step. And I lay down on the floor, on the boards, so I shouldn’t soil my bed. It lasted maybe an hour, maybe two, maybe three⁠—I don’t know, it hurt me so dreadful; and then I pressed down with all my strength, I felt him coming out, and I gathered him up.

“Oh, I was so pleased, I was. I did everything that Madame Boudin had told me, everything. And then I put him on my bed. And then, if I hadn’t another pain, a mortal pain! If you knew what it was like, you men, you’d think a bit more about doing it, you would. I fell on my knees, then on my back, on the floor; and I had it all over again, maybe another hour, maybe two, all by myself, there⁠ ⁠… and then another one came out⁠ ⁠… another little baby⁠ ⁠… two⁠—yes, two⁠ ⁠… think of it! I took him up like the first and laid him on the bed, side by side⁠ ⁠… two. Could I do with it now? Two children. Me that earns a pound a month. Tell me⁠ ⁠… could I do with it? One, yes, could be managed, with scraping and saving, but not two. It turned my head. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t. How do you think I could choose one?

“I didn’t know what I was doing! I thought my last hour had come. I put the pillow over them, without knowing what I was doing.⁠ ⁠… I couldn’t keep two⁠ ⁠… and I lay down again on top of it. And then I stayed there tossing and crying until I saw the light coming in at the window; they were dead under the pillow for sure. Then I took them under my arm, I got down the stairs, I went out into the kitchen garden, I took the garden spade, and I buried them in the ground, as deep as I could, one in one place, the other in another, not together, so that they couldn’t speak about their mother, if little dead babies can speak. I don’t know about it, I don’t.

“And then I was so ill in my bed that I couldn’t get up. They fetched the doctor and he knew all about it. It’s the truth, your worship. Do what you like, I’m ready.”

Half the jury were blowing their noses violently, to keep back their tears. Women were sobbing in the court.

The president questioned her.

“Where did you bury the other one?”

“Which did you find?” she asked.

“Well⁠ ⁠… the one⁠ ⁠… the one who was in the artichokes.”

“Oh, well. The other one is among the strawberries⁠—at the edge of the well.”

And she began to sob so dreadfully that her moans were heartbreaking to hear.

The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.

Madame Parisse

I

I was sitting on the breakwater of the little harbour of Obernon, near the small town of la Salis, watching Antibes in the setting sun. I have never seen anything so startling or so lovely.

The little town, shut within the heavy ramparts built by M. de Vauban, thrusts out into the sea, in the centre of the wide bay of Nice. The great waves of the open sea run in and break at its feet, wreathing her with flowers of foam; and above the ramparts, the houses climb on each other’s shoulders up to the two towers lifting to the sky like the two horns of an old helmet. And these two towers are sharply outlined on the milky whiteness of the Alps, on the vast and far-off wall of snow that bars the whole horizon.

Between the white foam below the walls and the white snow on the rim of the sky the little town stands like a brilliant flower against the deep blue of the nearest hills, and lifts to the rays of the setting sun a pyramid of red-roofed houses whose white walls are yet all so different that they seem to hold every subtle shade.

And the sky above the Alps is an almost white blue itself, as if the snow had coloured off on to it; a few silver clouds float just above the pale peaks; and at the other side of the bay, Nice, lying at the edge of the water, stretches like a white thread between sea and mountain. Two large three-cornered sails, driven before a strong breeze, seemed to run over the waves. Filled with wonder; I looked at it all.

It was a sight so fair, so divine, so rare that it made itself a place in your heart, as unforgettable as remembered joys. It is through the eyes that we live and think and suffer and are moved. The man who can feel through his eyes enjoys, in the contemplation of things and human beings, the same deep, sharp, subtle joy as the man whose heart is ravished by the music striking on a delicate sensitive ear.

I said to my companion, M. Martini, a true Southerner:

“That is really one of the rarest sights it has ever been my good fortune to admire.

“I have seen the monstrous granite jewel of Mont Saint-Michel rise from its sands at dawn.

“I have seen in the Sahara the lake of Raïanechergui, fifty miles long, gleaming under a moon as brilliant as our suns, with a white wraith of mist like a milky vapour rising from it to the moon.

“I have seen, in the Lipari Islands, the fantastic sulphur crater of Volcanello, a giant flower that smokes and flames, a monstrous yellow flower blossoming in the middle of the sea, with a volcano for a stem.

“And after all I’ve seen nothing more marvellous than Antibes outlined against the Alps at sunset.

“I don’t know why my mind is haunted by echoes of old tales: lines of Homer are ringing in my head: it’s an old Eastern town, a town from the Odyssey, it’s Troy, although Troy was not on the sea.”

M. Martini drew his Sarty guide from his pocket and read:

“The town had its beginnings in a colony founded by the Phoenicians from Marseilles, towards 340 BC. They gave it the Greek name of Antipolis, that is to say, ‘Against-town,’ a town facing another, because it did actually face Nice, another Marseilles colony.

“After the conquest of Gaul the Romans made Antibes a city; its inhabitants enjoyed the rights of Roman citizenship.

“We know, by one of Martial’s epigrams, that in his time⁠ ⁠…”

He was going on. I interrupted him: “I don’t care what it was. I tell you that I am looking down at a town from the Odyssey. Asiatic or European coast, the coasts of both are alike; and the coast on the other side of the Mediterranean is not the one that stirs in me, as this one does, a dream of old heroic days.”

A sound made me turn round; a woman, a tall, dark-skinned woman, was walking along the road that runs beside the sea towards the headland.

M. Martini murmured, sounding the final sibilants of the name: “That’s Mme. Parisse, you know.”

No, I didn’t know, but the chance sound of this name, the name of the Trojan shepherd, deepened my illusion.

“Who is this Mme. Parisse?” I asked, however.

He seemed amazed that I did not know the story.

I swore that I didn’t know it; and I looked at the woman who walked dreamily past without seeing us, walking gravely and slowly as the women of the old world must have walked. She must have been about thirty-five years old and she was still beautiful, very beautiful, although a little stout.

And this is the story that M. Martini told me.

II

Mme. Parisse, a young girl of the Combelombe family, had married, one year before the war of 1870, a Government official called M. Parisse. She was then a beautiful young girl, as slender and merry as she was now stout and sad.

She had reluctantly accepted M. Parisse, who was one of those potbellied, short-legged little men who mince along in trousers that are always cut too wide.

After the war, Antibes was occupied by a single infantry regiment commanded by M. Jean de Carmelin, a young officer who had been decorated during the campaign and who had just become a major.

As he was bored to death in this fortress, in this stifling molehill shut in between its double rampart of enormous walls, the major formed the habit of walking on the headland, a sort of park or pine wood lashed by all the sea winds.

He met Mme. Parisse there; she too came, on summer evenings, for a breath of fresh air under the trees. How did they fall in love? Who could say? They met, they looked at each other, and out of each other’s sight doubtless they thought of one another. The image of the young woman, brown eyed, black-haired, pale-skinned, the beautiful glowing Southern woman who showed her teeth when she smiled, hovered before the eyes of the officer as he continued his walk, chewing his cigar instead of smoking it; and the image of the major in his tight-fitting tunic, scarlet-trousered and covered with gold lace, his fair moustache curling above his lip, must have flitted past the eyes of Mme. Parisse in the evening when her husband, badly shaven and badly dressed, short-limbed and paunchy, came home to supper.

Perhaps they smiled, seeing each other again, meeting so often; and seeing each other so often, they began to fancy that they knew each other. He must have saluted her. She was surprised and bowed, ever so slightly, just enough not to seem discourteous. But at the end of a fortnight she was returning his greeting from afar, before ever they had drawn near each other.

He spoke to her! Of what? Probably of the sunset. And they admired it together, looking into each other’s eyes oftener than at the horizon. And every evening for a fortnight this was the unvarying conventional excuse for a few minutes’ talk.

Then they were bold enough to walk a little way together, talking of various things; but already their eyes were saying a thousand more intimate things, delightful secret things that are reflected in soft tender glances and quicken the heart’s wild beating, revealing the hidden desires more plainly than any protestations.

Then he must have taken her hand, and stammered those words that a woman understands and pretends not to hear.

And they told each other that they loved without proving their love by any gross and sensual act.

The woman would have stayed indefinitely in this halfway house of affection but the man wanted to go further. He pressed her each day more fiercely to yield herself to his violent desire.

She resisted, she would not, seemed determined not to give in.

However, one evening she said to him casually: “My husband has just gone to Marseilles. He will be away for four days.”

Jean de Carmelin threw himself at her feet, and entreated her to open her door that very evening, about eleven o’clock. But she did not listen and went home in seeming anger.

The major was in an ill humour all evening; and that day at dawn he stalked furiously up and down the ramparts, from the band school to the squad drill, flinging punishments at officers and men, like a man flinging stones in a crowd.

But when he returned from breakfast, he found under his napkin an envelope containing these four words:

“Tonight at ten o’clock.”

And he gave the orderly who was serving him five francs for no reason at all.

The day seemed far too long for him. He spent part of it in curling and scenting himself.

Just as he sat down to dinner, another envelope was handed to him. Inside he found this telegram:

“Darling, business finished. I return this evening nine o’clock train. Parisse.”

The commandant let fly an oath so heartfelt that the orderly dropped the soup tureen on the floor.

What was to be done? He wanted her that evening, at all costs; and he would have her. He would have her by hook or by crook, even if he had to arrest and imprison the husband. Suddenly a wild idea came into his head. He sent for paper and wrote:

“Madame,

“He will not come home this evening, I swear it, and at ten o’clock I will be at the appointed place. Don’t be afraid of anything. I promise you it will be all right, on my honour as an officer.

“Jean de Carmelin.”

He sent off the letter, and placidly finished his dinner.

Towards eight o’clock, he sent for Captain Gribois, his second in command; and crushing M. Parisse’s crumpled telegram between his fingers, he said:

“Captain Gribois, I have received a strange telegram, the contents of which I cannot possibly tell you. You will shut the town gates at once and set a guard, so that no one⁠—no one, you understand⁠—can come in or go out before six o’clock in the morning. You will also send patrols through the streets and compel the townspeople to be in their houses at nine o’clock. Any person found outside after that hour will be conducted to his house manu militari. If your men meet me tonight they will walk in the opposite direction, without making any sign of recognition.

“You have that quite clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I make you responsible for the carrying out of these orders, Gribois.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you have a Chartreuse?”

“Delighted, sir.”

They touched glasses, drank the tawny liqueur, and Captain Gribois went off.

III

The Marseilles train came into the station to the minute of nine o’clock, deposited two travellers on the platform and continued its journey to Nice.

One was tall and thin, M. Saribe, oil merchant, the other fat and short, M. Parisse.

They set off side by side, carrying their suitcases, towards the town, which was a mile away.

But when they reached the harbour gate, the sentries fixed bayonets and ordered them to keep out.

Startled, stupefied, quite dazed with surprise, they drew off and deliberated; then after taking counsel together, they returned cautiously to parley and gave their names.

But the soldiers must have had the strictest orders, for they threatened to shoot; and the two terrified travellers fled with all possible agility, leaving behind the suitcases that weighed them down.

Then they walked round the ramparts and presented themselves at the Cannes gate. It was as closely shut, and it too was guarded by menacing sentries. MM. Saribe and Parisse, being prudent men, pursued the matter no further, but returned to the station in search of shelter, for the road round the fortifications was not very safe after sundown.

A surprised and sleepy porter allowed them to spend the night in the waiting-room.

They spent it side by side, without a light, on the green velvet sofa, too terrified to think of sleeping.

They found it a long night.

Towards half past six they learned that the gates were open, and that they could at last get into Antibes. They set out, but they did not find their abandoned suitcases on the road.

When, a little uneasy, they stepped through the town gate, the commanding officer himself, with the ends of his moustache twisted up and veiled impenetrable glance, came up to identify and question them.

Then he saluted them politely and apologised for having made them spend an unpleasant night. But he had been compelled to carry out his orders.

The citizens of Antibes were utterly bewildered. Some people said that the Italians had been planning a surprise attack, others said that the Prince had gone away by boat, and yet others believed there had been an Orléanist plot. The truth was not suspected until later when it came out that the battalion had been posted to a distant station and M. de Carmelin severely punished.

IV

M. Martini had finished speaking. Mme. Parisse, her walk over, was returning. She passed near me, gravely, her eyes turned to the Alps whose peaks were rosy now in the last rays of the sun.

I wanted to speak to her, the poor unhappy woman who must have thought long of that night of love, now so far in the past, and of the bold man who for one kiss of hers had dared to put a town in a state of siege and jeopardise his whole future.

He had doubtless forgotten her now; or remembered her only when his tongue was loosened by wine and he told the story of that audacious, comic and passionate jest.

Had she seen him again? Did she still love him? I thought: “It is an admirable instance of modern love, absurd and still heroic. The Homer who would sing this Helen, and the adventure of her Menelaus, would have to possess the mind of Paul de Kock. And yet the hero of this forsaken woman is brave, daring, beautiful, as strong as Achilles, and craftier than Ulysses.”

Julie Romain

One spring two years ago I was tramping along the Mediterranean coast. Is there anything pleasanter than striding along a road, lost in dreams? You walk in a world full of light, through the caressing wind, on the slopes of mountains and on the edge of the sea. And you dream! What phantom loves and adventures the vagabond imagination lives through in a two hours’ tramp! Born in the warm light air, a thousand dreamy joyous expectations jostle each other in your mind; you breathe them in with the gentle wind, and in the depths of your heart they wake an appetite for happiness that grows with the hunger whetted by much walking. Happy winged thoughts soar and sing like birds.

I was tramping down the long road that runs from St. Raphael to Italy⁠—less a road than a magnificent shifting scene that seems made to form a background for all the love poems in the world. And I thought that from Cannes, which is full of determined poseurs, to Monaco, which is full of gamblers, hardly a soul comes to this part of the world except to swagger and fling money about and to display, under this glorious sky, in this garden of roses and orange blossom, every form of mean vanity, senseless pretension and vile covetousness and to reveal the soul of man for what it is, abject, ignorant, arrogant and greedy.

Suddenly I saw, in the curve of one of those ravishing bays that each bend of the mountain road reveals, a small group of villas: there were not more than four or five and they lay at the foot of the mountain, between the sea and a dense pine wood that stretched far away behind them down two great valleys; there were no roads through the valley and probably no way out of them. One of these chalets was so charming that I stood stock-still in front of the gate: it was a small white house with brown timbers, and covered with roses climbing to the very roof.

And the garden: a veritable cloth of flowers, of all colours and all sizes, mingled in a capricious and inspired disorder. They covered the lawn; every step of the terrace had a clump of flowers at each end, blue or yellow clusters drooped from the windows over the gleaming wall; and the stone balustrade of the veranda that roofed this adorable home was garlanded with great scarlet bellflowers, like drops of blood.

Behind the house I saw a long alley of orange-trees running back to the foot of the mountain.

On the door, in small golden letters, this name: “Villa d’Antan.”

I wondered what poet or fairy lived there, what inspired recluse had discovered this place and created this dream house that seemed to have sprung up in the heart of a bunch of flowers.

A stone-breaker was crushing stones a little farther down the road. I asked him the name of the owner of this jewel.

“Mme. Julie Romain,” he answered.

Julie Romain! Long ago, when I was a child, I had heard of her, the great actress, Rachel’s rival.

No woman had ever been more applauded or more beloved, especially more beloved! What duels and suicides there were for her sake, how the town rang with tales of her adventures! How old would this Circe be now? Sixty, seventy, seventy-five? Julie Romain! Here, in this house. The woman whom our greatest musician and our greatest poet had adored! I could still remember the excitement roused through the whole of France (I was twelve years old then) when she fled to Sicily with the poet after her terrific quarrel with the musician.

She had gone one evening, after a first night at which the audience had applauded her for half an hour and called her before the final curtain eleven times; she had set out with the poet in a fast chaise; post-chaises were in use then; they had crossed the sea to enjoy their love in the island of antiquity⁠—Sicily, daughter of a Grecian mother⁠—under the shadow of the vast orange-grove that encircles Palermo and bears the name of “Conque d’Or.”

The story spread abroad of their ascent of Etna, and how they hung over the immense crater, locked in each other’s arms, cheek to cheek, as if they were going to fling themselves into the fiery depths.

He was dead, the man who had written that disturbing poetry, so profound that it had made a whole generation dizzy, so subtle, so mysterious that it had opened a new world to the new poets.

The other one, the man she had left, was dead too, he who had found for her melodies that lingered in the memories of all living men, melodies of triumph and despair, maddening, plucking the heart out of their bodies.

And she was here, in this house veiled with flowers.

I didn’t hesitate a moment, I rang the bell.

A small servant opened the door, an awkward boy of eighteen with clumsy hands. I wrote on my card a happy compliment to the old actress and an earnest request that she would see me. Perhaps she would know my name and consent to open her door to me.

The young footman went away, then came back and asked me to follow him. He showed me into an austerely tidy room in the style of Louis Philippe, with uninteresting heavy furniture from which a small sixteen-year-old maid, very thin but rather pretty, was removing the dust covers in my honour.

Then I was left alone.

There were three portraits on the walls, one of the actress in one of her roles; one of the poet in a long, close-fitting frock-coat and frilled shirt, and one of the musician sitting at a clavichord. She was fair, charming and blue-eyed, with the mannered beauty of her age, and her mouth curved into a gracious smile; the painting was done with a patient care, detailed, elegant and lifeless.

They seemed to have an eye to their effect on posterity even then.

All three belonged to another age, to days that were no more and a generation that had passed.

A door opened and a little woman came in; old, very old, very little, with folds of white hair, white eyebrows, a veritable white mouse, moving with swift furtive steps.

She held out her hand, and said in a voice that was still clear and rich and thrilling:

“I am glad to see you. How kind it is of a young man to remember an old woman! Please sit down.”

And I told her how I had been fascinated by her house and had wanted to know the owner’s name, and how, hearing it, I had not been able to resist the desire to knock at her door.

“I am all the more delighted,” she answered, “because this is the first time that such a thing has happened. When they brought me your card, with its charming little phrase, I trembled as if they had announced an old friend not seen for twenty years. I am dead, you see, and no one remembers me, no one will think of me, until the day when I die for good; and then for three days all the papers will write about Julie Romain, with anecdotes, details, memories of my past, and enthusiastic eulogies. Then that will be the end of me.”

She paused, and, after a silence, added:

“And that won’t be long now. In a few months, in a few days, nothing will remain of this little living woman but a little skeleton.”

She lifted her eyes to her portrait, which smiled at her, smiled at this old woman, this caricature of itself; then she looked at the two men, the haughty poet and the inspired musician who seemed to say: “What has this ravaged creature to do with us?”

A poignant indefinable grief overwhelmed me, wringing my heart, grief for the living dead who go on struggling in their memories like a man drowning in deep waters.

From my chair I could see smart swiftly driven carriages rolling along the road from Nice to Monaco. Inside them sat young women, lovely, rich, happy women, and smiling complacent men. She followed my glance, guessed what I was thinking, and murmured, with a smile of resignation:

“One can’t live and have lived.”

“How wonderful your life must have been!” I said.

She sighed deeply:

“Wonderful and sweet. That is why I regret it so bitterly.”

I saw that she was in a mood to talk about herself, and very gently, with the utmost care, as if I were touching a painful wound, I began to question her.

She told me about her successes, her wild joys, her friends, the whole story of her triumphant life. I asked her:

“Did you find your keenest joys and your real happiness in the theatre?”

“Oh, no,” she said emphatically.

I smiled: she threw a sorrowful glance at the two portraits and added:

“I found it in them.”

I could not resist asking: “Which of them?”

“Both. Sometimes I even confuse them with each other when I recall the past, and besides I feel remorseful towards one of them now.”

“Then, madame, it’s not to them but to love itself that you are grateful. They were only love’s interpreters.”

“Perhaps so. But what interpreters!”

“Are you sure that you haven’t, that you wouldn’t have been as well loved, better loved, by a simple gentleman, a man who would not have been famous, who would have given you his whole life, his whole heart, all his thoughts, his every hour, his whole being; whereas those two men gave you two formidable rivals, Music and Poetry?”

She cried out passionately, in that still youthful voice of hers with its strange thrilling note:

“No, monsieur, no. Another man might have loved me better, but he wouldn’t have loved me as they did. They two sang me music and love as no one else in the world could have sung them. What ecstasy I had of them! Could another man, any other man, have drawn what they two were able to draw from sounds and words? Is it enough to love, if you can’t put into your love all the music of heaven and earth? They knew how to sweep a woman off her feet with song and words. Yes, perhaps there was more illusion than reality in our passion; but illusions lift you to the clouds while realities always leave your feet planted on the ground. Others may have loved me more, but only through them did I understand love, and know it and adore it.”

And she fell into a sudden weeping.

She wept without a sound, hopeless tears.

I pretended not to see her, and sat looking into space. After a while she went on:

“You see, monsieur, for most people the heart ages with the body. It hasn’t been so with me. My poor body is sixty-nine years old and my poor heart is twenty.⁠ ⁠… And that is why I live alone, with my flowers and my dreams.”

A long silence fell on us. She recovered her self-control and began to talk again, with a smile:

“How you would laugh at me if you knew⁠ ⁠… if you knew how I spend my evenings⁠ ⁠… when it is fine!⁠ ⁠… I am ashamed and sorry for myself both at once.”

I begged her in vain: she would not tell me what she did; then I rose to go:

“Already?” she cried.

And when I announced that I must dine in Monte Carlo, she asked me diffidently:

“You wouldn’t care to dine with me? I should be so glad if you would.”

I accepted at once. She was delighted, and rang the bell; then, when she had given some orders to the little maid, she took me round the house.

The dining room opened on to a kind of glass veranda filled with shrubs, and through it I could see from one end to the other of the long alley of orange-trees that stretched away back to the mountain. A low seat, hidden under the plants, indicated that the old actress often sat there.

Then we went into the garden to look at the flowers. The evening stole down, one of those warm quiet evenings that release all the scents of earth.

It was almost dark when we sat down to the table. The dinner was a long and excellent one, and we became intimate friends, she and I, when she realised what profound sympathy for her filled my heart. She had drunk two fingers of wine, as they used to say, and was becoming more confidential and expansive.

“Let us go and look at the moon,” she said. “I adore the kind moon. She has witnessed all my dearest joys. I think sometimes that all the things I remember are in her, and that I have only to look at her to have them come back to me at once. And even⁠ ⁠… sometimes, in the dusk⁠ ⁠… I allow myself a pretty sight⁠ ⁠… pretty⁠ ⁠… pretty⁠ ⁠… do you know? But no, you’d laugh too much at me.⁠ ⁠… I can’t.⁠ ⁠… I daren’t⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… indeed I daren’t.”

I implored her.

“Let me see it⁠ ⁠… what is it? Tell me; I promise you I won’t laugh.⁠ ⁠… I promise⁠ ⁠… let me see it.”

She hesitated. I took her hands, her poor little hands, so thin and cold, and I kissed them one after the other, several times, as her lovers had done in the old days. She was touched. She hesitated.

“You promise you won’t laugh?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“Then come.”

She rose. And as the little servant, awkward in his green livery, drew away her chair, she spoke a few low quick words in his ear.

“Yes, madame,” he answered, “at once.”

She took my arm and led me on to the veranda.

The orange-grove was truly a marvellous sight. The risen moon, a full moon, flung down it a thin silver path, a long line of light that fell across the yellow sand between the thick round tops of the sombre trees.

The trees were in blossom and their sweet heady scent filled the night. In their dark green shadows flitted a cloud of gleaming fireflies like star dust.

I cried:

“Oh, what a setting for a love scene!”

She smiled:

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it? Wait and see.”

She made me sit beside her.

“This is what makes me regret my spent life. But you hardly think of these things, you modern men. You are all stockbrokers, tradesmen, men of affairs. You are hardly able to talk to us. When I say ‘us’ I mean the young. Love affairs have become intrigues that often begin with an unpaid dressmaker’s bill. If you think the bill is dearer than the lady, you withdraw; but if you think more of the lady than of the bill, you pay. Charming ways⁠ ⁠… charming loves.”

She took my hand.

“Look!”

I sat there in an ecstasy of surprise and delight. From the far end of the alley, down the path of moonlight, came two young people with arms round each other’s waists. They came towards us, locked together, charming, walking with tiny steps, stepping through pools of light that flung a sudden glory round them before they were lost in the shadows again. He was dressed in the white satin coat of a past century and a hat covered with an ostrich feather. She wore a panniered gown, and the high powdered hair of the lovely ladies of the Regency.

A hundred paces from us they paused, standing in the middle of the alley, and embraced with a pretty ceremony.

And all at once I recognised the two little servants. Then one of those dreadful spasms of mirth that grip your very bowels bent me double in my chair. I did not laugh out, however. Sick and convulsed, I fought it down as a man whose leg is being cut off fights down the cry that forces open his throat and his jaw.

But the children were turning back towards the end of the alley; and once more they were enchanting. They went slowly farther and farther away and at last vanished, like the vanishing of a dream. Now they were out of sight. The empty alley wore an air of sadness.

And I went away too, I went away so that I shouldn’t see it again; for I realised that it would go on for a very long time, this spectacle that recalled all the past years, the past years of love and playacting, the mannered deceitful seductive past, with all its false and all its real charms, this spectacle that could still stir the pulses of the old woman who had been an actress and a great lover.

The Sign

The little Marquise de Rennedon was still asleep, in the warm scented room, in her soft low wide bed, between her sheets of fine lawn, as fragile as love, as caressing as a kiss; she slept alone, peacefully, the deep happy sleep of the divorced.

She was awakened by the sound of sharp voices in the little blue drawing room. She recognised her dearest friend, the little Baroness de Grangerie, arguing her right to come in with the maid who was guarding her mistress’s door.

Then the little Marquise rose, drew the bolts, turned the key, lifted the curtain and thrust out her head, only her fair head, hidden under a cloud of hair.

“What has brought you here so early?” she said. “It’s not nine o’clock yet.”

The little Baroness, very pale, nervous and feverish, answered:

“I must speak to you. A dreadful thing has happened to me.”

“Come in, darling.”

She came in, they kissed; and the little Marquise climbed back into bed while the maid opened the windows, letting in air and light. Then, when the servant was gone, Mme. de Rennedon went on: “Now tell me.”

Mme. de Grangerie began to cry, shedding those pretty crystal drops that add so to a woman’s charm, and stammered⁠—without drying her eyes, which would have made them red: “Oh, my dear, what’s happened to me is dreadful, too dreadful. I haven’t slept all night, not a minute: not one minute, I tell you. There, feel my heart, how it’s beating.”

And, taking her friend’s hand, she pressed it against her breast, on that firm rounded barrier that protects the hearts of women and is all that most men ask, so that they do not inquire what lies beneath it. Her heart was beating quite steadily.

She went on:

“It happened yesterday during the day⁠ ⁠… about four o’clock⁠ ⁠… or half past four. I don’t know the exact hour. You know all about my apartment, you know that my little first-floor drawing room, the one I always use, looks out on to the Rue Saint-Lazare, and that I adore sitting in the window to watch the people passing. The road to the station is so gay, so busy and full of people.⁠ ⁠… I love it. Well, yesterday I was sitting in the low chair I have drawn across my window; the window was open, and I was thinking of nothing at all: I was enjoying the fresh air. You remember how lovely it was yesterday.

“Suddenly, on the other side of the street, I saw another woman sitting at her window, a woman in a red dress; I was wearing mauve, don’t you know, my pretty mauve frock. I did not recognise the woman, a new tenant, who has only been in a month; and as it has rained for the last month I’d never seen her before. But I saw at once that she was no good. At first I was thoroughly disgusted and very shocked to see her sitting at the window just as I was doing; and then, gradually, I found it amusing to watch her. She was leaning on her elbows and she stared at the men, and the men stared at her, all of them, or almost all of them. You’d have thought something warned them as they got near the house, and they scented her out as dogs scent game, for they lifted their heads suddenly and exchanged quick glances with her, a freemasonry of glances. Hers said: ‘Won’t you?’

“Theirs answered: ‘No time,’ or ‘Another day,’ or ‘Not a cent,’ or ‘Take yourself out of sight, you hussy.’ This last phrase was signalled from the eyes of fathers of families.

“You can’t imagine how odd it was to watch her practising her wiles, or rather her profession.

“Sometimes she shut the window down quickly and I saw a gentleman turn in at the door. She had hooked him as a fisherman hooks a gudgeon. Then I took out my watch. They stayed a dozen or twenty minutes, never longer. I got wildly excited over her at last, spider that she is. And she wasn’t an ugly wench either.

“I wondered: What does she do to make herself so clearly, quickly and completely understood? Does she make a sign with her head or wave her hand as well as look at them?

“And I took my opera glasses to investigate the process. Oh, it was quite simple: first a glance, then a smile, then just the least inclination of the head that meant: ‘Are you coming up?’ But so slight, so casual and so discreet that one would have to be very clever to do it as well as she did.

“And I wondered: Could I do it as cleverly, that little upward tilt, bold and graceful? For it really was a graceful gesture.

“I went to my looking-glass and tried. My dear, I did it better than she did, much better. I was delighted; and I went back to my place in the window.

“She wasn’t getting anyone now, poor girl, not a single person. In fact she hadn’t the chance. It really must be dreadful, don’t you know, to earn your living like that, dreadful, and sometimes amusing, because the men one meets in the street aren’t so bad, after all.

“They were all walking along my pavement now, and not a single one on hers. The sun had come round. One after another they came, young and old, dark and fair, grey heads and white heads.

“I noticed some very charming ones, oh, very charming, my dear, much better than my husband or yours⁠—your former husband, now you’ve divorced him. You can make your choice now.

“I said to myself: ‘If I, a virtuous woman, were to make them the sign, would they understand me?’ And then the mad longing took me to make them the sign⁠—such a longing, like women get when they’re going to have a child⁠ ⁠… the maddest longing, don’t you know, the sort of longing one simply can’t resist. I feel like that sometimes. Don’t you think it’s silly? I believe we have the souls of monkeys, we women. I’ve been told (it was a doctor who told me) that the brain of a monkey is very like ours. We must always be imitating someone. We imitate our husbands, when we love them, during the honeymoon, and then after that our lovers, our friends, our confessors if we like them. We adopt their manner of thinking, their manner of speaking, their words, their gestures, everything about them. It’s silly.

“Well, when I’m too strongly tempted to do a thing, I always do it.

“So I said to myself: ‘Now, I’ll try it on one of them, just one, to see what happens. What can happen to me? Nothing! We shall exchange a smile, and that’s all, and I shall never see him again, and if I see him I shan’t recognise him, and if he recognises me I shall disclaim any acquaintance, and there you are.’

“So I began choosing. I wanted a really good one, a very good one. All at once I saw a tall fair man coming, a very beautiful young man. I love fair men, don’t you know.”

“I looked at him. He looked at me. I smiled, he smiled; I made the right gesture, oh, ever so little, the least little movement; he nodded ‘Yes’ and⁠—what do you think?⁠—in he came, my dear! He came in by the front door of the house.

“You can imagine what my thoughts were at that moment! I thought I should go off my head. Oh, I was terrified! Think of it, he must be speaking to the servant. To Joseph, who is devoted to my husband. Joseph would certainly have believed that I had known this gentleman for a long time.

“What could I do? What could I say? What could I do? He would be ringing in a minute, this very minute. What could I do or say? I thought that the best thing would be to run and meet him, to tell him that he was making a mistake and beg him to go away. He would take pity on a woman, a helpless woman. I flung myself at the door and I opened it just as he put his hand on the bell.

“Utterly distracted, I stammered: ‘Go away, sir, go away, you are making a mistake. I am a good woman, a married woman. It’s a mistake, a frightful mistake; I took you for a friend of mine who is very like you. Let me alone, sir.’

“And⁠—what do you think, my dear?⁠—he burst out laughing and answered: ‘Good afternoon, dearie. I know all about your little tale, you know. You’re married, and it will be two louis instead of one. You shall have them. Now show me the way.’

“And he pushed me aside, he shut the door and as I stood in front of him, absolutely terrified, he kissed me, put his arm round me and led me back into the drawing room, the door of which was standing open.

“And then he began to look round him as if he had come to value the place, and he went on: ‘Damn it, you’ve a charming place here, it’s very smart. You must be in a bad way just now to play the window game.’

“And then I began to implore him again: ‘Oh, sir, go away! Go away! My husband will be coming in! He’ll be in any moment, it’s his time. I assure you you’re making a mistake.’

“He answered calmly: ‘Now, my dear girl, that’s enough of that. If your husband comes in, I’ll give him five francs to go and stand himself a drink across the road.’

“He saw a photograph of Raoul on the mantelpiece and asked:

“ ‘Is that your⁠ ⁠… your husband?’

“ ‘Yes, that’s he.’

“ ‘He’s got a face on him, hasn’t he! And who’s this? One of your friends?’

“It was your photograph, my dear, you know, the one in evening dress. I didn’t know what I was saying by this time, and I stammered:

“ ‘Yes, it’s a friend of mine.’

“ ‘She’s very charming. You must introduce me to her.’

“And the clock was just going to strike five; and Raoul was in every day at half past five. If he came back before the other man had gone, think of it! Then⁠ ⁠… then⁠ ⁠… I lost my head⁠ ⁠… altogether.⁠ ⁠… I thought⁠ ⁠… I thought⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠… that the best thing to do was to⁠ ⁠… to⁠ ⁠… to⁠ ⁠… get rid of this man as⁠ ⁠… as quickly as possible.⁠ ⁠… The sooner it was finished⁠ ⁠… you understand⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… and so⁠ ⁠… so⁠ ⁠… since it had to be done⁠ ⁠… and it did have to be done, my dear⁠ ⁠… he wouldn’t go away without⁠ ⁠… so I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I locked the drawing room door.⁠ ⁠… There.”

The little Marquise of Rennedon had begun to laugh; she laughed uncontrollably, her head buried in the pillow, shaking the whole bed.

When she was a little quieter, she demanded:

“And⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠… he was a handsome young man?”

“He was.”

“And you’re dissatisfied?”

“But⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… don’t you see, my dear?⁠ ⁠… he⁠ ⁠… he said⁠ ⁠… he would come back tomorrow at the same time⁠ ⁠… and I’m⁠ ⁠… I’m dreadfully afraid.⁠ ⁠… You’ve no idea how insistent he is⁠ ⁠… and headstrong.⁠ ⁠… What shall I do⁠ ⁠… or say?⁠ ⁠… What shall I do?”

The little Marquise sat up in bed to consider the problem; then she said decisively:

“Have him arrested.”

The little Baroness was thunderstruck. She stammered:

“What? What do you say? What are you thinking about? Have him arrested? On what pretext?”

“Oh, it’s quite simple. You go to the police; you’ll tell them that a gentleman has been following you for three months; that he had the insolence to force his way into your home yesterday; that he has threatened to make another visit tomorrow, and that you demand the protection of the law. They’ll give you two officers who’ll arrest him.”

“But, my dear, suppose he tells.⁠ ⁠…”

“But no one will believe him, idiot, when once you’ve told your tale to the police. They’ll believe you, because you’re a woman of the world and above suspicion.”

“Oh, I’ll never dare do it.”

“You must, my dear, or you’re ruined.”

“Remember that he will⁠ ⁠… that he will insult me⁠ ⁠… when they arrest him.”

“Well, you’ll have witnesses and you can get him sentenced.”

“Sentenced to what?”

“To pay damages. You’ve got to be quite ruthless in an affair like this.”

“Oh, talking of damages⁠ ⁠… there’s one dreadfully annoying thing⁠ ⁠… dreadfully annoying.⁠ ⁠… He left me⁠ ⁠… two louis⁠ ⁠… on the mantelpiece.

“Two louis?”

“Yes.”

“No more than that?”

“No.”

“It isn’t much. I’d have felt humiliated. Well?”

“Well! What ought I to do with the money?”

The little Marquise hesitated a moment, then answered gravely:

“My dear⁠ ⁠… you must⁠ ⁠… you must make your husband a little present⁠ ⁠… it’s only fair.”

Old Amable

I

The grey rainy sky seemed to press down on the vast brown plain. The scents of autumn, the melancholy scents of bare wet earth, fallen leaves and dead flowers, made the stagnant evening air duller and heavier. The peasants were still working, scattered through the fields, and waiting for the hour of Angelus: it would recall them to the farms whose thatched roofs showed here and there through the branches of the bare trees that sheltered the orchards from the wind.

At the edge of a road, a very small child sat on a heap of clothes, legs apart, playing with a potato that every now and then he let fall into his frock, while five women, bent double, with rumps in the air, were setting out colza seedlings in the nearby field. Moving slowly and methodically all down the big trench that the plough had just turned up, they thrust in a pointed wooden stick; the plant, already a little withered and lying limply over on its side, was thrust into the hole; then they covered up the root and went on with their work.

A man walking past, a whip in his hand, his feet thrust into sabots, stopped beside the child and lifted him up to be kissed. At that, one of the women straightened herself and came to him. She was a big red-faced girl, large of hip and waist and shoulder, a tall Norman female, with yellow hair and florid skin.

She spoke in a decided voice.

“Hullo, Césaire; well?”

The man, a slight sad-faced boy, murmured:

“There’s nothing doing, as usual.”

“He won’t?”

“He won’t.”

“What you going to do?”

“How do I know?”

“Go and see the priest.”

“All right.”

“Go and see him right now.”

“All right.”

They stood looking at each other. He was still holding the child in his arms. He kissed it again and set it down once more on the women’s clothes.

Across the skyline, between two farms, moved a horse plough driven by a man. Beast, machine and labourer passed with slow easy movements across the sombre evening sky.

“What’d he say, your dad?”

“He said he wouldn’t have it.”

“Why wouldn’t he have it?”

With a gesture the boy drew her attention to the child he had just set down on the ground, then with a glance he indicated the man behind the distant plough.

“Because your brat’s his,” he said slowly.

The girl shrugged her shoulders. “Lord, doesn’t everyone know it’s Victor’s? And what o’ that? I got myself into trouble. Am I the only one? My ma was in trouble before me, and yours too, before she married your dad. Who hasn’t got themselves into trouble about here? I went wrong with Victor, but didn’t he catch me in the barn when I was asleep? And then I went wrong again when I wasn’t asleep. I’d ha’ married him, I would, if he hadn’t been a servant. Am I any the worse for that?”

The man said simply:

“I want you as you are, I do, with or without the brat. It’s only my dad that’s against it. But I’ll get over that.”

“Go and see the priest at once,” she answered.

“I’m going.”

And he lumbered off with his heavy countryman’s gait; while the girl, her hands on her hips, went back to planting colza.

The fact was that the man now walking away, Césaire Houldrèque, son of old deaf Amable Houlbrèque, wanted, against his father’s will, to marry Céleste Lévesque, who had had a child by Victor Lecoq, a mere servant lad employed at the time on her parents’ farm, and dismissed for that very reason.

In the fields, moreover, caste divisions do not exist, and if the servant is thrifty, he can take a farm himself and become the equal of his old master.

So Césaire Houlbrèque went off, his whip under his arm, chewing the cud of his thoughts, and lifting one after another his heavy wooden shoes slimed with mud. He was sure he wanted to marry Céleste Lévesque, he wanted her with her child, because she was the woman he needed. He couldn’t have said why, but he knew it, he was sure of it. He had only to look at her to be convinced of it and feel all strange and stirred up, and half dazed with happiness. It even gave him pleasure to kiss the little boy, Victor’s little boy, because he was born of her body.

And he stared without any resentment at the distant outline of the man driving the plough at the edge of the sky.

But old Amable would not have the marriage. He opposed it with the pigheaded obstinacy of a deaf man, a fury of obstinate rage.

In vain Césaire had shouted in his ear, the ear that could still hear a little.

“I’ll look well after you, dad. I tell you she’s a good girl, a decent girl, and a good manager too.”

“As long as I live,” the old man repeated, “I’ll not see it happen.”

And nothing could persuade him, nothing could break down his savage determination. One hope only was left to Césaire. Old Amable feared the priest because he dreaded the death he felt approaching. He feared little enough the good God, or the devil, or hell, or purgatory, of which he had the haziest notions, but he feared the priest, who stood in his mind for the day of his burying, very much as a man might dread doctors through a horror of disease. For the past week Céleste, who knew this weakness of the old man, had been urging Césaire to see the priest; but Césaire had hesitated, because he was not himself very fond of black gowns; in his mind they stood for hands always outstretched for alms or for the holy bread.

He had made up his mind now, however, and he went towards the rectory, turning over in his mind how he would set forth his business.

Father Raffin, a small active priest, thin and always clean-shaven, was waiting for his dinner hour and warming his feet in front of his kitchen fire.

He merely turned his head as he saw the peasant come in, and demanded:

“Well, Césaire, what is it you want?”

“I want to talk to you, Father.”

The man stood there, daunted, his cap in one hand and his whip in the other.

“Talk, then.”

Césaire looked at the servant, an old woman dragging one foot after the other as she laid a place for her master on a corner of the table before the window.

“It’s⁠—it’s, as you might say, a confession,” he stammered.

At that, Father Raffin looked closely at his peasant; he noticed his confused face, uneasy bearing and wandering eye, and ordered:

“Marie, go to your room for five minutes while I talk to Césaire.”

The servant flung an angry look at the man, and went off muttering.

“Now,” the priest added, “let’s hear all about it.”

The lad still hesitated, staring at his sabots, twisting his cap; he made up his mind abruptly:

“It’s like this. I want to marry Céleste Lévesque.”

“Well, my lad, what’s to prevent you?”

“It’s dad won’t have it.”

“Your father?”

“Yes, my dad.”

“What did your father say to you?”

“He said she’s had a babby.”

“She’s not the first since our mother Eve to have that happen to her.”

“A babby by Victor, Victor Lecoq, the servant at Anthime Loisel.”

“Ah, ah⁠ ⁠… so he won’t have it?”

“He won’t have it.”

“Not at any price?”

“No more’n an ass that won’t budge, saving your honour.”

“What did you say to him, to persuade him?”

“I said to him she was a good girl, and decent, and a good manager.”

“And that didn’t persuade him. So you want me to speak to him?”

“That’s just it. You talk to him.”

“And how shall I talk to your father?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… as if you were preaching to make us give our pennies.”

To the peasant mind the sole end of religion was to unloosen purses and empty men’s pockets to fill the coffers of heaven. It was a sort of vast trading house where the priests were the salesmen, as cunning, shifty and sharp as anyone, carrying on business for the good God at the expense of the country folk.

He knew quite well that the priests were of service, of great service to the poorest, the sick and the dying, helping, consoling, advising, sustaining, but all as a matter of money, in exchange for white coins, lovely shining silver paid out for sacraments and masses, advice and protection, pardon for sins and indulgences, purgatory and paradise depending on the income and the generosity of the sinner.

Father Raffin, who knew his man and was by no means disturbed, began to laugh:

“Very well, I’ll go and tell my little tale to your father, but as for you, my lad, you’ll have to come to church.”

Houlbrèque stretched out his hand and swore he would:

“If you fix this for me, I promise I will, on a poor man’s word.”

“That’s a good lad. When do you want me to come and see your father?”

“The sooner the better, tonight if you can.”

“In half an hour, then, after supper.”

“In half an hour.”

“That’s settled, then. Goodbye, my lad.”

“Goodbye, Father; thank you.”

“None at all, my lad.”

And Césaire Houlbrèque returned home, his heart eased of a great load.

He leased a small, a very small farm, for his father and he were not well off. They kept one servant, a fifteen-year-old girl who made their soup, looked after the poultry, milked the cows and churned the butter, and they lived sparsely, although Césaire was a good husbandman. But they did not own enough land or enough stock to do more than make both ends meet.

The old man had given up working. Melancholy, as the deaf are, riddled with aches and pains, bent, twisted, he wandered through the fields, leaning on his stick, regarding man and beast with a harsh scornful stare. Sometimes he sat down on the edge of a ditch and remained there for hours, motionless, his thoughts drifting among the things that had been his whole life, the price of eggs and corn, the sun and the rain that spoiled or brought on the crops. And, racked with rheumatism, his old limbs still sucked up the dampness of the soil, as for seventy years they had sucked up the moisture exhaled from the walls of his low thatched cottage, roofed, too, with damp straw.

He returned home at dusk, took his place at the end of the table, in the kitchen, and when he had in front of him the earthenware bowl that held his soup, he grasped it in bent fingers that seemed to have taken on the curved shape of the bowl, and winter and summer he warmed his hands on it before beginning to eat, so as to lose nothing, not one particle of warmth that came from the fire which cost so much money, nor a drop of the soup that took fat and salt to make, nor a morsel of the bread that was made from the corn.

Then he climbed up a ladder to the attic where he had his mattress, while his son slept downstairs, in the depths of a sort of niche near the chimney-place, and the servant shut herself in a kind of cell, a black hole which had once been used for storing potatoes.

Césaire and his father rarely spoke to each other. Only from time to time, when it was a question of selling a crop or buying a calf, the young man consulted the old one, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands and shouting his reasons into his father’s ear; and father Amable approved or disapproved in a slow hollow voice issuing from the pit of his stomach.

Césaire approached him after this fashion one evening as if it were a question of acquiring a horse or a young cow and conveyed to him, shouting in his ear at the top of his voice, his intention of marrying Céleste Lévesque.

At that, the old man was angry. Why? On moral grounds? Probably not. A girl’s virtue is lightly enough esteemed in the country. But his avarice, his deep-rooted savage instinct to thrift, revolted at the idea of his son bringing up a child who was not his own. His mind had leaped instantly to the thought of all the soup the child would swallow before he was old enough to make himself useful on the farm; he had reckoned up all the pounds of bread and all the pints of cider that the youngster would eat and drink until his fourteenth year; and he felt growing in him a crazy resentment against Césaire who had thought of none of these things.

He answered, in a voice of unwonted vigour:

“Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Then Césaire had set himself to enumerate his reasons, to relate Céleste’s good points, and prove that she would save a hundred times the cost of the child. But the old man doubted the existence of these merits, while he could not doubt the existence of the child, and he reiterated stolidly, without offering any further reasons:

“I’ll not have it! I’ll not have it! You’ll not do it as long as I’m alive.”

And for three months they stuck at that deadlock, neither giving way an inch, and once a week, at least, they went over it all again, with the same arguments, the same words, the same gestures, and the same futile result.

It was after this that Céleste had advised Césaire to go and ask their priest’s help.

When the young peasant got home he found his father already at the table, for his visit to the rectory had delayed him.

They dined in silence, sitting opposite each other, ate a little butter on their bread after the soup and drank a glass of cider; then they sat motionless on their chairs, in the dim glimmer of the candle brought by the little servant to give her light to wash the bowls, dry the glasses and cut chunks of bread in preparation for the breakfast eaten at dawn.

There was a knock at the door: it opened immediately and the priest appeared. The old man lifted uneasy distrustful eyes, and, with a foreboding of danger, started to climb his ladder, but Father Raffin put a hand on his shoulder and yelled in his ear:

“I have a word to say to you, old Amable.”

Césaire had disappeared, profiting by the door left open by the priest. He did not want to listen, so much he dreaded the discussion; he did not want to feel his spirits gradually sinking with each obstinate refusal of his father; he preferred to learn the truth, good or bad, in one word afterwards; and he went out into the darkness. It was a moonless starless evening, one of those misty evenings when the air feels heavy with moisture. A faint smell of apples hung round the yard, for it was the time when the earliest apples were gathered, the euribles, as they say in the cider country. As Césaire walked past the walls of the cowsheds, the warm smell of living animals asleep in the straw floated through the narrow windows; and by the stable he heard the stamping of the horses, and the sound of their jaws snatching and chewing the oats from the mangers.

He walked straight ahead, thinking about Céleste. In his simple mind, where ideas were hardly more than images born of direct contact with objects, thoughts of love took form only when he evoked the image of a big red-haired girl, standing in a sunken road, laughing, hands on hips.

It was thus he had seen her on the day when he first desired her. He had, however, known her since they were children, but never before this morning had he taken any particular notice of her. They had talked for some minutes; then he left her, and as he walked away, he kept on saying to himself: “Christ, that’s a fine girl all the same. A pity she went wrong with Victor.” He thought about it until evening, and all the next day as well.

When he saw her again, he felt a tickling sensation at the bottom of his throat, as if a feather had been pushed down his mouth into his chest; and after that, every time he found himself near her, he was surprised at the nervous tickling feeling that invariably attacked him.

Three weeks later he decided to marry her, so taken was he with her. He could not have said what had roused in him this overweening desire, but he expressed it by saying: “I’m possessed by her,” as if the passion he bore within him for this girl was mastering him like an evil spirit. He did not mind at all that she had lost her virtue; it was only so much the worse; it did not spoil her; and he bore no ill will to Victor Lecoq for it.

But if the priest failed, what was he to do? He dared not think about that, so tortured was he by anxiety.

He had reached the rectory, and he sat down near the little wooden fence to wait for the priest’s return.

He had been there perhaps an hour when he heard footsteps on the road, and despite the blackness of the night, he soon made out the still blacker shadow of a cassock.

He stood up, his legs trembling under him, afraid to speak, afraid to be told.

The priest saw him and said gaily:

“Well, my boy, it’s all right.”

Césaire stammered:

“All right⁠ ⁠… it can’t be.”

“Yes, my lad, but not without some trouble. What an obstinate old donkey your father is!”

“It can’t be,” the peasant repeated.

“But it is. Come and see me tomorrow noon, to arrange for the banns.”

The man had seized the priest’s hand. He gripped it, shook it, crushed it, babbling: “Indeed, indeed, indeed, Father⁠ ⁠… on the word of an honest man⁠ ⁠… you’ll see me next Sunday in church.”

II

The wedding took place towards the middle of December. It was a simple one, since the pair had not much money. Césaire, all in new clothes, was ready at eight in the morning to go and call for his betrothed and take her to the registrar; but as he was too early, he sat down by the kitchen table and waited for those of his relations and friends who were to accompany him.

It had been snowing for a week, and the brown earth, already made fruitful by the autumn sowing, had turned livid and slept under a vast sheet of ice.

It was cold in the cottages, whose thatched roofs wore a white bonnet; and the round apple trees in the orchards looked as if they were in flower, powdered over as in the lovely month of their blossoming.

Today, the heavy clouds from the north, grey clouds swollen with fleecy showers, had vanished, and the blue sky opened on a white earth on which the rising sun flung silver rays.

Césaire sat staring in front of him through the window, thinking of nothing, quite happy.

The door opened, two woman came in, peasants in their Sunday clothes, the aunt and cousin of the bridegroom; then three men cousins, then a woman neighbour. They found themselves chairs, and sat silent and motionless, the women on one side of the kitchen and the men on the other, overwhelmed by a sudden timidity, the embarrassed melancholy that seizes people gathered together for a ceremony. Shortly one of the cousins asked:

“Isn’t it time?”

“I’m sure ’tis,” Césaire answered.

“Let’s be off, then,” cried another.

They rose to their feet. Césaire had been growing more and more uneasy: he stood up now and climbed the attic ladder to see if his father was ready. The old man, always up so early in the morning, had not yet put in an appearance. His son found him on his mattress, his eyes open and a malicious expression on his face.

He shouted right inside his ear:

“Come, dad, get up. It’s time to go to t’wedding.”

The deaf man murmured in a dying voice:

“I can’t. I’ve gotten such a chill it’s stiffened my back. I can’t move hand nor foot.”

The young man stared at him in horror, seeing through the manoeuvre.

“Come, dad, you must make yourself get up.”

“I can’t.”

“Here, I’ll help you.”

And he bent over the old man, pushed back the quilt, took him by the arm and lifted him up. But father Amable began to groan:

“Hou, hou, hou! The pain! Hou, hou, I can’t. My back’s all knotted up.”

Césaire realised that he could not do anything, and, furious with his father for the first time in his life, he cried:

“Very well, you won’t get any dinner, for I’m having a meal at Polyte’s inn. That’ll teach you to behave like a mule.”

And he scrambled down the ladder and set off, followed by his relatives and guests.

The men had turned up their trousers to keep the edges from getting sodden in the snow; the women held their petticoats well up, showing their thin ankles, their grey woollen stockings, and their bony shins, as stiff as broomsticks. The whole company rolled along in silence, one behind the other, picking their way with great caution, for fear of losing the road, which had quite vanished under the flat monotonous unbroken covering of snow.

As they approached each farm, they saw one or two people waiting to join them; and the procession grew longer and longer; it wound along, following the unseen line of the road, looking like a living rosary of black beads slithering over the white fields.

In front of the bride’s door, a number of people were stamping their feet while they waited for the bridegroom. They hailed him when he appeared; and Céleste came out of her room at once, dressed in a blue gown, her shoulders covered with a little red shawl, and wearing a wreath of orange-flowers on her head.

But everyone asked Césaire:

“Where’s your dad?”

He made the embarrassed answer:

“He couldn’t move with rheumatics.”

The farmers shook their heads, and looked at him with malicious incredulity.

They set off for the registrar’s. A peasant woman carried Victor’s child behind the future husband and wife, as if they were going to a christening; and the peasants, arm in arm now, in double file, made their way through the snow with the motion of a sloop on the sea.

After the mayor had married the betrothed in the little town hall, the priest proceeded to unite them in the modest house of God. He blessed their marriage and promised them a fruitful union; then he preached to them of wedded virtue, the simple healthy virtue of the country, work, peace and faithfulness, while the child, feeling the cold, whimpered behind the bride’s back.

The moment the couple reappeared on the threshold of the church, shots rang out in the cemetery moat. Nothing was visible but the barrels of the guns from which issued quick spurts of smoke; then a head emerged and looked at the procession; it was Victor Lecoq celebrating the marriage of his dear friend, congratulating her on her happiness and throwing her his vows with each flash of powder. He had recruited some of his friends, five or six hired men, to deliver these musketry salvoes. Everyone agreed that he was behaving very well.

The meal took place at the inn kept by Polyte Cacheprune. Twenty places had been laid in the big dining room where the people dined on market day; and the great joint turning on the spit, the birds roasting in their juice, the black puddings crisping on the clear hot fire, filled the house with a pungent fragrance, the smoke of red-hot charcoal spattered with drops of grease, and the strong heavy smell of country food.

They sat down at the table at noon, and the soup was soon poured into the plates. Faces were already animated; mouths opened to utter broad jests, eyes wrinkled up in malicious mirth. They were going to enjoy themselves, by God.

The door opened, and old Amable appeared. He looked spiteful and furiously angry, and he dragged himself along on his sticks, groaning at every step to let them see how he was suffering.

Everyone fell silent at sight of him, but all at once old Malivoire, his neighbour and a fat jolly man who knew everyone’s little ways, began to shout, as Césaire always did, making a speaking-trumpet of his hands: “Hey, old fox, you’ve a good nose, you have, to smell Polyte’s cooking from your house.”

A great laugh burst from the throats of the guests. Malivoire, excited by his success, went on: “There’s nothing like a plaster of black pudding for the rheumatics. It’ll warm your inside, with a glass of brandy.⁠ ⁠…”

All the men shouted, hammering the table with their fists, rolling with laughter, bending and straightening their bodies as if they were working at a pump. The women clucked like hens, the servants writhed with amusement as they stood by the walls. Only old Amable did not laugh, and waited, without replying, while they laid a place for him.

They put him in the centre of the table, facing his daughter-in-law, and he began to eat as soon as he was seated. It was his son who was paying, after all, and he must have his share of it. With each ladleful of soup that dropped into his stomach, with each mouthful of bread or meat chewed by his gums, with each glass of cider and wine that rolled down his gullet, he felt that he was getting back some of his property, taking back a little of his money that all these gluttons were devouring, saving a fragment of his possessions, in fact. And he ate in silence, with the obstinacy of a miser who hides halfpennies, with the gloomy tenacity that he used to bring to his persevering toil.

But all at once he saw Céleste’s child at the foot of the table, sitting on a woman’s knee, and his eyes never left it again. He continued to eat, his glance fixed on the little creature. The woman nursing him kept putting between his lips little bits of stew which he nibbled, and the old man suffered more from the few mouthfuls sucked by this grub than from all that the rest of the guests swallowed.

The meal lasted till evening. Then everyone went home.

Césaire helped old Amable to his feet.

“Come, dad, time to get home,” he said. And he put his two sticks into his hands. Céleste took the child in her arms, and they went slowly through the sombre night lit by the gleaming snow. The deaf old man, three parts drunk, and made all the more spiteful thereby, refused obstinately to get on. Several times he even sat down, with the idea that his daughter-in-law might take cold; and he groaned, without saying a word, delivering himself of a sort of long-drawn dolorous wail.

When they reached home, he climbed up to his attic at once, while Césaire made up a bed for the child near the wide nook where he and his wife were going to lie. But as the newly married pair did not go to sleep at once, they heard the old man tossing on his mattress for a long time, and several times he even spoke aloud, as if he were dreaming and giving away his thoughts despite himself, unable to keep them back, so obsessed he was by the one idea.

When he came down his ladder in the morning he saw his daughter-in-law hurrying round at work.

“Come, dad!” she cried; “hurry up, here’s some good soup.”

And at the end of the table she set a round black earthern pot full of steaming liquid. He made no reply but sat down and took up the scalding bowl, and warmed his hands on it as he always did. It was such a cold day that he even pressed it against his chest and tried to get a little of the quick heat of the boiling water into his old body that so many winters had stiffened.

Then he sought his sticks and went out into the frozen fields until noon, until dinnertime, for he had seen Céleste’s baby installed in a big soap box, still asleep.

He kept altogether to himself. He went on living in the cottage as before, but he bore himself as if he were no longer part of it, no longer interested in anything, regarding these people, his son, the woman and the child, as strangers whom he did not know and to whom he never spoke.

The winter dragged on. It was long and hard. Then the first days of spring burst the seeds; and once more the peasants, like industrious ants, spent their days in the fields, working from dawn to dark, in the northeast wind, in rain, along the furrows of the brown earth that bore in its bosom the bread of man.

The year promised well for the newly married pair. The crops pushed up thick and hardy; there were no late frosts; and the blossoming apple trees scattered over the grass a pink and white snow that foretold a bumper harvest.

Césaire worked very hard, rising early and going to bed late, to save the cost of a hired man. Sometimes his wife said to him:

“You’ll make yourself ill in the long run.”

“No, I’ll not,” he answered; “I’m used to it.”

But one evening he came home so exhausted that he had to lie down without any supper. He rose at the usual hour in the morning; but he could not eat, in spite of his fast of the night before; and he had to come home in the middle of the afternoon to rest again. During the night, he began to cough; and he tossed on his mattress, feverish, with burning forehead, and dry tongue, consumed with a frightful thirst.

He did, however, go as far as his fields at daybreak; but the next day the doctor had to be called in, and pronounced him very ill, and down with inflammation of the lungs.

He never left now the nook which served him for bedroom. He could be heard coughing, panting and tossing in the depths of his hole. A candle had to be carried to the opening, in order to look at him, to give him his medicine or apply a cupping-glass. Then his sunken face, disfigured by its growth of beard, became visible under a thick canopy of spiderwebs, which hung and floated, stirred by the draught. And the sick man’s hands lay on the grey bedclothes as if they were dead.

Céleste cared for him with an anxious activity, made him drink remedies, applied blisters, came and went in the house; while old Amable remained on the edge of his attic, peering from that distance at the dark hollow where his son lay and suffered. He would not come any nearer, for his hatred of the woman, and he squatted there sulking like a jealous dog.

Six more days went by; then one morning when Céleste, who slept now on two wretched heaps of straw, went to see if her man was better, she could not hear his hurried breathing coming from his hidden bed. Terrified, she asked:

“Now, Césaire, how’ve you been tonight?”

He did not answer.

She put out her hand to touch him, and felt the cold flesh of his face. A long wail broke from her, the long wail of a woman in mortal fear. He was dead.

At her cry, the old deaf man appeared at the top of his ladder; and seeing Céleste rushing out to bring help, he hurried down and touched his son’s face himself: the truth broke on him and he bent to fasten the door from the inside, to keep the woman from coming back to take possession of his home again, now that his son was no longer alive.

Then he sat down on a chair beside the dead man.

Neighbours arrived and shouted and knocked. He did not hear them. One of them broke a pane of the window and jumped into the room. Others followed; the door was opened again, and Céleste reappeared, weeping violently, with swollen cheeks and red eyes. Then old Amable, beaten, climbed back to his attic without saying a word.

The burial took place next day; then, after the ceremony, father-in-law and daughter-in-law found themselves alone in the farmhouse, with the child.

It was the usual hour for dinner. She lit the fire, prepared the soup, and set the plates on the table, while the old man sat in his chair and waited without appearing to notice her.

When the meal was ready, she shouted in his ear:

“Come, dad, we must eat.”

He rose, took his place at the end of the table, emptied his bowl, chewed his bread spread thin with butter, drank two glasses of cider and then went out.

It was one of those moist warm days, one of those beneficent days when life ferments, palpitating and blossoming, over the whole surface of the earth.

Old Amable followed a little path across the fields. He looked at the green shoots of corn and barley, and thought that his young lad was under the ground now, his poor young lad. He walked wearily along, dragging his legs and limping a little. And as he was alone in the fields, all alone under the blue sky, in the middle of growing crops, all alone with the larks he saw hovering over his head but whose airy song he could not hear, he began to weep as he walked.

Then he sat down near a pool and stayed there until evening, watching the little birds that came to drink; then, at nightfall, he went home, supped without saying a word and climbed to his attic.

And his life went on as in the past. Nothing was changed, except that his son Césaire slept in the cemetery.

What could the old man have done? He could not work now, he was only fit to eat the soup prepared by his daughter-in-law. And he swallowed it in silence, morning and night, glaring furiously at the child who sat facing him at the other side of the table and ate too. Then he went out, wandered over the country like a vagabond, went and hid himself behind barns to get an hour or two hours’ sleep as if he was afraid of being seen, then as dusk fell he came home.

But weighty anxieties began to fill Céleste’s thoughts. The fields needed a man to watch over them and work them. Someone ought to be there in the fields all the time, not just a hired man, but a real husbandman, a master, who knew his job and would have a real interest in the farm. A woman alone could not cultivate them, follow the prices of corn, direct the selling and buying of stock. Certain ideas came into her head, simple practical ideas, over which she pondered all night. She could not marry again before the year was up, and the immediate pressing needs must be attended to at once.

Only one man could help her in this quandary, Victor Lecoq, the father of her child. He was steady, and land-wise; with a little money in his pocket he would have made an excellent farmer. She knew that, having seen him working on her parents’ farm.

So one morning, seeing him going along the road with a load of manure, she went out after him. When he saw her, he stopped his horses, and she spoke to him as if she had met him only the day before:

“Good day, Victor, how are you today?”

“I’m all right,” he answered; “and how’s yourself?”

“Oh, me, I’d be all right if I wasn’t alone on the place, which worries me because of the land.”

Then they talked on a long time, leaning against the wheel of the heavy wagon. Now and then the man scratched his forehead under his cap and reflected, while she, with crimson cheeks, talked earnestly, setting forth her reasons, all her affairs, her future plans; at last he murmured:

“Yes, it could be done.”

She held out her hand like a peasant concluding a bargain, and asked:

“Is it settled?”

He gripped the outstretched hand:

“It’s settled.”

“On Sunday, then.”

“On Sunday.”

“All right; goodbye, Victor.”

“Goodbye, Madame Houlbrèque.”

III

That Sunday was a feast day in the village, the yearly feast of their patron saint, called in Normandy the Assemblée.

For a week, strange vehicles were seen coming by every road, dragged along by grey or roan hacks, and housing the travelling families of regular showmen, with gambling-outfits, shooting-galleries, and amusements of all kinds, and men showing curiosities, for whom the peasants had a curious name of their own.

Dirty caravans, with flapping curtains, and accompanied by a melancholy dog slinking with hanging head between the wheels, drew up one after the other in the village square. Then a tent was put up before each travelling house, and shining objects, glimpsed through holes in the canvas, roused to fever pitch the cupidity and curiosity of the village youngsters.

Early on the morning of the feast, all the booths were opened, displaying their glories of glass and porcelain; and the peasants on their way to Mass were already casting open complacent glances on the unimposing stalls which were the same they saw year after year.

The square was crowded from early in the afternoon. Farmers with their wives and children came in from all the nearby villages, jolting along in two wheeled carts that rattled like old iron and rocked like seesaws. They unharnessed at friends’ houses; and the farmyards were filled with strange covered wagons, grey, lofty, narrow curving wagons, like long-legged deep-sea beasts.

And each family, infants in front, grownups behind, walked quickly to the assemblée, with smiling faces and hands hanging open, great red bony hands that were accustomed to toil and seemed embarrassed to have nothing to do.

A sleight-of-hand man blew his trumpet; the harmonium belonging to the wooden horses wafted its jerky wailing notes into the air, the wheel on the gaming-table ground round with a noise like tearing cotton; rifle shots rang out in rapid succession. The slow-moving crowd ambled past the booths like a mass of slowly oozing paste, pushed about like a herd of beasts, and moving clumsily round like lumbering animals accidentally let loose.

The girls, arms locked together in rows of five or six, twittered and sang; the lads followed them round, bandying jests, caps over one ear and blouses stiff with starch and puffed out like blue balloons.

The whole countryside was there, masters, labourers and servants.

Old Amable himself, clad in an ancient and greenish frock-coat, had come to see the assemblée, for he had never missed a single one.

He watched the gambling, halted in front of the shooting-galleries to criticise the marksmanship, and took particular interest in a very simple game that consisted in throwing a big wooden ball into the open mouth of a fat man painted on a plank.

Suddenly someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was old Malivoire shouting: “Eh, dad, come and have one with me.”

And they sat down at a table in a drinking-booth set up in the open air. They drank one brandy, then two brandies, then three brandies; and old Amable began to wander through the assemblée again. His thoughts were becoming a little confused, he smiled without knowing why he did, he stood smiling in front of the gaming-table, and the wooden horses, and most of all in front of the coconut shy. He spent a long time at that, overcome with joy when a player knocked over the policeman or the priest, two authorities that he instinctively mistrusted. Then he went back and sat down in the drinking-booth, and took a glass of cider to refresh himself. It was late and night was falling. A neighbour said warningly: “You’ll get home too late for your supper stew, dad.”

Then he set out for the farm. A pleasant dusk, the warm dusk of spring evenings, stole slowly over the earth.

When he reached his door he thought he saw through the lighted window two people in the house. He halted, very surprised, then he went in and saw Victor Lecoq sitting at the table before a plateful of potatoes, eating supper in the very place where his son had always sat.

He turned abruptly round as if he meant to go out again. The night was quite dark now. Céleste stood up and shouted at him:

“Come here quick, dad, we’ve got a good stew to celebrate the assemblée.”

At that he obeyed her mechanically and sat down, looking slowly round at the man, the woman and the child. Then he began to eat placidly, as he did every day.

Victor Lecoq seemed to be quite at home, he kept talking to Céleste, and took the child on his knees and fondled it. And Céleste gave him another helping of food, filled his glass, seemed quite happy to be talking to him. Old Amable regarded both of them with a fixed stare, unable to hear anything they said. When he had finished his supper (and he had hardly eaten anything, so upset did he feel), he got to his feet, and instead of climbing to his attic as he did every night, he opened the door and went out into the fields.

When he had gone, Céleste, a little uneasy, asked:

“Now what’s to be done?”

Victor answered indifferently:

“Don’t worry. He’ll come back when he’s tired.”

Then she tidied the room, washed the plates and dried the table while the man calmly undressed. Then he slipped into the dark cave-like bedroom where she had slept with Césaire.

The yard door opened. Old Amable reappeared. As soon as he got inside, he looked all round the room, like an old dog with his nose on the scent. He was looking for Victor Lecoq. As he did not see him, he took the candle from the table and brought it near the dark nook where his son had died. In its dark recesses he saw the man stretched out under the clothes and already asleep. At that the deaf man turned softly away, put the candle down, and once more went out into the yard.

Céleste had finished her work; she had put her son to bed, made everything tidy, and sat waiting until her father-in-law came in, to lie down in her turn beside Victor.

She remained sitting in the chair, her hands idle in her lap, staring at nothing.

He did not come in, and she murmured, worried and annoyed:

“He’ll make us burn a penn’orth of candle, the old good-for-nothing.”

Victor answered from the depths of his bed:

“He’s been out more than an hour. Better go and see if he’s fallen asleep on the seat in front of the door.”

“I’ll go,” she said, and, standing up, she took the light and went out, shading her eyes with her hand to help her to see in the darkness.

She saw nothing in front of the door, nothing on the seat, nothing on the dungheap where the old man sometimes used to sit on warm days.

But just as she was turning back into the house, she happened to lift her eyes to the big apple tree that made a shade over the farm gate, and saw suddenly two feet, a man’s two feet, dangling at the level of her face.

She screamed in terror: “Victor! Victor! Victor!”

He came running out in his shirt. She could not speak, and with her head turned aside so that she should not see it, she pointed to the tree with outstretched arm.

He did not understand, and he took the candle to see what was wrong. In the green thickness lit up by the light he was holding below it, he saw old Amable hung by the neck at a considerable height, in a halter from the stable.

A ladder was leaning against the trunk of the apple tree.

Victor ran for a hatchet, climbed the tree and cut the cord. But the old man was already cold; his tongue protruded horribly in a frightful grimace.

A Family

I was on my way to revisit my friend Simon Radevin, whom I had not seen for fifteen years.

Once he had been my best friend, the true guest of my mind, that friend with whom a man spends long evenings, quiet or gay, to whom he tells the intimate secrets of his heart, for whom he finds, talking at ease, rare, delicate, ingenious and exquisite thoughts, born of a mutual sympathy that inspires and releases the mind.

For many years we had rarely been separated. We had lived, travelled, thought, and dreamed together, had the same love for the same things, admired the same books, appreciated the same works of art, quivered to the touch of the same sensations, and laughed so often at the same things that we understood one another completely, merely by the interchange of a glance.

Then, all of a sudden, he had married a provincial girl who had come to Paris to find a husband. How had this flaxen-haired, thin little creature, with silly hands, clear, empty eyes and a fresh, stupid voice, a girl like all the other hundred thousand marriageable dolls⁠—how had she managed to pick up this youth of delicate perceptions and fine intelligence? It is one of those things one cannot understand. Doubtless he had hoped for happiness, the simple, sweet, lasting happiness to be found in the arms of a good, loving, faithful wife, and he had fancied that he saw all this in the transparent eyes of this pale-haired chit of a girl.

He had not reflected that an active man, quivering with eager life, tires of anything as soon as he has acquired the stupid reality of it, unless he becomes so besotted as to lose his proper understanding of things.

What sort of man was I going to find him? Still lively, witty, laughing, and enthusiastic, or sunk in the slumber born of life in the provinces? A man may well change in fifteen years.

The train stopped at a little station, and, as I was getting out of the carriage, a stout, a very stout man, with red cheeks and a tubby stomach, rushed towards me with open arms, shouting: “Georges.” I embraced him, but I had not recognised him.

“By Gad, you’re no thinner,” I murmured in bewilderment.

“What can you expect?” he laughed in reply. “Happy days! Good living! Good nights! Eating and sleeping, that’s my life!”

I stared at him, searching his large face for the features I had loved. The eyes alone had not changed, but I could no longer see the old light in them, and said to myself: “If it is true that the light in the eyes is the reflection of the brain, then the brain in that head is not the one I once knew so well.”

But his eyes were shining, full of joy and friendship; only they no longer held the intelligent clarity that is as true an index to the worth of a mind as are words.

“Look, these are my two eldest,” said Simon, suddenly.

A girl of fourteen, almost a woman, and a boy of thirteen, in school clothes, advanced with a timid, awkward air.

“Yours?” I murmured.

“Yes,” he replied with a laugh. “How many have you?”

“Five. Three more at home.”

He had answered with a proud, pleased, almost triumphant air; I was smitten with a feeling of profound pity, touched to vague contempt, for the innocent, frank vanity of this reproductive animal who spent his nights generating children between a sleep and a sleep, in his provincial house, like a rabbit in a hutch.

I got into a carriage that he drove himself, and we set off through the town, a sad, sleepy, dull little place, with nothing moving on the streets but a few dogs and two or three servants. From time to time a shopkeeper at his door would touch his hat, and Simon would return his greeting and tell me the man’s name, doubtless to prove to me that he knew all the inhabitants by name. It occurred to me that he might be thinking of becoming a deputy, the favourite dream of all men buried in small towns.

We were soon through the place, and the carriage turned into a rather pretentious garden, masquerading as a park, and stopped in front of a turreted house that did its best to be taken for a country mansion.

“This is my poor little place,” said Simon, fishing for a compliment.

“It’s delightful,” I replied.

On the front steps appeared a lady, attired for the visitor, with hair dressed for the visitor, and phrases prepared for the visitor. She was no longer the fair-haired, colourless girl whom I had seen at the church fifteen years before, but a stout, overdressed lady, one of those ladies with no age, no character, no elegance, no wit, nor any of the attributes that constitute a woman. She was merely a mother, a fat, commonplace mother, the breeder, the human broodmare, the procreating machine made of flesh, with no interests but her children and her cookery-book.

She bade me welcome, and I stepped into the hall, where three children stood arrayed in order according to their height, looking as though they were placed there for a review, like firemen before a mayor.

“Ah ha! so these are the others?” said I.

Simon, radiant, gave me their names: “Jean, Sophie and Gontran.”

The drawing room door was open. I went in, and saw in an armchair something that trembled, a man, an old paralysed man.

Madame Radevin came forward:

“That is my grandfather. He is eighty-seven.”

She shouted into the palsied old man’s ear:

“A friend of Simon’s, Grandpapa.”

Her ancestor made an effort to say good evening to me, and mumbled: “Wa, wa, wa,” waving his hand. “You are too kind, sir,” I replied, and sank into a chair.

Simon had just come in.

“Ah ha!” he laughed; “so you’ve made the acquaintance of Grandpa? He’s a treasure; he keeps the children constantly amused. He’s so greedy that every meal is nearly the death of him; you can’t imagine what he would eat if he were left to himself. But you’ll see for yourself. He leers at sweet things as if they were girls. You’ve never come across anything so funny; you’ll see presently.”

Then I was shown my room, to wash and dress, for it was nearly dinnertime. On the stairs I heard a great noise of footsteps, and turned round. All the children were following me in a procession, behind their father, doubtless to do me honour.

My room looked out over the plain, an endless, bare expanse, a sea of grass, wheat and oats, without a single clump of trees or the suspicion of a hill. It was a sad and striking image of life as it must be lived in that house.

A bell rang. It was for dinner. I went down.

Mme. Radevin took my arm with a ceremonial air and we went into the dining room. A servant was pushing up the old man’s armchair, and as soon as it was in position by his plate, he threw a greedy and inquisitive look towards the pudding, with difficulty turning his shaking head from one dish to the other.

Simon rubbed his hands. “You will be amused,” he said, and all the children, realising that I was to be regaled with the spectacle of greedy Grandpa, burst into a chorus of laughter, while their mother merely smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

Radevin made a megaphone with his hands and bawled at the old man:

“Sweet rice mould this evening.”

The ancient’s wrinkled face lit up and he trembled more violently from head to foot, to indicate that he had understood and was pleased.

Dinner was begun.

“Look,” murmured Simon. Grandpapa did not like the soup, and refused to eat it. He was forced to do so, for the sake of his health; the servant forcibly thrust a spoonful into his mouth, while he blew violently to keep from swallowing the broth; it spurted out like a fountain, all over the table and over those sitting nearest him.

The children shrieked with laughter, while their father, highly pleased, repeated: “Funny old man, isn’t he?”

Throughout the meal he monopolised the attention of the whole family. His eyes devoured the dishes on the table, and his frantically trembling hands tried to snatch them and pull them to him. Sometimes they were placed almost in his reach, so that the company might see his desperate efforts, his palsied clutches, the heartbroken appeal manifested in his whole body, his eyes, his mouth, his sensitive nose. His mouth watered so that he dribbled all over his napkin, uttering inarticulate whines. And the entire family was delighted by this odious and grotesque mode of torture.

Then a very small piece would be put on his plate, and he would eat it with feverish voracity, so that he might the sooner have something else.

When the sweet rice came, he almost had a fit. He moaned with longing.

“You have eaten too much; you shan’t have any,” shouted Gontran, and they made as though he were not to be given any.

Then he began to cry. And as he wept he trembled still more violently, while all the children roared with laughter.

At last his portion, a very small one, was given him; and, as he ate the first mouthful of the sweet, he made a comically gluttonous noise in his throat, and a movement of the neck like that of a duck swallowing too large a morsel of food.

When he had finished, he began to stamp his feet for more.

Seized with pity at the heartrending spectacle of the tortures inflicted on this ridiculous Tantalus, I implored my friend on his behalf:

“Do give him a little more rice.”

“Oh! no, my dear chap,” replied Simon; “if he ate too much at his age, it might be bad for him.”

I was silent, musing on this speech. O Morality, O Logic, O Wisdom! At his age! So, they deprived him of the only pleasure he could still enjoy, out of care for his health! His health! What was that inert and palsied wreck to do with his health if he had it? Were they husbanding his days? His days? How many: ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred? And why? For his own sake? Or was it in order to preserve to the family the spectacle of his impotent greed?

He had nothing to do in this life, nothing. Only one desire, one pleasure, remained to him; why not give him full measure of that last pleasure, give it him until he died of it?

At last, after a long game of cards, I went up to my room to bed; I was sad, very, very sad.

I stood by my window. There was no sound outside save the faint, soft, sweet chirp of a bird in some nearby tree. It must have been the bird’s soft, nightlong lullaby for his mate, sleeping upon the eggs.

And I thought of the five children of my poor friend, who must now be snoring beside his ugly wife.

The Devil

The peasant faced the doctor across the dying woman’s bed. The old woman, calm, resigned, quite conscious, looked at the two men and listened to their words. She was going to die; she made no complaint, her time was come; she was ninety-two years old.

The July sun poured through the window and the open door, its blazing warmth falling over the floor of brown earth, its surface worn into gentle undulating hollows by the sabots of four generations of countrymen. Smells of the fields came borne on the scorching breeze, smells of grass, corn, and leaves burned up in the blaze of the noon. The grasshoppers kept up their ceaseless crying, filling the countryside with a thin crackling noise like the noise of the wooden crickets children buy at fairs.

The doctor, raising his voice, said:

“Honoré, you can’t leave your mother all alone in this state. She will die any moment.”

And the peasant repeated dejectedly:

“But I’ve got to get my corn in: it’s been lying too long. The weather’s just right, I tell you. What d’you say, Mother?”

And the dying old woman, still in the grip of the Norman avarice, said “Yes” with eyes and face, and gave her son leave to get his corn in and to leave her to die alone.

But the doctor grew angry and, stamping his foot, said:

“You’re nothing but a brute, do you hear! And I’ll not let you do it, do you hear that! If you must get your wheat today of all days, go and fetch the Rapet woman, I say, and make her look after your mother. I insist on it, do you hear! And if you don’t obey me, I’ll leave you to die like a dog when it’s your turn to be ill, do you hear?”

The peasant, a tall lean man, slow of gesture, tortured by indecision, between fear of the doctor and the ferocious passion of the miser, hesitated, calculated, and stammered:

“What’ll she want, the Rapet woman, for looking after her?”

“How do I know?” the doctor cried. “It depends on the length of time you want her. Arrange it with her, dammit. But I want her to be here in an hour’s time, do you hear?”

The man made up his mind:

“I’m going, I’m going; don’t get angry, doctor.”

The doctor took himself off, calling:

“Now you know, mind what you’re about, for I don’t play the fool when I’m angry.”

As soon as he was alone, the peasant turned to his mother, and said resignedly:

“I’m going t’get the Rapet woman, seeing t’man says so. Don’t worry yourself while I’m gone.”

And he went out too.

The Rapet woman, an old washerwoman, looked after the dead and dying of the village and the district. Then, as soon as she had seen her clients into the sheet which they can never throw off, she went home and took up the iron with which she smoothed the garments of the living. Wrinkled like a last year’s apple, malicious, jealous, greedy with a greed passing belief, bent in two as if her loins had been broken by the ceaseless movement of the iron she pushed over the clothes, one might have thought she had a monstrous cynical love for agony. She never talked of anything but the persons she had seen die and of all the manner of deaths at which she had been present, and she talked about them with a wealth of minute and identical details as a hunter talks about his bags.

When Honoré Bontemps entered her house he found her getting blue water ready for the village women’s handkerchiefs.

“Well, good evening,” he said. “You all right, Mrs. Rapet?”

She turned her head to look at him:

“Same as always, same as always. What about you?”

“Oh, I’m getting on fine, I am, but Mother’s not.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes, my mother.”

“What’s the matter with your mother?”

“She’s going to turn her toes up, she is.”

The old woman drew her hands out of the water: bluish transparent drops rolled to the tips of her fingers and fell back into the bucket.

She asked with a sudden sympathy:

“She’s as bad as that, is she?”

“T’doctor says she’ll not last through the afternoon.”

“She must be bad, then.”

Honoré hesitated. He considered various ways of approaching the proposal he meditated. But, finding none of them satisfactory, he broke out suddenly:

“How much d’you want to look after her for me until she’s gone? You know I’m not rich. I can’t even pay for so much as a servant. That’s what has brought her to this pass, my poor mother, overmuch worrying, overmuch hard work. She worked like ten men, in spite of her ninety-two years. They don’t make ’em like that now.”

La Rapet replied gravely: “I’ve two charges, forty sous a day and three francs a night to the rich; twenty sous a day and forty a night to t’others. You can give me twenty and forty.”

But the peasant reflected. He knew his mother too well. He knew that she was tenacious of life, vigorous, and sprung of hard stock. She might last eight days in spite of the doctor’s opinion.

He spoke resolutely:

“No. I’d rather you had a sum down, to do the whole job. I’ve got to take a risk one way and the other. The doctor says she’ll go any minute. If that happens, you win⁠—and then I lose. But if she holds out till tomorrow or for longer, I win and you lose.”

The nurse looked at the man in surprise. She had never yet treated death as a gamble. She hesitated, tempted by the thought of making a lucky bargain. Then she suspected that she was being tricked.

“I’ll not say one way or the other until I’ve seen your mother,” she replied.

“Come on, then, and look at her.”

She dried her hands and went with him at once.

On the way not a word passed between them. She walked with a hurried step, while he stretched his great limbs as if he had a brook to cross at each stride.

The cows, lying down in the fields, overpowered by the heat, raised their heads heavily, lowing faintly as the couple passed them, as if asking for fresh grass.

As he drew near the house, Honoré murmured:

“Perhaps it’s all over after all.” His unconscious wish spoke in the tones of his voice.

But the old woman was far from dead. She was lying on her back, in her wretched bed, her hands outside the purple oriental counterpane, her terrible emaciated hands, knotted like the talons of some strange beast, or like a crab’s claws, doubled up by rheumatism, fatigue and the daily toil which had been her lot. Mother Rapet went over to the bed and considered the dying woman. She felt her pulse, touched her chest and listened to her breathing, asked her a question to hear her voice in reply, then, having looked at her again for a long time, she went out, followed by Honoré. His conviction was strengthened. The old woman would not last out the night. He asked: “Well?”

The nurse answered: “H’m. She’ll last two days, p’raps three. You can make it six francs the lump sum.”

He cried out at that:

“Six francs! Six francs! Have you lost your wits! I swear she won’t live more than five or six hours⁠—no longer.”

They argued for a while, both very obstinate.

At last he had to give way, the nurse was at the point of going, time was passing, and his corn couldn’t be got in without him.

“All right,” he said. “Six francs, all told⁠—including the washing of the corpse.”

“Done! Six francs.”

He went out with great strides towards his corn, which lay on the ground under the fierce sun that ripens the harvest.

The nurse went back into the house.

She had brought her sewing, for when she was tending the dying or dead, she worked unceasingly⁠—sometimes for herself, sometimes for the family who employed her in this double task for an extra fee.

All at once, she asked:

“I suppose you’ve seen the priest at any rate, Mother Bontemps?”

The old woman shook her head; and Mother Rapet, who was pious, got up with alacrity.

“Good God! Is it possible? I’ll go and fetch M. le Curé.”

With that she ran to the presbytery in such haste that the urchins in the marketplace, seeing her hurrying thus, thought some accident had happened.

The priest came out immediately in his surplice, preceded by a choir boy who rang a little bell to herald the passing of God through the calm, brilliant countryside. Men who were working a long way off took off their great hats and stood without moving, until the white robe disappeared behind a farm; the women who were gathering the sheaves stood upright and made the sign of the cross; some black hens, terrified, flew along to ditches with a wild, jerky gait to a hole well known to them, where they disappeared hurriedly; a colt tethered in a field took fright at the sight of the surplice and started running round and round at the end of his string, throwing his hind legs high in the air. The choir boy in his red skirt walked quickly and the priest with his head drooping slightly on one side and crowned with its square biretta, followed him, murmuring his prayers as he went; last of all came old Rapet, all bowed down, nearly doubled in two as though she were trying to walk and prostrate herself at the same time, her fingers clasped as in church.

Honoré, from the distance, saw them pass. He asked: “Where’st a going, Father?”

His labourer, quicker-witted than he, replied: “He’s taking the Sacrament to your mother, bless you.” The peasant was not at all astonished.

“That’s all to the good, anyhow.”

And he went on with his work again. Mother Bontemps made her confession, received absolution and was given communion; and the priest went home again, leaving the two women alone in the stifling bedroom.

Then old Rapet began to think about the dying woman, and wondered whether she was going to last much longer.

The day was drawing in, fresher air came in in sharp gusts: a picture of Epinal, held by two pins, fluttered against the wall; the little curtains at the window, once white but yellowed now and spotted with fly blow, looked ready to take flight, to tear themselves free, as if they, like the soul of the old woman, would like to depart.

She lay there, motionless, her eyes open, seeming to await with utter indifference the death which was so close, yet so slow to come. Her breathing, sharp now, whistled a little in the contracted throat. She would die very soon and the world would hold one woman less whom nobody would regret.

As night fell Honoré came indoors. Going up to the bed, he saw that his mother was still living and he asked: “How are you?” just as he used to do when she was sick. Then he sent old Rapet away, telling her:

“Tomorrow at five o’clock without fail.”

She repeated:

“Tomorrow, five o’clock.”

She came, in fact, at daybreak. Honoré was drinking the soup he had made for himself before going out into the fields.

The nurse asked him:

“Well, has your mother gone yet?”

He replied with a malicious smile:

“She’s getting on a bit better.”

Then he went out.

Old Rapet suddenly felt uneasy. She went up to the sufferer, who was lying in the same state, breathing painfully and imperceptibly, her eyes open and her clenched hands on the counterpane.

The nurse saw that this state might continue two days, four days or even eight days and fear gripped her miserly heart; then she was shaken by a furious anger against this trickster who had cheated her and against this old woman who would not die.

She set to work, however, and waited, her eyes fixed on the wrinkled face of Mother Bontemps.

Honoré came back to breakfast; he seemed happy, almost cheerful; then he went out again. He was certainly getting in his corn under excellent conditions.

Old Rapet was getting irritated: each minute that went by now was stolen time, stolen money. She wanted, wanted madly, to take this mulish old woman, this obstinate and pigheaded old woman by the neck and with a little shaking make an end of the little short breath that was stealing her time and her money.

Then she thought of the danger of doing that, and other ideas came into her head. She came up close to the bed and asked:

“Have you seen the devil yet?”

Mother Bontemps murmured:

“No.”

Then the nurse began to talk, telling her tales that would terrify the feeble soul of this dying woman.

Some minutes before one breathed one’s last, the devil appeared, she said, to all sick people. He had a broom in one hand, and a saucepan on his head. He made strange noises.

If you saw him, it was all over, you had only a few seconds to live. She enumerated all those in her charge to whom the devil had appeared that year: Joséphine Loisel, Eulalie Ratier, Sophie Padagnan, Séraphine Grospied.

Mother Bontemps, disturbed at last, shook in her bed, waved her hands, trying to turn her head so that she could see to the farthest corner of the room.

Suddenly old Rapet disappeared from the foot of the bed. She took a sheet from the cupboard and wrapped herself in it; then she set a stewpan on her head so that the three short curved legs stood on end like three horns. She grabbed a broom in her right hand and in her left a metal water-jug which she threw sharply in the air so that it fell down with a great noise.

It struck the floor with a terrible clatter. Then, clambering on to a chair, the nurse lifted the curtain that hung at the end of the bed and there appeared, waving her arms, uttering hoarse shrieks from the bottom of the iron pot that hid her face, and with her broom threatening the old dying peasant woman, like the devil in a Punch and Judy show.

Mad with fear, her eyes wild, the dying woman made a superhuman effort to get up and get away from it. She managed to get her shoulders and chest out of bed, then she fell back with a great sigh. It was all over.

Old Rapet placidly put everything back: the broom in the corner of the cupboard, the sheet inside, the stewpan on the stove, the water-jug on the shelf and the chair against the wall. Then with a professional gesture she closed the wide-staring eyes of the dead, placed on the bed a dish, poured into it a little of the water from the holy-water vessel, dipped in it the sprig of yew nailed on to the cupboard door and, kneeling down, began to recite fervently the prayers for the dead which she knew by heart, and which were part of her trade.

When Honoré returned, at nightfall, he found her there praying, and his first thought was that she had cheated him of twenty sous, for she had only spent three days and one night, which only came to five francs instead of the six which he owed her.

A Divorce Case

Mme. Chassel’s counsel began his speech: My Lord, gentlemen of the jury, the case which I am called on to defend before you would more suitably be treated by medicine than by justice and constitutes much more a pathological case than an ordinary case of law. At first sight the facts seem simple.

A young man, of considerable wealth, of a high-minded and ardent nature, a generous heart, falls in love with a supremely beautiful young girl, more than beautiful, adorable, as gracious, as charming, as good, and as tender as she is pretty, and he marries her.

For some time, he conducts himself towards her as a solicitous and affectionate husband; then he neglects her, bullies her, seems to feel for her an insurmountable aversion, an unconquerable dislike. One day even, he strikes her, not only without any right, but even without any excuse.

I will not labour to represent to you, gentlemen, his strange behaviour, incomprehensible to everyone. I will not paint for you the unspeakable life of these two creatures and the frightful grief of this young woman.

To convince you I have only to read to you some fragments from a diary written each day by this poor man, this poor madman. For it is with a madman that we have to do, gentlemen, and the case is all the more curious, all the more interesting in that it recalls in many particulars the mania of the unfortunate prince who died recently, the fantastic king who reigned platonically in Bavaria. I will recall that case: the madness of a romantic.

You will remember all the tales told of that strange prince. He had built in the heart of the most magnificent scenery in his kingdom veritable fairy castles. Even the reality of the beauty of things and places were not enough for him, he imagined and created in these fantastic dwellings artificial horizons produced by means of theatrical devices, changes of scene, painted forests, fabled demesnes where the leaves of the trees were of precious stones. He had Alps and glaciers, steppes, sandy deserts scorched by the sun; and at night, under the rays of the real moon, lakes illuminated below by fantastic electric lights. On these lakes swans floated and small boats glided, while an orchestra composed of the finest musicians in the world, intoxicated the royal madman’s senses with romance.

This man was chaste, this man was a virgin. He had never loved anything save a dream, his dream, his divine dream.

One evening he carried off in his boat a young woman, a great artiste, and begged her to sing. She sang, herself intoxicated by the beauty of the courtyards, by the warm, sweet air, by the fragrance of flowers and by the ecstasy of this young handsome prince.

She sang, as women sing whom love has touched, then, distraught, trembling wildly, she fell on the king’s heart and sought his lips.

But he threw her in the lake, and taking up his oars, gained the shore, without troubling whether she were rescued or not.

Gentlemen of the jury, we have before us a case in all respects similar. I will do no more than read to you now some passages from the diary which we discovered in the drawer of a bureau.

How dull and ugly everything is, always the same, always hideous! How I dream of a lovelier, nobler, more changeful world. How wretched would be the imagination of their God, if their God existed or if he had not created other things as well.

Always woods, little woods, rivers that are like all other rivers, plains like all other plains, all things are alike and monotonous. And man!⁠ ⁠… Man?⁠ ⁠… What a horrible animal, wicked, proud and disgusting!

One should love, love madly, without seeing the object of one’s love. For to see is to understand, and to understand is to despise. One should love, intoxicating oneself with the beloved as one gets drunk on wine, in such a way as to lose consciousness of what one is drinking. And drink, drink, drink, without drawing breath, day and night.

I have found her, I think. She has in all her person something ideal that does not seem of this world and lends wings to my dream. Oh, how far otherwise than in reality do people seem to me in my dreams. She is fair, very fair, with hair full of inexpressible delicate shades. Her eyes are blue. Blue eyes are the only ones that ravish my soul. The whole being of a woman, the woman who exists in the depths of my heart, shows itself to me in the eye, only in the eye.

Oh, a mystery! What mystery? The eye?⁠ ⁠… The whole universe lies therein, because it sees it, because it reflects it. It contains the universe, things and beings, forests and oceans, men and beasts, sunsets, stars, the arts, all, all, it sees, plucks, and bears everything away; and it holds still more, it holds the soul, it holds the thinking man, the man who loves, who laughs, who suffers. Oh, look into the blue eyes of women; they are deep as the sea, changing as the sky, so sweet, so sweet, sweet as gentle winds, sweet as music, sweet as kisses, transparent, so clear that one sees behind, one sees the soul, the blue soul that colours them, that animates them, that makes them divine.

Yes, the soul shares the colours of the glance. Only the blue soul bears the dream in its depths, it has stolen its azure from sea and space.

The eye! Think of it! The eye! It drinks in the visible creation to feed thought. It drinks in the world, colour, movement, books, pictures, all beauty, all ugliness, and creates ideas therefrom. And when it looks at me, it fills me with the sense of a happiness not of this world. It foreshadows to us the things of which we are forever ignorant; it makes us realise that the realities of our thoughts are despicable and filthy things.

I love her too for her manner of walking.

Méme quand l’oiseau marche, on sent qu’il a des ailes,26

the poet said.

When she passes, one feels that she is not of the same race as ordinary women, she is of a finer, more divine race.

I marry her tomorrow.⁠ ⁠… I am afraid.⁠ ⁠… I am afraid of so many things.

Two beasts, two dogs, two wolves, two foxes, prowl through the woods and meet. The one is male, the other female. They mate. They mate because of an animal instinct which drives them to continue the race, their race, the race whose form, skin, stature, movements and habits they have.

All beasts do as much, without knowing why!

We too.⁠ ⁠…

All that I have done in marrying her is to obey this senseless urge that drives us towards the female.

She is my wife. So long as I desired her ideally, she was for me the irrealisable dream on the verge of being realised.

From the very second when I held her in my arms, she was no more than the being of whom nature has made use to bring to naught all my hopes.

Has she brought them to naught? No. Yet I am tired of her, tired of being unable to touch her, to brush her with my hand or my lips, without my heart swelling with an inexpressible disgust, not perhaps disgust with her, but a loftier, wider, more contemptuous disgust, disgust with the embrace of love, so vile as it has become for all refined beings, a shameful act which must be hidden, which is only spoken of in low tones, with blushes.⁠ ⁠…

I can no longer endure the sight of my wife approaching me, calling to me with smile and glance and arms. I can no longer endure it. I imagined once that her kiss would transport me to the heavens. One day she was suffering from a passing fever, and I caught in her breath the faint subtle almost imperceptible odour of human decay. I was utterly overcome!

Oh! flesh, seductive living dung, a mass of decay that walks, thinks, speaks, looks and smiles, full of fermenting food, rosy, pretty, tempting, full of deceit as is the soul.⁠ ⁠…

Why is it only flowers that feel so good, great pale or brilliant flowers, whose tones and hues make my heart flutter and trouble my eyes? They are so beautiful, so delicate in structure, so varied and so sensual, half open like mouths, more tempting than mouths, and hollow, with lips curled back, toothed, fleshy, powdered with a seed of life that engenders in each one of them a different perfume.

They reproduce themselves, they, only they, in all the world, without defilement of their inviolable race, giving off round themselves the divine incense of their love, the fragrant sweat of their caresses, the essence of their incomparable bodies, of their bodies that are adorned with all grace, all elegance, all form, and possess the fascination of all colour forms; and the intoxicating charm of all scents⁠ ⁠…

Selected fragments, six months later.

… I love flowers, not as flowers but as delicate and material beings; I pass my days and my nights in the greenhouses where I hide them like women in harems.

Who, except myself, knows the sweetness, the maddening charm, the shuddering, sensual, ideal, superhuman ecstasy of these tender caresses; and these kisses on rosy flesh, on red flesh, on white flesh, the miraculously varied, delicate, rare, fine, unctuous flesh of these wonderful flowers?

I have greenhouses where no one enters but myself and the man who looks after them.

I enter them as if I were stepping into a place of secret delight. In the high glass gallery, I pass first between two throngs of corollas, shut, half open or spread wide, which slope from ground to roof. It is the first kiss they send me.

Those particular ones, those flowers, those that adorn this anteroom of my mysterious passions, are my servants and not my favourites.

They greet me, as I pass, with their changing brilliance and their fresh exhalations. They are darlings, coquettes, rising tier upon tier in eight rows on my right hand and eight rows on my left, and so crowded that they have the aspect of two gardens coming down to my feet.

My heart palpitates, my eye lights up at sight of them, the blood runs madly through my veins, my soul leaps within me, and my hands tremble already with the desire to touch them. I pass on. There are three closed doors at the end of this high gallery. I can make my choice. I have three harems.

But I turn oftenest to the orchids, my drowsy favourites. Their room is low, stifling. The damp, warm air makes my skin moist, my throat contract for want of air, and my fingers tremble. They come, these stranger women, from swampy, burning, unhealthy countries. They are as fascinating as sirens, deadly as poison, marvellously grotesque, soul-destroying, terrifying. See how like they are to butterflies with their enormous wings, their tiny paws, their eyes. For they have eyes. They look at me, they see me, prodigious, unbelievable beings, fairies, daughters of the holy earth, the impalpable air, and warm light, the mother of the world. Yes, they have wings and eyes and delicate shades that no painter can catch, all the charms, all the graces, all the shapes that one can dream of. Their sides are cleft, perfumed and transparent, open for love and more tempting than any woman’s flesh. The unimaginable contours of their tiny bodies thrust the soul, drunk, into a paradise of visions and ideal delights. They quiver on their stems as if about to take flight. Will they fly, will they come to me? No, it is my heart which hovers above them like some mystic male creature, tortured with love.

No insect’s wing can brush them. We are alone, they and I, in the translucent prison that I have built them. I watch them and I contemplate them, I admire them, I adore them, one after the other.

How sleek they are, how mysterious, rosy, with a rosiness that moistens the lips with desire. How I love them! The rim of their calyx is curled, paler than their throats, and the corolla hides itself there, mysterious seductive mouth, sweet to the tongue and displaying and concealing the delicate, wonderful and sacred organs of these divine little creatures which smell pleasant and do not talk.

Sometimes I am seized with a passion for one of them which endures as long as its existence, a few days, a few nights. Then it is taken from the common gallery and enclosed in a darling little glass retreat where a thread of water murmurs through a bed of tropic grass come from the islands of the great Pacific. And there I stay, at her side, ardent, feverish and tormented, knowing her death so close and watching her fade, while I possess her, while I breathe, drink, pluck her short life with one inexpressible caress.

When he had finished reading these fragments, counsel continued:

Decency, gentlemen of the jury, restrains me from continuing to lay before you the curious confessions of this shamefully idealistic madman. The few passages that I have just laid before you will be sufficient, I think, for you to understand this case of mental disease, less rare than one thinks in our age of hysterical dementia and corrupted decadence.

I feel therefore that my client is entitled more than any other woman to demand her divorce in the exceptional position in which she has been placed by the strange mental derangement of her husband.

The Inn

Looking just like all the other wooden hostelries set down amid the High Alps, at the feet of the glaciers, in the bare and rocky corridors that cleave the white peaks of the mountains, the Schwarenback Inn serves as a refuge for travellers over the Gemmi pass.

For six months in the year it remains open, inhabited by Jean Hauser’s family; then, as soon as the snow lies in deep drifts, filling the valley and making the descent to Loëche impassable, the women, the father and the three sons depart, leaving the old guide, Gaspard Hari, to look after the house, with the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, and Sam, the big St. Bernard dog.

The two men and the beast remain till the spring in this prison of snow, with nothing before their eyes save the immense white slope of the Balmhorn; they are surrounded by pale, gleaming peaks, shut in, blockaded, and buried under the snow that rises round them, enveloping, embracing and crushing the little house, heaping itself high upon the roof, reaching to the windows, and walling up the door.

It was the day on which the Hauser family was to return to Loëche, for winter was approaching and the descent becoming perilous.

Three mules went in front, loaded with clothes and luggage, and led by the three sons. Then the mother, Jeanne Hauser, and her daughter Louise mounted a fourth mule, and set off in their turn.

The father followed them, accompanied by the two guides, who were to escort the family as far as the summit of the actual descent.

First they rounded the little lake, frozen now, at the bottom of the great cavity in the rocks that lay in front of the inn, then they pursued their way along the valley, featureless as a sheet and dominated by snow peaks on every side.

The sun poured down on this dazzling white frozen desert, illuminating it with a cold, blinding glare. No life stirred in this sea of hills; there was no movement in the limitless solitude; no sound disturbed the profound silence.

Little by little the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, a tall, long-legged Swiss, drew away from Hauser and old Gaspard Hari, and overtook the mule that bore the two women.

The younger of them watched him coming, and seemed to call him with her sad eyes. She was a small, fair peasant girl, whose milky cheeks and pale hair seemed bleached by her long sojourn amid the ice.

When he had caught up with the animal that carried her, he put his hand on its buttock and slowed his pace. Old Madame Hauser began to speak to him, enumerating with infinite detail all her recommendations for the winter. It was the first time that he was staying up, whereas old Hari had already spent fourteen winters under the snow at the Schwarenbach Inn.

Ulrich Kunsi listened, but did not appear to understand; he never took his eyes off the young girl. From time to time he would answer: “Yes, Madame Hauser,” but his thoughts seemed far away, and his calm face remained impassive.

They reached the Lake of Daube, whose long frozen surface stretched, perfectly motionless, at the bottom of the valley. To their right, the Daubenhorn thrust up its black rocks, rising to a peak, near the enormous moraines of the Loemmern glacier, dominated by the Wildstrubel.

As they drew near the Gemmi pass, where the descent to Loëche begins, they came suddenly upon the vast rim of the Alps of the Valais, from which they were separated by the deep broad valley of the Rhône.

It was a distant host of white, uneven summits, some sharp, others flattened at the top, and all gleaming in the sun: the Mischabel with its two horns, the powerful bulk of the Wissehorn, the weighty Brunnegghorn, the high and formidable pyramid of the murderous Matterhorn, and that monstrous jade, the Dent-Blanche.

Then, right below them, in an enormous cavity at the bottom of a fearful abyss, they caught sight of Loëche, whose houses were like grains of sand thrown into that huge crevice, ended and enclosed by the Gemmi, and opening out, below, on to the Rhône.

The mule halted at the edge of the path that runs, twisting, turning endlessly, and coiling back in fantastic and marvellous fashion, down the mountains on the right, as far as to the almost invisible little village at their feet. The women jumped down into the snow.

The two old men had caught them up.

“We must be off,” said Hauser. “Goodbye, and keep your spirits up, friends; see you next year.”

“Next year,” repeated old Hari.

They embraced. Then Madame Hauser, in her turn offered her cheeks, and the girl did the same. When it was Ulrich Kunsi’s turn, he murmured into Louise’s ear: “Don’t forget the men up above.” “No, I won’t,” she replied, so softly that he guessed it without hearing.

“Well, goodbye,” repeated Jean Hauser, “and good health to you.”

And, passing in front of the women, he began the descent.

Soon all three vanished at the first bend in the road.

And the two men turned back towards the Schwarenbach Inn.

They walked slowly, side by side, without speaking. It was over; they would be shut up alone together, for four or five months.

Then Gaspard Hari began to talk about his life there the previous winter. He had stayed up with Michel Canol, who was now too old to try it again, for an accident may easily happen during the long period of solitude. They had not been bored; it was all a matter of playing one’s proper part from the very first day; and one always succeeded in inventing various distractions, games, and other ways of passing the time.

Ulrich Kunsi listened with lowered eyes, following in thought the friends descending to the village down the winding ways of the Gemmi pass.

Soon they caught sight of the inn, scarcely visible, so small was it, a black speck at the foot of the monstrous wave of snow.

When they opened the door, Sam, the big curly-haired dog, began to gambol round them.

“Come, my son,” said old Gaspard, “we have no woman here now; we must get dinner ready, and you will peel the potatoes.”

They both sat down on wooden stools and began to dip their bread in the soup.

The next morning seemed a long one to Ulrich Kunsi. Old Hari smoked and spat into the fireplace, while the young man stared through the window at the dazzling mountain opposite the house.

He went out in the afternoon and followed the route of the day before, searching on the ground for the shoe prints of the mule that had borne the two women. When he was at the summit of the pass, he lay down on his face at the edge of the abyss and gazed at Loëche.

The village in its well of rock was not yet drowned in snow, although the snow had drawn very near it, to be halted abruptly by the pine-forests that protected the outlying houses. From above, the houses looked like paving-stones in a meadow.

Louise Hauser was there, now, in one of those grey buildings. In which? Ulrich Kunsi was too far away to tell them apart. How he longed to go down, while it was still possible!

But the sun had disappeared behind the great crest of Wildstrubel, and the young man returned. Old Hari was smoking. At sight of his companion, he proposed a game of cards, and they sat down face to face on either side of the table.

They played for a long time, a simple game called brisque, and after supper they went to bed.

The days that followed were like the first, bright and cold, with no fresh snow. Old Gaspard spent the afternoons watching the eagles and rare birds that ventured on the frozen heights, while Ulrich returned regularly to the summit of the Gemmi to gaze at the village. Then they would play cards, dice or dominoes, winning or losing trifling objects to give an interest to their game.

One morning Hari, the first to get up, called his companion. A moving, deep, light cloud of white foam was falling on them and round them, silently, burying them little by little under a thick, frothy coverlet that deadened all sound. It lasted four days and four nights. They had to free the door and the windows, hollow out a passage and cut steps in order to walk out over the surface of this powdered ice that twelve hours of frost had made harder than the granite of the moraines.

Thenceforward they lived the life of prisoners, hardly venturing outside their dwelling-place. They had divided up the housework, and each regularly performed his share. Ulrich Kunsi made himself responsible for the washing and cleaning⁠—in fact, for all the labour of keeping the house neat. It was he also who split the wood, while Gaspard Hari cooked and tended the fire. Their tasks, regular and monotonous, were interrupted by long games of cards or dice. They never quarrelled, both being of calm and peaceful temper. They never even indulged in moments of impatience, ill humour or sharp words, for they had determined to possess their souls in patience throughout their winter on the heights.

Sometimes old Gaspard would take his gun and go off after chamois; occasionally he killed one. Then there would be rejoicings at the Schwarenbach Inn, and a great feast of fresh meat.

One morning he went out for this purpose. The outside thermometer had dropped to zero. The sun had not yet risen, and so the hunter hoped to catch the animals on the lower slopes of the Wildstrubel.

Ulrich, left by himself, stayed in bed till ten. He was by nature a heavy sleeper, but had never dared to abandon himself to his weakness in the presence of the old guide, always energetic and early out of bed.

He lunched slowly with Sam, who also spent his days and nights sleeping in front of the fire; then he felt sad, frightened by the solitude: he was suffering from his need of their daily game of cards, as a man does suffer under the prick of a powerful habit.

So he went out to meet his companion, who was due back at four o’clock.

The snow had levelled the whole deep valley, filling the crevasses, and quilting the rocks; it formed, between the immense peaks, nothing but an immense white bowl, smooth, blinding, and frozen.

It was three weeks since Ulrich had last gone to the edge of the abyss and gazed down at the village. He was anxious to pay a visit thither before climbing the slopes that led to Wildstrubel. Loëche was now also covered by the snow, and it was scarcely possible to distinguish the houses buried under its pale cloak.

He turned to the right, and reached the glacier of Loemmern. He walked with his long, mountaineer’s stride, striking his iron-tipped stick upon the snow, itself as hard as stone. With his keen eyes he sought for the little moving black speck, far away on that enormous tablecloth.

When he was at the edge of the glacier, he stopped, wondering if the old man really had gone that way. Then he set off again, skirting the moraines, at a swifter, more uneasy pace.

The light was fading; the snows were turning pink; a dry icy wind ran in hurried gusts over their crystal surface. Ulrich uttered a shrill cry, quivering and prolonged. His voice fled abroad in the silence that covered the sleeping mountains; it ran far away over the deep, motionless billows of icy foam, like the cry of a bird over the waves of the sea; then it died out, and there was no reply.

He resumed his march. The sun had sunk below the far horizon, behind the peaks still reddened by the glow in the sky; but the hollows of the valley were growing grey. And suddenly the young man was afraid. He felt as though the silence, the cold, the solitude, the winter death of the mountains were flowing into his own body, would stop and freeze his blood, stiffen his limbs, and turn him into a still, frozen creature. He began to run, fleeing towards his dwelling-place. The old man, he thought, would have returned during his absence. He must have taken another route; he would be sitting before the fire, with a dead chamois at his feet.

Soon he came in sight of the inn. No smoke was coming from it. Ulrich ran faster, and opened the door. Sam dashed up to greet him, but Gaspard Hari had not returned.

Frightened, Kunzi turned about, as though expecting to find his companion hiding in a corner. Then he re-lit the fire and made the soup, still hoping to see the old man come in.

From time to time he would go out to see whether he were not in sight. Darkness had fallen, the wan darkness of the mountains, a pale, livid darkness, illumined on the sky’s rim by a slender yellow crescent that hovered on the verge of sinking behind the peaks.

Then the young man would return, sit down, warm his feet and hands, and turn over in his mind various possible accidents.

Gaspard might have broken his leg, have fallen into a hole or made a false step and sprained his ankle. And he must be lying in the snow, overcome and stiffened by the cold, in agony of mind, screaming, lost, shouting for help, perhaps, shouting with all the strength of his voice through the silence of the night.

But where? The mountains were so vast, so cruel, and their lower slopes so perilous, especially at that time of year, that it needed ten or twenty guides, walking for a week in every direction, to find a man lost in their immensity.

But Ulrich Kunzi resolved to go out with Sam if Gaspard Hari did not return between midnight and one o’clock in the morning.

He made his arrangements.

He put provisions for two days into a bag, took his steel climbing-irons, wound a long, thin, strong cord about his waist, and made sure that his iron-tipped stick and the ax he used for cutting steps in the ice were in order. Then he waited. The fire blazed in the hearth; the big dog snored in the light of the flames; in its sonorous wooden case the clock sounded its regular tick, like the beating of a heart.

He waited, his ear attuned for distant sounds, shivering when the light breeze swept along the roof and the walls.

Midnight struck; he shuddered. Then, feeling shaky and frightened, he set water on the fire, so as to have a drink of good hot coffee before he set out.

When the clock struck one, he rose, woke Sam, opened the door, and set off in the direction of the Wildstrubel.

For five hours he ascended, scaling the rocks by means of his climbing-irons, cutting steps in the ice, always pressing forward, and sometimes using the rope in order to haul up the dog from the bottom of a wall of rock too steep for him. It was about six o’clock when he reached one of the peaks to which old Gaspard often went in search of chamois.

He waited for daybreak.

The sky paled overhead, and suddenly a fantastic glow, lit none knows whence, came at one stride over the immense sea of pale crests that extended all round him for a hundred leagues. This vague light seemed to pour from the snow and spread itself abroad. Little by little the loftiest summits in the distance were all tinged with a pink soft as flesh, and the red sun rose behind the massive giants of the Bernese Alps.

Ulrich Kunzi set off again. He walked like a hunter, stooping, searching for traces, and bidding the dog:

“Rout him out, boy; rout him out.”

He was now going back down the mountain, examining the crevasses, and sometimes calling, sending forth a prolonged shout that died very swiftly in the mute immensities of space. Then he would set his ear to the ground to listen; he fancied he could discern a voice, would begin to run, shouting again, would hear nothing more and would sit down, exhausted and despairing. At about midday he had lunch and gave food to Sam, who was as weary as himself. Then he recommenced his search.

When evening came on he was still walking, having scoured over fifty kilometres of the mountains. Finding himself too far from the house to return to it, and too tired to drag himself any further, he dug a hole in the snow, and huddled inside it, with the dog, under a blanket he had brought. There they lay, one against the other, the man and the beast, warming each other’s bodies, but, even so, frozen to the marrow.

Ulrich scarcely slept at all; his mind was haunted by visions, and his limbs racked by shivering fits.

Day was breaking when he rose. His legs were as stiff as iron bars, his spirit so weak that he was ready to scream with anguish, and his heart so wildly pulsing that he grew dizzy with excitement whenever he thought he heard a noise.

Suddenly he thought that he too was doomed to die of cold out in the solitude, and his terror of such a death whipped up his energy and revived his strength.

He was descending now towards the inn, stumbling and recovering himself, followed in the distance by Sam, who was limping along on three legs.

They did not reach Schwarenbach until about four in the afternoon. The house was empty. The young man lit the fire, ate some food, and went to sleep, too stupefied with exhaustion to think of anything.

He slept for a long, a very long time, in a slumber like death. But suddenly a voice, a cry, a name: “Ulrich,” broke through to the depths of his unconsciousness and made him start up. Had he been dreaming? Was this one of the fantastic calls that pierce the dreams of an uneasy mind? No, he heard that quivering cry still, piercing his ears and still present in his body’s being, in the tips of his muscular fingers. Assuredly someone had shouted, someone had called “Ulrich!” Someone was there, near the house. He could not doubt it. So he opened the door and yelled: “Is that you, Gaspard?” with all the strength in his throat.

Nothing answered; no sound, no murmur, no groan, nothing. It was dark. The snow was ghostly.

The wind had risen, the icy wind that cracks stones and leaves nothing alive upon these deserted heights. It swept by in sharp gusts, more parching and more deadly than the fiery wind of the desert. Again Ulrich shouted: “Gaspard!⁠—Gaspard!⁠—Gaspard!”

Then he waited. All was silent in the mountains! Then a wave of terror shook him to the bone. With one bound he got back inside the inn, shut the door, and thrust home the bolts; then he fell shivering into a chair, certain that he had just been called by his companion at the moment when he rendered up his soul.

Of that he was sure, as a man is sure of being alive or of eating bread. Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and three nights, somewhere out there, in a hole, in one of those deep untrodden ravines whose whiteness is more sinister than the darkness of a subterranean dungeon. He had been dying for two days and three nights, and a moment ago had succumbed, thinking of his companion. And his soul, scarce freed, had flitted to the inn where Ulrich lay sleeping, and had called him by the mysterious and awful power that the souls of the dead have to haunt the living. It had cried aloud, that voiceless soul, in the afflicted soul of the sleeper; had cried its last farewell, or its reproach, or its curse upon the man who had given up the search too soon.

And Ulrich felt it there, quite close, behind the wall, behind the door he had just shut. It was wandering, like a night bird brushing against a lighted window with its feathers; the frenzied youth was on the point of screaming with horror. He wanted to run away and dared not go out, for there the phantom would remain, day and night, round the inn, so long as the old guide’s body remained undiscovered and unburied in the hallowed ground of a cemetery.

Dawn came, and Kunzi recovered some measure of confidence at the sun’s shining return. He prepared his meal, and made broth for the dog; then sat motionless in a chair, in agony of soul, thinking of the old man lying under the snow.

Then, as soon as night covered the mountains again, new terrors began to assail him. He was walking now about the dark kitchen, badly lit by the flame of a single candle. He walked from one end of the room to the other, in long strides, listening, listening for that terrifying scream of the other night to come again across the melancholy silence outside. The poor wretch felt lonelier than any man had ever been! He was alone in that immense desert of snow, alone, two thousand metres above the inhabited earth, above human dwellings, above the roaring, palpitating stir of life, alone in the frozen sky! He was tortured by a mad desire to escape, anywhither, anyhow, to get down to Loëche by flinging himself into the abyss; but he dared not even open the door, certain that the other man, the dead man, would bar his way, that he too might not be left alone in the heights.

Towards midnight, weary of walking, overcome with anguish and terror, he drowsed at last in his chair, for he dreaded his bed as a man dreads a haunted place.

And suddenly the piercing cry of the previous night tore at his ears, so loud and shrill that Ulrich stretched out his arms to repel the ghost, and, chair and all, fell over on to his back.

Sam, awakened by the noise, began to bark as frightened dogs will bark, and prowled round the room, seeking the spot whence came the danger. Coming to the door, he sniffed beneath it, panting, sniffling, and whining, with hair on end and tail erect.

Kunzi had risen in terror and, holding his chair by one of its legs, cried out: “Don’t come in, don’t come in, or I’ll kill you.” And the dog, excited by his threats, barked furiously at the invisible foe against whom his master was shouting defiance.

Little by little, Sam calmed down and went back and lay down on the hearth, but he remained uneasy, with head erect and shining eyes, and snarled through his teeth.

Ulrich too recovered his composure, but, feeling that his fear was sapping his strength, he went to get a bottle of brandy from the cupboard, and drank several glasses of it, one after another. His thoughts became vague; his courage was strengthened; a burning fever glided into his veins.

He ate practically nothing next day, limiting his diet to alcohol. And for several days on end he lived in a state of bestial drunkenness. As soon as thoughts of Gaspard Hari returned to him, he started drinking again, and continued till he fell to the ground, completely intoxicated. There he would lie, face downwards, dead drunk, his limbs twisted, snoring, with his forehead to the floor. But no sooner had he digested the maddening, burning liquor than the same cry: “Ulrich!” woke him like a bullet piercing his skull; and he rose, still tottering, stretching out his hands to keep from falling, and calling Sam to his aid. And the dog, who seemed to be going mad like his master, would rush at the door, scratching it with his claws and gnawing it with his long white teeth, while the young man, with upturned face and neck straining backwards, swallowed the brandy in great gulps, like cold water drunk after a race; and presently the spirit dulled his thoughts again, and his memory, and his frantic terror.

In three weeks he got through his entire stock of alcohol. But this perpetual drunkenness merely dulled his terror; and it rose with renewed fury as soon as he could no longer assuage it. Then his obsession, made worse by a month of drunkenness, and constantly growing in that utter solitude, pierced his brain like a gimlet. He had come now to striding up and down his dwelling like a caged animal, setting his ear to the door to listen if the thing were there and defying it through the wall.

And each time he dozed, overcome by fatigue, he heard the voice that made him leap to his feet.

At last, one night, he rushed to the door, like a coward pushed to the last extremity, and opened it, to see the thing that called him, and force it to be silent.

A gust of cold air struck him full in the face, freezing him to the bone, and he shut the door and thrust home the bolts, without noticing that Sam had rushed out. Then, shuddering, he piled wood on the fire and sat down to warm himself; but suddenly he started. Something was scratching the wall, and weeping.

“Go away,” he cried frantically. He was answered by a long-drawn melancholy wail.

At that, all that was left of his reason succumbed to abject terror. “Go away,” he said again, turning round and round to find a corner to hide in. But the thing outside, still weeping, went all along the side of the house, rubbing against the wall. Ulrich dashed to the oaken sideboard, full of plates and provisions, and, lifting it with superhuman strength, dragged it to the door, to secure himself with a barricade. Then, heaping up all the remaining furniture, bedsteads, mattresses, and chairs, he blocked up the window, as though he were preparing for a siege.

But the thing outside was now uttering great mournful moans, and the young man began to answer in like moans.

Whole days and nights went by, and neither ceased to howl. One ran constantly about the house, scratching at the wall with its nails with such violence that it seemed eager to pull it down; the other, inside, followed its every movement, all huddled up, his ear glued to the stone wall, answering its cries with horrible screams.

One evening Ulrich heard no more noises, and sat down, so worn out with fatigue that he fell asleep immediately.

He woke without memory, without thought, as though his head had been emptied during his sunken slumber. He was hungry; he ate.

The winter was over. The Gemmi pass became practicable again, and the Hauser family set off on their way back to the inn.

As soon as they had reached the summit of the ascent, the women clambered on to their mule and began to talk of the two men whom they would shortly see again.

They were surprised that neither of them had descended a few days earlier, as soon as the road was open, to bring news of their long wintering.

At last they caught sight of the inn, still covered and quilted with snow. The door and the window were closed; a little smoke issued from the roof, a fact that reassured old Hauser. But, drawing nearer, he perceived on the threshold the skeleton of an animal picked clean by the eagles, a large skeleton lying on its side.

They all examined it. “It must be Sam,” said Mme. Hauser, and she shouted: “Hey, Gaspard.”

A cry answered from within, a shrill cry, that sounded like the cry of some animal. “Hey, Gaspard,” repeated old Hauser. Another cry like the first was heard.

Then the three men, the father and the two sons, tried to open the door. It stood fast.

They took from the empty cowshed a long beam to use as a battering-ram, and swung it with all their strength. The wood rang and yielded, the planks flew to pieces; then a great crash shook the house and they saw a man standing inside behind the fallen sideboard, with hair falling to the shoulders, a beard on his chest, gleaming eyes, and rags of cloth upon his body.

They could not recognise him, but Louise Hauser exclaimed: “It’s Ulrich, Mother!” And her mother saw that it was indeed Ulrich, although his hair was white.

He let them come up to him; he let them touch him; but he made no answer to their questions, and had to be taken to Loëche, where the doctors decided that he was mad.

And no one ever knew what had become of his companion.

Louise Hauser nearly died that summer of a decline attributed to the mountain cold.

Are We to Teach Latin?

This question of Latin in our schools, with which we have been bored for some time, reminds me of a story, a story of my youth.

I was finishing my school life with the proprietor of one of those boarding-schools in a large town in the Provinces⁠—the Institution Robineau, celebrated throughout the province for the high standard of the Latin which was taught there.

For ten years the Institution Robineau had beaten in the scholarship examinations the Imperial School of the town and all the colleges of the subprefecture, and its constant success was due, people said, to an usher, a simple usher, M. Piquedent, or rather Daddy Piquedent.

He was one of those grey men, whose age it was impossible to guess, but whose history was plain to read. He had probably taken a place as usher in some school at the age of twenty so that he might have leisure to study for the licentiate in letters, and afterwards for the degree of Doctor of Literature, and had found himself so entangled in this ill-fated life that he had remained an usher forever. But his love for Latin had not left him, and tormented him like a morbid passion. He continued to read poets, prose-writers, historians, to interpret them, to penetrate their meaning, to comment on them with a perseverance which bordered on madness.

One day the idea struck him to make all the pupils of his class answer him only in Latin, and he kept them at it until they were capable of keeping up an entire conversation with him, just as if they were speaking their mother tongue. He listened to them like a conductor at a rehearsal of an orchestra, every now and then striking his desk with his ruler:

“Lefrère, Lefrère, you are making a solecism. Don’t you remember the rule?”

“Plantel, the turn of your phrase is French, not in the least Latin. Try to understand the genius of the language. Listen to me!”

As a consequence, the pupils of the Institution Robineau carried off at the end of the year all the prizes for Latin composition, translation and oratory.

Next year, the proprietor, a little man as clever as a monkey and nearly as grotesque in his grimaces, printed on his programs and advertisements and printed on the board of the Institution:

“Speciality of Latin studies. Five first prizes obtained in the five classes of the Lycée. Two prizes with special mention in the General Examination of all schools and colleges of France.”

During ten years the Institution Robineau triumphed in this way. So my father, attracted by this success, put me as a day-boarder with this Robineau, whom we called Robinetto or Robinettino, and made me take private lessons from Daddy Piquedent at the rate of five francs per hour, of which he had two and the proprietor three. I was eighteen then and in the highest form.

These private lessons took place in a little room looking out over the street, and so it happened that Daddy Piquedent, instead of talking Latin to me, as he did in the class, told me all his troubles in French. Having neither relations nor friends, the poor chap became very fond of me and poured out all his misery on my bosom.

Never in the last ten or fifteen years had he been alone with anyone.

“I am like an oak in the desert,” said he. “Sicut quercus in solitudine.”

The other ushers disgusted him; he knew no one in the town, since he had no free time in which to make acquaintances. “Not even the nights, my friend; and that is the hardest for me. My only dream would be to have a room, furnished with my books and with little things of my own which no one else had the right to touch. And I have nothing of my own, nothing but my clothes, nothing, not even my mattress and my pillow. I have not even four walls where I can shut myself up except when I come to give a lesson in this room. Can you understand that? A man who passes all his life without ever having the right, without even having the time, to shut himself up alone, no matter where, to think, to reflect, to work, to dream! Ah, my friend, a key, the key of a door that I could lock⁠—that would be happiness⁠—the only happiness I want.

“Here, in the daytime the classroom with all those rascals shuffling about, at night the dormitory with the same rascals snoring⁠—and I sleep in public in a bed at the end of two rows of these little imps over whom I have to keep watch. I can never be alone, never! If I go out, the street is crowded, and if I am tired of walking, I can only go into a café full of smokers and billiard-players. I tell you it is a prison!”

I asked him:

“Why have you not tried some other career, M. Piquedent?”

He cried out:

“And which, my young friend, which? I am neither bootmaker nor carpenter, nor hatter, nor baker, nor barber. I know nothing but Latin, and I have no diploma allowing me to sell it dear. If I were a Doctor of Literature, I could sell for a hundred francs what I sell for five, and probably give less value for it, for my degree would be enough to justify my interpretation.”

Sometimes he used to say to me:

“I have no rest in life except the hours I pass with you. Don’t be afraid, you will lose nothing. I will make up for it by making you answer twice as often as the others in the classroom.”

One day I was bold enough to offer him a cigarette. He looked at me at first almost stupefied, then at the door:

“Suppose someone came in, my boy?”

“Well, we will smoke at the window,” said I to him.

We went to lean on the windowsill above the street, hiding the little cylinders of tobacco in the hollows of our hands.

Opposite us was a laundry⁠—four women dressed in white cotton running the heavy hot iron up and down over the linen before them, raising a thin vapour.

Suddenly another, a fifth, carrying in her arms a large basket that bent her double, came out, to carry home to the customers their shirts, handkerchiefs and sheets. She stopped at the door as if she were already tired, then she raised her eyes, smiled on seeing us smoking, threw us with her free hand the knowing kiss of a careless workgirl, and went away with a slow step, dragging her feet.

She was a girl of twenty, little, rather thin, pale, quite pretty, a knowing look, laughing eyes under light hair badly arranged.

Daddy Piquedent, moved, murmured:

“What a life for a woman! Only fit for a horse.”

And he grew sentimental over the wretchedness of the people. He had the overexcited heart of the sentimental democrat, and he spoke of the fatigues of the working-classes with phrases borrowed from Rousseau and tears in his voice.

Next day, as we were leaning out of the window, the same girl saw us and called out: “Hullo, boys,” in a funny little voice, offering us a catch with her hands.

I threw her a cigarette, which she began to smoke at once. And the four other ironers rushed to the door, holding out their hands to get one too.

Day by day, friendly gestures passed between the workers of the pavement and the idlers of the boarding-school.

Daddy Piquedent was comic to watch. He was shaking with fright that he would be seen, for he might have lost his place, and he used to make timid and ridiculous gestures, as if he were the lover in a play, to which the women answered with a volley of kisses.

A wicked idea was germinating in my head. One day, as I came into our room, I said under my breath to the old usher:

“You would hardly believe me, M. Piquedent, I have met the little laundress! You know the one I mean, the one with the basket, and I have spoken to her!”

“What did she say to you?”

“She said⁠—good heavens⁠—she told me⁠ ⁠… that she liked the look of you. In fact, I believe⁠ ⁠… I believe⁠ ⁠… she is a little bit in love with you.⁠ ⁠…”

I saw him turn pale; he replied:

“She is laughing at me, no doubt. Things like that do not happen at my age.”

I said in a serious tone:

“Why not? You are very presentable!”

I felt he was taken in by my scheme, and so I said no more.

But every day I pretended that I had met the girl and spoken to her about him; so successful was I that he ended by believing me and by sending her ardent and convinced kisses.

Then it happened one morning that I really did meet her on my way to school. I stepped up to her on the spot as if I had known her for ten years.

“Good day, Mademoiselle. How are you?”

“Very well, thanks, sir!”

“Would you like a cigarette?”

“Oh! not in the street.”

“You can smoke it at home.”

“Then I should like one.”

“I say, Mademoiselle, you don’t know⁠—”

“What don’t I know?”

“The old man, my old teacher⁠ ⁠…”

“Daddy Piquedent?”

“Yes, Daddy Piquedent. So you know his name?”

“I should say I did. Well?”

“Well, then, he is in love with you.”

She began to laugh wildly, and cried:

“What a lark!”

“Not at all, it’s no lark. He talks about you all the lesson hour. I bet he’d marry you!”

She stopped laughing. The thought of marriage sobers all girls. Then she repeated, still incredulous:

“What a lark!”

“I swear it’s true.”

She picked up the basket lying at her feet.

“Very well, we shall see,” said she.

And she went away.

No sooner had I entered the school than I took Daddy Piquedent on one side:

“You must write to her, she is out of her wits about you.”

And he wrote a long letter, sweetly tender, full of phrases and periphrases, of metaphors and comparisons, of philosophy and scholastic gallantry, a true masterpiece of burlesque grace, which I undertook to deliver to the young person.

She read it gravely, with emotion, and then she murmured:

“How well he writes! You can see he has had an education! Is it true that he would marry me?”

I answered boldly:

“I should say so! He is off his head about it!”

“Then he must invite me to dinner on Sunday at the Isle of Flowers.”

I promised that she should get an invitation.

Daddy Piquedent was very much moved by all that I told him about her. I added:

“She loves you, M. Piquedent; and I believe her to be a respectable girl. You must not seduce her and leave her in misery!”

He answered with decision:

“I myself am a respectable man, my friend.”

I had not, I own, any plan. I was planning a hoax, a schoolboy hoax, nothing more. I had guessed the simplicity of the old usher, his innocence and his weakness. I was amusing myself without a thought of the consequences. I was eighteen, and I had had the reputation in the school of a sly dog for a long time.

So it was agreed that Daddy Piquedent and I should take a fly to the boathouse at the Cow’s Tail, where we would find Angela, and that I should row them up in my boat, for at that time I had a boat. I was to take them then to the Isle of Flowers, where we would all three have dinner. I had insisted on being there, to enjoy my success, and the old fellow accepted my plan, proving beyond doubt that he had lost his head, by running the risk of dismissal.

When we got to the quay, where my boat had been moored since the morning, I saw in the grass, or rather above the high herbage of the brink, an enormous red umbrella like a gigantic toadstool. Under the umbrella was the little laundress in her Sunday best. I was surprised, she was really very nice, though a little on the pale side, and graceful, even though she had rather a suburban air.

Daddy Piquedent took off his hat with a bow. She held out her hand, and they looked at each other without saying a word. Then they got into the boat and I took the oars.

They were sitting side by side in the stern.

The old fellow spoke first:

“What pleasant weather for a jaunt on the river!”

“Oh, yes,” she murmured.

She let her hand drag in the stream, skimming the water with her fingers, that raised a thin translucent sheet like a blade of glass, making a tiny noise, a pleasant lapping along the sides of the boat.

When we were in the restaurant, she found her voice again, and ordered the dinner: whitebait, a chicken, and salad; afterwards she took us for a walk on the island, which she knew thoroughly.

She was lighthearted now, playful, and even a little inclined to mockery.

Until dessert, nothing was said about love. I had provided some champagne, and Daddy Piquedent had taken too much. A little excited herself, she called him: M. Piquenez.

Without any preparation, he said:

“Mademoiselle, M. Raoul has told you my feelings.”

She became as serious as a judge.

“Yes, sir!”

“Do you feel any response to them?”

“People don’t answer such questions!”

He heaved with emotion and went on:

“But will a day come when I could please you?”

She smiled:

“You great stupid! You are very nice.”

“But, Mademoiselle, do you think that later we could⁠ ⁠…”

She hesitated a second, then, with a trembling voice, said: “It is marriage you mean when you say that, isn’t it? Otherwise nothing doing, you know?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle!”

“Very well, all right, M. Piquenez!”

And thus it happened that these two chuckle-heads resolved to get married to each other, by the machinations of a careless boy. But I did not believe it serious, nor perhaps did they. A thought occurred to her.

“You know, I have nothing, not a penny.”

He stammered, for he was as drunk as Silenus:

“But I have saved five thousand francs.”

She cried out in triumph:

“Then we could set up together?”

He became uneasy:

“Set up what?”

“How should I know? We’ll see. You can do a lot of things with five thousand francs. You don’t want me to come and live in your boarding-school, do you?”

He had not looked so far ahead, and stammered perplexedly:

“Set up what? It’s not so easy! I don’t know anything but Latin!”

She reflected in her turn, passing in review all the professions which she had dreamed of.

“Couldn’t you be a doctor?”

“No, I have no diploma!”

“Nor a chemist?”

“Not that either!”

She uttered a cry of joy. She had found the solution.

“Then we will buy a grocer’s shop. Oh! what luck! We will buy a grocery. Not a big one, of course: you can’t go very far on a thousand francs.”

The idea revolted him.

“No, I can’t be a grocer. I am⁠ ⁠… I am⁠ ⁠… I am too well known. All I know⁠ ⁠… all I know⁠ ⁠… is Latin⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠…”

But she answered by putting a full glass of champagne between his lips. He drank and was silent.

We got into the boat again. The night was dark, very dark. I could see, however, that they were sitting with their arms round each other’s waists, and that they kissed each other now and then.

It was a frightful castastrophe. The discovery of our escapade led to the dismissal of Daddy Piquedent. My father, justly offended, sent me to finish my course in the Ribaudet boarding-school.

I passed my entrance examination six weeks later. Then I went to Paris to study law at the university, and only came back to my native city two years later.

Turning into the Rue du Serpent, a shop caught my eye. On it appeared: Colonial Products Piquedent, and below, for the benefit of the more ignorant: Grocery.

I cried out:

“Quantum mutatus ab illo!”

He raised his head, left his customer, and rushed at me with his hands outstretched.

“Ah, my young friend, here you are at last! Splendid! Splendid!”

A fine plump woman suddenly jumped from behind the desk and threw herself round my neck. I could hardly recognise her, she had grown so stout.

I asked:

“So you’re doing well?”

Piquedent had returned to his weighing:

“Oh! very well, very well, very well. I made three thousand francs net this year!”

“And the Latin, M. Piquedent?”

“Oh! good heavens, Latin, Latin, Latin! I tell you there’s no nourishment in it for a man.”

The Hole

Inflicting blows and wounds sufficient to cause death. Such was the charge upon which master Léopold Renard, upholsterer, made his appearance at the Assizes.

Present also were the chief witnesses, the woman, Flamèche, widow of the victim, and Louis Ladureau, cabinetmaker, and Jean Durdent, plumber, who had both been called.

Near the criminal sat his wife, dressed in black, a little ugly creature looking like a monkey in woman’s clothes.

And this is how Renard (Léopold) unfolded the drama:

“I tell you, it is an unfortunate accident of which I was all along the chief victim and which I didn’t plan at all. The facts speak for themselves, your Worship. I am a decent man, a workingman: I’ve carried on business as an upholsterer in the same street for sixteen years, known, liked, respected, esteemed by all, as the neighbours have deposed, even the janitress, who isn’t altogether a fool. I like work, I like thrift, I like decent people and decent amusements. That has been my ruin, so much the worse for me: since it was not my fault, I still respect myself.

“Well, every Sunday for five years my wife here and I have been in the habit of spending the day at Poissy. It gets us out into the fresh air, not to speak of pleasing our taste for river fishing⁠—which we love as much as much as⁠—as much as spring onions. It was Mélie who gave me the taste for it, the wretch, and she’s crazier about it than I am, the little beast, so that she’s responsible for all the mischief in this affair, as you’ll see in a minute.

“I’m strong and gentle, I am, without an ounce of wickedness in me. But as for her, oh, Lord, she looks as mild as milk, she’s a little thin thing; and, well, she’s nastier-tempered than a polecat. I don’t say that she hasn’t some good points: she has, and useful ones in trade. But her disposition! Ask the next-floor people, and even the janitress who gave me notice the other day⁠—she can tell you things.

“Every day she kept abusing me for my quiet ways. ‘I wouldn’t stand for this! I wouldn’t stand for that.’ If I listened to her, your Worship, I’d have been in three fights a month.”

Mme. Renard interrupted him: “Go on talking: he laughs longest who laughs last.”

He turned towards her defiantly.

“Oh, well, I can give you away since you’re not up for trial, you’re not.”

Then, turning to the president again:

“I’ll go on, then. So we went to Poissy every Saturday evening to be able to start fishing the next morning at daybreak. It’s a habit of ours that’s become second nature, as they say. Three years ago this summer I discovered a place, such a place! You should see it, shady, eight feet of water at least, maybe ten, a hole, look you, with hollows under the bank, a regular lurking-place for fish, a paradise for the fisher. This here hole, Mr. President, I could consider as mine, since I was its Christopher Columbus. Everyone in the district knew that, no one disputed it. They said: ‘That’s Renard’s place,’ and no one would come there, not even M. Plumeau, and it’s well known, and no offence meant to say it, that he pinches other people’s places.

“So, sure of my rights, I used to go back there as a proprietor. On Saturday, the moment I arrived, I went aboard the Dalila with my old woman. Dalila is my Norwegian boat, a boat I had built for me at Foumaire’s place, what you might call both light and safe. I say, we get aboard Dalila and we set our bait. As for baiting, no one can do it like me⁠—and, well, my pals know it. Do you want to know what bait I use? I can’t tell you. It has nothing to do with this accident, it’s my secret. More than two hundred people have asked me about it. I’ve been offered drinks, fried fish and pickled fish, to make me talk. You should see the carp rise. Yes, people talk to me like a Dutch uncle to get the secret out of me. There’s only my wife knows it⁠ ⁠… and she wouldn’t tell it any more than me! Isn’t that so, Mélie?”

The president interrupted him.

“Come to the point as quickly as possible.”

The accused went on:

“I’m getting to it, I’m getting to it. Well, on Saturday the 8th of July, we left by the 5:25 train, and before dinner we went to set our bait, like we did every Saturday. The weather promised to be fine. I said to Mélie: ‘Thumbs up for tomorrow.’ And she answered: ‘It looks like it.’ We never have any more to say to each other.

“And then we came back and had dinner. I was happy and thirsty. That’s to blame for the whole thing, Mr. President. I said to Mélie: ‘Well, Mélie, it wouldn’t be a bad notion if I had a bottle of nightcap.’ That’s a thin white wine we’ve christened that because if you drink too much of it, it keeps you from sleeping and takes the place of a nightcap. You understand.

“She answered: ‘You can do as you like, but you’ll be ill again; and you won’t be able to get up tomorrow.’ What she said was true, it was sensible, it was prudent, it was farsighted, I grant you that. But all the same, I couldn’t restrain myself; and I drank my bottle. That began the whole trouble.

“Well, I couldn’t sleep. God, it kept me awake until two o’clock! And then, pouf, I fell asleep, but I slept so that I couldn’t have heard the angel blow the last trump on the day of judgment.

“To cut a long story short, my wife woke me at six. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my trousers and jersey as quick as I could; a dash of water on my ugly mug and we jumped into the Dalila. Too late. When I reached my hole, there was someone there. Such a thing had never happened before, Mr. President, never in all the three years. It felt as if I’d had my pocket picked under my nose. I said: ‘Damn and blast it!’ And then my wife began to nag at me. ‘You and your nightcap. Get out, you drunken swine. You great beast, I hope you’re satisfied.’

“I had nothing to say: It was all true.

“All the same, I tied up near the spot, to try and get what fish were left. Maybe the man wouldn’t have any luck and then he’d clear off.

“He was a little skinny fellow, in white ducks, with a big straw hat. He had his wife with him too, a fat woman who was sitting sewing behind him.

“When she saw us installing ourselves near the spot, she muttered:

“ ‘Is this the only place on the river?’

“And my wife, who was furious, answered: ‘Decent folk find out what’s what in a place before pushing themselves into other people’s preserves.’

“As I didn’t want a row, I said to her:

“ ‘Hold your tongue, Mélie, let them be, let them be, we’ll see what happens.’

“Well, we drew Dalila up under the willows, and we stepped ashore and began to fish side by side, Mélie and I, right alongside the two others.

“At this point, Mr. President, I must go into details. We hadn’t been there five minutes before our neighbour’s line was tugged twice, three times, and then, look you, he got a carp, fat as my thigh, not quite so fat maybe, but nearly. My heart jumped; a sweat broke out on me, and Mélie said to me: ‘Look, you gaumless idiot, do you see that?’

“At this moment, M. Bru, the grocer from Poissy, who knows a bit about gudgeon, came past in his sailing-boat and shouted to me: ‘Has someone taken your place, M. Renard?’ ‘Yes, M. Bru,’ I answered. ‘There are some lowbred people in this world who don’t know what’s what.’

“The little cotton-back beside me pretended not to hear, and his wife the same, his great fat wife, a cow of a woman.”

Once more the president interrupted: “Be careful what you say. You are insulting Mme. Flamèche, the widow, here present.”

Renard began excuses. “I beg pardon, my feelings made me forget myself.

“Well, not a quarter of an hour passed before the little cotton-back got another carp⁠—and another right on top of that, and, five minutes later, another.

“I tell you there were tears in my eyes. I could see Mme. Renard was boiling with rage: she went on at me all the time. ‘Look, you miserable fool, can’t you see, he’s robbing you of your fish? Can’t you see? You’ll not get anything, not even a frog, not a single thing, nothing. Oh, my hands itch to get at them, only to think about it.’

“I kept saying: ‘Wait till noon. The poacher will go away for lunch, and I’ll get my place back.’ Because, Mr. President, I lunched on the spot every Sunday. We carried provisions in the Dalila. Ouch! Twelve struck. He had a bird wrapped up in newspaper, the scoundrel, and while he was eating, he got another carp, he did.

“Mélie and I swallowed a few bites, next to nothing, we hadn’t the heart to eat.

“Then I began to read my paper to digest my lunch. I read Gil-Blas every Sunday like that, in the shade on the bank of the river. It is Colombine’s day, as you know, Colombine, who writes the articles in Gil-Blas. I always make Mme. Renard angry by pretending that I know Colombine. It’s not true, I don’t know her, I’ve never seen her, but never mind, she knows how to write; and then she has a very pointed way of putting things, for a woman. She pleases me, she does: there aren’t many can write like her.

“Well, I began to chip my old woman, but she got angry right away and was soon angrier. So I held my tongue.

“It was at this moment that our two witnesses here, M. Ladureau and M. Durdent, arrived from the other side of the river. We know them by sight.

“The little man had begun fishing again. He had so many bites that I fairly shook with it, I did. And his wife was saying: ‘This is a mighty good spot, we’ll always come here, Désiré.’

“I felt a cold shiver down my spine. And Mme. Renard kept on saying: ‘You’re not a man, you’re not a man. You haven’t the spirit of a chicken.’

“ ‘Look here,’ I said suddenly; ‘I’d rather get away from here, I shall do something silly.’

“Then she whispered, as if she was holding a red-hot iron under my nose: ‘You’re not a man. You’re going to run away now, are you, you’re going to surrender the place? Run away, then, you bloody quitter.’

“She’d got me there. However, I didn’t make a false move.

“But the other fellow got a bream, oh, I’ve never seen such a fish. Never!

“And then my wife began to talk aloud, as if she was just thinking. You can see how clever that is. She said: ‘You might say they were stolen fish, since we baited the place ourselves. They ought at least to hand over a little of the money we spent on bait.’

“Then the little cotton-back’s fat wife began to talk too. ‘Are you referring to us, madame?’

“ ‘I’m referring to stealers of fish who profit by the money spent by other people.’

“ ‘Are you calling us stealers of fish?’

“And so they began to explain themselves, and then they came to words. Lord, they’d plenty, the sluts, and rare shrewd ones. They screamed so savagely that our two witnesses, who were over on the other bank, began shouting for fun: ‘Hi, you over there, a little silence. You’ll spoil your men’s chances of fish.’

“The fact is that the little cotton-back and I were as still as two stocks. We sat there, our noses down to the water, as if we didn’t hear them.

“But, God bless us, we could hear all right. ‘You’re no better than a liar.’⁠—‘You’re no better than a trollop.’⁠—‘You’re no better than a drab.’⁠—‘You’re no better than a slut.’ And so on, and so forth. A sailor couldn’t have taught them anything.

“All at once I heard a noise behind me. I turned round. It was the other woman, that fat creature, falling on my wife with her parasol. Bang! bang! Mélie got two whacks. But she was in a rage, was Mélie, and when she’s in a rage, she hits out. She grabs the fat woman by the hair, and then, smack, smack, smack, slaps rained down like bullets.

“I’d have left them to it, I would. Let women deal with women, and men with men. There’s no need to mix your quarrels. But the little cotton-back came on like a devil and tried to jump on my wife. But no, no, that’s too much, my friend. I caught the little fellow one with my fist. And thwack, thwack. One to the nose, one in the wind. He threw up his arms, he threw up his legs and fell on his back right into the river, in the middle of the hole.

“I would certainly have fished him out, Mr. President, if I had had time right then. But to cap all, the fat woman was getting the better of it, and she was handling Mélie pretty roughly. I know I ought not to have rescued her while the fellow was getting his belly full of water. But I didn’t think he would be drowned. I said to myself: ‘That’ll cool him.’

“So I ran to separate the women. I got thumped and scratched and bitten. Lord, what a pair of devils!

“To cut a long story short, it took me five minutes, perhaps ten, to separate those two diehards.

“I turned round. There was nothing there. The water was as smooth as a lake. And the men on the other side were shouting: ‘Fish him out, fish him out.’

“Easily said, but I can’t swim, I can’t, let alone dive!

“At last, after a good quarter of an hour of it, the lockkeeper came, and two gentlemen with boathooks. They found him at the bottom of the hole under eight feet of water, as I said, but there he was, the little cotton-back.

“I swear those are the facts. On my word of honour, I am innocent.”

The witnesses having sworn to the same effect, the accused was acquitted.

The Marquis of Fumerol

Roger de Tourneville was talking, straddling a chair in the middle of a circle of his friends; he held a cigar in his hand and now and then took a pull at it and blew out a little cloud of smoke.

… We were sitting at the table when a letter was brought in. Papa opened it. You all know that papa considers himself regent of France. I call him Don Quixote because he has tilted for twelve years against the Republican windmill without ever being really sure whether he did it in the name of the Bourbons or of the Orléans. Today, he breaks his lance only for the Orléans because they alone are left. In any event, papa considers himself the first gentleman of France, the best-known, the most influential, the head of his party; and as he is senator for life he considers neighbouring kings to occupy less secure thrones than his.

As for mamma, she is papa’s soul, the soul of religion and the monarchy, the right hand of God on earth and the scourge of evil-thinkers.

Well, a letter was brought in while we were at table. Papa opened it, read it, then looked at mamma and said: “Your brother is on the point of death.” Mamma turned pale. My uncle’s name was hardly even spoken in the house. I did not know the whole story. I only knew that common gossip had it that he had led and was leading a wild life. After wasting his fortune in the company of an incredible number of women, he had kept for himself only two mistresses, with whom he lived in a small apartment in the Rue des Martyrs.

An old peer of France and an old cavalry colonel, he believed, they say, neither in God nor the devil. Doubting the existence of a future life, he had misused this one in every conceivable way; and he had become the gnawing canker of mamma’s heart.

“Give me the letter, Paul,” said she.

When she had finished reading it, I asked for it too. This is what it said:

“Monsieur le comte, I think it’s only right to tell you your brother-in-law the Marquis de Fumerol is dying. Perhaps you’ll be wanting to see about the will, and don’t forget it was me warned you.

“Yours respectfully,

“Mélanie.”

Papa murmured: “We must act prudently. In my position, I ought to keep an eye on your brother’s last moments.”

Mamma answered: “I will send for Father Poivron, and ask his advice. Then I, the abbé, and Roger will go to see my brother. You stay here, Paul. You must not be compromised. A woman can and must do these things. But it’s quite another matter for a political man in your position. An enemy would like nothing better than to turn against you your most praiseworthy actions.”

“You are right,” said my father. “Do what you think best, my dear.”

A quarter of an hour later, Father Poivron entered the drawing room and the situation was set out, analysed and discussed in all its phases.

If the Marquis de Fumerol, one of the great names of France, died without the offices of religion, the blow would assuredly be a terrible one for the nobility in general and the Comte de Tourneville in particular. The freethinkers would triumph. The gutter press would rejoice over the victory for six months; my mother’s name would be dragged in the mud and the columns of socialist rags; and my father’s name covered with infamy. Such a thing could not be allowed to happen.

So it was at once agreed to make a crusade, with Father Poivron as leader; he was a neat plump little priest, faintly perfumed, a typical vicar of a big church in a rich and aristocratic quarter.

A landau was made ready and the three of us set out, mamma, the priest and I, to administer the last sacraments to my uncle.

It had been decided that we should see first the writer of the letter, Mme. Mélanie, who was doubtless the janitress or my uncle’s servant.

I got out at a seven-storied house to reconnoitre the position and I walked into a dark passage where I had the greatest difficulty in finding the porter’s obscure den. The man eyed me contemptuously.

“Can I see Mme. Mélanie?” I asked.

“Don’t know her.”

“But I’ve had a letter from her.”

“Very likely, but I don’t know her. Is it some wench or other you’re wanting?”

“No, a servant probably. She wrote to me about a place.”

“A servant?⁠ ⁠… a servant?⁠ ⁠… Maybe it’s her the Marquis has. Go and see, fifth floor on the left.”

As soon as he knew I was not looking for a woman of the town, he had become more friendly and he stepped out into the passage. He was a tall thin fellow with drooping, white whiskers; his gestures were magnificent and he had the air of a verger.

I ran up a long greasy spiral staircase, not daring to touch the rail, and I gave three discreet knocks on the door of the fifth floor left.

It opened immediately; and a slovenly massive woman stood in front of me, barring the entrance with open arms stretched across the doorway.

“What d’you want?” she growled.

“You are Madame Mélanie?”

“Yes.”

“I am the Vicomte de Tourneville.”

“Good. Come in.”

“Well⁠—er⁠ ⁠… mamma is downstairs with a priest.”

“Good. Go and fetch them. But mind the porter.”

I went down and came back again with mamma, followed by the abbé. I thought I heard other footsteps behind us.

As soon as we were in the kitchen, Mélanie drew out chairs and we all four sat down to consider the situation.

“Is he very low?” mama asked.

“Oh, yes, Madame, he is not long for this world.”

“Does he seem disposed to receive the attention of a priest?”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… I don’t think so.”

“Can I see him?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… Madame⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… there’s those young women with him.”

“What young women?”

“Well⁠—er⁠ ⁠… his friends.”

“Ah.”

Mamma had blushed crimson.

Father Poivron lowered his eyes.

I was beginning to find it amusing and I said:

“Suppose I were to go in first. I should see how he received me and I could perhaps prepare his heart.”

My malice was lost on mamma, who answered:

“Yes, do, my child.”

But a door opened somewhere and a voice, a woman’s voice, called:

“Mélanie.”

The clumsy servant jumped up and answered:

“What is it you want, Mamzelle Claire?”

“The omelette, at once.”

“In a minute, Mamzelle.”

And turning to us, she explained this request.

“They ordered me to make a cheese omelette at two o’clock for lunch.”

Whereupon she broke the eggs into a salad bowl and began to beat them vigorously.

I went out on to the staircase and rang the bell by way of an official announcement of my arrival.

Mélanie opened the door, gave me a seat in an anteroom, went to tell my uncle I was there, then returned and asked me to come in.

The abbé hid himself behind the door, ready to make an appearance at the first sign.

The first sight of my uncle certainly surprised me. He was very handsome, very majestic, very elegant, the old rake.

Sitting, almost reclining in a big armchair, his legs wrapped in a quilt, his hands, long pale hands, lying limply on the arms of the chair, he was waiting for death with patriarchal dignity. His white beard fell over his chest, and hair as white as the beard fell down his cheeks to mingle with it.

Standing behind his armchair, as if they were defending him against me, two young women, two plump women, regarded me with the bold stare of their kind. Bare-armed, hair black as the devil down their necks, clad in petticoats and peignoirs, wearing gold-embroidered oriental slippers, they looked, standing round the dying man, like figures of evil in a symbolic painting. Between the armchair and the bed a little table covered with a cloth and set with two plates, two glasses, two forks and two knives, awaited the cheese omelette just ordered from Mélanie.

My uncle spoke in a faint, muffled voice, but clearly:

“How do you do, my boy? You are very late coming to see me. Our acquaintance will not be a long one.”

“It is not my fault, Uncle,” I stammered.

“No,” he answered, “I know. It is more your father’s and your mother’s fault than yours⁠ ⁠… How are they?”

“Fairly well, thanks. When they heard you were ill, they sent me for news of you.”

“Ah, why didn’t they come themselves?”

I glanced at the two young women and said softly: “It’s not their fault they can’t come, Uncle. It would be difficult for my father, and impossible for my mother to come here⁠ ⁠…”

The old man said nothing, but lifted his hand to mine. I took the pale cold hand and held it.

The door opened: Mélanie came in with the omelette and put it on the table. The two women sat down in their places at once and began to eat without even glancing at me.

I said: “Uncle, it would make my mother very happy to come and see you.”

“I too,” he murmured, “I would like⁠ ⁠…” He fell silent. I could think of no suggestions to make him and nothing was heard but the scraping of forks on china and the faint sound of moving jaws.

But the abbé, who was listening behind the door, seeing our embarrassment and thinking the position carried, judged the time ripe for intervention, and revealed himself.

My uncle was so thunderstruck by this apparition that he sat perfectly still for a moment; then he opened his mouth as if he were going to swallow the priest; then, in a loud, deep, angry voice, he shouted:

“What do you want here?”

The abbé, at home in delicate situations, continued to advance, murmuring:

“I come on behalf of your sister, sir: she sends me.⁠ ⁠… She would, sir, be so happy⁠ ⁠…”

But the Marquis was not listening. Lifting his hand, he pointed to the door with a magnificent and tragic gesture, and said savagely, gasping for breath:

“Get out of here⁠ ⁠… get out of here⁠ ⁠… robber of souls.⁠—Get out of here, violator of consciences. Get out of here, picker of dying men’s locks!”

The abbé recoiled, and I with him recoiled to the door, beating a retreat with my ecclesiastical reserves; and avenged, the two little women got to their feet, leaving the omelette half eaten, and stationed themselves on each side of my uncle’s armchair, placing their hands on his arms to calm him and protect him against the criminal enterprises of the Family and the Church.

The abbé and I rejoined mamma in the kitchen. Again Mélanie offered us chairs.

“I was sure you couldn’t pull it off like that,” she said. “We’ll have to think of something else or he’ll slip between our fingers.”

We took counsel again. Mamma had one plan; the abbé favoured another. I contributed a third.

We had been carrying on a low-voiced discussion for half an hour perhaps when a terrific noise of overturned furniture and my uncle’s voice shouting more furiously and dreadfully than ever, brought us all four to our feet.

Through doors and partitions we heard: “Out⁠ ⁠… out⁠ ⁠… mountebanks⁠ ⁠… hedge parsons⁠ ⁠… out, scoundrels⁠ ⁠… out⁠ ⁠… out.”

Mélanie rushed out, and came back immediately to summon me to help her. I ran in. My uncle, galvanised by anger, was almost standing up and shouting at the top of his voice, and two men, one behind the other, were staring at him with the apparent intention of waiting until he died of rage.

By his absurd long-skirted coat, his long square shoes, his general air of an out-of-work schoolmaster, his stiff collar, white tie, sleek hair, and his meek face, face of the sham priest of a bastard religion, I recognised the first at once for a Protestant clergyman.

The second was the house porter, who belonged to the reformed faith, had followed us, seen our defeat, and run to fetch his own priest, hoping for better luck.

My uncle seemed to have gone mad with rage. If the sight of a Catholic priest, the priest of his father’s faith, had irritated the freethinking Marquis de Fumerol, the appearance of his porter’s minister drove him beside himself.

I seized both men by the arms and threw them out so roughly that they cannoned violently into each other twice on their way through the two doors that led to the staircase.

Then I withdrew myself and returned to the kitchen, our headquarters, to take counsel with my mother and the abbé.

But a distracted Mélanie ran in wailing.⁠ ⁠… “He’s dying⁠ ⁠… he’s dying⁠ ⁠… come at once⁠ ⁠… he’s dying.”

My mother rushed out. My uncle had fallen down, and lay stretched out to his full height upon the floor. I was sure he was already dead.

In the crisis, mamma was magnificent. She walked straight up to the two wenches who were kneeling beside the body and trying to raise it. And showing them the door with an authority, a dignity and a majesty that were quite irresistible, she said carefully:

“And now you will go.”

And they went, unprotesting, mute. I should add that I was prepared to expel them as joyfully as I had expelled the pastor and the porter.

Then Father Poivron administered all the proper rites to my uncle and gave him absolution.

Mamma was sobbing, prostrate at her brother’s side.

Suddenly she cried:

“He knows me. He pressed my hand. I am sure he knows me!⁠ ⁠… and is thanking me. Oh, my God, how happy I am!”

Poor mamma! If she had realised or guessed to whom and to what the thanks must have been addressed!

We laid my uncle on his bed. He was dead this time.

“Madame,” said Mélanie, “we have no sheets for laying him out. All the linen belongs to those women.”

As for me, I looked at the omelette they had not finished eating and I wanted to cry and laugh in the same breath. Life presents us with queer moments and queer sensations sometimes!

Well, we gave my uncle a magnificent funeral, with five sermons over the grave. Senator Baron de Croisselles proved, in an admirable speech, that the sometimes erring heart of your true aristocrat always opens at last to a victorious God. All the members of the Royalist and Catholic party followed the hearse with the enthusiasm of conquerors, talking of this good end to a life that had been a little restless.

Vicomte Roger ceased. His listeners laughed. Someone said: “Bah! that’s the true version of all deathbed repentances.”

The Farmer

The Baron René de Treilles said: “Won’t you come to my farm at Marinville for the first of the shooting? It would be a real pleasure. Besides, I shall be alone. The shooting is so difficult of access and the house so primitive that I can only invite intimate friends.”

I accepted the invitation.

We left on a Saturday by the line for Normandy and got out at Alvimare, where Baron René, pointing out a country conveyance drawn by a restive horse that a tall white-haired peasant was holding, said:

“That is our carriage, old chap.”

The peasant held his hand out to the Baron, who, shaking it heartily, asked:

“Well, Master Lebrument, how goes it?”

“Always the same, sir.”

We got into the hen-coop that hung and swung between two enormous wheels, and the young horse, after a violent swerve, started off at a gallop, throwing us up in the air like balls; each bump back on to the wooden bench hurt me terribly.

The peasant kept on repeating in his calm, monotonous voice:

“There, there, gently, gently, Mustard, gently.”

But Mustard paid no attention and gambolled along like a young goat.

Behind us, in the empty part of the coop, our two dogs were sitting up and sniffing the air that smelt of game.

The Baron, with sad eyes, looked out at the spacious, undulating, melancholy Norman country landscape, so like an English park⁠—one of those extensive parks with farmyards, surrounded by two or four rows of trees and full of squat apple trees that hide the house, with an endless vista of hedges, groups and clusters of trees, which artistic gardeners engaged on developing large estates appreciate. René de Treilles said suddenly: “I love this place; it is the home of my fathers.” He was a pure Norman, tall and broad, rather stout, of the old stock of adventurers who set off to found new kingdoms on the shores of every ocean. He was about fifty, maybe ten years younger than the farmer who was driving and who was nothing but skin and bone⁠—one of those men who live for a century.

After two hours’ travelling over stony roads, through the green monotonous plain, the conveyance turned into a yard full of apple trees and stopped in front of an old, dilapidated building, where an antiquated servant waited beside a boy who seized hold of the horse.

We went into the farmhouse. The well-smoked kitchen was high and roomy. The brasses and china shone in the reflection thrown by the fire. A cat was asleep on a chair and a dog asleep under the table. You could smell a mixture of milk, apple and smoke, and that indefinable odour of old peasant houses: the odour of earth, walls, furniture, of spilt soup, washing-days, and former inhabitants, the mingled smell of beasts and human beings, of things and of people, the smell of time in its flight.

I went out again to look at the farmyard, which was very large, full of old, gnarled, squat apple trees, covered with fruit that fell on to the grass round the roots. The Norman perfume of apples in the yard was as strong as that of the blossoming orange-trees in the South.

The enclosure was surrounded by four rows of beeches so tall that at nightfall they seemed to reach the clouds; the evening breeze stirred in the treetops, which tossed about restlessly, droning over a never-ending, sad lament.

When I went back, the Baron was warming his feet and listening to the farmer’s account of the countryside. He told of marriages, births and deaths, of the drop in the price of grain, and then he talked about the cattle: La Veularde (a cow bought at Veules) had had a calf in mid-June. Last year the cider was not good and apricots were dying out in the country.

After this we had a good, leisurely, quiet dinner, simple but abundant, throughout which I kept noticing the very special friendly relations between the Baron and the peasant, which had struck me from the very first.

Out of doors the beeches continued their lament under the lash of the night wind, and our two dogs, shut up in a stable, whined and howled in a foreboding manner. The fire on the open hearth got lower and lower and the servant had gone to bed, and Master Lebrument said:

“I will go to bed, if I may, sir. I am not accustomed to sit up late, that I am not.”

The Baron held out his hand and said: “Certainly, old fellow,” in such a friendly tone that when the man had gone, I said:

“This farmer is very devoted to you?”

“Better than that, old chap; I am deeply attached to him because of the tragedy of his life, quite a simple and a very sad affair. But I will tell you the story.⁠ ⁠…

“You know that my father was a colonel in a cavalry regiment. This boy⁠—a farmer’s son and now an old man⁠—was his orderly. When my father retired he took the soldier, then about forty years old, with him as valet. I was thirty at the time, and we lived in our castle de Varenne, near Caudebec-en-Cour.

“My mother’s chambermaid was one of the prettiest girls imaginable, alert, gay, fair and slight: a real soubrette, of the kind no longer with us. Now they are all no better than they should be. There is a railway to Paris, the city beckons to them. As soon as they grow up, Paris takes all these sluts who in the old days were simple serving-maids. Every man passing by⁠—like the recruiting-sergeant looking for conscripts⁠—entices them away and then seduces them, so that now we have only the fag-end of the female race left as servants: thickset, hideous, common, deformed, too ugly for love.

“As I was saying, this young girl was charming, and I occasionally kissed her in the dark passages. No more than that; oh! nothing more, I swear. She was a good girl, and I respected my mother’s house, which is more than can be said for the scamp of today.

“My father’s valet⁠—the former soldier, the old farmer you have just seen⁠—fell madly in love with the girl, impossibly in love. At first we noticed that he forgot everything, that he did not seem to be able to think about anything, and my father was always saying: ‘Come, come, John, what is the matter? Are you ill?’ To which he replied: ‘No, no, sir. I am all right.’

“He got thinner and thinner, then he began to break the glasses and drop the plates when he was waiting at table. We thought he had some nervous complaint, and sent for the doctor, who thought the spinal cord was affected, so my father, anxious for the welfare of his servant, decided to send him to a hospital, but when told about the plan, he confessed.

“He chose a morning when his master was shaving, to make his confession. He began timidly:

“ ‘Sir.’

“ ‘Well, my boy?’

“ ‘You see, it is not medicine I want.’

“ ‘Well, what is it then?’

“ ‘To be married.’

“My father turned, very surprised, and said:

“ ‘What’s that? What’s that?⁠ ⁠… eh?’

“ ‘To be married.’

“ ‘To be married? Well, then, you must be⁠ ⁠… in love⁠ ⁠… you?’

“ ‘That’s what’s the matter, sir.’

“My father burst into such a fit of uncontrollable laughter that my mother called out:

“ ‘What is the matter with you, Gontran?’

“He replied: ‘Come here, Catherine.’

“When she came he told her with tears in his eyes that his idiot of a valet was simply ill with love.

“My mother’s feelings were roused at once; instead of laughing she asked: ‘Who is it you love so madly, my boy?’

“Without hesitating he replied: ‘Louise, my lady,’ and my mother said very seriously: ‘We must try and arrange things for the best.’

“So Louise was called and when questioned by my mother said that she knew of John’s love, that he had proposed several times, but that she did not want him, and refused to say why.

“Two months passed by, during which Father and Mother were always urging the girl to marry John. As she swore she loved no one else, she could give no good reason for her refusal. At last her resistance was overcome by a substantial gift of money and they settled down here as farmers. They left the castle and I saw nothing of them for three years. After three years I learnt that Louise had died of consumption, but, my father and mother dying soon after, another two years had gone by before I saw John again.

“At last one autumn towards the end of October, I thought I would come down for the shooting season, for the estate had been very carefully looked after and my farmer declared there was plenty of game about.

“I arrived one wet evening and was amazed to find that my father’s former orderly was quite white although he could not be more than forty-five or six.

“I made him join me at dinner, at this very table. It was raining in torrents and the rain could be heard beating on the roof, the walls, the windows, and flooding the courtyard; my dog was howling in the stable just as our dogs are howling this evening.

“Suddenly, after the servant-maid had gone to bed, the peasant murmured:

“ ‘Sir⁠ ⁠…’

“ ‘What is it, Master John?’

“ ‘I have something to tell you.’

“ ‘Tell away, John.’

“ ‘Well, but it worries me.’

“ ‘Go ahead all the same.’

“ ‘You remember Louise, my wife?’

“ ‘Of course I remember her.’

“ ‘Well, she begged me to deliver something to you.’

“ ‘What sort of thing?’

“ ‘A⁠ ⁠… a⁠ ⁠… you might call it a confession.⁠ ⁠…’

“ ‘Ah!⁠ ⁠… what is it?’

“ ‘It is⁠ ⁠… it is⁠ ⁠… I would be very glad not to tell you⁠ ⁠… but I must, I must.⁠ ⁠… Well, then, she did not die of consumption⁠ ⁠… it was⁠ ⁠… it was⁠ ⁠… grief.⁠ ⁠… I will just tell you all about it.

“ ‘As soon as she came here she got thinner and thinner and changed so much that you would not have known her after six months; not have known her, sir. Just like me before I was married to her, only the other way about, just the other way about.

“ ‘I sent for the doctor, who said her liver was affected, that she had a⁠—a torpid liver, so I bought all kinds of drugs, which cost over three hundred francs. But she would not take them, she would not; she said:

“ ‘ “Not worth while, my poor John, it will be all right.”

“ ‘But I knew there was something wrong. Then once I found her crying; I didn’t know what to do, no, I didn’t. I bought her caps, dresses, pomade for the hair, earrings, but it was no use, and I saw that she would not live long.

“ ‘One snowy evening at the end of November⁠—she had been in bed the whole day⁠—she told me to go and fetch the priest, and I went.

“ ‘As soon as he came she said: “John, I am going to confess to you. I owe you that. Listen, John. I have never deceived you, never, neither before nor after our marriage, never. The priest will tell you so, he knows everything. Listen, John, it is because I cannot get over leaving the castle that I am dying, because⁠ ⁠… my feeling for our young master, Baron René, was so great⁠ ⁠… only a too great friendship, you hear, nothing but friendship. It is killing me. When I could not see him I felt that I was dying. If I could have seen him I would have gone on living; only seen him, nothing else. I want you to tell him some day, later on, when I am gone. You will tell him. Swear you will⁠ ⁠… swear⁠ ⁠… John, before the priest. It will be a consolation to feel that some day he will know what I died of.⁠ ⁠… That’s all⁠ ⁠… now swear.⁠ ⁠…”

“ ‘Well, I, I promised, sir. And I have kept my word, the word of an honest man.’

“Then he was silent and sat gazing into my eyes.

“My God! You can have no idea what I felt on hearing this from the poor devil, whose wife’s death I had unknowingly caused, told me so simply in this kitchen on a night of driving rain.

“I stammered: ‘Poor John! Poor John!’

“He muttered: ‘That’s how it is, sir. I couldn’t do anything, nothing at all.⁠ ⁠… It’s all over now.⁠ ⁠…’

“I caught hold of his hands across the table, and wept.

“He asked: ‘Will you come and see her grave?’

“I nodded my head, for I could not speak.

“He got up, lit the lantern, and off we went through the wet; the slanting raindrops that fell as quickly as arrows in their flight were abruptly illuminated by the light of the lantern. He opened a gate and I caught sight of crosses, all in black wood. Then he said: ‘Here it is,’ in front of a marble slab on which he placed the lantern so that I might read the inscription:

To Louise-Hortense Marinet

Wife of Jean-François Lebrument

Agriculturer

She Was a Faithful Wife

May Her Soul Be with God.

“We were both of us on our knees in the mud, with the lantern between us, and as I watched the rain beat on the marble, spring up again in a fine feathery shower, and then escape over the edges of the cold impenetrable cold stone, I thought of the dead woman’s love. That poor broken heart!⁠ ⁠… her broken heart!⁠ ⁠…

“I have come here every year since. And I don’t know why, but I feel as uncomfortable as a culprit when I am with this man, who always seems to be forgiving me for what has happened.”

A Cry of Alarm

I have received the following letter. Thinking that it may be of help to many of my readers, I hasten to make it known to them.

Paris, November 15, 1886.

Sir:

In short stories or newspaper articles you often write about subjects connected with what I shall call “current morality.” I wish to submit some ideas which I think you could use for one of your articles.

I am not married. I am a bachelor, and apparently rather naive, but I think most men are naive in the same way. Being very trustful, it is difficult for me to recognise the natural astuteness of my neighbours. I go straight ahead, open-eyed, and don’t look keenly enough behind either things or motives.

Most of us are in the habit of taking appearance for reality⁠—of accepting people at their own valuation; very few possess the intelligence that enables them to detect the real secret character of others. The consequence of this particular and conventional way of looking at life is that we go through the world like moles; that we never believe what really is, but only what seems to be; that we exclaim: “How incredible!” when the truth is exposed, and that everything displeasing to our idealistic code of morality is classified as an exception without realising that nearly all the cases in point are due to these exceptions. A further consequence is that credulous fools, like myself, are the dupes of everybody⁠—more especially of women who are clever at the game.

I have gone far afield before reaching the particular fact that is of interest to me.

I have a mistress, a married woman. Like many other men, I thought I had found the exception⁠—a poor unhappy woman who was deceiving her husband for the first time. I had been⁠—or rather I thought I had been⁠—courting her for some time; I thought I had won her by my love and consideration, had triumphed by dint of my perseverance. I had indeed taken thousands of precautions, used thousands of tricks, and thousands of exquisite hesitations in order to overcome her resistance.

Well, this is what happened last week:

Her husband being away for some days, she asked if she could come and dine with me alone, asking me to wait upon her so that we could dispense with the servant. She had been obsessed for the last four or five months by the idea that she wanted to get drunk, completely drunk, without any cause for fear⁠—without having to go home, speak to her maid, or walk in the presence of witnesses. She had often been what she called “cheerfully confused” without going any further, and had found it extremely pleasant, therefore she had promised herself to get thoroughly drunk, once, and only once. She told them at home that she was going to spend the night and following day with some friends near Paris, and arrived at my flat at dinnertime. Of course a woman can only get drunk on iced champagne! She drank a large glassful fasting, and had begun to ramble on before the oysters were served. I could reach the plates and dishes by stretching out my arm and I did the waiting with more or less success while listening to her chatter.

She drank glass after glass, obsessed by her one idea. She began to tell me interminable, wishy-washy accounts of her feelings as a girl. She went on and on, her eyes bright but vague, her tongue untied, her feather-headed ideas rolling on interminably like the telegraphic bands of blue paper to which there seems no end, and which run on to the tapping of the electric machine that covers them with unknown words. Occasionally she would ask me: “Am I drunk?” “No, not yet!” And she would start again. Soon she was drunk, not blind drunk but drunk enough, it seemed to me, to tell the truth. Her account of her girlhood’s emotions was followed by more intimate confidences about her husband which were very complete and uncomfortable to listen to, on the following pretext repeated over and over again: “I can say everything to you⁠—to whom could I say everything if not to you?”

So I was made acquainted with her husband’s habits and defects, all his little manias, and his most secret tastes.

She would say, asking for approbation: “Isn’t he a bore? Say⁠—isn’t he a bore? You know how he has bored me to death⁠—eh? So the very first time I saw you I said to myself: ‘Halloa, I like that man. I’ll have him as my lover.’ After that you began to make love to me.”

I must have looked rather queer, for she noticed my expression in spite of her drunkenness, and said, bursting with laughter: “Ah! booby, what precautions you did take⁠—but when men make love to us, you dear old stupid, it is because we are willing⁠—and then you must do it quickly or else you make us wait⁠—you must be an idiot not to understand, not to see by our looks, that we are saying ‘yes.’ Ah! I had to wait for you, you softy! I didn’t know how to make you understand that I was in a hurry⁠—ah! yes, all right⁠—flowers⁠—poems⁠—compliments⁠—still more flowers⁠—and then nothing more⁠—I nearly gave you up, old man, you took so long to decide. And only to think that half the men in the world are like you, but the other half⁠—ah!⁠—ah!⁠—ah!”

Her laugh made me shiver. I stammered: “The other half⁠—well, the other half?”

She was still drinking, her eyes clouded by the wine, and her mind driven by the imperious desire to speak the truth peculiar to some drunkards.

She continued: “Ah! the other half move quickly⁠—but all the same they’re right, they are. There are days when they are unsuccessful, but there are others when they get what they want, in spite of everything. Dear old chap⁠—if you only knew⁠—how funny they are⁠—the two kinds of men! You know, the shy ones like you can’t imagine what the others are like⁠—what they do⁠—directly⁠—when they are alone with us. They take risks. They get their faces slapped, it is true⁠—but that makes no difference⁠—they know quite well that we’ll never tell. They know us, they do.”

I was looking at her with the eyes of an inquisitor and with a wild desire to make her talk, to learn everything. How many times had I not asked myself the question: “How do other men behave to women, to our women?” I recognised, only by seeing in a drawing room, anywhere in public, two men speaking to the same woman, that if they, one after the other, were to be alone with her, they would approach her quite differently, even though they were on exactly the same footing with her. At the first glance one feels that certain men⁠—endowed by nature with the gift of pleasing, or even only more disillusioned, bolder, than we are⁠—will arrive in an hour’s conversation with a woman they admire at a degree of intimacy which we could not reach in a year. Very well⁠—these men, these professional, enterprising lovers, when the occasion presents itself, do they push the boldness of hands and lips to a point which would appear to us, the bashful sort, an odious outrage, but which women perhaps only consider a pardonable forwardness, a rather unbecoming homage to their irresistible charms?

She threw herself back in her chair and burst into a fit of nervous, unnatural laughter, the laughter that leads to hysterics, and when she had calmed down a little, she said: “Ah! ah! old chap, improper?⁠—that is to say, they stick at nothing⁠—right away⁠—at nothing⁠—you understand⁠—and still more⁠—”

I felt as indignant as if she had unmasked some monstrous evil. “And you allow this, you women?”

“No⁠—we don’t allow it⁠—we hit out⁠—but we are amused, all the same. They are much more amusing than you others! Besides, one is always afraid, one is never sure⁠—and it’s delightful to be afraid⁠—especially to be afraid of that. You have to watch them all the time⁠—it is like fighting a duel. You look into their eyes to learn their thoughts, to see what they are going to do with their hands. You may say they are cads, but they love us better than you do!”

A curious unexpected sensation came over me. Although I was a bachelor and determined to remain one, these impudent confidences suddenly made me feel like a husband. I felt I was the friend, the ally, the brother of all the trustful husbands who, if not actually robbed, are at least defrauded by these ready-fingered lovers of feminine underclothing. In obedience to that strange emotion⁠—which still persists⁠—I am writing to beg you to send a cry of alarm out to the army of unsuspecting husbands.

Nevertheless I had doubts, the woman was drunk and must be telling lies. I returned to the subject, saying: “How is it that you never tell anybody, you women?”

She looked at me with such profound, sincere pity that, for a moment, I thought astonishment had made her sober.

“My dear fellow, how stupid you are! Does one ever talk about such things⁠—ah! ah! ah! Does a servant tell about his little perquisites, his discount on the bills, etc.? Well, that, that’s our discount. So long as we go no further, husbands should not complain. But how stupid you are! To talk about all that would be to give the alarm to every ninny! Besides, where’s the harm so long as you do not yield?”

Quite confused, I asked another question: “So you have often been kissed?”

She replied with sovereign contempt for the man who could have a doubt on the subject: “Of course. Every woman has been kissed again and again. Try any one of them to see, you big idiot. Here, kiss Madame de X⁠ ⁠… she is quite young and straight⁠—kiss, my dear, kiss them and run your fingers over them, you’ll see, you’ll see. Ah! ah! ah!”

Suddenly she threw her full glass at the pendant cluster. The champagne, dripping down like drops of rain, put out three candles, stained the wallpaper, and wet the table, while the broken bits of crystal were scattered about the room. Then she tried to do the same thing with the bottle but I stopped her; then she began to shout at the top of her voice⁠—the attack of hysterics had begun⁠—just as I expected.

I had almost forgotten this drunken woman’s confession when, a few days later, I found myself by chance at the same reception as that Madame de X⁠ ⁠… whom my mistress had advised me to kiss. We lived in the same district, so I offered to take her home, as she was alone that evening. She accepted the offer.

As soon as we were in the carriage I said to myself: “Now then, go ahead,” but I dared not. I didn’t know how to start, how to begin the attack. Suddenly, filled with the desperate courage of cowardice, I said: “How beautiful you were this evening.”

Laughingly she replied: “So this evening was an exception, since you noticed it for the first time?”

I had no reply ready. It is quite clear that I am no good in the warfare of gallantry. However, after a few moments’ reflection I hit upon the following remark: “No, but I never dared to tell you.” She was astonished and said: “Why?” “Because it’s⁠—it’s rather difficult.” “Difficult to tell a woman she’s pretty? Where do you come from? You must always say it⁠—even if you don’t mean it⁠—because it is always a pleasure to hear.”

Seized by a sudden fit of fantastic audacity, I caught her by the waist and tried to find her mouth with my lips. However, I must have been trembling and could not have appeared very terrible to her. I must also have made a mess of the attempt, for she only turned her head away and said:

“Oh! no! that’s too bad, too bad. You go too quickly⁠—take care of my hair. You can’t kiss a woman who wears her hair as I do!”

Desperate and heartbroken at my failure, I had sunk back into my seat when the carriage stopped at her door. She got out, shook hands with me, and said most graciously: “Thanks for bringing me home, dear Monsieur, and don’t forget my advice.”

Three days after, I met her again. She had forgotten all about it.

As for me, I am always thinking about those other men who know how to treat a woman’s coiffure with consideration, and how to seize every opportunity.

I hand this letter, without any addition, over to the meditation of my men and women readers, married or single.

Love

Three Pages from a Hunter’s Diary

I have just read, in a news item, a Drama of Passion. He killed her, then he killed himself⁠—therefore he loved her. What do they matter, He and She? Their love alone has value; and it interests me not so much because I am moved or astonished by it or because it irritates me or makes me think, but because it brings back to me a memory of my youth, a strange reminiscence of my hunting days when Love was made manifest to me, much as in the days of the Early Christians the Cross appeared in the sky.

I was born with all the instincts and feelings of a primitive man, tempered by the reasoning and spiritual growth of the civilised. I love hunting above all things: to see the beast bleeding, blood on its fur, or on my hands, makes my heart contract until it almost stops breathing.

That year, late in the autumn, the cold weather set in suddenly, and I was summoned by one of my cousins, Karl de Rauville, to go and shoot duck with him in the marshes at daybreak.

My cousin, a jolly fellow of about forty, red-faced, strong and heavily bearded, was a country gentleman. He was half like a good-tempered animal, a cheerful soul endowed with a native French wit that raised him above mediocrity. He lived in a sort of manor farm in a wide valley through which flowed a stream. Woods covered the slopes on the right and left side, lordly old woods full of superb trees, where one found the rarest game of all this part of France. They caught eagles there sometimes; and birds of passage (such as are seldom to be found in our overpopulated country) never failed to stop in those ancient branches as if they had seen in them or had recognised in them a little corner of the forests of the old days kept to serve them for a shelter in their short bivouac at night.

In the valley were large pasture lands, drained by ditches and separated by hedges. The river, which in that part was navigable, overflowed further on into a great marsh. This marsh, the best hunting-area that I have ever seen, was the great pride of my cousin, who kept it up like a park. Across the immense colony of rushes which, rustling and swelling like the waves of the sea, made it like a living thing, he had had dug narrow canals on which flat-bottomed boats, urged and directed by poles, passed silent over the stagnant water, fluttering the reeds, scattering the swiftly swimming fishes towards the rushes, and making the wild birds whose black and pointed heads disappeared so briskly, dive into the water.

I love water madly⁠—I love the sea, too great, too restless, impossible of possession though it be; the pleasant rivers which pass, hurrying on, and are gone; above all, the marsh quivering with the secret life of aquatic creatures. Marsh life is a world within a world, a world to itself⁠—a world living its own life with its own home-keeping citizens, its passing travellers, voices, sounds, and, most of all, its own mysteriousness. Nothing is more disturbing, more agitating, more terrifying even than marsh lands. Whence comes this fear that lurks on these low water-covered plains? Is it the vague murmur of the rushes, the strange will-o’-the-wisp, the uncanny silence that wraps them round on calm nights? Or is it the peculiar mists that hang round the reeds like a shroud, or perhaps even more the vague lapping, so soft and gentle, but perhaps more terrifying than cannon of man or the thunder of God, that makes the marsh unreal, like a country in a dream, like some fearful land that hides an arcane fatal secret?

No. There is more in it than that: another mystery, more profound, more solemn, flows in its thick fog. It is, perhaps, the wonder of creation itself. For was it not in water, stagnant and muddy, in the dark mugginess of a world weeping under the heat of the sun, the first germ of life moved, stirred and saw the light of day?

I reached my cousin’s house in the evening. The very stones seemed frozen.

During dinner⁠—in the great dining room whose sideboards, walls, and ceiling were covered with stuffed birds, some with their wings extended, some perched on branches supported by nails, among them sparrow-hawks, herons, owls, goatsuckers, buzzards, vultures, falcons and birds of prey of all sorts⁠—my cousin, looking himself like a strange animal from some colder region, in his sealskin coat, was telling me the plans he had made for that very night. We were to start at half past three in the morning so that we should reach the point chosen for the morning’s shoot at about half past four. There was at this spot a hut that had been built of pieces of glass to afford us a little shelter against the terrible wind which comes at daybreak⁠—that icy wind which tears the flesh like a saw; which cuts into one like the blade of a knife; pricking like a poisoned arrow, biting like forceps, burning like fire.

My cousin rubbed his hands together.

“I have never seen such a frost,” he said. “We were twelve degrees below zero at six o’clock this evening.”

I threw myself on my bed immediately the meal was over and fell asleep with the light from the great fire blazing in my chimney. As the clock struck three they woke me. I, too, put on a sheepskin and found my cousin Karl wrapt up in a bearskin. We both gulped down two cups of burning coffee and a couple of glasses of good champagne, and then set out accompanied by a keeper and our dogs Plongeon and Pierrot.

Directly I took the first step outside, I felt frozen to the marrow. It was one of those nights when the world seems to have died of the cold. The frozen air seems to become solid and tangible, so savagely cold it is. Not a puff of wind stirs: it is congealed, motionless. It bites, cuts, numbs, kills trees, plants, insects, even the little birds: they fall from the branches on to the hard soil, and become as if in the bitter clutch of the frost. The moon was in the last quarter: she lay on her back, pale and swooning in midair, so feeble that she could climb no further; as if she stayed there, arrested, paralysed by the harsh spaces of the sky.

She shed a barren, mournful light on the earth⁠—that pale funeral light with which she celebrates each month the end of her resurrection.

We went side by side, Karl and I, our backs bent, hands in our pockets, and guns under our arms. Our boots, covered with felt to prevent our slipping on the frozen river, gave back no sound. I watched the breath of our dogs that was like a white smoke.

Soon we were at the edge of the marsh, and we followed one of the little paths which cut across this miniature forest.

Our shoulders, grazing long tattered leaves, left behind us a light rustling and I felt as I have never felt before that passionate and extraordinary emotion which marshy land begets in me. It was dead, that marsh, frozen to death while we were walking over it, among its crowd of withered reeds.

All at once, at a turn in the path, I discovered the small glass cabin that had been built to shelter us. I went in and as we had still nearly an hour to wait until these wild birds should be awake I rolled myself in my cloak to try to get warm.

Then, lying on my back, I began looking at the diminished moon; it had four horns seen through the dimly transparent walls of this polar house.

But the bitter cold of the frozen marsh, the cold of these walls, the cold dropping from the firmament affected me soon, so badly that I began to cough.

My cousin Karl became anxious.

“It will be a sell if we don’t shoot anything today,” he said. “I don’t want you to catch cold. We’d better make a fire.”

And he told the keeper to cut some rushes.

We made a heap in the middle of the hut that had a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. When the red flame leaped between the translucent crystal wells they began to run with water, gently, unperceptibly, as if these glassy stones were sweating. Karl, who had stayed outside, cried out to me: “Come here. Just come and see this.”

I went out and was overcome with astonishment. Our cabin, shaped like a cone, looked like an enormous diamond with a fiery heart that had risen suddenly out of the frozen water of the marsh. Inside we could see two fantastic figures⁠—those of our dogs, who were trying to get warm.

Suddenly a cry rang out above our heads, a strange, mournful, savage cry. The gleam of our fire had wakened the wild birds.

Nothing moves me so much as this first signal of life when nothing is visible. It stabs the darkness, so swiftly, and so far off, before even the first ray of daylight has appeared on the horizon. It seems to me in this glacial hour of dawn that this flying sound, carried on the wings of a bird, is a sigh from the very heart of the world.

Karl spoke. “Put out the fire. This must be daybreak.”

Indeed at that moment the sky began to lighten and flights of wild duck fled over the heavens, like lines drawn in swift sweeping strokes and quickly effaced. There was a flash in the darkness: Karl had just fired; the two dogs rushed out. Then the two of us fired in rapid succession, as soon as there appeared above the rushes the shadow of a flying tribe. Pierrot and Plongeon, panting and happy, brought the birds to us, bleeding. Sometimes their eyes still seemed to be observing us.

Daylight came at last, a day clear and blue. The sun came out at the bottom of the valley and we were just thinking of going back when two birds, with necks outstretched and wings extended, shot quickly over our heads. I fired. One of them fell right at our feet. It was a silver-breasted teal. Then from the sky above me, a voice, a bird’s voice cried. It was a lament, short and repeated, heartbreaking. The bird, the little bird who had escaped, began to wheel round against the blue of the sky above us, staring at his dead comrade whom I held in my hands.

Karl, on his knees, bright-eyed, his gun lifted, peered at her, waiting until she was near enough.

“You have killed the female,” he said. “The male won’t go away.”

My goodness! He certainly would not.

He wheeled round and round, all the time crying above us. Never has bitterness of grief so torn my heart as this desolate call, the mournful reproach of this poor bird lost in space.

Sometimes he fled from the menace of the guns that followed his flight. Sometimes he seemed ready to continue his journey across the sky by himself. But he could not make up his mind to it, and would come back again a moment later to look for his mate.

“Leave her on the ground,” said Karl. “He’ll come at once then.”

He did come, indeed, quite careless of any danger, drawn by his bird’s love for the other whom I had killed.

Karl took aim; it was as if someone had cut a string which held the bird suspended. I saw something, a black, tumbling creature; I heard among the rushes the noise of a fall. Then Pierrot brought him to me.

I put them, already cold, into the same grave⁠—and I departed that same day for Paris.

Clochette

They are strange things, these old memories that haunt our minds and will not be dismissed.

This is such an old one, so old that I cannot understand why it remains in my mind so vividly and so tenaciously. I have seen so many sinister things, so many moving and terrible things since, that it astonishes me to find that I cannot pass a day, one single day, without a vision of Mother Clochette appearing before me in her habit as I knew her once upon a time, so long ago, when I was ten or twelve years old.

She was an old dressmaker who came to my parents’ house once a week, every Tuesday, to do the mending. My parents lived in one of those country houses called châteaux, which are merely old houses with high pointed roofs, surrounded by four or five dependent farms.

The village, a large village, a small town, stood some few hundred yards away, huddled round the church, whose red bricks were blackened by time.

Every Tuesday, then, Mother Clochette arrived between half past six and seven o’clock in the morning, and went directly to the linen room to begin her work.

She was a tall thin woman, bearded⁠—covered with hair, rather, her beard growing everywhere on her face. It was an amazing beard, an unexpected beard, bursting out into incredible bunches and curling tufts of hair that looked as if a madman had scattered them across a vast face like the face of a petticoated policeman. She had hair on her nose, under her nose, round her nose, on her chin, on her cheeks; and her eyebrows, extravagantly long and thick, bushy and bristling and quite grey, looked like nothing on earth but a pair of moustaches planted there in error.

She limped, not just an ordinary cripple’s limp, but like a ship riding at the anchor. When she rested the weight of her bony lopsided body on her one good leg, she seemed to be gathering herself to rise on a monstrous wave; then she plunged all at once on the verge of disappearing into an abyss: she buried herself in the earth. Added to which, she swayed so wildly that her gait irresistibly suggested the thought of a storm; and her head, always covered with an enormous white bonnet, with its ribbons floating down her back, appeared to cross the horizon from north to south, and south to north, with her every movement.

I adored this Mother Clochette. As soon as I got up, I climbed to the linen room, where I found her installed, sewing, a warming-pan under her feet. As soon as I arrived, she made me take this warming-pan and seat myself on it so that I should not catch cold in this great cold room, right under the roof.

“It draws the blood from the head,” she said.

She told me stories, while she stitched away at the linen with her long crooked fingers that moved so swiftly; the eyes behind her magnifying-spectacles⁠—age had weakened her sight⁠—seemed to me enormous, strangely deep, double the usual size.

She had, so much I can recall from the things she told me, things that stirred my child’s heart, the kindly soul of a humble woman. She saw life with a crude simplicity. She told me the happenings of the town, the story of a cow that ran away from the stable and was found one morning in front of Prosper Malet’s mill, watching the wooden sails go round, or the story of the hen’s egg discovered in the belfry of the church, no one ever being able to understand what sort of a fowl had gone there to lay it, or the story of Jean-Jean Pilar’s dog who had recaptured ten leagues from the village the breeches that a passerby had stolen from his master while they were drying before the door after a shower of rain. She told me these simple stories in such a way that they assumed in my mind the stature of unforgettable dramas, of sublime and mysterious poems; and the ingenious tales invented by poets that my mother told me in the evenings had not the savour, the breadth, the force of the peasant woman’s narratives.

But one Tuesday, as I had spent the whole morning listening to Mother Clochette, I took it into my head to go and see her again later in the day, after gathering walnuts with our manservant in Hallets Wood behind Noirpré farm. I remember it all as vividly as the happenings of yesterday.

But when I opened the door of the linen room I saw the old dressmaker stretched out on the floor beside her chair, face downwards, her arms flung out, one hand still holding a needle, the other one of my shirts. One of her legs, blue-stockinged, the long one I am sure, was lying under her chair; and her spectacles had rolled far away from her and were glittering beside the wall.

I ran away, screaming wildly. People came running up, and a few minutes later I was told that Mother Clochette was dead.

I could not tell you what profound grief, poignant dreadful grief, seized my childish heart. I crept downstairs to the drawing room and hid myself in a dark corner, in the depths of a vast old couch where I knelt and cried. I must have been there a long time, for it grew dark.

Suddenly a lamp was brought in, but no one saw me and I heard my father and mother talking to the doctor, whose voice I recognised.

They had sent to fetch him at once and he was explaining the cause of the accident. I could not understand more of it than that. Then he sat down, and accepted a glass of wine and a biscuit.

He went on talking, and what he said then remains and will remain graven on my heart till I die. I believe that I can reproduce almost exactly the phrases he used.

“Poor woman,” he said. “She was my first patient in this place. She broke her leg the day I arrived, and I hadn’t had time to wash my hands after getting out of the coach when I was sent for in great haste, for it was serious, very serious.

“She was seventeen years old, and she was a beautiful girl, very beautiful, very beautiful indeed. It’s almost incredible, isn’t it? As for the story, I’ve never told it, and no one has ever known it except me⁠—and one other person who is no longer living in the district. Now that she is dead, there’s no need for discretion.

“At that time a young assistant schoolmaster had just come to the town; he was a handsome fellow, with the figure of a sergeant-major. All the girls were running after him, and he looked down his nose at them; besides, he was afraid of his superior, old Grabu, the head master, who often got out of bed the wrong side.

“Old Grabu was even then employing as dressmaker the fair Hortense, who has just died in your house: she was nicknamed Clochette later, after her accident. The young assistant was pleased to notice the beautiful child, who was doubtless flattered at being chosen out by this superb scorner of women: she loved him at once and he arranged a first meeting in the school loft, after dark, at the end of one of her sewing days.

“So she made a show of going home, but instead of going downstairs and leaving Grabu’s house, she went up the stairs and hid herself in the hay to wait for her love. He was very soon with her and had begun to tell her how much he loved her when the door of this loft opened and the head master appeared and asked:

“ ‘What are you doing up here, Sigisbert?’

“The young assistant felt that he was caught: at his wit’s end, he made the stupid answer:

“ ‘I came up here for a little rest in the hay, Monsieur Grabu.’

“The loft was very high, very big and completely dark; and Sigisbert thrust the frightened young girl as far back as possible, repeating: ‘Get back, hide yourself. I shall lose my job, do you hear? Hide yourself, can’t you?’

“The head master heard him murmuring and added: ‘So you’re not here alone?’

“ ‘Of course I am, Monsieur Grabu.’

“ ‘Of course you’re not: you’re speaking to someone.’

“ ‘I swear I am, Monsieur Grabu.’

“ ‘I’ll soon find out,’ answered the old man; he shut and locked the door and went down to get a candle.

“Then the young man turned coward, as often happens in these affairs, and lost his head. It seems that he flew into a rage at once and repeated: ‘Hide yourself so that he can’t find you. You’ll have me starving all the rest of my life. You’ll ruin my career.⁠ ⁠… Hide yourself, I tell you.’

“They heard the key turning in the lock again.

“Hortense ran to the loft door that gave on to the street, opened it quickly and said in a low resolute voice:

“ ‘Come and pick me up when he’s gone.’

“And jumped.

“Old Grabu found no one and went down again, a very surprised man.

“A quarter of an hour later, M. Sigisbert came to my house and related the adventure. The young girl was still at the foot of the wall, unable to lift herself, having fallen two stories. I went with him to see her. He wept copiously, and I carried the unfortunate girl to my house: her right leg was broken in three places and the bone had pierced the flesh. She made no complaint, only saying with heroic patience: ‘I’m being punished, well punished.’

“I sent for the sewing girl’s parents to come and help, and told them a tale of a runaway carriage which had knocked her down and maimed her before my door.

“The tale was believed, and for a whole month the police sought vainly for the author of the accident.

“There you are! And I consider that this woman was a heroine, of the company of women whose noble deeds are recorded in history.

“This was her only love affair. She died a virgin. She is a martyr, a great soul, a sublime Vestal. And if I did not honour her above anyone I would not have told you this story, which I would never have told anyone while she lived, for reasons you can understand.”

The doctor was silent. Mamma wept. Papa uttered some words that I could not catch; then they went away.

I remained kneeling on my couch sobbing, while I listened to strange sounds on the staircase⁠—heavy footsteps and muffled thumps.

They were carrying away the body of Clochette.

In the Wood

The Mayor was sitting down to breakfast when he was told that his village constable was waiting for him at the Town Hall with two prisoners. He went there immediately and found indeed old Hochedur, the village constable, standing guard with an air of great severity over a couple of stout villagers. The man, a fat paterfamilias, red-nosed and white-haired, seemed overwhelmed, while the woman, a nice little soul dressed in her Sunday clothes, very plump, her cheeks flushed, was looking defiantly at the instrument of authority who had captured them.

The Mayor asked: “What is all this, Hochedur?”

The constable made his statement.

He had set out that morning at his usual time to go on his beat from Champioux Woods to the boundaries of Argenteuil. He hadn’t found anything to remark on in the countryside except that it was beautiful weather and the corn was doing well, when young Bredel, who was pruning his vine, had called out:

“Hullo, Hochedur, go and look at the edge of the wood, in the first copse, and you’ll find there a couple of doves who have at least a hundred and thirty years between them.”

He set off in the direction indicated, had crept into the undergrowth and had heard words and sighs which had led him to suspect an outrage on public morals.

Then, crawling on hands and knees, as if he were trying to surprise a poacher, he had caught the couple here present at the moment when they were abandoning themselves to a natural instinct.

The Mayor stared at the prisoners in stupefaction. The man must have been at least sixty, and the woman not less than fifty-five.

He began to question them, first the man, who replied in so faint a voice that it was hardly audible.

“Your name?”

“Nicholas Beaurain.”

“What is your profession?”

“I am a draper in the Rue des Martyrs, Paris.”

“What were you doing in the wood?”

The draper made no answer, his glance fixed on his large stomach, his hands pressed against his thighs.

The Mayor asked again:

“Do you deny the accusation?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you admit it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What have you to say in your defence?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Where did you meet your accomplice?”

“She is my wife, sir.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then⁠—then, you don’t live together in Paris?”

“Pardon, sir, we do live together.”

“But⁠—in that case, you must be mad, absolutely mad, my good man, to come and get yourself caught in the open country, at ten o’clock in the morning.”

The draper seemed ready to weep with shame. He muttered:

“It was she who wanted it. I told her it was a silly thing to do. But when a woman gets an idea into her head⁠—you know, sir⁠—she has no room for anything else.”

The Mayor, whose sense of humour was not puritanical, smiled and replied:

“In your case, then, the contrary ought to have happened. You wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t had room for something else!”

Then rage seized M. Beaurain, and turning towards his wife, he said: “Look what you’ve brought us to now, with your romantic notions! Think of it. We shall have to go into court at our age for immorality. We shall have to shut up shop and sell out and move into another district! Think of it!”

Mme. Beaurain got up, without looking at her husband, and explained the situation without any trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness, and almost without hesitation.

“My goodness, Mr. Mayor, I know quite well that we look foolish. Will you let me plead this cause like a lawyer⁠—or, better still, like a poor woman?⁠—and I hope you will be willing to send us home and spare us the shame of a summons.

“A long time ago, when I was young, I made the acquaintance of M. Beaurain in this district, on a Sunday. He was employed in a draper’s shop. I was a shop girl in a ready-made clothes shop. I remember all that as though it were yesterday. I used to spend my Sundays here, now and again, with a girl friend, Rose Levêque, with whom I lived in the Rue Pigalle. Rose had a sweetheart⁠—I hadn’t. He it was who brought us out here. One Saturday he told me, laughing, that the next day he would bring out a friend. I understood what he meant, but I replied that it would be useless. I was a good girl, sir.

“The next day, however, we met Monsieur Beaurain in the train. He was very good-looking in those days. But I was determined not to give in, and I didn’t.

“There we were, then, at Bezons. The weather was glorious⁠—the sort of weather that makes your heart beat for joy. For my part, even now, when the weather is fine, I am ready to cry like a fool, and when I am in the country I quite lose my head. The green of the trees, the birds singing, the corn waving in the wind, the swallows that swoop along so quickly, the scent of grass, of the wild poppies, the marguerites, all make me feel lightheaded. It is like drinking champagne when you aren’t used to it.

“On this day the weather was glorious, mild and clear. It seemed to pour into you through your eyes as you looked out on it, and through your mouth when you breathed! Rose and Simon kissed every other minute. It made me think a bit to watch them. M. Beaurain and I walked behind them, hardly uttering a word. When you don’t know each other you can’t find anything to say. He seemed very shy, this boy, and I was fluttered to see his embarrassment. At last we came to the little wood. It was as cool there as a bath and people were sitting on the grass. Rose and her friend teased me about looking so serious. You must see that I couldn’t look otherwise. After that they began to make love to each other without worrying if we were there or not. Next they talked to each other in whispers, and presently got up and went farther into the wood without saying anything. You can guess what a fool I looked left with this youth whom I had met for the first time.

“I felt so confused to see them go off in that way that my courage came back to me and I began to talk. I asked him what he was doing. He was a draper’s apprentice, as I have just told you. We talked for some little while. This emboldened him and he wanted to take liberties with me, but still I kept him in his place, and very firmly. Isn’t that true, M. Beaurain?”

M. Beaurain, who was looking at his boots in his embarrassment, made no reply.

She went on:

“At last the young man realised that I was a good girl and he began to pay court to me nicely, like a respectable man.

“After that day he came every Sunday. He was very much in love with me, monsieur. And I too, I loved him very much, oh, ever so much⁠—he was a handsome fellow in those days.

“In short, we were married in September and we started our shop in the Rue des Martyrs.

“Those were hard years, sir. The business didn’t pay; and we could rarely afford holidays in the country. At last we lost the habit of going. There were other things in our minds.

“In business the cash box comes before flowers. Little by little we got older without noticing it, being quiet people who hardly think of love. What the heart doesn’t miss it doesn’t grieve over.

“At last, m’sieur, things went better and our future was safe. Then, really, I don’t know what happened to me, no, honestly I do not. I found myself dreaming again like a little schoolgirl. The sight of the barrows of flowers drawn along the street would bring the tears to my eyes. The scent of violets drifting in where I sat in my chair behind the cash box set my heart beating wildly.

“Then I would get up and go and stand on the doorstep to look at the blue sky between the roofs. When you see the sky from a street, it looks like a river, a long twisting river coming down to Paris; the swallows skimming over it are like fishes. It’s silly enough to feel like that, at my age! But what can you expect, sir? When you have worked all your life, there comes a time when you realise that you might have been doing something else, then you are filled with regret⁠—oh, yes⁠—you regret it. Just think, for twenty long years I could have been gathering kisses in the woods, like other people⁠—like other women! I used to think how wonderful it would be to lie under the trees and love someone. I thought of this all day and all night. I dreamed of the moonlight on the water until I was nearly ready to drown myself!

“I dared not say all this to M. Beaurain right out. I knew too well that he would laugh at me and send me back to sell needles and thread. And truth to tell, M. Beaurain hadn’t much to say to me in those days. But when I looked in my mirror I understood too that I hadn’t much to say to anyone, either.

“Thereupon I made up my mind to suggest to him a holiday in the country, in that part where we first became acquainted. He agreed without any bother, and we arrived here this morning about nine.

“I felt quite young again as we came through the corn. The heart of a woman doesn’t really grow old! And indeed I saw my husband, not as he is now, but as he was in those days! That’s true, I swear it, sir. It’s as true as I stand here, I was drunk with it all! I began to embrace him. He could not have been more astonished if I’d tried to murder him. He kept saying to me: ‘You are mad. You are absolutely crazy this morning. What in the world has taken you?’

“I didn’t hear him: I could hear nothing but my own heart. And I made him go into the wood with me⁠—then⁠—I have told you the truth, m’sieu, the whole truth.”

The Mayor was a man of the world. He got up, smiling, and said:

“Go in peace, madame, and sin no more⁠—under the trees!”

The Tramp

For forty days he had been walking, seeking everywhere for work. He had left his own hometown, Ville-Avaray, in the Manche, because there was no work to be got there. A carpenter’s mate, twenty-seven years old, a respectable, sturdy fellow, he had lived for two months on his family, he, the eldest son, with nothing to do but sit with his strong arms folded, amid the general unemployment. Bread became scarce in the home; the two sisters did day-work, but made little money, and he, Jacques Raudel, the strongest, did nothing because there was nothing to do, and ate the bread of others.

Then he had sought information at the Town Hall, and the clerk had told him that there was work to be got in the Midlands.

So he had set off, fortified with papers and certificates, with seven francs in his pocket; on his shoulder, in a blue handkerchief tied to the end of his stick, he carried a spare pair of shoes, a pair of trousers and a shirt.

And he walked without rest, day and night, along the interminable roads, under sun and rain, and never reaching that mysterious land where workmen find work.

At first he clung firmly to the idea that, being a carpenter, he must never work at anything but carpentry. But, in all the workshops where he offered himself, he was told that they had just dismissed men for lack of orders, and finding himself at the end of his resources, he resolved to do any work he might meet with on his way.

Thus he became by turns navvy, stable-boy, and stonecutter; he split wood, trimmed timber, dug a well, mixed mortar, tied faggots, and herded goats on a mountain, and all for a few pence, for he could only manage to get an occasional two or three days’ work by offering himself at a very low price, to tempt the avarice of employers and peasants.

And for a week now he had failed to find a job of any kind; he had nothing left, and lived on a few crusts of bread that he owed to the charity of the women from whom he begged on their doorsteps, as he passed along the roads.

Night was falling, and Jacques Raudel, worn out, with weary legs and an empty stomach, despondent in spirit, plodded barefoot in the grass at the roadside, for he was saving up his last pair of shoes, and the other pair had gone long before. It was a Saturday, towards the end of autumn. Grey clouds, swift and heavy, were chased across the sky by the gusts of wind that whistled in the trees. There was a feeling of approaching rain in the air. The countryside was deserted, now, at dusk on the eve of a Sunday. Here and there, in the fields, there rose, like monstrous yellow mushrooms, ricks of threshed straw; and the land, already sown for the coming year, seemed naked.

Raudel was hungry, hungry like a hungry beast, with the savage hunger that drives wolves to attack men. Exhausted, he lengthened his stride so that he would have fewer steps to take, and, with heavy head, the blood surging in his temples, red eyes, and a dry mouth, he gripped his stick with a vague desire to strike the first passerby he chanced to meet returning home to eat his broth.

He gazed at the roadside with a picture in his mind of potatoes lying unburied on the upturned soil. If he had found some, he would have collected dead wood, made a little fire in a ditch and supped royally on the hot, round roots, after first holding them, burning hot, in his cold hands.

But it was too late in the year, and, as on the previous evening, he had to gnaw a raw beetroot that he pulled from its furrow.

For the past two days he had been talking aloud, as he quickened his stride, goaded by his obsessing thoughts. He had scarcely thought at all, before this, applying all his mind, all his simple faculties, to the tasks he had been trained to do. But now, fatigue, his frantic pursuit of work that was not to be found, refusals, insults, nights spent on the grass, fasting, the scorn he felt all the stay-at-homes had for the tramp, their daily repeated question: “Why don’t you stay in your own place?” his grief at not being able to use the valiant arms whose strength he could feel, the remembrance of his parents left at home, also almost penniless⁠—all these were filling him little by little with a slow anger, increasing every day, every hour, every minute, and escaping from his mouth in brief, involuntary phrases of plaintive discontent.

Stumbling over the stones that rolled from under his bare feet, he grumbled: “Misery⁠ ⁠… misery me⁠ ⁠… lot of swine⁠ ⁠… not four sous⁠ ⁠… not four sous⁠ ⁠… and now it’s raining⁠ ⁠… lot of swine.⁠ ⁠…”

He was indignant at the injustice of his lot, and blamed man, all men, because nature, the great blind mother, is unjust, cruel, and treacherous.

“Lot of swine,” he repeated through clenched teeth, watching the thin grey wisps of smoke going up from the roof at this, the dinner hour. And without reflecting on that injustice, that human injustice, called violence and theft, he longed to enter one of these houses, knock down the inhabitants, and sit down at the table in their stead.

“I haven’t the right to live, now⁠ ⁠…” he said, “seeing they let me die of hunger⁠ ⁠… and yet I only ask for work⁠ ⁠… lot of swine!” And the pain in his limbs, the pain in his stomach, and the pain in his heart went to his head like the madness born of drink, and gave birth in his brain to this simple thought: “I have a right to live, because I breathe, because the air belongs to everyone. So no one has a right to leave me without bread.”

The rain was falling, fine, fast, and freezing. He stopped, and muttered: “Oh, misery me⁠ ⁠… another month on the road before I get home.⁠ ⁠…” For he was returning homewards now, realising that it would be easier for him to find something to do⁠—if he were willing to take any work that came to hand⁠—in his native town, where he was known, than out on the high road where all men were suspicious of him.

Since carpentry was in a bad way, he would become a day labourer, a hodman, a navvy, or a stone-breaker. And if he only made twenty sous a day, it would still be enough to live on.

He knotted round his neck the remains of his last handkerchief, so as to prevent the cold water from trickling on to his back and chest. But soon he felt that it was already coming through the thin fabric of his clothes, and he threw an agonised glance around him, the gaze of a lost creature that knows not where to hide its body or rest its head, and has no refuge in the world.

Night came, covering the fields with darkness. In the distance, in a meadow, he saw a dark blotch on the ground, a cow. He strode over the ditch at the roadside and turned towards the animal, with no very clear idea of what he was doing.

As he drew near, the animal raised her big head, and he thought: “If only I had a can, I could drink a little milk.”

He stared at the cow, and the cow stared at him; then, suddenly, he gave her a great kick in the side, and said: “Get up!”

The animal rose slowly, and her heavy udder hung down; then the man lay flat on his back, between the animal’s legs, and had a long drink, pressing with both hands the warm, swollen teat smelling of the cowshed. He drank all the milk left in this living spring.

But the icy rain fell faster, and the whole plain was naked, offering him no glimpse of shelter. He was cold, and he gazed at a light that shone through the trees, from the window of a house.

The cow had lain down again, heavily. He sat down beside her, stroking her head, grateful for the food she had given him. The animal’s thick, rank breath, issuing from her nostrils like two jets of steam in the evening air, blew across the workman’s face. “Well, you’re not cold in there,” he said.

Next he ran his hands over the cow’s breast and legs, trying to warm them there. Then the idea came to him to lie down and spend the night huddled against this big warm belly. He sought a comfortable position, and laid his forehead against the heavy udder he had just emptied. Then, quite worn out with fatigue, he promptly went to sleep.

But several times he awoke, with back or chest frozen, according to which of the two was pressed against the animal’s side; then he would turn over to warm and dry that part of his body which had been exposed to the night air, and fell back at once into the same heavy slumber.

A cock crowing roused him to his legs. Dawn was coming; it was no longer raining; the sky was clear.

The cow was resting her muzzle on the ground; he bent down, supporting himself on his hands, to kiss the broad nose of moist flesh. “Goodbye, my beauty,” he said, “… till next time.⁠ ⁠… You’re a nice beast.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye.”

Then he put on his shoes and went on his way.

For two hours he walked straight on, always along the same road; then such utter weariness fell on him that he sat down on the grass.

It was broad daylight; the church bells were ringing, and men in blue smocks, and women in white bonnets, walking or driving in dogcarts, began to pass along the roads, on their way to neighbouring villages to celebrate Sunday with friends or relations.

A fat peasant came in sight, driving some twenty restless, bleating sheep, kept in order by a quick-footed dog.

Raudel rose and greeted him. “You haven’t a job for a workman dying of hunger?” he said.

“I’ve no work for men I meet on the roads,” replied the fellow, with an ugly glance at the vagabond.

And the carpenter sat down again by the roadside.

He waited for a long time, watching the country folk go by, searching for a good, kind, compassionate face that he might make another request.

He chose a superior-looking person in a frock-coat, with a gold chain across his stomach.

“I’ve been looking for work for two months,” he said; “I can’t find any; and I’ve not a sou left in my pocket.”

The prosperous fellow replied: “You ought to have read the notice posted up at the boundaries of this district: ‘Begging is forbidden in the territory of this commune.’ I’m the mayor, I tell you, and if you don’t clear off pretty quick, I’ll have you taken up.”

Raudel’s anger was getting the better of him.

“Have me taken up if you like,” he murmured; “I’d rather you did; at least I shouldn’t die of hunger.”

And he sat down again at the roadside.

A quarter of an hour later two policemen came in sight on the road. They were walking slowly, side by side, in full view, gleaming in the sun, with their shiny leather hats, their yellow facings, and their metal buttons, as though to frighten malefactors and put them to flight from a very long way off.

The carpenter realised that they were coming for him, but he did not move, seized with an abrupt sullen desire to defy them, to get them to arrest him, and have his revenge later on.

They came on without appearing to have seen him, walking in their military fashion, with a clumsy and rolling gait, like geese. Then suddenly, as they passed him, they appeared to discover him, stopped, and began to stare at him with threatening, angry eyes.

The sergeant stepped forward, asking:

“What are you doing here?”

“Resting,” the man calmly replied.

“Where have you come from?”

“If I had to tell you all the places I’ve been through, it would take me a good hour.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Ville-Avaray.”

“And where might that be?”

“In the Manche.”

“Is that your home place?”

“Yes, that’s my home place.”

“Why did you leave it?”

“To look for work.”

The sergeant turned to his constable and exclaimed, in the furious tone of a man driven to exasperation by a perpetual recurrence of the same lie:

“The swine all say that. But I know their little games.”

Then he continued:

“Have you any papers?”

“Yes.”

“Give me them.”

Raudel took his papers from his pocket, his certificates, poor, dirty, worn-out papers falling to pieces, and offered them to the official.

The latter spelt them out, humming and hawing, and, eventually declaring them to be in order, gave them back with the irritated air of a man who has been tricked by a fellow more cunning than himself.

After a few moments of reflection, he resumed his inquiries:

“Have you any money about you?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Not as much as a sou?”

“Not as much as a sou.”

“Then what are you living on?”

“On what I’m given.”

“You’re begging, then?”

“Yes, when I can,” replied Raudel firmly.

But the policeman declared:

“I have taken you in the act of vagrancy and begging, being without lodging or visible means of support, on the road, and I command you to follow me.”

The carpenter rose.

“Anywhere you like,” he said, and, placing himself between the two officials before even getting the order to do so, he added:

“Go on, shut me up. It’ll give me a roof overhead when it rains.”

And they set off towards the village, whose roofs peered through the leaf-stripped trees, a quarter of a league distant.

It was the hour of Mass as they went through the town. The square was full of people, and two ranks promptly formed up to see the malefactor go by, followed by a troop of excited children. Peasants, men and women, stared at the prisoner between the two policemen, with a sudden gleam of hate in their eyes; they wanted to throw stones at him, scratch his skin with their nails, and trample him underfoot. They wondered if he were a thief, or a murderer. The butcher, a veteran Spahi, declared: “He’s a deserter.” The tobacconist fancied he recognised him as the man who had given him a bad fifty-centime piece that very morning, and the ironmonger was sure he knew him for the undiscoverable murderer of the widow Malet for whom the police had been searching for six months.

In the municipal council room, whither the policemen led him, Raudel found the mayor, sitting at the council table and flanked by the schoolmaster.

“Ah ha!” exclaimed the magistrate, “here you are again, my fine fellow. I told you I’d have you locked up. Well, sergeant, what is it?”

“A tramp, your Worship,” replied the sergeant, “without lodging or visible means of support, according to his own statement, arrested in the act of begging and vagrancy, possessing good certificates and papers in good order.”

“Show me the papers,” said the mayor. He took them, read them, reread them, gave them back, and ordered: “Search him.” Raudel was searched; nothing was found.

The mayor seemed perplexed.

“What were you doing, this morning, on the road?” he asked the workman.

“I was looking for work.”

“For work?⁠ ⁠… On the high road?”

“How do you expect me to find any if I hid in the woods?”

They stared at one another with the hatred of beasts that belong to two antagonistic species. The magistrate replied: “I am going to set you at liberty, but don’t let me catch you again!”

“I’d rather you kept me,” answered the carpenter; “I’ve had quite enough of running about the roads.”

“Silence!” said the mayor, with a severe look.

Then he gave orders to the policemen:

“You will conduct this man two hundred metres from the village, and you will allow him to go on his way.”

“At least have them give me something to eat,” said the workman.

The mayor was furious:

“Feed you? That would be the last straw. Ha! Ha! Ha! That’s a bit too thick!”

But Raudel continued firmly:

“If you let me go on dying of hunger, you’ll force me to crime, and that’ll be the worse for you great fat fellows.”

The mayor had risen, and repeated his order.

“Take him away quick; I shall end by losing my temper.”

The two policemen took the carpenter’s arms and led him off. He offered no resistance, went back through the village, and found himself back on the high road; the men took him two hundred metres from the kilometre stone, and there the sergeant declared:

“Now be off with you, and don’t let me see you in these parts again, or you’ll hear from me.”

And Raudel set off without an answer, and without knowing where he was going. He walked straight on for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, so dazed that he could not think at all.

But suddenly, as he was passing a small house whose window was half open, the savoury smell of stew took him by the throat and brought him up short before this dwelling.

And suddenly, hunger, savage, devouring, maddening hunger, caught him up and almost flung him like a wild creature against the walls of the house.

“God, they must give me something this time,” he said aloud in a plaintive voice, and hammered on the door with his stick. No one answered. He knocked, more loudly, shouting: “Hi! Hi! You folk in there! Hi! Open the door!”

Nothing stirred; going to the window, he pushed it with his hand, and the imprisoned air of the kitchen, warm air full of the savour of hot soup, cooked meat and cabbages, escaped into the cold outer air.

With a bound the carpenter was in the room. Two places were laid on the table. The owners, doubtless away at Mass, had left their dinner on the fire, good Sunday stew, with thick vegetable broth.

A new loaf awaited them on the hearth, standing between two bottles that seemed full.

Raudel first attacked the loaf, tearing it with as much violence as though he were throttling a man; then he began to eat it ravenously, gulping it rapidly down in great mouthfuls. But almost at once the smell of the meat drew him to the hearth and, taking off the lid of the pot, he thrust in a fork and brought out a big piece of beef, tied up with string. Then he took cabbage, carrots and onions until his plate was full, and, putting it on the table, he sat down, cut the meat into four portions, and dined as though he were in his own home. When he had eaten almost the whole piece, in addition to a quantity of vegetables, he realised that he was thirsty, and went to fetch one of the bottles standing by the hearth.

As soon as he saw the liquor in his glass he knew it for brandy. So much the worse for it; it was hot, and would put fire into his veins; that would be good, after having been so cold; and he drank.

He found it good indeed, for he had long been unused to it; he poured out another full glass, and swallowed it in two gulps. He began to feel happy at once, heartened by the alcohol, as though a vast content had poured through his body.

He continued to eat, less hastily now, chewing slowly and soaking his bread in the broth. The whole skin of his body had become burning hot, especially his forehead, where the blood was thudding. But suddenly a distant bell rang. It was the Mass ending; and instinct rather than fear, the instinctive prudence that guides and forewarns every creature in danger, jerked the carpenter to his feet. He put the remains of the loaf in one pocket, and the bottle of brandy in the other, and with furtive steps went to the window and looked out at the road.

It was still quite empty. He leapt out and went on his way; but instead of following the high road, he fled across the fields towards a wood he noticed.

He felt alert, strong, and lighthearted, content with what he had done, and so supple that he cleared the fences between the fields at one bound, feet together.

As soon as he was under the trees, he took the bottle from his pocket and started drinking again in long draughts, while he walked. Then his thoughts became confused, his eyes misty, and his legs as elastic as springs.

He sang the old folksong:

“Ah! qu’il fait donc bon,
Qu’il fait donc bon,
Cueillir la fraise.”27

He was walking now on thick moss, damp and cool, and this pleasant carpet underfoot filled him with a wild desire to turn somersaults like a child. He took a run, went head over heels, leapt up, and began again. And between each caper, he went on singing:

“Ah! qu’il fait donc bon,
Qu’il fait donc bon,
Cueillir la fraise.”

Suddenly he found himself beside a sunken lane, and saw therein a servant girl returning to the village, carrying in her hands two pails of milk; a barrel hoop from a cask kept them from knocking against her.

He watched her, leaning forward, his eyes lighting up like those of a dog sighting a quail.

She caught sight of him, raised her head, burst out laughing, and shouted to him:

“Was it you singing like that?”

He made no answer and jumped into the gully, although the bank was a good six feet high.

“Lord, you did scare me!” she said, seeing him suddenly standing in front of her.

But he did not hear her; he was drunk, he was mad, in the grip of a passion more devastating than hunger, maddened by alcohol and the overmastering passion of a man who for two months had been deprived of everything; who is drunk, and young, and ardent, on fire with all the appetites that nature has sown in a man’s vigorous body.

The girl recoiled, frightened by his face, his eyes, his half-open mouth, and his outstretched hands.

He grasped her by the shoulders and, without saying a word, flung her down on the road. She let go of her pails; they rolled along noisily, spilling all the milk; then she screamed; then, realising that it was no use shouting in that deserted spot, and well aware now that he was not determined on her death, she yielded without making too much to-do about it, nor much resenting it, for the fellow was strong but not too rough really.

When she rose, the thought of her overturned pails filled her with sudden wrath, and, taking off one of her wooden shoes, she rushed in her turn on the man, determined to break his head if he did not pay for her milk.

But he, mistaking her violent attack, a little sobered now, and desperately frightened at what he had done, made off with all the haste his legs would let him, while she threw stones, of which some hit him in the back.

He ran for a long time; then felt wearier than ever before in his life. His legs were too slack to carry him; his brain was reeling, he had forgotten everything that had happened, and could no longer think at all.

He sat down at the foot of a tree.

At the end of five minutes he was asleep.

He woke with a terrible start, and, opening his eyes, perceived two shiny leather cocked hats bending over him, and the two policemen of the morning holding and binding his arms.

“I knew we’d catch you again,” jeered the sergeant.

Raudel rose without a word of reply. The men shook him, prepared to treat him roughly if he made a protest, for he was their prey now, fair game, prison game captured by these hunters of criminals who would not let him go again.

“Off we go!” commanded the sergeant.

They set off. Evening was at hand, spreading an autumnal twilight, heavy and sinister, over the landscape.

In half an hour they reached the village.

All the doors were open, for everyone knew what had happened. Men and women, beside themselves with anger, as though each man had been robbed and each woman raped, were eager to see the wretch brought back, so that they might hurl insults at him.

The uproar began at the first house and ended at the Town Hall, where the mayor was waiting also, avenged on this vagabond.

As soon as he saw him, he shouted from the distance:

“Ah! ha! my fine fellow! Here we are!”

And he rubbed his hands, happy as he seldom was.

“I said so, I said so,” he continued, “merely by seeing him on the road,” and added, with redoubled joy:

“You’ll get your twenty years all right, you dirty scoundrel!”

A New Year’s Gift

Jacques de Rayndal, having dined alone at home, told the manservant that he might go out, and settled down to write some letters.

He always ended the year this way: alone, writing letters and dreaming. He reviewed everything that had happened since the last New Year’s Day, things that were done with, things that were dead, and as the faces of his friends appeared before him he wrote a few lines to each one, sending his cordial wishes for the 1st of January.

So he sat down, opened a drawer, from which he took a woman’s photograph, which he kissed after gazing at it for a few seconds. Then, placing it beside the sheet of notepaper, he began:

“My Dear Irène,

“You will have received the little souvenir which I sent to the woman you are; I have shut myself up this evening to tell you⁠—”

here the pen stopped and Jacques got up and began to walk up and down.

For the last ten months he had had a mistress⁠—not a mistress like the others: adventuresses, actresses, streetwalkers, but a woman he had loved and conquered. He was not a young man, although he was still youthful; he looked at life seriously from a positive and practical point of view.

So he started to draw up the balance sheet of his love affair, just as he drew up the yearly accounts of his new or discarded friendships, of things that had happened and of people who had come into his life.

The first ardour of his love had calmed down and he asked himself, with the precision of a shopkeeper making out his accounts, what his feelings were towards her, and tried to guess what they would be in the future. He found a great and deep affection, composed of tenderness, gratitude, and of thousands of trifles from which spring close and lasting intimacies.

A ring at the bell made him start. He hesitated about opening the door, but decided that on New Year’s night one must always open to the Unknown (whoever it may be) who knocks in passing by. He therefore took a candle, crossed the anteroom, shot back the bolt, turned the key, opened the door, and saw his mistress as pale as death, standing there with her hands against the wall.

He stammered: “What’s the matter?”

She replied: “You’re alone?”

“Yes.”

“No servants?”

“Yes.”

“You were not going out?”

“No.”

She entered the flat as if she were quite familiar with it. When she reached the drawing room she sank upon the couch and, covering her face with her hands, she burst into sobs. Instantly he was on his knees beside her, trying to move her arms away so as to see her eyes, saying again and again:

“Irène, Irène, what’s the matter with you? I implore you to tell me what’s the matter.”

In the midst of her sobs she murmured:

“I can’t go on living like this.”

He did not understand what she meant, and said:

“Like what?”

“Yes. I can’t go on living like this⁠—at home⁠—you don’t know⁠—I never told you⁠—it’s terrible⁠—I can’t go on⁠—I suffer too much⁠—he struck me a short time ago.”

“Who⁠—your husband?”

“Yes, my husband.”

“Ah!”

He was surprised, for he had never suspected that this husband could be brutal. He was a man of the world, of the best circles, a clubman, a frequenter of the races and the stage-door, and a fencer. He was known, appreciated, quoted everywhere, for he had very courteous manners, a very commonplace mind, and that lack of instruction and real intelligence which is the indispensable requirement for thinking as all well-brought-up people think. He also respected all the prejudices of his set.

He seemed to devote as much time to his wife as the rich and well-bred consider correct. He was sufficiently anxious about her wishes, her health, her clothes, and, moreover, left her her full freedom.

As Irène’s friend, Rayndal had the right to the welcome which every well-mannered husband owes to his wife’s friends. Then, when Jacques became the lover, after having been the friend, he was on the most cordial terms with the husband, as was fitting and proper.

He had never seen or suspected outbursts of temper in that house, and was quite dismayed at the unexpected revelation.

“How did it all happen, tell me?” he said. And she told him a long story, the story of her life since the day she was married; from the first misunderstanding, caused by a trifle, to the great rift, widening day by day, between two characters in opposition. Then there were quarrels and a complete separation⁠—not only apparent but real⁠—then her husband turned aggressive, sulky, violent, and now he was jealous of Jacques, and had that very day struck her, after making a scene.

She added firmly: “I will never go back. You can do what you like with me.”

Jacques was sitting opposite her, their knees touching. He took hold of her hands and said:

“My dear, dear friend, you are going to make a great, an irreparable mistake. If you want to leave your husband, put him in the wrong, so that your position as a woman, as an irreproachable woman of the world, may be saved.”

Gazing at him with anxious eyes, she asked:

“Then what do you advise me to do?”

“To go home and to put up with your life until you can get either a separation or a divorce honourably.”

“Isn’t your advice rather cowardly?”

“No, it is right and reasonable. You occupy a leading position, you have a name to be saved, friends to be kept, and relations to be considered. All this must not be forgotten and lost through mere waywardness.”

She rose and said vehemently:

“Well, there, no; I can’t; it’s finished; it’s finished; it’s finished!” Then, putting her hands on her lover’s shoulders and looking him straight in the eyes, she asked:

“Do you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

“Then, keep me here.”

He exclaimed: “Keep you? In my place? Here? But you must be mad! You would be done for forever; without hope of recovery! You are mad!”

She continued slowly and gravely, weighing every word:

“Listen, Jacques. He has forbidden me to see you again and I am not going through the farce of clandestine meetings. You must either take me or lose me.”

“In that case, my dear Irène, get a divorce and I will marry you.”

“Yes, you’ll marry me in⁠—two years at the soonest. Yours is a patient love!”

“Come, come, think it over. If you live here, he will make you go back tomorrow, because he is your husband and the law is on his side.”

“I did not ask you to keep me here, Jacques, but to take me away, anywhere. I thought you loved me well enough to do that. I was mistaken. Goodbye.”

She turned and went towards the door so quickly that he only caught her as she was going out of the room.

“Listen, Irène⁠—”

She struggled and refused to listen to anything more; with eyes full of tears, she stammered: “Let me go⁠—let me go⁠—let me go⁠—”

He forced her to sit down and again knelt beside her, trying to make her realise the folly, the danger of her plan, by every means in his power. He omitted none of the arguments he ought to use to convince her of her folly, seeking means of persuasion even in the tenderness of his feeling for her.

As she still remained dumb and frozen, he begged her to listen to him, to believe what he said, to follow his advice. When he had finished, she only said:

“Are you ready to let me go away now? Don’t hold me, I can’t get up.”

“Come, Irène⁠—”

“Will you leave go of me?”

“Irène, is this irrevocable?”

“Will you let me go?”

“Then stay. You know you are at home here. We’ll go away in the morning.”

She forced him to let her get up, and said, in a hard voice:

“No. It’s too late. I don’t want sacrifice, I don’t want devotion.”

“Stay. I have done all that I ought to have done, I have said all that I ought to have said. I have no further responsibility for you; my conscience is at ease. Tell me your wishes and I will obey.”

She sat down again, looked at him steadily, then asked quietly:

“Well, then, explain yourself.”

“What? What do you want me to explain?”

“Everything. All that you have been thinking to make you change your mind so completely. Then I shall know what I must do.”

“But I didn’t think at all. It was my duty to warn you that what you were bent on was madness. You won’t give in, so I ask for my share in this madness; more than that, I claim my share.”

“It isn’t natural to change one’s mind so quickly.”

“Listen, my dear, dear friend. It is not a question of sacrifice or devotion. The day I knew that I loved you, I said to myself⁠—and every lover should say the same thing in the same circumstances⁠—the man who loves a woman, who sets out to make a conquest, who is successful and makes her his, contracts a solemn obligation which includes not only himself but the woman he loves. I am referring, of course, to a woman like you, and not to those of easy approach.

“Marriage, with its great social and legal value, is only of very slight moral value in my eyes, taking into consideration the prevailing conditions. Therefore when a woman who is bound by this legal tie does not love her husband and cannot love him, whose heart is free, meets a man she loves and gives herself to him, when a man without other ties takes possession of a woman in this way, I say that this free and mutual consent constitutes a much more binding obligation than the ‘yes’ uttered before the Registrar. I say that if they are both honourable their union must be closer, stronger, saner than if it had been consecrated by every sacrament of the Church.

“The woman takes every risk, and it is because she knows this, because she gives all⁠—her heart, her body, her soul, her honour, her life⁠—because she foresees the wretchedness, the danger, the trouble, because she dares to act boldly, firmly, because she is prepared, determined to face anything⁠—the husband who may kill her, and society who may turn its back on her⁠—these are the reasons why she is worthy of respect in her conjugal infidelity, this is why the lover, in taking possession of her, must also have foreseen every possible complication and must cling to her no matter what may happen. I have nothing more to say. I spoke first as a reasonable man whose duty it was to warn you, now there only remains the man, he who loves you. Give your orders.”

Radiant, she closed his mouth with her lips and whispered:

“Darling, it was not true, nothing has happened, my husband does not suspect anything. But I wanted to see, I wanted to know what you would do⁠—I wanted a New Year’s gift⁠—the gift of your love⁠—another gift besides the necklace you sent me. You have given it to me. Thanks⁠—thanks⁠—Oh, God! how happy I am!”

Madame Hermet

Madmen fascinate me. These beings live in a mysterious land of fantastic dreams, in that impenetrable cloud of insanity where all that they have seen on earth, all that they have loved, all that they have done, lives again for them in an imaginary existence outside all the laws that govern the world and order human thought.

For them the impossible does not exist, the unlikely disappears, the fairy world becomes the natural world, and the supernatural familiar. Logic, that ancient barrier, reason, that ancient wall, good sense, that ancient balustrade of the mind, is broken, shattered, demolished by their imagination, which has been loosed into freedom, has escaped into the realms of fantasy to which no bounds are set, and rushes forward in fabulous leaps without let or hindrance. For them everything happens and everything can happen. They make no efforts to conquer events, overcome resistances, surmount obstacles. A mere whim of their fantasy-creating will allows them to become princes, emperors or gods, to possess all the riches of the world, all the good things of life, allows them to enjoy all pleasures, allows them to be always strong, always beautiful, always young, always loved. Of all creatures on this earth, they alone are happy, since for them reality no longer exists. I like to hang over their vagabond minds, as one hangs over an abyss in whose depths boils an unknown torrent, come one knows not whence and going one knows not whither.

But it avails us nothing to hang over these ravines, since we could never know whence comes that stream or whither it goes. After all, it is only a stream, like the streams that run in broad daylight, and a sight of it would teach us very little.

It avails us as little to hang over the minds of madmen, for their most fantastic ideas are, in effect, no more than ideas already known to us, made strange only because they are no longer shackled by Reason. That capricious spring confounds and amazes us because we do not see the place of its rising. Doubtless a little stone dropped in its course is enough to produce these whirlpools. Nevertheless, madmen fascinate me, and I keep going back to them, attracted in spite of myself by this commonplace mystery of insanity.

But one day, as I was visiting one of their asylums, the doctor who was escorting me said:

“Come, I’ll show you an interesting case.”

And he opened a cell in which a woman of about forty years of age, still beautiful, was seated in a big armchair, gazing fixedly at her face in a small hand-glass.

As soon as she saw us, she stood up, ran to the farther side of the room to get a veil thrown down on a chair, very carefully swarthed her face in it, then returned, replying to our greetings by a sign of her head.

“Well,” said the doctor, “how are you this morning?”

She uttered a deep sigh.

“Oh, ill, very ill, doctor, the marks get worse every day.”

He replied with an air of conviction:

“No, certainly not, I assure you that you’re mistaken.”

She drew close to him to murmur:

“No. I’m sure of it. I’ve counted ten more marks this morning, three on the right cheek, four on the left cheek, and three on my forehead. It’s frightful, frightful. I daren’t let anyone see me now, not even my son, no, not even he! I’m ruined, I’m disfigured for life.”

She sank back into her armchair and began to sob.

The doctor took a chair, seated himself near her, and in a gentle, comforting voice said:

“Come now, let me look, I assure you it’s nothing. By a slight cauterising, I can make them all disappear.”

She shook her head, without saying a word. He tried to touch her veil, but she grasped it in both hands with such violence that her fingers went through it.

He began afresh to exhort and reassure her.

“Come, now, you know quite well that I remove the ugly pockmarks from your skin every time and that you can’t see them at all when I have attended to them. If you don’t show them to me, I can’t cure you.”

She murmured:

“I’m quite willing to let you look again but I don’t know this gentleman who is with you.”

“He is a doctor too, who can attend to you even better than I can.”

Then she uncovered her face, but her fear and her emotion, her shame at being seen, made her blush even over her throat, to the point where her gown covered it. She lowered her eyes, turned her face now to the right and now to the left, to escape our gaze, and stammered:

“Oh, it makes me suffer agonies to let you see me like this. It’s horrible, isn’t it? Isn’t it horrible?”

I looked at her in the utmost amazement, for she had nothing on her face, not a mark, not a stain, not a sign nor a scar.

She turned towards me, keeping her eyes lowered, and said to me:

“It was through nursing my son that I contracted this frightful disease. I saved him but I am disfigured. I gave my beauty to my poor child. Well, I did my duty, and my conscience is at rest. If I suffer, only God knows it.”

The doctor had taken from his pocket a slender watercolour brush.

“Allow me,” said he, “I’ll put it all right for you.”

She turned to him her right cheek, and he began to lay light touches on it, as if he were putting small dabs of paint on it. He did the same to the left cheek, then to the chin, then the forehead; then he cried:

“Look, it’s all gone, all gone.”

She took up her glass, gazed at herself for a long time with a searching intensity, a harrowing intensity, a savagely concentrated mental effort to discover something, then she sighed:

“No. There’s very little to see now. Thank you very much indeed.”

The doctor rose. He took leave of her, ushered me out and followed me; and as soon as the door was closed, said:

“I’ll tell you that poor woman’s dreadful story.”

Her name is Mme. Hermet. She was very beautiful, a real coquette, loved of many, and full of the joy of life.

She was one of those women whose sole consolation in life is derived from and their conduct dictated by their beauty and their desire to please.

The unremitting anxiety to preserve her freshness, the care of her face, her hands, teeth, of every part of her body that she could display, absorbed all her time and all her attention.

She became a widow, with one son. The child was brought up in the same way as are all children of much admired women. She loved him, however.

He grew up, and she grew old. Whether or not she saw the fatal moment coming, I don’t know. Did she, like so many others, gaze every morning for hours and hours at the skin that used to be so delicate, so clear and fresh, and now is wrinkling a little under the eyes, creasing itself in a thousand lines, that are imperceptible now, but will deepen and deepen, day by day, month by month? And did she see, more and more strongly marked, advancing with slow relentless certainty, the long lines graven on the forehead, those thin serpents whose progress nothing halts? Did she endure the torture, the abominable torture, of the looking-glass, of the small silver hand-glass that she could not resolve to leave on the table, then threw down in anger, and a moment later picked up again, to see once more, ever nearer and nearer, the hateful silent ravages of approaching age? Did she shut herself up ten, twenty times a day, leaving, for no reason, the drawing room where her friends were chatting, to go up to her bedroom and, safeguarded by bolts and locks, gaze again on the destruction at work in the ripened fading flesh, to examine despairingly the hardly perceptible advance that so far no one else seems to notice but of which she herself is bitterly aware? She knows where the most serious ravages are, where the tooth of age bites deepest. And the glass, the small, quite round glass in its frame of chased silver, says dreadful things to her, for it speaks, it seems to laugh, it rails on her and predicts all that is coming to pass, all the miseries of her body, and the atrocious torture of her mind that will endure to the day of her death, which will be that of her deliverance.

Did she weep, distracted, on her knees, her forehead on the ground, and pray, pray, pray to Him who kills His creatures thus, giving them youth only to make age the more bitter, and lending them beauty only to take it back almost at once; did she pray Him, implore Him, to grant to her what He had never granted to anyone, to allow her to keep until her last day, charm and freshness and grace? Then, realising that in vain does she implore the implacable Unknown who adds year to year in endless number, did she roll with writhing arms on the carpet of her room, did she beat her forehead on its furniture and stifle in her throat her frightful despairing cries?

She must have endured these tortures. For this is what happened:

One day (she was then thirty-five years old) her son, aged fifteen, fell ill.

He took to his bed before the doctors had been able to diagnose the cause of his illness or its nature. An abbé, his tutor, watched over him, hardly leaving his side, while Mme. Hermet came morning and evening to hear his report.

She entered in the morning in a rest gown, smiling, already scented, and asked, from the door:

“Well, George, are you getting better?”

The tall youngster, crimson, his face swollen, and wasted by the fever, would answer:

“Yes, mammie, a little better.”

She lingered a few moments in the bedroom, examining the bottles of medicine and making little grimaces of disgust, then suddenly cried: “Oh, I was forgetting something very important,” and she took herself off, running, leaving behind her the delicate fragrance of her morning toilet.

At night she appeared in her evening gown, in a still greater hurry, for she was always late, and she had just time to ask:

“Well, what did the doctor say?”

The abbé replied:

“He’s not sure yet, madame.”

But, one evening, the abbé replied:

“Madam, your son has taken smallpox.”

She uttered a loud cry of fear and rushed away. When her maid came to her room next morning the first thing she noticed in the room was a strong smell of burnt sugar, and she found her mistress, wide-awake, her face pale for lack of sleep and shaking with anguish in her bed.

As soon as the shutters were open Mme. Hermet asked:

“How is George?”

“Oh, not at all well today, madame.”

She did not get up until midday, ate two eggs with a cup of tea, as if she herself were ill, then she went out and consulted a chemist as to the best methods of keeping off the infection of smallpox.

She did not return until dinnertime, laden with phials, and shut herself at once in her room, where she soaked herself in disinfectants.

The abbé was waiting for her in the dining room. As soon as she caught sight of him she cried, in a voice full of emotion:

“Well?”

“Oh, no better. The doctor is very anxious.”

She began to cry, and could eat nothing, so wretched was she.

The next day, at dawn, she sent for news: the report was no better and she spent the whole day in her room, where small braziers were smoking and filling the room with powerful odours. Moreover, her maid declared that she heard her moaning all the evening.

A whole week passed in this way: she did nothing at all but go out for an hour or two to take the air, towards the middle of the afternoon.

She asked for news every hour now, and sobbed when each report was worse.

On the morning of the eleventh day, the abbé was announced, entered her room, his face grave and pale, and declining the chair that she offered him, said:

“Madame, your son is very ill, and he wants to see you.”

She flung herself on her knees, crying:

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, I daren’t! My God, my God! help me!”

The priest answered:

“The doctor holds out very little hope, madame, and George is waiting for you.”

Then he went out.

Two hours later, as the boy, feeling himself near death, asked again for his mother, the abbé went back to her room and found her still on her knees, still weeping and repeating:

“I won’t.⁠ ⁠… I won’t.⁠ ⁠… I am too frightened⁠ ⁠… I won’t.⁠ ⁠…”

He tried to persuade her, to stiffen her resolution, to lead her out. He succeeded only in giving her a fit of hysteria which lasted for a long time and made her scream.

The doctor came again towards evening, was told of her cowardice and declared that he himself would fetch her, by persuasion or force. But when, after having exhausted all his arguments, he put his arm around her to carry her off to her son, she seized the door and clung to it so desperately that no one could tear her away. Then, released, she prostrated herself at the doctor’s feet, begging for pardon, and accusing herself of wickedness. She kept crying: “Oh, he’s not going to die, tell me he’s not going to die, I implore you, tell him that I love him, that I adore him.⁠ ⁠…”

The boy lay at the point of death. Realising that he only had a few moments left, he begged them to persuade his mother to say goodbye to him. With strange insight that the dying sometimes possess, he had realised the truth, divined it, and said: “If she is afraid to come in, just beg her to come along the balcony as far as my window so that at least I can see her and say goodbye to her by a look, since I may not kiss her.”

The doctor and the abbé went back once more to this woman. “You will run no risk at all,” they declared, “since there will be glass between you and him.”

She consented to come, covered her head, took a bottle of smelling-salts, made three steps along the balcony, then suddenly, hiding her face in her hands, she moaned: “No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… I shall never dare to look at him⁠ ⁠… never⁠ ⁠… I’m too ashamed⁠ ⁠… I’m too afraid⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… I can’t.”

They tried to drag her along, but she held with both hands to the bars and uttered such wails that the people passing by in the street lifted their heads.

And the dying boy waited, his eyes turned towards this window, he waited, putting off death until he should have looked one last time on that gentle beloved face, his mother’s blessed face.

He waited for a long time, and night fell. Then he turned his face to the wall and never spoke again.

When day broke, he was dead. The next day, she was a madwoman.

Epiphany

“Ah!” said Captain the Comte de Garens, “I should think I do remember that Twelfth Night, during the war!

“I was a quartermaster in the Hussars in those days, and for the past fortnight I’d been wandering about scouting in front of a German advance-guard. The night before, we had sabred some Uhlans and lost three men; poor little Raudeville was one of them. You remember Joseph de Raudeville.

“Well, that day my captain ordered me to take ten men to go and occupy the village of Porterin and guard it all night. There had been five fights in three weeks in the place, and not twenty houses were left standing nor twelve people still dwelling in the damned wasps’ nest.

“So I took my ten men and went off at about four o’clock. It was five o’clock, and pitch-dark, when we reached the first ruins of Porterin. I called a halt and ordered Marchas⁠—you know, Pierre de Marchas, who married the Martel-Auvelin girl, the Marquis de Martel-Auvelin’s daughter⁠—to go on alone into the village and bring back a report.

“I had chosen only volunteers, all men of good family. In the army the men prefer not to be on familiar terms with bounders. Marchas was a live wire, as sly as a fox and as wily as a serpent. He could scent a Prussian like a dog a bone, could find food in a spot where we should have died of hunger without him, and could get information from anyone, always accurate, with incredible skill.

“He returned ten minutes later.

“ ‘All serene,’ he said; ‘There hasn’t been a Prussian in the place for three days. The village is a sinister place. I had a talk with a sister who is looking after four or five sick people in an abandoned convent.’

“I ordered my men forward, and we entered the main street. We caught vague glimpses, to right and left, of roofless walls hardly visible in the profound darkness. Here and there a light gleamed behind a window; a family, prompted by courage or necessity, had stayed to guard its barely standing home. Rain was beginning to fall, a thin, icy drizzle that froze before it wetted, as soon as it touched our coats. The horses stumbled over stones, beams, and articles of furniture. Marchas was our guide, walking at our head and leading his beast by the bridle.

“ ‘Where are you taking us?’ I asked him.

“ ‘I’ve got a good place,’ he replied.

“Soon he stopped in front of a small villa, still intact, and fast locked. It was right on the road, with a garden at the rear.

“Picking up a large stone by the entrance gate, Marchas smashed the lock; then he mounted the steps, broke in the front door with kicks and shoulder-thrusts, lit a candle-end that he always kept in his pocket, and preceded us into the pleasant and comfortable home of some wealthy private citizen. He guided us with marvellous assurance, as though he had lived in the house, which he was, as a matter of fact, seeing for the first time.

“Two men remained outside, guarding our horses.

“ ‘The stables must be on the left,’ said Marchas to fat Ponderel, who was following him; ‘I saw them as I came in. Go and put up the animals: we don’t need them any more.’

“He turned to me.

“ ‘Give your orders⁠—can’t you?⁠—damn your eyes!’

“The fellow was always surprising me.

“ ‘I’m going to put sentries round the village,’ I replied, laughing. ‘I’ll find you here when I’ve finished.’

“ ‘How many men are you taking?’ he asked.

“ ‘Five. The others will relieve them at ten tonight.’

“ ‘Right. You’re leaving me four to get food, do the cooking, and lay the table. I’m going to find where the wine is hidden.’

“I went off to reconnoitre the deserted streets as far as the point where they ran out into the plain, and placed my sentries.

“I was back again in half an hour. I found Marchas lying in a large lounge chair; he had taken off its loose cover, for love of soft living, he said. He was toasting his feet at the fire, and smoking an excellent cigar, the scent of which filled the room. He was alone, his elbows on the arms of the chair, his head sunk between his shoulders, his cheeks pink, his eyes bright, and his expression one of delighted contentment.

“I heard a clatter of plates in the next room. Marchas greeted me with a beatific smile.

“ ‘All serene,’ he said; ‘I found the claret in the henhouse, the champagne under the front doorsteps, and the brandy⁠—fifty bottles of real good stuff⁠—in the kitchen garden, under a pear-tree, which, in the light of a lantern, did not look to me to be quite straight. As for victuals, we’ve two hens, a goose, a duck, three pigeons, and a blackbird found in a cage; nothing, in fact, but our feathered friends. It’s all cooking now. This is a splendid place.’

“I had sat down opposite him. The flame in the fireplace scorched my nose and cheeks.

“ ‘Where did you find that wood?’ I asked.

“ ‘Wonderful wood,’ he murmured, ‘first-rate carriage, a coupé. It’s the paint that makes it flare up, a sort of punch of spirit and varnish. A jolly good house!’

“I laughed at the fellow, he was so comic.

“ ‘And to think it’s Twelfth Night!’ he continued. ‘I’ve had a bean put in the goose; but there’s no queen; what a pity!’

“ ‘What a pity!’ I echoed; ‘but what do you want me to do about it?’

“ ‘Find ’em, of course!’

“ ‘What?’

“ ‘Women.’

“ ‘Women?⁠ ⁠… You’re mad.’

“ ‘Well, I found the brandy under the pear-tree⁠—didn’t I?⁠—and the champagne under the doorsteps, and I had nothing to go on, either. Whereas, for you, a skirt is a sure sign. You just have a hunt, old man.’

“He seemed so grave, so serious, so convinced, that I could not tell if he were jesting.

“ ‘Marchas,’ I replied, ‘you’re pulling my leg.’

“ ‘No, I’m not; I never do, on service.’

“ ‘But where the devil do you expect me to find women?’

“ ‘Anywhere. There must be two or three left in the neighbourhood. Rout them out and bring them along.’

“I rose. It was too hot in front of the fire.

“ ‘Do you want a suggestion?’ added Marchas.

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Go and find the priest.’

“ ‘The priest. What for?’

“ ‘Ask him to supper, and tell him to bring a woman.’

“ ‘The priest! A woman! Ha! ha! ha!’

“ ‘I’m not joking,’ replied Marchas with extraordinary seriousness. ‘Go and find the priest, and tell him our situation. He must be frightfully bored; he’ll come all right. But tell him we must have at least one woman, a decent woman, of course, since we’re all gentlemen. He must have his female parishioners’ names and natures at his fingers’ ends. If there’s a possible one about, and you make a good job of it, he’ll tell you who she is.’

“ ‘But, good Lord, Marchas, what are you thinking of?’

“ ‘My dear Garens, you can do it beautifully. It’ll be awfully funny. Damn it, we’re all good fellows, decently bred and agreeable and that sort of thing. Give the priest our names, make him laugh, soften his heart, seduce him, and win him over!’

“ ‘No, it’s impossible.’

“He drew up his chair. The dog knew my pet weakness, and replied:

“ ‘Think what a joke it would be, and what a good story it will make. The whole army will be talking of it. It’ll get you no end of a reputation.’

“I wavered, tempted by the adventure.

“ ‘Come on, Garens,’ he persisted. ‘You’re commander here, and the only man who can go and seek out the local commander of the Church. Do go. And I’ll make a poem about it, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, after the war, I swear I will. You owe it to your men; you’ve been trotting them all over the place for a solid month.’

“I got up.

“ ‘Where is the rectory?’ I asked.

“ ‘Take the second turning on the left. At the end of it, you’ll find an avenue, and, at the end of the avenue, the church. The rectory is beside it.’

“As he went out, he called after me:

“ ‘Tell him the menu, to give him an appetite.’

“I had no difficulty in finding the priest’s little house, beside a large ugly brick church. The door had no bell or knocker, and I beat it with my upon fist.

“ ‘Who’s there?’ asked a loud voice from within.

“ ‘Quartermaster of Hussars,’ I replied.

“I heard a noise of bolts and a key being turned, and found myself face to face with a tall, potbellied priest, with the chest of a prizefighter, formidable hands issuing from his rolled-back sleeves, a red complexion, and an air of good-fellowship.

“I saluted him in military fashion.

“ ‘Good afternoon, your Reverence.’

“He had feared a surprise, an ambuscade by wandering troops, and it was with a smile that he replied:

“ ‘Good afternoon, friend; come in.’

“I followed him into a little room with a red tiled floor; a meagre fire was burning, very different from Marchas’ furnace.

“He showed me a chair, and then said:

“ ‘What can I do for you?’

“ ‘First of all, your Reverence, permit me to introduce myself.’

“And I offered him my card.

“He took it, and repeated under his breath:

“ ‘The Comte de Garens.’

“ ‘There are eleven of us here, your Reverence,’ I continued, ‘five out on guard, and six installed in the house of some unknown resident. The six are Garens, myself here, Pierre de Marchas, Ludovic de Ponderel, the Baron d’Étreillis, Karl Massonligny, the son of the artist, and Joseph Herbon, a young musician. I have come, on their behalf and my own, to ask you to do us the honour of supping with us. It is a Twelfth Night supper, sir, and we should like to make some sort of festive occasion of it.’

“The priest smiled.

“ ‘This hardly seems an occasion for merriment,’ he murmured.

“ ‘We’re fighting every day, sir,’ I replied. ‘Fourteen of our comrades have died in the past month, and three fell only yesterday. It is war. We’re staking our lives every moment; haven’t we the right to play the game gaily? We are Frenchmen, we love to laugh, and we can laugh anywhere. Our fathers laughed on the scaffold! And this evening we want to relax a little, like gentlemen, not a vulgar orgy, you understand. Are we wrong?’

“ ‘You are right, my friend,’ he replied eagerly, ‘and I have the greatest pleasure in accepting your invitation. Hermance!’ he shouted.

“An aged peasant woman, bent, wrinkled, and hideous, appeared and asked:

“ ‘What is it?’

“ ‘I shan’t be dining here, girl.’

“ ‘Where are you dining, then?’

“ ‘With the gentlemen of the Hussars.’

“I wanted to say: ‘Bring your servant,’ for the sake of seeing Marchas’ face, but I did not dare.

“ ‘Among those of your parishioners who have stayed in the village,’ I began, ‘can you think of anyone, man or woman, whom I could invite also?’

“He paused and thought.

“ ‘No, no one,’ he replied.

“ ‘No one!’⁠ ⁠… I persisted. ‘Come now, your Reverence, do think. It would be vastly diverting to have ladies. Married couples, I mean. Of course, I don’t know any. The baker and his wife, perhaps? The grocer, the⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… the watchmaker⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… the shoemaker⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… the chemist and his lady.⁠ ⁠… We’ve good food, and wine, and we should love to leave a kindly remembrance of ourselves here.’

“Again the priest reflected for some time, and finally declared with decision:

“ ‘No, no one.’

“I began to laugh.

“ ‘But, damn it, your Reverence, it’s a pity not to have a queen; we’ve got a bean. Now do think. Isn’t there a married mayor, a married deputy mayor, a married town councillor, a married schoolmaster?⁠ ⁠…’

“ ‘No, all the ladies have gone.’

“ ‘What, is there no good lady with her man in the whole place, to whom we could give this little pleasure, for it would be a great pleasure for them, in the present circumstances?’

“All of a sudden the priest burst out in a violent fit of laughter that shook his whole body.

“ ‘Ha! ha! ha!’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ve got it; by the Lord, I’ve got it! Ha! ha! ha! we’ll have a good laugh, my lads, that we will. And they’ll be awfully pleased, awfully pleased! Ha! ha! Now, where are you billeted?’

“I told him the house, and described it. He knew it.

“ ‘That’s splendid. It’s M. Bertin-Lavaille’s place. I’ll be there in half an hour with four ladies!!! Ha! ha! ha! four ladies!!!⁠ ⁠…’

“He went out with me, still laughing, and left me, repeating:

“ ‘In half an hour, then, at Bertin-Lavaille’s house.’

“I went back quickly, in great astonishment and excitement.

“ ‘How many places?’ inquired Marchas, catching sight of me.

“ ‘Eleven. Six of us Hussars, the priest, and four ladies.’

“He was overwhelmed. It was my hour of triumph.

“ ‘Four ladies! Did you say four ladies?’ he repeated.

“ ‘I said four ladies.’

“ ‘Real women?’

“ ‘Real women.’

“ ‘Good God! My congratulations!’

“ ‘I accept them. I deserve them.’

“He quitted his armchair, and opened the door. I saw a fine white cloth laid on a long table round which three Hussars in blue aprons were setting plates and glasses.

“ ‘There will be women!’ shouted Marchas, and the three men capered about and applauded mightily.

“All was ready. We were waiting. We waited for nearly an hour. A delicious smell of roasting poultry was wafted over the whole house.

“A knock upon the shutter made us all start up simultaneously. Fat Ponderel ran to open the door and, scarcely a minute later, a little nun appeared in the doorway. She was thin, wrinkled, and timid; and bowed in turn to each of the four scared Hussars who watched her come in. Behind her was a noise of sticks tapping upon the corridor tiles, and, when she had passed into the drawing room, I could see three old white-bonneted heads following behind, all swaying along with different movements, one lolling to the right, and another to the left. And three old women appeared, limping, dragging a leg, lamed with disease and deformed by old age, three pensioned-off invalids, the only three patients still capable of walking out of the hospital, directed by Sister Saint-Benedict.

“She had turned back towards her patients, full of solicitude for them; then, seeing the gold lace that marked me as a quartermaster, she addressed me:

“ ‘Thank you very much, sir, for thinking of these poor women. They have very little pleasure in their lives, and it is a great happiness and a great honour that you are bestowing on them.’

“I could see the priest, who had remained in the darkness of the passage; he was laughing uproariously. I too began to laugh, especially at sight of Marchas’ face. Then I showed the nun some chairs:

“ ‘Sit down, Sister; we are very proud and happy that you have accepted our modest invitation.’

“She took three chairs from along the wall and set them in a row before the fire. Then she led up her three charges and sat them down therein, taking away their sticks and shawls, which she laid down in a corner. Pointing to the first woman, a thin creature with an enormous stomach, obviously dropsical, she announced:

“ ‘This is old Mother Paumelle, whose husband was killed by falling off a roof and whose son died in Africa. She is sixty-two.’

“Then she indicated the second, a tall woman whose head was always shaking.

“ ‘This is old Mother Jean-Jean, aged sixty-seven. She is almost blind; her face was scorched in a fire and her right leg half burnt away.’

“Finally she showed us the third, a sort of dwarf with protruding eyes rolling in every direction, round and vacant.

“ ‘This is Putois, a half-wit. She is only forty-four.’

“I had saluted the three as though they were Royal Highnesses to whom I was being presented. I turned to the priest:

“ ‘You are a treasure, your Reverence,’ I said, ‘and all of us here owe you a debt of gratitude.’

“Everyone laughed, except Marchas, who seemed in a furious temper.

“ ‘Sister Saint-Benedict is served,’ suddenly shouted Karl Massonligny.

“I sent her in front with the priest, and followed supporting old Mother Paumelle, taking her arm and leading her into the next room, not without difficulty, for her bloated body seemed heavier than iron.

“Fat Ponderel took in Mother Jean-Jean, who whined for her crutch, and little Joseph Herbon led Putois, the idiot, to the dining room, which was full of the odour of food.

“As soon as we were in our places, the Sister clapped her hands three times, and, with the precision of soldiers presenting arms, the women rapidly crossed themselves. Then the priest slowly recited the Latin words of the Benedicite.

“We all sat down, and the two fowls appeared, carried in by Marchas, who was eager to act as a waiter in order to avoid being present as a guest at the absurd meal.

“ ‘The champagne, quick!’ I shouted. A cork popped with a noise like a pistol-shot, and, despite the protests of the priest and the Sister, the three Hussars seated beside the three invalids forcibly poured their three full glasses down their neighbours’ throats.

“Massonligny, who had a gift for making himself at home anywhere and at his ease with anyone, was paying elaborate and rarely comic attentions to Mother Paumelle. The victim of dropsy was still gay at heart in spite of her misfortunes, and made lively and teasing replies in a falsetto voice that sounded as if it were artificially assumed. She laughed so violently at her neighbour’s pleasantries that her huge belly seemed on the point of flying up and rolling all over the table. Little Herbon had seriously taken in hand the business of making the half-wit drunk, and the Baron d’Étreillis, who was rather slow in the uptake, questioned Mother Jean-Jean on the life, customs, and direction of the hospital.

“ ‘Oh!’ cried the frightened nun to Massonligny. ‘You will make her ill; please don’t make her laugh like that, I beg you, sir. Oh! sir!⁠ ⁠…’

“She rose and flew at Herbon, to snatch away the full glass he was nimbly emptying into Putois’ mouth.

“The priest was almost helpless with laughter, repeating:

“ ‘Let them alone for once, Sister, it doesn’t do them any harm. Let them alone.’

“After the two fowls we had eaten the duck, flanked by the three pigeons and the blackbird; then the goose appeared, smoking and golden, spreading around a warm smell of browned, juicy meat.

“Mother Paumelle, who was growing more lively, clapped her hands; Mother Jean-Jean stopped replying to the Baron’s numerous questions, and Putois uttered little grunts of pleasure, half cries and half sighs, like the sound made by little children who are offered sweets.

“ ‘May I take charge of this animal?’ inquired the priest. ‘I am an expert in such operations.’

“ ‘Certainly, your Reverence.’

“ ‘Might we have the window open a little?’ asked the Sister. ‘They are too hot; I am sure they will be ill.’

“ ‘Open the window for a minute,’ I said, turning to Marchas.

“He opened it and the cold air from outside came in, setting the candles flickering and the smoke from the goose eddying round the room; the priest, with a napkin round his neck, was scientifically removing the bird’s wings.

“We watched him at work, without speaking, fascinated by his lovely skill, and dowered with renewed appetites at the sight of the huge golden creature whose limbs fell one after another into the brown gravy at the bottom of the dish.

“Suddenly, in the middle of our greedy, attentive silence, there entered through the open window the sound of a distant rifle shot.

“I was on my feet so quickly that my chair fell over behind me.

“ ‘To horse, all of you!’ I cried. ‘Marchas, take two men and go and get news. I shall be waiting here for you in five minutes.’

“And while the three riders galloped away into the night, I and my two other Hussars mounted at the steps of the villa. The priest, the Sister, and the three worthy women showed their scared faces at the windows.

“Nothing more was to be heard, except for the barking of a dog in the distance. The rain had stopped; it was cold, very cold. A moment later I could hear a galloping horse, a single horse returning.

“It was Marchas.

“ ‘Well?’ I shouted.

“ ‘Nothing at all,’ he replied. ‘François has wounded an old peasant who refused to answer to the “Who goes there?” and continued to advance, in spite of the order to clear off. They’re bringing him in, and we shall see who he is.’

“I ordered the horses to be put back in the stables, and sent my two men to meet the others. Then I returned to the house.

“The priest, Marchas, and I carried down a mattress into the drawing room for the wounded man; the Sister tore us a napkin and made lint of it, while the three bewildered women remained sitting in a corner.

“Soon I heard a sound of sabres clattering on the road; I took a candle to give light to the men who were returning. They came into sight, bearing the inert, slack, long, sinister shape that a human body becomes when the vigour of life has withdrawn.

“The wounded man was laid upon the mattress prepared for him, and I saw at the first glance that he was dying.

“There was a rattling in his throat, and he was spitting blood; it trickled from the corners of his lips, spurting from his mouth at each hiccup. The poor man was covered with it! His cheeks, his beard, his hair, his neck, his clothes, all seemed to have been scoured and bathed in a basin of red. The blood had congealed upon him, and had grown stale, dull, and mixed with mud; a horrible sight.

“Wrapped in a great frieze cloak, the old man kept half opening sad, lightless, empty eyes, that seemed dazed with astonishment, like those of a shot beast fallen at the hunter’s feet; already three parts dead, besotted with surprise and terror, he stared at his slayer.

“ ‘Ah!’ cried the priest, ‘it’s Father Placide, the old shepherd from Les Moulins. The poor old man’s deaf, and cannot have heard. Dear! dear! you’ve killed the poor wretch!’

“The Sister had torn away his blouse and his shirt, and was gazing at a little purple hole, no longer bleeding, in the middle of his chest.

“ ‘There is nothing to be done,’ she said.

“The shepherd, gasping terribly, was still spitting blood at every one of his last breaths; in his throat, right down to the lungs, could be heard a ceaseless, sinister, gurgling sound.

“The priest, standing over him, raised his right hand, made the sign of the cross, and in a slow, solemn voice uttered the Latin words that wash clean the soul.

“Before he had finished, the old man was shaken with a brief shudder, as though something inside him had just broken. He had stopped breathing. He was dead.

“Turning round, I saw a spectacle more ghastly than the last agonies of the unfortunate man: the three old women, standing huddled together, were making hideous grimaces of anguish and horror.

“I went towards them, and they began to utter shrill screams and tried to run away, as though I were going to kill them too.

“Mother Jean-Jean, who could put no weight on her burnt leg, fell full length upon the floor.

“The Sister, abandoning the dead man, ran to her charges, and, without a word or a glance at me, wrapped them in their shawls, gave them their crutches, hustled them to the door, thrust them out of it, and vanished with them into the utter blackness of the night.

“I realised that I could not even send one Hussar with them; the mere noise of his sabre would have driven them out of their minds.

“The priest was still staring at the dead man.

“At last he turned round towards me.

“ ‘A bad business,’ he said, ‘a bad business.’ ”

One Night’s Entertainment

Sergeant-Major Varajou had got eight days’ leave to visit his sister, Mme. Padoie. Varajou, who was garrisoned at Rennes, and led a gay life there, finding himself penniless and in disgrace with his family, had written to his sister that he would be able to devote a week’s freedom to her. Not that he was very fond of Mme. Padoie, a sententious little woman, pious and always ill-tempered, but he needed money, he needed it badly, and he remembered that the Padoies were the only remaining relatives on whom he had not levied toll.

Varajou senior, formerly a horticulturist at Angers, had retired from business, had shut his purse to his scapegrace of a son, and had hardly set eyes on him for two years. His daughter had married Padoie, formerly a bank clerk, who had just been made a tax-collector at Vannes.

So Varajou betook himself by train to his brother-in-law’s house; he found him in his office, in the thick of a discussion with some Breton peasants from the neighbouring village. Padoie rose from his chair, held out a hand across the table piled with papers, and murmured:

“Take a seat, I’ll be ready to talk to you in a minute,” sat down again, and went on with the discussion.

The peasants did not understand his explanations, he did not understand their arguments; he spoke French, the others spoke a Breton dialect, and the clerk who was acting as interpreter did not seem to understand either party.

For a long time Varajou sat contemplating his brother-in-law, and thinking: “What an impossible ass!”

Padoie must have been nearly fifty years old; he was tall, thin, bony, slow and shaggy, with overarching eyebrows that formed hairy vaults over his eyes. His head was covered with a velvet cap, ornamented with a golden tassel; his glance was mild, as were all his characteristics; he was mild in word, deed and thought. Varajou silently reiterated: “What an impossible ass!”

He himself was one of your noisy roisterers, for whom life holds no greater pleasures than wine and bought women. Outside these two poles of existence, he understood nothing. Braggart, brawler, contemptuous of every living person, he despised the whole world from the heights of his ignorance. When he said: “Damn it, what a lark,” he had certainly expressed the highest degree of admiration of which he was capable.

At last Padoie dismissed the peasants, and asked:

“You going on all right?”

“Not bad, as you can see. What about you?”

“Fairly well, thanks. It’s very nice of you to think of coming to see us.”

“Oh, I’ve been thinking of coming to see you for a long time, but in the military profession one’s not so free, you know.”

“Oh, I know, I know. Never mind, it’s very nice of you.”

“And is Joséphine well?”

“Yes, yes, thanks, you’ll see her in a moment.”

“Where is she now, then?”

“She’s out visiting; we have a number of relatives here; it’s a very select town.”

“I’m sure it is.”

But the door opened, Mme. Padoie appeared. She approached her brother with no great show of joy, offered him her cheek, and said: “Have you been here long?”

“No, hardly half an hour.”

“Ah, I thought the train would be late. Come into the drawing room, will you?”

As soon as they were alone: “I’ve been hearing fine tales about you.”

“What have you heard?”

“It seems that you behave in the most disgraceful ways, that you drink and run up bills.”

He wore an air of profound astonishment.

“Never in my life.”

“Oh, don’t deny it, I know better.”

He made another attempt to defend himself, but she silenced him with so violent a scolding that he was compelled to hold his tongue. Then she added:

“We dine at six, you’re free till dinner, I can’t keep you company because I’ve several things to do.”

Left to himself, he hesitated between sleeping and going out. He gazed in turn at the door leading to his room, and the one which led to the street. He decided on the street.

So he went out, and sauntered slowly, his sword clanking on his legs, through the dreary Breton town, so sleepy, so dead-alive beside its inland sea, that it was called the “Morbihan.” He looked at the little grey houses, the rare passersby, the empty shops, and murmured: “You couldn’t call Vannes gay or boisterous; it was a rotten idea to come here.”

He reached the gloomy harbour, returned along a sad, deserted boulevard, and was home again before five o’clock. Then he flung himself upon his bed to sleep till dinner time.

The maid woke him by knocking on his door.

“Dinner is ready, sir.”

He went down.

In the damp dining room, where the paper was peeling off the lower half of the walls, a soup tureen waited on a round bare table in company with three melancholy plates.

M. and Mme. Padoie entered just as Varajou did.

They took their places, then husband and wife made a sign of the cross on the pit of their stomachs, after which Padoie served the soup, gravy soup. It was broth day.

After the soup, came the beef, overdone, disintegrated, greasy beef, cooked to a mush. The sergeant-major masticated it slowly, overcome with disgust, weariness and anger.

Mme. Padoie was saying to her husband:

“You’re going to visit the president tonight?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“Don’t stay too late. You get tired every time you go out anywhere; you’re not fit to lead a social life with your bad health.”

Then she began to talk about the society of Vannes, of the very select society which received the Padoies with the greatest respect, because of their religious beliefs.

Then mashed potatoes, with slices of cold sausage, were served, in honour of the guest. Then cheese. The meal was finished. No coffee.

Varajou realised that he would have to spend the evening alone with his sister, enduring her reproaches, and listening to her sermons, without even a liqueur to pour down his throat to make her reprimands easier to swallow; he thought desperately that he could not endure such anguish, and declared that he had to report at the police station to get his leave papers made properly in order. And he hurried away at seven o’clock.

The instant he got into the street, he began by shaking himself like a dog coming out of the water. “My God,” he murmured, “oh, my God, what a filthy bore!”

He set out in search of a café, the best café in the town. He found it in a square, behind two gas jets. Inside, five or six men, quiet, prosperous tradespeople, were sitting with their elbows on the little tables, drinking and quietly talking, while two billiard-players walked round the green cloth, where their balls rolled and collided.

Voices rose, announcing the score. “Eighteen. Nineteen. No luck. Oh, good stroke; well played. Eleven. You ought to have taken it off the red. Twenty. Run through, run through. Twelve. Then, I was right, wasn’t I?”

Varajou ordered: “Coffee, and a decanter of brandy, the best.”

Then he sat down, and waited for his drinks.

He was accustomed to spending his evenings of freedom with his comrades, in rowdy hilarity and clouds of smoke. The silence and calm of this place exasperated him. He began to drink, first coffee, and then the decanter of brandy, then a second which he had ordered. He was ready to laugh now, shout, sing, fight someone.

“Thank the Lord,” he said, “Varajou’s himself again.” Then the idea came into his head to find some women for his amusement. He called for a waiter:

“Hi, my lad.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My lad, whereabouts in this town can a fellow see a bit of fun?”

The man looked blank at the question.

“I don’t know, sir. At this café.”

“What do you mean, in this café? What do you call a bit of fun, eh?”

“Why, I don’t know, sir; drinking a glass of good beer or wine.”

“Come off it, idiot. Women, what do you do for women?”

“Women! Ah!”

“Yes, women. Where’ll I get any here?”

“Women?”

“Yes, of course, women.”

The waiter came closer, and lowered his voice:

“You want to know where the house is?”

“Lord, yes.”

“Take the second street to the left, and the first to the right. Number 15.”

“Thanks, old bean. Here y’re.”

“Thank you, sir.”

And Varajou left the café repeating: “Second to the left, first to the right, 15.” But after walking for a few moments, he thought: “Second to the left⁠—yes⁠—But ought I to turn right or left from the café? Bah, devil take it, I’ll soon find out.”

He walked on, turned down the second street to the left, then down the first on the right, and looked for number 15. It was a fairly substantial house, and he could see that the first-floor windows were lit up behind their closed shutters. The front door was half open, and a lamp was burning in the hall: The sergeant-major thought: “This is it.”

So he went in, and, as no one came, he called:

“Hullo, hullo.”

A little maid came, and stood stock-still in amazement at the sight of a soldier. “Good evening, my child,” he said to her. “Are the ladies upstairs?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the drawing room?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can go up, I suppose, can I?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The door is at the top of the stairs?”

“Yes, sir.”

He went upstairs, opened a door, and in a room brilliantly lighted by two lamps, a lustre, and two candelabras of wax candles, he saw four ladies in evening gowns who seemed to be expecting somebody.

Three of them, the youngest, were arranged rather stiffly on chairs covered in garnet velvet, while the fourth, who was about forty-five years old, was arranging some flowers in a vase. She was very fat, and clad in a green silk dress that, like a sheath of a monstrous flower, revealed her enormous arms, and her enormous throat, shining rose-red under a coating of powder.

The sergeant-major saluted:

“Good evening, ladies.”

The old lady, turned round; she seemed surprised, but she bowed:

“Good evening.”

He sat down.

But perceiving that they showed no signs of being delighted to welcome him, he thought that probably only officers were admitted to this place; the thought disturbed him. Then he said to himself: “Bah, if an officer comes, we’ll pull it off.” And he asked:

“Everything all right?”

The stout lady, who was doubtless the mistress of the house, replied:

“Quite all right, thank you.”

He found no more to say and no one else spoke.

At last he became ashamed of his diffidence and, laughing awkwardly, said:

“Well, we’re not having a very riotous time. I’ll pay for a bottle of wine⁠ ⁠…”

He had not finished his remark when the door opened again, and Padoie appeared in evening dress.

At the sight of him, Varajou gave vent to a howl of delight, and jumping to his feet, he leapt on his brother-in-law, seized him in his arms, and danced him round the drawing room, bawling: “Here’s old Padoie⁠ ⁠… here’s old Padoie⁠ ⁠… here’s old Padoie.”

Then, leaving the collector dazed with surprise, he shouted in his face:

“Oh, you gay dog, you gay dog!⁠ ⁠… So you’re having a night out⁠ ⁠… oh, you gay dog! What about my sister! You’re giving her the go-by, are you?”

And seeing in a flash all the profitable consequences of this unhoped-for situation, forced loans and absolutely safe blackmail, he flung himself full length on the couch and began to laugh so madly that the whole couch creaked.

The three young ladies rose as one, and hurried out, while the elder lady recoiled towards the door, and seemed on the verge of fainting.

Two gentlemen appeared, both in evening dress, and wearing their orders. Padoie flung himself towards them.

“Oh, Mr. President⁠ ⁠… he’s mad⁠ ⁠… mad.⁠ ⁠… He’s your been sent to us to recuperate⁠ ⁠… you can see for yourself that he’s mad.”

Varajou gave it up: he didn’t understand things now, and abruptly guessed that he had made some quite monstrous lapse. Then he stood up, and turned towards his brother-in-law:

“What’s this house, where are we?” he asked.

But Padoie, seized with a sudden access of fury, stammered:

“Where are we?⁠ ⁠… where are we?⁠ ⁠… Wretch⁠ ⁠… miscreant⁠ ⁠… scoundrel⁠ ⁠… where are we?⁠ ⁠… in the president’s house⁠ ⁠… in the house of President de Mortemain⁠ ⁠… de Mortemain⁠ ⁠… de⁠ ⁠… de⁠ ⁠… de Mortemain⁠ ⁠… oh⁠ ⁠… oh⁠ ⁠… swine!⁠ ⁠… swine!⁠ ⁠… swine!⁠ ⁠… swine!”

The Door

“Ah!” exclaimed Karl Massouligny, “the question of complaisant husbands is a difficult one. I have seen many kinds, and yet I am unable to give an opinion about any of them. I have often tried to determine whether they are blind, weak, or clairvoyant. I believe that there are some who belong to each of these categories.

“Let us quickly pass over the blind ones. They cannot rightly be called complaisant, since they do not know, but they are good creatures who cannot see farther than their noses. It is a curious and interesting thing to notice the ease with which men⁠—all men, and even women, all women⁠—can be deceived. We are taken in by the slightest trick of those about us of⁠—our children, our friends, our servants, our tradespeople. Human nature is credulous, and in order to suspect, guess and overcome the deceit of others, we do not display one-tenth of the finesse which we use when we, in turn, wish to deceive someone else.

“The clairvoyant husbands can be divided into three classes. Those who have some interest, pecuniary, ambitious or otherwise, in their wife’s having a lover, or lovers. These ask only that appearances be observed more or less, and they are satisfied. Next come those who get angry. What a beautiful novel one could write about them! Finally the weak ones! Those who are afraid of scandal.

“There are also those who are powerless, or, rather, tired, who escape the conjugal bed from fear of ataxia or apoplexy, who are satisfied to see a friend run these risks.

“But I have met a husband of a rare species, who guarded against the common accident in a strange and witty manner.

“In Paris I had made the acquaintance of an elegant, fashionable couple very much in demand. The woman, nervous, tall, slender, courted, was supposed to have had many adventures. She pleased me with her wit, and I believe that I pleased her, also. I courted her, a trial courting to which she answered with evident provocations. Soon we arrived at tender glances, pressures of the hands, all the little gallantries which precede the great attack.

“Nevertheless, I hesitated. I believe that, as a rule, the majority of society intrigues, however short they may be, are not worth the trouble which they give us and the difficulties which may arise. I therefore mentally compared the advantages and disadvantages which I could expect, and I thought I noticed that the husband suspected me and was watching me.

“One evening, at a ball, as I was saying tender things to the young woman in a little room leading from the big hall where the dancing was going on, I noticed in a mirror the reflection of someone who was watching us. It was he. Our looks met, and then I saw him turn his head and walk away.

“I murmured: ‘Your husband is spying on us.’

“She seemed dumbfounded, and asked: ‘My husband?’

“ ‘Yes, he has been watching us for some time.’

“ ‘Nonsense! Are you sure?’

“ ‘Very sure.’

“ ‘How strange! On the contrary, he is usually very pleasant to all my friends.’

“ ‘Perhaps he guessed that I love you!’

“ ‘Nonsense! You are not the first one to pay attention to me. Every woman who is a little in view drags behind her a troop of admirers.’

“ ‘Yes. But I love you deeply.’

“ ‘Admitting that that is true, does a husband ever guess those things?’

“ ‘Then he is not jealous?’

“ ‘No⁠—no!’

“She thought for an instant, and then continued: ‘No. I do not think that I ever noticed any jealousy on his part.’

“ ‘Has he never⁠—watched you?’

“ ‘No. As I said, he is always agreeable to my friends.’

“From that day my courting became much more assiduous. The woman did not please me any more than before, but the probable jealousy of her husband tempted me greatly.

“As for her, I judged her coolly and clearly. She had a certain worldly charm, due to a quick, gay, amiable, and superficial mind, but no real, deep attraction. She was, as I have already said, nervous, all on the surface and very elegant. How can I explain myself? She was⁠ ⁠… a decoration, not a home.

“One day, after taking dinner with her, her husband said to me, just as I was leaving: ‘My dear friend’ (he now called me ‘friend’), ‘we soon leave for the country. It is a great pleasure for my wife and myself to receive the people whom we like. We would like to have you spend a month with us. It would be very nice of you to do so.’

“I was dumbfounded, but I accepted.

“A month later I arrived at their estate of Vertcresson, in Touraine. They were waiting for me at the station, two miles from the château. There were three of them, she, the husband, and a gentleman unknown to me, the Comte de Morterade, to whom I was introduced. He appeared to be delighted to make my acquaintance, and the strangest ideas passed through my mind while we trotted along the beautiful road between two hedges of green. I was saying to myself: ‘Let’s see, what can this mean? Here is a husband who cannot doubt that his wife and I are on more than friendly terms, and yet he invites me to his house, receives me like an old friend, and seems to say: “Go ahead, my friend, the road is clear!” ’

“Then I am introduced to a very pleasant gentleman, who seems already to have settled down in the house, and⁠ ⁠… and who is perhaps trying to get out of it, and who seems as pleased at my arrival as the husband himself.

“Is it some former lover who wishes to retire? One might think so. But, then, would these two men tacitly have come to one of those infamous little arrangements so common in society? And without consulting me, it is proposed that I shall quietly enter into the association and take up the succession. All hands and arms are held out to me. All doors and hearts are open to me.

“And she? An enigma. She cannot be ignorant of everything. However?⁠ ⁠… however?⁠ ⁠… there it is⁠ ⁠… I am quite at sea!

“The dinner was very gay and friendly. On leaving the table the husband and his friend began to play cards, while I went out on the steps to look at the moonlight with Madame. She seemed to be greatly moved by nature, and I judged that the moment of my happiness was near. That evening she was really delightful. The country seemed to make her more tender, or rather more languishing. Her long, slender figure looked pretty on this stone step beside a great vase in which grew some flowers. I felt like taking her out under the trees, throwing myself at her feet, and speaking to her words of love.

“Her husband’s voice called: ‘Louise?’

“ ‘Yes, my dear.’

“ ‘You are forgetting the tea.’

“ ‘I am coming, dear.’

“We returned to the house, and she served tea. The two men, having finished their game of cards, were obviously sleepy. We had to go to our rooms. I did not get to sleep till late, and then I slept badly.

“An excursion was decided upon for the following afternoon, and we went in an open carriage to visit some ruins. She and I were in the back of the vehicle and they were opposite us, with their backs to the driver. The conversation was animated, agreeable and unconstrained. I am an orphan, and it seemed to me as though I had just found my family, I felt so much at home with them.

“Suddenly, as she had stretched out her foot between her husband’s legs, he murmured reproachfully: ‘Louise, please don’t use up your old shoes yourself. There is no reason for being neater in Paris than in the country.’

“I looked down. She was indeed wearing worn-out shoes, and I noticed that her stockings were not pulled up tightly.

“She had blushed and hidden her foot under her dress. The friend was looking out in the distance, with an indifferent and unconcerned look.

“The husband offered me a cigar, which I accepted. For a few days it was impossible for me to be alone with her for two minutes; he was with us everywhere. He was delightful to me.

“One morning he came to get me to take a walk before lunch, and the conversation happened to turn on marriage. I spoke a little about solitude, and about how charming life can be made by a woman. Suddenly he interrupted me, saying: ‘My boy, don’t talk about things you know nothing about. A woman who has no further reason for loving you will not love you for long. All the little coquetries which make them so exquisite when they do not definitely belong to us cease as soon as they become ours. And then⁠ ⁠… the respectable women⁠ ⁠… that is to say, our wives⁠ ⁠… are⁠ ⁠… are not⁠ ⁠… they lack⁠ ⁠… do not understand their business as women. Do you understand?’

“He said no more, and I could not exactly guess his thoughts.

“Two days after this conversation he called me to his room quite early in order to show me a collection of engravings. I sat in an easy-chair opposite the big door which separated his apartment from his wife’s, and behind this door I heard someone walking and moving, and I was thinking very little of the engravings, although I kept exclaiming: ‘Oh, charming! delightful! exquisite!’

“He suddenly said: ‘Oh, I have a beautiful specimen in the next room. I’ll go get it.’

“He ran to the door quickly, and both sides opened as though for a theatrical effect.

“In a large room, all in disorder, in the midst of skirts, collars, blouses lying around on the floor, stood a tall, dried-up creature with her hair hanging. The lower part of her body was covered with an old, worn-out silk petticoat, which clung about her thin hips, and she was standing in front of a mirror brushing some short, sparse blond hairs. Her arms formed two acute angles, and as she turned around in astonishment I saw under a common linen chemise a regular cemetery of ribs, which were hidden from the public gaze by cotton pads.

“The husband naturally uttered an exclamation, and came back, closing the doors, and said with a heartbroken air: ‘Gracious! how stupid I am! Oh, how thoughtless! My wife will never forgive me for that!’

“I already felt like thanking him. I left three days later, after cordially shaking hands with the two men and kissing the lady’s fingers; she bade me a cold goodbye.”

Karl Massouligny was silent. Someone asked: “But what was the friend?”

“I don’t know⁠ ⁠… however⁠ ⁠… however, he looked greatly distressed to see me leaving so soon.”

The Baroness

“You might see some interesting pieces there,” my friend Boisrené said. “Come with me.” He took me to the first floor of a beautiful house in one of the best streets in Paris. We were received by a very agreeable man, with perfect manners, who led us from room to room, and showed us rare pieces, negligently letting fall the price. Vast sums, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty thousand francs, fell from his lips with so much grace and ease that no one could doubt that millions were locked up in the safe belonging to this man-of-the-world dealer.

I had long known him by repute. Very clever, very subtle-witted, very intelligent, he acted as intermediary in all sorts of transactions. He was in touch with all the richest amateurs in Paris, and even in Europe and America; he knew their tastes and their latest crazes, and he wrote or wired the news to such as lived in distant towns, as soon as ever any piece came into the market which was likely to interest them.

Members of the best families, who found themselves in a temporary embarrassment, had recourse to him, it might be to find money for gambling, it might be to pay a debt, or to sell a picture, an heirloom, a tapestry, or even a house or an estate, in moments of particular stress.

It was said that he never refused his services when he saw a chance of profit.

Boisrené seemed to be on intimate terms with this curious dealer. They had worked together more than once. I looked at the man with sharp interest.

He was tall, thin, bald and vastly elegant. His gentle insinuating voice had a charm of its own, a seductive charm that gave things a special value. When he held a piece in his fingers, he turned it over and over, looking at it so intelligently and subtly, so elegantly and sympathetically that the thing seemed to take on an immediate added beauty, a transformation wrought by his touch and his glance. It became at once much more valuable in the eyes of the beholder just through having passed from the showcase into his grasp.

“And your Christ?” said Boisrené; “the beautiful Renaissance Christ that you showed me last year?”

The man smiled and answered:

“I sold it, and in a very odd way. It’s a real fragment of Parisian life. Would you like to hear it?”

“I should.”

“You know Baroness Samoris?”

“Yes and no. I have seen her once, but I know what she is.”

“You do really know about her?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me what you know, so that I can be sure you’re not making a mistake.”

“Certainly. Mme. Samoris is a woman of the world who has a daughter, though no one knows anything about a husband. In any event, if she has not had a husband, she manages her lovers with great discretion, for she is received in a certain section of society, which is either tolerant or blind.

“She goes regularly to church, receives the sacraments with a devout ostentation and never compromised herself in the eyes of the world. She hopes that her daughter will marry well. Have I got her right?”

“Yes, but I’ll add to the stock of your knowledge: she is a kept woman whose lovers have a greater respect for her than if she did not sleep with them. It is a rare quality; and the woman who achieves it can get what she wants from any man. The man whom, all unknown to himself, she has already decided to take, seeks her favour for a long time, desires her and trembles for his audacity, entreats her and is ashamed of entreaty, is amazed when she surrenders, and possesses her with respectful gratitude. He never notices that he is paying her, to such a fine art has she brought the act of taking; she keeps the tone of their relationship so reserved, so dignified, so correct that when he leaves her bed he would assault any man daring to doubt his mistress’s virtue. And that in all good faith.

“I have been of service to this woman on several occasions. And she has no secrets from me.

“Well, early in January, she came to me to borrow thirty thousand francs. I did not lend them to her, of course, but as I wanted to oblige her I begged her to tell me exactly how she was placed so that I might know what I could do for her.

“She described the situation in language so extraordinarily discreet that she could not have phrased it more delicately if she had been talking about her little girl’s first communion. I gathered at last that times were hard and she was penniless.

“Thanks to the crisis in trade, political troubles that the existing government appeared to keep going at will, rumours of war, and the general unrest, money moved reluctantly even through lovers’ hands. And, besides, a woman of her reputation could not give herself to the first comer.

“She needed a man of the world, the most exclusive social world, who would crown her reputation while supplying her daily bread. A wealthy sybarite had compromised her daughter beyond hope and made her marriage very problematic. She could not now afford to resort to a professional go-between or shady intermediaries who could once have extricated her from her difficulties.

“Besides, she had to maintain her establishment, and continue to keep open house, in order not to lose all chance of finding among her many visitors the discreet and distinguished friend for whom she was waiting, whom she would choose.

“I convinced her that there was little prospect of my getting back my thirty thousand francs, since when she had run through them, it would be necessary for her to make at least sixty thousand in one haul before she could repay me my half.

“She listened to me in apparent distress. And I did not know what to suggest, until an idea, a really original idea, flashed across my mind.

“I had just bought the Renaissance Christ I showed you, an admirable piece, quite the most beautiful bit of work in that manner I have ever seen.

“ ‘My dear friend,’ I said to her, ‘I am going to send you home this ivory. You will invent an ingenious story for it, a really moving, romantic story, any story you like, to explain your desire to get rid of it. It is, of course, a family treasure inherited from your father.

“ ‘I will send collectors to you and bring them to you myself. I leave the rest to you. I will let you have all necessary information about them the day before. This Christ is worth fifty thousand francs, but I will let it go for thirty thousand. The difference will be your commission.’

“She reflected a few moments with an air of profound gravity, and answered: ‘Yes, it is possibly a good idea. Thank you very much.’

“I had my Christ taken to her house next day, and the same evening I sent her the Baron de Saint-Hospital.

“For three months I went on sending clients to her, my very best clients, those whose high standing had been amply proved in my business relations with them. But I heard nothing of her.

“Then I had a visit from a foreigner who spoke French very badly, and I decided to take him myself to the Samoris’ house to see what was going on.

“A footman in black livery opened the door and showed me into a pretty drawing room, decorated in subdued colours and furnished in excellent taste. We waited here for some minutes. She appeared, looking charming, shook hands with me, and asked us to sit down; and when I had explained to her the reason of my visit, she rang.

“The footman reappeared.

“ ‘See whether Mlle. Isabella will let us visit her chapel,’ she said.

“The young girl brought her answer herself. She was fifteen years old, radiant with first youth, and wore an air of modest simplicity.

“She would take us herself to her chapel.

“It was a kind of sacred boudoir where a silver lamp was burning before the Christ, my Christ, laid on a bed of black velvet. The whole setting was charming and very clever.

“The child crossed herself, then said to us:

“ ‘Look at it, gentlemen, is it not lovely?’

“I took the thing up, examined it and pronounced it quite remarkable. The foreigner considered it too, but he seemed much more interested in the two women than in the Christ.

“Their house gave one a feeling of well-being; there was a scent of incense, flowers and perfumes. It was happiness to be there. It was so comfortable a place that one longed to stay.

“When we returned to the drawing room I broached, in a reserved and delicate fashion, the question of price. Lowering her glance, Mme. Samoris said fifty thousand francs.

“Then she added: ‘If you would like to see it again, monsieur, I rarely go out before three o’clock, and I am at home every day.’

“When we were in the street, the foreigner demanded to be told more about the Baroness, whom he had found altogether exquisite. But I heard nothing further of either of them.

“Another three months went by.

“One morning, less than a fortnight ago, she arrived here at breakfast time, and laid a pocketbook in my hands: ‘My dear, you’re an angel. I have brought you fifty thousand francs: I am buying your Christ myself, and I am paying twenty thousand francs more than the price agreed, on condition that you go on sending me⁠ ⁠… sending me clients⁠ ⁠… because he is still for sale⁠ ⁠… my Christ⁠ ⁠…’ ”

The Horla

May 8. What a glorious day! I have spent the whole morning lying on the grass in front of my house, under the enormous plane-tree that forms a complete covering, shelter and shade for it. I love this country, and I love living here because it is here I have my roots, those deep-down slender roots that hold a man to the place where his forefathers were born and died, hold him to ways of thought and habits of eating, to customs as to particular foods, to local fashions of speech, to the intonations of country voices, to the scent of the soil, the villages, and the very air itself.

I love this house of mine where I grew up. From my windows I see the Seine flowing alongside my garden, beyond the high road, almost at my door, the great wide Seine, running from Rouen to Havre, covered with passing boats.

Away to the left, Rouen, the widespread town, with its blue roofs lying under the bristling host of Gothic belfries. They are beyond number, frail or sturdy, dominated by the leaden steeples of the cathedral, and filled with bells that ring out in the limpid air of fine mornings, sending me the sweet and far-off murmur of their iron tongues, a brazen song borne to me on the breeze, now louder, now softer, as it swells or dies away.

How beautiful this morning has been!

Towards eleven o’clock a long convoy of boats followed each other past my gate, behind a squat tug looking like a fly, and wheezing painfully as it vomited thick clouds of smoke.

After two English yachts whose crimson awnings rose and fell against the sky, came a splendid three-masted Brazilian, all white, gloriously clean and glittering. The sight of this ship filled me with such joy that I saluted her, I don’t know why.

May 11. I have had a slight fever for the last few days; I feel ill or rather unhappy.

Whence come these mysterious influences that change our happiness to dejection and our self-confidence to discouragement? It is as if the air, the unseen air, were full of unknowable powers whose mysterious nearness we endure. I wake full of joy, my throat swelling with a longing to sing. Why? I go down to the waterside; and suddenly, after a short walk, I come back home wretched, as if some misfortune were waiting me there. Why? Has a chill shudder, passing lightly over my skin, shaken my nerves and darkened my spirit? Have the shapes of the clouds, or the colour of the day, the ever-changing colour of the visible world, troubled my mind as they slipped past my eyes? Does anyone know? Everything that surrounds us, everything that we see unseeing, everything that we brush past unknowing, everything that we touch impalpably, everything that we meet unnoticing, has on us, on the organs of our bodies, and through them on our thoughts, on our very hearts, swift, surprising and inexplicable effects.

How deep it is, this mystery of the Invisible! We cannot fathom it with our miserable senses, with our eyes that perceive neither the too small, nor the too great, nor the too near, nor the too distant, nor the inhabitants of a star, nor the inhabitants of a drop of water⁠ ⁠… with our ears that deceive us, transmitting the vibrations of the air to us as sonorous sounds. They are fairies who by a miracle transmute movement into sound, from which metamorphosis music is born, and make audible in song the mute quivering of nature⁠ ⁠… with our smell, feebler than a dog’s⁠ ⁠… with our taste, that can only just detect the age of a wine.

If only we had other organs to work other miracles on our behalf, what things we could discover round us!

May 16. I am certainly ill, I have been so well since last month. I have a fever, a rotten fever, or rather a feverish weakness that oppresses my mind as wearily as my body. All day and every day I suffer this frightful sense of threatened danger, this apprehension of coming ill or approaching death, this presentiment which is doubtless the warning signal of a lurking disease germinating in my blood and my flesh.

May 18. I have just consulted my doctor, for I was not getting any sleep. He found that my pulse is rapid, my eyes dilated, my nerves on edge, but no alarming symptom of any kind. I am to take douches and drink bromide of potassium.

May 25. No change. My case is truly strange. As night falls, an incomprehensible uneasiness fills me, as if the night concealed a frightful menace directed at me. I dine in haste, then I try to read; but I don’t understand the words: I can hardly make out the letters. So I walk backwards and forwards in my drawing room, oppressed by a vague fear that I cannot throw off, fear of sleeping and fear of my bed.

About ten o’clock I go up to my room. The instant I am inside the room I double-lock the door and shut the windows; I am afraid⁠ ⁠… of what? I never dreaded anything before.⁠ ⁠… I open my cupboards, I look under my bed; I listen⁠ ⁠… listen⁠ ⁠… to what? It’s a queer thing that a mere physical ailment, some disorder in the blood perhaps, the jangling of a nerve thread, a slight congestion, the least disturbance in the functioning of this living machine of ours, so imperfect and so frail, can make a melancholic of the happiest of men and a coward of the bravest. Then I lie down, and wait for sleep as if I were waiting to be executed. I wait for it, dreading its approach; my heart beats, my legs tremble; my whole body shivers in the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment I fall suddenly on sleep, like a man falling into deep and stagnant waters, there to drown. Nowadays I never feel the approach of this perfidious sleep, that lurks near me, spying on me, ready to take me by the hand, shut my eyes, steal my strength.

I sleep⁠—for a long time⁠—two or three hours⁠—then a dream⁠—no⁠—a nightmare seizes me. I feel that I am lying down and that I am asleep⁠ ⁠… I feel it and I know it⁠ ⁠… and I feel too that someone approaches me, looks at me, touches me, climbs on my bed, kneels on my chest, takes my neck between his hands and squeezes⁠ ⁠… squeezes⁠ ⁠… with all his might, strangling me.

I struggle madly, in the grip of the frightful impotence that paralyses us in dreams; I try to cry out⁠—I can’t; I try to move⁠—I can’t; panting, with the most frightful efforts, I try to turn round, to fling off this creature who is crushing and choking me⁠—I can’t do it.

And suddenly I wake up, terrified, covered with sweat. I light a candle. I am alone.

The crisis over⁠—a crisis that happens every night⁠—I fall at last into a quiet sleep, until daybreak.

June 2. My case has grown worse. What can be the matter with me? Bromide is useless; douches are useless. Lately, by way of wearying a body already quite exhausted, I went for a tramp in the forest of Roumare. At first I thought that the fresh air, the clear sweet air, full of the scents of grass and trees, was pouring a new blood into my veins and a new strength into my heart. I followed a broad glade, then I turned towards Boville, by a narrow walk between two ranks of immensely tall trees that flung a thick green roof, almost a black roof, between the sky and me.

A sudden shudder ran through me, not a shudder of cold but a strange shudder of anguish.

I quickened my pace, uneasy at being alone in this wood, unreasonably, stupidly, terrified by the profound solitude. Abruptly I felt that I was being followed, that someone was on my heels, as near as near, touching me.

I swung round. I was alone. I saw behind me only the straight open walk, empty, high, terrifyingly empty; it stretched out in front of me too, as far as the eye could see, as empty, and frightening.

I shut my eyes. Why? And I began to turn round on my heel at a great rate like a top. I almost fell; I opened my eyes again; the trees were dancing; the earth was swaying; I was forced to sit down. Then, ah! I didn’t know now which way I had been walking. Strange thought! Strange! Strange thought! I didn’t know anything at all now. I took the right-hand way, and found myself back in the avenue that had led me into the middle of the forest.

June 3. The night has been terrible. I am going to go away for several weeks. A short journey will surely put me right.

July 2. Home again. I am cured. I have had, moreover, a delightful holiday. I visited Mont-Saint-Michel, which I didn’t know.

What a vision one gets, arriving at Avranches as I did, towards dusk! The town lies on a slope, and I was taken into the public garden, at the end of the city. A cry of astonishment broke from me. A shoreless bay stretched before me, as far as eye could see: it lay between opposing coasts that vanished in distant mist; and in the midst of this vast tawny bay, under a gleaming golden sky, a strange hill, sombre and peaked, thrust up from the sands at its feet. The sun had just sunk, and on a horizon still riotous with colour was etched the outline of this fantastic rock that bore on its summit a fantastic monument.

At daybreak I went out to it. The tide was low, as on the evening before, and as I drew near it, the miraculous abbey grew in height before my eyes. After several hours’ walking I reached the monstrous pile of stones that supports the little city dominated by the great church. I clambered up the steep narrow street, I entered the most wonderful Gothic dwelling made for God on this earth, as vast as a town, with innumerable low rooms hollowed out under the vaults and high galleries slung over slender columns. I entered this gigantic granite jewel, as delicate as a piece of lace, pierced everywhere by towers and airy belfries where twisting stairways climb, towers and belfries that by day against a blue sky and by night against a dark sky lift strange heads, bristling with chimeras, devils, fantastic beasts and monstrous flowers, and are linked together by slender carved arches.

When I stood on the top I said to the monk who accompanied me: “What a glorious place you have here, Father!”

“We get strong winds,” he answered, and we fell into talk as we watched the incoming sea run over the sand and cover it with a steel cuirass.

The monk told me stories, all the old stories of this place, legends, always legends.

One of them particularly impressed me. The people of the district, those who lived on the Mount, declared that at night they heard voices on the sands, followed by the bleating of two she-goats, one that called loudly and one calling softly. Unbelievers insisted that it was the crying of sea birds which at one and the same time resembled bleatings and the wailing of human voices: but benighted fishermen swore that they had met an old shepherd wandering on the dunes, between two tides, round the little town flung so far out of the world. No one ever saw the head hidden in his cloak: he led, walking in front of them, a goat with the face of a man and a she-goat with the face of a woman; both of them had long white hair and talked incessantly, disputing in an unknown tongue, then abruptly ceased crying to begin a loud bleating.

“Do you believe it?” I asked the monk.

He murmured: “I don’t know.”

“If,” I went on, “there existed on the earth beings other than ourselves, why have we not long ago learned to know them; why have you yourself not seen them? Why have I not seen them myself?”

He answered: “Do we see the hundred thousandth part of all that exists? Think, there’s the wind, the greatest force in nature, which throws down men, shatters buildings, uproots trees, stirs up the sea into watery mountains, destroys cliffs and tosses the tall ships against the shore, the wind that kills, whistles, groans, roars⁠—have you seen it, can you see it? Nevertheless, it exists.”

Before his simple reasoning I fell silent. This man was either a seer or a fool. I should not have cared to say which; but I held my peace. What he had just said, I had often thought.

July 3. I slept badly; I am sure there is a feverish influence at work here, for my coachman suffers from the same trouble as myself. When I came home yesterday, I noticed his strange pallor.

“What’s the matter with you, Jean?” I demanded.

“I can’t rest these days, sir; I’m burning the candle at both ends. Since you went away, sir, I haven’t been able to throw it off.”

The other servants are all right, however, but I am terrified of getting caught by it again.

July 4. It has surely caught me again. My old nightmares have come back. Last night I felt crouching on me someone who presses his mouth on mine and drinks my life between my lips. Yes, he sucked it from my throat like a leech. Then he rose from me, replete, and I awoke, so mangled, bruised, enfeebled, that I could not move. If this goes on for many days more, I shall certainly go away again.

July 5. Have I lost my reason? What has just happened, what I saw last night, is so strange that my head reels when I think of it.

Following my invariable custom in the evenings, I had locked my door; then, feeling thirsty, I drank half a glass of water and I happened to notice that my carafe was filled up right to its crystal stopper.

I lay down after this and fell into one of my dreadful slumbers, from which I was jerked about two hours later by a shock more frightful than any of the others.

Imagine a sleeping man, who has been assassinated, and who wakes with a knife through his lung, with the death rattle in his throat, covered with blood, unable to breathe, and on the point of death, understanding nothing⁠—and there you have it.

When I finally recovered my sanity, I was thirsty again; I lit a candle and went towards the table where I had placed my carafe. I lifted it and held it over my glass; not a drop ran out. It was empty! It was completely empty. At first, I simply didn’t understand; then all at once a frightful rush of emotion so overwhelmed me that I was forced to sit down, or say rather that I fell into a chair! Then I leaped up again and looked round me! Then I sat down again, lost in surprise and fear, in front of the transparent crystal. I gazed at it with a fixed stare, seeking an answer to the riddle. My hands were trembling. Had someone drunk the water? Who? I? It must have been me. Who could it have been but me? So I was a somnambulist, all unaware I was living the mysterious double life that raises the doubt whether there be not two selves in us, or whether, in moments when the spirit lies unconscious, an alien self, unknowable and unseen, inhabits the captive body that obeys this other self as it obeys us, obeys it more readily than it obeys us.

Oh, can anyone understand my frightful agony? Can anyone understand the feelings of a sane-minded, educated, thoroughly rational man, staring in abject terror through the glass of his carafe, where the water has disappeared while he slept? I remained there until daylight, not daring to go back to bed.

July 6. I am going mad. My carafe was emptied again last night⁠—or rather, I emptied it.

But is it I? Is it I? Who can it be? Who? Oh, my God! Am I going mad? Who will save me?

July 10. I have just made some astonishing experiments. Listen!

On the 6th of July, before lying down in bed, I placed on my table wine, milk, water, bread and strawberries.

Someone drank⁠—I drank⁠—all the water, and a little of the milk. Neither the wine, nor the bread, nor the strawberries were touched.

On the 7th of July, I made the same experiment and got the same result.

On the 8th of July, I left out the water and the milk. Nothing was touched.

Finally, on the 9th of July, I placed only the water and milk on my table, taking care to wrap the carafes in white muslin cloths and to tie down the stoppers. Then I rubbed my lips, my beard and my hands with a charcoal pencil and lay down.

The usual overpowering sleep seized me, followed shortly by the frightful wakening. I had not moved, my bedclothes themselves bore no marks. I rushed towards my table. The cloths wrapped round the bottles remained spotless. I untied the cords, shaking with fear. All the water had been drunk! All the milk had been drunk! Oh, my God!⁠ ⁠…

I am leaving for Paris at once.

July 13. Paris. I suppose I lost my head during the last few days! I must have been the sport of my disordered imagination, unless I really am a somnambulist or have fallen under one of those indubitable but hitherto inexplicable influences that we call suggestions. However that may be, my disorder came very near to lunacy, and twenty-four hours in Paris have been enough to restore my balance.

Yesterday I went to the races and made various calls. I felt myself endowed with new vital strength, and I ended my evening at the Théâtre Français. They were presenting a play by the younger Dumas; and his alert forceful intelligence completed my cure. There can be no doubt that loneliness is dangerous to active minds. We need round us men who think and talk. When we live alone for long periods, we people the void with phantoms.

I returned to the hotel in high spirits, walking along the boulevards. Amid the jostling of the crowd, I thought ironically on my terrors, on my hallucinations of a week ago, when I had believed, yes, believed that an invisible being dwelt in my body. How weak and shaken and speedily unbalanced our brains are immediately they are confronted by a tiny incomprehensible fact!

Instead of coming to a conclusion in these simple words: “I do not understand because the cause eludes me,” at once we imagine frightening mysteries and supernatural powers.

July 14. Fête de la République. I walked through the streets. The rockets and the flags filled me with a childish joy. At the same time, it is vastly silly to be joyous on a set day by order of the government. The mob is an imbecile herd, as stupid in its patience as it is savage when roused. You say to it: “Enjoy yourself,” and it enjoys itself. You say to it: “Go and fight your neighbour.” It goes to fight. You say to it: “Vote for the Emperor.” It votes for the Emperor. Then you say to it: “Vote for the Republic.” And it votes for the Republic.

Its rulers are as besotted; but instead of obeying men they obey principles, which can only be half-baked, sterile and false in so much as they are principles, that is to say, ideas reputed certain and immutable, in this world where nothing is sure, since light and sound are both illusions.

July 16. Yesterday I saw some things that have profoundly disturbed me.

I dined with my cousin, Mme. Sablé, whose husband commands the 76th light horse at Limoges. At her house I met two young women, one of whom has married a doctor, Dr. Parent, who devotes himself largely to nervous illnesses and the extraordinary discoveries that are the outcome of the recent experiments in hypnotism and suggestion.

He told us at length about the amazing results obtained by English scientists and by the doctors of the Nancy school.

The facts that he put forward struck me as so fantastic that I confessed myself utterly incredulous.

“We are,” he declared, “on the point of discovering one of the most important secrets of nature, I mean one of the most important secrets on this earth; for there are certainly others as important, away yonder, in the stars. Since man began to think, since he learned to express and record his thoughts, he has felt the almost impalpable touch of a mystery impenetrable by his clumsy and imperfect senses, and he has tried to supplement the impotence of his organic powers by the force of his intelligence. While this intelligence was still in a rudimentary stage, this haunting sense of invisible phenomena clothed itself in terrors such as occur to simple minds. Thus are born popular theories of the supernatural, the legends of wandering spirits, fairies, gnomes, ghosts. I’ll add the God-myth itself, since our conceptions of the artificer-creator, to whatever religion they belong, are really the most uninspired, the most unintelligent, the most inacceptable products of the fear-clouded brain of human beings. Nothing is truer than that saying of Voltaire’s: ‘God has made man in His image, but man has retorted upon Him in kind.’

“But for a little over a century we have had glimpse of a new knowledge. Mesmer and others have set our feet on a fresh path, and, more specially during the last four or five years, we have actually reached surprising results.”

My cousin, as incredulous as I, smiled. Dr. Parent said to her: “Shall I try to put you to sleep, madame?”

“Yes, do.”

She seated herself in an armchair, and he looked fixedly into her eyes, as if he were trying to fascinate her. As for me, I felt suddenly uneasy: my heart thumped, my throat contracted. I saw Mme. Sable’s eyes grow heavy, her mouth twitch, her bosom rise and fall with her quick breathing.

Within ten minutes she was asleep.

“Go behind her,” said the doctor.

I seated myself behind her. He put a visiting-card in her hands and said to her: “Here is a looking-glass: what can you see in it?”

“I see my cousin,” she answered.

“What is he doing?”

“He is twisting his moustache.”

“And now?”

“He is drawing a photograph from his pocket.”

“Whose photograph is it?”

“His.”

She was right! And this photograph had been sent me at my hotel only that very evening.

“What is he doing in the photograph?”

“He is standing, with his hat in his hand.”

Evidently she saw, in this card, this piece of white pasteboard, as she would have seen in a glass.

The young women, terrified, cried: “That’s enough, that’s quite enough.”

But the doctor said authoritatively: “You will get up tomorrow at eight o’clock; then you will call on your cousin at his hotel and you will beg him to lend you five thousand francs that your husband has asked you to get and will exact on his next leave.”

Then he woke her up.

On my way back to the hotel, I thought about this curious séance, and I was assailed by doubts, not of the absolutely unimpeachable good faith of my cousin, whom since our childhood I had looked upon as my sister, but of the possibility of trickery on the doctor’s part. Had he concealed a looking-glass in his hand and held it before the slumbering young woman when he was holding before her his visiting-card? Professional conjurers do things as strange.

I had reached the hotel by now and I went to bed.

Then in the morning, towards half past eight, I was roused by my man, who said to me:

“Mme. Sablé wishes to speak to you at once, sir.”

I got hurriedly into my clothes and had her shown in.

She seated herself, very agitated, her eyes downcast, and, without lifting her veil, said:

“I have a great favour to ask you, my dear cousin.”

“What is it, my dear?”

“I hate to ask it of you, and yet I must. I need, desperately, five thousand francs.”

“You? You need it?”

“Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has laid it on me to get it.”

I was so astounded that I stammered as I answered her. I wondered whether she and Dr. Parent were not actually making fun of me, whether it weren’t a little comedy they had prepared beforehand and were acting very well.

But as I watched her closely my doubts vanished entirely. The whole affair was so distasteful to her that she was shaking with anguish, and I saw that her throat was quivering with sobs.

I knew that she was very rich and I added:

“What! do you mean to say that your husband can’t call on five thousand francs! Come, think. Are you sure he told you to ask me for it?”

She hesitated for a few moments as if she were making a tremendous effort to search her memory, then she answered:

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes.⁠ ⁠… I’m quite sure.”

“Has he written to you?”

She hesitated again, reflecting. I guessed at the tortured striving of her mind. She didn’t know. She knew nothing except that she had to borrow five thousand francs from me for her husband. Then she plucked up courage to lie.

“Yes, he has written to me.”

“But when? You didn’t speak to me about it yesterday.”

“I got his letter this morning.”

“Can you let me see it?”

“No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… it is very intimate⁠ ⁠… too personal.⁠ ⁠… I’ve⁠ ⁠… I’ve burned it.”

“Your husband must be in debt, then.”

Again she hesitated, then answered:

“I don’t know.”

I told her abruptly:

“The fact is I can’t lay my hands on five thousand francs at the moment, my dear.”

A kind of agonised wail broke from her.

“Oh, I implore you, I implore you, get it for me.”

She grew dreadfully excited, clasping her hands as if she were praying to me. The tone of her voice changed as I listened: she wept, stammering, torn with grief, goaded by the irresistible command that had been laid on her.

“Oh, I implore you to get it.⁠ ⁠… If you knew how unhappy I am!⁠ ⁠… I must have it today.”

I took pity on her.

“You shall have it at once, I promise you.”

“Thank thank you,” she cried. “How kind you are!”

“Do you remember,” I went on, “what happened at your house yesterday evening?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that Dr. Parent put you to sleep?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, he ordered you to come this morning and borrow five thousand francs from me, and you are now obeying the suggestion.”

She considered this for a moment and answered:

“Because my husband wants it.”

I spent an hour trying to convince her, but I did not succeed in doing so.

When she left, I ran to the doctor’s house. He was just going out, and he listened to me with a smile. Then he said:

“Now do you believe?”

“I must.”

“Let’s go and call on your cousin.”

She was already asleep on a day bed, overwhelmed with weariness. The doctor felt her pulse, and looked at her for some time, one hand lifted towards her eyes that slowly closed under the irresistible compulsion of his magnetic force.

When she was asleep:

“Your husband has no further need for five thousand francs. You will forget that you begged your cousin to lend it to you, and if he speaks to you about it, you will not understand.”

Then he woke her up. I drew a notecase from my pocket.

“Here is what you asked me for this morning, my dear.”

She was so dumbfounded that I dared not press the matter. I did, however, try to rouse her memory, but she denied it fiercely, thought I was making fun of her and at last was ready to be angry with me.

Back at the hotel. The experience has disturbed me so profoundly that I could not bring myself to take lunch.

July 19. I have told several people about this adventure and been laughed at for my pains. I don’t know what to think now. The wise man says: Perhaps?

July 21. I dined at Bougival, then I spent the evening at the rowing-club dance. There’s no doubt that everything is a question of places and persons. To believe in the supernatural in the island of Grenouillère would be the height of folly⁠ ⁠… but at the top of Mont-Saint-Michel?⁠ ⁠… in the Indies? We are terrified under the influence of our surroundings. I am going home next week.

July 30. I have been home since yesterday. All is well.

August 2. Nothing fresh. The weather has been glorious. I spend my days watching the Seine run past.

August 4. The servants are quarrelling among themselves. They declare that someone breaks the glasses in the cupboard at night. My man blames the cook, who blames the housemaid, who blames the other two. Who is the culprit? It would take a mighty clever man to find out.

August 6. This time, I am not mad. I’ve seen something⁠ ⁠… I’ve seen something.⁠ ⁠… I’ve seen something.⁠ ⁠… I have no more doubts.⁠ ⁠… I’ve seen it.⁠ ⁠… I’m still cold to my fingertips.⁠ ⁠… My nerves are still racked with terror.⁠ ⁠… I’ve seen it.

At two o’clock, in broad daylight, I was walking in my rose-garden⁠ ⁠… between the autumn roses that are just coming out.

As I paused to look at a Géant des Batailles, which bore three superb flowers, I saw, I distinctly saw, right under my eye, the stem of one of these roses bend as if an invisible hand had twisted it, then break as if the hand had plucked it. Then the flower rose, describing in the air the curve that an arm would have made carrying it towards a mouth, and it hung suspended in the clear air, quite alone, motionless, a terrifying scarlet splash three paces from my eyes.

I lost my head and flung myself on it, grasping at it. My fingers closed on nothing: it had disappeared. Then I was filled with a savage rage against myself; a rational serious-minded man simply does not have such hallucinations.

But was it really an hallucination? I turned round to look for the flower and my eyes fell on it immediately: it had just been broken off and was lying between the two roses that still remained on the branch.

Then I went back to the house, my senses reeling: now I was sure as sure as I am that day follows night, that there lived at my side an invisible being who fed on milk and water, who could touch things, take them, move them from one place to another, endowed therefore with a material nature, imperceptible to our senses though it was, and living beside me, under my roof.⁠ ⁠…

August 7. I slept quietly. He has drunk the water from my carafe, but he did not disturb my sleep.

I wonder if I am mad. Sometimes as I walk in the blazing sunshine along the riverbank, I am filled with doubts of my sanity, not the vague doubts I have been feeling, but precise and uncompromising doubts. I have seen madmen; I have known men who were intelligent, lucid, even exceptionally clearheaded in everything in life but on one point. They talked quite clearly, easily, and profoundly about everything, until suddenly their mind ran on to the rocks of their madness and was there rent in pieces, strewn to the winds and foundered in the fearful raging sea, filled with surging waves, fogs, squalls, that we call “insanity.”

I should certainly have thought myself mad, absolutely mad, if I were not conscious, if I were not perfectly aware of my state of mind, if I did not get to the bottom of it and analyse it with such complete clearness. I must be, in fact, no worse than a sane man troubled with hallucinations. There must be some unknown disturbance in my brain, one of those disturbances that modern physiologists are trying to observe and elucidate; and this disturbance has opened a deep gulf in my mind, in the orderly and logical working of my thoughts. Similar phenomena take place in a dream that drags us through the most unreal phantasmagoria without sowing the least surprise in our minds because the mechanism of judgment, the controlling censor, is asleep, while the imaginative faculty wakes and works. Can one of the invisible strings that control my mental keyboard have become muted?

Sometimes, after an accident, a man loses his power to remember proper names or verbs or figures or only dates. The localisation of all the different faculties of the mind is now proved. Is there anything surprising, therefore, in the idea that my power of examining the unreality of certain hallucinations has ceased to function in my brain just now?

I thought of all this as I walked by the side of the water. The sunlight flung a mantle of light across the river, clothing the earth with beauty, filling my thoughts with love of life, of the swallows whose swift flight is a joy to my eyes, of the riverside grasses whose shuddering whisper contents my ears.

Little by little, however, I fell prey to an inexplicable uneasiness. I felt as though some force, an occult force, were paralysing my movements, halting me, hindering me from going on any further, calling me back. I was oppressed by just such an unhappy impulse to turn back as one feels when a beloved person has been left at home ill and one is possessed by a foreboding that the illness has taken a turn for the worse.

So, in spite of myself, I turned back, sure that I should find bad news waiting in my house, a letter or a telegram. There was nothing; and I was left more surprised and uneasy than if I had had yet another fantastic vision.

August 8. Yesterday I spent a frightful night. He did not manifest himself again, but I felt him near me, spying on me, watching me, taking possession of me, dominating me and more to be feared when he hid himself in this way than if he gave notice of his constant invisible presence by supernatural phenomena.

However, I slept.

August 9. Nothing, but I am afraid.

August 10. Nothing; what will happen tomorrow?

August 11. Still nothing: I can’t remain in my home any longer, with this fear and these thoughts in my mind: I shall go away.

August 12. Ten o’clock in the evening. I have been wanting to go away all day. I can’t. I have been wanting to carry out the easy simple act that will set me free⁠—go out⁠—get into my carriage to go to Rouen⁠—I can’t. Why?

August 13. Under the affliction of certain maladies, all the resources of one’s physical being seem crushed, all one’s energy exhausted, one’s muscles relaxed, one’s bones grown as soft as flesh and one’s flesh turned to water. In a strange and wretched fashion I suffer all these pains in my spiritual being. I have no strength, no courage, no control over myself, no power even to summon up my will. I can will nothing; but someone wills for me⁠—and I obey.

August 14. I am lost. Someone has taken possession of my soul and is master of it; someone orders all my acts, all my movements, all my thoughts. I am no longer anything, I am only a spectator, enslaved, and terrified by all the things I do. I wish to go out. I cannot. He does not wish it; and I remain, dazed, trembling, in the armchair where he keeps me seated. I desire no more than to get up, to raise myself, so that I can think I am master of myself again. I can’t do it. I am riveted to my seat; and my seat is fast to the ground, in such fashion that no force could lift us.

Then, all at once, I must, must, must go to the bottom of my garden and pick strawberries and eat them. Oh, my God! my God! my God! Is there a God? If there is one, deliver me, save me, help me! Pardon me! Pity me! Have mercy on me! How I suffer! How I am tortured! How terrible this is!

August 15. Well, think how my poor cousin was possessed and overmastered when she came to borrow five thousand francs from me. She submitted to an alien will that had entered into her, as if it were another soul, a parasitic tyrannical soul. Is the world coming to an end?

But what is this being, this invisible being who is ruling me? This unknowable creature, this wanderer from a supernatural race.

So Unseen Ones exist? Then why is it that since the world began they have never manifested themselves in so unmistakable a fashion as they are now manifesting themselves to me? I have never read of anything like the things that are happening under my roof. If I could only leave it, if I could go away, fly far away and return no more, I should be saved, but I can’t.

August 16. Today I was able to escape for two hours, like a prisoner who finds the door of his cell accidentally left open. I felt that I was suddenly set free, that he had withdrawn himself. I ordered the horses to be put in the carriage as quickly as possible and I reached Rouen. Oh, what a joy it was to find myself able to tell a man: “Go to Rouen,” and be obeyed!

I stopped at the library and I asked them to lend me the long treatise of Dr. Hermann Herestauss on the unseen inhabitants of the antique and modern worlds.

Then, just as I was getting back into my carriage, with the words, “To the station,” on my lips, I shouted⁠—I didn’t speak, I shouted⁠—in a voice so loud that the passersby turned round: “Home,” and I fell, overwhelmed with misery, on to the cushions of my carriage. He had found me again and taken possession once more.

August 17. What a night! what a night! Nevertheless it seems to me that I ought to congratulate myself. I read until one o’clock in the morning. Hermann Herestauss, a doctor of philosophy and theogony, has written an account of all the invisible beings who wander among men or have been imagined by men’s minds. He describes their origins, their domains, their power. But none of them is the least like the being who haunts me. It is as if man, the thinker, has had a foreboding vision of some new being, mightier than himself, who shall succeed him in this world; and, in his terror, feeling him draw near, and unable to guess at the nature of this master, he has created all the fantastic crowd of occult beings, dim phantoms born of fear.

Well, I read until one o’clock and then I seated myself near my open window to cool my head and my thoughts in the gentle air of night.

It was fine and warm. In other days how I should have loved such a night!

No moon. The stars wavered and glittered in the black depths of the sky. Who dwells in these worlds? What forms of life, what living creatures, what animals or plants do they hold? What more than we do the thinkers in those far-off universes know? What more can they do than we? What do they see that we do not know of? Perhaps one of them, some day or other, will cross the gulf of space and appear on our earth as a conqueror, just as in olden days the Normans crossed the sea to subdue wealthy nations.

We others are so infirm, so defenceless, so ignorant, so small, on this grain of dust that revolves and crumbles in a drop of water.

So dreaming, I fell asleep, in the fresh evening air.

I slept for about forty minutes and opened my eyes again without moving, roused by I know not what vague and strange emotions. At first I saw nothing, then all at once I thought that the page of a book lying open on my table had turned over of itself. Not a breath of air came in at the window. I was surprised and I sat waiting. About four minutes later, I saw, I saw, yes, I saw with my own eyes another page come up and turn back on the preceding one, as if a finger had folded it back. My armchair was empty, seemed empty; but I realised that he was there, he, sitting in my place and reading. In one wild spring, like the spring of a maddened beast resolved to eviscerate his trainer, I crossed the room to seize him and crush him and kill him. But before I had reached it my seat turned right over as if he had fled before me⁠ ⁠… my table rocked, my lamp fell and was extinguished, and my window slammed shut as if I had surprised a malefactor who had flung himself out into the darkness, tugging at the sashes with all his force.

So he had run away; he had been afraid, afraid of me, me!

Then⁠ ⁠… then⁠ ⁠… tomorrow⁠ ⁠… or the day after⁠ ⁠… or some day⁠ ⁠… I should be able to get him between my fingers, and crush him against the ground. Don’t dogs sometimes bite and fly at their masters’ throats?

August 18. I’ve been thinking things over all day. Oh, yes, I’ll obey him, satisfy his impulses, do his will, make myself humble, submissive, servile. He is the stronger. But an hour will come.⁠ ⁠…

August 19. I know now.⁠ ⁠… I know.⁠ ⁠… I know everything! I have just read the following in the Revue du Monde Scientifique:

“A strange piece of news reaches us from Rio de Janeiro. Madness, an epidemic of madness, comparable to the contagious outbursts of dementia that attacked the peoples of Europe in the Middle Ages, is raging at this day in the district of San-Paulo. The distracted inhabitants are quitting their houses, deserting their villages, abandoning their fields, declaring themselves to be pursued, possessed and ordered about like a human herd by certain invisible but tangible beings, vampires of some kind, who feed on their vitality while they sleep, in addition to drinking milk and water without, apparently, touching any other form of food.

“Professor Don Pedro Henriquez, accompanied by several learned doctors, has set out for the district of San-Paulo, to study on the spot the origins and the forms taken by this surprising madness, and to suggest to the Emperor such measures as appear to him most likely to restore the delirious inhabitants to sanity.”

Ah! I remember, I remember the lovely three-masted Brazilian that sailed past my windows on the 8th of last May, on her way up the Seine. I thought her such a bonny, white, gay boat. The Being was on board her, come from over the sea, where his race is born. He saw me. He saw my house, white like the ship, and he jumped from the vessel to the bank. Oh, my God!

Now I know, I understand. The reign of man is at an end.

He is here, whom the dawning fears of primitive peoples taught them to dread. He who was exorcised by troubled priests, evoked in the darkness of night by wizards who yet never saw him materialise, to whom the foreboding vision of the masters who have passed through this world lent all the monstrous or gracious forms of gnomes, spirits, jinns, fairies and hobgoblins. Primitive terror visualised him in the crudest forms; later wiser men have seen him more clearly. Mesmer foresaw him, and it is ten years since doctors made the most exact inquiries into the nature of his power, even before he exercised it himself. They have been making a plaything of this weapon of the new God, this imposition of a mysterious will on the enslaved soul of man. They called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion⁠ ⁠… anything you like. I have seen them amusing themselves with this horrible power like foolish children. Woe to us! Cursed is man! He is here⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… what is his name?⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… it seems as if he were shouting his name in my ear and I cannot hear it⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… yes⁠ ⁠… he is shouting it.⁠ ⁠… I am listening.⁠ ⁠… I can’t hear⁠ ⁠… again, tell me again⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠… Horla.⁠ ⁠… I heard⁠ ⁠… the Horla⁠ ⁠… it is he⁠ ⁠… the Horla⁠ ⁠… he is here!

Oh, the vulture has been used to eat the dove, the wolf to eat the sheep; the lion to devour the sharp-horned buffalo; man to kill the lion with arrow, spear and gun; but the Horla is going to make of man what we have made of the horse and the cow: his thing, his servant and his food, by the mere force of his will. Woe to us!

But sometimes the beast rebels and kills his tamer⁠ ⁠… I too want⁠ ⁠… I could⁠ ⁠… but I must know him, touch him, see him. Scientists say that the eye of the beast is not like ours and does not see as ours does.⁠ ⁠… And my eye fails to show me this newcomer who is oppressing me.

Why? Oh, the words of the monk of Mont-Saint Michel come to my mind: “Do we see the hundred thousandth part of all that exists? Think, there’s the wind, the greatest force in nature, which throws down men, shatters buildings, uproots trees, stirs up the sea into watery mountains, destroys cliffs and tosses the tall ships against the shore, the wind that kills, whistles, groans, roars⁠—have you seen it, can you see it? Nevertheless, it exists.”

And I considered further: my eye is so weak, so imperfect, that it does not distinguish even solid bodies that have the transparency of glass. If a looking-glass that has no foil backing bars my path, I hurl myself against it as a bird that has got into a room breaks its head on the windowpane. How many other things deceive and mislead my eye? Then what is there to be surprised at in its failure to see a new body that offers no resistance to the passage of light?

A new being! why not? He must assuredly come! why should we be the last? Why is he not seen of our eyes as are all the beings created before us? Because his form is nearer perfection, his body finer and completer than ours⁠—ours, which is so weak, so clumsily conceived, encumbered by organs always tired, always breaking down like a too complex mechanism, which lives like a vegetable or a beast, drawing its substance with difficulty from the air, the herbs of the field and meat, a living machine subject to sickness, deformity and corruption, drawing its breath in pain, ill-regulated, simple and fantastic, ingeniously ill-made, clumsily and delicately erected, the mere rough sketch of a being who could become intelligent and noble.

There have been so few kinds created in the world, from the bivalve to man. Why not one more, when we reach the end of the period of time that separates each successive appearance of a species from that which appeared before it?

Why not one more? Why not also new kinds of trees bearing monstrous flowers, blazing with colour and filling all the countryside with their perfume? Why not other elements than fire, air, earth and water? There are four, only four sources of our being! What a pity! Why not forty, four hundred, four thousand? How poor, niggardly and brutish is life! grudgingly given, meanly conceived, stupidly executed. Consider the grace of the elephant, the hippopotamus! The elegance of the camel!

You bid me consider the butterfly! a winged flower! I can imagine one vast as a hundred worlds, with wings for whose shape, beauty, colour, and sweep I cannot find any words. But I see it⁠ ⁠… it goes from star to star, refreshing and perfuming them with the soft, gracious wind of its passing. And the people of the upper air watch it pass, in an ecstasy of joy!

What is the matter with me? It is he, he, the Horla, who is haunting me, filling my head with these absurdities! He is in me, he has become my soul; I will kill him.

August 19. I will kill him. I have seen him! I was sitting at my table yesterday evening, making a great show of being very absorbed in writing. I knew quite well that he would come and prowl round me, very close to me, so close that I might be able to touch him, seize him, perhaps? And then!⁠ ⁠… then, I should be filled with the strength of desperation; I should have hands, knees, chest, face, teeth to strangle him, crush him, tear him, rend him.

With every sense quiveringly alert, I watched for him.

I had lit both my lamps and the eight candles on my chimneypiece, as if I thought I should be more likely to discover him by this bright light.

In front of me was my bed, an old oak four-poster; on my right, the fireplace; on my left, my door carefully shut, after I had left it open for a long time to attract him; behind me, a very tall cupboard with a mirror front, which I used every day to shave and dress by, and in which I always regarded myself from head to foot whenever I passed in front of it.

Well, I pretended to write to deceive him, because he was spying on me too; and, all at once, I felt, I was certain, that he was reading over my shoulder, that he was there, his breath on my ear.

I stood up, my hand outstretched, and turned round, so quickly that I almost fell. What do you think?⁠ ⁠… the room was as light as day, and I could not see myself in my looking-glass! It was empty, transparent, deep, filled with light! I was not reflected in it⁠ ⁠… and I was standing in front of it. I could see the wide limpid expanse of glass from top to bottom. And I stared at it with a distraught gaze: I daren’t move another step, I daren’t make another movement; nevertheless I felt that he was there, whose immaterial body had swallowed up my reflection, but that he would elude me still.

How frightened I was! A moment later my reflection began to appear in the depths of the looking-glass, in a sort of mist, as if I were looking at it through water; this water seemed to flow from left to right, slowly, so that moment by moment my reflection emerged more distinctly. It was like the passing of an eclipse. The thing that was concealing me appeared to possess no sharply defined outlines, but a kind of transparent opacity that gradually cleared.

At last I could see myself from head to foot, just as I saw myself every day when I looked in the glass.

I had seen him! The horror of it is still on me, making me shudder.

August 20. How can I kill him? Since I can’t touch him? Poison? But he would see me put it in the water; and besides, would our poisons affect an immaterial body? No⁠ ⁠… no, they certainly would not.⁠ ⁠… Then how?⁠ ⁠… how?

August 21. I have sent for a locksmith from Rouen, and ordered him to fit my room with iron shutters, such as they have in certain hotels in Paris, to keep out robbers. He is to make me, also, a similar sort of door. Everyone thinks me a coward, but much I care for that!

September 10. Rouen, Hôtel Continental. It is done⁠ ⁠… it is done⁠ ⁠… but is he dead? My brain reels with what I have seen.

Yesterday the locksmith put up my iron shutters and my iron door, and I left everything open until midnight, although it began to get cold.

All at once I felt his presence, and I was filled with joy, a mad joy. I rose slowly to my feet, and walked about the room for a long time, so that he should suspect nothing; then I took off my boots and carelessly drew on my slippers; then I closed my iron shutters, and, sauntering back towards the door, I double-locked it too. Then I walked back to the window and secured it with a padlock, putting the key in my pocket.

Suddenly I realised that he was prowling anxiously round me, he was afraid now, and commanding me to open them for him. I almost yielded: I did not yield, but, leaning on the door, I set it ajar, just wide enough for me to slip out backwards; and as I am very tall my head touched the lintel. I was sure that he could not have got out and I shut him in, alone, all alone. Thank God! I had him! Then I ran downstairs; in the drawing room which is under my room, I took both my lamps and emptied the oil all over the carpet and the furniture, everything; then I set it on fire and I fled after having double-locked the main door.

And I went and hid myself at the bottom of my garden, in a grove of laurels. How long it took, how long! Everything was dark, silent, still, not a breath of air, not a star, mountains of unseen clouds that lay so heavily, so heavily, on my spirit.

I kept my gaze fixed on my house, and waited. How long it took! I was beginning to think that the fire had died out of itself, or that he, He, had put it out, when one of the lower windows fell in under the fierce breath of the fire and a flame, a great red and yellow flame, a long, curling, caressing flame, leaped up the white wall and pressed its kiss on the roof itself. A flood of light poured over trees, branches, leaves, and with that a shudder, a shudder of fear, ran through them. The birds woke; a dog howled: I thought the dawn was at hand. In a moment two more windows burst into flame and I saw that the lower half of my house was now one frightful furnace. But a cry, a frightful piercing agonised cry, a woman’s cry, stabbed the night, and two skylights opened. I had forgotten my servants. I saw their distraught faces and their wildly waving arms.⁠ ⁠…

Then, frantic with horror, I began to run towards the village, shouting: “Help! help! fire! fire!” I met people already on their way to the house and I turned back with them to look at it.

By now the house was no more than a horrible and magnificent funeral pyre, a monstrous pyre lighting up the whole earth, a pyre that was consuming men, and consuming Him, Him, my prisoner, the new Being, the new Master, the Horla!

The whole roof fell in with a sudden crash, and a volcano of flames leaped to the sky. Through all the windows open on the furnace, I saw the fiery vat, and I reflected that he was there, in this oven, dead.⁠ ⁠…

Dead? Perhaps?⁠ ⁠… His body? Perhaps that body through which light fell could not be destroyed by the methods that kill our bodies?

Suppose he is not dead?⁠ ⁠… Perhaps only time has power over the Invisible and Dreadful One. Why should this transparent, unknowable body, this body of the spirit, fear sickness, wounds, infirmity, premature destruction?

Premature destruction? The source of all human dread! After man, the Horla. After him who can die any day, any hour, any moment, by accidents of all kinds, comes he who can only die in his appointed day, hour and moment, when he has attained the limit of his existence.

No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… I know, I know⁠ ⁠… he is not dead⁠ ⁠… so⁠ ⁠… so⁠ ⁠… I must kill myself, now.

Night

A Nightmare

I love night passionately. I love it as one loves one’s country or one’s mistress. I love it with all my senses, with my eyes which see it, with my sense of smell which inhales it, with my ears which listen to its silence, with my whole body which is caressed by its shadows. The larks sing in the sunlight, in the blue heavens, in the warm air, in the light air of clear mornings. The owl flies at night, a sombre patch passing through black space, and, rejoicing in the black immensity that intoxicates him, he utters a vibrant and sinister cry.

In the daytime I am tired and bored. The day is brutal and noisy. I rarely get up, I dress myself languidly and I go out regretfully. Every movement, every gesture, every word, every thought, tires me as though I were raising a crushing load.

But when the sun goes down a confused joy invades my whole being. I awaken and become animated. As the shadows lengthen I feel quite different, younger, stronger, more lively, happier. I watch the great soft shadows falling from the sky and growing deeper. They envelop the city like an impenetrable and impalpable wave; they hide, efface and destroy colours and forms; they embrace houses, people and buildings in their imperceptible grasp. Then I would like to cry out with joy like the screech-owls, to run upon the roofs like the cats, and an impetuous, invincible desire to love burns in my veins. I go, I walk, sometimes in the darkened outskirts of Paris, sometimes in the neighbouring woods, where I hear my sisters, the beasts, and my brothers, the poachers, prowling.

One is finally killed by what one violently loves. But how shall I explain what happens to me? How can I ever make people understand that I am able to tell it? I do not know, I cannot tell. I only know that this is⁠—that is all.

Well, yesterday⁠—was it yesterday?⁠—Yes, no doubt, unless it was earlier, a day, a month, a year earlier⁠ ⁠… I do not know, but it must have been yesterday, because since then no day has risen, no sun has dawned. But how long has it been night? How long? Who can tell? Who will ever know?

Yesterday, then, I went out after dinner, as I do every evening. It was very fine, very mild, very warm. As I went down towards the boulevards I looked above my head at the black streams full of stars, outlined in the sky between the roofs of the houses, which were turning round and causing this rolling stream of stars to undulate like a real river.

Everything was distinct in the clear air, from the planets to the gaslight. So many lights were burning above, in the city, that the shadows seemed luminous. Bright nights are more joyful than days of bright sunshine. The cafés on the boulevard were flaring; people were laughing, passing up and down, drinking. I went into a theatre for a few moments. Into what theatre, I cannot tell. There was so much light in there that I was depressed and I came out again with my heart saddened by the clash of brutal light on the gold of the balcony, by the factitious glitter of the great crystal chandelier, by the glaring footlights, by the melancholy of this artificial and crude light. I arrived at the Champs-Élysées, where the open-air concerts look like conflagrations in the branches. The chestnut trees, touched with yellow light, look as if they were painted, like phosphorescent trees. The electric bulbs, like pale dazzling moons, like eggs from the moon, fallen from heaven, like monstrous, living pearls, caused the streaks of gaslight, filthy, ugly gaslight and the garlands of coloured, lighted glasses to grow pale beneath their pearly, mysterious and regal light.

I stopped beneath the Arc de Triomphe to look at the Avenue, the long and wonderful, starry Avenue, leading to Paris between two rows of fire and the stars! The stars above, the unknown stars, thrown haphazard through infinity, where they form those strange shapes which make us dream and think so much.

I entered the Bois de Boulogne, where I remained for a long, long time. I was seized by a strange thrill, a powerful and unforeseen emotion, an exaltation of mind which bordered on frenzy. I walked on and on, and then I returned. What time was it when I passed again beneath the Arc de Triomphe? I do not know. The city was sleeping, and clouds, great black clouds, were slowly spreading over the sky.

For the first time I felt that something strange was going to happen, something new.

It seemed to be getting cold, that the air was becoming thicker, that night, my beloved night, was weighing heavily upon my heart. The Avenue was deserted now. Two solitary policemen were walking near the cabstand, and a string of vegetable carts was going to the Halles along the roadway, scarcely lit by the gas jets, which seemed to be dying out. They moved along slowly, laden with carrots, turnips and cabbages. The invisible drivers were asleep, the horses were walking with an even step, following the carts in front of them, and making no noise on the wooden pavement. As they passed each lamp on the footpath, the carrots showed up red in the light; the turnips white, the cabbages green, and they passed one after another, these carts which were as red as fire, as white as silver and as green as emeralds. I followed them, then I turned into the Rue Royale and returned to the boulevards. There was nobody to be seen, none of the cafés was open and only a few belated pedestrians in a hurry. I had never seen Paris so dead and so deserted. I looked at my watch. It was two o’clock.

Some force was driving me, the desire to walk. So I went as far as the Bastille. There I became aware that I had never seen so dark a night, for I could not even see the Colonne de Juillet, whose Genius in gold was lost in the impenetrable obscurity. A curtain of clouds as dense as the ether had buried the stars and seemed to be descending upon the world to blot it out.

I retraced my steps. There was nobody about me. However, at the Place du Château d’Eau, a drunken man almost bumped into me, then disappeared. For some time I could hear his sonorous and uneven steps. I went on. At the top of the Faubourg Montmartre a cab passed, going in the direction of the Seine. I hailed it but the driver did not reply. Near the Rue Drouot a woman was loitering: “Listen, dearie,”⁠—I hastened my steps to avoid her outstretched hand. Then there was nothing more. In front of the Vaudeville Theatre a ragpicker was searching in the gutter. His little lantern was moving just above the ground. I said to him: “What time is it, my good man?”

“How do I know?” he grumbled. “I have no watch.”

Then I suddenly perceived that the lamps had all been extinguished. I know that at this time of year they are put out early, before dawn, for the sake of economy. But daylight was still far off, very far off indeed!

“Let us go to the Halles,” I said to myself; “there at least I shall find life.”

I set off, but it was too dark even to see the way. I advanced slowly, as one does in a forest, recognising the streets by counting them. In front of the Crédit Lyonnais a dog growled. I turned up the Rue de Grammont and lost my way. I wandered about, and then I recognised the Bourse by the iron railings around it. The whole of Paris was sleeping, a deep, terrifying sleep. In the distance a cab rumbled, one solitary cab, perhaps it was the one which had passed me a while back. I tried to reach it, going in the direction of the noise, through streets that were lonely and dark, dark and sombre as death. Again I lost my way. Where was I? What nonsense to put out the lights so soon! Not one person passing by. Not one late reveller, not one thief, not even the mewing of an amorous cat? Nothing.

Where on earth were the police? I said to myself: “I will shout and they will come.” I shouted. There was no answer. I called more loudly. My voice vanished without an echo, weak, muffled, stifled by the night, the impenetrable night. I yelled: “Help! Help! Help!” My desperate cry remained unanswered. What time was it? I pulled out my watch, but I had no matches. I listened to the gentle tick-tick of the little mechanism with a strange and unfamiliar pleasure. It seemed to be a living thing. I felt less lonely. What a mystery! I resumed my walk like a blind man, feeling my way along the wall with my stick, and every moment I raised my eyes to the heavens, hoping that day would dawn at last. But the sky was dark, all dark, more profoundly dark than the city.

What could the time be? It seemed to me I had been walking an infinite length of time, for my legs were giving way beneath me, my breast was heaving and I was suffering horribly from hunger. I decided to ring at the first street door. I pulled the copper bell and it rang sonorously through the house. It sounded strangely, as if that vibrating noise were alone in the house. I waited. There was no answer. The door did not open. I rang again. I waited again⁠—nothing! I got frightened! I ran to the next house, and, twenty times in succession, I rang the bells in the dark corridors where the concierge was supposed to sleep, but he did not awake. I went on further, pulling the bells and the knockers with all my strength, kicking and knocking with my hand and stick on the doors, which remained obstinately closed.

Suddenly I perceived that I had reached the Halles. The market was deserted, not a sound, not a movement, not a cart, not a man, not a bundle of flowers or vegetables⁠—it was empty, motionless, abandoned, dead. I was seized with a horrible terror. What was happening? Oh, my God, what was happening?

I set off again. But the time? The time? Who would tell me the time? Not a clock struck in the churches or the public buildings. I thought: “I will open the glass of my watch and feel the hands with my fingers.” I pulled out my watch.⁠ ⁠… It was not going.⁠ ⁠… It had stopped. Nothing more, nothing more, not a ripple in the city, not a light, not the slightest suspicion of a sound in the air. Nothing! Nothing more! not even the distant rumbling of a cab! Nothing more. I had reached the quays, and a cold chill rose from the river. Was the Seine still flowing? I wanted to know, I found the steps and went down. I could not hear the current rushing under the bridge.⁠ ⁠… A few more steps.⁠ ⁠… Then sand.⁠ ⁠… Mud⁠ ⁠… then water. I dipped my hand into it. It was flowing⁠ ⁠… flowing⁠ ⁠… cold⁠ ⁠… cold⁠ ⁠… cold⁠ ⁠… almost frozen⁠ ⁠… almost dried up⁠ ⁠… almost dead.

I fully realised that I should never have the strength to come up, and that I was going to die there⁠ ⁠… in my turn, of hunger, fatigue and cold.

The Dead Woman

I had loved her to distraction. Why do we love? It is a strange thing to see in the whole world only one being, have in one’s mind only a single thought, a single desire in one’s heart, a single name on one’s lips: a name rising there continually, rising, as a river rises from its source, from the depths of our soul, so that we murmur it all day long, everywhere, like a prayer.

I will not set out our story. Love has no more than one story, always the same. I had met her and loved her. That tells all. And for a whole year I had lived in her affection, in her arms, in her caresses, in her glance, in her garments, in her words, wrapped round in them, bound, held fast in all that was part of her, in so utter a fashion that I no longer knew whether it was day or night, whether I died or lived, on this old earth or on some other world.

And then she died. How? I don’t know, I know nothing now.

She came home wet, one rainy evening, and the next day she was coughing. She coughed for about a week and took to her bed.

What happened? I don’t know now.

Doctors came, wrote prescriptions, went away. They brought remedies; a woman gave her them to drink. Her hands were hot, her brow damp and burning, her eyes were brilliant and mournful. I spoke to her, she answered me. What did we say? I don’t know now. I have forgotten all, all, all. She died, I remember vividly her little sigh, so weak a little sigh, the last she gave. The nurse said: “Ah.” I understood, I understood.

I have understood nothing since. Nothing. I saw a priest who spoke of “your mistress.” I felt that he was insulting her. Since she was dead, no one had any right to know that about her. I threw him out. Another came, a very good man, a gentle soul. I wept when he spoke to me about her.

They asked for instructions about a thousand things to do with the burial of her. I don’t know now what they were. But I do remember vividly the coffin, the sound made by the blows of the hammer when they nailed her in it. Oh, my God! She was buried. Buried! She! In that hole! A few people came, friends. I rushed away. I ran. I walked for hours about the streets. Then I went home. The next day I began to travel.

I came back to Paris yesterday.

When I saw my bedroom again, our bedroom, our bed, our furniture, the whole house which still held all those mortal traces that death leaves behind, I was seized by so sharp a return of agony that I had almost opened the window and flung myself into the street. Unable to stay any longer surrounded by these things, between the walls that had held and sheltered her, and must still hide in their imperceptible cracks a thousand atoms of her being, of her flesh and her breath, I seized my hat to rush out. Suddenly, in the very instant of reaching the door, I passed before the large glass in the hall, which she had had placed there so that every day before she went out she could see herself from head to foot, and see whether her toilet had been successful, was just right and charming, from hat to shoes.

I stopped dead in front of this glass which had so many time reflected her, so many times, so many times, that it must then have caught and held the image of her.

I stood there, shuddering, my eyes fixed on the glass, on the smooth depths that were empty now but had held the whole of her, possessed her as wholly as I did, as wholly as did my passionate glances. I thought that I loved this glass⁠—I touched it⁠—it was cold! Oh, memory! memory! woeful, searing, living, frightful glass, the cause of all our agonies. Happy the man whose heart, like a glass across whose surface reflections glide and vanish, forgets all that it has held, all that has passed before it, all that is gazed on and mirrored in its emotions of affection and love. How I suffer!

I went out, and by no will of my own, without knowing what I did, without wishing it, I wandered towards the cemetery. I found her simple grave, a marble cross with these few words: “She loved, was loved and died.”

She was there, under there, a mass of decay! Horrible! I broke into sobs, lying with my forehead pressed against the earth.

I stayed there a long time, a very long time. Then I saw that night was falling. Thereupon a strange wild desire, the desire of a despairing lover, took possession of me. I wanted to spend the night near her, a last night, to weep on her grave. But I should be seen and turned out. What could I do? I was cunning. I got up and began to wander about this city of the lost. I walked and walked. How small a city it is beside the other city, the city of the living. And yet the dead far outnumber the living. We must have tall houses, streets, a deal of space, for the four generations that at one and the same time enjoy the light of day, drink the water of springs, the juice of grapes, and eat the bread grown in the fields.

And for all the generations of the dead, for all the serried ranks of human beings, from the beginning to our day, suffices a very nothing, a field, almost nothing. The earth receives them, forgets them and effaces them. Goodbye!

At the end of the cultivated cemetery, I came all at once upon the deserted cemetery, the one where the dead of long ago came at their end to mingle their dust with the earth, where the very crosses were rotting away, where the latest comers will be placed at some future day. It is full of wild roses, sturdy black cypress-trees, a sad and marvellous garden, grown rich feeding on human flesh.

I was alone, quite alone. I effaced myself behind a green tree. I hid myself entirely among its thick sombre branches.

And I waited, clinging to its trunk like a shipwrecked man to a spar.

When the night was dark, very dark, I left my refuge and began to walk softly, with slow muted steps, over this ground full of the dead.

I wandered for a long time, a long, long time. I did not find her again. With outstretched arms, wide-open eyes, striking against tombstones with hands, and feet and knees and chest, with my very head, I went and did not find her. I touched, I felt about like a blind man seeking his way, I felt stones, crosses, iron bars, wreaths of glass, wreaths of faded flowers. I read the names with my fingers, tracing them over the letters. What a night! what a night! I did not find her.

No moon! What a night! I was seized with fear, terrible fear, in these narrow patches, between two rows of graves. Graves! graves! graves! Everywhere graves! To the left, to the right of me, before me, round me, everywhere, graves! I sat down on one of them, for my knees were shaking so much that I could not go on walking. I heard the beating of my heart! And I heard something else too! What was it? A confused nameless sound! Was the sound in my fear-stricken mind, in the impenetrable night, or under the mysterious earth, under the earth sown with human corpses? I looked round me.

How long did I stay there? I don’t know. I was paralysed with terror, I was drunk with fear, near screaming, near death.

And all at once I thought that the slab of marble on which I was seated moved. In very truth, it was moving, as if someone were pushing it up. With one bound I flung myself on the nearest grave, and saw, yes, I saw the stone which I had just left, raise itself bolt upright; and the dead appeared, a naked skeleton who was pushing off the stone with his bent back. I saw, I saw with perfect clearness, although the night was black as pitch. On the cross I could read:

“Here lies Jacques Olivant, who departed this life aged fifty-one years. He was a good, honest man, who loved his family, and died in the peace of the Lord.”

Now the dead man himself was reading the words written on his tomb. Then he picked up a stone in the road, a small sharp stone, and began carefully to scratch out those words. Slowly, he entirely obliterated them, gazing with his empty eye-sockets at the place where until that moment they had been engraved; and with the end of the bone which was once his index finger he wrote in luminous letters, like the lines that are traced on walls with the end of a match:

“Here lies Jacques Olivant, who departed this life aged fifty-one years. By his harshness he hastened the death of his father, from whom he was anxious to inherit, he tortured his wife, tormented his child, cheated his neighbours, robbed when he could and died a wretched man.

The dead made an end of writing and, immobile, contemplated his work. And turning round, I saw that all the graves were open, that all the dead bodies had emerged, that all had effaced the lies written by their relation on the funeral stone, to reaffirm thereon the truth.

And I saw that all had been the executioners of their kith and kin, malignant, dishonest, hypocrites, liars, cheats, slanderers, envious, that they had robbed, deceived, perpetrated every sort of shameful and abominable deed, these good fathers, these faithful spouses, these devoted sons, these chaste maidens, these upright tradesmen, these men and women reputed beyond reproach.

With one accord they were writing, on the threshold of their eternal dwelling, the cruel, terrible, and sacred truth, of which everyone in the world is ignorant or pretends to be ignorant.

I thought that she too must be tracing it on her grave. And fearless now, running between the yawning graves, between the corpses, between the skeletons, I made my way towards her, sure that I should shortly find her.

I recognised her from afar off, although I could not see the face wrapped in its grave-clothes.

And on the marble cross where just now I had read: “She loved, was loved and died,” I saw:

“Going out one day to deceive her lover, she caught cold in the rain, and died.”

It appears that they picked me up at dawn, lying unconscious, near a grave.

Madame Husson’s May King

We had just passed through Gisors, where I had been awakened by hearing the name of the place shouted by the porters, and I was falling off to sleep again, when a frightful jerk threw me on top of the fat lady in the opposite seat.

A wheel had come off the engine, which was lying across the line. The tender and the luggage van, also derailed, lay beside this wreck which panted, shuddered, whistled, snorted and spat like horses that have fallen in the street; their flanks throb, their chests quiver, their nostrils smoke, they shudder through their whole bodies but do not seem able to make the slightest effort to get up and go on again.

No one was killed or injured, only a few bruises, for the train was not yet running at full speed again. We gazed sadly at the great crippled iron body that could no longer carry us and would bar our way, perhaps for some time, for they would certainly have to send to Paris for a relief train.

It was now ten o’clock in the morning, so I decided then and there to get back to Gisors and have some lunch.

As I was walking down the line I kept saying to myself:

“Gisors, Gisors, I am sure I know someone there. But whom? Gisors? I am certain I have a friend in the town.”

Suddenly a name leapt into my mind: “Albert Marambot.” He was an old college friend whom I had not seen for twelve years at least, and who practised medicine at Gisors. He had often sent me invitations, which I always accepted but never kept. This time, however, I would use my opportunity.

I asked the first person I met:

“Do you know where Dr. Marambot lives?”

He answered immediately in the drawling accent of Normandy:

“In the Rue Dauphin.”

I saw, indeed, on the door of the house he pointed out, a big brass plate on which was engraved the name of my old friend. I rang the bell, but the maid, a girl with yellow hair and slow movements, repeated stupidly:

“He’s out, he’s out.”

I could hear the clatter of forks and glasses, so I cried out:

“Hello, Marambot!”

A door opened and a fat man with side-whiskers came out with a vexed air, carrying a napkin in his hand.

Well, I really would not have recognised him. He looked at least forty-five, and I had an instant vision of the provincial life that makes a man heavy, middle-aged and old. In a flash of thought that took less time than the action of holding out my hand, I knew his life, his manner of living, his attitude of mind and his theories about things. I guessed at the large meals to which he owed his paunch, the drowsiness after dinner in the lethargy of an overladen digestion watered with cognac, the cursory examination he gave his sick when his thoughts were on the fowl roasting on the spit in front of the fire. His conversations on cooking, on cider, brandy and wine; on the manner of cooking certain dishes, and how best to thicken certain sauces, needed no further evidence than the moist redness of his cheeks, his drooping eyelids and the dull shine of his eyes.

I said to him:

“You don’t recognise me. I am Raoul Aubertin.”

He opened his arms and nearly suffocated me. His first words were these:

“You haven’t had lunch, of course?”

“No.”

“What luck! I was just sitting down to it and there is an excellent trout.”

Five minutes later I was sitting opposite him at lunch.

I asked him:

“You are still a bachelor?”

“My goodness, yes.”

“And are you happy here?”

“I am not bored; I keep busy. I have patients and friends. I eat well, enjoy good health⁠—can laugh and hunt. That’s good enough for me.”

“You don’t find life monotonous in this little town?”

“No, old chap⁠—not if you know your way about. A small place is in essentials very like a large one. Events and pleasures are less varied but one notices them more; there are fewer people but one sees more of them. If you know all the windows in a street, each one of them interests and intrigues you more than a whole street in Paris.

“A little town is very amusing, you know⁠—very amusing, most amusing. Take this one⁠—Gisors. I have at my fingertips all there is to know about it, from its beginning to the present day. You have no idea what a quaint history it has.”

“You are a native of Gisors?”

“Me? No, I belong to Gournay⁠—its neighbour and rival. Gournay is to Gisors what Lucullus was to Cicero. Here everyone is out for Fame; people call us the ‘arrogant people of Gisors.’ At Gournay they think of nothing but their stomachs. We call them the ‘guzzlers of Gournay.’ Gisors despises Gournay, but Gournay laughs at Gisors. This is a comic country.”

I noticed that I was eating a truly exquisite dish of soft-boiled eggs surrounded by a layer of meat jelly savoured with herbs and slightly frozen.

Smacking my lips to please him, I said to Marambot:

“This is good.”

He smiled.

“It only requires two things⁠—a good jelly, which is hard to get, and good eggs. Oh, good eggs⁠—how rare they are, and, with a slightly reddish yolk, how savoury! For myself, I have two weaknesses, one for eggs, the other for poultry. I feed my hens in a special way. I have my own ideas on the subject. In an egg, as in the flesh of a chicken, or in beef, or mutton, or milk, or any of these things, there is, and one ought to taste it, the juices, almost the essence, of the internal secretions of the animal. How much better one would fare if everyone realised that!”

I laughed.

“So you are a gourmand?”

“Lord! It’s only idiots who are not! One is a gourmand much as one is an artist, or a scholar, or a poet. The palate, my dear, is a delicate organ as perfectible and as worthy of respect as one’s eyes or ears. Not to have a palate is to be deprived of an exquisite faculty, the power of appreciating the quality of food, just as one can be deprived of the power to appreciate the quality of a book or a work of art. It is like being deprived of one of the primary senses⁠—a part of man’s superiority; without it, one is relegated to the innumerable ranks of weaklings, outcasts and fools of which our race is composed. In other words, it is like having a ‘low’ tongue instead of a low mind.

“The man who cannot distinguish between a crawfish and a lobster, or a herring (an excellent fish which has in itself all the flavour and scent of the sea) and a mackerel or a whiting, between a poire crassane and a poire duchesse, is only comparable to one who confuses Balzac and Eugène Sue, or a Beethoven symphony with a bandmaster’s march, or the Belvedere Apollo with the statue of General Blanmont?”

“Who in the world is General Blanmont?”

“Oh⁠—of course, you don’t know. It’s easy to see you don’t belong to Gisors! My dear old chap, I told you just now that the inhabitants of this town were nicknamed the ‘arrogant men of Gisors,’ and never was an epithet better applied. But let’s get on with lunch first, and I will tell you about the town while I show you around.”

He stopped talking now and then to sip a glass of wine which he looked at tenderly every time he put it down.

He was an amusing sight with his napkin tucked into his collar, his flushed cheeks and shining eyes, and whiskers spreading round his moving jaws.

He made me eat to repletion. Then, when I was thinking of getting back to the station, he seized my arm and led me into the street.

The town, which was quite a pleasant provincial city, was crowned by its fortress, the most curious monument of the military architecture of the twelfth century left in France; the fortress itself looked down over a long green valley where the clumsy Norman cows browsed and ruminated in the pastures.

The Doctor said to me:

“Gisors, a town of four thousand inhabitants on the borders of l’Eure, was first mentioned in the Commentaries of Julius Caesar: Caesaris ostium, then Caesartium, Caesortium, Gisortium, Gisors. I’ll now take you to see the place where the Roman army encamped. Their traces are still visible.”

I laughed and replied:

“It seems to me, old man, that you are suffering from a disease which you as a doctor ought to investigate. It is called parochial pride.”

He stopped short.

“Parochial pride, my friend, is only natural patriotism. I love my house and, by a natural extension of that love, my town and my province, because I find in them only the customs of my village; but, if I love my frontier, if I defend it, if I am angry when a neighbour sets foot on it, it is because I feel my house already threatened, because the frontier which I do not know is the road to my province. I myself am a Norman, a true Norman. Well, in spite of my bitterness against Germany and my desire for vengeance, I do not dislike her, I do not hate her by instinct as I hate the English, the real, hereditary and natural enemy of the Normans, because the English invaded the land occupied by my ancestors, they plundered and ravaged it twenty times, and the traditional hatred of this faithless race came to me with life itself, from my father⁠—But here is the statue of the general.”

“What general?”

“General Blanmont! We had to have a statue. They don’t call us the arrogant men of Gisors for nothing. So we discovered General Blanmont. Look in the window of this bookshop.”

He dragged me in front of a bookshop in which about fifteen books bound in yellow, red and blue caught my eye.

When I read the titles I began to giggle idiotically. They were Gisors, Its Beginnings, Its Future, by M. X., a member of several learned societies.

History of Gisors, by the Abbé A.⁠ ⁠…

Gisors from the Time of Caesar to Our Day, by M. B., a landed proprietor.

Gisors and Its Neighbourhood, by Dr. C. D.

The Glories of Gisors, by an antiquarian.

“My dear man,” replied Marambot, “not a year passes, not one, mark you, but a new history of Gisors is brought out; we have twenty-three of them already!”

“What about the glories of Gisors?” I asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you all of them, I can only speak of the outstanding ones. First we had General Blanmont, then the Baron Davillier, the celebrated ceramist who explored Spain and the Balearic Islands and revealed to collectors the wonderful Moorish pottery. In literature, we have a journalist of considerable merit, now dead, Charles Brainne, and, among well-known living men, the very eminent director of the Nouvelliste de Rouen, Charles Lapierre⁠ ⁠… oh, and many more⁠—a great many more.”

We were going down the gentle slope of a long street: the June sun warmed it from end to end and had driven the inhabitants indoors.

Suddenly a man came into sight at the other end of the road⁠—a drunken man, reeling as he came. Head thrust forward, with arms swinging and nerveless legs, he came on in jerks of three, six or ten quick steps followed by a pause. When a short, strenuous rush had landed him in the middle of the street, he stopped short and swayed as though hesitating between a fall and a further display of energy. Then he advanced abruptly in another direction. Next he cannoned violently into a house, to which he attached himself with every appearance of wanting to enter it through the wall. Then he turned round with a sharp effort and stared ahead, his mouth open and his eyes blinking in the sun. At last, with a jerk of his hind quarters, he removed his back from the wall and set off again.

A little yellow dog, a famished mongrel, followed him, barking, stopping when he stopped and going on again when he went on.

“Look,” said Marambot, “there is Madame Husson’s May King.”

I was most astonished and asked:

“Madame Husson’s May King⁠—whatever do you mean by that?”

The Doctor began to laugh.

“Oh, it’s just a way we have here in speaking of drunken men. It arose from an old story which has now become a legend although it is absolutely true.”

“Is it an amusing story?”

“Oh, most amusing.”

“Go ahead then.”

“Right you are. At one time there lived in this town an old lady who, being very virtuous herself, encouraged virtue in others. Her name was Madame Husson. I’m telling you the story with the real names, you know, not with made-up ones. Madame Husson spent most of her time in good works, helping the poor and rewarding the deserving. Tiny, pattering along with short rapid steps, her head surmounted by a black silk peruke, formal and polite, she was on very good terms with the good God as represented by the Abbé Malou. She had the greatest horror, an instinctive horror, of vice, and most of all for that vice which the Church calls incontinence. Premarital getting of children drove her beside herself with rage, and exasperated her until she was almost out of her wits.

“Now it was the period when May Queens were being crowned in the district round Paris, and Madame Husson was taken with the idea of having a May Queen at Gisors.

“She laid her project before the Abbé Malou, and he at once drew up a list of candidates.

“But Madame Husson was waited on by a maidservant, an old maidservant named Françoise, as uncompromising as her mistress.

“As soon as the priest had gone, the mistress called her servant and said to her:

“ ‘Listen, Françoise, here are the girls whom his Reverence suggests to me for the prize of virtue: try and find out what people about here think of them.’

“And Françoise went forth to spy out the land. She raked together all the gossip, all the tales, all the scandal, every vaguest hint. For fear that she should forget anything, she wrote it all down in her household accounts along with the items of expenditure, and handed it every morning to Madame Husson, who used to read, after she had adjusted her spectacles on her thin nose:

“ ‘Bread | four cents.
Milk | two cents.
Butter | eight cents

Malonia Levesque disgraced herself last year with Mathurin Poilu.

One leg of mutton | twenty-five cents.
Salt | one cent.

Rosalie Vatinel was met in the wood at Riboudet with Césarie Piénoir by Madame Onésime, the washerwoman, on the 20th of July in the twilight.

Radishes | one cent.
Vinegar | two cents.
Sorrel Salt | two cents

Joséphine Durdent, that nobody thinks has gone wrong, in spite of her being in correspondence with young Oportun who is employed in Rouen and who sent her a bonnet as a gift by the stagecoach.’

“Not a single girl emerged unscathed from this searching investigation. Françoise questioned everyone, neighbours, tradesmen, the schoolmaster, the nuns at the school, and gathered up the faintest rumours.

“Since there is not a girl in the universe upon whom the gossips have not looked askance, there was not found in the countryside a maiden safe from some scrap of scandal.

“Now Madame Husson desired that the May Queen, like Caesar’s wife, should be quite above suspicion, and in the face of her servant’s housekeeping book she was reduced to grief and despair.

“The circle of choice was widened to include the neighbouring villages, but they found nothing.

“The Mayor was consulted. Those that he favoured suffered shipwreck. Those of Dr. Barbesol were no more successful, for all the certitude of his scientific warranty.

“Then, one morning, Françoise, who had just returned from one of her expeditions, said to her mistress:

“ ‘Look you, Madame, if you wish to crown anyone, there is no one but Isidore in the whole district.’

“Madame Husson became deeply thoughtful.

“She knew him well, this Isidore, son of Virginie the greengrocer. His chastity, become a byword, had provided food for mirth in Gisors for many a long day, and served as an engaging subject of conversation for the town and of amusement for the girls, who delighted in teasing him. A little over twenty years of age, big, ungainly, slow and timorous, he helped his mother with her business, and passed his days, seated on a chair before the door, sorting fruit and vegetables.

“He had an unhealthy fear of petticoats, which made him lower his eyes the moment one of the women coming into the shop looked at him with a smile, and this well-known timidity of his made him the laughingstock of all the wags in the district.

“Risky words, lewd sayings, and allusions hinting at obscenity made him blush so quickly that Dr. Barbesol had nicknamed him the thermometer of modesty. Did he or did he not know? his neighbours asked themselves maliciously. Was it simply the presentiment of unknown and shameful mysteries or was it rather indignation at the loathly contacts entailed in love that seemed to move the son of the greengrocer Virginie so strongly? The message-boys of the district, when running past his shop, shouted out filthy sayings at the top of their voices, in order to see him lower his eyes; the girls passed and repassed before him, whispering sly suggestions that drove him back into the house. The more impudent provoked him openly, in order to laugh at him and amuse themselves, made assignations, suggested a thousand abominable ideas.

“So Madame Husson had become deeply thoughtful.

“In truth, Isidore was an example of quite exceptional virtue, notorious, impregnable. No one, not even the most sceptical or the most unbelieving, could have or would have dared to suspect Isidore of infringing in the smallest degree any law of morality whatever. Never once had he been seen in a café, never once met in the streets of an evening. He went to bed at eight and got up at four. He was a paragon, a pearl.

“All the same, Madame Husson still hesitated. The idea of substituting a May King for a May Queen troubled her, upset her a little, and she resolved to consult the Abbé Malou.

“The Abbé Malou replied:

“ ‘What do you desire to reward, Madame? Virtue, I take it, and nothing but virtue.

“ ‘What does it matter to you, therefore, whether virtue be in a male or a female? Virtue is eternal, of no country and of no sex: it is just virtue.’

“Thus encouraged, Madame Husson went to find the Mayor.

“He quite approved.

“ ‘We will hold a splendid festival,’ said he, ‘and another year, if we find a woman as worthy as Isidore, we will crown a woman. We shall indeed set a lofty example to Nanterre. Let us not be exclusive, let us welcome all that is worthy.’

“Isidore, told of the honour, blushed deeply and seemed content.

“The day of the ceremony was fixed for the fifteenth of August, the Festival of the Virgin Mary and of the Emperor Napoleon.

“The municipality had decided to lend an air of exceptional splendour to this solemn ceremonial, and had placed the platform on the Couronneaux, a charming continuation of the ramparts of the old fortress, to which I will shortly take you.

“By a natural reversal of public opinion, Isidore’s virtue, till then a matter for ridicule, became suddenly a matter for envy, since it was going to bring him five hundred francs, besides a little savings-book, together with unlimited esteem and glory to spare. The girls now regretted their frivolous folly, their smirks, their immodest behaviour; and Isidore, quite as modest and timorous as ever, had taken on a faint complacent air that spoke his inward satisfaction.

“With the arrival of the fifteenth of August, the whole of the Rue Dauphine was draped with flags. Ah, I’ve forgotten to tell you after what event this roadway had been called Rue Dauphine.

“It would appear that the Dauphine, I don’t know now which one, when visiting Gisors, had been kept on exhibition so long by the authorities that, in the middle of a triumphal procession through the town, she stopped the procession before one of the houses in this street and exclaimed:

“ ‘Oh, what a beautiful house, how I would like to visit it! Whose is it?’

“They told her the owner’s name; he was sought out, found and brought, embarrassed but covered with glory, before the princess.

“She stepped down from her carriage, entered the house, pretended to look over it from top to bottom, and even remained shut up for some moments alone in one of the rooms.

“When she came out again, the people, flattered by the honour shown to a citizen of Gisors, shouted out:

“ ‘Long live the Dauphine.’

“But a little song was made up by some wag, and the street took the name of her Royal Highness, because:

La princesse très pressée,
Sans cloche, prêtre ou bedeau,
L’avait, avec un peu d’eau,
Baptisée.28

“But let me return to Isidore.

“Flowers had been strewn all along the route of the procession, just as is customary at the procession of the Holy Sacrament, and the National Guard was called out, under the orders of its Chief, Commandant Desbarres, a stout old warrior of the Grande Armée, who proudly displayed, beside a frame holding the Cross of Honour bestowed by the Emperor himself, a Cossack’s beard, cut at a single sabre-stroke from its owner’s chin by the Commandant, during the retreat from Russia.

“The corps that he commanded was, in addition, a corps of picked men famous throughout the province, and his company of grenadiers from Gisors was in demand at all the important festivals within a radius of fifteen or twenty leagues. The story is told that King Louis-Philippe, when reviewing the troops from Eure, stopped in wonder before the company from Gisors and cried out:

“ ‘Oh, who are these fine grenadiers?’

“ ‘Men from Gisors,’ replied the General.

“ ‘I might have known it,’ murmured the King.

“The Commandant Desbarres set out with his men, headed by the band, to seek out Isidore in his mother’s shop.

“After a brief tune had been played beneath his windows, the May King himself appeared upon the threshold.

“He was clad from head to foot in white ducks and wore a straw hat, which bore, like a cockade, a small bunch of orange blossom.

“This question of dress had given Madame Husson much anxiety. She hesitated for a long time between the black garment worn by those taking their first Communion and the full vesture of white. But Françoise, her adviser, decided her in favour of the full white by showing her that the May King would have the appearance of a swan.

“Behind him appeared his protectress, his godmother, the triumphant Madame Husson. She took his arm, ready for the start, and the Mayor took up his position on the other side of the May King. The drums began to beat. Commandant Desbarres gave the command:

“ ‘Present arms!’

“The procession set off on its march towards the church, in the midst of a great crowd of people assembled from all the neighbouring villages. After a short Mass and a touching address from the Abbé Malou, the procession headed for the Couronneaux where the feast was set out in readiness under a tent.

“Before sitting down at table, the Mayor made a speech. Here are his exact words. I learnt them off by heart, for it was a fine speech:

“ ‘Young man, a lady of wealth, beloved by the poor and respected by the rich, Madame Husson, to whom I here render thanks on behalf of the whole country, conceived the idea, the happy and kindly idea, of establishing in the town a prize for virtue which should be a worthy inducement to the inhabitants of this beautiful countryside.

“ ‘You are, young man, the first to be chosen, the first to be crowned in this royal line of wisdom and chastity. Your name will always stand at the head of this roll of the most worthy; and it is demanded of you that your life⁠—make no mistake about it⁠—that your whole life should be in harmony with this happy beginning. Today, in the presence of this noble woman who rewards your conduct, in the presence of these citizen-soldiers who have taken up their arms in your honour, in the presence of this deeply moved throng, gathered together to acclaim you, or rather to acclaim Virtue in your person, you are entering into a solemn covenant with the town, with us all, to preserve until the day of your death the magnificent promise of your youth.

“ ‘Always bear this in mind, young man. You are the first seed sown in the field of hope, and we look to you to bring forth those fruits expected of you.’

“The Mayor took three steps, opened his arms and clasped the sobbing Isidore to his heart.

“He sobbed, the May King, without knowing why, with mixed emotion, with pride, with vague and pleasant sentiment.

“Then the Mayor placed in one of his hands the silk purse in which the gold chinked, five hundred francs in gold!⁠ ⁠… and in the other a little savings-book. And in a solemn voice he pronounced:

“ ‘Honour, glory and riches to virtue.’

“Commandant Desbarres cried out:

“ ‘Bravo.’

“The grenadiers cheered; the people applauded.

“Madame Husson too dried her eyes.

“Then they sat down at their places around the table where the banquet was spread.

“It was never-ending and sumptuous: yellow cider and red wine fraternised in glasses, side by side, and mingled in the stomach. The rattle of plates, voices and music playing in muffled tones made a deep, ceaseless murmur, dying away in the clear sky where the swallows flew. Every now and then Madame Husson adjusted her wig of black silk, awry over one ear, and talked with the Abbé Malou. The Mayor, in high spirits, talked politics with Commandant Desbarres, and Isidore ate, Isidore drank, as he had never before eaten and drunk! He helped himself again and again to everything, finding out for the first time that it is sweet to feel one’s belly full of good things that please the palate before they please the stomach. He had adroitly loosened the buckle of his trousers, which tightened with the increasing pressure of his abdomen, and in silence, a little disturbed, however, by a stain of wine fallen on his cotton vest, he ceased to chew in order to lift the glass to his mouth and keep it there as long as possible, while he took slow sips of wine.

“The time for toasts came round. They were many and much applauded. The evening came: they had been at table since midday. Now there floated in the valley a thin, milky mist, the light vesture of night upon the streams and meadows: the sun dipped below the horizon: the cows lowed afar off in the mists of the pasture land. It was over: they returned towards Gisors. The procession, broken up now, marched helter-skelter. Madame Husson had taken Isidore’s arm and was giving him much counsel, urgent and sound.

“They stopped before the greengrocer’s door and the May King was left with his mother.

“She had not come home. Invited by her family to take part in the celebration of her son’s triumph, she had lunched with her sister, after having followed the procession to the banqueting tent.

“So Isidore remained alone in the shop, into which darkness was penetrating.

“He sat down in a chair, flushed with wine and pride, and looked around him. The carrots, cabbages and onions filled the closed room with their strong vegetable smell, a rude, earthy odour, with which was mingled the sweet, penetrating smell of strawberries and the delicate, evasive perfume of a basket of peaches.

“The May King took one and ate it with big bites, though his belly was round as a pumpkin. Then suddenly, delirious with joy, he began to dance; and something rattled in his gown.

“He was surprised, and plunged his hands into his pockets and drew out the purse with the five hundred francs, which he had forgotten in his drunken joy. Five hundred francs! What a fortune! He poured out the luis on the counter and spread them out with a slow, caressing movement of his great open palm in order to see them all at once. There were twenty-five, twenty-five round coins, in gold! all in gold. They shone on the wood in the deep gloom, and he counted them over and over again, placing his finger on each one and murmuring:

“ ‘One, two, three, four, five⁠—a hundred; six, seven eight, nine, ten⁠—two hundred.’

“Then he put them back in the purse, which he replaced in his pocket.

“Who could know and who could describe the terrible conflict waged in the May King’s soul between good and evil, the tumultuous onset of Satan, the subtle tricks, the temptations that he hurled against this timid, virgin heart? What suggestions, what imaginings, what covetous desires did the Evil One invent to provoke and destroy this chosen soul? Madame Husson’s elect seized his hat, the hat that still bore the little bunch of orange blossom, and, going out by the little lane at the back of the house, disappeared into the night.⁠ ⁠…

“Virginie, the greengrocer, warned that her son had returned, came back almost at once and found the house empty. She waited, without any qualms at first: then, at the end of a quarter of an hour, she made enquiries. Her neighbours in the Rue Dauphine had seen Isidore come in but had not seen him go out again. Then they went to look for him, but they did not find a trace of him. The greengrocer, dismayed, ran to the Town Hall: the Mayor knew nothing, except that he had left the May King at the door of his home. Madame Husson had just gone to bed when she was informed that her protégé had disappeared. She put on her wig again, got up and went herself to the greengrocer’s. Virginie, whose simple soul was easily moved, was weeping copiously in the middle of her cabbages, carrots and onions.

“An accident was feared. But what? Commandant Desbarres informed the police, who made a round of the town; and on the way to Pontoise they found the little bunch of orange blossom. It was laid on a table around which the authorities held counsel. The May King must have been the victim of some ruse, some trick of jealousy: but how? What means had been employed to carry off this innocent, and to what end?

“Weary of the vain search, the authorities retired to bed. Virginie, all alone, lay awake in tears.

“Now, the following evening, when the coach from Paris passed through on its way back, the town of Gisors heard with amazement that its May King had stopped the vehicle two hundred yards out of the town, had got in, and paid for his seat with a louis for which he had received the change, and that he had quietly left the coach in the heart of the great city.

“Feeling ran very high in the district. Letters were exchanged between the Mayor and the Chief of the Paris police, but resulted in no discovery.

“Day followed day, the week ran out.

“Then, one morning, Dr. Barbesol noticed, sitting on the threshold of a door, a man clad in dirty linen, who slept with his head against the wall. He approached and recognised Isidore. He tried to waken him, and was unable to do so. The ex-May King was in a deep, disquieting sleep that nothing could break, and the Doctor, surprised, went in search of help to carry the young man to Boucheval, the chemist’s. When they lifted him up, an empty bottle appeared, hidden under him; the Doctor sniffed it and declared that it had contained brandy. It was a hint as to the remedies required. They succeeded. Isidore was drunk, drunk and besotted by eight days of debauchery, drunk and so disgusting that a ragpicker wouldn’t have touched him. His beautiful vesture of white linen was all rags and tatters, dirty, yellow, greasy, muddy, torn, beggarly; and his person smelt of all the odours of the sewer, the gutter and vice.

“He was washed, preached at, locked up, and, for four days, did not stir out of the house. He seemed ashamed and penitent. They couldn’t find on him the purse with five hundred francs, nor the little savings-book, nor even his silver watch, a sacred heirloom bequeathed to him by his father the fruiterer.

“On the fifth day, he ventured into the Rue Dauphine. Many curious glances followed him, and he went past the houses with head bent down and furtive eyes. He vanished from sight at the point where the country opens out into the valley; but two hours later he reappeared, hiccuping and reeling against the walls. He was drunk, dead drunk.

“Nothing could cure him.

“Forced to it by his mother, he became a carter and drove the coal wagons for the firm of Pougrisel, which is in existence still.

“His reputation as a drunkard was so bad and extended so far that, even at Evreux, they speak of Madame Husson’s May King, and the drunken scoundrels of the district have preserved this nickname.

“A good action is never wasted.”

Dr. Marambot rubbed his hands together at the end of his story. I asked him:

“Did you know the May King personally?”

“Oh, yes, I had the honour of closing his eyes.”

“What did he die of?”

“From an attack of delirium tremens, of course!”

We had arrived by this time at the old fortress, a pile of ruined walls surmounted by the high tower of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, and the tower called the Prisoner’s Tower.

Marambot told me the story of this prisoner who, by means of a nail, covered the walls of his cell with sculpture, following the movements of the sun through the narrow cleft of a loophole.

Then I learned that Clotaire II had given the patrimony of Gisors to his cousin Saint Romain, that Gisors ceased to be the capital of all Vexin after the Treaty of Saint-Claire-sur-Epte, that the town was the salient strategic point of the whole of this part of France, and that by reason of this natural advantage it had been captured and recaptured times without number. By order of Guillaume le Roux, the celebrated engineer Robert de Belesme constructed there a strong fortress, later attacked by Louis le Gros, then by the Norman barons, defended by Robert de Candos, yielded finally to Louis le Gros by Geoffrey Plantagenet, retaken by the English through the Templars’ treachery, quarrelled over by Philippe Auguste and Richard Coeur de Lion, burned by Edward III of England, who could not take the castle, rebuilt by the English in 1419, surrendered later to Charles VII by Richard de Marbury, taken by the Duke of Calabria, occupied by the League, lived in by Henry IV, etc., etc.

And Marambot, with deep conviction, roused almost to eloquence, repeated:

“What beggarly rascals the English are! What drunken scoundrels, my dear; May Kings, every one of them, the hypocrites!”

He was silent, then stretched his arm towards the thread of river gleaming in the meadow.

“Do you know that Henry Monnier was one of the people who fished regularly on the banks of the Epte?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“And Bouffé, my dear, Bouffé made stained glass here.”

“Well, I never!”

“He did. You can’t get away from facts like that.”

The Father

Jean de Valnoix is a friend of mine whom I visit from time to time. He lives in a little house in the woods at the edge of a river. He retired from Paris after leading a wild life for fifteen years. Suddenly he had enough of pleasures, dinners, men, women, cards, everything; and he came to live in this little place where he had been born.

There are two or three of us who go, from time to time, to spend a fortnight or three weeks with him. He is certainly delighted to see us when we arrive, and pleased to be alone again when we leave. So I went to see him last week, and he received me with open arms. We would spend the time, sometimes together, sometimes alone. Usually he reads and I work during the daytime, and every evening we talk until midnight.

Well, last Tuesday, after a scorching day, towards nine o’clock in the evening we were both of us sitting and watching the water flow at our feet; we were exchanging very vague ideas about the stars which were bathing in the current and which seemed to swim along ahead of us. Our ideas were very vague, confused, and brief, for our minds are very limited, weak, and powerless. I was growing sentimental about the sun, which dies in the Great Bear. One can only see it on very clear nights, it is so pale. When the sky is the least bit clouded it disappears. We were thinking of the creatures which people these worlds, of their possible forms, of their unthinkable faculties and unknown organs, of the animals and plants of every kind, of all the kingdoms and forms of matter, of all the things which man’s dreams can barely touch.

Suddenly a voice called from the distance: “Monsieur, Monsieur!”

Jean answered: “Here I am, Baptiste!”

When the servant had found us he announced: “It’s Monsieur’s gipsy.”

My friend burst out laughing, a thing which he rarely did, then he asked: “Is today the nineteenth of July?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Very well. Tell her to wait for me. Give her some supper. I’ll see her in ten minutes.”

When the man had disappeared my friend took me by the arm saying: “Let us walk along slowly, while I tell you this story.

“Seven years ago, when I arrived here, I went out one evening to take a walk in the forest. It was a beautiful day, like today, and I was walking along slowly under the great trees, looking at the stars through the leaves, drinking in the quiet restfulness of night and the forest.

“I had just left Paris forever. I was tired out, more disgusted than I can say by all the foolish, low, and nasty things which I had seen and in which I had participated for fifteen years.

“I walked along for a great distance in this deep forest, following a path which leads to the village of Crouzille, about ten miles from here.

“Suddenly my dog, Bock, a great Saint-Germain, which never left me, stopped short and began to growl. I thought that perhaps a fox, a wolf, or a boar might be in the neighbourhood; I advanced gently on tiptoe, in order to make no noise, but suddenly I heard mournful human cries, plaintive, muffled and moving.

“Surely some murder was being committed. I rushed forward, taking a tight grip on my heavy oak cane, a regular club.

“I was coming nearer to the moans, which now became more distinct, but strangely muffled. They seemed to be coming from some house, perhaps from the hut of some charcoal burner. Three feet ahead of me Bock was running, stopping, barking, starting again, very excited, and growling all the time. Suddenly another dog, a big black one with burning eyes, barred our progress. I could clearly see his white fangs, which seemed to be shining in his mouth.

“I ran towards him with uplifted stick, but Bock had already jumped, and the two beasts were rolling on the ground with their teeth buried in each other. I went past them and almost bumped into a horse lying in the road. As I stopped, in surprise, to examine the animal, I saw in front of me a wagon, or, rather, a caravan, such as are inhabited by circus people and the itinerant merchants who go from fair to fair.

“The cries were coming from there, frightful and continuous. As the door opened on the other side I turned around this vehicle and rushed up the three wooden steps, ready to jump on the malefactor.

“What I saw seemed so strange to me that I could not understand it at first. A man was kneeling, and seemed to be praying, while in the only bed something impossible to recognize, a half-naked creature, whose face I could not see, was moving, twisting about, and howling. It was a woman in labour.

“As soon as I understood the kind of accident which was the cause of these screams, I made my presence known, and the man, wild with grief, and apparently from the neighbourhood of Marseilles, begged me to save him, to save her, promising me with many words an incredible gratitude. I had never seen a birth; I had never helped a female creature, woman, dog, or cat, in such a circumstance, and I naively said so, as I stupidly watched this thing which was screaming so in the bed.

“Then when I had gathered my wits again, I asked the grief-stricken man why he did not go to the next village. His horse must have caught in a rut and had broken his leg.

“ ‘Well, my man,’ I exclaimed, ‘there are two of us now, and we will drag your wife to my house.’

“But the howling dogs forced us to go outside, and we had to separate them by beating them with our sticks, at the risk of killing them. Then the idea struck me to harness them with us, one to the right and the other to the left, in order to help us. In ten minutes everything was ready, and the wagon started forward slowly, shaking the poor, suffering woman each time it bumped over the deep ruts.

“Such a road, my friend! We were going along, panting, groaning, perspiring, slipping, and falling, while our poor dogs puffed along beside us.

“It took three hours to reach the cottage. When we arrived before the door the cries from the wagon had ceased. Mother and child were doing well.

“They were put to bed, and then I had a horse harnessed up in order to go for a physician, while the man, an inhabitant of Marseilles, reassured, consoled, and triumphant, was stuffing himself with food and getting dead drunk in order to celebrate this happy birth.

“It was a girl.

“I kept these people with me for a week. The mother, Mademoiselle Elmire, was an extraordinarily lucid fortune-teller, who promised me an interminable life and countless joys.

“The following year, on exactly the same day, towards nightfall, the servant who has just called me came to me in the smoking-room after dinner and said: ‘It’s the gipsy of last year who has come to thank Monsieur.’

“I had her come into the house, and I was dumbfounded when I saw beside her a tall blond fellow, a man from the North, who bowed and spoke to me as chief of the community. He had heard of my kindness to Mademoiselle Elmire, and he had not wished to let this anniversary go by without bringing to me their thanks and a testimony of their gratitude.

“I gave them supper in the kitchen, and offered them my hospitality for the night. They left the following day.

“The woman returns every year at the same date with the child, a fine little girl, and a new⁠ ⁠… lord and master each time. One man only, a fellow from Auvergne, who thanked me in his strange accent, came back two years in succession. The little girl calls them all ‘Papa,’ just as one says ‘Monsieur’ with us.”

We were arriving at the house, and we could barely distinguish three shadows standing on the steps, waiting for us. The tallest one took a few steps forward, made a great bow, and said: “Monsieur le Comte, we have come today in recognition of our gratefulness.⁠ ⁠…”

He was a Belgian!

After him, the little one spoke in the shrill, singing voice which children use when they recite a compliment.

I appeared to know nothing, and I took Mademoiselle Elmire to one side, and, after a few questions, I asked her: “Is that the father of your child?”

“Oh! no, Monsieur.”

“Is the father dead?”

“Oh! no, Monsieur. We still see each other from time to time. He is a gendarme.”

“What! then it wasn’t the fellow from Marseilles who was there at the birth?”

“Oh! no, Monsieur. That was a rascal who stole all my savings.”

“And the gendarme, the real father, does he know his child?”

“Oh! yes, Monsieur, and he loves her very much; but he can’t take care of her because he has others by his wife.”

The Rabbit

At the usual time between five and a quarter past five in the morning, old Lecacheur appeared at the door of his house to watch his men start work.

Red in the face and half asleep⁠—one eye open and the other nearly shut⁠—he had some difficulty in buttoning his braces over his fat stomach while he cast a keen glance round every important corner of the farm. The sun shed its oblique rays through the beech-trees by the ditch and the squat apple trees in the courtyard, making the cocks on the dunghill crow, and the pigeons on the roof coo. In the fresh morning air the smell of the cow-house drifted through the open door, mingled with the pungent odour from the stable where the neighing horses turned their heads towards the light.

As soon as his trousers were safely fastened, old Lecacheur started off, going first to the henhouse to count the morning’s eggs, as he had had suspicions about some of his friends for some time past.

The servant-girl rushed towards him with her arms in the air, shouting:

“Master, master, a rabbit has been stolen in the night.”

“A rabbit?”

“Yes, master, the big grey one from the hutch on the right.”

The farmer opened his left eye wide and simply said:

“I must see to it.”

And off he went. The hutch had been broken, and the rabbit was gone. Then the man, greatly worried, closed his right eye and scratched his nose. After thinking the matter over he told the scared servant-girl, who was standing beside him like a fool:

“Go and fetch the police. Say I expect them to come at once.”

Old Lecacheur was mayor of his commune, Pavigny-le-Gras, over which he ruled with a high hand owing to his wealth and position.

As soon as the girl had disappeared in the direction of the village, which was about five hundred yards away, the peasant went home to have his morning coffee and discuss the matter with his wife, whom he found on her knees in front of the fire blowing it to make it burn up.

When he reached the door he said: “Now, someone has stolen a rabbit, the big, grey one.”

“The big, grey one?” she sighed. “What a shame! Whoever can have stolen that rabbit?”

She was a little, thin woman, full of energy, and very neat, who knew all about farming.

Lecacheur had his own ideas on the matter.

“It must be that fellow Polyte.”

The wife suddenly got up from the floor and said in a furious voice:

“He did it! He did it! No need to hunt about for anyone else. He did it! You are right Cacheux!”

All the avarice and fury of the careful peasant woman against the manservant of whom she had always been suspicious and against the servant-girl she had always suspected, showed in the contraction of her mouth and in the wrinkles in the cheeks and forehead of her thin, angry face.

“What have you done?” she asked.

“I have sent for the police.”

Polyte was a labourer who had been employed on the farm for a few days and dismissed by Lecacheur for insolence. He had been a soldier and was said to have kept the habits of pilfering and debauchery acquired in his African campaigns. He did anything to earn a livelihood, but whether mason, navvy, carter, reaper, stone-breaker, or tree-pruner, first and foremost he was a loafer. Not only could he never keep a place, but he was often obliged to go to different parts of the country to find a job.

From the very first day that he came to the farm, Lecacheur’s wife had detested him, and now she was sure that he had committed the theft.

In about half an hour the two policemen arrived. Inspector Sénateur was very tall and thin, Constable Lenient was short and fat.

Lecacheur made them sit down and told them all about it. Then they visited the scene of the theft to verify the destruction of the hutch and to collect evidence. When they got back to the kitchen, the mistress of the house brought out some wine, filled up the glasses and asked with a defiant glance:

“Are you going to catch him?”

The inspector seemed anxious. Of course he was sure to catch the thief if he were pointed out to him. If not, he could not promise to find the culprit. After long reflection he asked this simple question:

“Do you know the thief?”

An expression of Norman cunning crept round Lecacheur’s big mouth, and he replied:

“As for knowing him, no, I do not, as I did not see him steal. If I had seen him I would have made him eat the beast raw, skin and flesh too, without a drop of cider to help it down. For this reason I cannot say who it is, nevertheless I believe it to be that good-for-nothing Polyte.”

Then he related at length his troubles with Polyte, why the man had left his service, his scowling face, the tales that were told about him; piling up insignificant, petty details.

The inspector, who listened attentively although he was always emptying and refilling his glass, turned towards the constable and said casually:

“We must search the cottage of the shepherd Severin’s wife.”

The constable smiled and nodded his head three times in reply.

Then Madame Lecacheur came up and in her turn, and with all a peasant’s artfulness, very gently questioned the inspector. This shepherd Severin, a simpleton and quite rough in his ways, had grown up on the hillside surrounded by his roaming, bleating flock, knowing little about anything but sheep. Nevertheless he had the peasant’s instinct for saving. For years and years he must have hidden in hollow trees and in crevices of rocks all that he earned either as a keeper of flocks or as an animal doctor, healing sprains by his touch and his spells for the bonesetter’s secret had been handed down to him by an old shepherd whose place he had taken. Then one day he bought at public auction for three thousand francs a little bit of land consisting of a cottage and field.

A few months later his marriage was announced. He was going to marry the innkeeper’s servant, who was notorious for her immorality. The boys of the village said that the girl, knowing he was fairly well off, had been going to his hut every night, that she could do as she pleased with him and had gradually persuaded him to marry her.

After they were married she went home to the house which her man had bought, and here she lived while he went on watching his flocks, night and day, on the plains.

The inspector added:

“Polyte has been sleeping with her for three weeks, the scoundrel has no other shelter.”

The constable ventured to say:

“He is taking the shepherd’s blankets.”

Madame Lecacheur, seized by a fresh fit of rage that was intensified by a married woman’s anger against any impropriety, exclaimed:

“I am sure it is she. Go at once. Ah! the blackguards!”

But the inspector calmly said:

“One minute. Let us wait until twelve o’clock; as he goes there to dinner every day I will catch them with their noses over it.”

The constable smiled, pleased at his chief’s idea. Lecacheur smiled too, for the shepherd’s story seemed funny to him⁠—betrayed husbands are always a joke.

Twelve o’clock had just struck when Inspector Sénateur, followed by his man, knocked gently three times at the door of a little lonely house, at the corner of a wood, five hundred yards from the village.

They were standing waiting close against the wall so as not to be seen from inside. After a minute or two, as nobody answered, the inspector knocked again. The house seemed empty, it was so quiet, but the constable, Lenient, whose hearing was very good, said that someone was moving about inside.

Then Sénateur got angry. He would not allow anyone to defy the authority of the law for one second, so knocking at the wall, he shouted:

“Open the door.”

As this order produced no effect, he roared: “If you do not do as I bid you, I shall smash the lock. I am the Chief Inspector, by G⁠⸺! Here, Lenient.”

He had not finished before the door opened and Sénateur saw a fat woman with a red face, swollen cheeks, drooping breasts, protruding stomach and big hips⁠—one of those coarse, animal females⁠—the wife of Severin the shepherd.

He went in, saying:

“I have come to see you about a little investigation I must make.”

He looked round. On the table a plate, jug of cider, half-filled glass indicated the beginning of a meal. Two knives were lying side by side and the shrewd constable winked at his chief and said: “It smells good,” adding gaily: “I would swear it was stewed rabbit.”

“Will you have a liqueur brandy?” the peasant woman asked.

“No, thank you. I only want the skin of the rabbit you are eating.”

She pretended not to understand, but was trembling in every limb.

“What rabbit?”

The inspector had sat down and was calmly wiping his brow.

“Come, come, mother, you are not going to try to make us believe that you live on couch-grass. What were you eating, all by yourself, for your dinner?”

“Me, nothing, nothing, I swear. A tiny bit of butter on my bread.”

“The deuce, my good woman, a tiny bit of butter on your bread⁠ ⁠… you are making a mistake. What you mean is a tiny bit of butter on the rabbit. Damm it all! your butter smells good! It is special butter, extra good, wedding butter, special frying-butter, surely, not ordinary household butter, butter like that!”

The constable, doubled up with laughter, repeated:

“Surely, not ordinary household butter.”

As Inspector Sénateur was fond of a joke, the local police all indulged in witticisms.

He continued: “Where do you keep your butter?”

“My butter?”

“Yes, your butter.”

“Well, in the jar.”

“What jar?”

“The butter-jar, of course! Here it is.”

She brought out an old cup with a layer of salt, rancid butter in the bottom. The inspector sniffed at it and, shaking his head, said: “That’s not the same. I want the butter that smells of stewed rabbit. Come, Lenient, let us have a look round; you look on the sideboard, my boy, I am going to look under the bed.”

Having closed the door, he went up to the bed and tried to move it, but it was fixed to the wall and had apparently not been moved for over fifty years. Then, the inspector bending down, his uniform cracked, and a button gave way.

“Lenient,” he said.

“Inspector?”

“Come over here to the bed, my boy. I am too tall to see underneath. I will look after the sideboard.” He got up and waited while the man carried out his orders.

Lenient, short and fat, took off his helmet, threw himself on his stomach, and gluing his head to the ground, gazed for some time into the black hollow under the bed. Then he suddenly cried out: “I’ve got him! I’ve got him!”

The inspector bent over the constable: “What have you got, the rabbit?”

“No, the thief!”

“The thief! Fetch him out, fetch him out!”

The constable, whose arms were both under the bed, was pulling at something with all his strength. At last with his right hand he pulled out a foot wearing a heavy shoe. The inspector caught hold of it: “Courage, courage! pull hard!”

Lenient, who was now on his knees, pulled at the other leg. But it was hard work, for the prisoner was kicking steadily, rolling about and arching his back, wedged up against the crossbar of the bed by his hips.

“Courage, courage! Pull,” cried Sénateur.

They pulled so hard that the crossbar gave way and the man’s body was dragged out, but not his head, with which he was still holding on to his hiding-place.

At last they managed to get it out too, and they saw the angry, terrified face of Polyte, whose arms were still under the bed.

“One more pull!” cried the inspector. Then there was a strange sound, and as arms followed shoulders, and hands followed arms, first a casserole-handle was seen in the hands, and the end of the handle the casserole itself, which contained the stewed rabbit.

“Good Lord! good Lord!” bellowed the inspector, wild with joy, while Lenient made sure of the prisoner.

The rabbit-skin, undeniable proof of theft, the last and most damning piece of evidence, was discovered in the mattress.

Then the police returned to the village in triumph with the prisoner, the stewed rabbit, and the rabbit-skin.

A week later, the whole affair having made a considerable stir, Master Lecacheur, on arriving at the Hall to discuss matters with the schoolmaster, was told that the shepherd Severin had been waiting for an hour to see him.

He was sitting on a chair in the corner with his stick between his legs. When he caught sight of the mayor he got up, took off his cap and bowed, saying: “Good day, Master Cacheux,” but he did not sit down again, as he felt shy and awkward.

“What do you want?” said the farmer.

“Well, there, Master Cacheux, is it true that a rabbit was stolen from your place the other week?”

“Yes, that’s true, Severin.”

“Ah, well, then it’s really true?”

“Yes, my good fellow.”

“And who stole it, the rabbit?”

“Polyte Ancas, the labourer.”

“Ah, well. It is also really true that he was found under my bed?”

“What do you mean, the rabbit?”

“The rabbit and Polyte as well, one at one end and the other at the other.”

“Yes, poor old chap. That’s true.”

“Then it’s really true?”

“Yes. Whoever told you about it?”

“Pretty well everybody. I understand. And then, and then, well, you must know all about married life, seeing that you as a mayor marry people.”

“What do you mean, about married life?”

“I mean about one’s rights.”

“What do you mean by one’s rights?”

“All about the rights of husband and wife.”

“Yes, I know all that.”

“Well, then, tell me, Master Cacheux, has my wife the right to sleep with Polyte?”

“What do you mean, to sleep with Polyte?”

“Yes, has she the right, according to law and seeing that she is my wife, to sleep with Polyte?”

“No, no, of course not, she has not the right.”

“If I find her at it again, have I the right to beat her, have I? To beat her and him too?”

“Why⁠ ⁠… why⁠ ⁠… why, yes.”

“That’s all right and settled. Now I am going to tell you why I asked.

“One night last week, as I had my doubts, I went home and found them there, and not lying back to back, mind you. I chucked Polyte out of doors to sleep; but that was all, as I did not know what my rights were. This time I did not see them, I heard about it. Well, it’s over, we will say no more about it. But if I catch them at it again⁠ ⁠… by G⁠⸺, if I catch them at it again, I’ll make them lose all taste for this kind of joke, Master Cacheux, as sure as my name is Severin.⁠ ⁠…”

The Orderly

Crowded with officers, the cemetery looked like a field of flowers. Red caps and breeches, gold stripes and buttons, swords and the shoulder-knots of the staff officers, the gold lace of the Chasseurs and the Hussars, all moved through the midst of the graves where black or white crosses stretched their mournful arms of iron, marble or wood over the vanished hosts of the dead.

Colonel Limousin’s wife, drowned in her bath two days previously, had just been laid to rest.

All was over, the clergy had departed, but the Colonel, supported by two officers, remained standing before the open grave, at the bottom of which he could still see the wooden coffin which hid the mouldering corpse of his young wife.

He was getting on in years, tall and thin, with a white moustache. Three years earlier, he had married a comrade’s daughter, who had been left an orphan after the death of her father, Colonel Sortis.

The captain and lieutenant upon whom their chief was leaning tried to lead him away. He resisted them, his eyes full of tears which he bravely forced back; and murmuring in a low voice: “No, no! wait a little,” he insisted on remaining there, scarcely able to stand, on the edge of the grave, which appeared bottomless to him, an abyss which had swallowed up love and life, all that remained to him on earth.

Suddenly General Ormont approached, seized the Colonel by the arm, and dragged him away rather roughly, saying: “Come, come, old friend, you must not stay there!” The Colonel submitted and returned home.

As he opened the door of his study, he noticed a letter lying on his desk. Picking it up, he staggered with surprise and emotion, for he recognised his wife’s handwriting. The letter also bore the same day’s postmark. He tore open the envelope, and read:

“Father⁠—I hope I may still call you Father, as I have always done. When you receive this letter, I shall be dead and buried; thus perhaps will you be able to pardon me.

“I am not seeking to rouse your pity nor to mitigate my fault. I only wish to tell you, with all the sincerity of a woman who is going to kill herself in an hour’s time, the whole and complete truth.

“When in your generosity you married me, I became yours in return, and I loved you as much as a young girl can. I loved you as I loved my own father, almost as much; and one day when I was on your knee and you were embracing me, I called you ‘Father’ in spite of myself. That cry came instinctively and spontaneously from my heart. You were indeed a father to me, nothing but a father. You laughed and said to me: ‘Always call me that, my child, I like it.’

“We came to this town, and, forgive me, father, I fell in love. Oh! I struggled for a long time against it, for nearly two years, you must understand, nearly two years, and then I yielded, I became a guilty, a ruined woman.

“What of him? You will not guess who it was. I am quite easy in my mind on that point, since there were a dozen officers, always around me and with me, whom you used to call my twelve constellations.

“Father, do not try to find out who he is, and do not nurse any hatred of him. He has done what anyone else would have done in his place, and then, I am sure that he also loved me with all his heart.

“But listen! one day we had arranged to meet on the island of Bécasses, you know the little island, near the windmill. I was to land there while swimming, and he was to wait for me in the bushes, and then remain there until the evening, so that nobody should see him leave. I had just met him, when the branches parted, and we saw your orderly, Philip, who had taken us by surprise. I felt that were lost, and I uttered a loud cry; but he said to me, he, you understand: ‘Don’t worry, my dear, go for a swim, and leave me with this man.’

“I went away, so agitated that I nearly drowned myself, and I returned to your house, waiting for something terrible to happen.

“An hour later, in the drawing room corridor, I met Philip, who said to me in a low voice: ‘I am at Madam’s command, if she has a letter to give me.’ I knew then that he had sold himself, and that my friend had bought his silence.

“I gave him letters indeed, all my letters. He delivered them and brought me the replies.

“That lasted about two months. We trusted him, even as you yourself trusted him.

“Now, father, see what happened. One day, on the same island to which I had gone swimming, this time alone, I again met your orderly. He was expecting me and warned me that he was going to denounce us to you and give you some letters kept, stolen by him, if I did not yield to his desires.

“Oh! dear father, I was seized with fear, a vile, cowardly fear, above all a fear of you, so kind, yet deceived by me; fear for him also, for you would have killed him; fear for myself also, perhaps; how can I tell? I was bewildered and dismayed, so I thought that once more I would buy this wretch who also loved me. Oh, the shame of it!

“We are so weak, ourselves, that we lose our heads more easily than you. And then, when one has fallen, one sinks lower and lower. How could I tell what I was doing? I only knew that one of us three had to die, and I surrendered to that brute.

“You see, father, that I am not trying to make excuses for myself.

“Thereafter, what I should have foreseen happened; again and again, by threatening me, he took advantage of me when he liked. Like the other one, he has continually been my lover. Was it not abominable? And what a punishment, father!

“At last, I decided that I must kill myself. Living, I could never have confessed such a wrong to you. In death I could dare anything. No alternative was left to me, nothing could have washed away the stain of my wickedness. I felt that I could no longer love, or be loved, and even my handshake seemed to me to be tainted.

“In a little while I am going to take a bath, and I shall not come back.

“This letter for you will go to my lover’s house. He will receive it after my death, and in ignorance of its contents, will send it to you in accordance with my last wish. You yourself will read it on returning from the funeral.

“Goodbye, father, I have nothing more to tell you. Do what you will, and forgive me.”

The Colonel wiped the perspiration from his forehead. His self-command, the coolness displayed on the battlefield, suddenly came back to him.

He rang the bell, and a servant appeared.

“Send Philip to me,” he said, and half opened the drawer of his desk.

The man entered almost at once, a tall, red-whiskered soldier, sly in appearance, with cunning eyes.

The Colonel looked straight at him.

“You will tell me the name of my wife’s lover.”

“But, sir⁠ ⁠…”

The officer took his revolver from the drawer. “Now then, be quick! You know that I am not joking.”

“Very well, sir⁠ ⁠… it is Captain St. Albert.”

Scarcely had he uttered the name, when a spurt of flame seared his eyes, and he fell on his face, with a bullet through the middle of his forehead.

Moiron

As they were still speaking of Pranzini, M. Maloureau, who had been Attorney-General under the Empire, said:

“I once knew a very curious affair, curious from many points of view, as you will see.

“I was at that time Public Prosecutor in the provinces, and stood very well at Court, thanks to my father, who was first President at Paris. I had charge of a case which has remained famous, called ‘The Affair of Schoolmaster Moiron.’

“M. Moiron, a schoolmaster in the north of France, bore an excellent reputation in all the countryside. He was an intelligent, thoughtful, very religious man, rather silent, and had married in the district of Boislinot, where he practised his profession. He had had three children, who all died, one after the other, from consumption. After the loss of his own little ones, he seemed to lavish upon the urchins confided to his care all the tenderness concealed in his heart. He bought, with his own money, playthings for his best pupils, for the best behaved and the nicest. He allowed them to have play dinners, and gorged them with dainties, sweetmeats and cakes. Everybody loved and praised this good man and his tender heart, when five of his pupils suddenly died of a very mysterious disease. It was believed that an epidemic prevailed, caused by the water being made impure from drought. They looked for the cause, without discovering it, the more so, because the symptoms were very strange. The children appeared to be taken with a languor, could eat nothing, complained of pains in the stomach, and finally died in most terrible agony.

“An autopsy was made of the last victim, but nothing was discovered. The entrails were sent to Paris and analysed, but showed no sign of any toxic substance.

“For one year no further deaths occurred; then two little boys, the best pupils in the class, favourites of old Moiron, expired in four days’ time. An examination was ordered, and in each body fragments of pounded glass were found imbedded in the organs. They concluded that the two children had eaten imprudently of something carelessly prepared. The breaking of a glass over a bowl of milk would have been enough to cause this frightful accident, and the matter would have rested there had not Moiron’s servant been taken ill just at that time. The physician found the same morbid signs that he observed in the preceding attacks of the children, and, upon questioning her, finally obtained the confession that she had stolen and eaten some sweets, bought by the master for his pupils.

“Upon order of the court, the schoolhouse was searched and a closet was found, full of toys and sweets for the children. Nearly all these edibles contained fragments of glass or broken needles.

“Moiron, who was immediately arrested, appeared so indignant and horrified at being suspected that he was nearly released. Nevertheless, the indications of his guilt were so apparent that they fought hard in my mind against my first conviction, which was based upon his good reputation, his entire record, and the absolute absence, the incredibility, of any motive for such a crime.

“Why should this good, simple, religious man kill children, and the children whom he seemed to love best? Why should he select those he had feasted with dainties, for whom he had spent in playthings and sweets half his stipend?

“To admit this, one would have to conclude that he was insane. But Moiron seemed so reasonable, so calm, so full of judgment and good sense! It was impossible to prove insanity in him.

“Proofs accumulated, nevertheless! Sweets, cakes, marshmallows, and other things seized at the shops where the schoolmaster got his supplies, were found to contain nothing suspicious.

“He pretended that some unknown enemy had opened his closet with a false key and placed the glass and needles in the sweets. And he invented a whole story about a legacy dependent on the death of a child, sought out and discovered by a peasant, and so worked up as to make the suspicion fall upon the schoolmaster. This brute, he said, was not interested in the other poor children who were also condemned to die.

“This was plausible. The man appeared so sure of himself and so sorry, that we should have acquitted him without doubt, if two overwhelming discoveries had not been made, one after the other. The first was a snuffbox full of ground glass! It was his own snuffbox, in a secret drawer of his writing desk, where he kept his money.

“He explained this in a manner almost acceptable, by saying that it was the final ruse of the unknown culprit. But a draper from Saint-Marlouf presented himself at the house of the judge, and told him that Moiron had bought needles of him many times, the finest needles he could find, breaking them to see whether they suited him.

“The draper brought as witnesses a dozen persons who recognized Moiron at first glance. And the inquiry revealed the fact that the schoolmaster was at Saint-Marlouf on the days mentioned by the merchant.

“I pass over the terrible evidence of the children as to the master’s choice of dainties, and his care in making the little ones eat in his presence and destroying all traces of the feast.

“Outraged public opinion demanded capital punishment, and took on a new force from exaggerated terror, which allows of no delays or resistance.

“Moiron was condemned to death. His appeal was rejected. No recourse remained to him for pardon. I knew from my father that the Emperor would not grant it.

“One morning, as I was at work in my office, the chaplain of the prison was announced. He was an old priest who had a great knowledge of men and a large acquaintance among criminals. He appeared worried, constrained, and uneasy. After talking a few moments of other things, he said abruptly, on rising:

“ ‘If Moiron is decapitated, you will have allowed the execution of an innocent man.’

“Then, without bowing, he went out, leaving me under the profound effect of his words. He had pronounced them in a solemn, moving fashion, opening lips, closed and sealed by the secret of the confessional, in order to save a life.

“An hour later I was on my way to Paris, and my father, at my request, asked for an immediate audience with the Emperor.

“I was received the next day. Napoleon III was at work in a little room when we were introduced. I explained the whole affair, even to the visit of the priest, and, in the midst of the story, the door opened behind the chair of the Emperor, and the Empress, believing him to be alone, entered. His Majesty consulted her. As soon as she heard the facts, she exclaimed:

“ ‘This man must be pardoned! He must, because he is innocent.’

“Why should this sudden conviction of a woman so pious throw into my mind a terrible doubt?

“Up to that time I had ardently desired a commutation of the sentence. And now I felt myself the puppet, the dupe of an adroit criminal, who had used the priest and the confessional as a means of defence.

“I showed some hesitation to their Majesties. The Emperor remained undecided, torn on one hand by his natural goodness, and on the other held back by the fear of allowing himself to be made a fool of by a scoundrel; but the Empress, convinced that the priest had obeyed a divine call, repeated: ‘What does it matter? It is better to spare a guilty man than to kill an innocent one.’ Her advice prevailed. The penalty of death was commuted, and that of hard labour was substituted.

“Some years after I heard that Moiron, whose exemplary conduct at Toulon had been made known again to the Emperor, was employed as a servant by the director of the penitentiary. And then I heard no word of this man for a long time.

“About two years after this, when I was passing the summer at Lille, in the house of my cousin, de Larielle, I was told, one evening, as we were sitting down to dinner, that a young priest wished to speak to me.

“I told them to let him come in, and he begged me to go with him to a dying man, who desired, above all things, to see me. This had happened often, during my long career as judge, and, although I had been put aside by the Republic, I was still called upon from time to time in like circumstances.

“I followed the priest, who took me to a little miserable lodging, under the roof of a lofty workmen’s tenement. There, upon a pallet of straw, I found a dying man, seated with his back against the wall, in order to breathe. He was a sort of grimacing skeleton, with deep, shining eyes.

“When he saw me he murmured: ‘You do not know me?’

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘I am Moiron.’

“I shivered, but said: ‘The schoolmaster?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘How is it you are here?’

“ ‘That would take too long⁠—I haven’t time⁠—I am going to die⁠—They brought me this priest⁠—and as I knew you were here, I sent him for you⁠—It is to you that I wish to confess⁠—since you saved my life long ago.’

“He seized with his dry hands the straw of his bed, and continued, in a rasping, bass voice:

“ ‘There⁠ ⁠… I owe you the truth⁠—to you, because it is necessary to tell it to someone before leaving the earth.

“ ‘It was I who killed the children⁠—all⁠—it was I⁠—for vengeance!

“ ‘Listen. I was an honest man, very honest⁠—very honest⁠—very pure⁠—adoring God⁠—the good God⁠—the God that they teach us to love, and not the false God, the executioner, the robber, the murderer who governs the earth⁠—I had never done wrong, never committed a villainous act. I was pure as one unborn.

“ ‘After I was married I had children, and I began to love them as never father or mother loved their own. I lived only for them. I was foolish. They died, all three of them! Why? Why? What had I done? I? I had a change of heart, a furious change. Suddenly I opened my eyes as though waking from a dream, and I saw that God is wicked. Why had He killed my children? I opened my eyes and I saw that He loved to kill. He loves only that, Monsieur. He gives life only to take it away! God is a murderer! Some death is necessary to Him every day. He causes death in many ways, the better to amuse Himself. He has invented sickness and accident in order to divert Himself through all the long months and years, and, when He is weary, He has epidemics, plague, cholera, diphtheria, smallpox; and I know not what else this monster has invented.

“ ‘All that was not enough. All those evils are too much alike. From time to time He sends war, in order to see two hundred thousand soldiers laid low, bruised in blood and mire, with arms and legs torn off, heads broken by bullets, like eggs that fall along the road.

“ ‘That is not all. He has made men who eat one another. And then, as men become better than He, He has made beasts to see the men chase them, slaughter, and eat them. That is not all. He has made all the little animals that live for a day, flies which increase by myriads in an hour, ants, that one crushes, and others, many, so many that we cannot even imagine them. And all kill one another, chase one another, devour one another, and constantly die. And the good God looks on and is amused, because He sees everything, the largest as well as the smallest, those which are in drops of water, as well as those in the stars. He looks at them all and is amused! Ugh! Beast!

“ ‘So, I, Monsieur, I also have killed some children. I played this trick on Him. It was not He who got them. It was not He, it was I. And I would have killed still more, but you took me away. That’s all!

“ ‘I was going to die, guillotined. I! How He would have laughed, the reptile! Then I asked for a priest, and lied to him. I confessed. I lied, and I lived.

“ ‘Now it is all over. I can no longer escape Him. But I have no fear of Him, Monsieur, I despise Him too much.’

“It was frightful to see this miserable creature, hardly able to breathe, talking in gasps, opening an enormous mouth to eject words that were barely audible, pulling up the cloth of his straw bed, and, under a blanket that was nearly black, moving his thin legs, as if to run away.

“Oh! the awful creature, and the awful remembrance!

“I said: ‘Have you nothing more to say?’

“ ‘No, Monsieur.’

“ ‘Then, farewell.’

“ ‘Farewell, sir. Some day⁠ ⁠…’

“I turned toward the priest, who was livid, and whose sombre silhouette was thrown upon the wall.

“ ‘You will remain?’

“ ‘I will remain.’

“Then the dying man sneered: ‘Yes, yes, he sends crows to dead bodies.’

“As for me, I had had enough of it. I opened the door and ran away.”

The Assassin

The guilty man was defended by a very young counsel; it was his first brief, and he spoke as follows:

“The facts, gentlemen of the jury, are undeniable. My client, a respectable man, an employee without a stain on his character, a gentle and timid man, has assassinated his employer in a burst of rage that seems incomprehensible. Will you allow me to explain the psychology of this crime, if I may so call it, extenuating nothing and excusing nothing? You shall judge it after that.

“Jean-Nicholas Lougère is the son of honourable parents, who have brought him up to be a simple-minded and reverent man.

“In that lies his crime: in reverence! It is a feeling, gentlemen, hardly known among us today, its name only seems still to exist, and it has lost all its force. You must find your way into certain retired and modest families to rediscover there this austere tradition, this religious devotion to a thing or a man, to a sentiment or a belief still invested with sacred awe, this faith which tolerates neither doubt nor smile, nor the merest whisper of suspicion.

“A man is not an upright man, a really upright man, in the full sense of the phrase, unless he is a reverent one. The reverent man has his eyes shut. He believes. We others, whose eyes are wide open to the world, who live here, in this palace of justice which is the sewer of society, into which every infamy is emptied, we others in whose ears are poured every tale of shame, who are the devoted defenders of every human villainy, the sustainers, not to say the souteneurs, of every shady character, male and female, from princes to slum vagabonds, we who welcome with indulgent kindness, with complaisance, with smiling benevolence, every guilty creature to defend them before you, we who⁠—if we are truly in love with our profession and measure our legal sympathy by the greatness of the crime⁠—we cannot retain a reverent mind. We see too closely the flood of corruption that runs from the highest in the State to the lowest dregs of society. We know too well how all decays, how all is given away or sold. Places, office, honours, sold blatantly in exchange for a little gold, delicately in exchange for titles or shares in industrial enterprises, or, more simply, bartered for a woman’s kiss. Our duty and our profession force us to be ignorant of nothing, to suspect everyone, for all men are suspect; and we are struck with astonishment when we are confronted by a man who, like the assassin seated here before you, is so possessed by the spirit of reverence that he is willing to become a martyr for it.

“We others, gentlemen, we cherish our honour as we do a desire for cleanliness, from dislike of base actions, from a feeling of personal dignity and pride; but we do not bear in the depths of our hearts a blind, innate, savage faith in it, as does this man.

“Let me tell you the story of his life.

“He was brought up as children used to be brought up, to regard human actions as divisible into two classes, good and evil. Good was set before him with an irresistible authority, that forced him to distinguish it from evil, as he distinguished day from night. His father was not of those superior beings who look out upon life from a lofty pinnacle, see the origin of faith, and recognise the social needs which created these distinctions.

“So he grew up, pious and trusting, fanatic and narrow-minded.

“At the age of twenty-two he married. He was married to a cousin whose upbringing had been like his own, who was as simple-minded and as pure as he was. He had the inestimable good fortune to share his life with an honest woman, truehearted, the rarest of beings and the most worthy of reverence. For his mother he felt the veneration that surrounds the mother in these patriarchal families, the devout worship that is offered only to divinities. He transferred some part of this devotion to his wife, lessened hardly at all by the familiarity of marriage. And he lived absolutely unaware of deceit, in a state of unshakable integrity and tranquil happiness which made him a being apart. Deceiving none, he never suspected that anyone could deceive him, of all people.

“Some time before his marriage he had entered as cashier the firm of M. Langlais, whom he has just assassinated.

“We know, gentlemen of the jury, from the evidence of Mme. Langlais, of her brother, M. Perthuis, her husband’s business associate, from every member of the family and from all the chief employees of the bank, that Lougère was a model employee as regards honesty, obedience, civility and deference to the heads of the business, and regularity of conduct.

“He was treated, moreover, with the consideration due to his exemplary conduct. He was accustomed to this homage and to what was almost the veneration paid to Mme. Lougère, whose praises were in every mouth.

“She died of typhoid fever in a few days.

“There can be no doubt that he felt the deepest grief, but it was the cold quiet grief of a heart unused to emotional excess. Only his pallor and the change in his looks showed how deep the wound had gone.

“Then, gentlemen, a very natural thing happened.

“This man had been married for ten years. For ten years he had become used to the constant presence of a woman. He was accustomed to be cared for by her, to hearing her familiar voice when he came home, to bid her good night and greet her again in the morning, to the gentle swish of her dress, that sound so pleasant in a woman’s ear, to the half-passionate, half-motherly caress that lightens the burden of life, to the beloved presence that makes the hours less slow in their stride. Perhaps he was accustomed, too, to an indulgent care in the matter of his food, to all the unnoticed attentions that become gradually indispensable to us. He could not live alone now. So, to help him through the interminable evenings, he fell into the habit of going to sit in the nearest café. He drank a glass of beer and remained there, stock-still, with an indifferent gaze fixed on the billiard balls chasing after each other under the cloud of smoke, listening uncomprehendingly to the arguments of the players, to his neighbours’ political discussions and to the bursts of merriment provoked by an occasional heavy witticism at the other end of the room. More often than not, he ended by falling asleep from weariness and boredom. But heart of his heart, flesh of his flesh, was the irresistible need of a woman’s heart and a woman’s bodily nearness; and unconsciously he drew a little nearer every evening to the counter where the cashier sat enthroned⁠—a little blonde⁠—drawn to her inevitably just because she was a woman.

“Very soon they began to talk, and he fell into the habit, a pleasant one for him, of spending every evening near her. She was gracious and as obliging as is required in such traffic in smiles, and she amused herself by renewing his drinks as often as possible, which was good for business. But day by day Lougère became more attached to this woman whom he did not know, of whose whole manner of life he was ignorant, and whom he loved solely because she was the only woman he saw.

“The little blonde, who was no fool, realised very quickly that she could make profitable use of this simple creature, and she tried to think what would be the best way of exploiting him. The wisest assuredly was to make him marry her.

“She achieved it without any difficulty.

“Need I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that the conduct of this girl was most irregular and that marriage, far from checking her escapades, seemed to make them more shameless:

“By a characteristic turn of feminine guile, she seemed to take a pleasure in deceiving this honest man with all the employees in his office. I say, with all. We have the letters, gentlemen. Before long it was a public scandal, of which only the husband, as always, remained in ignorance.

“Finally this depraved woman, prompted by a self-interest easy to understand, seduced the son of the head himself, a young man nineteen years of age, over whose mind and senses she soon had a deplorable influence. When M. Langlais, who up till this time had shut his eyes, from good nature and kindly feeling towards his employee, saw his son in the hands, I might say in the arms, of this dangerous creature, he felt a well-justified resentment.

“He blundered in appealing immediately to Lougère and speaking to him in the heat of his paternal indignation.

“It only remains, gentlemen, for me to read you the account of the crime, as it came from the lips of a dying man and was recorded by the official.

“ ‘I had just learned that my son had only the day before given this woman ten thousand francs, and my anger mastered my reason. Of course, I had never doubted Lougère’s integrity, but blindness is sometimes more dangerous than wrongdoing.

“ ‘I sent for him to come to me, and I told him that I should be obliged to dispense with his services.

“ ‘He stood there in front of me, bewildered, unable to understand. At last he demanded explanations with some vehemence.

“ ‘I refused to give him them, declaring that my reasons were of a quite intimate nature. Then he imagined that I suspected him of bad behaviour and, turning pale, he implored me, ordered me, to explain myself. Obsessed by this thought, he was insistent and he felt entitled to speak freely.

“ ‘When I kept silence, he abused and insulted me, and reached such a pitch of exasperation that I feared we should come to blows.

“ ‘Then, all at once, an offensive word struck me to the heart and I flung the truth in his teeth.

“ ‘For several moments he stood still, looking at me with haggard eyes; then I saw him take from my desk the long scissors which I use to cut the margins of certain registers, then I saw him rush on me with his arm raised, and I felt something enter my throat just above my chest, without any sensation of pain.’

“There, gentlemen of the jury, you have the simple facts of this murder, which is all the defence he needs. He revered his second wife blindly because he had justly revered the first.”

After a brief deliberation, the accused was acquitted.

Duchoux

While descending the main staircase of the club, heated to such an extent that it felt like a hothouse, Baron Mordiane left his fur-lined overcoat open; but when the front door had closed after him, the intense cold suddenly pierced him to the marrow, making him feel thoroughly miserable. Besides that, he had been losing money, and for some time had suffered from indigestion, and could no longer eat what he fancied.

He was about to return home, when the thought of his great bare room, his footman sleeping in the anteroom, the water singing on the gas stove in his dressing-room, and the enormous bed, as old and gloomy as a deathbed, suddenly struck him with a chill even more acute than that of the frosty air.

For some years he had felt the burden of loneliness which sometimes overwhelms old bachelors. He had been strong, active and cheerful, spending his days in sport, and his evenings at social functions. Now, he was growing dull, and no longer took interest in anything. All sport tired him, suppers and even dinners made him ill, while women bored him as much as they had once amused him.

The monotony of such evenings, of the same friends met in the same place⁠—at the club⁠—the same card parties with their run of good and bad luck evenly balanced, the same conversation on the same topics, the same wit from the same tongues, the same jokes on the same subjects, the same scandal about the same women, all sickened him so much that there were times when he thought seriously of suicide. He could no longer face this regular, aimless and commonplace life, both frivolous and dull, and, without knowing why, he longed for peace, rest and comfort.

He had certainly never thought of marrying, he lacked the courage to face a life of depression, conjugal slavery, and that hateful coexistence of two human beings who know each other so well that every word uttered by one is anticipated by the other and every thought, wish or opinion is immediately divined. He considered that a woman was only worth attention so long as one knew very little about her, while she was still mysterious and unfathomed, vague and perplexing. Therefore what he wanted was family life without the tyranny of family ties, although he was continually haunted by the memory of his son.

For the last year he had always been thinking about him, and felt an irritating longing to see him and make his acquaintance. The affair had taken place while he was a young man, in an atmosphere of romance and affection. The child was sent to the South of France, and brought up near Marseilles, without knowing his father’s name. His father had paid for his upbringing, alike in his infancy, in his schooldays and in the activities that followed, ending up with a substantial settlement on a suitable marriage. A trustworthy lawyer had acted as intermediary without giving away the secret.

Baron Mordiane, then, only knew that a child of his was living somewhere near Marseilles, that he had a reputation for being intelligent and well educated, and that he had married the daughter of an architect and surveyor, whom he succeeded in the business. He was also said to be making money.

Why should he not go and see this unknown son, without disclosing his identity, in order to study him at first hand and see whether, in case of need, he might find a welcome refuge in his home?

He had always treated him liberally, and had made a generous settlement, which had been gratefully received. He was therefore sure of not coming into conflict with an unreasonable pride, and the idea of leaving for the South had now become an oft-recurring desire which was making him restless. He was also urged by a curious feeling of self-pity, at the thought of that cheerful and comfortable home on the coast where he would find his charming young daughter-in-law, his grandchildren ready to welcome him, and his son; all this would remind him of that brief and happy love affair so many years ago. His only regret was his past generosity, which had assisted the young man on the road to prosperity, and would prevent him from appearing amongst them as a benefactor. With these thoughts running through his mind he walked along, his head buried deep in his fur collar: his decision was quickly made. Hailing a passing cab, he drove home, and said to his valet, aroused from his sleep to open the door:

“Louis, we are leaving for Marseilles tomorrow evening. We shall be there perhaps a fortnight. Make all preparations for the journey.”

The train sped along the sandy banks of the Rhône, then over yellow plains and through village⁠—a country with gaunt encircling mountains in the distance.

Baron Mordiane, awakened after a night in the sleeping-car, gloomily contemplated his reflection in the little mirror in his dressing-case. The crude light of the South showed up wrinkles he had never seen before, and revealed a state of decrepitude that had passed unnoticed in the shaded light of Parisian flats. Looking at the corners of his eyes, the wrinkled eyelids, bald temples and forehead, he said to himself:

“Good heavens, I am worse than faded: I look worn out!”

His desire for peace suddenly increased, and for the first time in his life, he was conscious of a vague longing to take his grandchildren on his knee.

He hired a carriage in Marseilles and about one o’clock in the afternoon he stopped before a dazzling white country-house typical of the South of France, standing at the end of an avenue of plane-trees. He beamed with pleasure as he went along the avenue and said to himself:

“It’s damned nice.”

Suddenly a youngster of about five or six rushed from behind the shrubs and stood motionless at the end of the drive, gazing round-eyed at the visitor. Mordiane approached and said to him:

“Good afternoon, my boy!”

The youngster made no reply.

The baron then stooped and picked him up to kiss him, but so strong was the odour of garlic coming from the child that he quickly put him down again, murmuring: “Oh! he must be the gardener’s son.” And he went on toward the house.

On a line in front of the door, the washing was drying, shirts, napkins, towels, aprons and sheets, while a display of socks hanging in rows on strings one above another filled the whole of a window, like the tiers of sausages in front of a pork-butcher’s shop.

The baron called out, and a servant appeared, truly Southern in her dirty and unkempt state, with wisps of hair straggling across her face. Her well-stained skirt still retained some of its original gaudiness, suggesting a country fair or a mountebank’s costume.

“Is M. Duchoux at home?” he inquired.

In giving this name to the unwanted child many years ago, he had indulged his sense of humour at its expense.

“You want M. Duchoux?” the servant repeated.

“Yes.”

“He is in the parlour, drawing plans.”

“Tell him that M. Merlin wishes to see him.”

She replied in surprise: “Oh! come in, if you wish him,” and shouted:

“M. Duchoux, a visitor to see you!”

The baron entered a large room darkened by half-closed shutters, and received a vague impression of dirt and disorder.

A short, bald-headed man, standing at an overcrowded table, was tracing lines on a large sheet of paper. He stopped his work and came forward.

His open waistcoat, slackened trousers and rolled-up shirtsleeves showed how hot it was, and the muddy shoes that he was wearing pointed to recent rain.

“To whom have I the honour?⁠ ⁠…” he asked, with a strong Southern accent.

“I am M. Merlin. I have come to consult you about some building land.”

“Ah! yes. Certainly.”

And turning towards his wife, who was knitting in the darkened room, Duchoux said:

“Clear one of the chairs, Joséphine.”

Mordiane saw a young woman, already showing signs of age, as do most provincial women of twenty-five, for want of attention and regular cleanliness, in fact of all those precautions which form part of a woman’s toilet, helping to preserve her youthful appearance, her charm and beauty up to the age of fifty. A neckerchief hung over her shoulders, and her hair, which was beautifully thick and black, but twisted up in a slipshod fashion, looked as though it was seldom brushed. With her roughened hands she removed a child’s dress, a knife, a piece of string, an empty flowerpot and a greasy plate from a chair, and offered it to the visitor.

He sat down, and then noticed that on the table at which Duchoux had been working, in addition to his books and papers, there were two freshly cut lettuces, a basin, a hairbrush, a napkin, a revolver, and several dirty cups.

The architect saw him glance at these, and smilingly remarked: “I am sorry that the room is rather untidy; that is the children’s fault,” and he drew up his chair to talk to his client.

“You are looking for a piece of land in the neighbourhood of Marseilles?”

Although he was at some distance away the baron smelt the odour of garlic which people of the South exhale as flowers do their perfume.

“Was that your son I met under the plane-trees?” Mordiane inquired.

“Yes, the second.”

“You have two sons, then?”

“Three, sir, one a year,” replied Duchoux, evidently full of pride.

The baron thought that if they all had the same perfume, their nursery must be like a real conservatory. He resumed:

“Yes, I would like a nice piece of ground near the sea, on a secluded beach.⁠ ⁠…”

Then Duchoux began to explain. He had ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred and more plots of land of that kind, at all prices and to suit all tastes. The words came in a torrent as he smiled and wagged his round bald head in his satisfaction.

Meanwhile the baron remembered a little woman, slight, fair and rather sad, who used to say with such yearning: “My own beloved,” that the memory alone made his blood run hot in his veins. She had loved him passionately, madly, for three months; then becoming pregnant in the absence of her husband, who was Governor of a colony, she had fled into hiding, distracted by fear and despair, until the birth of the child, whom Mordiane carried off one summer evening and whom they had never seen again.

She died of consumption three years later, in the colony where she had gone to rejoin her husband. It was their son who sat beside him now, who was saying with a metallic ring in his voice:

“As for this plot, sir, it is a unique opportunity⁠ ⁠…”

And Mordiane remembered the other voice, light as a zephyr, murmuring:

“My own beloved; we shall never part.⁠ ⁠…” The memory of the gentle, blue, devoted look in those eyes came back to him as he watched the round blue but vacant eyes of this ridiculous little man who was so like his mother, and yet.⁠ ⁠…

Yes, he looked more and more like her every minute; his intonation, his demeanour, his actions were the same; he resembled her as a monkey resembles a man; but he was of her blood, he had many of her little habits, though distorted, irritating and revolting. The baron was in an agony of fear, haunted suddenly by that terrible, still-growing resemblance, which enraged, maddened and tortured him like a nightmare, or like bitter remorse.

“When can we look at this land together?” he stammered.

“Why, tomorrow, if you like.”

“Yes, tomorrow. What time?”

“At one o’clock.”

“That will be all right.”

The child he had met in the avenue appeared in the door and cried:

“Father!”

No one answered him.

Mordiane stood up trembling with an intense longing to escape. That word “father” had struck him like a bullet. He was sure that this cry of “father” that reeked of garlic, that was full of the South, was meant for him. Oh! how good had been the perfume of his sweetheart of bygone days!

As Duchoux was showing him out, the baron said to him:

“Is this house yours?”

“Yes, sir, I bought it recently, and I am proud of it. I am fortune’s child, sir, and I make no secret of it; I am proud of it. I owe nothing to anyone; I am the child of my own efforts, and I owe everything to myself.”

The child, who had stayed on the doorstep, again cried: “Father!” the voice coming from a greater distance.

Mordiane, shivering with fear, seized with panic, fled as one does from a great danger. “He will guess who I am,” he thought to himself, “he will hug me in his arms and call me ‘Father’ and give me a kiss reeking of garlic.”

“I shall see you tomorrow, sir.”

“Tomorrow, at one o’clock.”

The carriage rumbled along the white road.

“Driver, take me to the station,” he shouted, while two voices seemed to ring in his ears. One of them, far away and sweet, the faint, sad voice of the dead, was saying: “My own beloved”; the other, a metallic, shrill, repellent voice, crying: “Father!” much as one shouts: “Stop him!” when a thief is in flight.

As he came into the club the next evening, Count d’Étreillis said to him:

“We have not seen you for three days. Have you been ill?”

“Yes, I have not been very well. I suffer from headaches occasionally⁠ ⁠…”

The Rival Pins

“What little beasts women are!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they have played me a dirty trick.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“Women have, or a woman has?”

“Two women.”

“Both at the same time?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

The two young men were sitting in front of one of the big cafés on the Boulevard drinking liqueurs mixed with water, the kind of drink that looks like a medley of watercolour paints.

They were about the same age⁠—twenty-five to thirty⁠—and had the smartish air of stockjobbers, of men who frequent the Stock Exchange and the drawing room, who go everywhere, who live everywhere and who make love wherever they go. The dark one said:

“I have told you about my intimacy, haven’t I, with the little bourgeoise I met on the beach at Dieppe?”

“Yes. You have.”

“My dear fellow, you know what it is. I had a mistress in Paris whom I love deeply, an old friend, a good friend, to be with her has become a habit that I don’t want to give up.”

“Is it the habit you don’t want to give up?”

“Yes, the habit, and, of course, I don’t want to give her up either. She is married to a nice chap. I like him too, he is a genial fellow, a real friend. In short, my life is centred in their home.”

“Well then?”

“Well! as they could not leave Paris I was a widower at Dieppe.”

“Why did you go to Dieppe?”

“For change of air. You can’t spend all your life on the boulevards.”

“Well?”

“Then I met the little woman I have already mentioned, on the beach.”

“The civil servant’s wife?”

“Yes, she was awfully bored. Her husband only came down on Sundays and he is horrible. I understand her perfectly. So we laughed and danced together.”

“And the rest?”

“Yes, later on. Well, we met and we liked each other. When I told her I liked her she made me say it again so as to be quite sure, and she put no obstacles in my way.

“Did you love her?”

“Yes, a little; she is very nice.”

“And the other one?”

“She was in Paris! Well, for six weeks all went very well and we came back here the best of friends. Do you know how to break with a woman when there is not a single thing against her so far as you are concerned?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“How do you manage it?”

“I give her up.”

“But how do you set about it?”

“I don’t go to see her.”

“But what if she comes to see you?”

“Oh, well⁠ ⁠… I am not at home.”

“And if she comes back?”

“I say I am ill.”

“And if she looks after you?”

“Then I play her a dirty trick.”

“And if she puts up with it?”

“I write anonymous letters to her husband telling him to look after her the days that I expect her.”

“That’s serious! As for me, I have no power of resistance. I cannot break with women, I collect them. Some I only see once a year, others every ten months, others on quarter-day, others when they want to dine out. Those who have their settled days are no bother, but I often have difficulty in placing new ones.”

“Well, then⁠ ⁠…”

“Then, old chap, the civil-service lady was all in a blaze, nothing to blame her about, as I have already said! As her husband spent the whole day at the office she had nothing better to do than to come unexpectedly to see me. Twice she just missed my lady of ‘habit.’ ”

“The devil.”

“Yes. So I gave each one her day, to avoid confusion. Mondays and Saturdays to my ‘habit,’ Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday to the new one.”

“Why this favouritism?”

“Well, old chap, she is the younger.”

“That only gave you two rest-days in the week.”

“That was enough.”

“My congratulations!”

“But, just fancy, the most ridiculous and aggravating thing in the world happened. For four months everything worked perfectly: I slept peacefully and was really happy, when suddenly, last Monday, the crash came.

“Smoking a good cigar, I was expecting my ‘habit’ at the usual time, a quarter past one, I was daydreaming, very pleased with myself, when I noticed that it was past the time. I was surprised, as she is always so punctual, but thought there had been some accidental delay. However, half an hour went by, then an hour, an hour and a half, and I was sure something had detained her, a headache perhaps, or an unexpected visitor. This waiting about is very trying⁠ ⁠… quite useless, very annoying and enervating. At last I resigned myself to the inevitable and, not knowing what to do, went to see her.

“I found her reading a novel.

“ ‘Well,’ I said.

“ ‘I could not come, old fellow, I was prevented,’ she said tranquilly.

“ ‘What prevented you?’

“ ‘Oh⁠ ⁠… other things.’

“ ‘But⁠ ⁠… what other things?’

“ ‘A tiresome visitor.’

“I thought she did not want to tell me the real reason and as she was quite calm about it I did not feel any uneasiness. I reckoned on making up for lost time, the next day, with the other one.

“Therefore on Tuesday I was very⁠ ⁠… very excited, feeling very much in love in expectation of the lady’s visit, and even surprised that she did not come before her regular hour: I looked at the clock all the time, watching the hands impatiently. The quarter passed, then the half-hour, then two o’clock⁠ ⁠… I could bear it no longer and strode up and down my room, gluing my forehead to the window, and my ear to the door to listen whether she was coming up the stairs.

“Half past two, three o’clock! I put on my hat and rushed to see her. She was reading a novel, my dear fellow!

“ ‘Well,’ I said, anxiously.

“She replied as calmly as usual:

“ ‘I was prevented, and could not come.’

“ ‘What prevented you?’

“ ‘Oh⁠ ⁠… other things.’

“ ‘But⁠ ⁠… what other things?’

“ ‘A tiresome visitor.’

“Of course I immediately thought that she knew everything; but she seemed so placid, so peaceful, that I set aside my suspicions in favour of some strange coincidence, I could not believe in such hypocrisy. After an hour of friendly conversation, interrupted at least a dozen times by her little girl’s appearance, I went away very much perplexed. Just imagine, the next day⁠ ⁠…”

“The same thing happened?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… and the day following, too. This lasted for three weeks without any explanation, without anything to enlighten me as to this strange behaviour, of which, however, I suspected the secret.

“They both knew?”

“Of course. But how? Ah! I was worried enough before I found out.”

“How did you find out at last?”

“From their letters. On the same day, in the same words, they gave me my dismissal.”

“Well?”

“Well, this is what happened. You know that women have always a large collection of pins about them. As for hairpins, I know all about them, I distrust them and look out for them, but the other pins are much more treacherous, those confounded little black-headed pins that all look alike to us, fools that we are, but which they can recognise as we can tell a horse from a dog.

“Well, evidently one day my little civil-service lady had left one of these telltale things stuck in the hangings near my looking-glass.

“My ‘habit’ lady had immediately seen the little black head, no bigger than a pea, in the hanging, and without saying a word had taken it out and stuck one of her own pins, black too, but a different shape, in the same spot.

“The next day the ‘civil service’ wished to recover her property, and immediately recognized the exchange that had been made. Then her suspicions were roused and she stuck two in the shape of a cross. My ‘habit’ replied to this telegraphic signal by three black heads, one above the other.

“Once they had begun this game, they went on without saying a word to each other, simply keeping watch. Then, apparently, the ‘habit,’ being more daring, rolled a thin piece of paper round the pin, on which was written: ‘C. D., Post Office, Boulevard Malesherbes.’

“Then they wrote to each other and I was done for. You can understand that it was not all easy going between them. They indulged in all kinds of trickery, were very cautious and as careful as such cases demand. Then my ‘habit’ did a bold thing and made an appointment with the other one. I don’t know what they said to each other! All I know is that I supplied the entertainment! That’s that!”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“You never see them now?”

“I beg your pardon. I see them as friends, we have not broken off altogether.”

“And they, have they met again?”

“Yes, my dear chap, they have become intimate friends.”

“Well, well. And has that not given you an idea?”

“No, what?”

“You boob, the idea to make them stick a double lot of pins in the hanging again.”

Divorce

Maître Bontran, the celebrated Parisian lawyer, who for ten years had pleaded and won all divorce actions brought by ill-assorted couples, opened the door of his consulting-room and drew back to admit the new client.

He was a stout red-faced man with thick fair whiskers, corpulent, full-blooded and vigorous. He bowed.

“Please be seated,” said the lawyer.

The client sat down, coughed and said:

“I have come to ask you, sir, to act for me in a divorce case.”

“Please go on, I am listening.”

“I was formerly a notary.”

“Retired already?”

“Yes, already. I am thirty-seven years old.”

“Go on.”

“I have made an unfortunate marriage, very unfortunate.”

“You are not the only one.”

“I know it, and I sympathise with the others, but my case is quite unique, and my complaints against my wife are of a very peculiar nature. But I will begin at the beginning. I married in a very strange way. Do you believe in dangerous ideas?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do you believe that certain ideas may be as dangerous for certain minds as poison for the body?”

“Well, yes, perhaps.”

“I am sure of it. There are ideas that enter into us, gnaw us, kill us, madden us, if we are unable to resist them. It’s a sort of spiritual phylloxera. If we are unfortunate enough to let one of these thoughts creep into our minds, if we don’t in the instant of its entry realise that it is an invader, a master, a tyrant, that hour by hour and day by day it takes firmer hold on us, returns again and again, roots itself in, drives out all our usual preoccupations, absorbs all our attention and changes the angle of our judgment, we are lost.

“Listen to what has happened to me. As I have told you, I was a notary in Rouen, and in rather tight circumstances, not poor, but pinched for money, always careful, forced to economise the whole time, obliged to limit all my desires, yes, all! and that’s hard at my age.

“In my capacity as a notary, I used to read with great care the announcements on the fourth page of the newspaper, the Offered and Wanted columns, the personal columns, etc., etc.; and it often happened that I was enabled by these means to arrange advantageous marriages for some clients.

“One day I came across this one:

“ ‘Young lady, pretty, well educated, of good birth, with a dowry of two and a half million francs, wishes to marry an honourable man. No agents.’

“Well, that very day I dined with two of my friends, a solicitor and a mill-owner. I don’t know how the conversation came to turn on marriages, and I told them, laughing, about the young lady with two and a half million francs.

“ ‘What sort of women are these women?’ the mill-owner said.

“The solicitor had seen several excellent marriages made in this way and he gave details; then he added, turning towards me:

“ ‘Why the devil don’t you look into that on your own behalf? Lord! two and a half million francs would make things easy for you!’

“We all three of us burst out laughing, and the talk turned on another subject.

“An hour later I went home.

“It was a cold night. I lived, besides, in an old house, one of those old provincial houses that are like mushroom beds. When I put my hand on the iron railing of the staircase, a cold shiver ran down my arm; I stretched out the other to find the wall and when I touched it, I felt another shiver strike through me, a shiver of damp this time; they met in my chest, and filled me with anguish, sadness and utter weariness of mind and body. A sudden memory woke in my mind and I murmured:

“ ‘God, if only I had two and a half million francs!’

“My bedroom was dismal, a Rouen bachelor’s bedroom, looked after by a servant who was cook as well as chambermaid. You can just imagine what it was like! a big curtainless bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, washstand, no fire. Clothes on the chairs, papers on the floor. I began to hum, to a music-hall tune for I sometimes went to such places:

“ ‘Deux millions,
Deux millions,
Sont bons
Avec cinq cent mille
Et femme gentille.’29

“To tell the truth, I hadn’t thought of the woman before, and I thought of her suddenly as I was creeping into my bed. I even thought of her so earnestly that I was a long time in falling asleep.

“When I opened my eyes next morning, before it was light, I recollected that I had to be at Darnétal at eight o’clock on important business. So I would have to get up at six⁠—and it was freezing.

“ ‘Christ, two and a half millions!’

“I returned to my office about ten o’clock. It was full of a smell of rusty stove, old papers, the smell of papers relating to old lawsuits⁠—nothing stinks as they do⁠—and a smell of clerks, boots, frock-coats, shirts, hair and bodies, ill-washed winter-bound bodies, all heated to a temperature of sixty-five degrees.

“I ate my usual lunch, a burnt cutlet and a morsel of cheese. Then I set to work again.

“It was then that for the first time I thought really seriously of the young lady with two and a half millions. Who was she? Why should I not write? Why not find out about it?

“Well, to cut a long story short: for a fortnight the idea haunted, obsessed, tortured me. All my annoyances, all the little miseries I constantly suffered, until then unconsciously, almost without realising them, pricked me now like the stabbing of needles, and every one of these little sufferings made my thoughts leap to the young lady with two and a half millions.

“I began at last to imagine the story of her life. When you want a thing to be, you think of it as being just what you wish it were.

“Of course, it was not very usual for a young girl of good family, possessed of so attractive a dowry, to seek a husband by way of a newspaper advertisement. However, this particular girl might be honourable and unfortunate.

“From the first, this fortune of two and a half million francs had not dazzled me by any sense of fabulous wealth. We are used, we people who are always reading offers of this kind, to matrimonial propositions accompanied by six, eight, ten or even twelve millions. The twelve-million figure is even quite common. It attracts. I’m quite aware that we hardly credit the reality of these promises. But they do accustom our minds to the contemplation of these fantastic figures; to a certain extent they do induce our nodding credulity to accept as reasonable the prodigious sums of money they represent, and lead us to consider a dowry of two and a half million francs as very possible and probable.

“Suppose a young lady, the illegitimate daughter of a parvenu and a lady’s maid, inheriting unexpectedly from the father, had learned at the same time the disgrace of her birth, and to avoid revealing it to any man who might fall in love with her was trying to get into touch with strangers by a very customary medium, which did in itself imply almost a confession of dubious antecedents.

“My supposition was a stupid one. But I clung to it. Men of my profession, notaries, ought never to read novels⁠—and I have read them.

“So I wrote in my professional capacity in the name of a client, and I waited.

“Five days later, about three o’clock in the afternoon, I was working hard in my office when the head clerk announced:

“ ‘Mlle. Chantefrise.’

“ ‘Ask her to come in.’

“Thereupon a woman about thirty years old appeared, rather stout, dark, and with an embarrassed air.

“ ‘Please sit down, madame.’

“She sat down and murmured:

“ ‘I’ve come, sir.’

“ ‘But, madame, I haven’t the honour to know you.’

“ ‘I’m the person you wrote to.’

“ ‘About a marriage?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Ah, just so.’

“ ‘I have come myself, because these things are best arranged personally.’

“ ‘I agree with you, madame. So you wish to marry?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘You have parents?’

“She hesitated, lowered her glance, and stammered:

“ ‘No.⁠ ⁠… My mother⁠ ⁠… and my father⁠ ⁠… are dead.’

“I started. So I had guessed right⁠ ⁠… and a sudden swift sympathy woke in my heart for this poor creature. I did not insist, in order to spare her sensitiveness, and I went on:

“ ‘Your fortune is quite net?’

“This time she answered without hesitating:

“ ‘Yes.’

“I regarded her attentively, and honestly she didn’t displease me, although she was a little mature, more mature than I had expected. She was a fine, healthy woman, a superior woman. And I took it into my head that I might play a charming little comedy of sentiment, fall in love with her, and supplant my imaginary client, when I had made sure that the dowry was not fictitious. I talked to her about this client, whom I depicted as a grave, very honourable man, and something of an invalid.

“ ‘Oh,’ she said quickly, ‘I like people who are really strong and healthy.’

“ ‘You shall see him, however, madame, but not for three or four days, for he went to England yesterday.’

“ ‘Oh! how vexing!’ said she.

“ ‘Good heavens! It is and it isn’t. Are you in a hurry to return home?’

“ ‘Not at all.’

“ ‘Well, stay here. I will give myself the pleasure of helping you to pass the time.’

“ ‘You are too kind.’

“ ‘You are staying in a hotel?’

“She mentioned the best hotel in Rouen.

“ ‘Well, madam, will you allow your future⁠ ⁠… notary to take you to dine this evening?’

“She seemed to hesitate, uneasy and irresolute; then she made up her mind.

“ ‘Yes.’

“And I escorted her to the door.

“At seven o’clock I was at the hotel. She had made an elaborate toilet for me and received me in a very coquettish fashion.

“I took her to dine in a restaurant where I was known, and I ordered a stimulating meal.

“Within an hour we were very friendly, and she was telling me her story. She was the daughter of a great lady who had been seduced by a nobleman, and had been brought up by some country people. She was rich now, having inherited large sums from her father and her mother, whose names she would never tell, never. It was no use asking her for them, no use begging her, she would not give them. As I was not much concerned to know them, I questioned her about her fortune. She spoke of it readily and like a practical woman, quite sure of herself, sure of figures, securities, income, dividends and investments. The competent way she dealt with this made me feel great confidence in her at once, and I made myself very agreeable to her, with a certain amount of reserve, however, but I let her see quite plainly that I was attracted by her.

“She began to give herself airs, and they didn’t become her badly, either. I pressed her to have champagne, and I drank some myself, and it went to my head a little. I saw very plainly that I was going to become rash, and I was afraid, afraid of myself, afraid of her, afraid that she too was a little excited and might yield. To steady myself, I began to talk to her about her dowry again, which must be verified beyond any possibility of mistake, for my client was a business man.

“She answered gaily:

“ ‘Oh, I know. I have brought all the proofs.’

“ ‘Here, to Rouen?’

“ ‘Yes, to Rouen.’

“ ‘You have them at the hotel?’

“ ‘Of course.’

“ ‘Can you show them to me?’

“ ‘Of course.’

“ ‘This evening?’

“ ‘Of course.’

“This was a complete relief to me. I settled the bill, and off we went to her hotel.

“She had, as she said, brought all her securities. I could not doubt their existence, I held them, fingered them, read them. This filled me with such heartfelt joy that I was immediately seized with a violent desire to embrace her. I mean, with a chaste desire, the desire of a satisfied man. And upon my word, I embraced her. Once, twice, ten times⁠ ⁠… so heartily that⁠—the champagne helping⁠—I succumbed⁠ ⁠… or rather⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… she succumbed.

“Oh, I made a rare scene about it, after that⁠ ⁠… and so did she. She wept like a fountain, and begged me not to betray her, not to ruin her. I promised everything she wanted, and I went away in a dreadful state of mind.

“What was I to do? I had outraged my client. That would not have mattered at all if I had had a client for her, but I hadn’t one. I was the client, the simple-minded client, the deceived client, deceived by myself. What a situation! I could leave her in the lurch, of course. But the dowry, actual, certain! Besides, had I the right to leave her in the lurch, poor girl, after having taken advantage of her like that? But what anxieties I should be laying up for myself!

“What security could I feel with a wife who succumbed so easily!

“I spent a dreadful night, unable to make up my mind, tortured with remorse, harried by fears, torn this way and that by every kind of scruple. But in the morning my brain cleared. I dressed myself carefully, and as eleven o’clock was striking, I presented myself at the hotel where she was staying.

“When she saw me, she blushed to the roots of her hair.

“I said:

“ ‘Madame, there is only one thing I can do to repay you the wrong I have done you. I ask you to marry me.’

“She stammered:

“ ‘I consent.’

“I married her.

“For six months all went well.

“I had given up my office, I was living on my income, and really, I had nothing, not a single thing, to reproach my wife with.

“However, I began to notice that every now and then she went out and stayed out for an appreciable time. This happened at regular times, one week on Tuesday, another week on Friday. I was sure she was deceiving me, and I followed her.

“It was a Tuesday. She set out on foot, about one o’clock, walked down the Rue de la République, turned to the right down the street that runs from the Archbishop’s Palace, took the Rue Grand-Pont as far as the Seine, went along the quay as far as the Pierre bridge and crossed the water. At this point, she seemed uneasy; she kept turning round to scrutinise all the passersby.

“As I had got myself up to look like a coal-heaver, she did not recognise me.

“At last she went into the station on the left side of the river: I had no further doubts, her lover was coming on the 1:45 train.

“I hid myself behind a dray, and waited. A whistle⁠ ⁠… a rush of passengers.⁠ ⁠… She walked towards them, then ran forward, clasped in her arms a little three-year-old girl accompanied by a stout peasant woman, and kissed her passionately. Then she turned round, saw another younger child, a girl or a boy, carried by another countrywoman, threw herself on him, embraced him wildly and went off, escorted by the two mites and their two nurses, towards the long dreary deserted promenade of Cours-la-Reine.

“I returned home, bewildered and in great distress of mind, half understanding and half not, and not daring to hazard a guess.

“When she came home to dinner, I rushed at her:

“ ‘Who are those children?’

“ ‘What children?’

“ ‘The children you were expecting on the train from Saint-Sever.’

“She gave a great cry and fainted. When she recovered consciousness, she confessed to me, in a flood of tears, that she had four. Yes, sir, two for the Tuesday, two girls, and two for the Friday, two boys.

“And that⁠ ⁠… oh, the shame of it!⁠ ⁠… that was the origin of the fortune. The four fathers!⁠ ⁠… She had gathered together her dowry.

“Now, sir, what do you advise me to do?”

The lawyer replied gravely:

“Acknowledge your children, sir.”

Our Letters

Night hours in the train induce sleep in some and insomnia in others. With me, any journey prevents my sleeping on the following night.

I had arrived, about five o’clock, at the estate of Abelle, which belongs to my friends, the Murets d’Artus, to spend three weeks there. It is a pretty house, built by one of their grandfathers in the latter half of the last century, and it has remained in the family. Therefore it has that intimate character of dwellings that have always been inhabited, furnished, animated and enlivened by the same people. Nothing changes; none of the soul evaporates from the dwelling, in which the furniture has never been moved, the tapestries never taken down, and have become worn out, faded, discoloured, on the same walls. None of the old furniture leaves the place; only from time to time it is moved a little to make room for a new piece, which enters there like a newborn infant in the midst of brothers and sisters.

The house is on a hill in the centre of a park which slopes down to the river, where there is a little stone bridge. Beyond the water the fields stretch out in the distance, where cows wander slowly, pasturing on the moist grass; their humid eyes seem full of the dew, mist and freshness of the pasture. I love this dwelling, just as one loves a thing which one ardently desires to possess. I return here every autumn with infinite delight; I leave with regret.

After I had dined with this friendly family, by whom I was received like a relative, I asked my chum, Paul Muret: “Which room did you give me this year?”

“Aunt Rose’s room.”

An hour later, followed by her three children, two tall little girls and a great lump of a boy, Madame Muret d’Artus installed me in Aunt Rose’s room, where I had not yet slept.

When I was alone I examined the walls, the furniture, the general aspect of the room, in order to attune my mind to it. I knew it, but not very well, as I had entered it only once or twice, and I looked indifferently at a pastel portrait of Aunt Rose, who gave her name to the room.

This old Aunt Rose, with her hair in curls, looking at me from behind the glass, made very little impression on my mind. She looked to me like a woman of former days, with principles and precepts, as strong on the maxims of morality as on cooking recipes, one of these old aunts who are a wet blanket on gaiety and the stern and wrinkled angel of provincial families.

I never had heard her spoken of; I knew nothing of her life or of her death. Did she belong to this century or to the preceding one? Had she left this earth after a calm or a stormy existence? Had she given up to heaven the pure soul of an old maid, the calm soul of a spouse, the tender one of a mother, or one moved by love? What difference I did it make? The name alone, “Aunt Rose,” seemed ridiculous, common, ugly.

I picked up a candle and looked at her severe face, hanging far up in an old gilt frame. Then, as I found it insignificant, disagreeable, even unsympathetic, I began to examine the furniture. It dated from the period of Louis XVI, the Revolution and the Directoire. Not a chair, not a curtain had entered this room since then, and it gave out the subtle odour of memories, which is the combined odour of wood, cloth, chairs, hangings, peculiar to places wherein have lived hearts that have loved and suffered.

I retired but did not sleep. After I had tossed about for an hour or two, I decided to get up and write some letters.

I opened a little mahogany desk with brass trimmings, which was placed between the two windows, in hope of finding some ink and paper; but all I found was a quill-pen, very much worn, made of a porcupine’s quill, and chewed at the end. I was about to close this piece of furniture, when a shining spot attracted my attention: it looked like the yellow head of a nail, and it formed a little round lump at the corner of a tray. I scratched it with my finger, and it seemed to move. I seized it between two fingernails, and pulled as hard as I could. It came toward me gently. It was a long gold pin which had been slipped into a hole in the wood and remained hidden there.

Why? I immediately thought that it must have served to work some spring which hid a secret, and I looked. It took a long time. After at least two hours of investigation, I discovered another hole opposite the first one, but at the bottom of a groove. Into this I stuck my pin: a little shelf sprang up in my face, and I saw two packages of yellow letters, tied with a blue ribbon.

I read them. Here are two of them:

So you wish me to return to you your letters, my dearest. Here they are, but it pains me to obey. Of what are you afraid? That I might lose them? But they are under lock and key. Do you fear that they might be stolen? I guard against that, for they are my dearest treasure.

Yes, it pains me deeply. I wondered whether, perhaps, you might not be feeling some regret at the bottom of your heart? Not regret at having loved me, for I know that you still do, but regret at having expressed on white paper this living love in hours when your heart did not confide in me, but in the pen you held in your hand. When we love, we have need of confession, need of talking or writing, and we either talk or write. Words fly away, those sweet words made of music, air and tenderness, warm and light, which escape as soon as they are uttered, which remain in the memory alone, but which one can neither see, touch nor kiss, like the words written by your hand. Your letters? Yes, I am returning them to you! But with what sorrow!

Undoubtedly, you must have had an afterthought of delicate shame at expressions that are ineffaceable. In your sensitive and timid soul, which can be hurt by an impalpable shade, you must have regretted having written to a man that you loved him. You remembered sentences that called up recollections, and you said to yourself: “I will make ashes of those words.”

Be satisfied, be calm. Here are your letters. I love you.

My Friend:

No, you have not understood me, you have not guessed. I do not regret, and I never shall, that I told you of my affection. I will always write to you, but you must return my letters to me as soon as you have read them.

I shall shock you, dear, when I tell you the reason for this demand. It is not poetic, as you imagined, but practical. I am afraid, not of you, but of some mischance. I am guilty. I do not wish my fault to affect others than myself.

Understand me well. You and I may both die. You might fall off your horse, since you ride every day; you might die from a sudden attack, from a duel, from heart disease, from a carriage accident, in a thousand ways. For, if there is only one death, there are more ways of its reaching us than there are days for us to live.

Then your sisters, your brother, or your sister-in-law might find my letters! Do you think that they love me? I doubt it. And then, even if they adored me, is it possible for two women and one man to know a secret⁠—such a secret!⁠—and not to tell of it?

I seem to be saying something very dreadful by speaking first of your death, and then suspecting the discreetness of your relatives.

But don’t all of us die sooner or later? And it is almost certain that one of us will precede the other under the ground. We must therefore foresee all dangers, even that one.

As for me, I will keep your letters beside mine, in the secret of my little desk. I will show them to you there, sleeping side by side in their silken hiding place, full of our love, like lovers in a tomb.

You will say to me: “But if you should die first, my dear, your husband will find these letters.”

Oh! I fear nothing. First of all, he does not know the secret of my desk, and he will not look for it. And even if he finds it after my death, I fear nothing.

Did you ever stop to think of all the love letters that have been found in the drawers of dead women? I have been thinking of this for a long time, and that is the reason I decided to ask you for my letters.

Think that never, do you understand, never, does a woman burn, tear or destroy the letters in which she is told that she is loved. That is our whole life, our whole hope, expectation and dream. These little pieces of paper which bear our name in caressing terms are relics, and we women have chapels, especially chapels in which we are the saints. Our love letters are our titles to beauty, grace, seduction, the intimate vanity of our womanhood; they are the treasures of our heart. No, a woman never destroys these secret and delicious archives of her life.

But, like everybody else, we die, and then⁠—then these letters are found! Who finds them? The husband. Then what does he do? Nothing. He burns them.

Oh, I have thought a great deal about that! Just think that every day women are dying who have been loved; every day the traces and proofs of their fault fall into the hands of their husbands, and that there is never a scandal, never a duel.

Think, my dear, of what a man’s heart is. He avenges himself on a living woman; he fights with the man who has dishonoured her, kills him while she lives, because⁠—well, why? I do not know exactly why. But if, after her death, he finds similar proofs, he burns them and no one is the wiser, and he continues to shake hands with the friend of the dead woman, and feels quite at ease that these letters should not have fallen into strange hands, and that they are destroyed.

Oh, how many men I know among my friends who must have burned such proofs, and who pretend to know nothing, and yet who would have fought madly had they found them when she was still alive! But she is dead. Honour has changed. The grave gives absolution for conjugal sins.

Therefore, I can safely keep our letters, which, in your hands, would be a menace to both of us. Do you dare to say that I am not right?

I love you and kiss you.

Rose.

I raised my eyes to the portrait of Aunt Rose, and as I looked at her severe, wrinkled face, I thought of all those women’s souls which we do not know, and which we suppose to be so different from what they really are, whose inborn and ingenuous craftiness we never can penetrate, their quiet duplicity; and a verse of Vigny returned to my memory:

“Toujours ce compagnon dont le coeur n’est pas sûr.”30

The Mother Superior’s Twenty-Five Francs

He really was comic, old Pavilly, with his great spider legs, his little body, his long arms, and his pointed beard, surmounted by a flame of red hair on the top of his skull.

He was a clown, a peasant clown, a born clown, born to play tricks, to raise laughter, to play parts, simple parts, since he was the son of a peasant, and a peasant himself, hardly able to read. Oh, yes, the good God had created him to amuse other people, the poor devils belonging to the countryside, who had no theatres and no feasts; and he amused them with all his might and main. In the café, they stood him drinks to keep him there, and he went on drinking without turning a hair, laughing and joking, playing tricks on everyone without annoying a single soul, while the onlookers rolled with laughter.

He was so comic that, ugly as he was, the girls themselves did not resist him, they were laughing so heartily. He carried them, with quips and jests, behind a wall, into a ditch, into a stable, then he tickled them and squeezed them, keeping up such an amusing patter, that they held their sides as they repulsed him. Then he leaped about, pretending he was going to hang himself, and they writhed, with tears in their eyes; he chose his moment, and tumbled them over so handily that they surrendered all, even those who had defied him, to amuse themselves.

Well, towards the end of June, he undertook to help with the harvest, at Le Hariveau’s, near Rouville. For three whole weeks he delighted the harvesters, men and women, by his pranks, from morning to night. In the daytime, he appeared in the fields, in the middle of the swaths of corn, he made his appearance in an old straw hat that hid his russet topknot, gathering up the yellow corn with his long skinny arms and binding it into sheaves; then stopping to sketch a comic gesture that evoked shouts of laughter down the length of the field from the workers, whose eyes never left him. At night, he glided like a crouching beast through the straw in the barns where the women slept, and his hands prowled about, rousing shouts and creating loud disturbances. They chased him off, using their sabots as weapons, and he fled on all fours, like a fantastic monkey, amid explosions of mirth from the entire room.

On the last day, as the wagon-load of harvesters, adorned with ribbons and bagpipes, shouting and singing and joyously drunk, were going down the wide white road, drawn at the slow pace of six dappled horses, led by a youngster in a smock, with a cockade in his cap, Pavilly, in the middle of sprawling women, was dancing the dance of a drunken satyr, that kept the young rascals of boys open-mouthed on the banksides of the farms, and the peasants lost in wonder at his incredible anatomy.

All at once, as they reached the fence of Le Hariveau’s farm, he made a bound with upflung arms, but as he fell back he unluckily struck against the side of the long cart, went headlong over, fell on to the wheel, and bounced off on to the road.

His comrades flung themselves out. He moved no more, one eye shut, the other open, ghastly with fright, his great limbs stretched out in the dust.

When they touched his right leg, he began to cry out, and when they tried to stand him up, he fell down.

“I’ll be bound he’s broken his leg,” cried a man.

He had indeed a broken leg.

Farmer Le Hariveau had him laid on a table; and a rider hurried to Rouville to find a doctor, who arrived an hour later.

The farmer was a very generous man, and he announced that he would pay for the man to be treated at the hospital.

So the doctor carried Pavilly off in his carriage, and deposited him in a whitewashed dormitory, where his fracture was set.

As soon as he realised that he would not die of it, and that he was going to be cared for, cured, pampered, and nourished, with nothing to do, lying on his back between two sheets, Pavilly was seized with an overwhelming merriment and he began to laugh a silent perpetual laughter that revealed his decaying teeth.

As soon as a sister approached the bed, he grimaced contentedly at her, winking his eye, twisting his mouth, and moving his nose, which was very long and which he could move as he pleased. His neighbours in the dormitory, very ill as they were, could not refrain from laughing, and the sister in charge often came to his bedside to enjoy a quarter of an hour’s amusement. He invented the most comic tricks for her, and quite new jests, and as he had in him the instinct for every sort of barnstorming, he turned devout to please her and spoke of the good God with the grave air of a man that knows that there are moments to which jests are inappropriate.

One day, he bethought himself of singing songs to her. She was delighted and came oftener; then, to turn his voice to good account, she brought him a book of hymns. Then he might be seen sitting up in his bed, for he was beginning to move himself about again, intoning in a falsetto voice the praises of the Eternal Father, of Mary, and of the Holy Ghost, while the stout good sister, standing at his feet, beat time with one finger as she gave him the key. As soon as he could walk, the Mother Superior offered to keep him a little longer to sing the offices in the chapel, and serve at Mass, performing in this way the functions of a sacristan. He accepted. And for a whole month he could be seen, clad in a white surplice, limping slightly, intoning responses and psalms with such graceful bendings of the head that the number of the faithful grew, and people deserted the parish church to attend Vespers at the hospital.

But as everything comes to an end in this world, it became necessary to dismiss him when he was quite cured. The Mother Superior, by way of thanking him, made him a present of twenty-five francs.

As soon as Pavilly found himself in the street with this money in his pocket, he began to think what he should do. Return to the village? Certainly not before he had a drink, which had not happened to him for a long time, and he entered a café. He did not come to town more than once or twice a year, and he cherished, of one of those visits in particular, the confused and intoxicating remembrance of a debauch.

So he ordered a glass of cognac, which he swallowed at a gulp to lubricate his throat, then he poured down another to enjoy the taste of it.

As soon as the brandy, strong and fiery, had touched his palate and his tongue, reawakening the more sharply because of his long abstinence the well-loved and desired sensation of alcohol, caressing, stinging, spicing and burning his mouth, he realised that he would drink the whole bottle, and he asked at once what it would cost, in order to save money on the separate glasses. They charged it to him at three francs, which he paid, then he set himself to get drunk with a contented mind.

He set about it with a certain method, however, being desirous of retaining enough sensibility to enjoy other pleasures. So as soon as he felt himself on the point of seeing the chimneypieces nod, he got up and went away, with faltering steps, his bottle under his arm, in search of a brothel.

He found it, not without difficulty, after having inquired of a wagoner who did not know it, a postman who directed him wrongly, a baker who began to curse and treated him as a filthy fellow, and, at last, a soldier who obligingly conducted him there, impressing on him to choose the Queen.

Pavilly, although it was hardly noon, walked into this house of delights, where he was received by a servant who tried to turn him out. But he made her laugh by grimacing at her, showed her three francs, the ordinary price for the special entertainments of the place, and followed her with some difficulty up a very dark staircase which led to the first floor.

When he found himself in a room, he called for the Queen, and awaited her, swallowing another drink from the bottle itself.

The door opened, a girl appeared. She was tall, plump, red-faced, enormous. With an unerring glance, the glance of a connoisseur, she took the measure of the drunkard sprawling on a chair, and said to him:

“Aren’t you ashamed to come at this time?”

He stammered:

“Why, princess?”

“Disturbing a lady before she’s even had her meal.”

He tried to laugh.

“There’s no time to a brave man.”

“There’s no time for getting tipsy, neither, you old mug.”

Pavilly lost his temper.

“I’m not a mug, to begin with, and I’m not tipsy neither.”

“Not tipsy.”

“No, I’m not tipsy.”

“Not tipsy, you couldn’t stand on your feet even.”

She regarded him with the savage anger of a woman whose companions are all dining.

He got himself up.

“Look at me, I’ll dance a polka, I will.”

And to prove his stability, he climbed on a chair, made a pirouette, and jumped on the bed, where his great muddy shoes plastered two frightful stains.

“Oh, you dirty beast,” cried the girl.

Rushing at him, she drove her fist in his stomach, giving him such a blow that Pavilly lost his balance, seesawed over the foot of the couch, turned a complete caper and fell back on the chest of drawers, dragging with him basin and water-jug; then he rolled on the ground, uttering wild shouts.

The noise was so violent and his cries so piercing that the whole house came running, Monsieur, Madame, the servants, and all the members of the establishment.

Monsieur tried at first to pick the man up, but as soon as he had got him on his feet, the peasant lost his balance again, then began yelling that he had broken his leg, the other leg, the good one, the good one!

It was true. They ran to fetch a doctor. It was the very doctor who had attended Pavilly at Farmer Le Hariveau’s.

“What, is it you again?” said he. “What’s the matter with you?”

“It’s the other leg that’s got broken, too, doctor.”

“How did it happen, my man?”

“A wench.”

Everyone was listening. The girls in their loose wrappers, their mouths still greasy from their interrupted meal, Madame furious, Monsieur uneasy.

“This is going to look bad,” said the doctor. “You know that the town council regards you with small favour. You’ll have to contrive to keep this business from getting about.

“What’s to be done?” asked Monsieur.

“Well, the best thing to do would be to send this man to the hospital, which he’s just left, by the way, and pay for his treatment.”

Monsieur answered:

“I’d much rather pay than have a scandal.”

So, half an hour later, Pavilly returned, drunk and moaning, to the dormitory he had left an hour earlier.

The Mother Superior flung up her arms, grieved because she was very fond of him, and smiling because she was not displeased to see him again.

“Well, my good man, what’s the matter with you?”

“The other leg broken, sister dear.”

“Oh, so you’ve been climbing on loads of straw again, have you, you old mountebank?”

And Pavilly, confused and shy, stammered:

“No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… Not this time⁠ ⁠… not this time.⁠ ⁠… No⁠ ⁠… no.⁠ ⁠… It’s not my fault⁠ ⁠… not my fault.⁠ ⁠… It was a straw mattress did it.”

She could not get any other explanation of the affair, and she never knew that her twenty-five francs was responsible for this relapse.

The Drowned Man

I

Everyone in Fécamp knew the story of old Mother Patin. She had undoubtedly been unhappy with her man, had old Mother Patin; or her man had beaten her during his lifetime, as a man threshes wheat in his barns.

He was owner of a fishing-smack, and he had married her a long time ago, because she was pleasing, although she was poor.

Patin, a good seaman, but a brute, frequented old Auban’s tavern, where, on ordinary days, he drank four or five brandies, and on days when he had made a good catch, eight or ten, and even more, just for the fun of it, as he said.

The brandy was served to customers by old Auban’s daughter, a pleasant-faced dark-haired girl, who drew custom to the house merely by her good looks, for no one had ever wagged a tongue against her.

When Patin entered the tavern, he was content to look at her and hold her in civil conversation, the easy conversation of a decent fellow. When he had drunk the first brandy, he was already finding her pleasant to look on; at the second, he was winking at her; at the third, he was saying: “Miss Désirée, if you would only⁠ ⁠…” without ever finishing the sentence; at the fourth, he was trying to hold her by her petticoat to embrace her; and when he had reached the tenth, it was old Auban who served him with the rest.

The old wine-seller, who knew every trick of the trade, used to send Désirée round between the tables to liven up the orders for drinks; and Désirée, who was not old Auban’s daughter for nothing, paraded her petticoat among the drinkers and bandied jests, with a smile on her lips, and a sly twinkle in her eye.

By dint of drinking brandies, Patin grew so familiar with Désirée’s face that he thought of it even at sea, when he was throwing his nets into the water, out on the open sea, on windy nights and calm nights, on moonlit nights and black nights. He thought of it when he was standing at the helm in the after part of his boat, while his four companions slept with their hands on their arms. He saw her always smiling at him, pouring out the tawny brandy with a lift of her shoulders, and then coming towards him, saying:

“There! Is this what you want?”

And by dint of treasuring her so in eye and mind, he reached such a pitch of longing to marry her that, unable to restrain himself from it any longer, he asked her in marriage.

He was rich, owner of his boat, his nets and a house at the foot of the cliff, on the Retenue; while old Auban had nothing. The affair was arranged with much enthusiasm, and the wedding took place as quickly as possible, both parties being, for different reasons, anxious to make it an accomplished fact.

But three days after the marriage was over, Patin was no longer able to imagine in the least how he had come to think Désirée different from other women. He must have been a rare fool to hamper himself with a penniless girl who had wheedled him with her cognac, so she had, with the cognac into which she had put some filthy drug for him.

And he went cursing along the shore, breaking his pipe between his teeth, swearing at his tackle; and having cursed heartily, using every known term of abuse and applying them to everyone he could think of, he spat out such anger as remained in his spleen on the fish and crabs drawn in one of his nets, throwing them all in the baskets to an accompaniment of oaths and foul words.

Then, returning to his house, where he had his wife, old Auban’s daughter, within reach of his tongue and his hand, he was very soon treating her as the lowest of the low. Then, as she listened resignedly, being used to the paternal violence, he became exasperated by her calm, and one evening he knocked her about. After this, his home became a place of terror.

For ten years, nothing was talked of on the Retenue but the beatings Patin inflicted on his wife, and his habit of cursing when he spoke to her, whatever the occasion. He cursed, in fact, in a unique way, with a wealth of vocabulary and a forceful vigour of delivery, possessed by no other man in Fécamp. As soon as his boat, returning from fishing, appeared at the mouth of the harbour, they waited expectantly for the first broadside he would discharge on the pier, from his deck, the moment he saw the white bonnet of his other half.

Standing in the stern, he tacked, his glance fixed ahead and on the sheets when the sea was running high, and in spite of the close attention required by the narrow difficult passage, in spite of the great waves running mountain-high in the narrow gully, he endeavoured to pick out⁠—from the midst of the women waiting in the spray of the breakers for the sailors⁠—his woman, old Auban’s daughter, the pauper wench.

Then, as soon as he had caught sight of her, in spite of the clamour of waves and wind, he poured on her a volley of abuse with such vocal energy that everyone laughed at it, although they pitied her deeply. Then, when his boat reached the quay, he had a habit of discharging his ballast of civilities, as he said, while he unloaded his fish, which attracted round him all the rascals and idlers of the harbour.

It issued from his mouth, now like cannon-shots, terrible and short, now like thunderclaps that rolled for five minutes, such a tempest of oaths that he seemed to have in his lungs all the storms of the Eternal Father.

Then, when he had left his boat, and was face to face with her in the middle of a crowd of curious spectators and fishwives, he fished up again from the bottom of the hold a fresh cargo of insults and hard words, and escorted her in such fashion to their home, she in front, he behind, she weeping, he shouting.

Then, alone with her, doors shut, he came to blows on the least pretext. Anything was enough to make him lift his hand, and once he had begun, he never stopped, spitting in her face, all the time, the real causes of his hate. At each blow, at each thump, he yelled: “Oh, you penniless slut, oh, you guttersnipe, oh, you miserable starveling, I did a fine thing the day I washed my mouth out with the firewater of your scoundrel of a father.”

She passed her days now, poor woman, in a state of incessant terror, in a continuous trembling of soul and of body, in stunned expectation of insults and thrashings.

And this lasted for ten years. She was so broken that she turned pale when she was talking to anyone, no matter who, and no longer thought of anything but the beatings that threatened her, and she had grown as skinny, yellow and dried up as a smoked fish.

II

One night when her man was at sea she was awakened by the noise like the growling of a beast which the wind makes when it gets up, like an unleashed hound. She sat up in bed, uneasy, then, hearing nothing more, lay down again; but almost at once, there was a moaning in the chimney that shook the whole house and ran across the whole sky as if a pack of furious animals had crossed the empty spaces, panting and bellowing.

Then she got up and ran to the harbour. Other women were running from all sides with lanterns. Men came running and everyone was watching the foam flashing white in the darkness on the crest of the waves out at sea.

The storm lasted fifteen hours. Eleven sailors returned no more, and Patin was among them.

The wreckage of his boat, the Jeune-Amélie, was recovered off Dieppe. Near Saint-Valéry, they picked up the bodies of his sailors, but his body was never found. As the hull of the small craft had been cut in two, his wife for a long time expected and dreaded his return; for if there had been a collision, it might have happened that the colliding vessel had taken him on board, and carried him to a distant country.

Then, slowly, she grew used to the thought that she was a widow, even though she trembled every time that a neighbour or a beggar or a tramping pedlar entered her house abruptly.

Then, one afternoon, almost four years after the disappearance of her man, she stopped, on her way along the Rue aux Juifs, before the house of an old captain who had died recently and whose belongings were being sold.

Just at this moment, they were auctioning a parrot, a green parrot with a blue head, which was regarding the crowd with a discontented and uneasy air.

“Three francs,” cried the seller, “a bird that talks like a lawyer, three francs.”

A friend of widow Patin jogged her elbow.

“You ought to buy that, you being rich,” she said. “It would be company for you; he is worth more than thirty francs, that bird. You can always sell him again for twenty to twenty-five easy.”

“Four francs, ladies, four francs,” the man repeated. “He sings vespers and preaches like the priest. He’s a phenomenon⁠ ⁠… a miracle!”

Widow Patin raised the bid by fifty centimes, and they handed her the hook-nosed creature in a little cage and she carried him off.

Then she installed him in her house, and as she was opening the iron-wire door to give the creature a drink, she got a bite on the finger that broke the skin and drew blood.

“Oh, the wicked bird,” said she.

However, she presented him with hemp-seed and maize, then left him smoothing his feathers while he peered with a malicious air at his new home and his new mistress.

Next morning day was beginning to break, when widow Patin heard, with great distinctness, a loud, resonant, rolling voice, the voice of Patin, which shouted:

“Get up, slut.”

Her terror was such that she hid her head under the bedclothes, for every morning, in the old days, as soon as he had opened his eyes, her dead husband shouted in her ears those three words that she knew well.

Trembling, huddled into a ball, her back turned to the thrashing that she was momentarily expecting, she murmured, her face hidden in the bed:

“God Almighty, he’s here! God Almighty, he’s here! He’s come back, God Almighty!”

Minutes passed; no other sound broke the silence of her room. Then, shuddering, she lifted her head from the bed, sure that he was there, spying on her, ready to strike.

She saw nothing, nothing but a ray of sun falling across the windowpane, and she thought:

“He’s hiding, for sure.”

She waited a long time, then, a little reassured, thought:

“I must have been dreaming, seeing he doesn’t show himself.”

She was shutting her eyes again, a little reassured, when right in her ears the furious voice burst out, the thunderous voice of her drowned man, shouting:

“Damn and blast it, get up, bitch.”

She leaped out of bed, jerked out by her instinctive obedience, the passive obedience of a woman broken in by blows, who still remembers, after four years, and who will always remember, and always obey that voice. And she said:

“Here I am, Patin. What do you want?”

But Patin did not answer.

Then, bewildered, she looked round her, and she searched everywhere, in the cupboards, in the chimney, under the bed, without finding anyone, and at last let herself fall into a chair, distracted with misery, convinced that the spirit of Patin itself was there, near her, come back to torture her.

Suddenly, she remembered the loft, which could be reached from outside by a ladder. He had certainly hidden himself there to take her by surprise. He must have been kept by savages on some shore, unable to escape sooner, and he had come back, wickeder than ever. She could not doubt it, on the mere sound of his voice.

She asked, her head turned towards the ceiling:

“Are you up there, Patin?”

Patin did not answer.

Then she went out, and in an unutterable terror that set her heart beating madly, she climbed the ladder, opened the garret window, looked in, saw nothing, entered, searched, and found nothing.

Seated on a truss of hay, she began to cry; but while she was sobbing, shaken by an acute and supernatural terror, she heard, in the room below her, Patin telling his story. He seemed less angry, calmer, and he was saying:

“Filthy weather⁠ ⁠… high wind⁠ ⁠… filthy weather. I’ve had no breakfast, damn it.”

She called through the ceiling:

“I’m here, Patin; I’ll make you some soup. Don’t be angry. I’m coming.”

She climbed down at a run.

There was no one in her house.

She felt her body giving way as if Death had his hand on her, and she was going to run out to ask help from the neighbours, when just in her ear the voice cried:

“I’ve had no breakfast, damn it.”

The parrot, in his cage, was regarding her with his round, malicious, wicked eye.

She stared back at him, in amazement, murmuring:

“Oh, it’s you.”

He answered, shaking his head:

“Wait, wait, wait, I’ll teach you to faint.”

What were her thoughts? She felt, she realised that this was none other than the dead man, who had returned and hidden himself in the feathers of this creature, to begin tormenting her again, that he was going to swear, as he did before, all day, and find fault with her, and shout insults to attract their neighbours’ attention and make them laugh. Then she flung herself across the room, opened the cage, seized the bird, who defended himself and tore her skin with his beak and his claws. But she held him with all her might, in both hands, and throwing herself on the ground, rolled on top of him with the frenzy of a madman, crushed him to death and made a mere rag of flesh of him, a little soft green thing that no longer moved or spoke, and hung limp. Then, wrapping him in a dishcloth as a shroud, she went out, in her shift, and barefooted, crossed the quay, against which the sea was breaking in small waves, and shaking the cloth, let fall this small green thing that looked like a handful of grass. Then she returned, threw herself on her knees before the empty cage, and utterly overcome by what she had done, she asked pardon of the good God, sobbing, as if she had just committed a horrible crime.

The Cripple

This adventure happened to me about 1882.

I had just settled myself in the corner of an empty carriage, and I had shut the door, in the hope of being left undisturbed, when it was abruptly reopened and I heard a voice say:

“Take care, sir, we are just at the crossing of the lines: the footboard is very high.”

Another voice answered:

“Don’t worry, Laurent, I’ll hold fast.”

Then a head appeared, covered with a round cap, and two hands, clinging to the leather straps that hung from both sides of the carriage door, slowly hoisted up a fat body whose feet on the footboard produced the sound of a stick striking the ground.

But when the man had got the upper part of his body into the compartment, I saw the black-painted end of a wooden leg appearing in the limp-hanging leg of his trousers, followed shortly by a similar stump.

A head came into view behind this traveller, and asked:

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Yes, my boy.”

“Then here are your parcels and your crutches.”

And a manservant, who had the appearance of an old soldier, climbed up too, carrying in his arms a quantity of things wrapped in black and yellow papers, carefully tied with strings, and placed them one after another on the rack above his master’s head. Then he said:

“There you are, sir, that’s the lot. There are five of them: the sweets, the doll, the drum, the gun, and the pâté de foie gras.

“That’s right, my boy.”

“I hope you’ll have a comfortable journey, sir.”

“Thanks, Laurent; keep yourself fit.”

The man went away, reclosing the door, and I looked at my neighbour.

He must have been about thirty-five years old, although his hair was almost white; he wore various decorations, he was moustached, and very stout, a victim to the short-winded obesity that falls on strong active men whom some infirmity deprives of exercise.

He mopped his forehead, panted, and giving me a direct glance, said:

“Does the smoke annoy you, sir?”

“No, sir.”

That eye, that voice, that face, I knew them well. But where, where did I get my knowledge? I had certainly met the fellow, I had talked to him, I had shaken his hand. It went a long way back, a very long way, it was lost in those mists where the mind seems to grope after memories and pursue them, like flying phantoms, without grasping them.

He too was now scrutinising my face in the fixed and tenacious manner of a man who has some dim remembrance but cannot quite place it.

Our eyes, embarrassed by this unwinking exchange of glances, turned away; then, a few minutes later, drawn back once more by the secret obstinate will of the labouring memory, they met again, and I said:

“God bless my soul, sir, instead of looking at one another out of the corner of our eyes for an hour, wouldn’t it be more sensible to join forces in discovering where we knew each other?”

My neighbour answered pleasantly:

“You’re quite right, sir.”

I told him my name.

“My name is Henry Bouclair. I’m a magistrate.”

He hesitated a moment; then with that uncertainty of glance and voice produced by severe mental tension, he said:

“Oh, just so. I met you at the Poincels, a long time ago, before the war, it must be twelve years since.”

“Yes, sir⁠ ⁠… ah⁠ ⁠… you’re Lieutenant Revalière?”

“Yes, I was even Captain Revalière until the day when I lost my feet, both at one stroke, from a passing ball.”

And we looked at one another again, now that we knew each other.

I recalled perfectly having seen this handsome, slender youth who led cotillions with an agile, graceful energy, and who had been nicknamed, I believe, “La Trombe.”31 But behind this vision, sharply evoked, hovered yet another one I could not grasp, some story that I had known and forgotten, one of those stories to which one lends a friendly and short-lived interest, and which leave in one’s mind only an almost imperceptible trace.

There had been a love affair in those days. I recaptured just that particular emotional impression in the depths of my memory, but nothing more, an emotional impression comparable to the scent which⁠—to a dog’s nose⁠—the foot of an animal deposits on the ground.

Little by little, however, the shadows lifted and the face of a young girl rose before my eyes. Then her name burst in my head like an exploding cracker: Mlle. de Mandal. I recalled the whole affair now. It was indeed a love story, but a commonplace one. That young girl loved that young man, when I met him, and people talked of their approaching marriage. He himself seemed very much in love, very happy.

I lifted my eyes towards the rack where all the parcels carried by my neighbour’s servant were shaking with the jolts of the train, and the man’s voice sounded again in my ears as if he had hardly finished speaking.

He had said:

“There you are, sir, that’s the lot. There are five of them: the sweets, the doll, the drum, the gun, and the pâté de foie gras.”

Thereupon, in a flash, a romance developed and unfolded itself in my head. It was, moreover, exactly like all the romances I had read, in which sometimes the young man, sometimes the young girl, marries his or her betrothed after the catastrophe, bodily or financial. So this officer who had been maimed in the war, had after the campaign come back to find the girl who had promised to marry him, and she had kept her word and given herself to him.

I considered it very beautiful but quite simple, as one considers simple all the self-sacrifices and all the dénouements of books and plays. It always seems to us, as we read or as we listen, in these schools of magnanimity, that we should have sacrificed ourselves with enthusiastic pleasure, with superb impulsiveness. But we are put sorely out of temper, next day, when some luckless friend comes to borrow a little money from us.

Then, suddenly, another supposition, less romantic and more realistic, took the place of the first. Perhaps he had married before the war, before the frightful accident when his legs were shot away, and she, desolate and resigned, had been forced to take back, care for, console and sustain this husband, who had left her strong and handsome, and returned with feet mowed off, a dreadful wreckage condemned to immobility, to impotent rages and an inevitable obesity.

Was he happy or in torment? A desire, at first vague, then increasing, at last irresistible, came upon me, to learn his story, to know at least the principal points of it, which would allow me to guess what he could not or would not say.

I talked to him, my thoughts busy all the time. We had exchanged a few commonplace words; and, my eye turned towards the rack, I kept thinking: “So he has three children. The sweets are for his wife, the doll for his little girl, the drum and the gun for his boys, the pâté de foie gras for himself.”

I asked him abruptly:

“You are a father, sir?”

He answered: “No, sir.”

I felt suddenly confused, as if I had committed a gross breach of taste, and I added:

“I beg your pardon. I had imagined that you were, from hearing your man speak of the toys. One hears things without listening, and draws conclusions in spite of oneself.”

He smiled, then murmured:

“No, I am not even married. I never got any farther than the preliminaries.”

I had the air of suddenly remembering.

“Oh⁠ ⁠… that’s so, you were engaged when I knew you, engaged to Mlle. de Mandal, I think.”

“Yes, sir, you have an excellent memory.”

I became outrageously audacious, and added:

“Yes, I think I remember also having heard that Mlle. de Mandal had married Monsieur⁠ ⁠… Monsieur⁠ ⁠…”

He uttered the name placidly:

“M. de Fleurel.”

“Yes, that’s it. Yes⁠ ⁠… I even remember having heard your wound spoken of in this connection.”

I looked him full in the face; and he blushed. His full, swollen face, which the constant accession of blood had already made purple, took on a still deeper hue.

He replied eagerly, with the abrupt earnestness of a man who is pleading a cause lost beforehand, lost in his mind and in his heart, but which he wishes to carry in the eyes of the world.

“People are wrong, sir, to couple my name with Mme. de Fleurel’s. When I returned from the war, without my feet, alas, I would never, never have allowed her to become my wife. Was such a thing possible? One does not marry to make a parade of generosity, sir: one marries to live every day, every hour, every minute, every second with one man; and if this man is deformed, as I am, to marry him is to be condemned to a suffering which will last until death. Oh, I understand, I admire all sacrifices, all devotions when they have a limit, but I do not countenance a woman’s renunciation of the whole of a life in which she hopes for happiness, of all joys, of all dreams, just to satisfy the admiration of the gallery. When I hear, on the floor of my room, the clatter of my stumps and my crutches, the noise like a mill-wheel that I make with every step I take, I feel exasperated to the verge of strangling my servant. Do you think one could allow a woman to bear what one cannot endure oneself? And then, do you suppose they’re pretty, my stumps of legs?⁠ ⁠…”

He was silent. What could I say to him? I felt that he was right. Could I blame her, despise her, even give judgment against him, or against her? No. And yet? This dénouement, conforming as it did to convention, the golden mien, truth and appearances, did not satisfy my appetite for romance. Those heroic stumps called for a splendid sacrifice of which I had been deprived, and I felt cheated thereby.

I asked him abruptly:

“Mme. de Fleurel has children?”

“Yes, a girl and two boys. I am taking these toys to them. Her husband and she have been very good to me.”

The train was climbing the hill of Saint-Germain. It ran through the tunnels, entered the station, came to a standstill.

I was going to offer my arm to help the mutilated officer to descend when two hands were stretched out to him through the open door.

“How do you do, my dear Revalière?”

“Ah, how do you do, Fleurel?”

Behind the man, his wife stood smiling, radiant, still pretty, waving greetings with her gloved fingers. Beside her, a little girl was jumping for joy, and two small boys were staring with greedy eyes at the drum and the gun emerging from the carriage rack in their father’s hands.

When the cripple reached the platform, all the children embraced him. Then they set off, and the small girl lovingly held the polished crossbar of one crutch in her tiny hand, as she would have been able to hold her big friend’s thumb when she walked beside him.

A Portrait

“Look, there’s Milial,” said someone near me. I looked at the man they were pointing out, for I had long wanted to make the acquaintance of this Don Juan.

He was no longer young. His grey hair, a shaggy grey, was a little like one of those skin caps that certain Northern races wear on their heads, and his fine, rather long beard, falling to his chest, also bore a resemblance to fur. He was talking to a woman, leaning towards her, speaking in a low voice, while he looked at her with a tender gaze, eloquent of homage and affection.

I knew his manner of life, or at least such of it as was known to people. He had been loved madly, many times, and his name had been mixed up in various dramas that had taken place. He was spoken of as a very fascinating, almost irresistible man. When, in order to discover whence came these powers he had, I questioned the women who were loudest in his praise, they invariably replied, after having thought about it for a while:

“I don’t know⁠ ⁠… it’s a question of charm.”

Certainly, he was not handsome. He had none of the elegances which we imagine to be attributes of the conquerors of feminine hearts. I used to wonder, with much interest, in what lay his fascination. In his wit?⁠ ⁠… No one had ever quoted his sayings to me, nor even celebrated his intelligence.⁠ ⁠… In his glance?⁠ ⁠… Perhaps.⁠ ⁠… Or in his voice?⁠ ⁠… Some people’s voices have sensuous and irresistible attractions, the savour of exquisite foods. One hungers to hear them, and the sound of their words penetrates our sensibilities, like an epicurean dish.

A friend was passing; I asked him:

“Do you know M. Milial?”

“Yes.”

“Please introduce us.”

A minute later we were exchanging handshakes and conversing between two doors. What he said was just, pleasant to listen to, but in no way superlative. He had indeed a beautiful voice, soft, caressing, musical; but I have heard voices more taking, more moving. One listened to it with pleasure, as one watches the flowing of a pleasant stream. No great effort of thought was necessary to follow it, no hidden meaning roused one’s curiosity, no anticipation kept one’s interest on the alert. His conversation was actually tranquillising, and awoke in us neither a lively desire to respond and contradict, nor a delighted approbation.

It was, moreover, as easy to make a reply to him as to listen. The reply rose to one’s lips of its own accord, as soon as he had finished talking, and the phrases ran towards him as if what he had said made them issue quite naturally from one’s mouth.

I was shortly struck by a reflection. I had known him for a quarter of an hour, and it seemed to me that he was an old friend of mine, that everything about him had been familiar to me for a long time: his face, his gestures, his voice, his ideas.

Abruptly, after a few moments of talk, he seemed to me to have established himself on an intimate footing. All doors between us were open, and perhaps, of my own volition, I would⁠—had he solicited them⁠—have made confidences which ordinarily are given only to one’s oldest friends.

There was certainly a mystery about it. The barriers that separate all creatures, and which time removes one by one, when sympathy, like tastes, an identical intellectual culture, and constant relationship have little by little unpadlocked them, seemed not to exist between him and me, nor, doubtless, between him and all people, men and women, whom chance threw in his path.

At the end of half an hour, we separated, agreeing to see each other again often, and he gave me his address after having invited me to dine with him on the next day but one.

I forgot the hour and arrived too early: he had not come in. A correct and silent servant showed me into a beautiful drawing room, a rather dim, intimate, studied room. I felt at home there, as in my own house. How often I have remarked the effect of the place in which one lives on one’s mind and disposition. There are rooms where one always feels stupid: there are others, on the contrary, where one always feels alert. Some rooms sadden us, although they are light, white and gilded: others make for gaiety, although they are hung in quiet colours. Our eye, like our heart, has its hates and its likings, which often it does not openly declare to us, imposing them secretly and stealthily on our imaginations. The harmony of furniture and walls, the style of our whole surroundings, acts instantly on our intellectual nature as the air of forest, sea or mountain modifies our physical nature.

I was seated on a divan completely covered with cushions, and I felt suddenly sustained, borne up, held in place by these small silk-covered sacks of feathers, as if the form and place of my body had been impressed beforehand on this furniture.

Then I looked round. There was nothing startling in the room; it was filled with lovely unobtrusive things, furniture at once rare and simple, oriental curtains that did not seem to have come from the Louvre but from the interior of a harem, and facing me, the portrait of a woman. It was a portrait of medium size, showing the head and upper part of the body, and the hands holding a book. She was young, bareheaded, her hair arranged in smooth folds, and she was smiling with a faint sadness. It may have been because she was bareheaded, or it may well have been due to the effect of her very artless charm, but never had a woman’s portrait seemed to me so much at home as did this portrait in this place. Almost all those I know are definitely on show, whether the lady is in elaborate dress, with her hair becomingly arranged and an air of being fully conscious that she is posing before the painter in the first place, and ultimately before all the people who will look at her, or whether she has adopted an attitude of abandon, and attired herself with careful informality.

Some are standing, majestic creatures, in all their beauty, with an air of hauteur which they cannot have sustained for long in the ordinary course of their lives; others languish in the immobility of the painted canvas; and all of them have some trifle, a flower or a jewel, a fold of their gown or their lips, which one feels to have been arranged by the painter, for the sake of an effect. Whether they wear a hat, a lace scarf on their head, or simply their hair, they convey the impression of something just a little unnatural. Why? One doesn’t know, since one does not know them at all, but the impression is there. They have the air of paying a visit somewhere, among people whom they wish to please: before whom they wish to appear to their best advantage: and they have studied their attitude, sometimes a modest one, sometimes arrogant.

What shall I say of this portrait? She was in her own home and alone. Yes, she was alone, for she was smiling as people smile when they think in solitude on something at once sad and sweet, and not as they smile when they are being looked at. She was so much alone and so much in her own place, that she created solitude in this huge room, absolute solitude. She dwelt in it, filled it, she alone gave it life: a crowd of people might enter there, and all of them speak, laugh, even sing: she would be there, forever alone, smiling a solitary smile, and alone she would bring it alive with her pictured gaze.

Her gaze was unique, too. It was turned directly to me, caressing and steady, but it did not see me. All portraits know that they are being contemplated, and they answer with their eyes, with eyes that see, and think, that follow us unwinkingly from the moment we enter the room where they inhabit until the moment we leave it.

This portrait did not see me, did not see anything, although its glance was bent directly on me. I recalled Baudelaire’s amazing line:

Et tes yeux attirants comme ceux d’un portrait.32

They did indeed attract me in an irresistible fashion, they disturbed me in some strange, powerful, novel way, these painted eyes that had lived, that perhaps were still living. Oh, what infinite soothing charm⁠—like a passing breeze, seductive as the fading sky of a rose and blue and lilac twilight, and faintly melancholy like the night that follows on its heels⁠—came from that sombre frame and those impenetrable eyes. Those eyes, those eyes created by a few strokes of the brush, held in their depths the mystery of that which seems to be and is not, of that which a woman’s look can express, of that which wakes in our hearts the first stirring of love.

The door opened. M. Milial came in. He apologised for being late. I apologised for being early. Then I said to him:

“Is it indiscreet to ask you who this woman is?”

He answered:

“It is my mother, who died very young.”

And at that I understand whence came this man’s inexplicable charm.

Hautot and His Son

I

In front of the building, half farmhouse, half manor house⁠—one of those semi-feudal country dwellings of mixed character now occupied by wealthy farmers⁠—the dogs chained to the apple trees in the courtyard were barking and howling at the sight of the bags carried by the gamekeepers, and at the mischievous boys. In the large dining room-kitchen, Hautot and his son, M. Bermont the tax-collector, and M. Mondarn the notary, were having a bite and a mouthful of wine before they went out shooting, for it was the first day of the season.

The elder Hautot, proud of his possessions, was boasting of the game that his guests would find in his shoot. He was a big Norman, one of those powerful, ruddy, big-boned men who can lift a cartload of apples on to their shoulders. Half peasant, half gentleman, rich, respected, influential, autocratic, he had first insisted that his son César should work up to the third form so that he might be well informed, and then he had stopped his education for fear of his becoming a fine gentleman without any interest in the farm.

Nearly as tall as his father, but thinner, César Hautot was a good son, docile, contented, full of admiration and respect and regard for the wishes and opinions of the elder Hautot.

M. Bermont, the tax-collector, a short stout man whose red cheeks showed a thin network of violet veins like the tributaries and winding streams of a river on a map, asked:

“And hares⁠—are there any hares?”

The elder Hautot replied:

“As many as you please, especially in the hollows of Puysatier.”

“Where shall we begin?” asked the good-natured notary; he was pale and fat, his flesh bulging out in his tight-fitting, brand-new shooting-kit recently bought at Rouen.

“In that direction, through the bottoms. We will drive the partridges into the open and fall upon them.”

Hautot got up. The others followed his example, took their guns from the corner, examined the locks, stamped their feet to ease them in their boots, not yet softened by the warmth within. Then they went out, and the dogs straining at the leash barked and beat the air with their paws.

They set out towards the hollows, which were in a little glen, or rather in a long undulating stretch of poor land unfit for cultivation, furrowed with ditches and covered with ferns⁠—an excellent preserve for game.

The sportsmen took their places, Hautot senior to the right, Hautot junior to the left, with the two guests in the centre. The keepers and game-bag carriers followed. The solemn moment had come when sportsmen are waiting for the first shot, their hearts beating more rapidly, and their nervous fingers unable to leave the trigger alone.

Suddenly there was a shot. Hautot had fired. They all stopped and saw a partridge, one of a covy flying as swiftly as possible, drop into a ditch covered with thick shrubs. The excited sportsman started to run, taking big strides, dragging aside the briers in his path, and disappeared into the thicket to look for the bird.

Almost immediately a second shot was heard.

“Ha! Ha! the rascal,” exclaimed M. Bermont, “he must have started a hare from the undergrowth.”

They all waited with eyes fixed on the mass of dense underwood. The notary, making a trumpet of his hands, shouted: “Have you got them?”

As there was no reply from the elder Hautot, César, turning towards the gamekeeper, said: “Go and help him, Joseph. We must keep in line. We’ll wait.”

And Joseph, a man with an old, lean body and swollen joints, set off at an easy pace down to the ditch, searching for a suitable opening with the caution of a fox. Then, suddenly, he shouted: “Oh, hurry up! Hurry up! There has been an accident!”

They all hurried along and plunged through the briers. Hautot had fallen on his side in a faint with both hands pressed on his abdomen, from which long trickles of blood flowed on to the grass through his linen jacket torn by a bullet. In letting go of his gun to pick up the dead partridge that lay within reach, he had dropped it and the second discharge going off in the fall had torn open his bowels. They drew him out of the ditch, undressed him and saw a frightful wound through which the intestines protruded. Then after binding him up as well as they could they carried him home and waited for the doctor who had been sent for, as well as the priest.

When the doctor arrived, he shook his head gravely, and turning towards young Hautot, who was sobbing on a chair, he said:

“My poor boy, this looks bad.”

But when the wound was dressed, the patient moved his fingers, first opened his mouth, then his eyes, cast around him a troubled, haggard glance, then appeared to be trying to recall, to understand, and he murmured:

“Good God, I am done for.”

The doctor held his hand.

“No, no; a question of a few days’ rest, it will be all right.”

Hautot resumed:

“I am done for! I am torn to bits! I know!”

Then, suddenly:

“I want to talk to my son, if there is time.”

In spite of himself, César was weeping, and repeated like a little boy:

“Papa, papa, poor papa!”

But the father said in a more determined tone:

“Come, stop crying, this is no time for tears. I have something to say to you. Sit down there, close to me, it will soon be over, and I shall be easier in my mind. You others, please leave us alone for a minute.”

As soon as they were alone:

“Listen, my boy. You are twenty-four, one can talk to you. After all there is not such a mystery about these matters as we attach to them. You know that your mother has been dead seven years and that I am only forty-five, seeing that I married when I was nineteen. Is that not true?”

The son stammered:

“Yes, quite true.”

“So then your mother has been dead for seven years, and I am still a widower. Well! a man like me cannot remain a widower at thirty-seven, you agree?”

The son replied:

“That’s quite true.”

Gasping for breath, very pale and his face drawn with pain, the father continued:

“God! how I suffer! Well, you understand. Man is not made to live alone, but I did not want to give your mother a successor, since I had promised I would not do so. Well⁠ ⁠… you understand?”

“Yes, father.”

“Well, I kept a girl at Rouen, number 18 Rue de l’Eperlan, the second door on the third floor⁠—I am telling you all this, don’t forget⁠—this young girl has been as nice as nice to me, loving, devoted, a real wife. You understand, my lad?”

“Yes, father.”

“Well, if I am taken, I owe her something, something substantial that will place her out of the reach of want. You understand?”

“Yes, father.”

“I tell you she is good, really good, and but for you and the memory of your mother and also because we three lived here together in this house, I would have brought her here, and then married her, sure enough⁠ ⁠… listen⁠ ⁠… listen⁠ ⁠… my lad, I might have made a will⁠ ⁠… I have not done so! I did not want to⁠ ⁠… you must never write things down⁠ ⁠… not things of that sort⁠ ⁠… it is bad for the rightful heirs⁠ ⁠… then it muddles up everything⁠ ⁠… it ruins everyone.⁠ ⁠… Look you, never go in for legal documents, never have anything to do with them. If I am rich it is because I have avoided them all my life. You understand, my boy!”

“Yes, father.”

“Now listen.⁠ ⁠… Listen attentively.⁠ ⁠… So I have made no will.⁠ ⁠… I did not want to.⁠ ⁠… Besides, I know you, you are kindhearted, you are not greedy, not stingy. I said to myself that when I saw the end within sight, I would tell you all about it and would beg you not to forget my darling: Caroline Donet, 18 Rue de l’Eperlan, the second door on the right, don’t forget. Further, go there directly I am gone⁠—and make such arrangements that she will have no reason to complain. You have plenty.⁠ ⁠… You can spare it.⁠—I am leaving you well provided for. Listen! You won’t find her at home on weekdays. She works at Madame Moreau’s in the Rue Beauvoisine. Go on a Thursday. She always expects me on Thursdays. It has been my day for six years. Poor thing, how she will cry! I tell you all this, my boy, because I know you so well. You cannot tell these things to everybody, either to the notary or to the priest. These things happen, everyone knows that, but no one talks about them except when they are obliged. Then again there must be no outsider in the secret, nobody except the family, because a family is the same as an individual! You understand?”

“Yes, father.”

“You promise?”

“Yes, father.”

“You swear to this?”

“Yes, father.”

“I beg, I pray, do not forget, my boy. It means so much to me.”

“No, father.”

“You will go yourself. I want you to make sure of everything.”

“Yes, father.”

“And then, you will see⁠ ⁠… you will see what she says. I can’t tell you more about it. You swear?”

“Yes, father.”

“That’s right, my boy. Embrace me. Adieu, I am done for, I know it. Tell the others they may come in.”

The son embraced his father, sobbing as he did so, then, obedient as usual, he opened the door and the priest appeared in a white surplice carrying the holy oils.

But the dying man had closed his eyes and refused to open them again, he would not make any response nor would he make any sign to show that he understood.

The man had talked enough, he could not continue. Besides, he now felt quiet in his mind and wanted to die in peace. He felt no need to confess to the priest when he had just made his confession to his son who at all events belonged to the family.

Surrounded by his friends and servants on their bended knees, he received the last rites, was purified, and was given absolution, no change of expression on his face showing that he still lived.

He died towards midnight after four hours of convulsive movements indicating terrible suffering.

II

He was buried on Tuesday, the shooting season having opened on Sunday. On returning home from the cemetery César Hautot spent the rest of the day weeping. He scarcely slept that night and felt so sad when he awoke that he wondered how he could manage to go on living.

However, until evening he kept on thinking that in accordance with his father’s dying wish he must go to Rouen the following day, and see this girl, Caroline Donet, who lived at 18 Rue de l’Eperlan, the second door on the third story. He went on repeating the name and address under his breath⁠—just as a prayer is repeated⁠—so as not to forget, and he ended by stammering them unceasingly, without thinking about anything, to such a point had his mind become obsessed by the set phrase.

Accordingly, about eight o’clock next day he ordered Graindorge to be harnessed to the tilbury and set out at the long, swinging pace of the heavy Norman horse along the high road from Ainville to Rouen. He was wearing a black frock-coat, a silk hat, and trousers strapped under his shoes. Owing to the circumstances he had not put on his flowing blue blouse, so easily taken off at the journey’s end, over his black clothes to protect them from dust and dirt.

He got to Rouen just as it was striking ten, put up as usual at the Hôtel des Bons Enfants, in the Rue des Trois-Mariés, submitted to being embraced by the landlord, his wife and their five sons, for they had heard the sad news; later on he had to tell them all about the accident, which made him shed tears, repel their offers of service thrust upon him on account of his wealth, and even refuse luncheon, which hurt their feelings.

Having wiped the dust off his hat, brushed his coat and cleaned his boots, he started off to seek the Rue de l’Eperlan without daring to make any inquiries, for fear of being recognised and of arousing suspicion.

At last, unable to find the place, he caught sight of a priest, and trusting to the professional discretion of the priesthood, he asked for help.

It was only about one hundred steps farther on⁠—the second street to the right.

Then he hesitated. Up to the present he had blindly obeyed the will of his dead father. But now he felt agitated, confused, humiliated at the idea of finding himself⁠—he, the son⁠—in the presence of the woman who had been his father’s mistress.

All our better feelings developed by centuries of family training, all that he had been taught since early childhood about women of loose character, the instinctive distrust that all men feel of these women even when they marry them, all his narrow-minded peasant virtue; all combined to disturb him, to make him hesitate, and fill him with shame.

But he said to himself: “I promised my father. I must not fail.” So he pushed the partly-opened door of number 18, discovered a dark staircase, went up three flights, saw first one door, then a second, then found a bell rope, which he pulled.

The ding-dong that sounded in the next room sent a shiver through his body. The door opened and he found himself face to face with a well-dressed young lady, a brunette with rosy cheeks, who gazed at him with eyes full of astonishment.

He did not know what to say, and she, who suspected nothing and was expecting the father, did not invite him in. They looked at each other about thirty seconds until, at last, she said:

“What do you want, sir?”

He muttered:

“I am the young Hautot.”

She started, turned pale, and stammered as if she had known him for a long time:

“Monsieur César?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“I have a message for you from my father.”

She exclaimed: “My God!” and moved away so that he might enter. He closed the door and followed her.

Then he caught sight of a little boy of four or five years playing with a cat, seated on the ground in front of a stove from which rose the odour of food being kept hot.

“Sit down,” she said.

He sat down. She said: “Well?”

He dare not say anything, he fixed his eyes on the table standing in the middle of the room that was laid for two grownups and a child. He looked at the chair with its back to the fire, the plate, the table napkin and glasses, the bottle of red wine already opened, and the bottle of white wine still uncorked. That was his father’s chair, with its back to the fire. They were expecting him. That was his bread near the fork, he knew that because the crust had been removed on account of Hautot’s bad teeth. Then, raising his eyes, he noticed his father’s portrait hanging on the wall, the large photograph taken at Paris the year of the Exhibition, the same one that hung above the bed in the room at Ainville.

The young woman asked again:

“Well, Monsieur César?”

She stared at him. Her face was deathly white with anxiety, and she waited, her hands trembling with fear.

Then he picked up courage:

“Well, Miss, papa died on Sunday, the first day of the season.”

She was too overcome to make any movement. After a silence of a few seconds, she faltered almost inaudibly:

“Oh, it’s not possible?”

Then the tears came to her eyes, and covering her face with her hands, she burst out sobbing.

Seeing his mother cry, the little boy turned round and began to roar at the top of his voice. Then, understanding that the sudden grief was caused by the unknown visitor, he threw himself upon César, caught hold of his trousers with one hand and hit his shins as hard as he could with the other. César felt bewildered, deeply affected, thus placed between the woman mourning for his father, and the child who was defending his mother. Their emotion communicated itself to him and his eyes filled with tears, so, to regain his self-control, he began to talk.

“Yes,” he said, “the accident occurred on Sunday morning, at eight o’clock.” And he told the story in detail, as if she were listening to him, mentioning the most trivial matters with the characteristic thoroughness of the peasant. The child, who had kept on beating César, was now kicking his ankles.

When he reached the point of Hautot’s anxiety for her, she heard her name mentioned and, taking her hands from face, asked:

“Excuse me! I was not following you. I would like to know⁠—would it be a bother to you to begin all over again?”

He began the story in the same words: “The accident occurred Sunday morning at eight o’clock.”

He repeated everything, at great length, with pauses and occasional reflections of his own. She listened eagerly, feeling with a woman’s keen sensitiveness the events as they were unfolded, and, trembling with horror, exclaimed at intervals: “My God!” The boy, thinking that she was all right again, took hold of his mother’s hand instead of beating César, and listened attentively as if he understood what was happening.

When the story was finished, young Hautot continued:

“Now, we’ll settle matters together according to his wishes. Listen! I am well off, he has left me plenty. I don’t want you to have anything to complain about.”

She interrupted quickly:

“Oh! Mr. César, not today. My heart is⁠ ⁠… Another time⁠ ⁠… another day.⁠ ⁠… No, not today.⁠ ⁠… If I accept, listen⁠ ⁠… it is not for myself⁠ ⁠… no, no, no, I swear. It is for the child. Besides, what you give will be placed to his account.”

Whereupon César, feeling troubled, guessed the truth and stammered:

“So then⁠ ⁠… it is his⁠ ⁠… the little one?”

“Why, yes,” she said.

The young Hautot looked at his brother with confused feelings both intense and painful.

After a long silence, for she was crying again, César, very embarrassed, went on:

“Well, Mam’zelle Donet, I am going. When would you like to talk this over?”

She exclaimed:

“Oh! no, don’t go! don’t go! Don’t leave me all alone with Emile. I would die of grief. I have nobody in the world, nobody but my little one. Oh! what misery, what misery, Mr. César. Do sit down. Tell me some more. Tell me how he spent his time at home.”

César, accustomed to obey, sat down again.

She drew another chair near to his, in front of the stove on which the food prepared for lunch was bubbling, took Emile on her lap and asked César hundreds of questions about his father⁠—such simple questions about his ordinary everyday life that without reasoning on the subject he felt that she had loved Hautot with all the strength of her aching heart.

And by the natural association of his scanty thoughts he returned to the accident and began to tell her all about it again giving the same details as before.

When he said: “He had a hole in the stomach into which you could put your two fists,” she uttered a faint cry and her eyes again filled with tears. Infected by her grief, César began to weep too, and as tears always soften the heart, he bent over Emile, whose forehead was close to his own mouth, and kissed him.

Recovering her breath, the mother murmured:

“Poor boy, he is an orphan now.”

“And so am I,” said César.

They said no more.

But suddenly the housewife’s practical instinct, accustomed to think of everything, reawakened.

“I expect you have had nothing to eat this morning, Mr. César?”

“No, mam’zelle.”

“Oh! You must be hungry. You will have a bite?”

“Thank you,” he said, “I am not hungry; I have been too worried.”

She replied:

“In spite of grief one must go on living, you are surely not going to refuse. Then that will keep you here a little longer. When you are gone, I don’t know what I shall do.”

He yielded after a little hesitation, and sitting down with his back to the fire, facing her, he ate some of the tripe that was crackling in the oven and drank a glass of red wine. But he would not allow her to uncork the white wine. Several times he wiped the small boy’s mouth who had smeared his chin all over with gravy.

As he got up to go, he asked:

“When would you like me to come back to talk the matter over, Mam’zelle Donet?”

“If it is all the same to you, next Thursday, Mr. César. I shall not waste any time that way, as I am always free on Thursdays.”

“That will suit me⁠—next Thursday.”

“You will come to lunch, won’t you?”

“Oh! as for that, I can’t promise.”

“Well, you know, it is easier to talk when eating. Besides, there is more time.”

“Well, all right. At twelve o’clock then.”

And off he went after having kissed little Emile and shaken hands with Mademoiselle Donet.

III

The week seemed long to César Hautot. He had never felt so lonely, and the solitude seemed unbearable. Hitherto he had lived with his father, just like his shadow, following him to the fields and superintending the execution of his orders; and when he did leave him for a short time it was only to meet again at dinner. They spent their evenings sitting opposite each other, smoking their pipes and talking about horses, cows or sheep; and the handshake they exchanged every morning was the symbol of deep family affection.

Now César was alone. He strolled about looking on while the harvesters worked, expecting at any moment to see his father’s tall gesticulating form at the far end of a field. To kill time he visited his neighbours, telling all about the accident to those who had not already heard it and telling it over again to those who had. Then having reached the end of all that interested him, he would sit down at the side of the road and wonder whether this kind of life would last very long.

He often thought of Mademoiselle Donet. He remembered her with pleasure. He had found her ladylike, gentle and good, exactly as father had described her. Undoubtedly, so far as goodness was concerned, she was good. He was determined to do the thing handsomely and give her two thousand francs a year, settling the capital on the child. He even felt a certain pleasure at the prospect of seeing her again on the following Thursday, and making all the arrangements for her future. Then, although the idea of the brother, the little chap of five⁠—his father’s son⁠—did worry and annoy him, it also filled him with a friendly feeling. This illegitimate youngster, though he would never bear the name of Hautot, was, in a sense, a member of the family life, whom he might adopt or abandon as he pleased but who would always remind him of his father.

So that when, on Thursday morning, he was trotting along the road to Rouen on Graindorge’s back, he felt lighter-hearted, more at peace than he had done since his bereavement.

On entering Mademoiselle Donet’s apartment, he saw the table laid as on the previous Thursday, the only difference being that the crust had been left on the bread.

He shook hands with the young woman, kissed Emile on both cheeks and sat down feeling more or less at home in spite of his heart being heavy. Mademoiselle Donet seemed to him to have grown thinner and paler. She must have wept bitterly. She appeared rather awkward in his presence, as if she now understood what she had not felt the previous week when under the first impression of her loss. She treated him with exaggerated respect, showing stricken humility, and waiting upon him with solicitude as if to repay by her attentions and devotion the kindness he had shown her. The lunch dragged on as they discussed the business that had brought him to the house. She did not want so much money. It was too much, far too much. She earned enough to keep herself and she only wanted Emile to find a small sum awaiting him when he was grown up. César was firm, and even added a present of one thousand francs for her mourning.

When he had finished his coffee, she asked:

“Do you smoke?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… I have my pipe.”

He felt his pocket. Good heavens! he had forgotten it. He was quite miserable until she brought out his father’s pipe, which had been put away in a cupboard. He accepted her offer of the pipe, took hold of it, recognised it and smelt it, said what a good one it was, in a voice choked with feeling, filled it with tobacco and lighted it. Then he set Emile astride on his knee and let him play at horses while the mother removed the tablecloth and put the dirty dishes aside in the bottom of the cupboard, intending to wash up as soon as he had gone.

About three o’clock he got up reluctantly, very depressed at the idea of leaving.

“Well, Mademoiselle Donet,” he said, “I wish you good afternoon. It has been a pleasure to make your further acquaintance.”

She stood before him, blushing, deeply moved, and gazed at him while she thought of the father.

“Shall we never see each other again?” she said.

He replied simply:

“Why, yes, Mademoiselle, if it give you any pleasure.”

“Indeed it will, Mr. César. So till next Thursday, if that suits you?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle Donet.”

“You will come to lunch, without fail?”

“Well⁠—as you are so kind, I won’t refuse.”

“It’s settled then, next Thursday, at twelve, the same as today.”

“Thursday at twelve, Mademoiselle Donet!”

One Evening

The steamer Kleber had stopped and I looked with pleasure at the beautiful Gulf of Bougie that spread out ahead of us. The Kabyle forests covered the high mountains; in the distance the yellow sand edged the blue sea with powdered gold, while the sun fell in torrents of fire over the white houses of the small town.

The warm African breeze wafted the delightful odour of the desert to my nostrils, the odour of that great mysterious continent into which men from the North rarely penetrate. For three months I had been wandering on the borders of that great unknown world, on the outskirts of that strange land of the ostrich, camel, gazelle, hippopotamus, gorilla, elephant and Negro. I had seen the Arab galloping in the wind, like a waving standard. I had slept under the brown tents, in the shifting homes of these white birds of the desert. I was drunk with light, with magic, and with wide horizons.

But now after this final excursion I had to leave, go back to France, to Paris, that city of futile gossip, of commonplace preoccupations, and of continual handshaking. I must reluctantly say farewell to the things I loved, to things so new to me and of which I had barely caught a glimpse.

A fleet of small boats surrounded the steamer. I jumped into one belonging to a young Negro, and was soon on the quay near the old Saracen gate, whose grey ruins at the entrance of the Kabyle town looked like an old family coat of arms.

As I was standing beside my suitcase, looking at the big vessel at anchor in the roads, and filled with admiration at the beauty of the coast, the circle of mountains bathed by blue waters more exquisite than those of Naples, as beautiful as those of Ajaccio and Porto in Corsica, I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.

I turned to find a tall man with a long beard, a straw hat on his head and wearing flannels, by my side, staring at me with blue eyes.

“Are you not my old schoolmate?” he said.

“Possibly. What is your name?”

“Trémoulin.”

“By Jove! You were in my class.”

“Ah! Old chap, I recognised you at once.”

And his long beard was rubbed against my cheeks.

He seemed so glad, so jolly, so happy to see me that in an outburst of friendliness I squeezed both hands of my former schoolfellow and felt very pleased to meet him again.

For four years Trémoulin had been my greatest friend at school. In those days his tall, thin body seemed to carry an over-heavy head, a large, round head that bent his neck first to the right, then to the left, and crushed the narrow chest of the long-legged schoolboy.

Trémoulin was the great prize-winner of our class: he was very intelligent, gifted with marvellous facility, a rare suppleness of mind and an instinctive leaning towards literature. We were quite convinced at college that he would turn out a celebrated man, a poet no doubt, for he wrote poetry and was full of ingeniously sentimental ideas. His father, who was a chemist in the Panthéon district, was not considered well off.

As soon as he had taken his Bachelor’s degree I lost sight of him.

“What are you doing here?” I exclaimed.

He replied, smiling: “I am a settler.”

“Bah! You are busy growing things?”

“I gather in the crops, too.”

“Of what?”

“Of grapes, from which I make wine.”

“You are successful?”

“Very.”

“So much the better, old chap.”

“Were you going to an hotel?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, you must come home with me instead.”

“But⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s settled.”

And he said to the young Negro who was watching us: “Home, Ali.”

Ali replied: “Yes, sir,” and started running with my suitcase on his shoulder, raising the dust with his black feet.

Trémoulin caught hold of my arm and led me off. First he asked questions about my journey, my impressions, and seemed to like me better than ever for my enthusiastic reply. His home was an old Moorish house with an inner courtyard, having no windows on the street and dominated by a terrace which, in its turn, dominated those of the neighbouring houses, the gulf, the forests, the mountains, and the sea.

I exclaimed: “Ah! That’s the real thing, the East casts its spell over me in this spot. What a lucky dog you are to live here! What nights you must spend on the terrace! Do you sleep there?”

“Yes, in summer. We will go up this evening. Do you like fishing?”

“What kind?”

“Fishing by torchlight.”

“Yes. I love it.”

“Well, we’ll go after dinner, then come back and have cool drinks on the roof.”

After I had had a bath, he took me to see the captivating Kabyle town, a real cascade of white houses tottering down towards the sea, then we returned home as night was falling and after a good dinner set off for the quay.

We could see nothing but the lights of the streets and the stars, the big twinkling, shining stars of the African heavens.

A boat was waiting in a corner of the harbour. As soon as we got in, a man whose face I could not distinguish began to row, while my friend got the brazier ready for lighting. He said to me: “You know, I do the spearing. No one is better at it.”

“My congratulations.”

We had rounded a kind of mole and were, now, in a little bay full of high rocks whose shadows looked like towers built in the water, and I suddenly realized that the sea was phosphorescent. The oars which beat it gently and rhythmically kindled, as they fell, a weird, moving flame that followed in our wake and then died out. Bending over, I watched the flow of pale light scattered by the oars the indescribable fire of the sea, that chilly fire kindled by a movement, that dies as soon as the waters return to rest. The three of us glided over the stream of light through the darkness.

Where were we going? I could not see my companions, I could see nothing but the luminous ripple and the sparks of water thrown up by the oars. The heat was intense. The darkness seemed as if it had been heated in an oven, and I felt uneasy in my mind about this mysterious voyage with the two men in the silently moving boat.

Dogs⁠—those thin Arabian dogs with red coats, pointed muzzles and bright eyes⁠—were barking in the distance as they bark every night in every quarter of the world, from the shore of the sea to the depth of the desert where wandering tribes pitch their tents. Foxes, jackals, hyenas, answered back; and doubtless, not very far away, a solitary lion was growling in some pass of the Atlas mountains.

Suddenly the boatman stopped. Where could we be? I heard a faint scratching noise close to me and by the light of a match I saw a hand⁠—only a hand⁠—carrying the fragile light towards the iron grating piled up with wood like a floating funeral pyre that hung from the bow.

I gazed, full of surprise, at this novel, disquieting scene, and excitedly watched the slender flame reach out towards a handful of dried heather that began to crackle.

Then in the stillness of the night a sheet of flame shot up, illuminating under the dark pall that hung over us, the boat and two men⁠—an old, thin, pale, wrinkled sailor with knotted kerchief on his head, and Trémoulin, whose fair beard shone in the sudden glare of light.

“Forward,” he shouted, and the old man began to row, surrounded by the blaze of fire, under the dome of mobile dusk that accompanied us. Trémoulin kept throwing wood on the brazier, now burning brightly.

I bent over the side again and saw the bottom of the sea. A few feet below the boat that strange kingdom of the waters unfolded itself⁠—waters which like the air above give life to beast and plant. The brazier cast its brilliant light as far as the rocks and we glided over amazing forests of red, pink, green and yellow weeds. Between them and us there lay a crystal-clear medium that made them look fairy-like, turning them into a dream⁠—a dream springing from the depths of the ocean. This clear, limpid water that one knew was there without seeing it, caused a strange feeling of unreality to come between us and this weird vegetation, making it as mysterious as the land of dreams.

At times the weeds came up to the surface, like floating hair, hardly stirred by the slow passage of the boat.

Among the seaweed thin silver fish darted about, visible for a second, then lost to sight. Others, still asleep, floated about in the watery undergrowth, gleaming, graceful, and impossible to catch. A crab would run off to hide itself in a hole, or a bluish, transparent jellyfish, hardly visible⁠—a pale azure-coloured flower, a real flower of the sea⁠—allowed its liquid mass to be dragged along in the slight ripple made by the boat. Then, suddenly, the ground at the bottom disappeared under a fog of thickened glass, and I saw huge rocks and gloomy-coloured seaweed vaguely, illuminated by the light from the brazier.

Trémoulin, who was standing in the bows with his body bent forward, holding the sharp pointed trident called a spearing-hook in his hands, closely watched ricks, weeds, and water, with the intensity of a beast in pursuit of its prey. Suddenly, with a quick, gentle movement, he darted the forked head of his weapon into the sea so swiftly that it speared a large fish swimming away from us.

I had seen nothing but Trémoulin’s sudden movement, but I heard him grunt with joy and as he raised his hook in the light of the brazier I saw a wriggling conger-eel, pierced by the iron teeth. After looking at it and showing it to me while he held it over the fire, my friend threw it into the bottom of the boat. The sea serpent, with its body pierced by seven wounds, slid and crawled about, and grazed my feet in its search for a hole to escape by; then, having found a pool of brackish water between the ribs of the boat, it crouched there almost dead, twisting itself round and round.

Every minute Trémoulin was gathering up, with remarkable skill and amazing rapidity, all the strange inhabitants of the salt waters. In turn I saw held over the fire, convulsed with agony, silver catfish, eels, spotted with blood, prickly scorpions, and dry, weird-looking fish that spat out into and turned the sea black.

I thought I heard the cry of birds in the night and raised my head in an attempt to see from whence came the sharp whistling sounds, now short, now long, now near, now far away. There were so many different sounds that a cloud of wings seemed to be hovering over us, attracted doubtless by the fire. At times the noise seemed to deceive the ear and come from the sea.

I asked: “Whatever is that whistling?”

“The falling cinders.”

It was indeed caused by the brazier dropping a shower of burning twigs into the sea. They fell down red-hot or in flames, and went out with a soft, penetrating, queer protest, sometimes like a chuckle and sometimes like the short greeting of a passing emigrant. Drops of resin droned like cannonballs or hornets and suddenly expired in their plunge into the water. The noise was certainly like human voices: an indescribable, faint murmur of life straying about in the shadow near us.

Suddenly Trémoulin shouted: “Ah⁠—the beggar!”

He threw his spear and when he pulled it up I saw what looked like a big lump of throbbing red flesh wrapped round the teeth of the fork and sticking to the wood. It was an octopus that was twining and untwining long, soft tentacles covered with suckers around the handle.

He held up his victim and I saw the sea-monster’s two huge eyes look at me; they were bulging, terrible eyes that emerged from a kind of pocket like a tumour. The beast, thinking it was free, slowly stretched out one of its feelers in my direction. The end was as fine as a piece of thread and as soon as the greedy arm had hooked itself on to the seat, another was uncurled and raised itself to follow the first.

There was a feeling of irresistible force about that soft, sinewy mass. Trémoulin opened his knife and plunged it swiftly between the beast’s eyes. We heard a sigh, a sound of escaping air, and the octopus ceased to move. It was not dead, however, but its power was destroyed, its spendour gone, it would never again drink blood or suck a crab dry.

Trémoulin unwound the now useless tentacles from the sides of the boat and suddenly filled with anger, shouted: “Wait a bit, I’ll make it hot for you.”

With a stroke of the spear he picked up the beast, raised it in the air, held it to the fire, rubbing the thin fleshy ends of its arms against the red-hot bars of the brazier. They crackled as the heat of the fire twisted and contracted them and I ached all over at the idea of how the hideous beast must be suffering.

“Don’t do that,” I cried.

He replied quite calmly: “Bah! Anything’s good enough for that thing,” and threw the burst, lacerated body of the octopus into the boat, where it dragged itself between my legs to the hole full of brackish water and lay down to die amongst the dead fish.

And so our fishing continued until the wood began to run short. When there was not enough to keep the fire going, Trémoulin thrust the brazier into the water, and night, which the brilliant flames had kept at a distance, fell upon us, wrapping us once more in its gloom.

The old sailor began to row slowly and regularly. I had no idea what was port or what land, nor what was sea or what the entrance to the gulf. The octopus still moved about close to my feet and my nails hurt as if they too had been burnt. Suddenly I saw the lights: we were entering the port.

“Are you sleepy?” my friend asked.

“No, not in the least.”

“Then let us go and have a talk on the roof.”

“With pleasure.”

Just as we reached the terrace I saw the crescent moon rising behind the mountains. The warm breath of the wind slipped slowly by, full of faint, almost imperceptible, odours, as if it were sweeping up the scents of all the gardens and towns of every sun-scorched country, on its way.

Around us the white houses with their square roofs descended towards the sea, we could see human forms lying down or standing up on the roofs, either asleep or dreaming in the starlight; whole families wrapped in long, flannel garments resting in the hush of the night from the heat of the day.

Suddenly it seemed as if the soul of the East was taking possession of me, that poetic, legendary soul of a simple and fanciful people. My mind was full of the Bible and the Arabian Nights: I heard prophets telling of miracles, and saw princesses in silk Turkish trousers sauntering about on palace terraces, while incense whose smoke curled up in the shape of genii, burned in silver lamps.

I said to Trémoulin: “You are lucky to live here.”

He replied: “Chance brought me here.”

“Chance?”

“Yes, chance and misfortune.”

“You have been miserable?”

“Very.”

He was standing up in front of me, wrapped in his burnous, and the tone of his voice made me shiver, it was so full of misery.

After a moment’s silence he continued:

“I can tell you my grief. It may do me good to talk about it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Do you really mean it?”

“Yes.”

“Very well, then. You remember what I was like at college: more or less a poet, brought up in a chemist’s shop. My dream was to write books, and I tried after I had taken my degree but did not succeed. I published a volume of verse, then a novel, without selling more of one than of the other, then I wrote a play which was never acted.

“Then I fell in love, but I am not going to tell you all about that.

“Next door to my father’s shop there lived a tailor who had a daughter, it was she I loved. She was intelligent and had passed Higher School Examinations, she was mentally alert, her mind being in keeping with her body. She looked fifteen although she was really twenty-two. She was very small, with refined features, slim figure, delicate complexion, in every way like a dainty watercolour. Her nose, mouth, her blue eyes and fair hair, her smile, figure, hands, indeed her whole being, seemed more fit for a glass case then for an open-air life. Nevertheless she was vivacious, supple in her movements and incredibly active, and I was very much in love with her. Two or three walks in the Luxembourg Gardens, near the Médicis fountain, I remember as the happiest time of my life. You must know all about that queer phase of love’s folly when every thought is centred on worship of the loved one. You are nothing but a maniac haunted by a woman, nothing exists in the world but her.

“We were soon engaged and I told her of my plans for the future, of which she disapproved. She did not believe in me as a poet, novelist, or dramatic author, and thought that trade, if successful, could procure perfect happiness. So I gave up the idea of writing books, I resigned myself to selling them and bought a book shop⁠—the Universal Library⁠—at Marseilles, its former owner being dead.

“I had three good years. We had made our shop into a kind of literary salon where all the cultured men in the town met for conversation. They came to the shop as they would have gone to a club, and discussed books, poets, and more especially politics. My wife, who was the head of the sales department, was very popular in the town; as for me, while they were all talking downstairs I was at work in my study on the first floor which communicated with the shop by a winding staircase. I heard voices, laughter, discussions, and sometimes stopped writing to listen to what was going on. I was secretly writing a novel⁠—which I never finished.

“The most regular frequenters were Monsieur Montina, a man of private means, a tall, handsome type of man, often met with in the South, with black hair and eyes full of flattery; Monsieur Barbet, a magistrate; two business men, Messieurs Faucil and Labarrègue; and General the Marquis de Flèche, head of the Royalist party, the most important man in the province, aged sixty-six.

“Business was good and I was happy, very happy. However, one day about three o’clock I was obliged to go out and when I was in the Rue Saint-Ferréol I saw a woman come out of a house whose figure was so like my wife’s that I would have said to myself ‘It is she’ had I not left her ill at home.

“She was walking ahead of me very quickly, and never looking back; in spite of myself I started to follow her with a feeling of surprise and uneasiness. I said to myself:

“ ‘It is not she. No. That’s impossible, as she had a headache. Besides, what would she be doing in that house?’

“Still I wanted to clear the matter up, so hurried after her. Whether she felt or guessed I was behind her or whether she recognised my step, I can’t say, but she turned round suddenly. It was she! When she saw me she blushed and stopped, then said with a smile: ‘Halloa, is it you?’

“I felt sick at heart and said: ‘Yes. So you did go out? And your headache?’

“ ‘It was better. I have been on an errand.’

“ ‘Where to?’

“ ‘To Laussade’s, in the Rue Cassinelli, to order some pencils.’

“She looked me full in the face. She was not blushing now, on the contrary, she was rather pale. Her clear, limpid eyes⁠—ah! a woman’s eyes!⁠—seemed full of truth, but I had a vague, painful feeling that they were full of lies. I was more worried, more uncomfortable than she was, I dared not suspect her, and yet I felt sure she was telling me a lie. Why was she doing it? I had no idea, so I merely said: ‘You were quite right to go out if you felt better.’

“ ‘Yes. I felt much better.’

“ ‘Are you going home?’

“ ‘Of course I am.’

“I left her and wandered about the streets alone. What was going on? While I was talking to her I knew instinctively that she was lying, but now I could not believe it, and when I went home to dinner I was angry with myself for having suspected her, even for a moment.

“Have you ever been jealous? Whether you have or not makes no difference. The first hot breath of jealousy had touched my heart. I could think of no explanation, I could not believe anything. I only knew that she had lied. You must remember that every evening when we were alone together, after all the customers and the clerks had left, either when strolling down towards the port in fine weather, or else in my study when the weather was bad, I opened my heart to her without reserve, for I loved her. She was part of my life, the greater part, and all my happiness, and in her little hands she held captive my poor trusting, faithful heart.

“In the early days of doubt and distress before suspicion grew into a certainty I was depressed and cold to the marrow, just as you feel before a serious illness. I was always cold, really cold, and could neither eat nor sleep.

“Why had she lied to me? What was she doing in that house? I had been there to try and find out, but without success. The man who lived on the first floor, an upholsterer, told me all about his neighbours but without giving me any clue. A midwife lived on the second floor, a dressmaker and a manicure on the third, and two cabmen with their families in the attics.

“Why had she lied to me? It would have been so easy to say that she was coming from the dressmaker’s or the manicure’s. Oh! how I longed to ask them questions, too. I did not for fear she might be warned, and guess my suspicions.

“One thing was certain, she had been to the house and was concealing the fact from me, so that there was some mystery. But what? At times I thought there must be a good reason, some hidden charitable deed, some information she wanted, and I accused myself for suspecting her. Have we not all the right to our little, innocent secrets, to that second, inner life for which we are not obliged to account to anybody? Because he has been given a young girl as companion, has a man the right to expect that she shall never have a thought, can never do anything, without telling him about it? Does marriage mean the renunciation of all liberty, all independence? Might she not have gone to the dressmaker’s without telling me, and might she not be helping the wife of one of the cabmen? Perhaps she thought that, without blaming her, I might criticize the reason she had for going to the house, although there was no harm in it. She knew me through and through, all my slightest peculiarities, and probably was afraid, if not of being reproached, at least of a discussion. She had very pretty hands, and I ended by thinking that she was having them secretly manicured in the suspected house, and that she would not confess to it so as to avoid any appearance of extravagance. She was very methodical and thrifty and looked after the household expenses most carefully. Doubtless she would have felt herself lowered in my eyes had she admitted to this slight piece of feminine extravagance. Women’s souls are full of subtlety and natural trickery.

“But all my reasoning failed to reassure me. I was jealous. My suspicions tormented me, torturing and preying upon my mind. As yet it was not a suspicion but simply suspicion. I endured misery and frightful anguish. An obscure thought possessed me⁠—a thought covered with a veil⁠—and a veil I dared not raise, for beneath it lay a terrible doubt.⁠ ⁠… A lover!⁠ ⁠… Had she a lover?⁠ ⁠… Think of it! think of it! It was unlikely, impossible⁠ ⁠… and yet?⁠ ⁠…

“Montina’s face was always before my eyes. I saw the tall, insipid beauty, with shiny hair, smiling into her face, and I said to myself: ‘It is he.’ I made up a story of their intrigue. They had been talking of a book, discussing some amorous adventure, finding an incident similar to their own, and from this had followed the rest. I kept a lookout, a prey to the most abominable torture that man can endure. I bought shoes with rubber soles so that I could move about silently and I spent my life going up and down the little winding staircase so as to catch them. Often I crept down the stairs on my hands, head first, to see what they were doing. Then I had to go up again backwards, with great difficulty, after finding that the clerk was always there with them. I lived in a state of continual suffering. I could think of nothing, I could not work, nor could I look after the business. As soon as I had left the house, as soon as I had walked a hundred yards along the street, said to myself: ‘He is there,’ and back I went. He was not, so I went out again! But I had hardly left the house when I thought: ‘He has come now,’ and returned again.

“This went on every day.

“The night was worse still, for I felt her by my side, in my bed. There she was asleep or pretending to be asleep! Was she asleep? Of course not. Then that was another lie?

“I lay motionless on my back, on fire from the warmth of her body, panting and in agony. I was filled with a vile but steady desire to get up, take a candle and hammer and with a single stroke split her head open to see what was inside! I knew that I would find nothing but a nasty mess of brains and blood, nothing else. I would have learnt nothing. Impossible to find anything out! And her eyes! When she looked at me, I was seized with a wild fit of fury. You may look at her⁠—she looks back at you! Her eyes are clear, candid⁠—and false, false, false! and no one can guess what lies behind them. I longed to stick needles into them, to burst open the mirrors of deceit.

“How well I understand the Inquisition! I could have twisted her wrists in the iron bracelets.⁠—Speak.⁠ ⁠… Confess!⁠ ⁠… You won’t? Just wait!⁠ ⁠… I could have strangled her by degrees.⁠ ⁠… Speak, confess!⁠ ⁠… You won’t?⁠ ⁠… And I would have squeezed, squeezed, until her throat began to rattle, until she choked to death.⁠ ⁠… Or else I would have burned her fingers over the fire.⁠ ⁠… Oh! that I would have done with great pleasure!⁠ ⁠… Speak⁠ ⁠… speak then.⁠ ⁠… You won’t? I would have held them on the red-hot coal, they would have been roasted at the tips⁠ ⁠… then she would have spoken⁠ ⁠… surely!⁠ ⁠… she would have spoken.⁠ ⁠…”

Trémoulin, standing erect with clenched fists, shouted his story. On the neighbouring roofs, around us, the ghostly shadows awoke and sat up, they listened, disturbed in their sleep. As for me, I was deeply moved, and completely gripped by the tale I was listening to.

In the darkness I saw before me the little woman, the little, fair, vivacious, artful woman, as if I had known her. I saw her selling her books, talking to the men who found her childlike manner disturbing, and in her delicate doll-like head I could see petty crafty ideas, stupid exaggerated ideas, the dreams of musk-scented milliners attracted by the heroes of romantic novels. I suspected her just as he did. I hated and detested her, and would also willingly have burned her fingers to make her confess.

He continued more calmly: “I don’t know why I am telling you all this. I have never yet spoken about it. Never, but I have seen nobody for two years. I have not talked to a single person, and the whole thing was seething within me like fermenting wine. I am emptying my heart of its pain, unluckily for you!

“Well, I had made a mistake, it was worse than I thought, much worse. Just listen. I fell back on the usual trick, I pretended to go away. Every time I left the house my wife lunched out. I need not tell you how I bribed a waiter at the restaurant so that I might catch them.

“The door of the private room was to be opened for me and I arrived at the appointed time determined to kill them both. I could imagine the whole scene as clearly as if it had already occurred. I could see myself going in. A small table covered with glasses, bottles, and plates separated her from Montina, and they would be so surprised when they saw me that they would not attempt to move. Without saying a word I would bring down the loaded stick I was carrying on the man’s head; killed by one blow, he would crumple up with his face on the table. Then, turning towards her⁠—I would give her time⁠—a few seconds⁠—to understand what was happening, and to stretch her arms out to me, mad with terror, before dying in her turn. Oh I was quite ready. Strong, determined, and happy, happy to the point of intoxication. The idea of her terrified look at the raised stick, of her hands stretched out imploringly, of her strangled cry, of her face, suddenly livid and convulsed, avenged me beforehand. I had no intention of killing her at one blow! You must think me fierce, don’t you? But you don’t know what a man suffers. To think that a woman⁠—wife or mistress⁠—one loves is giving herself to another, surrenders herself to him as she had done to you, and accepts his kisses as she has done yours. It is terrible, appalling. Anyone who has suffered that agony is capable of anything. I am surprised there are not more murders, for all who have been betrayed⁠—every one of them⁠—want to kill, have gloated over the idea of death: in the solitude of their own room or on a lonely road, haunted by the hallucination of satisfied vengeance, they have in imagination either strangled the betrayer or beaten him to death.

“I arrived at the restaurant and asked whether they were there. The bribed waiter replied: ‘Yes, sir,’ and, taking me upstairs, showed me a door, saying: ‘In here.’ I grasped my stick as if my fingers were made of iron, and went in.

“The moment was well chosen. They were kissing each other, but it was not Montina. It was the General de Flèche, aged sixty-six!

“I was so sure I was going to find the other one there that I was rigid with surprise.

“Besides⁠ ⁠… besides⁠ ⁠… I don’t yet know exactly how it all happened. If I had found the other I would have been wild with rage! But this one! This old potbellied man with his hanging cheeks made me choke with disgust. She, who looked about fifteen, had given herself to this fat old man almost in his dotage, because he was a Marquis, a General, the friend and representative of dethroned kings. No, I can’t say what I felt, nor what I thought about it. I could not raise my hand against the old man. That would have been disgraceful! No, I no longer wanted to kill my own wife, but all women capable of such behaviour. I was not jealous now, I felt as full of despair as if I had seen the Horror of Horrors!

“You may say what you like about men, they are not so vile as that! If you do meet one he is held up to universal derision. The husband or lover of a old woman is more despised than a thief. We men are a decent lot, as a rule, but they, they are prostitutes with hearts full of filth. They give themselves to all men, young or old, for the most contemptible reasons, because it is their profession, their vocation, their function in life. They are the eternal, unconscious, placid prostitutes who give their bodies without disgust because it is the merchandise of love, whether they sell them to the old man with money in his pocket who hangs about the streets, or whether they give them, for the glory of it, to a lewd old monarch, or to a celebrated and repulsive old man!⁠ ⁠…”

He cried aloud like a prophet of old, in a tone of wrath, under the starry sky. With the fury of desperation he told about the exalted shame of all the mistresses of kings: the shame, considered worthy of respect of all young girls who marry old men; and the tolerance showed to all young wives who smilingly accept old men’s kisses.

As he called them up I could see them all from the beginning of time, surging around us in the Eastern night: girls, beautiful girls with vile souls like beasts who, ignoring the age of the male, are docile to senile desire. They rose up before me, the handmaids of the patriarchs praised in the Bible, Hagar, Ruth, Lot’s daughters, the dark Abigail, the virgin of Shunam whose caresses restored David to life, and all those others, young, fat, white patricians or plebeians, irresponsible females belonging to a master, the unclean flesh of submissive slaves, whether paid for in money or bought by the glamour of greatness.

I asked: “What did you do?”

“I went away,” he replied, simply. “And here I am.”

For a long time we stayed together without saying a word, just dreaming!⁠ ⁠…

I have retained an unforgettable impression of that evening. All that I had seen, felt, heard, guessed; the fishing excursion, perhaps the octopus too, and that harrowing story amid white phantoms on the neighbouring roofs, all combined to produce a unique sensation. Certain chance meetings, certain inexplicable combinations of events, contain⁠—without any outward appearance of the unusual⁠—a greater amount of the secret quintessence of life than is spread over whole days of ordinary happenings.

Boitelle

Old Antoine Boitelle’s speciality throughout the country was doing the dirty jobs. Whenever a cesspool had to be cleaned out, a manure heap removed, drains flushed, or any filthy old hole attended to, he was sent for.

He would come along with the necessary implements, his sabots soaked in filth, and start work, whining all the time about his job. Then when asked why he did such repulsive work, he would reply resignedly: “Well, for my children; they must be fed. It pays better than anything else.” He had fourteen children and when anyone asked what had become of them, he would say indifferently: “There are still eight at home. One is in service, and five are married.” When asked whether they were happily married, he replied vivaciously: “I did not oppose their wishes. I have never opposed them in any way. They married as they pleased. You must never oppose the choice of others; evil is sure to follow. If I am a scavenger, it is because my parents were opposed to my inclinations. Otherwise I would have been a workman like the others.”

This is how his parents had thwarted him:

He was a soldier then, serving his time at Havre, not more stupid than the others, not sharper either, but rather simple-minded.

In his free time his greatest pleasure was to walk along the quay where the bird-dealers congregated. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a friend from his own part of the country: he would pass slowly in front of the cages containing parrots with green backs and yellow heads from the Amazon, parrots with grey backs and red heads from Senegal, enormous macaws that looked like birds bred in hothouses with their gorgeous feathers, their plumes, and their tufts, parakeets of all sizes that looked as if they had been painted with great care by a heavenly miniaturist, then the little tiny birds that hopped about, red, yellow, blue, variegated; all these mingled their cries with the noise of the quay, adding to the din of vessels unloading, of passersby and of vehicles, the wild murmur, shrill and deafening, of a distant, ghost-ridden forest.

Boitelle would stop with astonishment in his eyes and wide-open mouth, laughing and delighted, showing his teeth to the cockatoo prisoners who greeted the bright red of his breeches and the copper buckle of his belt with their white or yellow crests. When he found a bird that could talk he asked it questions, and if it happened to be a day when the bird felt disposed to enter into conversation with him or answer his questions, the amount of fun and amusement he carried away from the interview lasted till evening. He got any amount of pleasure from looking at the monkeys and could imagine no greater luxury for a wealthy man than to keep these animals as one keeps cats and dogs. He had the love of the exotic in his blood, as one might have that of hunting, medicine or the Church. He could not help going back to the quay every time the gates of the barracks were opened, drawn towards it by an irresistible longing.

On one occasion, in a state approaching ecstasy, he stopped in front of an enormous macaw that was putting out its feathers, bending forward and holding itself erect as if it were curtsying at the court of Parrotland, when he saw the door of a little café joining the bird shop open and a young Negress appear with a red kerchief on her head, sweeping the corks and sand from the floor into the street.

Boitelle’s attention was immediately divided between the bird and the woman, and he could not have said which of the two caused him the greater astonishment or pleasure.

The Negress swept the dirt from the café 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 presenting arms, while the macaw went on bowing.

After a few seconds the soldier began to feel embarrassed at the notice he was attracting and went off slowly to avoid any appearance of retreat.

But he came back. He passed the Café des Colonies nearly every day and through the window often saw the little dark-skinned servant handing beer or brandy to the sailors of the port. She often came out when she caught sight of him; indeed, they were soon smiling at each other like acquaintances although they had never spoken to each other; and Boitelle felt his heart stirred when he saw the dazzling row of teeth suddenly glittering between the girl’s dusky lips. One day he went in and was surprised when he realised that she spoke French just as everyone else did. The bottle of lemonade, of which she accepted a glass, remained a delightful memory to the soldier, and it soon became his custom to frequent the little tavern and drink all the syrupy mixtures he could afford.

It was a treat for him⁠—a perpetual joy⁠—to watch the black hand of the little serving-maid pour something into his glass while a smile showed her teeth⁠—that were even brighter than her eyes.

After seeing each other in this way for two months they became fast friends and Boitelle having recovered from his surprise at finding that the ideals of this Negress were the same as those of the girls of his country⁠—that she had a respect for thrift, work, religion and good manners⁠—he loved her the more for it and was so infatuated that he wanted to marry her.

This suggestion made her dance for joy. Moreover, she had money left to her by a woman oyster-dealer who had sheltered her when abandoned by an American captain on the quay at Havre. The captain had found her when she was about six years old, huddled against the bales of cotton in the ship’s hold a few hours after leaving New York. On reaching Havre he abandoned the little black creature hidden on board he knew not how or by whom to the care of the compassionate oyster-dealer. When the oyster woman died the young Negress went to the Café des Colonies as waitress. Antoine Boitelle added: “We shall be married if my parents make no objections. I will never do anything against their wishes, you understand that, never! I will mention it to them the first time I go back home.”

The next week, having got twenty-four hours’ leave, he went to see his people, who farmed a small holding at Tourteville, near Yvetot.

He waited till the meal was over, for the moment when coffee with a dash of brandy softens the heart, to tell his parents that he had found a girl so completely to his taste that no other so perfectly suited to him could possibly exist.

The old people, on hearing this, became very cautious and asked for particulars. However, he had concealed nothing from them except the colour of her skin.

She was a servant, without much money, but strong, thrifty, clean, well-conducted and sensible. These were things that were more valuable than money in the hands of a bad housewife. Besides, she had a few sous left her by the woman who had brought her up, quite a number of sous, almost a little dowry⁠—fifteen hundred francs in the savings-bank. The old people, won over by his account and having confidence in his judgment, gradually gave way; then he reached the ticklish point of the explanation. Laughing in a forced way, he said: “There is only one thing that may upset you. There is not a scrap of white about her.” They could not understand what he meant and he was obliged to explain at length and with many precautions, so as to avoid shocking them, that she belonged to the dark race of which they had only seen samples in the coloured picture-books.

Then they became anxious, perplexed, alarmed as if he had proposed to marry the Devil.

The mother said: “Black? How much of her? Is she altogether black?”

He replied: “Surely: altogether, just as you are white all over!”

The father said: “Black? Is she as black as the kettle?”

The son answered: “Perhaps a little bit less! She is black but not black enough to be repulsive. The curé’s cassock is black enough but it is no uglier than a white surplice.”

The father said: “Are there any blacker than she is in her own country?”

The son, with an air of conviction, exclaimed: “Certainly!”

But the old man shook his head. “It can’t be pleasant?”

“It is not more unpleasant than anything else, you soon get accustomed to it.”

The mother asked: “They don’t soil their underwear more than others, those creatures?”

“No more than you do, considering it is the colour of her skin.”

After a great many more questions it was agreed that the old people should see the girl before taking any decision, and that the young fellow, whose military service would be finished in another month, should bring her to the house so that they might pass judgment upon her, then they could talk the matter over and decide whether she was too dark to be received into the Boitelle family.

Antoine accordingly announced that on Sunday, the 22nd of May, the day of his discharge, he would start for Tourteville with his sweetheart.

For the visit to her lover’s parents she had put on her most beautiful and most showy clothes, in which yellow, red and blue predominated, so that she looked as if decorated for a national fête.

At the Havre station everybody stared at her, and Boitelle was proud of being seen arm-in-arm with a person who attracted so much attention. Then, in the third-class carriage, seated beside him, she caused such surprise among the peasants that those in the adjoining compartments stood up on the seats to have a good look at her over the wooden partition that divided the carriage. One child, frightened at her appearance, began to cry, another hid its face in its mother’s apron.

However, all went well until they reached the station. As the train slowed down on the drawing near Yvetot, Antoine felt as uncomfortable as he felt at inspection when not sure of himself. Then, leaning out of the window, in the distance he recognised his father holding the bridle of the horse harnessed to the cart, and his mother standing at the barrier that held back the spectators.

He alighted first, took hold of his sweetheart’s hand and holding himself erect as if escorting a general, he went to meet his father and mother.

The mother, seeing the black lady in gaily coloured clothes with her son, was so amazed that she had not a word to say and the father found it difficult to hold the horse that kept rearing first at the engine, then at the Negress. But Antoine, suddenly filled with joy at seeing the old people, rushed forward with open arms, kissed his mother and his father too in spite of the nag’s fright, then turning to his companion, at whom the wonder-struck passersby stopped to stare, he explained:

“Here she is. I told you that a first glimpse was rather upsetting, but as soon as you know her, as sure as I am here, there is nothing better in the world. Say how-d’you-do to her to make her feel at home.”

Thereupon old Mother Boitelle, almost frightened out of her wits, made a sort of curtsy, while the father took off his cap and murmured: “My best wishes.” Then without further delay they clambered into the cart, the two women at the back on chairs that made them bounce up and down at every jolt and the two men in front on the seat.

Nobody said a word. Antoine, feeling anxious, was whistling a barrack-room song. The father whipped up the nag and the mother looked out of the corner of her eyes, casting sly glances at the Negress, whose brow and cheekbones shone in the sunlight like well-polished shoes.

Antoine, wanting to break the silence, turned round and said:

“Well, has no one anything to say?”

“Give us time,” replied the old woman.

He went on: “Come! tell us the story of your hen’s eight eggs.”

This was one of the family’s funny stories. But as his mother still kept silent, paralysed by her feelings, he started to tell the tale himself, laughing all the time, of the never forgotten adventure. The father, who knew it by heart, cheered up at the very first words; the mother soon followed his example, and the Negress herself at the funniest part burst into a fit of laughter, such a noisy, rolling torrent of laughter that the excited horse broke into a gallop.

This broke the ice and they started to talk.

They had scarcely reached the house and had all got down from the cart when, after taking his sweetheart to her room to change her dress, which might get stained while cooking an appetising dish that was to win the old people’s affections through their stomachs, he led his parents out of doors and, with beating heart, asked:

“Well, what do you think?”

The father was silent. The mother, more courageous, exclaimed:

“She is too black! No, really, it is beyond a joke. It makes my blood curdle.”

“You will get used to it,” said Antoine.

“Possibly, but not just at first.”

They went into the house, where the good woman was upset at seeing the Negress busy in the kitchen. Then, tucking up her skirts, she started to help her.

The meal was very good, very long and very enjoyable. When they were wandering round afterwards Antoine took his father aside.

“Well, father, what do you think of her?”

The peasant never committed himself.

“I have no opinion about her. Ask your mother.”

So Antoine joined his mother and, keeping behind the others, said: “Well, mother, what do you think of her?”

“My poor lad, really, she is too black. Only the least little bit less and I would say nothing, but it is too much. She might be Satan himself!”

He did not press her, knowing how obstinate the old woman was, but he felt a tempest of grief rage within him. He racked his brains for a solution of the difficulty, surprised that she had not taken their fancy at once as she had taken his. So the four of them strolled through the cornfields in silence. When they passed a fence, farmers appeared at the gate and little boys climbed the hedges, everyone rushed out to see the “blackie” that young Boitelle had brought home. In the distance people could be seen scampering across the fields as they do when the village crier makes some public announcement. Old Boitelle and his wife, scared at the curiosity aroused by their approach, quickened their pace, walking side by side, leaving far behind their son, who was being asked by his companion what his parents thought of her.

Hesitatingly he replied that they had not yet made up their minds.

But in the village square there was an excited rush from all the cottages, and at sight of the gathering crowd the old Boitelles fled home, while Antoine, furious with anger, his sweetheart holding his arm, advanced majestically under the astonished gaze of the crowd.

He understood that it was all over, that there was no hope, that he could never marry his Negress; she understood it too; and they both began to cry as they drew near to the farm. As soon as they got back she took off her dress to help the old woman; she followed her everywhere, to the dairy, the stables, the poultry run, taking upon herself the hardest work, and always saying: “Let me do it, Madame Boitelle,” so that in the evening the old woman, her heart softening but still inexorable, said to her son:

“All the same she is a good girl. It is a pity she is so black, but there, she really is too black. I could never get used to it, she must go back again, she is too black!”

And young Boitelle said to his sweetheart:

“She won’t have it, she says you are too black. You must go back again. I will take you to the station. Never mind, don’t be miserable about it. I will talk to them when you are gone.”

He took her to the station, bidding her hope, and after embracing her, put her into the train, which he watched out of sight, his eyes swollen with tears.

He appealed in vain to his parents, they would never give their consent.

When he had told this story, well known throughout the countryside, Antoine Boitelle always added:

“From that time, I have had no heart for anything, for anything whatever. I took no interest in any trade, and so I became what I am, a scavenger.”

People would say to him: “Yet you have married.”

“Yes, and I can’t say that my wife was objectionable, considering that I have had fourteen children, but she was not the other one, oh, no⁠—certainly not! The other one, you see, my Negress, if she only looked at me, I felt I was in the seventh heaven⁠ ⁠…”

Allouma

I

One of my friends had told me that if, during my travels in Algeria, I happened to be in the neighbourhood of Bordj-Ebbaba, I was to be sure to visit his old friend Auballe, who had settled down there.

These names had passed from my mind, and the settler was far from my thoughts, when by pure chance I came across him.

For a month I had been roaming afoot over that magnificent country which stretches from Algiers to Cherchell, Orleansville and Tiaret, a region both barren and wooded, its scenery both imposing and friendly. Between the mountains dense forests of pines clothe the narrow valleys through which the winter torrents rush. Enormous trees fallen across the ravine serve as bridges for the Arabs, and support a mass of creepers which twine around their dead trunks and deck them anew with life. In the secluded folds of the mountains there are dells awe-inspiring in their beauty, and streamlets whose level banks, covered with rosebay, delight the eye with their inconceivable charm.

But my sweetest memories of the journey are those of my afternoon walks along the shady roads over those undulating hills, from which one overlooks a vast russet-brown expanse of rolling country, stretching from the bluish sea to the mountain range of the Ouarsenis, crowned by the cedar forests of Teniet-el-Haad.

On the day I was speaking of, I had lost my way. I had just surmounted a crest from the top of which I could see, above a line of hills, the extensive plain of the Mitidja, and far in the background, on the summit of another range of mountains, almost invisible in the distance, that strange monument called the Christians’ Tomb, the burying-place, so they say, of a family of Mauritanian kings. I went down the other side, towards the South, while before me, stretching as far as the peaks upreared against the clear sky on the edge of the desert, there appeared a broken rocky country, tawny in colour as if all the hills were covered with lion skins sewn together. Here and there, higher than the rest, rose a yellowish, pointed hummock, like the hairy back of a camel.

I walked rapidly, lighthearted, as one feels when following the intricate windings of a mountain path. Life has no burdens during these vigorous tramps in the keen mountain air; body and soul, thoughts and cares alike, all cease to trouble. That day I was oblivious of all the cares that oppress and torture our lives, oblivious of everything but the joy of that descent. In the distance I discerned Arab encampments, brown pointed tents, clinging to the ground like shellfish to the rocks, or little cabins, mere huts made of branches, from which a grey smoke issued. White forms, men or women, wandered slowly about, and the bells of the herds sounded thinly in the evening air.

The strawberry-trees along my path drooped under their curious load, and spattered the road with their purple fruit. They looked like martyred trees from which a bloody sweat dripped, for at the end of each branch hung a red spot like a drop of blood.

The soil around them was covered with this scarlet rain, and the fruit trodden underfoot left gory stains on the ground. Now and again, springing upwards as I went along, I gathered some of the ripest and ate them.

Now all the valleys were filling with a white mist which rose slowly like the steam from a bull’s flanks, and above the mountains which rose on the horizon, bordering the Sahara, flamed a sunset like an illuminated missal. Long streaks of gold alternating with streaks of bloodred (more blood; the whole story of man is blood and gold!), while here and there, between the streaks, a narrow opening yielded a glimpse of a greenish-blue sky, far off as a dream.

Oh! how far I was from everything and everybody connected with a town-dweller’s life, even far from myself, a kind of wandering being, without consciousness or thought, merely seeing things as I went along and liking what I saw; far also from the road I had planned to follow and which I had forgotten about, for with the approach of night I realised that I was lost.

Darkness fell upon the land like a pall, and I could see nothing in front of me but the mountain looming in the distance. Seeing tents in a valley, I went down to them, and endeavoured to make the first Arab I met understand where I wanted to go. I cannot tell whether he guessed my meaning, but he replied at great length in a tongue of which I understood not a word. In despair, I had made up my mind to spend the night near the camp, wrapped in a rug, when amongst the strange words which came from his mouth, I thought I recognised the name of Bordj-Ebbaba.

“Bordj-Ebbaba?” I repeated, and he replied: “Yes, yes!”

I showed him two francs, a fortune to him, and he started off, I following him. Oh! for a long time in the darkness of the night, I followed this pale phantom who hurried barefooted before me over stony paths on which I continually stumbled.

Suddenly a light appeared. We came to the door of a white house, a kind of small fort, straight-walled and with no windows on the outside. I knocked, and the howling of dogs came from within. A Frenchman’s voice inquired: “Who is there?”

“Does M. Auballe live here?” I replied.

“Yes.”

The door opened, and I was face to face with M. Auballe himself, a tall, fair-haired fellow, down at heel, a pipe in his mouth, looking like a good-natured Hercules.

I introduced myself, and he held out both hands to me, saying: “Make yourself at home, sir.”

A quarter of an hour later I was dining exceedingly well opposite my host, who continued to smoke.

I knew his story. After having wasted a lot of money on women, he had invested all he had left in an Algerian estate, and had planted a vineyard. The vines were doing well; he was happy, and had the serene air of a contented man. I could not understand how this gay Parisian had been able to get used to this monotonous, solitary life, and I questioned him about it.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Nine years.”

“Don’t you get terrible fits of depression?”

“No, one gets reconciled to this country, and then ends by liking it. You would scarcely believe how it grips people by means of a host of trivial animal instincts that we are unconscious of in ourselves. At first we become attached to it by the subtle, inexplicable satisfaction of our senses. The air and the climate conquer our bodies, in spite of ourselves, and the cheerful sunlight which floods the country keeps the mind clear and peaceful without any trouble. Through our eyes it pours into us continuously, and you might truly say that it purges the darkest recesses of the soul.”

“And women?” I asked.

“Ah! one misses them a little.”

“Only a little?”

“My God! Yes⁠—a little. For even amongst the tribes, one always finds accommodating natives who wish to copy European ways.”

He turned to the Arab who was waiting on me, a tall dark fellow with black eyes gleaming under his turban, and said:

“Leave us, Mohammed; I will call you when I want you.”

Then, turning to me, he explained:

“He understands French, and I am going to tell you a story in which he plays a great part.”

On Mohammed’s departure, he began:

“I had been here about four years, still very little at home in this country whose language I was only just beginning to stammer, and compelled from time to time to spend several days in Algiers to avoid breaking right away from the pleasures that had in the past caused my downfall.

“I had bought this farmhouse, a bordj, as they call it, an old fortified guard house, some hundreds of yards from the native encampment whose men I employ in my fields. From this tribe⁠—a branch of the tribe of Ulad Taadja⁠—I had chosen for my personal servant a strapping fellow, Mohammed ben Lam’har, whom you have just seen, and he soon became extremely devoted to me. As he did not like sleeping in a house that he was not accustomed to, he pitched his tent a few steps from the door, so that I could call him from my window.

“My life, well, you can guess it. All day I supervised the clearing and planting, I hunted a little, and dined with the officers of the neighbouring stations, or they came to dine with me.

“As for⁠ ⁠… amusements⁠—you have heard about those. Algiers supplied all the very best; and now and again an accomodating and sympathetic Arab would stop me in the middle of a walk, to suggest that he should bring me home a native woman in the evening. Sometimes I accepted his offer, but more often I refused, thinking of the trouble that might follow.

“One evening in early summer, on returning from a tour of inspection around the fields, I wanted Mohammed, and entered his tent without calling, a thing I often did.

“On a big, red, woollen rug⁠—one of those made by Jebel-Amour⁠—thick and soft as a mattress, a woman was sleeping, a girl in fact, almost nude, with her arms crossed over her eyes. Her white body gleaming in the light admitted through the raised flap, seemed to me to be one of the most perfect specimens I had ever seen. Round here women are very beautiful, tall and uncommonly graceful in form and features.

“Somewhat confused, I dropped the flap of the tent and returned to the house.

“I am very fond of women. That lightning vision had pierced me through and through, kindling again in my blood the old, formidable ardour which had obliged me to leave France. It was a warm evening in July, and I spent nearly the whole night at the window, my eyes fixed on the dark shadow on the ground which was Mohammed’s tent.

“When he came into my room the next day, I looked him full in the face, and he lowered his head like a man who feels ashamed and guilty. Did he guess what I knew?

“I asked him bluntly: ‘So you are married, Mohammed?’

“I saw him blush, and he stammered:

“ ‘No, sir.’

“I made him speak French and as he had given me lessons in Arabic, the result was one of the most incoherent jumbles imaginable.

“ ‘Then why is there a woman under your roof?’ I retorted.

“ ‘She is from the South,’ he murmured.

“ ‘Ah! she is from the South. That does not tell me how she comes to be in your tent.’

“Without answering my question, he continued:

“ ‘She is very pretty.’

“ ‘Yes, indeed! Well, the next time you have a very pretty woman from the South to stay with you, please show her into my cabin and not into yours. Do you understand, Mohammed?’

“He replied very earnestly: ‘Yes, sir.’

“I must confess that during the whole day my feelings were dominated by the memory of that Arab girl lying on the red rug, and on my way back to dinner, I wanted to go into Mohammed’s tent again. In the evening he waited on me as usual, coming and going with impassive face, and I was often on the point of asking whether he was going to keep this very pretty Southern maiden for long under his camel-skin roof.

“About nine o’clock, still haunted by the lure of the female, which is as tenacious as the hunting instinct in dogs, I went out for a breath of air, taking a short walk in the direction of the brown canvas tent, through which I could see the bright flame of a lamp. Then I wandered further away, lest Mohammed should find me near his quarters.

“On returning an hour later, I saw clearly his characteristic profile in silhouette on the tent. Then, taking my key from my pocket, I made my way into the bordj where there slept, as I did, my steward, two French labourers and an old cook brought from Algiers.

“I went upstairs and was surprised to notice a streak of light under my door. I opened it, and saw facing me, seated on a wicker chair beside the table on which a candle was burning, a girl with the face of a statue, quietly waiting for me, and wearing all the silver trinkets which the women of the South wear on legs and arms, on the throat and even on the stomach. Her eyes, dilated by the use of kohl, were looking at me; her forehead, her cheeks and her chin were studded with four little blue marks delicately tattooed on the skin. Her arms, loaded with bangles, rested on her thighs, which were covered by a kind of red silk jibbah which hung from her shoulders.

“Seeing me come in, she stood upright before me, covered with her barbarous jewellery, in an attitude of proud submission.

“ ‘What are you doing here?’ I said to her in Arabic.

“ ‘I am here because I was told to come.’

“ ‘Who told you to come?’

“ ‘Mohammed.’

“ ‘All right. Sit down.’

“She sat down and lowered her eyes, while I stood looking at her.

“She had an unusual face: with regular, refined features with a slightly animal expression, but mystical like that of a Buddha. Her thick lips, coloured with a kind of reddish bloom which was also apparent elsewhere on her skin, pointed to a slight mixture of Negro blood, although her hands and arms were irreproachably white.

“Perplexed, tempted and embarrassed, I felt doubtful as to what I ought to do. In order to gain time, and to give myself an opportunity to consider the problem, I asked further questions about her origin, her arrival in this country and her connection with Mohammed. But she only answered those which least interested me, and I found it impossible to ascertain why or when she had come, with what object, on whose orders, or what had taken place between her and my servant.

“Just as I was going to tell her to return to Mohammed’s tent, she apparently anticipated my words, suddenly drew herself up, and raising her bare arms, while the tinkling bracelets slid in a mass towards her shoulders, she clasped her hands behind my neck and drew me towards her with an air of entreaty and irresistible wilfulness.

“Her eyes, burning with the desire to bewitch, with that need of conquest that imparts a feline fascination to the immodest gaze of a woman, appealed to me, captivated me, robbed me of all power of resistance, and roused me to an impetuous passion. It was a short, silent and violent struggle carried on through the medium of the eyes alone, the eternal struggle between the primitive man and woman, in which man is always conquered.

“Her hands behind my head drew me, with slow, increasing irresistible pressure, towards her smiling red lips, to which I suddenly pressed mine, holding her close to me, while the silver bangles, from her throat to her feet, jingled under the pressure.

“She was as wiry, supple and healthy as an animal, with the tricks and movements, the grace and even the scent of a gazelle, which gave her kisses a rare indescribable flavour, as foreign to my senses as a taste of some tropical fruit.

“After a while⁠ ⁠… I say after a while, it was perhaps as dawn was breaking, I decided to send her away, thinking that she would go just as she had come. I had not yet considered what I would do with her, or what she would do with me. But as soon as she understood my intention, she murmured:

“ ‘If you send me away, where would you have me go? I will have to sleep out of doors, in the dark. Let me sleep on the carpet at the foot of your bed.’

“What could I say? What could I do? I reflected that Mohammed, in his turn, was doubtless watching the lighted window of my room, and all kinds of problems, which had not occurred to me in the embarrassment of the first few moments, now confronted me.

“ ‘Stay here,’ I said; ‘We must talk it over.’

“My decision was made almost immediately. Since this girl had been thrown into my arms, I would keep her as a kind of slave mistress, hidden in my house, like the women of the harems. When she no longer pleased me, it would always be easy to get rid of her somehow, for in Africa these creatures belong to us almost body and soul.

“ ‘I will be kind to you,’ I said, ‘I will treat you well, but I want to know who you are, and where you come from.’

“She understood that she had to tell me something, and related her story to me, or rather a story, for she was probably lying from beginning to end, as Arabs invariably do, with or without a motive.

“The habit of lying is one of the most surprising and incomprehensible features of the native character. These people who are so steeped in Islamism that it forms a part of them, governs their instincts, modifies their racial characteristics and differentiates them from others in mental outlook as much as the colour of the skin differentiates the Negro from the white man, are liars to the backbone, to such an extent that one can never believe what they say. Do they owe it to their religion? I cannot say. One must have lived among them to understand to what a degree falsehood forms a part of their whole existence and becomes a kind of second nature, a necessity of life.

“She told me, then, that she was a daughter of a Caid of Ouled Sidi Cheik and of a woman captured by him in a raid on the Touaregs. This woman must have been a black slave, or at least the offspring of an earlier mixture of Arab and Negro blood. It is well known that Negresses are highly prized in harems, where they play the part of aphrodisiacs.

“Nothing of this origin was evident except in the purplish colour of her lips and the dark flush on her long supple breasts. The rest belonged to the beautiful Southern race, white and slender, her features as simple and regular as the head of an Indian image, a likeness which was enhanced by her wide-set eyes.

“Of her real life I could get no real information. She described it to me in disconnected trifles which seemed to pour haphazard from a confused memory, mingled with delightfully childish remarks. It was like a picture of nomadic life from the brain of a squirrel leaping from tent to tent, from camp to camp and from tribe to tribe.

“All this was narrated with the serious air which this strange race always preserves, with the expression of an idol descending to gossip, and with a rather comical gravity.

“When she had finished, I realized that I had absorbed nothing of her long story, full of trifling incidents stored up in her nimble brain, and I wondered whether she had not been merely playing with me in this meaningless and serious gossip, which left me no wiser than before about her or any event in her life.

“I reflected on this conquered race in the midst of whom we settle, or rather, who settle in the midst of us, whose language we are beginning to speak, whose everyday life we see going on under the flimsy canvas of their tents, on whom we impose our laws, our regulations and our customs, and of whom we know nothing. All this, mark you, goes on as though we were not there, as though we had not been watching little else for nearly sixty years. We no more know what happens under that hut made of branches or under that little cone of cloth anchored to the ground with stakes, than we know what the so-called civilised Arabs in the Moorish houses in Algiers are doing or thinking. Behind the whitewashed walls of their dwellings in the city, behind the leafy screens of their huts or behind the brown curtain of camel skin flapping in the wind, they live on our thresholds unknown, mysterious, sly and untrustworthy, smiling and impenetrable in their submission. Believe me, when I look at the neighbouring encampment from a distance through my field glasses, I find that they have superstitions, ceremonies and innumerable customs still unknown and not even suspected by us! Never, perhaps, has a race conquered by force been able to escape so completely from any effective domination, moral influence or persistent but useless inquiry on the part of their conquerors.

“I suddenly felt, as never before, that secret and impassable barrier which nature has mysteriously erected between the races, raised between me and that Arab girl who had just offered herself to me.

“Thinking of it for the first time, I asked her:

“ ‘What is your name?’

“She had been silent for some minutes, and I saw her start involuntarily as if she had forgotten that I was there. Then I saw in her eyes that the short interval had been sufficient for sleep to claim her, a sudden irresistible slumber, almost overwhelming, like everything that seizes the changing fancies of women.

“She replied dully, stifling a yawn: ‘Allouma.’

“ ‘You want to go to sleep?’ I continued.

“ ‘Yes,’ she replied.

“ ‘Very well, then, sleep,’ I said.

“She quietly stretched herself by my side, lying face down, her forehead resting on her crossed arms, and I felt almost at once that her primitive, fugitive thoughts had vanished in sleep.

“As for me, lying near her, I began to wonder why Mohammed had given her to me. Had he played the part of the generous and self-sacrificing servant who gives up the woman he had taken for himself, or had he acted on an idea more complex and practical in thus giving up to me this girl who had taken my fancy? An Arab, where women are concerned, has the most rigorous standards coupled with the most inexplicable tolerance, and one can understand his stern yet easygoing morality no better than his other feelings. Perhaps in my chance entry into his tent I had forestalled the kindly intentions of this thoughtful servant who had intended for me this woman, his friend, perhaps even his mistress.

“Tormented by all these possibilities, I became so tired that, in my turn, I gradually fell into a deep slumber.

“The creaking of my door aroused me; Mohammed was coming in to wake me as he did every morning. He opened the window, through which poured a flood of daylight, lighting up the figure of Allouma still asleep on the bed; then he gathered up my trousers, waistcoat and jacket from the floor in order to brush them. He did not look at the woman lying by my side, he did not even appear to notice that she was there, and his gravity, his demeanour and his expression were the same as usual. But the light and movement, the slight patter of the man’s bare feet, and the feeling of the fresh air on her skin and in her lungs roused Allouma from her torpor. She stretched her arms, turned over and opened her eyes, looked at me and at Mohammed with the same indifference, and sat up. Then she murmured:

“ ‘I am hungry now.’

“ ‘What will you have to eat?’ I inquired.

“ ‘Kahoua.’33

“ ‘Coffee with bread and butter?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“Mohammed, standing near our bed, my clothes over his arm, waited for orders.

“ ‘Bring something to eat for Allouma and myself,’ I told him, and he went out without the least trace of astonishment or annoyance on his face.

“When he had gone, I asked the young Arab girl:

“ ‘Do you wish to live in my house?’

“ ‘Yes, I am willing.’

“ ‘I will give you a room for yourself, and a woman to wait on you.’

“ ‘You are generous, and I am grateful for it.’

“ ‘But if you do not behave yourself, I will send you away from here.’

“ ‘I will do anything you want of me.’

“She took my hand and kissed it, in token of submission.

“Mohammed returned, bringing a tray with breakfast.

“ ‘Allouma is going to live in the house,’ I told him. ‘Spread some rugs in the room at the end of the passage, and send for the wife of Abd-el-Kaderel-Hadara to come and wait on her.’

“ ‘Yes, sir.’

“That was all he said.

“An hour later, my beautiful Arab girl was installed in a large, well-lighted room; and when I came to see that everything was right, she entreated me to give her a wardrobe with a mirror on the door. I promised and left her squatting on a rug made in Jebel-Amour, a cigarette in her mouth, and gossiping with the old Arab woman whom I had engaged, as if they had known each other all their lives.

II

“For a month I was very happy with her, and in a queer fashion I became attached to this creature of another race, who seemed to me to be almost of another species, born on a neighbouring planet.

“I did not love her; no, one does not love the young women of this primitive continent. Between them and ourselves, even between them and their own menfolk the Arabs, love as we understand it does not exist. They are too primitive, their feelings are insufficiently refined to arouse in our souls that sentimental exaltation which is the poetry of love. There is no mental or moral intoxication blended with the physical intoxication which these charming and worthless creatures stimulate in us.

“Yet they grip us and take possession of us just as other women do, but in a different way, less tenacious, less painful and sorrowful.

“My feelings in that way I cannot yet describe with any accuracy. I told you a little while ago that Africa, this bare artless country, devoid of all intellectual attraction, gradually overcomes us by an indefinable and unfailing charm, by the breath of its atmosphere, by the constant mildness of the early mornings and the evenings, by its delightful sunlight and by the feeling of well-being that it instils in us. Well, Allouma attracted me in the same way by numberless hidden and fascinating enticements, by the keen allurements, not of her caresses, for she was typically Oriental in her nonchalance, but of her charming unconstraint.

“I left her absolutely free to come and go as she pleased, and she passed at least one afternoon out of every two in the neighbouring camp, amongst my native labourers’ womenfolk. Often, too, she would spend a whole day admiring herself in the glazed mahogany wardrobe that I had obtained from Miliana. She admired herself in all conscience, standing before the great glass door in which she followed her movements with deep and serious attention. She would walk with her head thrown back in order to pass judgment on her hips and her back, turn, move away and come back again, until, tired of moving about, she would sit on a hassock and contemplate her reflection face to face, her mind absorbed in this occupation.

“After a little while, I noticed that she went out nearly every day after breakfast, and disappeared completely until the evening.

“Feeling somewhat anxious, I asked Mohammed whether he knew what she might be doing during this lengthy absence.

“ ‘Don’t let it trouble you,’ he replied, unconcernedly, ‘the feast of Ramadan will soon be here. She has to carry out her devotions.’

“He also seemed delighted with the presence of Allouma in the house, but not once did I detect the least sign of anything suspicious between them, nor did they even seem to be in collusion, or to hide anything from me.

“I therefore accepted the situation, though without understanding it, leaving the solution to the workings of time and chance.

“Often, after inspecting my fields, the vines and the clearings, I would go for a long walk. You know the magnificent forests of this part of Algeria, those almost impenetrable ravines where the fallen pine-trees dam the torrents, and those little dells full of rosebay which from the mountain tops look like Oriental carpets spread out along the watercourses. You know that frequently in these woods and on these slopes, where never a soul seems to have penetrated, you may suddenly come across the snow-white dome of a koubla containing the bones of a lonely, humble marabout, visited at infrequent intervals by a few determined followers, who come from the neighbouring village with candles in their pockets to light them on the tomb of the holy man.

“One evening, as I was returning, I passed close to one of these Mohammedan chapels, and glancing through the ever open door, I saw that a woman was praying before the shrine. It made a charming picture, this Arab girl bowed on the floor in the ruinous building, where the wind entered at will and piled up into yellowish heaps in the corners the withered, delicate pine-needles. I approached in order to see better, and recognised Allouma. Absorbed in her devotions, she neither saw nor heard me, and continued to address the saint in a low voice, thinking herself alone with him, and pouring out to God’s servant all her troubles. Sometime she stopped awhile to meditate, to remember what she had still to say, to make sure of forgetting none of her store of confidences; at other times she grew excited as if he had answered her, or as if he had advised her to do something against her will, against which she was arguing.

“I stole away noiselessly, as I had come, and returned to dinner.

“In the evening I sent for her, and as she came in I saw on her face a thoughtful look that was not usually there.

“ ‘Sit down there,’ I said to her, indicating a seat on the couch by my side.

“She sat down, and as I leaned towards her to kiss her, she drew her head back quickly.

“I was astonished, and asked her what was the matter.

“ ‘It is Ramadan,’ she said.

“I began to laugh.

“ ‘And the marabout has forbidden you to allow yourself to be kissed during Ramadan?’

“ ‘Oh, yes! I am an Arab, and you are an infidel.’

“ ‘That would be a great sin?’

“ ‘Oh, yes!’

“ ‘Then you have eaten nothing all day, until sunset?’

“ ‘No, nothing.’

“ ‘But after sunset you had something to eat?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘Well, then, as it is quite dark now, you cannot be less strict on food than on anything else.’

“She looked ruffled and hurt, and retorted with a haughtiness that I had not known in her before:

“ ‘If an Arab girl let herself be touched by an infidel during Ramadan, she would be accursed forever.’

“ ‘And this will last for the whole of the month?’

“She replied with a definite air:

“ ‘Yes, the whole month of Ramadan.’

“I adopted a tone of annoyance, and said to her:

“ ‘Very well, you may go and spend Ramadan with your family.’

“She seized my hands and clasped them to her, crying:

“ ‘Oh! I beg of you, don’t be cruel; you shall see how good I will be. Let us keep Ramadan together, if you will. I will look after you, I will do anything you fancy, but don’t be cruel.’

“I could not help smiling at her quaint air of grief, and sent her away to bed.

“An hour later, as I was going to bed, there were two light taps on my door, so light that I scarcely heard them.

“ ‘Come in,’ I cried, and Allouma entered, carrying a large tray loaded with Arab delicacies, sweet fried croquettes, and a strange collection of native pastry.

“She laughed, showing her fine teeth, and repeated:

“ ‘We are going to keep Ramadan together.’

“You know that the fasting which begins at dawn and ends at dusk, at the moment when the eye cannot distinquish between a white and a black thread, is followed every evening by private little feasts in which eating goes on until dawn. It follows that for a native not overburdened by his conscience, Ramadan merely consists in transposing day and night. Allouma, however, was more conscientious about it. She placed her tray between us on the couch, and taking in her long slender fingers a little powdered ball, she put it in my mouth, murmuring:

“ ‘Eat this, it is good.’

“I munched the light cake, which was indeed excellent, and asked her:

“ ‘Did you make that?’

“ ‘Yes, I did.’

“ ‘For me?’

“ ‘Yes, for you.’

“ ‘To enable me to tolerate Ramadan?’

“ ‘Yes, don’t be unkind! I will bring you some every day.’

“What a terrible month I spent there! a sugary, insipid, maddening month, full of little indulgences, temptations, fits of anger and vain struggles against an invincible resistance.

“Then, when the three days of Beiram arrived, I celebrated them in my own way, and Ramadan was forgotten.

“A very hot summer passed, and towards the early days of Autumn, Allouma seemed to be preoccupied and abstracted and took no interest in anything.

“One evening, when I sent for her, she was not in her room, and thinking that she was somewhere about the house, I sent someone to look for her. She had not come back, so I opened the window and called for Mohammed.

“His answer came from within the tent:

“ ‘Yes, sir?’

“ ‘Do you know where Allouma is?’

“ ‘No, sir. She is not lost, is she?’

“A few seconds later, he entered my room, so agitated that he could not suppress his anxiety.

“ ‘Allouma lost?’ he asked.

“ ‘Yes, she has disappeared.’

“ ‘Surely not.’

“ ‘Go and look for her,’ I told him.

“He remained standing there, lost in thought and trying to grasp the situation. Then he entered Allouma’s room, where her clothes were scattered in truly Oriental disorder. He examined everything like a policeman, or rather he snuffed around like a dog, and then, incapable of further effort, he murmured with an air of resignation:

“ ‘Gone! she is gone!’

“For my part, I feared some accident, a fall down a ravine, a sprained joint, and I sent out all the men in the camp with orders to search until they had found her.

“They searched for her all night, the whole of the next day and for a week, but could discover no clue that would put us on the right track. I suffered badly, for I missed her; the house seemed empty and life seemed a desert. Then disturbing thoughts began to pass through my mind: I thought that she might have been kidnapped, or even killed. But every time I attempted to question Mohammed or to tell him my fears, he replied steadfastly:

“ ‘No, she has gone away.’

“Then he added the Arab word r’ezale, meaning a gazelle, as if to say that she ran quickly and was far away.

“Three weeks passed, and I had given up hope of ever seeing my Arab mistress again, when one morning Mohammed, his face beaming with joy, came into my room and said:

“ ‘Allouma has returned, sir!’

“I jumped out of bed and asked him where she was.

“ ‘She does not dare to come in! Look, under the tree over there!’

“And with outstretched arm he pointed through the window to a whitish shadow at the foot of an olive-tree.

“I got up and went out. As I approached that bundle of cloth which seemed to have been thrown against the twisted trunk, I recognised the large dark eyes and the tattooed stars on the long well-formed face of the native girl who had bewitched me. As I advanced, I was seized by a fit of anger, a longing to strike her, to make her suffer in revenge. I called to her from a distance:

“ ‘Where have you been?’

“She did not reply, and remained motionless, as if she scarcely lived, resigned to the expected blows.

“I was now standing right above her, gazing with astonishment at the rags she wore, tatters of silk and wool, grey with dust, and torn and filthy.

“With my hand raised as if to a dog, I repeated:

“ ‘Where have you been?’

“ ‘From over there,’ she murmured.

“ ‘From where?’

“ ‘From the tribe.’

“ ‘From what tribe?’

“ ‘From my own.’

“ ‘Why did you go away?’

“Seeing that I was not going to strike her, she plucked up a little courage, and said in a low voice:

“ ‘I wanted⁠ ⁠… I wanted⁠ ⁠… I could not live in the house any longer.’

“I saw tears in her eyes, and I immediately felt a foolish sort of pity. I stooped towards her, and on turning round to sit down I perceived Mohammed watching in the distance.

“Very gently I continued:

“ ‘Come, will you tell me why you went away?’

“Then she told me that she had for a long time felt in her heart the nomad’s irresistible desire to get back to a tent, to sleep, run and roll on the sand, to wander from plain to plain with the herds, to feel nothing over her head, or between the yellow stars of heaven and the blue stars on her face, but the thin curtain of worn and patched cloth through which one can see, awakening in the night, the gleam of countless spots of light.

“She pictured this to me so simply, so forcibly and so reasonably that I was convinced of the truth of it, and feeling sorry for her, I asked:

“ ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to go away for a while?’

“ ‘Because you would not have liked⁠ ⁠…’

“ ‘If you had promised to come back, I would have given you permission.’

“ ‘You would not have believed me.’

“Seeing that I was not angry, she laughed, and added:

“ ‘You see, it is all over. I have come back and here I am. I had to spend a few days over there. Now I have had enough: it is all over and done with. I have come back and I am no longer unhappy. I am very pleased. You are not cruel to me.’

“ ‘Come to the house,’ I said to her.

“She stood up, and I took her hand, held her slender fingers; and triumphant in her rags, with a jingling of bracelets, necklaces and ornaments, she walked solemnly towards my house, where Mohammed was waiting for us.

“Before going in, I repeated:

“ ‘Allouma, if at any time you want to go home, tell me so and I will let you go.’

“ ‘You promise?’ she asked cautiously.

“ ‘Yes, I promise.’

“ ‘I promise also. When I feel homesick,’ and she placed her hands on her forehead with a magnificent gesture, ‘I will tell you that I must go yonder, and you will let me go.’

“I accompanied her to her room, followed by Mohammed bringing water, for we had not yet been able to warn the wife of Abd-el-Kader-el-Hadara of the return of her mistress.

“She entered, perceived the mirror, and with joy in her face ran towards it as if to welcome a long-lost mother. She looked at herself for a few seconds, then pouted and said to the mirror, with a shade of annoyance:

“ ‘Wait a minute, I have silk dresses in the wardrobe. I will be beautiful very soon.’

“I left her to flirt with her reflection in the glass.

“Our life together went on as before, and I fell more and more under the strange spell, the physical allurement of this girl, for whom at the same time I felt a kind of paternal superiority.

“All went well for six months, and then I felt that she was again becoming nervous, restless and rather sad. One day I said to her:

“ ‘Do you want to go home?’

“ ‘Yes, I should like to.’

“ ‘You did not dare to tell me?’

“ ‘No, I did not dare.’

“ ‘Very well, then: you may go.’

“She seized my hands and kissed them as she did in all her outbursts of gratitude, and the next day she had disappeared.

“As before, she returned after about three weeks, again in tatters, black with dust and sunburn, and satiated with the nomad’s life, with sand and with freedom. During two years she went home in that way four times.

“I used to take her back cheerfully and without jealousy, for I felt that jealousy could not exist without love as we understand love in our own country. Certainly, I might very well have killed her if I had caught her deceiving me, but it would have been rather as I would have thrashed a disobedient dog, from pure anger. I would not have felt that torture, that consuming fire, that terrible suffering that constitute jealousy in the North. I said just now that I might have killed her as I would have thrashed a disobedient dog. I loved her, in fact, rather as one might love a very rare animal, a dog or a horse that one could not replace. She was a wonderful, a delightful animal, but no more, in the form of a woman.

“I can hardly describe what a gulf separated our souls, although no doubt our hearts came into contact at times and responded to the touch. She was a pleasant object in my house and in my life, one to which I had become accustomed and which appealed only to my physical senses.

“One morning Mohammed came into my room with a strange expression on his face, an anxious look, sometimes seen in an Arab’s eyes, which suggests a cat, apprehensive and ready to run, when faced by a dog.

“Seeing his face, I asked:

“ ‘Hullo! what is the matter?’

“ ‘Allouma has gone away.’

“I began to laugh.

“ ‘Gone? where to?’

“ ‘Gone right away, sir.’

“ ‘What, gone right away?’

“ ‘Yes, sir.’

“ ‘You must be mad, my lad!’

“ ‘No, sir.’

“ ‘Why has she gone away? How? Come, explain yourself!’

“He stood still, unwilling to speak; and then, all of a sudden, he gave vent to one of those typical outbursts of rage which occasionally confront us in the streets between two fanatical Arabs, in which Oriental silence and gravity give place to the wildest gestures and the most ferocious threats.

“Then in the midst of his ravings I gathered that Allouma had fled with my shepherd.

“I had to calm Mohammed and drag from him, one by one, the full details.

“It was a long story. I understood at last that for a week he had been keeping watch on Allouma, who had been meeting, behind the nearby clumps of cactus or in the ravine where the rosebay grew, a tramp who had been engaged as a shepherd by my superintendent about the end of the month before.

“Mohammed had seen her go out the night before, and he had not seen her come back, and he repeated, with an incensed air:

“ ‘Gone, sir: she has gone for good.’

“I cannot tell why, but his conviction that she had eloped with this vagabond instantly came home to me also, absolutely and irresistibly. It seemed absurd and improbable, yet all the more certain when one considered the irrational logic typical of women.

“With aching heart, and fuming with rage, I strove to recall this man’s features, and I suddenly recollected seeing him, a week or two before, standing on a hillock in the midst of his flock and looking at me. He was a big Bedouin whose bare limbs matched the colour of his rags, a typical savage brute with prominent cheekbones, a crooked nose, a receding chin and thin legs, like a tall skeleton clothed in tatters, with the treacherous eyes of a jackal.

“I was quite certain that she had fled with this scoundrel. Why? Because she was Allouma, a child of the desert. Another girl in Paris, a streetwalker, would have run away with my coachman or with a frequenter of the slums.

“ ‘It is all right,’ I said to Mohammed. ‘If she has gone, so much the worse for her. Leave me alone; I have some letters to write.’

“He went away, surprised at my calm. I got up and opened the window, and began to draw in deep breaths of the stifling air which the sirocco was bringing from the South. Then I thought to myself:

“ ‘Good heavens, she is a⁠ ⁠… woman, like many others. Can anyone tell why they do these things, what makes them love and follow a man, or leave him?’

“Yes, occasionally we know: generally we do not. At times, we are doubtful.

“Why had she disappeared with that repulsive brute? Why, indeed? It may have been because for practically a whole month the wind had been blowing from the South.

“A breath of wind! That was reason enough! Did she know, do any of them, even the most introspective of them, know in most cases why they do certain things? No more than a weathercock swinging in the wind. The slightest breeze sways the light vane of copper, iron or wood, in the same way that some imperceptible influence, some fleeting impression, stirs and guides the fickle fancy of a woman, whether she be from town or country, from a suburb or from the desert.

“They may realise, afterwards, if they consider it and understand, why they have done one thing rather than another; but, at the time, they have no idea, for they are the playthings of their susceptibilities, the featherbrained slaves of events and environment, of chance and caprice, and of all their lightest whims.”

M. Auballe had risen to his feet. He took a few steps, looked at me and laughingly said:

“There you have a desert love affair!”

“What if she comes back?” I inquired.

“The wicked girl!” he murmured. “Yet I should be very glad all the same.”

“And you would forgive the shepherd?”

“Good heavens, yes. Where women are concerned, one must either forgive⁠ ⁠… or ignore.”

The Rendezvous

She had on her hat and coat with a black veil down to her nose and another in her pocket to put over the first as soon as she got into the offensive four-wheeler. She was tapping her boot with the point of her umbrella and remained seated in her room, uncertain whether to keep the appointment.

And yet how many times within the last two years had she got ready to join her lover, the handsome Viscount de Martelet, in his chambers, when she knew that her husband⁠—a society stockbroker⁠—would be at the Exchange!

The clock behind her loudly ticked out the seconds; a half-read book gaped open on the little rosewood writing-table between the windows, and a strong scent of violets from two small bunches floating in a couple of tiny Dresden vases on the mantelpiece, mingled with a faint odour of verbena wafted through the half-open door of the dressing-room.

The sound of the clock striking three made her jump up. She turned to look at the time, then smiled, thinking: “He is waiting for me, he will be getting angry.” Then she left the room, told the footman that she would be back in an hour at the least⁠—a lie⁠—went downstairs, and set out on foot.

It was the end of May, that delightful season when spring, on its way from the country, lays siege to Paris, seeming to carry all before it, bursting through brick walls into the home, making the city blossom forth, shedding gaiety over its buildings, over the asphalt of its pavements and the stones of its streets, drenching it in merriment, and making it drunk with vigour like a forest bursting forth into leaf.

Madame Haggar took a few steps to the right, intending, as usual, to go along the Rue de Provence where she could hail a four-wheeler, but the delightful feeling of summer suddenly took possession of her, and changing her mind, she turned down the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, not knowing why, but vaguely attracted by a wish to see the trees in the square de la Trinité.

“He can just wait ten minutes longer,” she said to herself. The idea of keeping him waiting pleased her and as she walked through the crowd she fancied she saw him getting impatient, looking at the clock, opening the window, listening at the door, sitting down and getting up again, not daring to smoke⁠—as she had forbidden smoking on the days they met⁠—and casting desperate glances at his box of cigarettes.

She walked along slowly, her mind adrift among the many things around her⁠—the people, the shops⁠—and she slackened her pace more and more; so little did she care about reaching the flat that she used every shop window as an excuse for loitering.

At the end of the street, in front of the church, the green of the small square attracted her and she crossed the Place and went into the garden⁠—the children’s playground⁠—and strolled twice round the narrow patch of grass, mingling with the nurses, gorgeous in their bright-coloured cloaks and caps trimmed with ribbons and flowers. Then she took a chair, sat down, and raising her eyes to the clock that looked like a moon in the steeple, she watched the hands move round.

The half-hour struck, and her heart beat with pleasure when she heard the chimes. She had already stolen thirty minutes, it would take another fifteen to reach the Rue Miromesnil, those and a few more minutes in which to loiter about would make an hour! One whole hour stolen from the rendezvous! She would stay barely forty minutes, and again the whole thing would be over.

Goodness! how it bored her to go! Going to the dentist’s was bad enough! She suffered from the intolerable memory of these appointments⁠—on an average, one a week for the last two years⁠—and the thought that there would be another one presently filled her with anguish. Not that it was as painful as a visit to the dentist’s, but it was such a bore, so complicated, so long, so unpleasant, that anything, anything, even an operation, seemed preferable. Nevertheless she went on very slowly, stopping, sitting down, hanging about, but she went all the same. Oh! how she would have liked to miss the appointment, but she had played that trick on the poor Viscount twice running last month, and she dared not do it again so soon. Why did she go back? Ah! why? Because it had become a habit and she had no good reason to give poor Martelet when he wanted to know the why! Why had she started the affair? Why? She no longer knew! Had she been in love with him? Possibly! Not very much, just a little, ever so long ago! He was very nice, fastidious, distinguished, gallant, and you could see at the very first glance that he was the perfect lover for a woman of the world.

The courtship had lasted three months⁠—the normal period which includes an honourable struggle and just sufficient resistance⁠—then she had consented, but with what flutterings, what timidity, what awful yet exquisite shrinkings at that first meeting, followed by all the others, in the little bachelor flat in the Rue Miromesnil. Her heart? What did she feel when, tempted, vanquished, conquered, she entered the door of that house of nightmares for the first time? She really did not know! She had forgotten! An act, a date, a thing, may be remembered, but it is rare to remember a fleeting emotion two years afterwards, it is too fragile for memory. Oh! for instance, she had not forgotten the others, the rosary of meetings, the stations of the cross of love, those stations that were so fatiguing, so monotonous, so alike, that she was filled with nausea at the thought of what was going to happen presently.

Goodness! think of all the four-wheelers that had been hired to go there, they were not like ordinary four-wheelers. Certainly, the drivers guessed the truth. She felt that by the way they looked at her, and the eyes of the Parisian cabman are terrible eyes! When you remember that in court they always recognise criminals whom they have only driven once in the dead of night, from some street to the station, years before, and that they have about as many fares as there are hours in a day, that their memory is so good that they say at once: “This is the man I picked up in the Rue des Martyrs and put down at the Lyons station at 12:45 a.m. on July 10th last year!” it is enough to make you shiver with apprehension when you are risking all a woman risks in going to a rendezvous, placing her reputation in the keeping of the first cabman she meets! The last two years she had engaged at least a hundred or a hundred and twenty for the journey to the Rue Miromesnil, counting one a week. These were all witnesses who might appear against her at a critical moment.

As soon as she was in the cab she drew the other veil⁠—as thick and as black as a mask⁠—from her pocket and fastened it over her eyes. It hid her face, true enough, but what about the rest, her dress, hat, parasol, would they not be noticed, had they not been seen already! Oh! what torture she endured in the Rue Miromesnil! She thought she recognised all the passersby, all the servants, everybody. Almost before the cab stopped she jumped out and ran past the porter who was always standing outside his lodge. He was a man who must know everything, everything⁠—her address, her name, her husband’s profession, everything, for janitors are the most artful of all the police. For two years she had wanted to bribe him, to throw him a hundred-franc note as she passed. She had never dared to throw the piece of paper at him! She was afraid. Of what?⁠—she did not know! Of being called back if he did not understand? Of a scandal? Perhaps of being arrested? The Viscount’s flat was only halfway up the first flight of stairs but it seemed as high up as the top of the Tower of St. Jacques to her. As soon as she reached the entrance of the building she felt she was caught in a trap and the slightest noise in front or behind made her feel faint. She could not go back again with the janitor and the road blocking her retreat, and if anyone was coming downstairs she dared not ring Martelet’s bell but passed the door as if she were going somewhere else. She went up, up, up! She would have climbed up forty stories! Then when all seemed quiet she would run down terrified lest she should make a mistake in the flat!

He was there, waiting, dressed in a velvet suit lined with silk, very smart but rather ridiculous, and for two years he had never varied the way he received her, never made the slightest change, not in a single gesture!

As soon as he had shut the door he would say: “Allow me to kiss your hands, my dear, dear friend!” Then he followed her into the room where the shutters were closed and lights lit both winter and summer because this was the fashion, and knelt down gazing at her from head to foot with an air of adoration. The first time it had been very nice, very successful! Now she felt that she was looking at M. Delaunay playing the fifth act of a popular piece for the hundred-and-twentieth time. He really ought to make some change.

And then after, oh! God! after! that was the worst to bear! No, he never made any change, poor chap! A good chap, but so ordinary!⁠ ⁠…

How difficult it was to undress without a maid! For once it did not matter much, but repeated every week it became a nuisance! No, indeed, a man should not exact such a task from a woman! But if it was difficult to undress, to dress again was almost an impossibility, your nerves made you want to shriek, and you felt so exasperated that you could have boxed the young man’s ears when he said, walking awkwardly around: “Shall I help you?”⁠—Help her! Yes, indeed, how? What could he do? You only had to see him hold a pin to know he was no use.

That was probably the moment she had begun to take a dislike to him. When he said: “Shall I help you?” she could have killed him. Besides, a woman must end by hating a man who for two years has forced her to put on her clothes a hundred and twenty times without a maid.

It is true that not many men were as awkward as he was, so clumsy, so monotonous.

Baron de Grimbal would never have said in such a silly way: “Shall I help you?” He would have helped, he was so lively, so amusing, so witty. Well! He was a diplomatist; he had travelled in every country, wandered about all over, he had certainly dressed and undressed women clad according to every fashion in the world, he must have done so!⁠ ⁠…

The church clock chimed the three-quarters. She drew herself up, looked at the time and began to laugh, saying to herself: “How excited he must be!” Then she left the Square, walking briskly, but had only just reached the Place outside when she met a man who bowed and raised his hat.

“Dear me, you, Baron?” she said, surprised, for she had just been thinking about him.

“Yes, Madame.”

He asked how she was, then after a few vague remarks, said:

“Do you know you are the only one⁠—you will allow me to say, of my lady friends, won’t you?⁠—who has not yet been to see my Japanese collection?”

“But, my dear Baron, a woman cannot visit a bachelor?”

“What! What! That’s quite wrong when it is a question of going to see a collection of rare curios!”

“At all events, she cannot go alone.”

“And why not? I have had any number of lady visitors alone, just to see my collection. They come every day. Shall I tell you their names?⁠—no, I won’t do that. One must be discreet even when quite innocent. In principle there is nothing wrong in going to see a man who is a gentleman, well known, and of good birth, unless one goes for some doubtful reason.

“On the whole, you are right.”

“Then you will come to see my collection.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Impossible, I am in a hurry.”

“Nonsense. You have been sitting in the Square this last half-hour.”

“You were watching me?”

“I was looking at you.”

“Really, I am in a hurry.”

“I am sure you’re not. Admit that you’re not.”

Madame Haggar began to laugh, saying: “No⁠ ⁠… no⁠ ⁠… not in a great⁠ ⁠…”

A cab passed close by which the Baron stopped and opening the door, said: “Get in, Madame.”

“But, Baron, it’s impossible, I can’t come today.”

“You are very imprudent, Madame. Do get in! People are beginning to stare at us, soon there will be a crowd: they will think I am running away with you and we shall both be arrested: do get in, I beg you!”

She got in, scared and dazed. Then he sat beside her and said to the cabman: “Rue de Provence.”

Suddenly she exclaimed: “Oh! dear, dear. I have forgotten an urgent telegram, will you take me to the nearest post office first?”

The cab stopped a little further on in the Rue de Châteaudun, and she said to the Baron: “Do get me a fifty-centimes telegraph-card.34 I promised my husband I would invite Martelet to dinner tomorrow, and had quite forgotten about it.”

When the Baron came back with the blue card, she wrote in pencil:

“Dear Friend,

“I am not well. A bad attack of neuralgia is keeping me in bed. Impossible to go out. Come and dine tomorrow evening so that I may be forgiven.

“Jeanne.”

She moistened the gum, closed the telegram-card carefully and addressed it: “Viscount de Martelet 240, Rue Miromesnil,” then returning the card to the Baron, said:

“Now, will you be good enough to drop this in the special box for telegrams?”

In Port

I

Having left Havre on May 3, 1882, for a voyage in Chinese waters, the three-masted sailing-ship Notre-Dame-des-Vents reentered Marseilles harbour on August 8, 1886, after a four years’ voyage. She had discharged her original cargo in the Chinese port to which she had been chartered, and had there and then picked up a new freight for Buenos Aires, and from thence had shipped cargo for Brazil.

Various other voyages, not to speak of damages, repairs, several months spent becalmed, storms that blew her out of her course, and all the accidents, adventures and misadventures of the sea, had detained far from her land this three-masted Norman boat now returned to Marseilles with a hold full of tin boxes containing American preserved foods.

At the beginning of the voyage she had on board, besides the captain and the mate, fourteen sailors, eight Normans and six Bretons. At the end only five Bretons and four Normans remained; the Breton had died at sea; the four Normans, who had disappeared in various circumstances, had been replaced by two Americans, a nigger and a Norwegian shanghaied one evening in a Singapore den.

The great ship, sails furled, yards forming a cross with mast stem, drawn by a Marseilles tug that panted along before her, rolled in a slight swell that died gently away in the calm waters behind her; she passed in front of the Château d’If, then under all the grey rocks of the roadstead over which the setting sun flung a reek of gold, and entered the old harbour where, ship lying by ship alongside the quays, were gathered ships from all corners of the globe, huddled together, large and small, of all shapes and riggings, like a fish-soup of boats in this too confined basin, full of foul water, where the hulls grazed and rubbed against each other, for all the world as if they were pickled in saltwater liquor.

Notre-Dame-des-Vents took her place between an Italian brig and an English schooner which drew apart to make way for their comrade; then, when all the formalities of customs and harbour had been complied with, the captain gave two-thirds of his crew shore leave for the evening.

It was already night. The lights of Marseilles were lit. In the warmth of the summer evening, an odour of garlic-flavoured cooking hung over the noisy city, alive with the sound of voices, rumblings, clatterings, all the gaiety of the South.

As soon as they felt land under them, the ten men who had been tossed for months on the sea, began to walk very carefully, with hesitant steps like creatures strayed out of their element, unaccustomed to cities, two by two in a procession.

They rolled along, taking their bearings, following the scent down the by-streets that opened on to the harbour, their blood on fire with a hunger for love that had grown stronger and stronger in their bodies throughout their last sixty-six days at sea. The Normans marched ahead, led by Célestin Duclos, a tall shrewd sturdy young fellow, who captained the others whenever they set foot on shore. He found out the best places, devised ways and means to his liking, and refrained from risking himself too readily in the brawls so common between sailors on shore. But when he did get involved in one, he was absolutely fearless.

After hesitating some little time between the obscure streets that ran down to the sea like sewers, from which rose a heavy smell, as it were the very breath of hovels, Célestin decided on a sort of winding passage where lighted lamps, bearing enormous numbers on their frosted coloured glass, were hung out above the doors. Under the narrow arch of the doorways, women in aprons, looking like servant-girls, and seated on rush-bottomed chairs, got up at their approach, made three steps to the edge of the stream that ran down the middle of the street and stood right across the path of the line of men that advanced slowly, singing and chuckling, excited already by the neighbourhood of these prostitutes’ cells.

Sometimes in the depths of a lobby a second door padded with brown leather opened abruptly and behind it appeared a stout half-naked woman, whose heavy thighs and plump arms were sharply outlined under a coarse tight-fitting shift of white cotton. Her short petticoat looked like a hooped girdle, and the soft flesh of her bosom, arms and shoulders made a rosy patch against a bodice of black velvet edged with gold lace. She called to them from far off: “Are you coming in, dearies?” and sometimes came out herself to clutch one of them, pulling him towards her doorway with all her might, clinging to him like a spider dragging in a body bigger than itself. The man, excited by her touch, resisted feebly, and the others halted to watch him, hesitating between their desire to go in without further delay and their desire to make this appetising stroll last a little longer. Then, when after the most exhausting effort the woman had dragged the sailor to the threshold of her abode, into which the whole company were about to plunge after him Célestin Duclos, who was a judge of such houses, would suddenly cry: “Don’t go in there, Marchand, it’s not the right one.”

Whereupon, obedient to this command, the man disengaged himself with brutal violence, and the friends fell again into line, pursued by the obscene abuse of the exasperated women while other women, all the way down the passage ahead of them, came out of their doors, attracted by the noise, and poured out hoarse-voiced enticing appeals. They went on their way, growing more and more excited, between the cajoling cries and seductive charms offered by the chorus of love’s doorkeepers down the length of the street before them, and the vile curses flung after them by the chorus behind, the despised chorus of disappointed women. Now and then they met other companies of men, soldiers marching along with swords clattering against their legs, more sailors, a solitary citizen or so, a few shop assistants. Everywhere opened other narrow streets, starred with evil beacon-lights. They walked steadily through this labyrinth of hovels on the greasy cobbled streets, oozing streams of foul water, between houses full of women’s flesh.

At last Duclos made up his mind and, halting in front of a fairly decent-looking house, marshalled his company into it.

II

The entertainment lacked nothing! For four hours the ten sailors took their fill of love and wine. Six months’ pay vanished on it.

They were installed, lords of all they surveyed, in the big saloon, regarding with unfriendly eyes the ordinary clients who installed themselves at little tables in corners, where one of the women who were still disengaged, dressed like overgrown babies or music-hall singers, ran to attend on them, and then sat down beside them.

Each man had on arrival selected his companion whom he retained throughout the evening, for the lower orders are not promiscuous. Three tables had been dragged together, and after the first round of drinks, the procession, fallen into two ranks and increased by as many women as there were sailors, reformed on the staircase. The noise made by the four feet of each couple was heard for some time on the wooden steps, while this long file of lovers plunged through the narrow door that led to the bedrooms.

Then they came down again for more drinks; went up again, came down again.

Now, very nearly drunk, they began to bawl. Each man, with reddened eyes, his fancy on his knee, sang or shouted, hammering on the table with doubled fists, rolled the wine round his throat, giving full play to the beast in man. In the midst of them, Célestin Duclos, holding tight a tall red-cheeked wench, seated astride on his knee, regarded her ardently. Not so drunk as the others⁠—not that he had drunk any less⁠—he could still think of more than the one thing, and more human than the rest, he tried to talk to her. His thoughts were a little elusive, slipping from his grasp, returning and disappearing before he could remember just what he had wanted to say.

He laughed, repeating:

“Then, then⁠ ⁠… you’ve been here a long time.”

“Six months,” replied the girl.

He appeared pleased with her, as if that were a proof of good conduct, and went on:

“Do you like this life?”

She hesitated, then spoke resignedly:

“One gets through with it. It’s no worse than anything else. Being a servant or walking the streets, they’re both dirty jobs.”

He seemed to approve this truth too.

“You’re not from these parts?” said he.

She shook her head without speaking.

“Do you come from far?”

She nodded, still silent.

“Where from?”

She seemed to search her mind, trying to collect her memories, then she murmured:

“From Perpignan.”

Again he showed great satisfaction, and said:

“Oh, yes.”

In her turn she asked him:

“You’re a sailor, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my sweet.”

“Have you come a long way?”

“Oh, yes! I’ve seen countries, ports, and all that.”

“Isuppose you sailed round the world?”

“I dare say, more like twice than once.”

Again she seemed to hesitate, searching in her mind for something forgotten, then, in a rather altered, grave voice, she said:

“You have come across a good many ships in your voyages?”

“I have that, my sweet.”

“Perhaps you’ve even come across Notre-Dame-des-Vents?”

He chuckled.

“No later than a week ago.”

She turned pale, all the blood ebbing from her cheeks, and asked:

“Is that true, really true?”

“As true as I’m telling you.”

“You’re not telling me a lie?”

He lifted his hand.

“God’s truth I’m not,” said he.

“Then do you know whether Célestin Duclos is still with her?”

He was surprised, uneasy, and wanted to know more before replying.

“Do you know him?”

She became suspicious too.

“No, not me, it’s some woman who knows him.”

“One of the women here?”

“No, outside.”

“In the street?”

“No, another.”

“What woman?”

“Oh, just a woman, a woman like me.”

“What’s this woman want with him?”

“How should I know, what d’you think?”

They stared into each other’s eyes, trying to read the thoughts behind, guessing that something serious was going to come of this.

He went on:

“Can I see this woman?”

“What would you say to her?”

“I’d say⁠ ⁠… I’d say⁠ ⁠… that I have seen Célestin Duclos.”

“Is he all right?”

“As right as you or me, he’s a lad.”

She was silent again, collecting her thoughts, then, very slowly, asked:

“Where was she bound for, the Notre-Dame-des-Vents?”

“Well, to Marseilles.”

She could not repress a start.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Do you know Duclos?”

“Yes. I know him.”

She hesitated again, then said softly:

“Good. That’s a good thing.”

“What d’you want with him?”

“Listen, you can tell him⁠ ⁠… nothing!”

He continued to stare at her, more and more uneasy. He must know the whole now.

“Do you know him then?”

“No,” said she.

“Then what d’you want with him?”

She came to a sudden decision, got up, ran to the bar where the proprietress sat enthroned, seized a lemon, cut it open, pouring the juice into a glass, then filled up the glass with plain water and, bringing it to him, said:

“Drink this.”

“Why?”

“To sober you up. After that I’ll talk to you.”

He drank obediently, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and declared:

“That’s all right, I’m listening to you.”

“You must promise me not to tell him that you have seen me, nor who told you what I am just going to tell you. Swear it.”

He lifted his hand, with a knowing air.

“I swear it.”

“On the good God himself?”

“Yes, on the good God.”

“Well, you’re to tell him that his father is dead, that his mother is dead, that his brother is dead, all the three of them in the same month, of typhoid fever, in January, 1883, three and a half years ago.”

And now it was he who felt the blood rush through his body, and for some moments he sat there, so overcome that he could find nothing to say in reply; then he began to have doubts and asked:

“Are you sure?”

“I’m quite sure.”

“Who told it to you?”

She put her hands on his shoulders and, peering into his eyes, said:

“You swear you won’t give me away?”

“I swear it.”

“I’m his sister.”

Her name broke involuntarily from his mouth:

“Françoise?”

She regarded him again fixedly, then, overwhelmed by a crazy fear, by a profound feeling of horror, murmured under her breath, against his mouth:

“Oh, oh, is it you, Célestin?”

They sat rigid, eyes staring into eyes.

Round them, the sailors went on shouting. The noise of glasses, fists, and heels beating in tune to the choruses, and the shrill cries of the women, mingled with the uproarious songs.

He felt her against him, held close to him, warm and terrified, his sister! Then, in a mere whisper, afraid lest someone overhear him, so low that she herself could hardly hear:

“My God, I’ve done a fine thing!”

Her eyes filled with tears in an instant, and she stammered:

“It’s not my fault, is it?”

But he said abruptly:

“So they’re dead?”

“Yes, they’re dead.”

“Dad, and mother, and my brother?”

“All three in the same month, as I’ve just told you. I was left alone, with nothing but what I stood up in, seeing that I owed money to the chemist and the doctor and for burying the three bodies, which I paid off with the furniture.

“After that I went as servant to old Cacheux, you know him, the cripple. I was just exactly fifteen then, seeing that you went away when I was not quite fourteen. I got into trouble with him. You’re a fool when you’re young. Then I went as housemaid to a solicitor; he seduced me too and set me up in a room in Havre. It wasn’t long before he stopped coming; I spent three days without food and then, since I couldn’t get any work, I went into a house, like many another. I’ve seen the world too, I have, and a dirty world at that! Rouen, Evreux, Lille, Bordeaux, Perpignan, Nice, and now here I am at Marseilles!”

Tears poured out of her eyes and her nose, wetting her cheeks, and ran down into her mouth.

She went on:

“I thought you were dead too, my poor Célestin.”

He said:

“I would never have known you again, you were so little then, and now you’re so big, but how was it you didn’t recognise me?”

She made a despairing gesture.

“I see so many men that they all look alike to me.”

He was still staring into her eyes in the grip of a confused emotion, an emotion so overwhelming that he wanted to cry like a beaten child. He still held her in his arms, sitting astride his legs, his hands spread out on the girl’s back, and now by dint of staring at her, he recognised her at last, the little sister left in the country with the three she had watched die while he tossed at sea.

All at once he took her newfound face in his great sailor’s paws and began to embrace her as a man embraces his flesh and blood. Then sobs, a man’s terrible sobs, long-drawn surging cries, rose in his throat like the hiccups of a drunken man.

He stammered:

“To see you, to see you again, Françoise, my little Françoise.⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly he leaped to his feet and began to swear in a dreadful voice, bringing his fist down on the table with such violence that the overturned glasses broke to atoms. Then he took three steps, staggered, flung out his arms and fell face downwards. He rolled on the floor, shouting, beating the ground with arms and legs, and uttering such groans that they were like the death-rattle of a man in agony.

All the sailors looked at him and laughed.

“He isn’t half drunk,” said one.

“Put him to bed,” said another; “if he goes out they’ll stick him in jail.”

Then, as he had money in his pockets, the proprietress offered a bed, and the other sailors, themselves so drunk that they couldn’t stand, hoisted him up the narrow staircase to the bedroom of the woman who had lately received him, and who remained sitting on a chair, at the foot of that guilty couch, weeping over him, until morning.

The Mask

There was a fancy-dress ball that evening at the Élysée-Montmartre. It was to celebrate Mid-Lent, and the crowd was pouring, like the water rushing over a weir, down the illuminated corridor that led to the dance room. The overpowering clamour of the orchestra, crashing like a storm of music, split walls and roof, spread abroad through the neighbourhood, and roused in the streets, and even in the nearby houses, the irresistible desire to leap, to be warm and amused, that slumbers in the depths of the human animal.

The regular frequenters of the place were arriving from all the four corners of Paris, people of all classes, who were fond of vulgar, roistering amusements that were a little vicious and not a little debauched. There were shop assistants, pimps, prostitutes, prostitutes in every sort of dress, from the common cotton to the finest batiste, wealthy prostitutes, the old wealthy ones, old and covered with diamonds, and the penniless sixteen-year-olds longing to enjoy themselves, to find men, to spend money. Elegants in tailed coats, in search of youthful flesh, deflowered of its primal innocence but still desirable, roved through the overheated crowd, peering, seemingly scenting it out, while the masks appeared absorbed in their desire for amusement. The famous quadrilles had already gathered round their caperings a crowded circle of people. The swaying hedge, the quivering mass of women and men who encircled the four dancers, knotted itself round like a serpent, advancing and withdrawing in time to the swerving movements of the dancers. The two women, whose thighs seemed fastened to their bodies by india-rubber springs, executed the most amazing movements with their legs. They flung them up in the air with such vigour that the limbs seemed to be flying towards the sky, then suddenly, parting them as if they were open to the navel, sliding one in front and the other behind, they touched the ground with the centre of their bodies in a quick wide split, revolting and comical to watch.

Their partners leaped, pirouetted on their feet, whirled round, their arms flapping and raised like stumps of featherless wings, and one guessed that under their masks their breath was coming in gasps.

One of them, who had taken a part in the most famous of the quadrilles to replace a celebrated dancer who was absent, the magnificent “Songe-augosse,” and was doing his best to keep pace with the indefatigable “Arête-de-veau,” was executing fantastic solo steps that provoked the joy and ironic mirth of the public.

He was lean, attired like a dandy, with a handsome varnished mask on his face, a mask with a fair curling moustache and topped by a curled wig.

He had the appearance of a model from the Grévin museum, of a strange and fantastic caricature of a charming young man in a fashion-plate, and he danced with an earnest but awkward effort, and with a droll ecstasy. He seemed rusty beside the others as he tried to imitate their gambols: he seemed crippled, as clumsy as a pug-dog playing with greyhounds. Mocking bravos encouraged him, and he, drunk with enthusiasm, leaped about with such frenzy that all at once, carried away by a wild rush, he ran full tilt into the wall of standers-by which parted before him to let him pass, then closed up again round the inert body of the motionless dancer, lying face downwards.

Men picked him up and carried him away. There were shouts for “a doctor.” A gentleman came forward, young, very elegant, in a black coat with enormous pearls in his dress shirt. “I am a professor in the Medical School,” he said, modestly. They made way for him, and in a little room full of cartons, like a business man’s office, he found the still unconscious dancer stretched across the chairs. The doctor tried first to remove the mask and discovered that it was fastened on in a complicated fashion, by a multitude of fine metal threads, which attached it cleverly to the edges of his wig and enclosed his entire head, in a solid ligature, of which one would have to know the secret. The neck itself was imprisoned in a false skin which formed a continuation of the chin, and this glove-like skin, painted flesh-colour, reached to the neck of his shirt.

They had to cut it all away with strong scissors, and when the doctor had made a gash from shoulder to temple in this amazing apparatus, he opened out this carapace and found therein an old face, the face of a pale, worn-out, thin, wrinkled man. The shock to those who carried in the young curled mask was so great that no one laughed, no one said a word.

They stared, where it lay on the rush chairs, at this sad face with its closed eyes, besprinkled with white hairs, some of them long, falling from the forehead over his face, others short, sprouting from cheeks and chin, and there beside this poor head⁠—the small, charming, polished mask, the fresh, still smiling mask.

The man came to himself after remaining unconscious for a long time, but he seemed still so feeble, so ill, that the doctor feared some dangerous complication.

“Where do you live?” said he.

The old dancer seemed to search in his memory and then to remember, and he gave the name of a street which no one knew. So they had to ask him again for details of the neighbourhood. He furnished them with infinite pain, with a slowness and indecision that betrayed the disturbance of his mind.

The doctor continued:

“I’ll take you back there myself.”

He had been seized with curiosity to know who this strange mummer was, to see where this amazing mountebank lived.

A cab soon carried them both to the other side of the slope of Montmartre.

It was in a tall house of poverty-stricken aspect, ascended by a shiny staircase, one of those forever unfinished houses, riddled with windows, standing between two amorphous stretches of ground, squalid dens where live a horde of ragged, miserable wretches.

The doctor, clinging to the handrail, a winding wooden rod to which his hand stuck fast, supported the dazed old man, who was now regaining his strength, up to the fourth floor.

The door at which they had knocked opened, and a woman appeared, old too, and clean, with a white nightcap framing a bony face with strongly marked features, the characteristic, broad, good, rough-hewn face of an industrious and faithful woman of the working-class. She cried:

“My God, what’s happened to him?”

When the affair had been explained to her in twenty words, she was reassured, and reassured the doctor himself by telling him that this was by no means the first of such adventures that had happened.

“He must go to bed, sir, that’s all, he’ll sleep, and next day there’ll be nothing to show for it.”

The doctor answered:

“But he can hardly speak.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, he’s a little drunk, nothing else. He ate no dinner so that he should be supple, and then he drank two absinths to liven himself up. The absinth, you know, revives his legs, but it takes away his wits and his words. He’s not of an age now to dance as he does. No, indeed, I’ve lost all hope of him ever getting any sense.”

The doctor, surprised, insisted:

“But why does he dance like that, old as he is?”

She shrugged her shoulders; she was flushed with the anger that was slowly rousing in her.

“Oh, yes, why! To tell the truth, it’s so that people will think he’s young under his mask, so that the women will still take him for a gay dog and whisper nasty things in his ear, so that he can rub himself against their skin, all their dirty skins with their scents and their powder and their pomades. Oh, it’s a nasty business! Well, I’ve had a life of it, I have, sir, for the forty years it’s been going on.⁠ ⁠… But he must be got to bed first so he doesn’t take any harm. Would it be too much trouble to you to give me a hand? When he’s like that, I can’t manage by myself.”

The old man was sitting on the bed, with a drunken look, his long white hair fallen over his face.

His companion regarded him with pitying, angry eyes. She went on:

“Look what a fine face he has for his age, and he must go and disguise himself like a worthless scamp so that people will think he’s young. If it’s not a pity! He really has a fine face, sir! Wait, I’ll show it to you before we put him to bed.”

She went towards a table on which was the hand basin, the water jug, soap, comb and brush. She took the brush, then returned to the bed and, lifting the old drunkard’s tangled head of hair, in the twinkling of an eye she gave him the face of a painter’s model, with long curls falling on his neck. Then, stepping back to contemplate him:

“He really is handsome for his age, isn’t he?”

“Very handsome,” declared the doctor, who was beginning to find it very amusing.

She added:

“And if you had known him when he was twenty-five years old! But we must put him to bed, or else his absinths will upset him in his stomach. Now, sir, will you draw off his sleeve?⁠ ⁠… higher⁠ ⁠… that’s it⁠ ⁠… good⁠ ⁠… the breeches now⁠ ⁠… wait, I’ll take off his shoes⁠ ⁠… that’s better.⁠ ⁠… Now, hold him up while I turn down the bed⁠ ⁠… there⁠ ⁠… lay him down⁠ ⁠… if you think he’ll disturb himself shortly to make room for me, you’re mistaken. I must find my corner, anywhere, anyhow. He doesn’t worry about it. There, you gay spark, you!”

As soon as he felt himself between his bedclothes, the good man shut his eyes, reopened them, shut them again, and his whole contented face expressed an energetic determination to sleep.

The doctor, examining him with an ever-growing interest, asked:

“So he plays the young man at fancy-dress balls, does he?”

“At all of them, sir, and he comes back to me in the morning in such a condition you can’t imagine. You know, it’s regret that drives him there, and makes him put a cardboard face over his own. Yes, regret that he’s no longer what he was, and so has no triumphs any more.”

He was sleeping now, and beginning to snore. She contemplated him with a compassionate air, and added:

“Oh, he has had his triumphs, that man has! More than you’d think, sir, more than the fine society gentleman and more than any tenor or any general.”

“Really? What was he then?”

“Oh, it surprises you at first, seeing that you didn’t know him in his best days. When I met him, it was at a ball, too, for he was always attending them. I was taken as soon as I saw him⁠—yes, taken like a fish on a line. He was charming, sir, so charming he’d bring tears to your eyes to look at him, dark as a crow, and curly-haired, with black eyes as large as windows. Oh, yes, he was a beautiful young man. He carried me off that evening, and I never left him again, sir, no, not for a day, in spite of everything. Oh, he has given me some bad times!”

The doctor asked:

“You are married?”

She answered simply:

“Yes, sir⁠ ⁠… or else he would have left me like the others. I have been his wife and his nurse, everything, everything he wanted⁠ ⁠… and he has made me weep for it⁠ ⁠… tears that I did not let him see. For he used to tell his adventures to me, to me⁠ ⁠… to me⁠ ⁠… sir⁠—never realising how it hurt me to listen to them.⁠ ⁠…”

“But what was his profession?”

“Oh, yes⁠ ⁠… I forgot to tell you. He was head assistant at Martel’s, such an assistant as you never saw⁠ ⁠… an artist at ten francs the hour, on an average.

“Martel?⁠ ⁠… who was Martel?”

“The hairdresser, sir, the famous hairdresser of the Opéra, who had all the actresses as his customers. Yes, all the smartest actresses came to have their hair done by Ambroise, and gave him rewards that made his fortune. Oh, sir, all women are alike, yes, all of them. When a man pleases them, they offer themselves to him. It’s so easy⁠ ⁠… and that’s a hard lesson to learn. For he used to tell me all⁠ ⁠… he couldn’t keep silent⁠ ⁠… no, he couldn’t. These things give so much pleasure to men! and more pleasure still to tell about than to do, perhaps.

“When I saw him come home in the evening a little pale, with an air of contentment, and shining eyes, I used to say to myself: ‘Another one. I am sure he’s caught another one.’ Then I used to long to question him, a longing that scorched my heart, and I longed not to know, too, to prevent him from talking if he began. And we used to look at each other.

“I knew well that he would not hold his tongue, that he was going to come to the point. I felt it in his manner, in the laughing manner he assumed to make me understand. ‘I have had a good day today, Madeleine.’ I pretended not to see, not to guess: I set the table; I brought the soup; I sat down opposite him.

“In those moments, sir, it was just as if my liking for him was being crushed out of my body with a stone. That’s a bad thing, that is, a dreadful thing. But he didn’t guess it, not he, he didn’t know: he felt the need to tell someone about it, to boast, to show how much he was loved⁠ ⁠… and he had only me to tell it to⁠ ⁠… you understand⁠ ⁠… only me⁠ ⁠… so⁠ ⁠… I had to listen and take it like poison.

“He began to eat his soup and then he used to say:

“ ‘Another one, Madeleine.’

“I used to think: ‘Now it’s coming. My God, what a man! That I should have taken up with him!’

“Then he started: ‘Another one, and a beauty.⁠ ⁠…’ And it would be a little girl from the Vaudeville or maybe a little girl from the Variétés, and maybe one of the great ones too, the most famous of these theatrical ladies. He told me their names, described their rooms, and all, all, yes, all, sir.⁠ ⁠… Details that tore my heart. And he would keep on about it, he would tell his story again from beginning to end, so pleased that I used to pretend to laugh so that he would not be angry with me.

“Perhaps it wasn’t all true. He was so fond of glorifying himself that he was quite capable of inventing such things! And perhaps, too, it was true. On those evenings, he made a show of being tired, of wanting to go to bed after supper. We had supper at eleven, sir, because he never came in earlier, on account of the evening hairdressing.

“When he had finished relating his adventures, he used to smoke cigarettes and walk up and down the room, and he was such a handsome fellow, with his moustache and his curly hair, that I thought: ‘It’s true, all the same, what he tells me. Since I’m mad about that man myself, why shouldn’t other women be infatuated with him too?’ Oh, I wanted to cry about it, to scream, to run away, to throw myself out of the window, as I was clearing the table while he went on smoking. He yawned when he opened his mouth, to show me how tired he was, and he used to say two or three times before getting into bed: ‘God, how I shall sleep tonight!’

“I bear him no grudge for it, because he did not know he hurt me. No, he could not know it! He loved to boast about women like a peacock spreading his tail. He came to imagine that they all looked at him and wanted him. It made it hard when he began to grow old.

“Oh, sir, when I saw his first white hair, it gave me a shock that took my breath away, and then joy⁠ ⁠… a cruel joy⁠—but so deep, so deep. I said to myself: ‘It’s the end⁠ ⁠… it’s the end.’ I felt that I was going to be let out of prison. I should have him all to myself, when the others didn’t want him any more.

“It was one morning, in our bed. He was still sleeping, and I was bending over him to waken him with a caress, when I saw in the curls on his temple a little thread that shone like silver. What a surprise! I would not have believed it possible. For a moment I thought of pulling it out, so that he shouldn’t see it himself! but looking closely, I caught sight of another one higher up. White hairs! He was going to have white hairs! It made my heart beat and my skin wet; but all the same, in the bottom of my heart, I was very glad about it.

“It’s not pleasant to think of it, but I went about my work in rare spirits that morning, and I didn’t wake him just then; and when he had opened his eyes without being roused, I said to him:

“ ‘Do you know what I discovered when you were asleep?’

“ ‘No.’

“ ‘I discovered that you have some white hairs.’

“He gave a start of vexation that made him sit down as if I had tickled him, and he said in an annoyed way:

“ ‘It’s not true.’

“ ‘Yes, on the left temple. There are four of them.’

“He jumped from the bed to run to the mirror.

“He did not find them. Then I showed him the first, the lowest down, the little curly one, and I said to him:

“ ‘It’s not surprising considering the life you lead. Two years from now you’ll be finished.’

“Well, sir, I spoke truly; two years later, you wouldn’t have known him. How quickly a man changes! He was still handsome but he was losing his freshness, and women no longer ran after him. Oh, I had a hard life of it, I did, in those days: he made me suffer cruelly for it! Nothing pleased him, not the least thing. He left his profession for the hat trade, in which he got rid of a lot of money. And then he tried to be an actor, without any success, and then he began to frequent public dances. Well, he has had the good sense to keep a little of his money, on which we’re living. It’s enough, but it’s not much. To think that at one time he had almost a fortune!

“Now you see what he does. It’s like a frenzy that takes hold on him. He must be young, he must dance with women who smell of scent and pomade. Poor old darling that he is!”

Moved, ready to weep, she looked at her old husband, who was snoring. Then, drawing near him with light steps, she dropped a kiss on his hair. The doctor had risen and was preparing to leave; he could find nothing to say in the presence of this fantastic pair.

Then, as he was going, she asked:

“Will you just give me your address? If he gets worse I will come and fetch you.”

The Test

I

A pleasant couple the Bondels, though a little bellicose. They often quarrelled, from trivial causes, and then were reconciled. A retired tradesman who had given up business after amassing enough to live on in accordance with his simple tastes, Bondel had rented a little cottage at Saint Germain, and settled down there with his wife.

He was a placid-natured man, whose firmly rooted ideas reorientated themselves with difficulty. He had some education, read the more serious papers and had, however, an understanding of the finer shades of Gallic culture. Gifted with reason, logic, and the practical good sense that is the supreme quality of the hardworking French bourgeois, his thoughts were few but sure, and he made resolutions only on grounds that his instinct assured him to be infallible.

He was a man of middle height, and distinguished appearance, and he was going a little grey.

His wife, endowed with real qualities, had also some faults. Of a passionate nature, with a frankness of bearing that bordered on the violent, and obstinate to a degree, she cherished undying resentments against people. Once a pretty woman, she had become too plump and too highly coloured, but she passed even now, in their circle at Saint Germain, for a very lovely woman, though too miraculously healthy for genteel taste.

Their disputes almost always began at lunch, in the course of some quite unimportant discussion, and then they remained estranged until the evening, often until the next day. Their life, simple and limited as it was, lent a gravity to their lightest concerns, and every subject of conversation became a subject of dispute. It had not been so in other days, when they had a business that absorbed them, joined them in mutual anxieties, gripped their hearts, confined and imprisoned them both in bonds of partnership and a common interest.

But at Saint Germain they saw fewer people. It had been necessary to make new friends, to build for themselves, in a society of strangers, a life at once new and totally empty of occupation. Then, too, the monotony of hours that were all alike had made them a little bitter against each other, and the peaceful happiness for which they had hoped and which they had expected leisure to bring them, did not materialise.

They had just sat down to table one morning in the month of June, when Bondel asked:

“Do you know the people who live in the little red cottage at the end of the Rue de Berceau?”

Mme. Bondel must have got out of bed on the wrong side. She replied:

“Yes and no. I know them by sight, but I don’t care to know them.”

“But why? They look very pleasant.”

“Because⁠ ⁠…”

“I met the husband this morning on the terrace and we took a couple of turns together.”

Realising that there was danger in the air, Bondel added:

“It was he who accosted me and spoke first.”

His wife regarded him with displeasure. She replied:

“You could easily have avoided him.”

“But why?”

“Because people are talking about them.”

“Talking! Good heavens, people are always talking.”

M. Bondel made the mistake of becoming quite emphatic:

“My dearest, you know that I have a horror of talk. The fact that they are being talked about is enough to make me take a liking to people. As for these people, I find them very pleasant, myself.”

She demanded furiously:

“The wife too, I suppose?”

“God, yes, the wife too, although I’ve hardly seen her.”

And the discussion continued, becoming slowly more and more venomous and implacably fastened on one subject from sheer lack of other interests.

Mme. Bondel obstinately refused to say what sort of talk was going the rounds about these neighbours, leaving it to be understood that quite dreadful things, which she did not specify, were being said. Bondel shrugged his shoulders, sneered, exasperated his wife. She ended by shouting:

“Well, your gentleman is a cuckold, that’s what!”

Her husband answered unemotionally:

“I don’t see in what way that affects a man’s good name.”

She seemed stupefied.

“What, you don’t see it?⁠ ⁠… you don’t see it?⁠ ⁠… upon my word, that’s too much⁠ ⁠… you don’t see it? But it’s a public scandal: he’s hurt by the mere fact of being a cuckold!”

He answered:

“Not at all. Is a man hurt because he’s deceived, hurt because he’s betrayed, hurt because he’s robbed?⁠ ⁠… Not at all. I agree with you as far as his wife is concerned, but as for him⁠ ⁠…”

She became furious.

“He’s as much in it as she. They’re ruined, it’s a public disgrace.”

Bondel, very calm, asked:

“First, is it true? Who can assert such a thing, short of taking them in the act?”

Mme. Bondel bounced in her chair.

“What? Who can assert it? Why, everyone! everyone! A thing like that is as plain as the nose on your face. Everyone knows it, everyone talks about it. There’s no question about it. It’s as well known as a public holiday.”

He sniggered.

“And for a long time people believed that the sun moved round the earth, and a thousand other equally well-known things, which were untrue. This man adores his wife; he talks about her with affection and respect. It’s not true.”

She stammered, stamping her foot:

“And considering what he knows, fool, half-wit, defrauded wretch that he is!”

Bondel did not lose his temper; he argued:

“Pardon me. The man is not stupid. He seemed to me, on the contrary, exceptionally intelligent and very acute; and you won’t make me believe that an intelligent man would not notice such a thing in his house when his neighbours, who are not there in his house, are conversant with every detail of this adultery, for I’ll warrant they are conversant with every detail.”

Mme. Bondel gave way to a spasm of angry mirth that jarred her husband’s nerves.

“Oh! oh! oh! You’re all alike, all of you! As if there was a single man in the world who would find it out, unless one rubbed his nose in it.”

The discussion took another form. She became heated on the question of the blindness of deceived husbands, which he called in doubt and she asserted with an air of such personal scorn that he finally lost his temper.

The quarrel became a violent one in which she took the side of women and he defended men.

He had the folly to declare:

“Well, I take my oath that if I had been deceived, I should have seen it, and at once too. And I would have cured you of your fancy in such a fashion that it would have needed more than a doctor to put you on your feet again.”

She was transported with rage and shouted in his face:

“You? You! Why, you’re as stupid as any of them, do you hear?”

He asserted again:

“I take my oath I’m not.”

She burst into so impudent a laugh that he felt his pulses quicken and his skin creep.

For the third time, he said:

“I should have seen it, I should!”

She got up, still laughing in the same way.

“No, it’s too much,” she got out.

And she went out, slamming the door.

II

Bondel felt baffled, very ill at ease. That insolent provocative laughter had affected him like the sting of one of those venomous flies which we do not feel at first, but which very soon begin to smart and hurt intolerably.

He went out, and walked about, brooding over it. The solitary nature of his new life disposed him to think unhappy thoughts and to take a gloomy view of things. The neighbour whom he had that morning met suddenly approached him. They shook hands and began to talk. After touching on various subjects, they began to talk about their wives. Each of them seemed to have something to confide, some inexpressible, vague and painful thing concerning the very nature of this creature associated with his life: a woman.

The neighbour said:

“You know, one would really think that women sometimes feel a kind of peculiar hostility against their husbands, for no other reason than that they are their husbands. Take me. I love my wife. I love her dearly. I appreciate her and respect her. Well, she sometimes seems to feel more at home and intimate with our friends than with me.”

Bondel thought at once: “There you are, my wife was right.”

When he had parted from the man, he began thinking again. He was conscious of a confused medley of contradictory thoughts in his mind, a sort of unhappy agitation, and his ear still rang with that impudent laughter, an exasperated laughter that seemed to say: “You’re in the same boat as the others, you fool.” Of course it was nothing but a gesture of defiance, one of those insolent gestures typical of women, who will venture anything, take any risk, to wound and humiliate the man against whom they are irritated.

So that poor fellow must be a deceived husband, too, like so many others. He had said wistfully: “She sometimes seems to feel more at home and intimate with our friends than with me.” It showed how a husband⁠—the blind sentiment that the law calls a husband⁠—formulated his reflections on the particular attentions his wife shows another man. That was all. He had seen nothing more. He was like all the rest.⁠ ⁠… All the rest!

His own wife, too, had laughed at him, Bondel, laughed strangely: “You too⁠ ⁠… you too.” The mad imprudence of these creatures who could put such suspicions into a man’s heart for sheer pleasure in defying him!

He went back in thought over their life together, trying to remember whether, in their former relationship, she had ever seemed more at home and intimate with anyone else than with him. He had never suspected anyone, so placid he had been, sure of her, trustful. Yes, she had had a friend, an intimate friend, who for almost a whole year had dined with them three times a week, Tancret, good honest Tancret, whom he, Bondel, loved like a brother, and whom he continued to see in secret since the time when his wife for some unexplained reason had fallen out with the pleasant fellow.

He stood still to think about it, staring into the past with uneasy eyes. Then he suffered an inward revulsion against himself, against this shameful insinuation put forward by the defiant, jealous, malicious self that lies buried in all of us. He blamed himself, accused and insulted himself, even while he was recalling all the visits and the behaviour of this friend whom his wife had valued so highly and had expelled for no grave reason. But abruptly other memories came to him, of similar ruptures due to the vindictive nature of Mme. Bondel, who never forgave an affront. Thereupon he laughed frankly at himself, and at the pricks of anguish that had assailed him; and remembering his wife’s malignant expression when on his return in the evenings he remarked to her: “I met old Tancret, and he asked me for news of you,” he was completely reassured.

She always replied: “When you see the gentleman, you can tell him that I do not trouble to concern myself with him.” Oh, with what an air of irritation and vindictive fury she used to utter these words! How obvious it was that she did not forgive, would not forgive!⁠ ⁠… And he had found it possible to suspect? even for a second? God, what a fool he was!

But why was she so vindictive? She had never told him the exact starting-point of this quarrel, and the reason for her resentment. She owed him a rare grudge, a rare grudge! Could it be?⁠ ⁠… But no⁠—no.⁠ ⁠… And Bondel declared that he was degrading himself by thinking of such things.

Yes, there was not the least doubt that he was degrading himself, but he could not refrain from thinking about it, and he asked himself in terror whether this thought that had come into his mind was not going to stay there, whether in this thought he had not admitted to his heart the germ of an abiding torture. He knew himself: he was the sort of man who would brood over his doubt, as he had formerly brooded over his commercial transactions for days and nights, weighing pros and cons, interminably.

Already he was becoming agitated, he was quickening his step and losing his peace of mind. No one can fight against Thought. It is impregnable, it can neither be cast out nor killed.

And abruptly he conceived a plan, an audacious plan, so audacious that he doubted at first whether he could carry it out.

Each time that he met Tancret, the latter demanded news of Mme. Bondel; and Bondel answered: “She’s still a little annoyed.” That was all. God!⁠ ⁠… had he himself been the typical husband! Perhaps.⁠ ⁠…

So he would take the train to Paris, go and see Tancret, and bring him home with him this very evening, assuring him that his wife’s inexplicable resentment was over. Yes, but what a state Mme. Bondel would be in⁠ ⁠… what a scene! what fury!⁠ ⁠… what a scandal! So much the worse, so much the worse⁠ ⁠… that would be a rare revenge, and seeing them suddenly face to face, she altogether unprepared, he would easily be able to read the truth in the emotions written on their faces.

III

He went at once to the station, took his ticket, climbed into a carriage and when he felt himself being swept along by the train which was running down hill at Pecq, he felt a stab of fear, a sort of giddiness at the thought of his audacity. To keep himself from weakening, from backing out of it and returning alone, he strove to give up thinking about it any more, to seek distraction in other thoughts, to do what he had planned to do with a blind determination, and he set himself to hum songs from the operettas and the music-halls all the way to Paris in order to stifle his thoughts.

He became the prey of impulses to withdraw from the affair as soon as he had in front of him the pavements that would lead him to Tancret’s street. He loitered in front of several shops, priced some of the things, took an interest in various new things, was seized with a desire to drink a bock, which was hardly one of his habits, and as he approached his friend’s house, he felt the strongest possible wish not to meet him.

But Tancret was at home, alone, reading. He was surprised, jumped up, cried:

“Ah! Bondel! What luck!”

And Bondel, embarrassed, answered:

“Yes, old man, I came to do a little business in Paris and I came along to shake you by the hand.”

“That’s good of you, very good of you. All the more so because you’ve rather lost the habit of coming to see me.”

“Well, what could I do? There are certain kinds of pressure you can’t resist, and as my wife seemed to be annoyed with you⁠ ⁠…”

“Damn it⁠ ⁠… seemed to be annoyed⁠ ⁠… she went farther than that, seeing that she turned me out of the house.”

“But what was it all about? I myself have never known that.”

“Oh, about nothing!⁠ ⁠… a silly affair⁠ ⁠… a discussion in which I failed to agree with her.”

“But what was the discussion about?”

“About a lady whom you may know by name; Mme. Boutin, a friend of mine.”

“Oh, yes! Well, I believe that my wife is tired of it now, for she spoke to me about you this morning in the friendliest possible terms.”

Tancret started violently, and seemed so astounded that for some instants he found nothing to say. Then he replied:

“She spoke to you about me⁠ ⁠… in friendly terms?”

“Of course.”

“You’re sure of it?”

“Bless my soul⁠ ⁠… I’m not given to daydreams.”

“Well?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… as I was coming to Paris, I thought it would please you to hear about it.”

“Of course⁠ ⁠… of course.”

Bondel seemed to hesitate; then, after a brief silence:

“I even had an idea⁠ ⁠… an original idea.”

“What was it?”

“To take you back with me to dine at the house.”

At this suggestion, Tancret, who was temperamentally cautious, seemed uneasy.

“Oh, do you think⁠ ⁠… is it possible⁠ ⁠… aren’t we letting ourselves in for⁠ ⁠… for⁠ ⁠… for recriminations?”

“Not at all⁠ ⁠… not at all.”

“It’s just that⁠ ⁠… don’t you know⁠ ⁠… she’s inclined to bear a grudge, is Mme. Bondel.”

“Yes, but I assure you that she’s tired of it now. I am quite convinced that it would give her great pleasure to see you like that, unexpectedly.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Well, come along, old man. I’m only too delighted. Believe me, this upset has been causing me great unhappiness.”

And they set off towards the Gare Saint-Lazare arm in arm.

The journey was made in silence. Both seemed lost in profound reveries. Seated facing one another in the carriage, they looked at each other without talking, each observing that the other was pale.

Then they left the train and took each other by the arm again, as if they were standing together against a common danger. After a few minutes’ walking, they halted, both a little out of breath, before the Bondel house.

Bondel ushered his friend in, followed him into the drawing room, summoned the maid, and said to her:

“Is your mistress at home?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ask her to come down at once, please.”

They sank into two armchairs and waited, filled now by a mutual longing to get away as quickly as ever possible, before the dreaded personage appeared in the doorway.

A familiar tread, a firm tread, was descending the steps of the staircase. A hand touched the lock, and the eyes of both men saw the copper handle turning. Then the door opened wide, and Mme. Bondel stood still, with the intention of seeing who was there before coming in.

Then she stared, blushed, trembled, recoiled half a step, and then remained motionless with flaming cheeks and hands pressed against the wall at each side of the doorway.

Tancret, now as pale as if he were going to faint, rose, dropping his hat, which rolled across the floor. He stammered:

“Heavens.⁠ ⁠… Madame.⁠ ⁠… It’s I.⁠ ⁠… I thought⁠ ⁠… I ventured⁠ ⁠… I was so unhappy⁠ ⁠…”

As she did not reply, he went on:

“Have you forgiven me⁠ ⁠… at last?”

At that, abruptly, carried away by some inward impulse, she walked towards him with both hands outstretched; and when he had taken, clasped and held her two hands, she said in a small voice, a moved, faltering voice that her husband had never heard:

“Oh, my dear! I am so glad.”

And Bondel, who was watching them, felt his whole body grow icy cold, as if he had been drenched in a cold bath.

Alexander

As usual that day at four o’clock Alexander brought the three-wheeled invalid carriage in which by the doctor’s orders he took his old, helpless mistress out until six o’clock every day, round to the front of Maramballe’s little house.

When he had propped the light carriage against the step at the exact spot from which he could easily help the stout old lady he returned to the house and an angry voice was heard⁠—the hoarse voice of a former soldier⁠—using bad language: it was the voice of the master of the house, a retired infantry captain, Joseph Maramballe.

Then followed a noise of slammed doors, upset chairs and hasty footsteps, then nothing more; shortly after Alexander appeared in the doorway holding up Mme. Maramballe with all his strength, for the walk downstairs had quite exhausted the old lady. When, after a certain amount of trouble, she had been settled in the wheeled chair, Alexander took hold of the handle at the back and started off in the direction of the riverbank.

This was their usual way of crossing the small town, through which they passed amid respectful greetings that were certainly meant for the servant as well as for the old lady, for if she was loved and looked up to by everyone, he, the old trooper with his white, patriarchal beard, was considered the model servant.

The July sun shone down into the streets with cruel violence, bathing the low houses in a light made sad by its power and crudity. Dogs were asleep on the pavement in the line of shadow thrown by the walls, and Alexander, rather out of breath, hurried to reach the avenue that led to the bank of the river, as quickly as possible.

Mme. Maramballe dozed under her white parasol, the point of which swayed to and fro against the man’s impassive face.

As they reached the avenue of limes, whose shade thoroughly woke her up, she said good-naturedly:

“Not so fast, my good fellow, you will kill yourself in this heat.”

It never occurred to the kindhearted woman, in her candid selfishness, that she now wanted to go slower because she had reached the shelter of the leaves.

Near the road over which the old limes formed an arch, the winding Navette flowed between two willow-hedges. The wish-wash of the eddies, of water splashing over the rocks and of the sudden twists of the current, cast over the promenade a low song of moving water mingling with the freshness of the moisture-laden air.

After a rest, enjoying the green, cool charm of the place for some time, Mme. Maramballe said:

“Now I feel better. He certainly did not get out of the right side of the bed this morning.”

Alexander replied:

“Oh, no, madame.”

He had been in their service for thirty-five years, first as officer’s orderly, then as an ordinary valet unwilling to leave his master; now for six years he had been wheeling his mistress through the narrow roads round the town.

This long, devoted service followed by daily companionship had established a certain familiarity between the old lady and the old servant, affectionate on her part and deferential on his.

They discussed household affairs as between equals. Their chief subject of conversation and of anxiety was the captain’s bad temper, embittered by a long career that had opened brilliantly, run its course without promotion, and ended without glory.

Mme. Maramballe resumed the conversation:

“As for having bad manners, he certainly has. He forgets himself much too often since he left the army.”

With a sigh Alexander completed his mistress’s thought:

“Oh! Madame may say that he forgets himself every day and that he did even before he left the army.”

“That is true. But he has had no luck, the poor man. He started by an act of bravery for which he was decorated when only twenty, then from the age of twenty to that of fifty he never rose higher than the rank of captain, although at the start he had counted on being at least a colonel when he retired.”

“After all, Madame may say it is his own fault. Had he not always been about as gentle as a riding-whip, his superiors would have liked him better and used their influence in his favour. It’s no good being hard on others, you must please people if you want to get on.

“That he should treat us like that, well, that is our own fault because it suits us to stay with him, but it is a different matter for others.”

Mme. Maramballe was thinking things over. Every day for years and years she had thought about the brutality of the man she married long ago because he was a fine-looking officer who had been decorated in his youth, and had a brilliant future, so everyone said. What mistakes one can make in life!

She said gently:

“Let us stop awhile, my poor Alexander, you must have a rest on your seat.”

The seat was a small one, partly rotted away, placed at the turning of the avenue for the use of Sunday visitors. When they came this way Alexander always had a short rest on the seat.

He sat down, holding his fine, white, fan-shaped beard in his hands with a simple gesture full of pride; he grasped it tightly, then slid his closed fingers down to the bottom, which he held over the pit of his stomach for a few minutes, as if he wanted to fasten it there, and show off the great length of his growth.

Mme. Maramballe resumed:

“As for me, I married him: it is only just and natural that I should bear with his unkindness, but what I cannot understand is that you put up with it too, my good Alexander!”

He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, saying:

“Oh, me⁠ ⁠… madame.”

She added:

“It is a fact. I have often thought about it. You were his orderly when I married and could hardly do otherwise than put up with him. But since then, why have you stayed with us who pay so little and treat you so badly, when you might have done like others, settled down, married, had children, founded a family?”

He repeated:

“Oh, me, madame, that’s another question.” He stopped and began to pull his beard as if it were a bell ringing inside him, as if he wanted to pull it off; the scared look in his eyes showed his embarrassment.

Mme. Maramballe followed her own line of thought:

“You are not a peasant. You have been educated⁠ ⁠…”

He interrupted her with pride:

“I studied to be a land-surveyor.”

“Then why did you stay on with us, spoiling your life?”

He stammered:

“Why! Why! It is a natural weakness of mine.”

“What do you mean, a natural weakness?”

“Yes, when I attach myself to anyone, I attach myself, that’s the end of it.”

She laughed.

“Come, you are not going to make me believe that Maramballe’s kindness and gentleness have attached you to him for life.”

Alexander moved restlessly about on the seat, visibly at a loss, and mumbled into his long moustache:

“It is not he, it is you!”

The old lady, whose sweet face was crowned by a snow-white ridge of curly hair that shone like swan’s feathers, carefully put into curl-papers every day, gave a start and looked at her servant with surprise in her eyes.

“Me, my poor Alexander. But how?”

He looked up into the air first, then to one side, then into the distance, turning his head about as shy men do when forced to admit some shameful secret. Then with the courage of a soldier ordered into the firing line, he said:

“It’s quite simple. The first time I took a letter from the Lieutenant to Mademoiselle, and Mademoiselle with a smile gave me a franc, that settled the matter.”

Not understanding, she insisted:

“Come, come, explain yourself.”

Overcome by the terror of the criminal who knows that all is over when he confesses a crime, Alexander blurted out:

“I felt drawn towards Madame. There!”

She made no reply and did not look at him, while she turned this over in her mind. She was kind, straightforward, gentle, reasonable, and full of good feeling.

In a second she realized the great devotion of the unfortunate man who had given up everything to live near her, without saying a word. She wanted to cry.

“Let us go back,” she said, looking serious, but with no feeling of anger.

He got up, walked round to the back of the wheeled chair and began to push it. As they approached the village they saw Captain Maramballe in the middle of the road, coming towards them.

As soon as he had joined them he said to his wife, obviously anxious to pick a quarrel:

“What is there for dinner?”

“A chicken and flageolets.”

He shouted indignantly:

“Chicken, chicken again, always chicken, damn it! I have had enough, I have, of your chickens. Can’t you think of anything else, must you always give me the same thing to eat every day?”

Resignedly, she replied:

“But, my darling, you know the doctor ordered it. It is the best thing for your digestion. There are lots of things I dare not give you that you should have if you did not suffer from indigestion.”

Exasperated, he stood right in front of Alexander:

“If I am ill it is this brute’s fault. For thirty-five years he has been poisoning me with his filthy cooking.”

Mme. Maramballe turned her head round quickly to look at the old servant. Their eyes met in a glance which contained their mutual thanks.

The Putter-to-Sleep

The Seine spread before my house without a wrinkle, varnished by the morning sun. It lay there, a lovely, wide, slow, long flood of silver, tarnished in places; and on the further side of the river a line of tall trees stretched along the bank a huge wall of verdure.

The feeling of life which begins again each morning, of life, fresh, gay, loving, shivered in the leaves, fluttered in the air, shimmered in the water.

They brought me my newspapers which the postman had just left and I went out on to the bank with tranquil step to read them.

In the first I opened I caught the words “Suicide Statistics” and I was informed that this year more than eight thousand five hundred persons had killed themselves.

At that moment I saw them! I saw this hideous massacre of desperate creatures, tired of life. I saw people bleeding, their jaw shattered, their skull smashed, their chest pierced by a bullet, slowly dying, alone in a little hotel bedroom, and thinking nothing of their wound, always of their misery.

Others I saw, throat gaping or stomach ripped open, still holding in their hand the kitchen knife or the razor.

I saw others, seated before a glass in which matches were soaking, or sometimes before a little bottle with a red label. They would watch it with rigid eyes, motionless; then they would drink it, then wait; then a grimace would cross their faces, contract their lips; a fear crept into their eyes, for they did not know how much they would suffer before the end.

They would get up, stop, fall, and with hands clutching their stomachs, feel their organs burned and their entrails corroded by the liquid’s flames, before their consciousness was overcast.

Others again I saw hanging from a nail in the wall, from the window fastening, from the ceiling bracket, from the beam of a barn, from the branch of a tree, beneath the evening drizzle. And I guessed all that they had done before they hung there, tongue lolling, motionless. I guessed the anguish of their hearts, their last hesitations, their movements in fixing the rope, trying whether it held firmly, passing it about their neck and letting themselves fall.

Others still I saw lying on their wretched beds, mothers with their little children, old men starving with hunger, girls torn with the agony of love, all rigid, stifled, suffocated, while in the centre of the room still smoked the charcoal brazier.

And some I glimpsed walking to and fro by night on deserted bridges. These were the most sinister. The water eddied beneath the arches with a soft whisper. They did not see it⁠ ⁠… they guessed its presence, scenting its chilly odour! They desired it and feared it. They did not dare! However, they must. The hour was striking from some distant clock, and suddenly, in the wide silences of the darkness, there swept by me, quickly stifled, the splash of a body falling into the river, a few screams, the slapping of water beaten with hands. Sometimes there was nothing more than the plunge of their fall, when they had bound their arms or tied a stone to their feet.

Oh! poor folk, poor folk, poor folk, how I felt their anguish, how I died their deaths. I have passed through all their miseries; in one hour I have undergone all their tortures. I have known all the sorrows which led them to that place; for I feel degradation, deceiver of life, as no one more than I has felt it.

Yes, I have understood them, those feeble things, who⁠—tormented by ill fortune, having lost their loved ones, awakened from their dreams of later reward, from the illusion of another existance, in which God would at last be just, after giving way to savage anger, and disabused of the mirage of happiness⁠—have had enough of life, and would end this relentless tragedy or shameful comedy.

Suicide; it is the strength of them who have nothing left, the hope of them who believe no more, the sublime courage of the conquered! Yes, there is at least one door from this life; we can always open it and pass to the other side. Nature has made one gesture of pity; she has not imprisoned us. Mercy for the desperate!

While for the merely disabused, let them march forward free-souled and calm-hearted. They have nothing to fear, since they can depart; since behind them stands ever this door that the gods we dream of can never close.

So I meditated on this crowd of willing dead: more than eight thousand five hundred in a year. And it came to me that they had come together to hurl into the world a prayer, to cry their will, to demand something, to be later made real, when the world will understand better. It seemed to me that all these beings tortured, stabbed, poisoned, hung, suffocated, drowned, flocked, in one terrifying horde, like voters at the poll, to say to Society: “Grant us at least a quiet death! Help us to die, you who will not help us to live! See, we are many, we have the right to speak in these days of liberty, of philosophic independence, and of democracy. Give those who renounce life the charity of a death neither repulsive nor fearful.”

I let myself dream, leaving my thoughts to roam about this subject with bizarre, mysterious fancies.

I thought myself at one moment in a lovely city. It was Paris; but of what date? I wandered down the streets, looking at houses, theatres, public buildings, and then suddenly, in a square, I came on a huge edifice, graceful alluring, handsome.

I was surprised when I read on the façade, in gilt letters: “Institute of Voluntary Death”!

The strangeness of those wakened dreams, where the spirit hovers in an unreal yet possible world! Nothing surprises; nothing shocks; and the unbridled fancy no longer distinguishes the comic or the doleful.

I went up to the building, and saw footmen in breeches seated in the hall before a cloakroom, as in the entrance to a club.

I went in to look round. One of them, rising, asked me:

“Do you want anything, sir?”

“I want to know what this place is.”

“Nothing else?”

“No.”

“Perhaps you would like me to take you to the secretary of the institute, sir?”

I hesitated and then asked:

“I shall not be disturbing him?”

“Oh, not at all, sir. He is here to see people who want information.”

“Very well. I will follow you.”

He led me through some corridors in which a few old gentlemen were chatting; then I was conducted into a charming room, a little sombre perhaps, furnished in black wood. A plump, potbellied young man was writing a letter and smoking a cigar the quality of which was evidenced by its excellent bouquet.

He rose. We bowed to each other, and when the footman had gone, he asked:

“How can I be of service to you?”

“You will forgive my indiscretion, sir,” I replied. “I have never seen this establishment before. The few words inscribed on the façade surprised me and I wanted to know what they betokened!”

He smiled before answering, then in a low voice with an air of satisfaction:

“Just, sir, that people who want to die, are killed here decently and quietly; I won’t say agreeably.”

I did not feel much moved, for this statement seemed to me on the whole very natural and just. But I was astonished that on this planet with its low, utilitarian, humanitarian ideas, egotistical and coercive of all real liberty, an enterprise of such a nature, worthy of an emancipated humanity, dare be undertaken.

I went on:

“How did this happen?”

“Sir,” he replied, “the number of suicides grew so rapidly in the five years following the Exhibition of 1889, that immediate steps became necessary. People were killing themselves in the streets, at parties, in restaurants, at the theatre, in railway carriages, at presidential banquets, everywhere. Not only was it a very ugly sight for those, such as myself, who are very fond of life, but, moreover, a bad example for the children. So it became necessary to centralise suicides.”

“How did this rush of suicides arise?”

“I have no idea. In my heart, I think the world has grown old. We begin to see clearly and to accept our lot with an ill grace. Today it is the same with destiny as with the government, we know where we are: we decide that we are being cheated at all points, and so we depart. When we realise that Providende lies, cheats, robs and tricks human beings in the same way as a deputy his constituents, we are annoyed, and since we can’t nominate another every quarter as we do our privileged representatives, we quit a place so definitely rotten!”

“Really.”

“Oh, I don’t complain.”

“Will you tell me how the institute works?”

“Willingly. You can always become a member when you want to. It is a club.”

“A club?”

“Certainly, sir, and founded by the most eminent men of the country, by the best imaginations, and the clearest intelligences.”

Laughing heartily, he added:

“And I swear people like it here.”

“Here?”

“Yes, here.”

“You astound me.”

“Lord! they like it because the members of the club have no fear of death, which is the great spoiler of earthly pleasures!”

“But why, if they don’t kill themselves, are they members of this club?”

“One can become a member without putting oneself under the obligation of committing suicide.”

“Then?”

“Let me explain. Fired by the immeasurable growth of the number of suicides, and the hideous spectacle they offered, a society of pure benevolence was formed for the protection of the desperate to put at their disposal a calm and painless, if not unforeseen, death.”

“Whoever gave authority for such a society?”

“General Boulanger during his short tenure of office. He could refuse nothing. Of course, he did no other good action. So a society was formed of farsighted, disabused, sceptical men who wished to build in the heart of Paris a kind of temple to the scorn of death. This building was at first a suspected place which no one would come near. Then the founders called a meeting and arranged a great reception of inauguration with Sarah Bernhardt, Judic, Théo, Granier and a score more. MM. de Rezke, Coquelin, Mounet-Sully, Paulus; then concerts, Dumas comedies, Meilhac, Falévy, Sardou. We only had one frost, one of Becque’s plays, which seemed gloomy, but afterwards was very successful at the Comédie-Française. In the end, all Paris came. The club was launched!”

“In the midst of jubilations! What a ghastly jest!”

“Not at all. Why should death be gloomy? It should be indifferent. We have lightened death, we have made it blossom, we have perfumed it, we have made it easy. One learns to relieve suffering by example; one can see that it is nothing.”

“I can quite understand people coming for the shows, but does anyone come for⁠ ⁠… it?”

“Not at once: they were distrustful.”

“But later?”

“They came.”

“Many?”

“In masses. We have more than forty a day. Practically no drowned are found in the Seine.”

“Who was the first aspirant?”

“A member of the club.”

“A God-fearer?”

“I don’t think so. A sot, a ruined man, who had lost heavily at baccara for three months.”

“Really?”

“Our second was an Englishman, an eccentric. Then we had a lot of publicity in the newspapers; we told all about our methods; we made up deaths which we thought would attract. But the main impulse came from the lower classes.”

“What are your methods?”

“Would you like to go round? I could explain as we went.”

“Very much indeed.”

He took his hat, opened the door, motioned me before him into a gambling-room where men were playing as they play in all dives. He led me across several rooms. Everywhere was lively and gay chatter. I have rarely seen so vivacious a club, so animated, so mirthful.

As I seemed surprised, the secretary challenged me:

“Oh, the club has an unprecedented rage. The right people from all over the globe become members in order to have the air of mocking death. Once they are here, they think they have to be gay in order not to seem afraid. So they joke, laugh, play the buffoon; they have wit and learn to acquire it. Nowadays it is the most frequented and the most amusing place in Paris. The women even are getting busy to organise an annex for themselves.”

“And in spite of all this, you have plenty of suicides in the house?”

“As I told you, between forty and fifty a day. The upper classes are rare, but there are plenty of poverty-stricken devils. And the middle classes too send a good many.”

“And how⁠ ⁠… is it done?”

“Asphyxiation⁠ ⁠… very gently.”

“Your apparatus?”

“A gas of our own invention. We hold the patent. On the other side of the building are the public entrances. Three little doors opening into side alleys. When a man or a women knocks, we begin by interrogating them; then we offer them assistance, help, protection. If our client accepts, we make inquiries and often we succeed in saving them.”

“Where do you find the money?”

“We possess a great deal. The membership subscription is very high. Then it is good form to make donations to the institute. The names of all donors are printed in the Figaro. Moreover, every wealthy man’s suicide costs a thousand francs, a good pose to die in. The poor die gratis.”

“How do you recognise the poor?”

“Oh, we guess, sir! And, too, they have to bring a certificate of indigence from the local police. If you knew how sinister their entry is! I have only visited that part of the establishment once; I shall never visit it again. As premises, they are nearly as good as this part, nearly as rich and comfortable, but the people⁠ ⁠… the people!!! If you could only see them arrive, old people in rags who are on the point of death, people starving of misery for months, fed at the corners like street dogs; tattered, gaunt women who are ill, paralysed, incapable of making a living, and who say to us after having related their circumstances: ‘You see, it can’t go on, for I can do nothing and earn nothing.’ I saw one old woman of eighty-seven who had lost all her children and all her grandchildren, and who had been sleeping out of doors for six weeks. I was sick with emotion at the sight. But then, we have so many different cases, without mentioning those who say nothing save to ask: ‘Where is it?’ Those we let in and it is all over at once.”

I repeated, with constricted heart:

“And⁠ ⁠… where is it?”

“Here.”

He opened a door, and went on:

“Come in. It is the room specially reserved for members, and the one that is used least. As yet we have had no more than eleven annihilations.”

“Oh, you call it an⁠ ⁠… annihilation?”

“Yes, sir. After you.”

I hesitated, but at last went in. It proved a delightful gallery, a kind of conservatory, which pale blue, soft rose, and light green glasses surrounded poetically in a kind of landscape tapestry. In this charming room there were divans, magnificent palms, sweet-scented flowers, particularly roses, books on the table, the Revue des Deux Mondes, boxes of duty-paid cigars, and, what surprised me, Vichy pastiles in a bonbonnière.

As I showed my astonishment my guide said: “Oh, people often come here for a chat,” and went on:

“The public rooms are like this, though furnished more simply.”

I asked a question.

He pointed with his finger to a chaise-longue upholstered in creamy crêpe de Chine with white embroidery, beneath a tall shrub of species unknown to me, round the foot of which ran a flower bed of reseda.

The secretary added in a lower voice:

“The flower and the scent can be changed at will, for our gas, which is quite imperceptible, lends to death the scene of whatever flower the subject prefers. It is volatilised with essences. Would you like to smell it for a second?”

“No, thanks,” I replied quickly, “not yet.”

He began laughing.

“Oh, there’s no danger, sir. I have made sure of that myself several times.”

I was afraid to appear cowardly. I replied:

“Well, I’m quite agreeable.”

“Sit down on the ‘putter-to-sleep,’ then.”

Slightly nervous, I seated myself on the low chair upholstered in crêpe de Chine, and then lay full length. Almost at once I was enveloped by a delicious scene of reseda. I opened my mouth to receive it more easily, for my soul was already growing torpid, was forgetting, was savouring, in the first discomfort of asphyxiation, the bewitching intoxication of an enchanting and withering opium.

I was shaken by the arm.

“Ah, sir,” said the secretary, laughing, “I see that you are letting yourself get caught.”

But a voice, a real and not a dream voice, greeted me with a pleasant ring:

“Morning, sir, I trust you’re well.”

My dream fled. I saw the Seine beneath the sun, and, coming along the path, the local policeman, who touched his black képi with its silver braid with his right hand.

I answered:

“Good morning, Marinel. Where are you off to?”

“I’m going to report on a drowned man they’ve fished up by Morillons. Another one who has chucked himself into the Seine. He’d taken off his trousers to tie his legs with.”

Mouche

A Boating Man’s Reminiscence

He said to us:

“What queer things and queer women I have seen in those long-ago days when I used to go on the river! Many a time I have longed to write a little book, called On the Seine, describing the athletic carefree life, gay and penniless, a vigorous, roisterings holiday life, that I led between twenty and thirty.

“I was a penniless clerk: now I am a successful man who can throw away vast sums of money to gratify a moment’s whim. I had a thousand modest unattainable desires in my heart, which gilded my whole existence with all the imaginary hopes in the world. Today, I don’t really know what fancy could make me rise from the armchair where I sit nodding. How simple and pleasant, and difficult, it is to live so, between an office in Paris and the river at Argenteuil! For ten years, my great, my only, my absorbing passion was the Seine. Oh, the lovely, calm, varied and stinking river, filled with mirage and all uncleanliness! I think I loved it so much because it did, it seems to me, give me a sense of life. Oh, the strolls along the flowery banks, my friends the frogs dreaming on a water-lily leaf, their stomachs in the cool, and the frail coquettish water-lilies in the middle of tall fine grasses that all at once, behind a willow, opened to my eyes a leaf from a Japanese album as a kingfisher darted past me like a blue flame. I loved it all, with an instinctive sight-born love that spread through my body in a deep natural joy.

“As others cherish the memories of tender nights, I cherish memories of sunrises on misty mornings, floating wandering vapours, white as the dead before dawn; then, a first ray gliding over the meadows, lit with a rosy light that took the heart with gladness; and I cherish memories of a moon that silvered the quivering running water, of a glimmering radiance where all dreams came to life.

“And all that, symbol of the eternal illusion, was born, for me, from the foul water that drifted all the sewage of Paris down to the sea.

“And what a gay life I and the other boys led! There were five of us, a little circle of friends, serious-minded men today; and as we were all poor, we had founded in a frightful pothouse at Argenteuil an indescribable colony that possessed nothing but a dormitory bedroom where I have spent what were certainly the maddest evenings of my life. We cared for nothing but amusing ourselves and rowing, for we all, with no exception, looked upon rowing as a religion. I remember such singular adventures, such incredible jests invented by those five vagabonds, that no one could believe them today. You never get anything like it now, even on the Seine, for the whimsical madness that kept us brimful of life has died out of the modern spirit.

“We five owned one boat between us, bought with immense effort, and over which we have laughed as we shall never laugh again. It was a big yawl, rather heavy, but solid, roomy and comfortable. I won’t describe my comrades to you. There was one small, very mischievous fellow, nicknamed Petit Bleu; a tall fellow, of uncivilised appearance, with grey eyes and black hair, nicknamed Tomahawk; another, an indolent witty fellow, nicknamed La Toque, the only one who never touched an oar, on the excuse that he would capsize the boat; a thin, elegant, very well-groomed young man, nicknamed N’a-qu’un-Œil, in memory of a just-published novel by Claudel, and because he wore a monocle; and myself, Joseph Prunier by name. We lived in perfect harmony, our sole regret being that we had not a helmswoman. One woman is indispensable in a river boat. Indispensable because she keeps wits and hearts awake, because she livens, amuses, distracts, sets an edge to life, and produces a decorative effect, with a red sunshade gliding past the green banks. But we did not want an ordinary woman cox, we five who were like no one else in the world. We had to have something unexpected, uncommon, ready for anything, almost unfindable, in fact. We had tried several without success, girls at the helm, not helmswomen, idiotic river girls who always preferred the thin wine that went to their heads to the running water that bore the yawls. You kept them one Sunday, then dismissed them in disgust.

“But one Saturday evening, N’a-qu’un-Œil brought us a little slender creature, lively, quick on her feet, loose-tongued and full of japes, the japes that pass for wit among the jackanapes, male and female, hatched on the sidewalks of Paris. She was pleasant-looking, not pretty, a mere sketch of a woman that had got no farther, one of those silhouettes that draughtsmen pencil in three strokes on a napkin in a restaurant after dinner, between a glass of brandy and a cigarette. Nature makes them like that sometimes.

“The first evening, she astonished and amused us, and was so unexpected in her ways that we could come to no conclusion about her. Dropped into this nest of men, who were ready for any mad prank, she quickly made herself mistress of the situation, and with the next day, she had made a complete conquest of us.

“She was, moreover, quite crazy, born with a glass of absinth in her stomach, that her mother had drunk when she was brought to bed, and she had never been overcome by drink since, for her nurse, she said, enriched her blood with draughts of rum; and she herself never called all the bottles ranged behind the wine merchant’s counter by any other name than ‘my holy family.’

“I don’t know which of us christened her ‘Mouche,’ nor why this name was given her, but it suited her very well, and stuck to her. And our yawl, which was called Feuille-à-l’Envers, bore on the Seine every week, between Asnières and Maisons-Lafitte, five youngsters, happy and healthy, ruled from under a painted paper parasol by a lively madcap young person who treated us as if we were slaves whose duty was to take her on the river, and whom we adored.

“We adored her, to begin with, for a thousand reasons, and afterwards for only one. She was a sort of little mill of talk in the stern of our craft, chattering to the wind that slipped over the water. She babbled endlessly, with the light continuous sound of those mechanical wings that turn in the breeze; and she said heedlessly the most unexpected, the most ridiculous and the most amazing things. In her mind, all the parts of which seemed disparate like rags of all kinds and colours, not sewn together but only tacked, you got the whimsical imagination of a fairytale, spiced wit, wantonness, impudence, things unexpected and things comical, and air⁠—air and scenery like travelling in a balloon.

“We used to ask her questions to provoke answers found goodness knows where. The one with which we most often worried her was this:

“ ‘Why are you called Mouche?’

“She produced such fantastic reasons that we stopped rowing to laugh at it.

“She pleased us as a woman, too; and La Toque, who never rowed, and spent the whole day seated at her side in the helmsman’s seat, one day answered the usual question: ‘Why are you called Mouche?’ by saying:

“ ‘Because she’s a little blister-fly.’

“Yes, a little buzzing fever-bearing cantharis, not the classic poisoned cantharis, gleaming and sheathed, but a little red-winged cantharis who was beginning to trouble the entire crew of the Feuille-à-l’Envers strangely.

“What senseless jests were perpetrated, though, on the leaf where this Mouche had alighted!

“Since the arrival of Mouche in the boat, N’a-qu’un-Œil had assumed a superior and preponderant role among us, the role of a gentleman who had a woman among four others who have not. He abused this privilege sometimes to the point of exasperating us by embracing Mouche under our eyes, seating her on his knees at the end of a meal, and by various other prerogatives as humiliating as irritating.

“We had made a separate place for them in the dormitory by a curtain.

“But I soon realised that my companions and I must be turning over the same arguments in our bachelor heads: ‘Why, by virtue of what law of exceptions, on what inadmissible principle, should Mouche, who appeared unembarrassed by any sort of prejudice, be faithful to her lover when women of better classes were not faithful to their husbands?’

“Our reflection was justified. We were soon convinced of it. We only ought to have done it earlier, to save us from regret for lost time. Mouche deceived N’a-qu’un-Œil with all the other sailors of the Feuille-à-l’Envers.

“She deceived him without difficulty and without making any resistance, at the first word of request from each of us.

“Prudish folk are profoundly shocked, my God! Why? What fashionable courtesan who has not a dozen lovers, and which of those lovers is stupid enough to be in ignorance of it? Is it not the fashion to spend an evening with a celebrated and sought-after woman, as one spends an evening at the Opéra, at the Français or the Odéon, because they are playing the minor classics there? Ten men combine together to keep a cocotte who finds it difficult to share out her time, as they club together to own a racehorse whom no one rides but a jockey, the equivalent of the amant de cœur.

“From motives of delicacy, we left Mouche to N’a-qu’un-Œil from Saturday evening to Monday morning. The days on the river were his. We only betrayed him during the week, in Paris, far from the Seine, which, for rowing men like us, was almost no betrayal at all.

“The situation was peculiar in this one way, that the four robbers of Mouche’s favours were fully aware of the way they were shared out, and talked about it among themselves, and even to her, in veiled allusions that made her laugh heartily. Only N’a-qu’un-Œil seemed to know nothing about it; and this special position produced a certain awkwardness between him and us; it seemed to set him apart, isolate him, raise a barrier across our old confidence and our old intimacy. It gave him in our eyes a difficult and rather ridiculous part to play, the part of deceived lover, almost the part of husband.

“As he was very intelligent, and possessed of a peculiarly malicious wit, we sometimes wondered, not without a certain uneasiness, whether he had not his suspicions.

“He took care to enlighten us, in a fashion that was very painful for us. We were going to dine at Bougival, and we were rowing vigorously, when La Toque, who wore that morning the triumphant aspect of a satisfied man and, sitting side by side with the helmswoman, seemed to be pressing himself against her a little too freely in our opinion, halted the rowing, crying: ‘Stop.’

“Eight oars were lifted out of the water.

“Then, turning to his neighbour, he demanded:

“ ‘Why are you called Mouche?’

“Before she could reply, the voice of N’a-qu’un-Œil, seated in the bows, observed dryly:

“ ‘Because she settles on every sort of carrion.’

“There was profound silence at first, and a sense of embarrassment followed by an attempt at laughter. Mouche herself remained quite unmoved.

“Then La Toque ordered:

“ ‘All together.’

“The boat shot forward again.

“The incident was closed, the air cleared.

“This little adventure occasioned no change in our habits. Its only effect was to reestablish the cordiality between N’a-qu’un-Œil and ourselves. He became once more the honoured proprietor of Mouche, from Saturday evening to Monday morning, his superiority over us having been firmly established by this definition, which closured, moreover, the period allotted to questions about the word ‘Mouche.’ We contented ourselves for the future with the secondary role of grateful and attentive friends who profited discreetly on weekdays, without any sort of competition among us.

“Everything went very well for about three months. But all at once Mouche adopted, towards all of us, strange attitudes. She was less gay, nervy, ill at ease, almost irritable. We were continually asking her:

“ ‘What’s the matter with you?’

“She answered:

“ ‘Nothing. Leave me alone.’

“The truth was revealed to us by N’a-qu’un-Œil one Saturday evening. We had just sat down to table in the little dining room that the proprietor of our pothouse reserved for us in his wayside inn, and, soup over, we were waiting for the fried fish, when our friend, who was also apparently anxious, first took Mouche’s hand, and then spoke:

“ ‘My dear comrades,’ said he, ‘I have a very grave communication to make to you, which will perhaps occasion lengthy discussions. We shall have time, however, to argue between the courses. Our poor Mouche has announced a disastrous piece of news to me, bidding me at the same time to pass it on to you.

“ ‘She is enceinte.

“ ‘I add only two words.

“ ‘This is no time to desert her, and any attempt to settle the paternity is forbidden.’

“The first effect of this news was blank amazement, a sense of disaster; and we looked at one another, feeling a desire to accuse someone. But whom? Oh, whom? I have never felt, as sharply as in that moment, how treacherous is this cruel jest of nature that never allows a man to know beyond shadow of doubt whether he is the father of his child.

“Then, gradually, we experienced a certain sense of comfort and consolation, born contrariwise from a vague feeling of solidarity.

“Tomahawk, who hardly ever spoke, expressed this dawning serenity by these words:

“ ‘Faith, so much the worse, union is strength.’

“The gudgeon came in, borne by a scullion. We did not fling ourselves on it, as was our custom, because we were still disturbed in mind.

“N’a-qu’un-Œil went on:

“ ‘In these circumstances, she has had the delicacy to make full confession to me. My friends, we are all equally guilty. Give me your hands and let us adopt the child.’

“The decision was carried unanimously. We lifted our arms towards the dish of fried fish and took the oath.

“ ‘We will adopt it.’

“At that, in that moment, saved, delivered from the dreadful weight of anxiety which for a month had been torturing this dear wanton little waif of love, Mouche cried:

“ ‘Oh, my friends, my friends! You are so kind⁠ ⁠… so kind⁠ ⁠… so kind.⁠ ⁠… Thank you all!’

“And she wept, for the first time, in our sight.

“Henceforth we talked in the boat about the child as if it were already born, and each of us showed an interest, with an exaggerated air of anxious concern, in the slow, regular change in our helmswoman’s figure.

“We stopped rowing to ask:

“ ‘Mouche?’

“She replied:

“ ‘What now?’

“ ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’

“ ‘Boy.’

“ ‘What will he be?’

“Then she let her imagination take flight in the most fantastic fashion. She gave us the most interminable narratives, amazing inventions, stretching from the day of his birth to his final triumph. He was everything, this child, to the artless, passionate, loving dreams of this extraordinary little creature who now lived chaste among us five men, whom she called her ‘five papas.’ She saw him and described him as a sailor, discovering a new world greater than America, a general, regaining Alsace-Lorraine for France, then an emperor, founding a dynasty of wise and generous sovereigns who bestowed on our country lasting happiness, then a scientist, just discovering the secret of making gold, then that of eternal life, then an aeronaut, inventing means to visit the stars and making of infinite space a vast playground for men, the realisation of all the most unforeseen and most magnificent dreams.

“God, how gay and amusing she was, poor little thing, until the end of the summer!

“It was the twentieth day of September that destroyed her dream. We had been lunching at Maison-Lafitte, and we were passing Saint-Germain, when she felt thirsty and asked us to stop at Pecq.

“For some time now, she had been growing heavy, and this annoyed her very much. She could no longer leap about as before, nor jump from the boat to the bank, as she was used to doing. She still tried, in spite of our cries and our efforts; and twenty times, but for our arms outstretched to catch her, she would have fallen.

“This particular day, filled with just such bravado, as sometimes proves fatal to ill or tired athletes, she was rash enough to try to get on shore before the boat stopped.

“Just as we were coming alongside, without anyone being able to foresee or prevent her movement, she stood up, made a spring, and tried to jump on to the quay.

“She was too weak, and only the top of her foot touched the edge of the stone quay; she slipped, hit her stomach full on the sharp corner, gave a loud cry, and disappeared in the water.

“The whole five of us plunged in together, and brought out a poor swooning creature, pale as death, and already suffering frightful pains.

“We had to carry her without delay to the nearest inn, where a doctor was summoned.

“Throughout the ten hours during which her premature labour lasted, she bore her abominable torture with heroic courage. We were standing miserably round her, on fever with grief and fear.

“Then she was delivered of a dead child; and for some days more we had the gravest fears for her life.

“At last one morning the doctor said to us: ‘I think she is safe. She’s made of steel, that girl.’ And we entered her room together with glad hearts.

“N’a-qu’un-Œil, speaking for all of us, said to her:

“ ‘You’re out of danger, little Mouche, and we’re very happy.’

“Then she cried in front of us for the second time, and, her eyes swimming in tears, she stammered:

“ ‘Oh, if you knew, if you knew⁠ ⁠… how unhappy⁠ ⁠… how unhappy I am!⁠ ⁠… I shall never be comforted.’

“ ‘But why, little Mouche?’

“ ‘Because I killed him, I killed him! Oh, I never meant to! How unhappy I am!’

“She was sobbing. We stood round her, very upset, not knowing what to say to her.

“She went on:

“ ‘Did you men see him?’

“With one voice we answered:

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘It was a boy, wasn’t it?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘He was beautiful, wasn’t he?’

“We hesitated in some doubt. Petit-Bleu, the least scrupulous of us, decided to affirm:

“ ‘Very beautiful.’

“He was ill-advised, for she began moaning, almost howling with despair.

“Then N’a-qu’un-Œil, who perhaps loved her more than any of us, thought of a happy conceit to quiet her, and kissing her eyes, that her tears had dulled, said:

“ ‘Be comforted, little Mouche, be comforted, we’ll make you another one.’

“The sense of humour that was bred in her bones woke suddenly, and half convinced, half joking, still all tears and her heart contracted with pain, she asked, looking at all of us:

“ ‘Promise?’

“And we answered together:

“ ‘Promise.’ ”

The Olive Orchard

I

When the shore-loafers of the small Provençal port of Garandou on the Bay of Pisca, between Marseilles and Toulon, caught sight of Abbé Vilbois’ boat coming back from fishing, they went down to the beach to help him draw it in.

The Abbé was alone in the boat, rowing like a seaman, with unusual energy, in spite of his fifty-eight years. His sleeves were turned up over his muscular arms, his cassock drawn up, gathered tightly between his knees and unbuttoned at the top, his shovel hat on the seat beside him and a pith helmet covered with white linen on his head, he looked like one of those solidly built, fantastic priests from the tropics, more suited for adventure than for saying Mass.

Occasionally he looked behind to make sure of his landing, then pulled again with great energy, rhythmically and steadily, just to show the poor Southern sailors how men from the North could row. The boat shot forward, touching the sand, over which it glided as if it were going to climb up the beach on its keel, then stopped dead, and the five men who were watching drew near; they were good-natured, cheerful, and on good terms with their priest.

“Well,” said one of them with a strong Provençal accent, “had a good catch, your Reverence?”

Abbé Vilbois shipped his oars, took off his helmet, put on his shovel hat, dropped his sleeves over his arms, buttoned up his cassock and, resuming his priestly attitude⁠—the bearing of the officiating priest of the village⁠—he replied proudly:

“Yes, indeed, very good, three catfish, two eels, and a few rockfish.”

Going up to the boat and leaning over the gunwale, the five fishermen examined the dead fish with an expert air⁠—the fleshy catfish, the flat-headed eels⁠—hideous sea serpents⁠—and the violet rockfish with zigzag stripes and gold bands, the colour of orange peel.

One of the men said: “I will carry them to the house, your Reverence.”

“Thanks, my good man.”

Shaking hands, the priest started off, followed by the one fisherman, the others staying behind to look after the boat.

The priest, robust and dignified, strode along with big, slow steps. As he still felt warm from his vigorous rowing, he took off his hat whenever he reached the slight shade of the olive-trees, to expose his square-cut brow with its straight, white hair cut short⁠—more the brow of an officer than of a priest⁠—to the tepid night air now slightly freshened by a faint sea breeze. The village revealed itself up on the cliff in the middle of a wide valley that ran down like a plain towards the sea.

It was a night in July. The dazzling sun, nearing the crest of the distant hills, stretched out the priest’s long shadow on the white road, buried under a shroud of dust; his exaggerated shovel hat, reflected in a broad, dark patch in the neighbouring field, seemed to clamber up the tree-trunks on the way, and drop quickly to the ground again, creeping about among the olives.

From under Abbé Vilbois’ feet rose a cloud of that fine, floury dust that covers the roads of Provence in summer, curling around his cassock like a veil and colouring its hem with a faint wash of grey over the black. He strode along with the slow, measured gait of a mountaineer making an ascent. His unruffled eyes gazed upon the village of which he had been the curé for twenty years, the village he had picked out and obtained as a great favour, and where he hoped to die. The church⁠—his church⁠—crowned the wide circle of houses huddled together around it with its two uneven, square towers of brown stone whose profiles had stood out for centuries over the beautiful Southern valley, more like the donjons of a fortified castle than the steeples of a church.

The Abbé was pleased because he had caught three catfish, two eels, and a few rockfish. This would be a new, minor triumph over his parishioners, who respected him chiefly because he was the strongest man in the country, in spite of his age. These little harmless vanities were his greatest pleasure. With a pistol he could cut off a flower from its stalk, sometimes he fenced with his neighbour, the tobacconist, who had been a regimental fencing-master, and he rowed better than anyone on the coast.

In addition to which, Baron Vilbois, who at the age of thirty-two had become a priest after an unfortunate love affair, had been a man of the world, well known and a leader of fashion.

Descended from an old royalist family of Picardy, staunch Churchmen, whose sons had been in the Army, the Church, and the Law for several generations, his first intention was to enter holy orders on his mother’s advice, but his father’s objections prevailed, and he decided to go to Paris, study law, and then try for some important post at the Law Courts.

As he was finishing his course, his father died of pneumonia caught on a shooting expedition on the marshes, and his mother died shortly after of grief. Having thus suddenly inherited a large fortune, he gave up his plans of adopting any profession whatever and was content to live the life of a man of means. He was a handsome youth, whose intelligence was limited by the beliefs, traditions, and principles he had inherited from his family, together with the physical strength of a native of Picardy; everyone liked him, he was popular in the more serious circles of society and enjoyed life in the way that a wealthy, highly respected, conventional young man does.

Unfortunately, after a few meetings at a friend’s house, he fell in love with a young actress, a student from the Conservatoire who had made a brilliant first appearance at the Odéon.

He fell in love with the violence and passion of a man destined to believe in absolute ideas. He fell in love, seeing her through the medium of the romantic part in which she had won great success the day she appeared in public for the first time.

She was pretty, naturally perverse, with the ways of a spoilt child that he called her angel-ways. She gained complete ascendancy over him, turning him into a raging maniac, a frenzied lunatic, one of those miserable beings whom the glance or the skirt of a woman consumes at the stake of a mortal passion. He made her his mistress, forced her to leave the stage, and loved her for four years with an ever-growing passion. Indeed, he would have married her in spite of his name and the family tradition of honour had he not suddenly discovered that she was deceiving him with the friend who had introduced them to each other.

The blow fell with all the more force because she was enceinte and he was awaiting the child’s birth to make up his mind to get married.

When he possessed all the proofs⁠—letters accidentally found in a drawer⁠—he accused her of infidelity, treachery, and double-dealing, with the brutality of a semi-savage.

But this child of the Paris streets, impudent and vicious, feeling as sure of her second lover as she did of Vilbois, as bold as those viragoes of the revolution who climb the barricades out of sheer bravado, defied and insulted him, pointing to her condition when she saw him raise his hand.

He stopped and turned pale, remembering that a child of his was there within that polluted flesh, in that defiled body, that unclean creature: his child!

He threw himself at her to destroy them both, to blot out the double shame. Frightened at the ruin of her future, stumbling about under the force of his blows and seeing his foot ready to kick the swollen womb with its human embryo, she cried with hands outstretched to save herself:

“Don’t kill me. It is not yours, it is his.”

He started back, stupefied and overcome, his anger momentarily fading, while his foot hovered in midair, and he stammered:

“What⁠ ⁠… what are you saying?”

Wild with fright at the signal of death she had caught in his eyes and at the man’s terrifying gesture, she repeated:

“It is not yours, it is his.”

Quite overwrought, he muttered between clenched teeth:

“The child?”

“Yes.”

“You are lying.”

And again he lifted his foot for a crushing blow, while his mistress, now on her knees, tried to move away, murmuring all the time:

“But I tell you it is his. If it was yours, would not I have had it long ago?”

This argument struck him as being truth itself. In one of those flashes of thought when all the arguments on a question are seen together in a blinding clearness, precise, unanswerable, conclusive, irresistible, he was convinced, he knew that he was not the father of the wretched waif-child she was carrying; and relieved, freed, suddenly almost at rest, he gave up the idea of killing the jade.

He said more gently:

“Get up, go away, never let me see you again.”

Quite subdued, she obeyed and went away.

He never saw her again.

He went away too. Down to the South, to the sun, and stayed in a village in the middle of a valley on the Mediterranean. He was attracted by an inn facing the sea, took a room there, in which he stayed for eighteen months, lost in grief and despair, and living in complete isolation. He lived there obsessed by the memory of the woman who had betrayed him, of her charm, her physical appearance, her unbelievable witchery, and filled with longing for her presence, her caressings.

He wandered through the valleys of Provence, seeking relief for his aching head with its burden of memory in the sun that filtered gently through the dull grey leaves of the olive-trees.

In this solitude of suffering the old piety, the steadied fervour of his early faith, revived in his heart. Religion, which had once seemed to him a refuge from the unknown, now appeared as a haven of escape from life’s treachery and cruelty. He had never lost the habit of prayer, to prayer he therefore clung in his great sorrow, going regularly to the darkened church at dusk, where a solitary speck of light shone down the chancel from the lamp, the holy guardian of the sanctuary and symbol of the Divine Presence.

To Him he confided his trouble, to his God, telling Him all about his sorrow. He craved for advice, pity, help, protection, consolation, putting more and more feeling into his prayers, which grew in fervour from day to day.

His wounded heart, ravaged by carnal love, was bare and throbbing, longing for tenderness, and little by little, through prayer and piety, by giving himself up to that secret communion of the devout with the Saviour who brings consolation and is a sure refuge to those in distress, the love of God entered in him and drove out the intruder.

He went back to his early plans and decided that what remained of the life he had intended to devote to the Lord in its youth and purity should now be given to the Church.

He became a priest. Through family influence he was appointed priest of the Provençal village into which luck had thrown him, and having given a large part of his fortune to benevolent institutions, only retaining sufficient to enable him to be of use, and a help to the poor until he died, he settled down to a quiet life full of good works and of care for his fellow creatures.

He was a narrow-minded priest, but kind to his people, a religious leader with a soldier’s temperament, a guide who forcibly led the sinner into the narrow way: the poor blind sinner lost in the forest of life where all our instincts, our desires, our tastes, are bypaths which lead us astray. But much of the man of old days remained. He still liked violent exercise, sport and fencing, and he detested all women with the unreasoning fear of a child before some hidden danger.

II

The sailor who was with the priest felt the usual southern longing for a chat, but dared not begin, for the Abbé exercised great authority over his flock. At last he ventured:

“So you are comfortable in your little house, your Reverence?”

The bastide was one of those tiny houses frequented in summer by the Provençals of town and country in search of fresh air. The Abbé had rented this retreat in the middle of a field, five minutes’ walk from the presbytery, which was too small and enclosed in the centre of the parish, right up against the church.

Even in summer he did not live regularly at the cottage: he only went there occasionally for a few days to be amongst the fields and trees and to do some pistol-practice.

“Yes, my friend,” said the priest. “I am very comfortable there.”

The low dwelling, looking as if it had grown like a Provençal mushroom, appeared among the trees. It was painted pink, its surface being speckled over with stripes and spots, split up into little bits by the olive leaves and branches from the trees in the open field.

At the same moment they saw a tall woman moving about in front of the door, getting the little dinner-table ready as she went backwards and forwards, with methodical leisureliness setting the cloth for one, a plate, table-napkin, piece of bread, and glass. She had on the little cap worn by the women of Arles: a pointed cone of black silk or velvet from which grows a white starched mushroom.

When the Abbé was within hearing distance, he called out:

“Eh, Marguerite?”

She stopped to look round and, recognising her master, said:

“Oh, it’s you, your Reverence?”

“Yes, I am bringing a good haul, you must grill me a catfish at once, cooked in butter, only butter, you hear?”

The servant, who had come to meet the two men, examined the fish the sailor was carrying, with an expert eye.

“But we have already got a chicken cooked with rice.”

“Never mind that, tomorrow’s fish is not as good as fish fresh from the sea. I am going to have a really choice meal, it does not often happen; moreover, it is not a great sin.”

The servant picked out the fish and, as she was carrying it away, turned round:

“A man has been here three times to see you, your Reverence.”

Showing no interest, he asked:

“A man! What kind of man?”

“Well, the kind of man whose looks do not recommend him.”

“What! a beggar?”

“Perhaps, I don’t know. I rather think he is a maoufatan.”

Abbé Vilbois laughed at the Provençal word meaning a bad lot, a tramp, for he knew how frightened Marguerite was, and that when she was at the cottage she was always thinking they were going to be murdered.

He gave the sailor a few pence, and was preparing to wash his face and hands (having kept his old habits of neatness and cleanliness), when Marguerite called out from the kitchen, where she was scraping the blood-flecked scales that came away from the fish like tiny pieces of silver:

“There he is!”

The Abbé turned towards the road and saw a man, who seemed in the distance to be very badly dressed, walking towards the house with very small steps. He awaited him, still smiling at his servant’s fright, thinking: “Upon my word, she must be right, he certainly looks a bad lot.”

Without hurrying, the unknown individual drew near, hands in his pockets, and his eyes fixed upon the priest. He was young, with a fair, curly beard, and hair that fell in curls beneath his soft felt hat, a hat so dirty and crushed that no one could have guessed its original colour and shape. He wore a brown overcoat, trousers that hung in a fringe over his ankles, and string-sandals that gave him a slack, silent, disquieting walk⁠—the hardly perceptible slouch of the tramp.

When a few steps away from the priest, he took off the ragged cap that covered his head with a flourish, exposing a withered, dissolute, but well-shaped head, bald on the top⁠—a sign of fatigue or of early debauchery, for the man was certainly not over twenty-five.

The priest immediately took off his hat too, for he felt that this was no ordinary vagabond, or unemployed, neither was he the habitual jailbird wandering about between two prisons who had forgotten all speech except the mysterious language of the convict.

“Good day, your Reverence,” said the man. The priest replied simply: “Good day,” not wishing to call this doubtful, ragged passerby “sir.” They stared at each other; the fixed steady look of the tramp made Abbé Vilbois feel uncomfortable, distressed as one feels when facing an unknown enemy, and overpowered by one of those strange feelings of uneasiness that send shivers through body and blood. At last the vagabond said:

“Well! do you recognise me?”

The priest replied, very astonished:

“Me? Not at all, I don’t know you.”

“Ah! You don’t know me. Look at me again.”

“What is the good of looking at you? I have never seen you before.”

“That is true enough,” said the other ironically, “but I will show you someone you do know.”

He put on his hat and unbuttoned his coat, under which his chest was bare. A red sash wound round his thin waist held his trousers up over his hips.

He took an envelope from his pocket⁠—an envelope marked with every possible kind of stain, the sort of envelope that tramps keep tucked away in the lining of their clothes, and in which they put all kinds of identification papers, which may be genuine, faked, stolen, or legally correct, and which are the highly valued defences of their individual liberty in case of any meeting with the police. From the envelope he drew a photograph about the size of a letter (such as were formerly used). It was yellowish and crumpled with much handling, faded by the heat of the body against which it had been kept.

Holding it up to the Abbé, he asked:

“And this, do you know it?”

The Abbé took two steps forward to see better, then stopped; he turned pale, profoundly distressed, for this was a photograph of him taken for her in the bygone days of his love.

Still he did not understand and made no reply.

The vagabond repeated:

“Do you recognise this?”

The priest stammered:

“Well, yes.”

“Who is it?”

“Me.”

“It is really you?”

“Certainly.”

“Right; now look at your photograph, then look at me.”

The miserable priest had already seen that the two⁠—the man in the photograph and the man standing at his side laughing, were as alike as two brothers, but still he did not understand and stammered:

“What do you want me to do?”

With a note of spite in his voice the beggar said:

“What do I want? Well, first of all I want you to recognise me.”

“But who are you?”

“What am I? Ask the first comer on the road, ask the servant; if you like, let us go and ask the mayor of the village and show him the photograph; he will laugh about it, I can tell you that. Ah! you refuse to recognise me as your son, Papa curé?”

The old man, lifting his arms with a biblical and despairing gesture, moaned:

“It can’t be true.”

The young man drew nearer and, facing him, said:

“Ah! It can’t be true. Ah! you priest, you must stop telling lies, do you hear?”

The expression on his face was threatening, his fists were doubled up, he spoke with so much violence that the Abbé, moving further away, asked himself which of the two was making a mistake.

However, he insisted again:

“I have never had a child.”

The other retorted:

“And you never had a mistress either?”

The old man with great determination uttered one word: making a dignified assent:

“Yes.”

“And this mistress was not with child when you turned her out?”

The old feeling of resentment, stifled twenty-five years ago⁠—not really stifled but confined deep down in the lover’s heart⁠—suddenly burst asunder the whole fabric of his religious belief, of his resigned devotion to his God, as well as his complete renunciation of worldly things: all that he had built up round it with so much care; and beside himself with rage, he shouted:

“I turned her out because she had deceived me and was with child by another, otherwise I would have killed her, sir, and you too.”

The young man hesitated, surprised at the sincerity of the curé’s outburst; he said in a gentler tone:

“And who told you the child was another’s?”

“She did, she herself, while defying me.”

Without questioning this statement, the vagabond said with the casual manner of a street-boy pronouncing judgment:

“Just so! Then Mamma made a mistake when she defied you, that is all there is to be said.”

Quickly regaining self-control after his sudden outburst, the Abbé began to question the boy:

“And who told you that you were my son?”

“She did when she was dying, your Reverence.⁠ ⁠… Besides, what about this!”

And he held the little photograph up to the priest.

The old man took it, and with anguish in his heart he spent some time comparing the unknown passerby with his old photograph⁠—there could be no further doubt that the youth was indeed his son.

He was seized with a feeling of distress, an intensely painful, indefinable feeling like remorse for some old crime. He understood a little of what had happened, and guessed the rest, and again he saw the brutal scene of their parting. To save the life threatened by the man she had wronged, the woman⁠—the deceitful, faithless female⁠—had thrust this lie at him.⁠ ⁠… And the lie had succeeded. A son of his had been born, grown up, and turned into this sordid road tramp stinking of vice as a he-goat stinks of the beast.

He said in a low voice:

“Will you go for a short stroll with me so that we may clear the matter up?”

The other sneered:

“Will I? That is what I came for.”

They went off together, side by side, through the orchard. The sun had gone down and the keen freshness of the Southern twilight spread its invisible cooling cloak over the countryside. The Abbé shivered; raising his eyes to Heaven in the usual orthodox way, he saw all around him, trembling against the sky, the small grey leaves of the holy tree which had sheltered under its frail shadow the greatest of all suffering⁠—the one and only moment of Christ’s weakness. A short prayer of desperation burst from him, spoken with that inner voice that never passes the lips, with which believers call upon the Saviour: “O God, help me.”

Then, turning towards his son:

“So then, your mother is dead?”

As he said the words: “Your mother is dead,” a new wave of grief swept through him, making his heart sink, a curious torment of the flesh unable to forget a cruel echo of the torture he had suffered; as she was dead, the most painful feeling of all seemed to be the faint stirring within him of that delirious, short-lived happiness which had left nothing behind it but the scar of remembrance.

The young man replied:

“Yes, your Reverence, my mother is dead.”

“Long ago?”

“Three years ago.”

Another doubt troubled the priest.

“Why did you not come sooner and look for me?”

The other hesitated.

“I could not. I was prevented.⁠ ⁠… But excuse me for interrupting the secrets which shall be revealed later on, with as many details as you please, to say that I have had nothing to eat since yesterday morning.”

The old man was filled with pity, and quickly holding out his hands, he said: “Oh, my poor child.”

The young man took the outstretched hands, which closed over his thin, moist, feverish fingers, and replied with his habitual flippancy:

“Good! Really, I begin to think we shall get on together in spite of what has happened.”

The curé started walking again.

“Let us go and dine,” he said.

Suddenly he remembered with a vague feeling of pleasure that was odd and confused, the beautiful fish he had caught, which with the chicken and rice would make a good meal for the wretched youngster.

The Arlesian, anxious and beginning to grumble, was waiting for them at the door.

“Marguerite,” cried the Abbé, “take away the table and carry it into the room, quickly, quickly, and set the cloth for two, but quickly.”

The servant did not move, scared at the thought that her master was going to dine with the criminal.

Then, Abbé Vilbois himself began to take the things away and remove what had been set for him into the only room on the ground floor.

Five minutes later he was seated opposite the vagabond before a tureen full of cabbage soup that sent up a faint cloud of boiling steam between their faces.

III

When the plates were full, the tramp started to swallow his soup greedily in quick following spoonfuls. The Abbé was not hungry now, so he trifled with the delicious soup, leaving the bread at the bottom of the plate. He asked suddenly:

“What is your name?”

The man laughed, glad to be satisfying his hunger.

“Unknown father,” said he, “I have no surname except my mother’s family name, which you have probably not forgotten. On the other hand, I have two Christian names, which, by the way, certainly do not suit me: Philippe Auguste.”

The Abbé turned pale and asked with a strangled voice:

“Why were you given those Christian names?”

The vagabond shrugged his shoulders.

“Surely you can guess why. After leaving you, Mamma wanted to make your rival believe that I was his child, and he did believe it until about my fifteenth year. Then I grew too much like you. He repudiated me, the scoundrel! I had been given the two Christian names, Philippe Auguste, and if I had had the luck not to be like anybody, or simply to have been the son of a third unknown ne’er-do-well, I should now be known as the Viscount Philippe-Auguste de Pravallon, the recently acknowledged son of the Count of that name, a senator. As for me, I christened myself ‘No Luck.’ ”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because there were discussions in my presence, and violent they were, you may be sure. Ah! that is the sort of thing that teaches you life.”

A still more painful and stricken feeling than he had yet suffered in the last half-hour oppressed the priest. It was the beginning of a form of suffocation that would grow worse and worse until it killed him, caused not so much by the things he was told as by the way they were told, and by the brutish face of the outcast that gave emphasis to them. Between this man and himself, between his son and himself, he began to feel that swamp of moral filth that works as a deadly poison on certain beings. This was his son? He could not believe it. He wanted every proof, every possible proof; he must learn all, hear all, listen to all, and suffer all. Again he thought of the olive-trees surrounding his little house, again he murmured: “Oh, God help me!”

Philippe-Auguste had finished his soup, and asked:

“Is there no more to eat, Abbé?”

The kitchen being outside the house in an annex, Marguerite could not hear the curé’s voice, so he warned her of his needs by a few strokes on a Chinese gong that hung behind him on the wall.

He picked up a leather hammer and struck the round metal plaque several times. At first a faint sound escaped from it, which grew gradually and, gaining in weight, turned into the vibrating, sharp, violent, horrible, strident clamour of beaten copper.

The servant appeared. Her face was drawn, she glared at the scoundrel as if, with the instinct of a faithful dog, she felt a presentiment of the drama that was hanging over her master. In her hands she held the grilled fish, which sent out a delicious odour of melted butter. The Abbé divided the fish from head to tail and offered the back fillet to the child of his youth.

“I caught it a short time ago,” he said, a remnant of pride hovering in his distress.

Marguerite stayed in the room.

The priest continued:

“Bring some wine, good wine, some of the white wine of Cape Corsica.”

She succeeded in hiding her disgust but he was obliged to repeat sternly:

“Now then, two bottles.” For when he offered wine to a guest⁠—an unusual pleasure⁠—he always offered himself a bottle too.

Philippe-Auguste said, beaming:

“A jolly good idea. I have not had a meal like this for a long time.”

The servant came back in two minutes’ time. Two minutes that had seemed as long as a twofold eternity to the Abbé: the desire to know everything was scorching his blood and consuming it like hellfire.

The bottles were uncorked, and still the servant lingered with eyes fixed on the young man.

“Leave us,” said the curé.

She pretended not to hear.

He repeated, with a certain harshness:

“I ordered you to leave us alone.”

Whereupon she left the room.

Philippe-Auguste ate the fish greedily, while his father, watching him, became more and more surprised and distressed at the degradation he saw in the face so like his own. The morsels that the Abbé Vilbois lifted to his lips refused to pass his contracted throat, and he chewed them slowly, casting about in his mind for the most urgent of the questions that crowded upon him.

He ended by saying:

“What did she die of?”

“Of lung trouble.”

“Was she ill long?”

“About eighteen months.”

“How did she get it?”

“No one knows.”

A silence fell upon them. The Abbé was lost in thought. He felt troubled by many things that he wanted to know, for since the day of his violent attack upon her, he had heard nothing. It was true that he had not wanted news; he had resolutely buried all memory of her and of his days of happiness. But now that she was dead, he felt a sudden violent desire to know everything, a jealous desire, almost a lover’s desire.

He resumed:

“She was not alone, was she?”

“No, she was still living with him.”

The old man shrank within himself.

“With him, with Pravallon?”

“Of course.”

The man who had been betrayed calculated that the very woman who had deceived him had lived over thirty years with his rival.

Almost in spite of himself, he stammered:

“Were they happy together?”

The young man replied, grinning:

“Well, yes, though there were ups and downs. It would have been all right but for me. I have always spoilt everything.”

“How’s that, and why?” said the priest.

“I have already told you. Because he believed I was his son until I was about fifteen. But he was no fool, the old man, he himself discovered the likeness, and then there were rows. He accused Mamma of landing him in a mess. Mamma retorted: ‘Am I to blame? When you took me, you knew quite well that I was the other’s mistress.’ The other being you.”

“Oh, so they talked about me sometimes?”

“Yes, but they never mentioned your name when I was present, except at the end, the very end. The last days when Mamma knew she was done for. They had no confidence in me.”

“And you⁠ ⁠… did you soon learn that your mother was living an irregular life?”

“What do you think? I am not a fool, you bet, I never was. You guess these things directly, as soon as you know something of life.”

Philippe-Auguste was pouring out one glass of wine after another. His eyes lighted up, intoxication quickly followed his long fast. The priest noticed this and was going to make him stop drinking, when he remembered that drink made men reckless and talkative, so he took the bottle and refilled the young man’s glass.

Marguerite brought in the dish of chicken and rice. As she placed it on the table, she fixed her eyes on the tramp, then indignantly said to her master:

“Just look how drunk he is, your Reverence.”

“Leave us alone and go away,” said the priest.

She went out slamming the door.

He asked:

“What did your mother say about me?”

“The usual thing that is said about the man you leave; that you were not easy to live with, a worry to a woman, and that you would have made her life very difficult with your ideas.”

“Did she say that often?”

“Yes, sometimes in a roundabout way so that I should not understand, but I guessed what had happened.”

“And you, how were you treated in the home?”

“Me? Very well at first, but very badly later on. When Mamma saw that I was a spoilsport, she chucked me out.”

“How?”

“How! Quite easily. I played some pranks when I was about sixteen, so the idiots put me into a reformatory to get rid of me.”

He put his elbows on the table, resting his cheeks on his hands, and quite drunk, his wits upside-down in drink, he suddenly felt that irresistible wish to talk about himself that turns a drunkard into a drivelling braggart. He was smiling prettily with all a woman’s charm. The Abbé recognised the perverse charm of the boy’s smile, he not only recognised it, he also felt the spell of the charm⁠—hateful but caressing⁠—that had conquered and ruined him in the past. For the moment the child was more like his mother, not in feature, but in the alluring and insincere expression of his face, and more especially in the attraction of that misleading smile that seemed to open a door on all the incredible baseness of his nature.

Philippe-Auguste continued:

“Well, well! I have had a life, I have, ever since I left the reformatory, a curious life for which a novelist would pay a large sum. Really, old Dumas with his Monte Cristo never imagined stranger adventures than have happened to me.”

He was silent, thinking things over with the philosophical seriousness of the meditative drunkard, then he said slowly:

“If you want a boy to turn out well, no matter what he has done he should never be sent to a reformatory, because of the people he has to mix with. I had a jolly good idea, but it failed. One night about nine o’clock I was wandering around with three pals, all four of us rather the worse for drink, on the main road near Folac ford, when what should I see but a carriage full of people asleep!⁠—the man who was driving and his family; they lived at Martinon and were returning home after dining in town. I seized the horse by the reins and forced it on to the ferryboat, then pushed the boat into the middle of the river. That made a noise, and the driver woke and, not able to see anything, whipped up his horse. Off it went and jumped into the stream with the carriage. They were all drowned! My pals informed against me. At first they laughed like anything as they watched me at work. We never thought it would turn out so badly. All we had hoped for was a bath, something to laugh about.

“Since that I have done worse out of revenge for the first joke, which, I must say, did not deserve punishment. However, there is nothing worth telling. I will only tell you about my last trick because I know that will please you. I paid him out for you.”

The Abbé looked at his son with terrified eyes and stopped eating.

Philippe-Auguste was going on with his story.

“No,” the priest said, “not now, presently.”

Turning round, he struck the strident Chinese cymbal and made it cry out.

Marguerite came at once.

Her master gave his orders so harshly that she bowed her head, afraid and docile:

“Bring us the lamp and all that is still to be put on the table; after that you must not come back unless I strike the gong.”

She went out, came back again and put a white china lamp on the tablecloth, a big piece of cheese, some fruit, and then left the room.

The Abbé said with determination:

“Now I am listening.”

Quite undisturbed, Philippe-Auguste filled up his plate with dessert and filled his glass with wine. The second bottle was nearly empty although the curé had not touched it. The young man, his mouth sticky with food and drink, stammering, resumed:

“The last one, well, here you are. It is pretty bad. I had returned home⁠ ⁠… where I stayed in spite of them because they were afraid of me⁠ ⁠… afraid of me.⁠ ⁠… Ah! You must not annoy me.⁠ ⁠… You know⁠ ⁠… they were living together and yet not together. He had two homes, he had, one the senator’s, the other the lover’s. But he lived at Mamma’s more than he did at his own home, because he could not do without her. Ah!⁠ ⁠… she was shrewd, she was knowing, Mamma⁠ ⁠… she knew how to hold a man, she did! She had taken him body and soul, and she kept him to the end. What fools men are! Well, I had returned and gained the mastery over them because they were afraid of me. I know my way about when necessary, and as for spite, cunning, and violence, I am anyone’s match. Then Mamma fell ill and he settled her in a beautiful place near Meulan in the middle of a park as big as a forest. That lasted about eighteen months⁠ ⁠… as I have already told you. Then we felt the end approaching. He came from Paris every day, he was full of grief, no doubt about it, real grief.

“Well, one morning they had been jabbering for nearly an hour, and I was wondering whatever they could be chattering about so long, when they called me; and Mamma said:

“ ‘I am on the point of death, and have something I want to tell you, in spite of the Count’s opinion’⁠—she always called him the Count when she spoke about him⁠—‘it is the name of your father, who is still alive.’

“I had asked for it more than a hundred times⁠ ⁠… more than a hundred times⁠ ⁠… my father’s name⁠ ⁠… more than a hundred times⁠ ⁠… and she had always refused to tell me.⁠ ⁠… I even think that I struck her one day to make her talk, but it was no use. And then, to get rid of me, she said that you had died penniless, that you were a good-for-nothing, an error of her youth, a maiden’s slip, any old thing. She told the story so well that I swallowed it whole, the story of your death.

“As she was saying: ‘It is your father’s name,’ the other, who was sitting in an armchair, repeated three times, just like this:

“ ‘You are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong, Rosette.’

“Mamma sat up in bed. I can still see her with the red spots on her cheeks and her bright eyes, for she loved me in spite of all; she said to him:

“ ‘Then do something for him yourself, Philippe.’

“When talking to him she always called him ‘Philippe’ and me ‘Auguste.’

“He started shouting out like a madman:

“ ‘For that blackguard, never, for that rogue, that jailbird, that⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠… that⁠ ⁠…’

“He called me all kinds of names just as if he had done nothing else all his life except look for names for me. I nearly lost my temper, when Mamma bade me be quiet, and said to him:

“ ‘Then you want him to die of hunger, as I have nothing to give him.’

“He replied, not at all worried:

“ ‘Rosette, for thirty years I have given you thirty-five thousand francs a year, that makes over a million. Because of me you have led the life of a rich woman, a well-loved woman, and, I dare to add, a happy woman. I owe nothing to this blackguard who has spoilt our last years together, and he will get nothing from me. Useless to insist. Let him know the name of the other one, if you wish. I am sorry, but I wash my hands of the matter.’

“Then Mamma turned towards me. I said to myself: ‘God⁠ ⁠… I am going to get my own father back⁠ ⁠… ; if he has any cash, I am a saved man.⁠ ⁠…’

“She continued:

“ ‘Your father, the Baron of Vilbois, is now known as the Abbé Vilbois, curé of Girandou: near Toulon. He was my lover when I left him for this man.’ She then told me everything except how she had tricked you about her pregnancy. But, there it is, women never tell the truth.”

He sniggered, unconcerned, displaying all his vileness. He went on drinking and, with a still smiling face, continued:

“Mamma died two days⁠ ⁠… two days later. We followed her coffin to the grave, he and I⁠ ⁠… wasn’t it comical!⁠ ⁠… eh!⁠ ⁠… he and I⁠ ⁠… and three servants⁠ ⁠… that was all. He was weeping like a cow⁠ ⁠… we were side by side⁠ ⁠… you would have said it was Papa and Papa’s dear boy.

“Then we went home. Only the two of us. I said to myself: ‘I must be off, without a halfpenny.’ I had just fifty francs. What could I do to pay him out?

“He touched my arm and said:

“ ‘I want to speak to you.’

“I followed him to his study. He sat down before his table and plunged into tears, said that he would not treat me as badly as he had told Mamma he would; he begged me not to worry you.⁠ ⁠… As for that, that is our business, yours and mine.⁠ ⁠… He offered me a thousand-franc note⁠ ⁠… a thousand⁠ ⁠… a thousand⁠ ⁠… what could I do with a thousand francs⁠ ⁠… me⁠ ⁠… a man like me? I saw there were lots more in the drawer, a whole heap. At the sight of all that paper, I felt I wanted to do for someone. I held out my hand to take his gift, but instead of accepting his charity I sprang upon him, threw him down, strangling him until his eyes bulged out, then when I saw the end was near I gagged and trussed him, undressed him and turned him over, then⁠ ⁠… Ah!⁠ ⁠… Ah! Ah!⁠ ⁠… I jolly well paid him out for you!⁠ ⁠…”

Philippe-Auguste coughed, choking with joy; the boy’s lip curled with ferocious gaiety and reminded Abbé Vilbois of the smile of the woman for love of whom he had lost his head.

“After?” he said.

“After⁠ ⁠… Ah! Ah! Ah!⁠ ⁠… There was a big fire in the grate⁠ ⁠… it was December⁠ ⁠… in cold weather⁠ ⁠… she died⁠ ⁠… Mamma⁠ ⁠… a big coal fire⁠ ⁠… I took up the poker⁠ ⁠… made it all hot⁠ ⁠… you see⁠ ⁠… I made crosses on his back, eight, ten, I don’t know how many, then I turned him over again and made the same number on his belly. Wasn’t it funny, eh, Papa! That is how convicts were marked in the old days. He wriggled like an eel⁠ ⁠… but I had gagged him well, he could not make a noise. Then I took the notes⁠—twelve of them⁠—with my own that made thirteen⁠ ⁠… but they brought me no luck. Then I made off telling the servants not to disturb the Count until dinnertime as he was asleep.

“I was sure he would say nothing about it from dread of exposure, as he was a senator. But I was mistaken. Four days later I was pinched in a Paris restaurant. I got three years in jail. That is why I could not come and see you sooner.”

He was still drinking and spluttering and could hardly pronounce one word clearly.

“Now⁠ ⁠… Papa⁠ ⁠… Papa curé! Isn’t it funny to have a curé for a papa!⁠ ⁠… Ah! Ah! must be kind, very kind to the darling boy, because darling boy is out of the common⁠ ⁠… and he played a lovely trick⁠ ⁠… didn’t he?⁠ ⁠… a lovely one⁠ ⁠… on the old man⁠ ⁠…”

The same feeling of rage that had maddened Abbé Vilbois in that final scene with the mistress who had betrayed him, seized him now towards this abominable wretch.

He who, in God’s name, had dealt out forgiveness to many shameful secrets whispered in the privacy of the confessional, was pitiless, merciless towards himself, he had ceased to call upon an all-merciful Father to help him, for he understood that no protection from heaven or earth could save anyone so afflicted with misfortune.

All the fire of his passionate heart and of his stirring blood, subdued by the discipline of his station in the Church, awoke in an irresistible revolt against this wretch⁠—his own son⁠—against this likeness to himself, and more to that unworthy mother who had conceived the boy in her own likeness⁠—and, more than all, against the fatality which had riveted this scoundrel to his paternal foot like the fetters of a galley-slave.

He saw, he foresaw all this in a flash of clear-sightedness, shocked from his twenty-five years of pious tranquillity and rest into action.

Suddenly aware that he must take a high tone with this criminal and terrify him at the first words, he said through teeth clenched with anger, taking no account of the drunken state of the wretch:

“Now that you have told me all about it, listen. You must go away tomorrow morning. You must live in a place that I will choose and that you may not leave without my permission. I will make you a small allowance, just enough to live upon, for I have no money. If you disobey me once, this arrangement will come to an end and I will deal with you⁠ ⁠…”

Although stupefied by wine, Philippe-Auguste understood the threat, and the criminal within him rose instantly to the surface. Hiccuping, he spat out some words:

“Ah! Papa, no use trying it on with me.⁠ ⁠… You are a curé⁠ ⁠… I’ve got you in my power⁠ ⁠… you will take it quietly, like the others.”

The Abbé started, the muscles of the old Hercules were aching to seize the bully, to bend him like a reed, and show him that he must submit to authority.

Pushing the table against the boy’s chest, he shouted:

“Take care, take care.⁠ ⁠… I am afraid of nobody, not I.”

Losing his balance, the drunkard rocked on his chair, then feeling that he was going to fall and that he was in the priest’s power, with a villainous look on his face he stretched out his hand towards a knife that was lying on the cloth. Abbé Vilbois noticed the movement and gave the table a violent push that sent his son head over heels on to the floor, where he lay on his back. The lamp rolled along the ground and went out.

For a few seconds a thin tinkle of glasses jingling against each other sounded through the darkness, then the creeping of soft bodies over the stone floor, then silence.

With the crash of the fallen lamp, black night, swift and unexpected, had fallen upon the two, leaving them dazed as in the presence of some unspeakable horror.

The drunkard, crouching against the wall, never stirred; the priest remained on his chair, plunged in the blackness of the night that was gradually swallowing up his anger. The veil of darkness thrown over him stayed his anger and brought his furious outburst of temper to an end; other ideas took their place, black and sad as the darkness around him.

Silence reigned, a silence as dense as that of a closed tomb, in which nothing seemed to live or breathe. Not a sound came from without, no sound of wheels in the distance, no sound of a dog barking, not even the rustle of a slight breath of wind among the branches or the tapping of a twig against the walls.

The silence dragged on; it might have been an hour. Then suddenly the gong rang. It rang as if struck by a single hard stroke, sharp and loud, followed by a curious noise of something dropping and of an overturned chair.

On the alert, Marguerite rushed to the room, but on opening the door she drew back in terror of the impenetrable darkness. With pounding heart, and trembling all over, she called out in a low voice, panting for breath:

“Your Reverence, your Reverence.”

There was no answer, not a sound.

“My God, my God, what have they done, what has happened?”

She dare not go in nor dare she go back to fetch a light: she was seized with a wild desire to run away, to escape, to scream, although her limbs shook so violently that she could hardly stand. She repeated:

“Your Reverence, your Reverence, it is I, Marguerite.”

Suddenly, in spite of her fear, she felt she must save her master. One of those sudden fits of bravery that occasionally give women strength to perform heroic deeds filled her soul with the recklessness of terror, and running back to the kitchen, she fetched her lamp.

She stopped just inside the room. The first thing she saw was the vagabond lying against the wall, asleep or apparently asleep, then she saw the broken lamp, then under the table the black feet and black stockinged legs of Abbé Vilbois, whose head must have knocked the gong as he fell over on to his back.

Breathless with fright, her hands trembling, she repeated:

“My God, my God, what is the matter?”

As she stepped forward slowly, taking small steps, she slipped on something greasy and nearly fell down.

Leaning forward, she saw a red liquid trickling over the red flags and spreading around her feet; quickly she ran towards the door, sure that what she had seen was blood.

Mad with terror, she fled from the place and, throwing aside the lamp so that she might see nothing more, she rushed out of doors in the direction of the village. She lurched along, knocking against the trees, with eyes fixed on the distant lights, screaming at the top of her voice.

Her shrill cries pierced the night like the sinister call of the common owl, and she screamed without ceasing: “The tramp⁠ ⁠… the tramp⁠ ⁠… the tramp⁠ ⁠…”

When she reached the nearest houses, scared men came out and gathered around her, but she was too excited to answer their questions; she had completely lost her head.

Finally they understood that some accident had happened at the curé’s, and made up a party to go to his rescue.

The little pink-coloured house in the middle of the olive orchard was invisible, black in the deep, silent night. Ever since the one light from the illuminated window had gone out like a closed eye, the house had been drowned in shadow, lost in the darkness, undiscoverable to those not familiar with the countryside.

Lights were soon moving about over the ground, through the trees, in the direction of the house, throwing long, yellow rays on the burnt grass, and on the distorted trunks of the olives that looked like unreal monsters, like serpents of hell all twisted and misshapen. The beams projected in the distance suddenly showed up something whitish and vague in the darkness, then the low, square wall of the little house turned pink in the lantern-light. The lanterns were carried by the peasants, who accompanied two gendarmes with revolvers, the village constable, the mayor of the village, and Marguerite supported by some of the men, as she was in a state of collapse.

They hesitated for a minute in front of the still open, nightmarish doorway, but the inspector seized a lantern and entered, followed by the others.

The servant had not lied. The blood, now congealed, spread over the flags like a carpet. It had reached along as far as the vagabond, staining a leg and a hand.

Father and son were asleep. One, with cut throat, slept the everlasting sleep, the other slept the sleep of the drunkard. The two policemen threw themselves upon the latter and had handcuffed him before he awoke. He rubbed his eyes, stupefied, besotted with wine; when he saw the priest’s corpse he looked terrified, having no idea what had happened.

“Why ever did he not run away?” said the Mayor.

“He was too drunk,” replied the inspector.

They all agreed with him: it never occurred to anyone that Abbé Vilbois might have caused his own death.

Useless Beauty

I

A fashionable victoria, drawn by two magnificent black horses, stood at the doorstep of the mansion. It was about half past five on an evening towards the end of June, and between the gables which fenced the courtyard, gleamed the sky, full of bright light, heat and brilliance.

The Comtesse de Mascaret appeared on the doorstep exactly at the moment in which her husband, who was coming home, reached the gateway. He stopped for several seconds to watch his wife, and turned a little pale. She was very lovely, supple, noticeable for her long oval face, her complexion of old ivory, and her large grey eyes and black hair: she stepped into the carriage without glancing at him, without even appearing to have seen him, with a grace so extraordinarily well-bred that the hideous jealousy by which he had been so long devoured tore at his heart afresh. He went up to her, and, bowing:

“You’re going for a drive?” he said.

She let four words slip through her scornful lips:

“You see for yourself.”

“The park?”

“Probably.”

“May I be allowed to come with you?”

“The carriage is yours.”

Without surprise at the tone in which she answered him, he stepped in and seated himself beside his wife; then he gave the order: “The park.”

The footman leaped on to the seat beside the coachman and the horses, as they always did, pawed and tossed their heads until they had turned into the street.

The couple remained side by side without speaking. He sought how to begin the conversation, but she maintained so obstinately hard an expression that he did not dare.

At last, he stealthily slid his hand towards the gloved hand of his wife and touched it as if by accident, but the gesture that she made in withdrawing her arm was so swift and so expressive of disgust that he hesitated anxiously, in spite of his habitual authority and despotism.

At length he muttered:

“Gabrielle.”

Without turning her head, she asked:

“What do you want?”

“You are perfectly adorable.”

She made no answer, and remained leaning back in the carriage with the expression of an infuriated queen.

By now they were going up the Champs-Élysées, towards the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile. The enormous monument at the bottom of the long avenue, spread out its colossal arch against a fiery sky. The sun seemed to fall on it, scattering from the horizon a flaming dust.

And the flood of carriages, splashed with the rays of the sun on copper fittings and on the silver plating and crystal of harness and lamps, was flowing in a double stream towards the park and the city.

The Comte de Mascaret began again:

“Dear Gabrielle.”

Then, unable to stand it any longer, she replied in an exasperated voice:

“Oh, leave me alone, I beg you. I have no longer liberty to be alone in my carriage now.”

He pretended not to have heard, and went on:

“I have never seen you look as pretty as you do today.”

She was nearly at the end of her patience and replied, with an anger which she could contain no longer:

“You are making a mistake in noticing it, for I give you my word that I’ll never be yours again.”

He was obviously stunned and overwhelmed, and, his customary violence getting the better of him, he flung a “What’s that you say?” which revealed more of the brutal master than of the man in love.

In a low voice, although the servants could hear nothing amid the deafening rumbling of the wheels, she repeated:

“What’s that you say? What’s that you say? How well I recognise you! You want me to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Tell you everything?”

“Yes.”

“Everything that I have held in my heart since I became the victim of your ferocious egoism?”

He turned scarlet with astonishment and rage. He muttered between his clenched teeth:

“Yes, go on.”

He was a man of tall build, with broad shoulders, with a great tawny beard, a handsome man, a nobleman, a man of the world who passed for a perfect husband and an excellent father.

For the first time since they had left the house, she turned towards him and looked him full in the face.

“Well, you are going to hear some unpleasant things, but you may as well know that I am ready for anything, that I will outface everybody, that I fear nothing, and today, you less than anybody.”

He too looked her in the face, and a storm of anger shook him already. He whispered:

“You must be mad.”

“No, but I will no longer be the victim of the detestable torture of maternity that you have made me undergo these last eleven years! I wish to live as a woman in society should, as I have the right, as all wives have the right.”

Suddenly turning pale again, he stammered:

“I don’t understand.”

“Oh, yes, you do. It is now three months since my last child was born, and as I still have all my beauty⁠—which, in spite of your efforts, it is practically impossible to ruin, as you recognised just now when you saw me on the doorstep⁠—you realise that it is time I became enceinte again.”

“You are out of your mind.”

“No. I am thirty and have seven children. We’ve been married for eleven years, and you hope that this will go on for another ten, after which you will cease from being jealous.”

He seized her arm, and squeezing it:

“I am not going to allow you to talk to me like this any longer.

“And I shall talk to you to the end, until I have finished everything I have got to tell you. If you try to stop me, I shall raise my voice loud enough to be understood by the two servants on the box. I only let you sit beside me for this purpose, because I should have these witnesses who would compel you to listen to me and to keep a tight rein on yourself. Now listen to me. You have always been distasteful to me and I have always let you see it, for I have never lied. You married me against my will, you brought pressure to bear on my parents, who were shamed into giving me to you because you were very rich. They forced me to it by making me cry.

“So, having bought me, from the moment when I was in your power, when I began to become a companion ready to attach myself to you, to forget your campaign of intimidation and coercion, in remembering only that I ought to be a devoted wife and to love you as much as it was possible for me to do, you became jealous, yes, as no other man has ever been, the jealousy of a spy, base, ignoble, degrading to yourself and insulting to me. I had only been married eight months when you suspected me of every treachery. You even let me hear you say so. What shame! And since you could not prevent me from being beautiful and pleasing, from being spoken of in drawing rooms and even in the papers as being one of the prettiest women in Paris, you sought what you could discover to cut me off from flirtations, and so you hit on this abominable idea of making me pass my life in a state of perpetual pregnancy, until the time came when I should disgust every man. Oh, don’t deny it. For a long time I understood nothing, then I guessed. You boasted of it even to your own sister, who told me, because she loves me and was horrified by your peasant grossness.

“Think of our battles, doors broken open, locks forced. Think of the existence to which you have condemned me these eleven years, the existence of a brood mare in a stud. Then, the moment I became pregnant, you too lost your taste for me, and I would not see you for months. I was sent into the country to the family seat, to grass, to pasture, to have my baby. And when I reappeared, fresh and beautiful, indestructible, as alluring as ever, and as ever the centre of attraction, hoping at last that I was going to live for a short time like a young wealthy society woman, jealousy overtook you again, and once more you began to pursue me with the infamous and hateful desire by which you are tortured at this moment as you sit beside me. It is not the desire to possess me⁠—I would never refuse myself to you⁠—it is the desire to deform me.

“It is of old standing, this abominable and quite mysterious thing, the full implication of which I was so long in realising (but I have grown quick to note your acts and thoughts): you are attached to your children by all the security which they have given you during the time I carried them in my body. You made your affection for them with all the aversion that you had for me, with all your shameful fears, momentarily set at rest, and with joy at seeing me grown big.

“Oh, how often have I felt that joy in you, recognised it in your eyes, guessed it. You love your children as victories and not as flesh of your flesh. They are victories over me, over my youth, over my beauty, over my charm, over the compliments paid to me, and over those whispered round me and left unspoken. And you are proud of it: you parade with them, you take them to ride in a carriage in the Bois de Boulogne, and on donkeys at Montmorency. You escort them to the theatre in the afternoon so that people shall see you in the middle of them, and say: ‘What a good father!’ and repeat it⁠ ⁠…”

He had seized her wrist with savage brutality, and was gripping it so violently that she fell silent, a groan tearing her throat.

And speaking very softly he said:

“I love my children, do you hear! What you have just told me is a shameful thing for a mother to have said. But you are mine. I am the master⁠ ⁠… your master⁠ ⁠… I can exact from you what I like, when I like⁠ ⁠… and I have the law⁠ ⁠… on my side.”

He tried to crush her fingers in the pincer-like pressure of his heavy masculine fist. Livid with pain, she struggled in vain to withdraw her hand from this vice that was grinding it; and the suffering made her gasp for breath, and tears came to her eyes.

“You realise that I am the master,” he said, “the stronger.”

He had loosed his grasp a little. She replied:

“You believe I am a pious woman?”

Surprised, he stammered:

“Of course.”

“You think that I believe in God?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think that I could lie in swearing an oath to you before an altar that holds the body of Christ?”

“No.”

“Will you accompany me into a church?”

“What to do?”

“You’ll see. Will you come?”

“If you insist, yes.”

She raised her voice, calling:

“Philippe.”

The coachman, bending his neck slightly, without taking his eyes off the horses, seemed to turn only his ear towards his mistress, who went on:

“Drive to the Church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule.”

And the victoria, which had just reached the entrance to the park, turned back in the direction of Paris.

Wife and husband exchanged no further word during their new journey. Then, when the carriage had stopped before the entrance to the church, Mme. de Mascaret, jumping out, went in, followed a few paces behind by the comte.

She went without a pause, straight to the railings of the choir, and falling on her knees beside a chair, hid her face in her hands and prayed. She prayed for a long time, and, standing beside her, he saw at last that she was crying. She cried silently, as women cry in moments of terrible poignant grief. It was a sort of shudder that ran through her body and ended in a little sob, hidden and stifled under her fingers.

But the Comte de Mascaret decided that the situation was lasting too long, and he touched her on the shoulder.

The contact roused her as if it had burnt her. Standing up, she looked him straight in the eyes:

“This is what I have to say to you. I’m not afraid, you can do what you like. You can kill me if that is what you want to do. One of your children is not yours. I swear it to you before God who hears me in this place. It was the only revenge I could take on you, against your abominable masculine tyranny, against the forced labour of procreation to which you have condemned me. Who was my lover? You will never know. You will suspect the whole world. You will not discover him. I gave myself to him without love and without pleasure, solely to deceive you. And he too made me a mother. Who is the child? You will never know. I have seven children; find out the one! I had intended to tell you this later, since one is not avenged on a man by deceiving him until he knows it. You have forced me to confess it to you today: I have finished.”

And she fled through the church, towards the door open on the street, expecting to hear behind her the swift footsteps of the husband she had defied, and to lie crushed on the pavement under the stunning blow of his fist.

But she heard nothing and reached the carriage. She climbed in at one bound, shaken with anguish, fainting with fear, and cried to the coachman:

“Home.”

The horses set off at a quick trot.

II

Shut in her room, the Comtesse de Mascaret waited for her dinner hour as a condemned man waits for the hour of his execution. What would he do? Had he come in? Despotic and ungovernable as he was, ready for any violence, what had he meditated, what had he planned, what resolved? There was no sound in the house, and she looked at the hands of her watch every moment. Her maid had come to dress her for the evening; then she had gone.

Eight o’clock struck, and almost on the instant, there was a double knock at the door.

“Come in.”

The butler appeared, and said:

“Dinner is served, madame.”

“Is the comte in?”

“Yes, madam. M. le comte is in the dining room.”

For a moment or two, she had some thought of arming herself with a little revolver that she had bought some time previously, in view of the drama she was preparing in her heart. But she remembered that all the children would be there: and she took nothing but a bottle of salts.

When she entered the dining room, her husband was waiting, standing near his chair. They bowed slightly to each other and sat down. Then the children took their places, too. The three boys, with their tutor, the Abbé Marin, were on their mother’s right hand: the three girls, with the English governess, Miss Smith, were on her left. The youngest child, aged three months, stayed alone in her room with her nurse.

The three girls, all fair, of whom the eldest was ten, wore blue frocks and were like exquisite dolls. The youngest was not three years old. They were all very pretty already and they gave promise of becoming as lovely as their mother.

The three boys, two brown-haired, and the eldest, aged nine, already very dark, seemed likely to grow into vigorous big-built men, with broad shoulders. The whole family seemed to come of one stock, healthy and active.

The abbé pronounced benediction, as always when no one had been invited to dinner, for the children did not come to the table when there were guests. Then they began dinner.

The comtesse, in the grip of an emotion she had not anticipated, sat with downcast eyes, while the count scrutinised both the three boys and the three girls, with questioning eyes that wandered from one head to another, disturbed and wretched. Suddenly, as he replaced his thin-stemmed glass in front of him, he broke it, and the red liquid spread upon the tablecloth. At the slight noise made by this slight accident, the comtesse started so violently that she jumped in her chair. They looked at each other for the first time. Then, from moment to moment, in spite of themselves, in spite of the revulsion of body and mind with which every glance they exchanged overwhelmed them, they continued to cross glances like exchanging shots.

The abbé, feeling that some constraint, of which he did not guess the cause, existed, tried to raise a conversation. He scattered subjects round him, but his useless attempts did not hatch out one idea or bring one word to birth.

The comtesse, urged by her woman’s tact, fell back instinctively on her social training, and tried two or three times to answer him: but in vain. She found no words in the confusion of her thoughts; and in the silence of the vast room where the only sounds were the slight ones made by the knives and forks and plates, her voice almost frightened her.

Suddenly, leaning towards her, her husband said:

“Here in this room, in the middle of your children, will you swear to the truth of what you have just told me?”

The hatred that had fermented in her veins broke suddenly out, and answering the question determinedly as she answered his glance, she lifted her two hands, the right towards the heads of her sons, the left towards her daughters’, and in a firm, resolute and unfaltering voice, said:

“On my children’s heads, I swear that I have told you the truth.”

He got up, and flinging his napkin on the table with a gesture of exasperation, he turned away, pushing his chair against the wall; then went out without another word.

Thereupon she drew a deep breath, as if she had won a first victory, and went on in a calm voice:

“Don’t take any notice, my darlings, your father has just suffered a great sorrow. And he is still very unhappy. It will pass off in a few days.”

Then she talked to the abbé; she talked to Miss Smith; for her children she found loving words, little kindnesses, the gentle indulgent mother ways that gladden childish hearts.

When dinner was over, she went into the drawing room with the whole family. She made the elder ones chatter, told stories to the young ones, and when it was time for them all to go to bed, she pressed lingering kisses on them, and then sending them away to sleep, she returned to her bedroom alone.

She waited, without the least doubt that he would come. And now that her children were far from her, she determined to defend her mortal body as she had defended her life as a society woman; and in the pocket of her gown she hid the little loaded revolver that she had bought some days before.

Hours passed; clocks struck. All the noises of the house died down. Only the carriages continued to rush down the streets with a confused rumbling, faint and far off through the thickness of the walls.

She waited, wide-awake and poised, not afraid of him now, prepared for anything and almost triumphant, since she had found for him a torture that he would feel every moment throughout his life.

But the first gleam of daylight had slipped through the fringed border of her curtains, and still he had not come to her. Then, stunned, she realised that he was not coming. Locking her door and thrusting across it the safety bolt that she had had fixed, she went to bed at last and lay there with wide-open eyes, thinking, unable to understand now, unable to guess what he was going to do.

Her maid, bringing in her tea, gave her a letter from her husband. He informed her that he was going on a very long voyage and announced in a postscript that his lawyer would supply her with all the money she required for her expenses.

III

It was at the Opéra, during an entr’acte of Robert le Diable. In the stalls, men stood up, hats on their heads, low-cut waistcoats revealing white shirts on which shone gold or jewelled studs, and looked round at the boxes full of women in evening dress, covered with diamonds and pearls, displayed in this brilliantly lighted greenhouse where lovely faces and gleaming shoulders seemed blossoming for all eyes to gaze on, in the midst of the music and the human voices.

Two friends, their backs turned to the orchestra, were quizzing, as they talked, all this gallery of elegance, all this exhibition of true or artificial charm, jewels, luxury and ostentation that spread itself in a circle round the great theatre.

One of them, Roger de Salins, said to his companion, Bernard Grandin:

“Look at the Comtesse de Mascaret, as lovely as ever.”

The other man turned to stare at the tall woman in the opposite box: she looked still very young, and her startling beauty seemed to draw all eyes from every corner of the theatre. Her pale complexion, with its ivory gleams, gave her the look of a statue, while in her hair, which was black as night, a slender rainbow-shaped diadem, powdered with diamonds, glittered like a milky way.

When he had looked at her for some time, Bernard Grandin replied with a humorous accent of sincere conviction:

“I’ll grant you that she’s lovely!”

“How old will she be now?”

“Wait. I can tell you exactly. I have known her since her childhood. I saw her make her entry into society as a young girl. She is⁠ ⁠… she is⁠ ⁠… thirty⁠ ⁠… thirty⁠ ⁠… thirty-six years old.”

“It’s impossible.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“She looks twenty-five.”

“She has had seven children.”

“It’s incredible.”

“They are all seven alive too, and she’s an admirable mother. I visit the house sometimes: it’s a pleasant house, very quiet and restful. She achieves the difficult art of being a mother and a social being.”

“Odd, isn’t it? And there’s never been any talk about her?”

“Never.”

“But what about her husband? He’s a strange man, isn’t he?”

“Yes and no. There may have been some little incident between them, one of those little domestic incidents that one suspects, never hearing the whole story but guessing it fairly accurately.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know anything about it myself. Mascaret is very much the man about town nowadays after having been a perfect husband. During all the time that he was a thoroughly good husband, he had a thoroughly bad disposition, suspicious and surly. Since he took to a gay life, he has become quite careless, but one feels that he has some worry, some grief, a gnawing canker of some kind: he is ageing very much, he is.”

For a few minutes the two friends philosophised on the secret troubles, impossible to understand, that differences of character or perhaps physical antipathies, unnoticed at first, can create in a family.

Roger de Salins, who was still eyeing Mme. de Mascaret, added:

“It is incomprehensible that this woman has had seven children.”

“Yes, in eleven years. After which she made an end, at the age of thirty, of her period of reproduction, in order to enter on the brilliant period of display, which seems far from finishing.”

“Poor women!”

“Why do you pity them?”

“Why? Oh, my dear, think of it! Eleven years of pregnancy for a woman like that! What a hell! It’s the whole of her youth, all her beauty, her every hope of success, the whole romantic ideal of the brilliance of life, that is sacrificed to this abominable law of reproduction which turns the normal woman into a mere egg-laying machine.”

“What’s to be done? That’s only nature!”

“Yes, but I say that nature is our enemy, that we must fight all our lives against nature, because she never ceases to force us back and back to the beast. Whatever there is of decency, of beauty, of graciousness, of idealism, on earth, was not put there by God, but by man, by man’s brain. It is we who have introduced into the created world some little grace, beauty, a charm foreign to it, and mystery, by the songs we sing of it, the interpretations we offer, by the admiration of poets, the idealisations of artists, and the explanations of scientists who are deluded but who do find ingenious reasons for phenomena. God has created only gross creatures, full of the germs of disease, who after a few years of animal development grow old in infirmity, with all the ugliness and all the impotence of human decrepitude. He made them, it seems, only to reproduce themselves in a revolting fashion and thereafter to die, like the ephemeral insects of summer evenings. I said, ‘to reproduce themselves in a revolting fashion’: I repeat it. What is indeed more shameful, more repugnant than the filthy and ridiculous act of human reproduction, from which all delicate sensibilities shrink and will always shrink in disgust? Since all the organs invented by this economical and malignant creator serve two purposes, why did he not choose others, that were not ill-suited and defiled, to which to entrust this sacred mission, the noblest and most uplifting of all human functions? The mouth that nourishes the body with material food, is also the medium of words and thoughts. The flesh is restored by it at the same time that it gives expression to the intelligence. The sense of smell, which gives the lungs their vital air, gives the brain all the perfumes in the world: the scent of flowers, woods, trees, the sea. The ear which puts us in communication with our fellow beings, has also made it possible for us to invent music, to create from its sounds imagination, happiness, the infinite, and even physical pleasure. But one would suppose that a malicious and cynical creator had wished to prevent man from ever ennobling, beautifying and idealising his relations with women. Nevertheless, man found love, which is not so bad as a reply to a God who is a cheat, and he has so endowed it with poetical conceits that woman often forgets to what contacts she is forced. Those among us who are powerless to delude ourselves by self-idealisation, have invented vice and refined debauch, which is yet another way of making a fool of God and rendering a wanton homage to beauty.

“But the normal human being makes children like a beast mated by law.

“Look at this woman! Isn’t it abominable to think that this jewel, this pearl born to be beautiful, admired, fêted and adored, has passed eleven years of her life in giving heirs to the Comte de Mascaret!”

Bernard Grandin said, laughing:

“There’s a good deal of truth in that; but few people would understand you.”

Salins became excited.

“Do you know my conception of God?” said he. “A monstrous creative organ unknown to us, who sows millions of worlds through space as a single fish lays eggs in the sea. He creates because that is his God function: but he is ignorant of what he does, senselessly prolific, unconscious of the multitudinous combinations produced by his scattered germs. Human thought is a happy little accident born of the chances of his fecundities, a local accident, passing and unforeseen, condemned to disappear with the earth, and to begin again, perhaps, here or elsewhere, the same or different, with the new combinations of the eternal re-beginnings. It is due to this, to this little accident of intelligence, that we exist ill at ease in a state of being not made for us, which had not been prepared to receive, house, nourish and content thinking beings, and it is due to this too that we have to fight without rest, such of us as are truly refined and civilised, against what are still called the designs of Providence.”

Grandin, who was listening to him attentively, knowing of old the startling leaps of his imagination, asked him:

“So you believe that human thought is a spontaneous product of the blind parturition of God?”

“Why not? A fortuitous function of the nervous centres of our brains, similar to unforeseen chemical actions due to new combinations, similar too to a manifestation of electricity, created by friction or by unexpected contiguities, in short to all the phenomena engendered by the infinite and fecund fermentations of living matter.

“But, my dear, the proof leaps to the eye of anyone who looks round him. If human thought, willed by a conscious creator, had been intended to be that which it has become, quite different from the thought and the resignation of the beasts, exacting, questing, disturbed, tormented, would the world created to receive the creatures that we are today have been this uncomfortable little park for small beasties, this salad bed, this stony, spherical, sylvan kitchen-garden, where your shortsighted Providence had destined us to live naked, in caves or under trees, nourished by the murdered flesh of the animals, our brothers, or the raw vegetables growing in sun and rain?

“But it only requires a second’s reflection to realise that this world is not made for creatures like us. Thought, hatched and developed by a miraculous quality of the nerves of our brain cells, quite powerless, ignorant and confused as it is and will always remain, makes us all intellectuals of the world of the ideal, and miserable exiles in this world.

“Contemplate this world, in the state in which God gave it to the beings who dwell thereon. Is it not visibly and solely designed, planted and wooded for animals? What is there for us? Nothing. And for them, all: caves, trees, leafy places, rivers, watering-places, food and drink. So that fastidious people like me are never happy there. Only men who approximate to the brutes are content and satisfied. But the others, poets, squeamish creatures, dreamers, seekers, restless beings⁠ ⁠… oh, poor wretches!

“I eat cabbages and carrots, dammit, onions, turnips and radishes, because we have been constrained to accustom ourselves to them, even to acquire a taste for them, and because nothing else grows, but these things are a food fit only for rabbits and goats, as grass and clover are food for horses and cows. When I look at the ears of a field of ripe corn I don’t doubt but that it has germinated in the soil for the beaks of sparrows and larks, but not for my mouth. So when I masticate bread I am robbing the birds, as I am robbing the weasel and the fox in eating poultry. Are not quail, pigeon and partridge the natural prey of the hawk; sheep, venison and beef the prey of the great carnivorous beasts, rather than meats fattened for us to be served roasted with truffles that have been disinterred especially for us by the pigs?

“Animals have nothing to do but live here, my dear. They are in their own place, sheltered and fed, they have only to browse or hunt or eat each other, following the promptings of their instincts, for God never foresaw gentleness and peaceful way: he foresaw only the death of creatures impelled to destroy and devour each other.

“As for us! Oh, we have had to use labour, effort, patience, invention, imagination, industry, talent, and genius to make this root-bound stony soil something like a dwelling-place. Think what we have done, in spite of nature, in opposition to nature, to establish ourselves in barely tolerable conditions, hardly decent, hardly comfortable, hardly elegant, unworthy of us.

“And the more civilised, intelligent and refined we are, the more we must vanquish and tame the animal instinct that represents the will of God in us.

“Consider how we have had to invent civilisation, which includes so many things, so very many things of all kinds, from socks to telephones. Think of all the things you see every day, all the things that are useful to us in every sort of way.

“To soften our brutish fate, we have discovered and manufactured everything, beginning with houses, and going on to delicate foods, sweets, cakes, drinks, liqueurs, tapestries, clothing, ornaments, beds, hair mattresses, carriages, railways, innumerable machines: more, we have discovered science and art, writing and poetry. Yes, we have created the arts, poetry, music, painting. Everything that belongs to the imagination comes from us, and all the gay conceits of life, feminine dress and masculine talent, which has managed to make the merely reproductive existence, for which alone a divine Providence gave us life, a little more beautiful in our eyes, a little less naked, less monotonous and less harsh.

“Look at this theatre. Is there not here a human world created by us, unforeseen by the eternal Fates, unknown to Them, comprehensible to our minds alone, a gay titillation of mind and senses, created solely for us and by the feeble discontented restless animal that we are?

“Look at this woman, Mme. de Mascaret. God had made her to live in a cave, naked, or clothed in the skins of beasts. Isn’t she better like this? But, talking of her, who knows why or how her brute of a husband, having had a woman like that for a companion and especially after having been uncouth enough to make her seven times a mother, abandoned her all at once to run after loose women?”

Grandin replied:

“Oh, my dear, that’s probably the only reason. He discovered at last that sleeping in his own bed costs him too much. He has arrived by way of domestic economy at the same theories you hold philosophically.”

The bell rang three times for the last act. The two friends turned round, removed their hats and took their seats.

IV

Side by side in the brougham that took them back to their house after the performance at the Opéra, the Comte and Comtesse de Mascaret sat in silence. But suddenly the husband said to his wife:

“Gabrielle!”

“What is it?”

“Don’t you think this has lasted long enough?”

“What?”

“The abominable torture to which you have condemned me for six years.”

“Well, I can’t do anything about it.”

“At least, tell me which one it is.”

“Never.”

“Think how I can no longer see my children or feel them round me without my heart being wrung by this doubt. Tell me which it is, and I swear I will forgive and that I’ll treat it just like the others.”

“I haven’t the right to do it.”

“Don’t you see that I can’t endure this life any longer, this gnawing thought, this question that I never cease to ask myself, this question that tortures me every time I look at them? I shall go mad.”

She asked:

“So you have suffered deeply?”

“Frightfully. Would I otherwise have endured the horror of living beside you, and the still worse horror of feeling, of knowing that there is one such child among them, whom I can’t recognise, and who makes it impossible for me to love the others?”

She repeated:

“So, you really have suffered very much?”

He answered in a sad restrained voice:

“Don’t I tell you every day that it is an intolerable torture to me? But for that, would I have come back, would I have remained in this house, near you and near them, if I had not loved them, my children? Oh, you have behaved towards me in a shameful way. The only passion of my heart is for my children: you know it well. I feel for them as a father of olden days, as I was for you the husband of an older ideal of family life, for I remain a man of instinct, a man of nature, a man of an earlier day. Yes, I own it, you made me terribly jealous, because you are a woman of another race, another spirit, with other needs. Oh, I shall never forget the things you said to me. From that day, moreover, I cared no more what you did. I did not kill you because that would have deprived me of the last means on earth by which I could find out which of our⁠ ⁠… of your children is not mine. I have waited, but I have suffered more than you would believe, for I dare not love them now, except perhaps the eldest: I daren’t look at them now, call them, embrace them, I can’t take one of them on my knees now without wondering: ‘Is this the one?’ For six years I have been courteous to you, even kind and complaisant towards you. Tell me the truth and I give you my word that I will do nothing unkind.”

In the darkness of the carriage, he thought he could feel that she was moved, and feeling that at last she was going to speak, he said:

“I beg you to tell me, I implore you.”

She murmured:

“Perhaps I have been more guilty than you think. But I could not, I could not go on with that destestable life of continued pregnancies. There was only one way in which I could drive you from my bed. I lied before God, and I lied with my hand raised to my children’s heads, for I never deceived you.”

He seized her arm in the darkness, and gripping it as he had done on the terrible day when they drove in the park, he stammered:

“Is it true?”

“Quite true.”

But, distraught with agony, he groaned:

“Oh, I shall be a prey to new doubts that will never end. Which time did you lie, that other day or today? How can I believe you now? How can I believe a woman after that? I shall never know again what to think. I had rather you had said to me: ‘It’s Jacques,’ or ‘It’s Jeanne.’ ”

The carriage was turning into the courtyard of the house. When it drew up before the steps, the comte descended first and as always offered his arm to his wife to mount the steps.

“Can I talk to you for a few minutes?” he said.

She answered:

“I’d like you to.”

They went into a small sitting-room, and a rather surprised footman lit its candles.

Then, when they were alone, he went on:

“How am I to know the truth? I have implored you a thousand times to speak, you remained silent, impenetrable, inflexible, inexorable, and now you come to me today and tell me that you lied. For six years you have found it in your heart to let me believe a thing like that! No, it’s now you’re lying, I don’t know why, out of pity for me, perhaps?”

She replied, with a grave sincere air:

“But if I had not lied I should have had four more children in the last six years.”

He cried:

“Is it a mother talking like that?”

“Oh,” she said, “I don’t feel in the least as a mother towards children who are not born, I’m content to be the mother of those I have and to love them with all my heart. I am, we are women of the civilised world. We no longer are and we refuse to be mere females who replenish the earth.”

She rose, but he seized her hands.

“One word, only one word, Gabrielle. Will you tell me the truth?”

“I have just told you it. I have never deceived you.”

He looked her squarely in the face, so lovely as she was, with her eyes grey as cold skies. In her dusky hair, in that shadowy night of black hair, shone the diadem powdered with diamonds like a milky way. Then he felt suddenly, by some intuition he felt that this being before him was not only a woman destined to perpetuate her race, but the strange and mysterious product of all our complicated desires, garnered in us by the centuries, turned aside from primitive and divine goal to wander towards a mystic beauty half-seen and intangible. So that some of them flourish only for our dreams, adorned with all the poetry, the romantic luxury, the conceits and the aesthetic charm that civilisation has gathered round woman, this statue of flesh that engenders as many fevers of the senses as immaterial appetites.

Her husband remained standing in front of her, dazed by this tardy and obscure discovery, reaching directly back to the cause of his old jealousy and understanding it hardly at all.

At last he said:

“I believe you. I feel that at this moment you are not lying: and indeed it always seemed to me before that you were lying.”

She held out her hand:

“We are friends then?”

He took this hand and kissed it, answering:

“We are friends. Thank you, Gabrielle.”

Then he went out, still looking at her, marvelling that she was still so lovely, and feeling in himself the birth of a strange emotion, an emotion perhaps more terrible than the simple love of old.

Who Knows?

I

My God! My God! So at last I am going to write down what has happened to me. But shall I be able to? Shall I dare?⁠—so fantastic, so inexplicable, so incomprehensible, so crazy is it.

If I were not certain of what I had seen, certain that there has been in my reasoning no faulty link, no error in my investigations, no lacuna in the relentless sequence of my observations, I would have believed myself to be merely the victim of an hallucination, the sport of a strange vision. After all, who knows?

I am today in a private asylum; but I entered it voluntarily, urged thereto by prudence, and fear. Only one living creature knows my story. The doctor here. I am going to write it. I hardly know why. To rid myself of it, for it fills my thoughts like an unendurable nightmare.

Here it is:

I have always been a recluse, a dreamer, a sort of detached philosopher, full of kindly feeling, content with little, with no bitterness against men or resentment against heaven. I lived alone, all my life, because of a sort of uneasiness that the presence of other people induces in me! How can I explain it? I could not explain it. I don’t refuse to see people, to talk to them, to dine with friends, but when I have endured their nearness for some time, even those with whom I am most intimate, they weary me, exhaust me, get on my nerves, and I suffer an increasing exasperating longing to see them go or to go myself, to be alone.

This longing is more than a desire, it is an irresistible necessity. And if I had to endure the continued presence of the people in whose company I was, if I were compelled, not to listen but to go on for any length of time hearing their conversation, some accident would certainly befall me. What? Ah, who knows? Perhaps merely a fainting fit? Yes, probably that!

I have such a passion for solitude that I cannot even endure the nearness of other people sleeping under my roof: I cannot live in Paris because of the indefinable distress I feel there. I die spiritually, and I am as tortured in my body and my nerves by the vast crowd that swarms and lives round me, even when it sleeps. Oh, the slumber of other people is more unendurable than their speech! And I can never rest when at the other side of the wall I am aware of lives held in suspense by these regular eclipses of consciousness.

Why am I so made? Who knows? The cause is perhaps quite simple. I am quickly wearied of all that exists outside myself. And there are many people similarly constituted.

There are two races dwelling on earth. Those who need other people, who are distracted, occupied and refreshed by other people, and who are worried, exhausted and unnerved by solitude as by the ascension of a terrible glacier or the crossing of a desert; and those, on the other hand, who are wearied, bored, embarrassed, utterly fatigued by other people, while isolation calms them, and the detachment and imaginative activity of their minds bathes them in peace.

In effect, this is a usual psychical phenomenon. Some people are made to live an outward life, others to live within themselves. I myself have a short and quickly exhausted power of attention to the outside world, and as soon as it has reached its limit, I suffer in my whole body and my whole mind an intolerable distress.

The result is that I attach myself, that I attached myself strongly to inanimate things that assume for me the importance of living creatures, and that my house has become, had become a world where I lived a solitary and active life, surrounded by things, furniture, intimate trifles, as sympathetic to my eyes as faces. I had filled it with them little by little. I had decorated it so, and I felt myself housed, content, satisfied, as happy as in the arms of a loving woman whose familiar caress was become a calm and pleasant need.

I had had this house built in a beautiful garden which shut it off from the roads, and at the gate of a town where I could, when occasion arose, find the social resources to which, at odd moments, I felt impelled. All my servants slept in a distant building at the end of the kitchen garden, which was surrounded by a great wall. The sombre folding down of the nights, in the silence of my habitation, lost, hidden, drowned under the leaves of great trees, was so tranquillising, so pleasant to me, that every evening I delayed going to bed for several hours, to enjoy it the longer.

That particular day, Sigurd had been played at the local theatre. It was the first time I had heard this beautiful fairy-like musical drama, and it had given me the greatest pleasure.

I walked home, at a brisk pace, my head full of sounding rhythms, my eyes filled with visions of loveliness. It was dark, dark, so unfathomably dark that I could hardly make out the high road and several times almost went headlong into the ditch. From the toll gate to my house is about two-thirds of a mile, perhaps a little more, maybe about twenty minutes’ slow walking. It was one o’clock in the morning, one or half past; the sky was growing faintly light in front of me, and a slip of a moon rose, the wan slip of the moon’s last quarter. The crescent moon of the first quarter, that rises at four or five o’clock in the evening, is brilliant, gay, gleaming like silver, but the moon that rises after midnight is tawny, sad and sinister: it is a real Witches’ Sabbath of a moon. Every walker by night must have made this observation. The moon of the first quarter, be it thin as a thread, sends out a small joyous light that fills the heart with gladness and flings clear shadows over the earth; the moon of the last quarter scarcely spreads a dying light, so wan that it hardly casts any shadow at all.

I saw from some way off the sombre mass of my garden, and, sprung from I know not where, there came to me a certain uneasiness at the idea of entering it. I slackened my step. It was very mild. The heavy weight of trees wore the aspect of a tomb where my house was buried.

I opened my gateway and made my way down the long avenue of sycamore-trees, which led to the house, arched and vaulted overhead like a high tunnel, crossing shadowy groves and winding round lawns where under the paling shadows clumps of flowers jewelled the ground with oval stains of indeterminate hues.

As I approached the house, a strange uneasiness took possession of me. I halted. There was no sound. There was not a breath of air in the leaves. “What’s the matter with me?” I thought. For ten years I had entered in like manner without feeling the faintest shadow of disquietude. I was not afraid. I have never been afraid at night. The sight of a man, a marauder, a thief, would have filled me with fury, and I would have leaped on him without a moment’s hesitation. I was armed, moreover. I had my revolver. But I did not touch it, for I wished to master this sense of terror that was stirring in me.

What was it? A presentiment? The mysterious presentiment that takes possession of one’s senses when they are on the verge of seeing the inexplicable? Perhaps? Who knows?

With every step I advanced, I felt my skin creep, and when I was standing under the wall of my vast house, with its closed shutters, I felt the need of waiting a few moments before opening the door and going inside. So I sat down on a bench under the windows of my drawing room. I remained there, a little shaken, my head leaning against the wall, my eyes open on the shadows of the trees. During these first instants, I noticed nothing unusual round me. I felt a sort of droning sound in my ears, but that often happened to me. It sometimes seems to me that I hear trains passing, that I hear clocks striking, that I hear the footsteps of a crowd.

Then shortly, these droning sounds became more distinct, more differentiated, more recognisable. I had been mistaken. It was not the usual throbbing sound of my pulse that filled my ears with these clamourings, but a very peculiar, though very confused noise that came, no doubt about it, from the interior of my house.

I made it out through the wall, this continuous noise, which was rather a disturbance than a noise, a confused movement of a crowd of things, as if all my furniture was being pushed, moved out of its place and gently dragged about.

Oh, for an appreciable time longer I doubted the evidence of my ears. But when I had pressed myself against a shutter the better to make out this strange disturbance of my house, I became convinced, certain, that something abnormal and incomprehensible was taking place in my house. I was not afraid but I was⁠—how shall I say it?⁠—stunned with astonishment. I did not draw my revolver⁠—having a strong suspicion that I should not need it. I waited. I waited a long time, unable to come to any decision, my mind quite lucid, but wildly anxious. I waited, standing there, listening the whole time to the noise that went on increasing: at times it rose to a violent pitch, and seemed to become a muttering of impatience, of anger, of a mysterious tumult.

Then suddenly ashamed of my cowardice, I seized my bunch of keys, I chose the one I wanted, I thrust it in the lock, I turned it twice, and pushing the door with all my force, I sent the door clattering against the inner wall.

The crash rang out like a pistol shot, and, amazingly, from top to bottom of my house, a formidable uproar broke out in answer to this explosive sound. It was so sudden, so terrible, so deafening, that I recoiled some steps and although I still felt it to be useless, I drew my revolver from its holster.

I went on waiting, oh, some little time. I could distinguish, now, an extraordinary tap-tapping on the steps of my staircase, on the floors, on the carpets, a tap-tapping, not of shoes, of slippers worn by human beings, but of crutches, wooden crutches, and iron crutches that rang out like cymbals. And then all at once I saw, on the threshold of my door, an armchair, my big reading-chair, come swaggering out. It set off through the garden. Others followed it, the chairs out of my drawing room, then the low couches dragging themselves along like crocodiles on their short legs, then all my chairs, leaping like goats, and the little stools trotting along like hares.

Imagine the tumult of my mind! I slipped into a grove of trees, where I stayed, crouched, watching the whole time this march past of my furniture, for they were all taking their departure, one after the other, quickly or slowly, according to their shapes and weight. My piano, my large grand, passed galloping like a runaway horse, with a murmur of music in its depths; the smallest objects gliding over the gravel like ants, brushes, glass dishes, goblets, where the moonlight hung glowworm lamps. The hangings slithered past in whorls, like octopuses. I saw my writing-table appear, a rare piece of the last century, which contained all the letters I have received, the whole story of my heart, an old story which caused me so much suffering. And it held photographs too.

Suddenly, I was no longer afraid, I flung myself on it and seized it as one seizes a thief, as one seizes a flying woman; but it pursued its irresistible course, and in spite of my efforts, in spite of my anger, I could not even retard its progress. As I was making a desperate resistance to this terrible force I fell on the ground, struggling with it. Thereupon it tumbled me over, and dragged me over the gravel, and the pieces of furniture that were following it were already beginning to walk over me, trampling over my legs and bruising them; then, when I had loosed my hold of it, the others passed over my body like a cavalry charge over a dismounted soldier.

Mad with fear at last, I managed to drag myself out of the main avenue and to hide myself again among the trees, to watch the disappearance of the meanest, smallest, most overlooked by me, most insignificant objects that had belonged to me.

Then far away, in my house, now as full of echoing sounds as empty houses are, I heard the dreadful sound of shutting doors. They clashed shut from top to bottom of the building, until the hall door that I myself, in my mad folly, had opened for their flight, had finally shut itself, last of all.

I fled too, running towards the town, and I did not recover my self-control until I was in the streets, and meeting belated wayfarers. I went and rang at the door of a hotel where I was known. I had beaten my clothes with my hands to remove the dust, and I explained that I had lost my bunch of keys which contained also the key of the kitchen garden, where my servants were sleeping in a house isolated behind the enclosing wall that preserved my fruit and my vegetables from marauding visitors.

I buried myself up to my eyes in the bed they gave me. But I could not sleep, and I waited for daybreak, listening to the beating of my heart. I had given orders that my people were to be warned at dawn, and my man knocked on my door at seven o’clock in the morning.

His face seemed convulsed with emotion.

“A terrible thing happened last night, sir,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“The whole furniture of the house has been stolen, sir, everything, everything, down to the very smallest articles.”

This news pleased me. Why? Who knows? I had myself absolutely in hand, absolutely determined to dissimulate, to say nothing to anyone about what I had seen, to hide it: bury it in my conscience like a frightful secret. I answered:

“They must be the same people who stole my keys. We must warn the police at once. I will get up and be with you in a few moments.”

The investigations lasted five months. They discovered nothing, they did not find the smallest of my possessions, not the faintest trace of the thieves. Lord! if I had told what I knew. If I had told⁠ ⁠… they would have shut me up, me, not the robbers, but the man who had been able to see such a thing.

Oh, I know enough to hold my tongue. But I did not refurnish my house. It was quite useless. The thing would have happened again and gone on happening. I did not want to enter the house again. I did not enter it. I never saw it again.

I went to Paris, to a hotel, and I consulted doctors on my nervous state, which had been giving me much uneasiness since that deplorable night.

They ordered me to travel. I followed their advice.

II

I began by travelling in Italy. The sun did me good. For six months, I wandered from Genoa to Venice, Venice to Florence, Florence to Rome, Rome to Naples. Then I went over Sicily, a country alike notable for its climate and its monuments, relics of the Greek and Norman occupation. I turned to Africa, I peacefully crossed the huge calm yellow desert over which camels, gazelles and vagabond Arabs wander, and almost nothing haunts the light, crystalline air, neither by night nor day.

I returned to France by Marseilles, and despite the gaiety of the province, the dimmer light of the sky saddened me. Once more I felt, on returning to the Continent, the curious fancy of a sick man who believed himself cured and whom a dull pain warns that the flame of his malady is not quite extinguished.

Then I came back to Paris. A month later, I was bored with it. It was autumn, and before winter came on, I wanted to make an expedition across Normandy, with which I had no acquaintance.

I began at Rouen, of course, and for eight days I wandered ecstatically, enthusiastically, through this medieval city, in this amazing mirror of extraordinary Gothic monuments.

Then about four o’clock one afternoon, as I was tempting some unreal street, in which a stream, black as the ink they call “Robec Water,” flows, my attention, wholly fixed on the bizarre and antiquated character of the houses, was suddenly distracted by a glimpse of a line of secondhand dealers’ shops which succeeded each other from door to door.

How well they had chosen, these obscene traffickers in rubbish, their pitch in this fantastic alley, perched above the evil watercourse, beneath the roofs bristling with tiles and slates on which still creaked the weathercocks of bygone days!

In the depths of those dark stairs, all higgledy-piggledy could be seen carved presses, Rouen, Neders, Moustiers pottery, painted statues, or some in oak, Christs, Virgins, saints, church ornaments, chasubles, copes, even chalices, and even painted shrines from which the Almighty has been dismantled. Curious, are they not? these caverns in these tall houses, in these huge towns, filled from cellar to attic with every kind of article whose existence seemed ended, but which outlived their natural owners, their century, their period, their fashion, to be bought by new generations as curiosities.

My weakness for trinkets reawakened in this city of antiquaries. I went from stall to stall, crossing in two strides the bridges made of four rotten planks thrown across the nauseous Robec Water.

Heavens! What a shock! One of my most handsome wardrobes met my eyes at the end of a vault crowded with articles, looking like the entrance to the catacombs of a cemetery for old furniture. I drew nearer, trembling in every limb, trembling so much that I dared not touch it. I put out my hand, I hesitated. It was really it, after all: a unique Louis XIII wardrobe, easily recognisable by anyone who had ever seen it. Suddenly casting my eyes a little further, into the deeper shadows of the shop, I caught sight of three of my armchairs, covered with petit point tapestry; then, still further back, my two Henri II tables, so rare that people came to Paris to look at them.

Think! Think of my state of mind!

But I went on, incapable, tortured with emotion. But I went forward, for I am a brave man, as a knight of the Dark Ages thrust his way into a nest of sorcery. Step by step, I found everything which had belonged to me, my chandeliers, my books, my pictures, my hangings, my armours, everything except the desk full of my letters, which I could see nowhere.

I went on, climbing down dim galleries, climbing up to higher floors, I was alone. I shouted; no one answered. I was alone; there was no one in this vast house, tortuous as a maze.

Night fell, and I had to sit down in the shadows of my own chairs, for I would not go away. From time to time I called: “Hallo! Hallo! Is anyone there?”

I must have been there for certainly more than an hour when I heard steps, light footsteps, and slow, I don’t know where. I was on the point of fleeing, but taking heart, I called once more and saw a light in an adjoining room.

“Who is there?” said a voice.

I replied: “A customer.”

The answer came:

“It is very late to come into shops like this.”

“I have been waiting for more than an hour,” I returned.

“You could come back tomorrow!”

“Tomorrow, I shall have left Rouen.”

I did not dare go forward, and he did not come. All the time, I was watching the reflection of his light illuminating a tapestry on which two angels hovered above the bodies on a battlefield. It, too, belonged to me. I said:

“Well! Are you coming?”

He answered:

“I am waiting for you.”

I rose and went towards him.

In the middle of a large room stood a tiny man, tiny and very fat, the fatness of a freak, a hideous freak.

He had an extraordinary beard of straggling hair, thin-grown and yellowish, and not a hair on his head. Not a hair! As he held his candle at arm’s length to see me the better, his skull looked to me like a little moon in this vast room cluttered with old furniture. His face was wrinkled and swollen, his eyes scarcely visible.

I bargained for three chairs, which were mine, and paid for them on the spot an enormous sum, giving only the number of my room at the hotel. They were to be delivered before nine o’clock on the following morning.

Then I departed. He accompanied me to the door with many polite expressions.

I at once betook me to the head police station, where I related the story of the theft of my furniture and of the discovery I had just made.

They immediately asked for information by telegram from the Department which had had charge of the burglary, asking me to wait for the reply. An hour later a quite satisfactory answer arrived.

“I shall have this man arrested and questioned at once,” the chief told me, “for he may possibly have been suspicious and made away with your belongings. If you dine and come back in a couple of hours, I will have him here and make him undergo a fresh examination in your presence.”

“Most certainly, sir. My warmest thanks.⁠ ⁠…”

I went to my hotel and dined with a better appetite than I could have believed possible. Still I was contented enough. They had him. Two hours later I went back to the chief inspector, who was waiting for me.

“Well, sir,” he said, as soon as he saw me, “they haven’t found your man. My fellows haven’t been able to put their hands on him!”

“Ah!” I felt that I should faint. “But⁠ ⁠… you have found his house all right?” I asked.

“Quite. It will be watched and held until he comes back. But as for himself, vanished!”

“Vanished?”

“Vanished. Usually he spends the evenings with his neighbour, herself a dealer, a queer old witch, Widow Bidoin. She has not seen him this evening and can give no information about him. We must wait till tomorrow.”

I departed. How sinister, how disturbing, how haunted the streets of Rouen seemed to me.

I slept badly enough, with nightmares to drag me out of each bout of sleep. As I did not want to appear either too worried or in too much haste, I waited on the following day until ten o’clock before going to the police station.

The dealer had not appeared. His shop remained closed.

The inspector said to me:

“I have taken all the necessary steps. The Department has charge of the affair; we will go off together to this shop and have it opened, and you shall point out your belongings to me.”

We were driven there in a carriage. Some policemen with a locksmith were posted in front of the shop door, which stood open.

When I entered, I found neither my wardrobe, my armchairs, nor my tables, nor anything⁠—nothing of what had furnished my house⁠—absolutely nothing, even though on the previous evening I could not move a step without meeting one of my pieces.

The inspector, surprised, at first looked at me with distrust.

“Good God, sir!” I said, “the disappearance of this furniture coincides amazingly with the disappearance of the dealer.”

He smiled:

“True enough. You were wrong to buy and pay for those things of yours yesterday. It put him on his guard!”

I replied:

“What seems incomprehensible to me is that all the places where my furniture stood are now occupied by other pieces!”

“Oh,” answered the inspector, “he had the whole night, and accomplices too, no doubt. This house probably communicates with its neighbours. Never mind, sir, I am going to move very quickly in this matter. This rogue won’t keep out of our hands very long, now we hold his retreat!”

Ah, my heart, my poor heart, how it was beating.

I stayed in Rouen for a fortnight. The man did not return. My God! My God! Is there any man alive who could confound, could overreach him? Then on the morning of the sixteenth day, I received from my gardener, the caretaker of my pillaged and still empty house, the following strange letter:

Sir:

I beg to inform you that last night there occurred something which no one can fathom, the police no more than ourselves. All the furniture has come back, everything without exception, down to the very smallest objects. The house is now exactly the same as it was on the night of the burglary. It is enough to drive one off one’s head. It happened during the night of Friday-Saturday. The drive is cut up as if they had dragged everything from the gate to the door exactly as it was on the day of the disappearance.

We await you, sir, while remaining,

Your obedient servant,

Philippe Raudin.

Ah, no, no, no, no! I will never go back there!

I took the letter to the police inspector.

“This restitution has been made very skilfully,” he said. “Let’s pretend to do nothing now. We’ll catch our man one of these days.”

But he is not caught. No. They haven’t got him, and I am as afraid of him now as if he was a wild beast lurking behind me.

Not to be found! He is not to be found, this moon-headed monster. Never will he be caught. He will never again come back to his house. What does that matter to him! I am the only person who could confront him, and I will not.

I will not! I will not! I will not!

And if he returns, if he comes back to his shop, who could prove that my furniture was in his place? Mine is the only evidence against him; and I am well aware that it is regarded with suspicion.

Oh, no, such a life was no longer bearable. And I could not keep the secret of what I had seen. I could not go on living like anyone else with the dread that such happenings would begin again.

I went to see the doctor in charge of this private asylum, and told him the whole story.

After questioning me for a long time, he said:

“Would you be willing to remain here for some time?”

“Very willing.”

“You have means?”

“Yes.”

“You would like separate quarters?”

“Yes.”

“Would you care to see friends?”

“No, not a soul. The man from Rouen might dare, for vengeance’ sake, to follow me here.”

And I have been alone, alone, quite alone, for three months. I am almost at peace. I have only one fear.⁠ ⁠… Suppose the antique-dealer went mad⁠ ⁠… and suppose they brought him to this retreat.⁠ ⁠… The prisoners themselves are not safe.⁠ ⁠…

Graveyard Sirens

The five friends were finishing their dinner; there were two bachelors and three married men, all middle-aged and wealthy. They assembled thus once a month, in memory of old times, and after they had dined they used to sit talking until two o’clock in the morning. They were fond of one another’s society, and had remained closely united, so these were perhaps the happiest evenings of their lives. They chatted about everything, about everything that occupies and amuses Parisians. Their conversation, as in most drawing rooms, was a sort of spoken rehash of the morning newspapers.

One of the liveliest was Joseph de Bardon, a bachelor, who lived the life of a boulevardier most thoroughly and capriciously, without being debauched or depraved. It interested him, and as he was still young, being barely forty, he enjoyed it keenly. A man of the world in the broadest and best sense of the word, he possessed a great deal of wit without much depth, a general knowledge without real learning, quick perception without serious penetration; but his adventures and observations furnished him many amusing stories, which he told with so much philosophy and humour that society voted him very intellectual.

He was a favourite after-dinner speaker, always having some story to relate to which his friends looked forward. Presently he began to tell a story without being asked. Leaning on the table with a half-filled glass of fine champagne in front of his plate, in the smoky atmosphere filled with the fragrance of coffee, he seemed perfectly at ease, just as some beings are entirely at home in certain places and under certain conditions⁠—as a goldfish in its bowl, for instance, or a pious woman in church.

Puffing at his cigar, he said:

“A rather curious thing happened to me a little while ago.”

All exclaimed at once: “Tell us about it!”

Presently he continued:

“You all know how I love to roam around the city, like a collector in search of antiquities. I enjoy watching people and things, everything that happens, and everyone who passes. About the middle of September, the weather being very fine, I went for a walk one afternoon, without a definite purpose. We men always have the vague impulse to call on some pretty woman. We review them in our mind, compare their respective charms, the interest they arouse in us, and finally decide in favour of the one that attracts us most.

“But when the sun shines brightly and the air is balmy, sometimes we altogether lose the desire for calling.

“That day the sun was bright and the air was warm, so I simply lighted a cigar and started along the outer boulevard. As I was sauntering along, I thought I would take a look around the cemetery of Montmartre. Now, I have always liked cemeteries because they sadden and rest me; and I need that influence at times. Besides, some of my good friends are laid to rest there, and I go to see them once in a while.

“As it happens, I once buried a romance in this particular cemetery⁠—an old love of mine, of whom I was very fond, a charming little woman whose memory, while it hurts me, awakens all kinds of regrets⁠—I often dream beside her grave. All is over for her now!

“I like graveyards because they are such immense, densely populated cities. Just think of all the bodies buried in that small space, of the countless generations of Parisians laid there forever, eternally entombed in the little vaults, in their little graves marked by a cross or a stone, while the living⁠—fools that they are!⁠—take up so much room and make such a fuss.

“Cemeteries have some monuments quite as interesting as those to be seen in the museums. Cavaignac’s tomb I liken, without comparing it, to that masterpiece of Jean Goujon, the tombstone of Louis de Brézé in the subterranean chapel in the cathedral of Rouen. My friends, all so-called modern and realistic art originated there. That reproduction of Louis de Brézé is more lifelike and terrible, more convulsed with agony, than any one of the statues that decorate modern tombs.

“In Montmartre Cemetery, however, Baudin’s monument is admirable, for it is quite imposing; also the tombs of Gautier and Mürger, where the other day I found a solitary wreath of yellow immortelles, laid there⁠—by whom do you suppose? Perhaps by the last grisette, grown old, and possibly become a concierge in the neighbourhood! It’s a pretty little statue by Millet, but it is ruined by neglect and accumulated filth. Sing of youth, O Mürger!

“Well, I entered the cemetery, filled with a certain sadness, not too poignant, however, and suggesting the thought, if one is well: ‘This is not very cheerful, but I’m not to be put there yet.’

“The impression of autumn, a warm dampness smelling of dead leaves, the pale, anaemic rays of the sun, intensified and poetised the sensation of the solitude and of the end of all things, which haunts this place of death.

“I walked slowly along the alleys of graves where neighbours no longer visit, no longer sleep together, nor read the papers. I began reading the epitaphs. There is nothing more amusing in the world. Labiche and Meilhac have never made me laugh as much as some of these tombstone inscriptions. I tell you these crosses and marble slabs on which the relatives of the dead have poured out their regrets and their wishes for the happiness of the departed, their hopes of reunion⁠—the hypocrites!⁠—make better reading than Paul de Kock’s funniest tales! But what I love in the cemetery are the abandoned plots filled with yew-trees and cypress, the resting-place of those departed long ago. However, the green trees nourished by the bodies will soon be felled to make room for those that have recently passed away, whose graves will be there, under little marble slabs.

“After loitering awhile, I felt tired, and decided to pay my faithful tribute to my little friend’s memory. When I reached the grave, my heart was very sad. Poor child! she was so sweet and loving, so fair and white⁠—and now⁠—should her grave be reopened⁠—

“Bending over the iron railing I whispered my grief, which she probably never heard, and I turned to leave, when I caught sight of a woman in deep mourning kneeling beside a neighbouring grave. Her crape veil was thrown back, disclosing her pretty, fair hair, which seemed in its bands to be illumined under the darkness of her hat. I forgot to leave.

“She seemed bowed with sorrow. She had buried her face in her hands, and rigid as a statue in meditation, lost in deep regrets, she was living over torturing memories and seemed herself a corpse mourning a corpse. Presently I saw that she was beginning to weep, for I could see a convulsive movement of her back like the rustle of the wind in the willows. She cried gently at first, then more violently with a rapid motion of her back and shoulders. Suddenly she uncovered her face. Her eyes, brimming with tears, were charming. For a moment she gazed around as if awakening from a nightmare. She saw me looking at her and quickly hid her face again, greatly abashed. Now, with convulsive sobs she bent her head slowly over the tombstone. She rested her forehead against it, and her veil, falling around her, covered the whiteness of the beloved sepulchre with a dark shroud. I heard her moan and then saw her fall to the ground in a faint.

“I rushed to her side and began slapping her hands and breathing on her temples, while reading this simple inscription on the tombstone:

“ ‘Here lies Louis Théodore Carrel Captain in the Marine Infantry, killed by the enemy in Tonkin. Pray for his soul.’

“This death was dated a few months back. I was moved almost to tears, and renewed my efforts to revive the poor girl. At last she came to. I looked deeply moved.⁠—I am not so bad-looking, and I am not forty.⁠—Her very first glance showed me that she was likely to be grateful for my care. Between sobs she told me of her marriage to the officer who had been killed in Tonkin within a year after their wedding. He had married her for love, she being an orphan and possessing just barely enough for the usual dowry.

“I consoled her, comforted her, and assisted her to her feet, saying:

“ ‘You must not stay here. Come away.’

“ ‘I am unable to walk,’ she whispered.

“ ‘Let me help you,’ I said.

“ ‘Thank you, you are very kind,’ she murmured. ‘Did you also come to mourn someone?’

“ ‘Yes, Madame.’

“ ‘A woman?’

“ ‘Yes, Madame.’

“ ‘Your wife?’

“ ‘A friend.’

“ ‘One may love a friend just as much as a wife, for passion knows no law,’ said the lady.

“ ‘Yes, Madame,’ I replied.

“And so we left the spot together, she leaning on me and I almost carrying her through the alleys. As we came out, she murmured:

“ ‘I’m afraid that I’m going to faint.’

“ ‘Wouldn’t you like to take something, Madame?’ I inquired.

“ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would.’

“I discovered a restaurant near at hand, where the friends of the dead gather to celebrate the end of their painful duty. We went in, and I made her drink a cup of hot tea, which appeared to give her renewed strength.

“A faint smile dawned on her lips and she began telling me about herself: how terrible it was to go through life all alone, to be alone at home day and night, to have no one on whom to lavish love, confidence, and intimacy.

“It all seemed sincere and sounded well coming from her. I was softened. She was very young, perhaps twenty. I paid her several compliments that appeared to please her, and as it was growing dark I offered to take her home in a cab. She accepted. In the carriage we were so close to each other that we could feel the warmth of our bodies through our clothing, which really is the most intoxicating thing in the world.

“When the cab stopped in front of her home she said:

“ ‘I hardly feel able to walk upstairs, for I live on the fourth floor. You have already been so kind, that I am going to ask you to assist me to my apartment.’

“I consented gladly. She walked up slowly, breathing heavily at each step. In front of her door she added:

“ ‘Do come in for a few minutes, so that I can thank you again for your kindness.’

“And I, of course, followed her.

“Her apartment was modest, even a trifle poor, but well-kept and in good taste.

“We sat down side by side on a small divan, and she again began to speak of her loneliness.

“Then she rang for the maid, so as to offer me some refreshments. But the girl failed to appear, and I joyfully concluded that this maid probably came only in the morning, and was a sort of charwoman.

“She had taken off her hat. How pretty she was! Her clear eyes looked steadily at me, so clear and so steady that a great temptation came to me, to which I promptly yielded. Clasping her in my arms, I kissed her again and again on her half-closed lids.

“She repelled me, struggling to free herself and repeating:

“ ‘Do stop⁠—Stop, please. Stop!’

“What did she mean to imply by this word? Under such conditions, to ‘stop’ could have at least two meanings. In order to silence her, I passed from her eyes to her lips, and gave to the word ‘stop’ the conclusion I preferred. She did not resist very much, and as our eyes met after this insult to the memory of the departed captain, I saw that her expression was one of tender resignation, which quickly dispelled my misgivings.

“Then I grew attentive and gallant. After an hour’s chat I asked her:

“ ‘Where do you dine?’

“ ‘In a small restaurant near by.’

“ ‘All alone?’

“ ‘Why, yes.

“ ‘Will you take dinner with me?’

“ ‘Where?’

“ ‘In a good restaurant on the Boulevard.’

“She hesitated a little, but at last consented, consoling herself with the argument that she was so desperately lonely, and adding, ‘I must put on a lighter gown.’

“She went into her bedroom, and when she emerged she was dressed in half mourning, charming, refined and slender. She apparently had different costumes for street and for cemetery wear!

“Our dinner was most pleasant and cordial. She drank some champagne, thereby becoming very animated and lively, and we returned to her apartment together.

“This liaison, begun among tombstones, lasted about three weeks. But man tires of everything and especially of women. So I pleaded an urgent trip and left her. I was generous on leaving, for which she was duly thankful, making me promise and even swear that I would come back, for she really seemed to care a little for me.

“In the meantime I formed other attachments, and a month or so went by without the memory of this love being vivid enough to bring me back to this little graveyard mistress. Still, I had not forgotten her. She haunted me like a mystery, a psychological problem, like one of those inexplicable questions whose solution worries us.

“I can’t tell why, but one day I imagined that I should find her in the Montmartre cemetery. So I went back. I walked around a long time without meeting anyone but the usual visitors of the place, mourners who had not broken off all relations with their dead. The grave of the captain killed in Tonkin was deserted, without flowers, or wreaths.

“As I was passing through another part of this great city of Death, I suddenly saw a couple in deep mourning coming toward me through one of the narrow paths hedged with crosses. When they drew near, Oh, surprise! I recognized⁠—her! She saw me and blushed. As I brushed past her, she gave me a little wink that meant clearly: ‘Don’t recognize me,’ and also seemed to say: ‘Come and see me again, dearest.’

“The man who accompanied her was about fifty years old, fine-looking and distinguished, an officer of the Legion of Honour. He was helping her just as I had, when we left the cemetery together.

“I was utterly nonplussed, reluctant to believe what my eyes had just seen, and I wondered to what strange tribe of creatures this graveyard huntress belonged. Was she merely a clever courtesan, an inspired prostitute, who haunted cemeteries for men disconsolate at the loss of some woman, a mistress or a wife, and hungering for past caresses? Is she unique? Are there others? Is it a profession? Are the cemeteries worked like the streets? Are there graveyard sirens? Or had she alone conceived the idea⁠—wonderful for its deep philosophy⁠—of exploiting the amorous regrets awakened in these funereal places? I would have given a great deal to know whose widow she was that day!”

After

“My dears, you must go to bed,” the Countess said. The three children, two girls and one boy, got up and kissed their grandmother, then went to say good night to the priest, who dined at the château every Thursday.

Abbé Mauduit took two of them on his knees, putting his long black-covered arms round their necks, and, bringing the two heads close together with a paternal gesture, he kissed them tenderly on the brow. Then he put them down. The youngsters went off, the boy leading the way.

“You love children, your Reverence,” the Countess remarked.

“Very much, Madame.”

The old lady raised her clear eyes to the priest and said: “And⁠—has solitude never weighed upon you?”

“Yes, sometimes.”

He was silent, hesitated, then continued: “But I was never meant for an ordinary life.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Oh! I know that very well. I was meant to be a priest. I have followed my vocation.”

The Countess, still looking at him, said: “Come, your Reverence, tell me, tell me how you came to renounce all that makes the rest of us love life, all that brings us support and consolation. Who induced you, what made you decide to turn aside from the broad path natural to man: from marriage, from family life? You are neither fanatical, exalted, gloomy nor sad. Was it some event in your life, some sorrow, which decided you to take the vows?”

Abbé Mauduit rose and, crossing the room, held up his heavy country shoes to the fire. He seemed to be still hesitating. He was a tall, white-haired old man who had officiated in the commune of Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher for twenty years. The peasants all said: “There’s a good man for you!”

He was indeed a good man, benevolent, friendly, gentle and, above all, generous. Like St. Martin, he would have divided his coat in two. He laughed readily and it took little to make him cry like a woman; this rather prejudiced the hardheaded villagers against him. The old Countess de Saville, who had retired to her château du Rocher to educate her grandchildren after the death of her son and daughter-in-law, was very fond of her priest, and said: “He’s a great heart.”

Every Thursday he spent the evening with the Lady of the Manor. They had become fast friends in their old age. With half a word they understood each other on almost every subject, being both of them good in a simple, natural way.

She insisted: “Come, your Reverence, it is your turn to confess.”

He repeated: “I was not meant for an ordinary life. I realised that in time, fortunately, and I have often made the remark that I was right.

“My parents, who were rather wealthy drapers at Verdiers, were very ambitious on my account. I was sent to a boarding-school very young. No one knows what a child suffers at school, lonely and separated from his own people. That monotonous life, bereft of all affection, is good for some, but hateful for others. The young are often much more sensitive than they are thought to be, and by cooping them up too early away from those they love, an excess of sensitiveness may be developed and may become abnormal and full of danger.

“I rarely played: I had no companions and spent my time in longing for home. I cried in bed at night, and racked my brains for memories of my home life, unimportant memories of trifling things. I was always thinking of all I had left behind me, and gradually I turned into a visionary to whom the slightest disappointment was a terrible grief.

“Moreover, I remained taciturn, reserved, shrinking and friendless. The ferment of exaltation was working within me obscurely but surely⁠—children’s nerves are easily excited; care should be taken that they live in really peaceful surroundings until their characters are nearly formed. But who ever considers that an unjust imposition may be as great a grief to some schoolboys as the death of a friend will be later on? How many realise that some youngsters suffer terribly for a mere trifle, and become sick, miserable souls in a very short time? Such was the case with me; this faculty for grieving developed to such a degree that my whole life became a martyrdom. I told no one about it. I said nothing, but gradually I became so acutely sensitive that my whole being was like a running sore. Everything that touched upon it produced twinges of pain, horrible reactions, and consequently caused permanent injury. Happy the man whom nature has girt with indifference and armed with stoicism!

“I reached my sixteenth year; owing to this aptitude for unlimited suffering, I was extremely timid. Feeling open to every attack of chance or fate, I shrank from all contact with others, every friendly advance, and from participation in any event. I was on the alert, as if constantly menaced by some unknown but anticipated misfortune. I dared neither to speak nor to act in public. I felt that life was a battle, a terrific struggle in which one receives tremendous blows, painful, deadly wounds. Unlike human beings who indulge in hopes for a happy future, I felt nothing but vague dread and wanted to hide myself away to avoid the conflict in which I would surely be overcome and killed.

“As soon as I had finished school, I was given six months’ holiday in which to choose a career. A very simple event made me suddenly see myself quite clearly, showed me how ill I was mentally, made me realise the danger I was in, and decide to escape from it.

“Verdiers is a small town surrounded by plains and woods. Our house was in the principal street, and I spent my days far from the home I had so much regretted, so longed for, when at school. All kinds of dreams stirred within me, and I tramped the fields alone to allow them to escape, to find their wings.

“My father and mother, entirely preoccupied with the business and my future, only talked to me about sales and my plans for the future. They loved me in their positive and practical way; they loved me much more with their head than with their heart. I lived shut up within my thoughts, trembling at my eternal apprehensiveness. Then one evening, after a long walk, as I was returning in a great hurry so as not to be late, I caught sight of a dog running towards me. It was a kind of red spaniel, very thin, with long, wavy ears. When it was about ten yards away it stopped, so did I. Then it started to wag its tail and creep slowly towards me with a frightened wriggling of its body, bending its legs as if in supplication, gently moving its head from side to side. I called it. Then it pretended to crawl along so humbly, so sadly, so entreatingly, that I felt my eyes fill with tears. I went nearer, it ran away, then came back, and I put one knee on the ground, speaking to it very gently so as to attract it. At last it came within arm’s length and I patted it very gently, taking care not to frighten it away.

“Getting bolder, it gradually raised itself, put its paws on my shoulders and began to lick my face, and followed me home.

“It was the first live thing that I loved with passion, because it loved me in return. My affection for the animal was certainly exaggerated and ridiculous, I felt vaguely that we were brothers who had strayed into the world, both of us lonely and defenceless. It never left me, slept at the foot of my bed, ate at table in spite of my parents’ disapproval, and accompanied me on my solitary walks.

“I would often stop by the hedge-side and sit down on the grass; Sam would come running up to me, lie down by my side or on my knee, and raise my hand with his muzzle to make me pat him.

“One day towards the end of June I saw the Ravereau coach coming along the road from Saint-Pierre-de-Chavrol. The yellow box with its black leather top over the outside seats was being hurried along by the four galloping horses; the driver was cracking his whip, and a cloud of dust rose from the wheels of the heavy carriage, floating behind it like a cloud.

“As the coach was passing me, Sam suddenly dashed in front of it; frightened, perhaps, by the noise, he was trying to join me. He was knocked down by one of the horses and I saw him roll over, then get up and fall down flat; the coach gave two big jerks, I caught sight of something stirring in the dust where it had passed. He was nearly cut in two: his torn entrails were hanging out of his body in a torrent of blood. He tried to get up, to walk, but could only move his two front legs, which were scratching the ground as if trying to make a hole, the hind legs were already dead. Mad with pain, the dog was howling terribly.

“In a few minutes he was dead. I cannot express what I felt nor how I suffered; for a whole month I never left my room. Then, one evening, my father, furious at the state I was in for such a trifle, exclaimed:

“ ‘What will you do when real sorrow befalls you, when you lose your wife, your children? It’s impossible to be so stupid!’

“These words haunted me: ‘What will you do when real sorrow befalls you, when you lose your wife, your children?’ I began to see myself clearly. I saw how it was that an ordinary occurrence seemed as important to me as a great calamity; I realised that I was ordained to suffer horribly, and, aggravated by my sick sensitiveness, to be alive to every painful impression; and a panic fear of life seized me.

“I had no ambition, no desires; I decided to sacrifice all the possible joys of life in order to avoid the certain suffering. I said to myself: ‘Life is short, I will spend it in serving others, in easing their burdens and rejoicing in their happiness. As neither joy nor sorrow can touch me personally, any emotion I may feel will be weakened.’

“And yet if you knew how I am tormented, scarred by the misery of the world! But what would have been unbearable anguish has been converted into commiseration, pity.

“I could never have borne the suffering I see all round me had it been my own; I should have died in seeing my own child die, and, in spite of myself, I have still such an obscure, penetrating dread of life, that every time the postman comes to the presbytery I tremble with apprehension, although I have now nothing to fear.”

Abbé Mauduit ceased talking, he was gazing at the fire in the big, open hearth as if looking for mysterious signs, those hidden secrets of life which he might have experienced had he been less afraid of suffering. He continued in a low voice:

“I was right. I was not made for this life.”

The Countess said nothing; then, after a long silence, she exclaimed:

“I should not have the courage to go on living if it were not for my grandchildren!”

The priest got up to go without another word.

The servants were dozing in the kitchen, so the Countess accompanied him to the door leading into the garden, and watched his big, slow shadow, reflected in the gleam from a lamp, disappear into the night.

Then she returned to her seat by the fire and thought of many things that one never thinks of in one’s youth.

The Pedlar

To our still young and inexperienced minds, how many fleeting associations, trifling things, chance meetings, humble dramas that we witness, guess at, or suspect, become as it were, guiding threads that lead gradually to a knowledge of the desolating truth about life.

As I dream idly of the past while roaming aimlessly about the country, my head in the clouds, little forgotten things, grave and gay, flash constantly through my mind and then take their flight like the hedge-birds on my path.

This summer as I was wandering along a road in Savoy that overlooks the right bank of the Lake of Bourget, gazing upon the mass of shimmering blue water, water of a most unusual blue, pale, and streaked with the slanting rays of the setting sun, my heart was stirred with the emotion I have always felt, since childhood, for the smooth surface of lake, river, and sea. On the other bank of the immense watery plain whose ends stretched away out of sight⁠—one in the direction of the Rhône and the other towards Bourget⁠—the high jagged mountain rose to the last peak of the Dent-du-Chat. On either side of the road grapevines reached out from tree to tree, smothering the slender branches round which they twined under their leaves; spreading over the fields in green, yellow, and red garlands dotted with clusters of black grapes, which swung gaily between the tree-trunks.

The road was dusty, white, and deserted. Suddenly a man bending under a heavy load stepped out from the grove of tall trees that encloses the village of Saint-Innocent, and came in my direction, leaning on a stick. As he approached I saw he was a hawker, one of those wandering pedlars who sell from door to door throughout the countryside, and suddenly a memory of bygone days, a trifle, flashed into my mind, simply a meeting at night between Argenteuil and Paris when I was twenty-five.

At that time boating was the pleasure of my life. I had a room at a cheap eating-house in Argenteuil, and every evening I caught the civil-service train, that long slow train which deposits at station after station a crowd of fat, heavy men carrying small parcels, whose unattractive figures are due to lack of exercise, and the shocking fit of their trousers to the chairs provided in government offices. The train, which smelt of offices, cardboard boxes and official documents, landed me at Argenteuil, where my yawl awaited me, ready to skim over the water. With long strokes I set off for Bezons, Chatou, Epinay, or Saint-Ouen, where I dined. Then I went back, put away my boat, and, when there was a full moon, started off on foot for Paris.

Well, one night, on the white road, I saw a man walking in front of me. Oh, I was constantly meeting those night travellers of the Parisian suburbs so much dreaded by belated citizens. This man went slowly on before me, weighed down by a heavy load.

I soon overtook him, my footsteps echoing on the road. He stopped, turned round, then crossed the road as if to avoid me. As I was hurrying by he called out: “Hullo! Good evening, sir.”

I replied: “Good evening, mate.” He went on: “Are you going far?”

“To Paris.”

“You won’t be long, you are going at a good pace. I can’t walk quickly, my load is too heavy.”

I slackened my pace. Why was the man talking to me? What was he carrying in that big bundle? Vague suspicions of crime darted through my mind and made me curious. Every morning the newspapers contain so many accounts of crimes committed in this very spot, at Gennevilliers, that some of them must be true. Such things are not invented merely to amuse readers⁠—all this catalogue of arrests and varied misdeeds which fill up the columns.

However, this man’s voice sounded rather scared, not at all bold, and up to the present his manner had been more courteous than aggressive.

In my turn I began to question him:

“And you, are you going far?”

“No farther than Asnières.”

“Do you live at Asnières?”

“Yes, sir, I am a pedlar by trade and I live at Asnières.”

He had left the sidewalk where the foot-passengers walk in the daytime under the shade of the trees, and moved up towards the middle of the road. I did the same. We eyed each other suspiciously, holding our sticks in our hands. When I got near enough I felt quite reassured. He apparently felt the same, for he asked:

“Would you mind going a little slower?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like this road by night. I am carrying goods on my back; and two are always better than one. Two men together are seldom attacked.”

I knew that he was right and that he was afraid. So yielding to his wish, the stranger and I walked along side by side, at one o’clock in the morning on the road from Argenteuil to Asnières.

“Why, when it is so risky, are you going home so late?” I asked my companion.

He told me all about it. He had not intended to go back that evening, as he had set out that very morning with a big enough stock to last three or four days. But sales had been very good, so good that he was obliged to return home immediately in order to be able to deliver orders next day.

He explained with real satisfaction that he was an able salesman, having the gift of words, and that he managed to dispose of things that were awkward to carry by the display of trifles and a fund of amusing patter.

He added: “I have a shop at Asnières. My wife keeps it.”

“Oh! so you are married?”

“Yes, sir, fifteen months ago. I have found a good little wife. She will be surprised when she sees me back tonight.”

He told me about his marriage, how he had wanted the girl for over two years but she had not been able to make up her mind.

Since her childhood she had kept a small shop at the corner of the street where she sold all sorts of things: ribbons, flowers in summer, and chiefly very pretty shoe buckles, with other trifles of which she was able to make a speciality owing to the kindness of a manufacturer. She was well known in Asnières as Bluette, so called because she often wore blue. She earned good money because she was very capable in everything she did. She did not seem to be very well at present, and he thought she must be enceinte, but was not sure. Their business was thriving, and his special job was to travel about showing samples to the small shopkeepers in the neighbouring districts; he was becoming a kind of travelling commission agent for certain manufacturers, and at the same time he worked for himself.

“And you⁠—what do you do?” he said.

I started to bluff. I said that I had a sailing-boat at Argenteuil and two racing-yawls, that I came for a row every evening and, as I was fond of exercise, I sometimes returned to Paris, where I was engaged in professional work which, I led him to infer, paid me well.

He remarked: “Well! Well! if I had the tin you have, I would not amuse myself by trudging the roads at night. It isn’t safe along here.”

He cast a sidelong glance at me and I wondered whether, after all, he was not some cunning evildoer anxious to avoid useless risk.

I felt reassured when he murmured: “Not so fast, if you please. My pack is heavy.”

As we saw the houses of Asnières in the distance he said: “I am near home now, for we don’t sleep at the shop, which is guarded at night by a dog that is the equal of four men. Besides, rooms are far too dear in the centre of the town. Now, listen, sir; you have rendered me a great service, for I don’t feel happy on the road with my pack. So now you must come in and drink a glass of warmed wine with my wife⁠—if she wakes up, that is to say, for she sleeps soundly and does not like to be roused. Then without my pack I am not afraid, so, thick stick in hand, I’ll see you to the gates of the city.”

I declined the invitation; he insisted, and I persisted in my refusal; then he got so excited about it, was so genuinely distressed, and asked me with an air of wounded pride “whether I would not drink with a man like him,” that I ended by giving in and followed him along a lonely road to one of those big dilapidated houses to be found on the outskirts of the suburbs.

I hesitated at the door. The big barrack-like building must be a thieves’ resort, a den of suburban robbers, but the pedlar made me go first through the unlocked door and, with his hand on my shoulders, guided me through complete darkness while I groped towards a staircase, feeling that at any moment I might fall through some hole into a cellar.

When I had struck the first step he said: “Go up, we live on the sixth story.”

I found a box of very large wax matches in my pocket and was able to light up the darkness. He followed me panting under the weight of his pack as he repeated: “It’s a long way up! It’s a long way!”

When we were at the top of the house, he took out the key, fastened to his coat by a string, opened the door, and bade me enter.

The room was simply whitewashed; there was a table in the middle, six chairs, and a kitchen cupboard against the wall.

“I am going to call my wife,” he said, “then I’ll go to the cellar to fetch some wine; it won’t keep up here.”

He went over to one of the two doors opening out of the room, and called:

“Bluette! Bluette!”

As Bluette made no reply he shouted louder: “Bluette! Bluette!”

Then, banging at the door with his fists, he muttered: “Confound you, won’t you wake up?”

He waited and put his ear to the keyhole and said in a quieter tone:

“Well, never mind, if she is asleep, I must let her sleep. I am going to fetch the wine; I’ll be back in two minutes.”

He disappeared. I sat down and made the best of a bad job.

What had I come for? All of a sudden I gave a start, for I heard low voices, cautious, almost silent, movements in the wife’s bedroom.

The devil! I must have fallen into a trap! Why had all the noise made by her husband, that banging on the door, not wakened this Bluette? It must have been a signal to his accomplices: “There is a mouse in the trap. I’ll watch the exit, you do the rest.” They were getting excited in the room, they were turning the key in the lock. My heart beat rapidly and I retreated to the far end of the room, murmuring: “Well, I must defend myself!” and, seizing a chair in both hands, I prepared for a lively struggle.

The door opened slightly and a hand appeared, holding it ajar; then a head, a man’s head wearing a round felt hat, slid along between the door and the wall, and two eyes were staring at me. Then, so quickly that I had not time to think of defending myself, the man, the supposed criminal, a big chap with bare feet, evidently hurriedly dressed, without a tie, his shoes in his hand, a fine-looking specimen, indeed, who might be described as almost a gentleman, made one bound for the door and disappeared down the stairs.

I sat down again. This was beginning to be interesting. I waited for the husband, who was a long time getting the wine. At last I heard him coming upstairs and the sound of his steps made me laugh one of those forlorn laughs so difficult to suppress.

He came into the room bringing two bottles and asked: “Is my wife still asleep? You have not heard her moving about?”

I knew that she must be listening, and I said:

“No, I have heard nothing.”

Then he called again: “Pauline!” but there was still no reply, no sound of anyone moving, so he explained to me: “You see, she doesn’t like me to come home at night and have a drop with a friend.”

“So you think she is not asleep?”

“Of course, she is not.” He seemed annoyed but said: “Well, let us have a drink,” and all at once he seemed to be quite determined to go on until both bottles were empty.

This time I was decided; I drank a glass and got up to go. He no longer suggested accompanying me, and, glancing at his wife’s door with a sullen scowl, the scowl of anger peculiar to the lower classes, of a brute whose violence is held in check, he muttered: “She will have to open the door when you are gone.”

I stared at the coward, now furious with a rage he could not explain, that was perhaps due to some obscure presentiment, the instinct of the betrayed male who dislikes closed doors. He had talked about her kindly, now he was certainly going to beat her. He shouted as he shook the door again: “Pauline!”

A sleepy voice replied from the other side of the wall: “Eh! What?”

“Didn’t you hear me come in?”

“No, I was asleep; go to hell.”

“Open the door.”

“When you are alone. I don’t like you to bring men back with you at night for a drink.”

Then I left, stumbling down the stairs, just as the other had done, whose accomplice I was. And as I started off for Paris, I thought that in that wretched home I had witnessed a scene of the eternal drama which is being played every day, in every form, in every country.

Endnotes

A play on the words “Sceaux” (buckets) and “Sots” (fools). —⁠Translator’s Note ↩

Désabusé⁠—Dissillusioned. Des abusés⁠—Amongst the deluded. —⁠Translator’s note ↩

Oh, you have direful secrets, cruel waves!
You whisper them when clouds of tempest frown
And wives and mothers weep unhallowed graves
Yours are the mournful voices that we hear
When towards the shore by night our steps draw near

“Oceano Nox,” Victor Hugo, Selected Poems, vol. 3, p. 327

↩

Literally, “The bird flies”⁠—a pun on the verb voler, which means both “to fly” and “to steal.” ↩

Nickname for Napolean III. ↩

Passenger boats which ply on the Seine. ↩

I well remember that infernal joy
Of being ravaged while I ravished her,
And there she lay beside me, breathless, hot,
A creature wan and cloyed, with grinding teeth
No heavenly moments⁠—rather fits from hell

“Cup and the Lip,” Alfred de Musset, Complete Writings, vol. 1, p. 253

↩

When you and I in bed shall lie,
Lascivious we shall be,
Enlaced, playing a thousand tricks,
Of lovers, gamesomely.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 3, p. 358

↩

Caresses are merely restless transports,
The vain efforts of poor Love to attempt
The impossible union of souls through the body.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 287

↩

Oh! the taste of the kisses first snatched through the veil.

The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 15, p. 205

↩

Sleep you content, Voltaire, and does your hideous smile
Flit o’er your fleshless skull in mockery the while?

“Rolla,” Alfred de Musset, Complete Writings, vol. 2, p. 21

↩

I well remember that infernal joy
Of being ravaged while I ravished her,
And there she lay beside me, breathless, hot,
A creature wan and cloyed, with grinding teeth
No heavenly moments⁠—rather fits from hell

“Cup and the Lip,” Alfred de Musset, Complete Writings, vol. 1, p. 253

↩

I was looking in the air.

The Complete Writings of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 4, p. 29

↩

I hate the poet who with tearful eye
Murmurs some name while gazing tow’rds a star,
Who sees no magic in the earth or sky
Unless Lizette or Ninon be not far.

The bard who in all Nature nothing sees
Divine, unless a petticoat he ties
Amorously to the branches of the trees
Or nightcap to the grass, is scarcely wise

He has not heard the eternal’s thunder tone
The voice of Nature in her various moods,
Who cannot tread the dim ravines alone,
And of no woman dream ’mid whispering woods.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 8, p. 278

↩

When we are young, our mornings are triumphant.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 1, p. 182

↩

Who comes? who calls?⁠—No, all is well:
’Twas but the tolling midnight bell.
O solitude! O poverty!

“La nuit de mai,” Alfred de Musset, Complete Writings, vol. 2, p. 308

↩

Caresses are merely restless transports,
The vain efforts of poor Love to attempt
The impossible union of souls through the body.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 287

↩

Tell me in what far-off land
The Roman beauty, Flora, lives;
Hipparchia, Thais’ cousin, and
All the beauty nature gives;
Echo speak, thy voice awake
Over river, stream, and lake,
Where are beauty’s smiles and tears?
And where are the snows of other years?

Blanche, as fair as lily’s chalice,
Swinging sweet, with voice serene,
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
Emengarde, Le Mayne’s dear queen?
Where is Joan, the good Lorraine,
Whom th’ English brought to death and fame?
Where are all, O wisest seers,
And where the snows of other years?

The Complete Writings of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 16, p. 196

↩

I hate the poet who with tearful eye
Murmurs some name while gazing tow’rds a star,
Who sees no magic in the earth or sky
Unless Lizette or Ninon be not far.

The bard who in all Nature nothing sees
Divine, unless a petticoat he ties
Amorously to the branches of the trees
Or nightcap to the grass, is scarcely wise

He has not heard the eternal’s thunder tone
The voice of Nature in her various moods,
Who cannot tread the dim ravines alone,
And of no woman dream ’mid whispering woods.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 8, p. 278

↩

A woman changeth oft her mind:
Yet fools still trust in womankind.

The Complete Writings of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 7, p. 100

↩

You only were, in those rarest days
A common instrument under my art;
Like the bow, on the viol d’amour it plays
I dreamed my dream o’er your empty heart.

The Complete Writings of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 17, p. 217

↩

You are thin, my beloved, but what of that?
One is nearer the heart when the breast is flat,
Like a bird in its little cage, I see
Love fluttering in your heart for me!

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 390

↩

I’m sorry for the Lord, the Lord of Albion
Whose praises are being sung in the salon,
If the Lord’s ears are tender in the least,
And he loves talent and beauty, He’s having a feast.
If He likes good music and wit and art
I pity the good Lord with all my heart.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 392⁠–⁠393

↩

Nothing is sacred to a pastor,
Not even the dinner, or slumber, or
Ears of the poor traveler.
But do not let it happen again,
Or without delay I’ll take the first train.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 393

↩

Ruth a Moabite,
Crouched at the feet of Boaz, with bare breast,
Hoping that some unknown ray of light
Would, at his awakening, reward her quest.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 10, p. 397

↩

Even when the bird walks one feels that it has wings,

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 3, p. 200

↩

Oh! how nice, how nice it is,
To pick the sweet, wild strawberries.

The Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 2, p. 73

↩

The princess, in a hurry
Without bell, priest, or beadle,
But with some water only,
Had baptized it.

The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 15, p. 193

↩

Two millions, two millions
Are fine,
With five hundred thousand
And woman divine.

The Complete Writings of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 16, p. 228

↩

Always the companion of whose heart you are not sure.

The Complete Writings of Guy de Maupassant, vol. 15, p. 216

↩

Waterspout. ↩

In eyes as of a painting that entrances.

“Love of Lies,” Poems of Baudelaire, p. 133

↩

An Arab dish. ↩

Like blue letter-cards but used as telegrams, they are sent through special tubes. ↩

Colophon

Short Fiction
was compiled from short stories published between 1876 and 1921 by
Guy de Maupassant.
They were translated from French between 1901 and 1949 by
Ernest Boyd, Storm Jameson, Jeffery E. Jeffery, Lafcadio Hearn, M. Walter Dunne, Henry C. Olinger, Albert M. Cohn-McMaster, Dora Knowlton Ranous, Bigelow, Brown & Co., Inc., and Francis Steegmuller.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
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Vince Rice,
and is based on digital scans from
various sources.

The cover page is adapted from
Château Noir,
a painting completed between 1900 and 1904 by
Paul Cézanne.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

This edition was released on
April 3, 2026, 6:51 p.m.
and is based on
revision fbd3406.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
October 31, 2022, 10:07 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
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