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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant,
+Volume 12, by Guy de Maupassant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Original Short Stories, Volume 12 (of 13)
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #3088]
+Last Updated: February 23, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAUPASSANT SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, VOLUME 12 (of 13)
+
+
+By Guy De Maupassant
+
+
+Translated by
+
+     ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.
+     A. E. HENDERSON, B.A.
+     MME. QUESADA and Others
+
+
+
+VOLUME XII.
+
+
+
+     THE CHILD
+     A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+     ROSE
+     ROSALIE PRUDENT
+     REGRET
+     A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+     COCO
+     A DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+     A HUMBLE DRAMA
+     MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+     THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+     THE GRAVE
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD
+
+Lemonnier had remained a widower with one child. He had loved his wife
+devotedly, with a tender and exalted love, without a slip, during
+their entire married life. He was a good, honest man, perfectly simple,
+sincere, without suspicion or malice.
+
+He fell in love with a poor neighbor, proposed and was accepted. He was
+making a very comfortable living out of the wholesale cloth business,
+and he did not for a minute suspect that the young girl might have
+accepted him for anything else but himself.
+
+She made him happy. She was everything to him; he only thought of her,
+looked at her continually, with worshiping eyes. During meals he would
+make any number of blunders, in order not to have to take his eyes from
+the beloved face; he would pour the wine in his plate and the water in
+the salt-cellar, then he would laugh like a child, repeating:
+
+“You see, I love you too much; that makes me crazy.”
+
+She would smile with a calm and resigned look; then she would look away,
+as though embarrassed by the adoration of her husband, and try to make
+him talk about something else; but he would take her hand under the
+table and he would hold it in his, whispering:
+
+“My little Jeanne, my darling little Jeanne!”
+
+She sometimes lost patience and said:
+
+“Come, come, be reasonable; eat and let me eat.”
+
+He would sigh and break off a mouthful of bread, which he would then
+chew slowly.
+
+For five years they had no children. Then suddenly she announced to him
+that this state of affairs would soon cease. He was wild with joy. He no
+longer left her for a minute, until his old nurse, who had brought him
+up and who often ruled the house, would push him out and close the door
+behind him, in order to compel him to go out in the fresh air.
+
+He had grown very intimate with a young man who had known his wife since
+childhood, and who was one of the prefect's secretaries. M. Duretour
+would dine three times a week with the Lemonniers, bringing flowers to
+madame, and sometimes a box at the theater; and often, at the end of
+the dinner, Lemonnier, growing tender, turning towards his wife, would
+explain: “With a companion like you and a friend like him, a man is
+completely happy on earth.”
+
+She died in childbirth. The shock almost killed him. But the sight of
+the child, a poor, moaning little creature, gave him courage.
+
+He loved it with a passionate and sorrowful love, with a morbid love
+in which stuck the memory of death, but in which lived something of his
+worship for the dead mother. It was the flesh of his wife, her being
+continued, a sort of quintessence of herself. This child was her very
+life transferred to another body; she had disappeared that it might
+exist, and the father would smother it in with kisses. But also, this
+child had killed her; he had stolen this beloved creature, his life was
+at the cost of hers. And M. Lemonnier would place his son in the cradle
+and would sit down and watch him. He would sit this way by the hour,
+looking at him, dreaming of thousands of things, sweet or sad. Then,
+when the little one was asleep, he would bend over him and sob.
+
+The child grew. The father could no longer spend an hour away from him;
+he would stay near him, take him out for walks, and himself dress him,
+wash him, make him eat. His friend, M. Duretour, also seemed to love the
+boy; he would kiss him wildly, in those frenzies of tenderness which are
+characteristic of parents. He would toss him in his arms, he would
+trot him on his knees, by the hour, and M. Lemonnier, delighted, would
+mutter:
+
+“Isn't he a darling? Isn't he a darling?”
+
+And M. Duretour would hug the child in his arms and tickle his neck with
+his mustache.
+
+Celeste, the old nurse, alone, seemed to have no tenderness for the
+little one. She would grow angry at his pranks, and seemed impatient at
+the caresses of the two men. She would exclaim:
+
+“How can you expect to bring a child up like that? You'll make a perfect
+monkey out of him.”
+
+Years went by, and Jean was nine years old. He hardly knew how to read;
+he had been so spoiled, and only did as he saw fit. He was willful,
+stubborn and quick-tempered. The father always gave in to him and let
+him have his own way. M. Duretour would always buy him all the toys
+he wished, and he fed him on cake and candies. Then Celeste would grow
+angry and exclaim:
+
+“It's a shame, monsieur, a shame. You are spoiling this child. But it
+will have to stop; yes, sir, I tell you it will have to stop, and before
+long, too.”
+
+M. Lemonnier would answer, smiling:
+
+“What can you expect? I love him too much, I can't resist him; you must
+get used to it.”
+
+Jean was delicate, rather. The doctor said that he was anaemic,
+prescribed iron, rare meat and broth.
+
+But the little fellow loved only cake and refused all other nourishment;
+and the father, in despair, stuffed him with cream-puffs and chocolate
+eclairs.
+
+One evening, as they were sitting down to supper, Celeste brought on the
+soup with an air of authority and an assurance which she did not usually
+have. She took off the cover and, dipping the ladle into the dish, she
+declared:
+
+“Here is some broth such as I have never made; the young one will have
+to take some this time.”
+
+M. Lemonnier, frightened, bent his head. He saw a storm brewing.
+
+Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.
+
+He tasted the soup and said:
+
+“It is, indeed, excellent.”
+
+The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it.
+Then she retreated a few steps and waited.
+
+Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of
+disgust. Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly
+poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.
+
+He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and
+threw it at his nurse. She received it full in the stomach. Then,
+exasperated, she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began
+pouring spoonful after spoonful of soup down his throat. He grew as
+red as a beet, and he would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking,
+beating the air with his hands.
+
+At first the father was so surprised that he could not move. Then,
+suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the
+throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:
+
+“Out! Out! Out! you brute!”
+
+But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes
+snapping, she cried out:
+
+“What's gettin' hold of you? You're trying to thrash me because I am
+making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!”
+
+He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:
+
+“Out! Get out-get out, you brute!”
+
+Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her
+voice trembling:
+
+“Ah!--you think-you think that you can treat me like that? Oh! no. And
+for whom?--for that brat who is not even yours. No, not yours! No, not
+yours--not yours! Everybody knows it, except yourself! Ask the grocer,
+the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!”
+
+She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and
+looked at him.
+
+He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides. After a short
+pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling:
+
+“You say? you say? What do you say?”
+
+She remained silent, frightened by his appearance. Once more he stepped
+forward, repeating:
+
+“You say--what do you say?”
+
+Then in a calm voice, she answered:
+
+“I say what I know, what everybody knows.”
+
+He seized her and, with the fury of a beast, he tried to throw her down.
+But, although old, she was strong and nimble. She slipped under his arm,
+and running around the table once more furious, she screamed:
+
+“Look at him, just look at him, fool that you are! Isn't he the living
+image of M. Durefour? just look at his nose and his eyes! Are yours like
+that? And his hair! Is it like his mother's? I tell you that everyone
+knows it, everyone except yourself! It's the joke of the town! Look at
+him!”
+
+She went to the door, opened it, and disappeared.
+
+Jean, frightened, sat motionless before his plate of soup.
+
+At the end of an hour, she returned gently, to see how matters stood.
+The child, after doing away with all the cakes and a pitcher full
+of cream and one of syrup, was now emptying the jam-pot with his
+soup-spoon.
+
+The father had gone out.
+
+Celeste took the child, kissed him, and gently carried him to his room
+and put him to bed. She came back to the dining-room, cleared the table,
+put everything in place, feeling very uneasy all the time.
+
+Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house. She put her ear
+against's her master's door. He seemed to be perfectly still. She put
+her eye to the keyhole. He was writing, and seemed very calm.
+
+Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down, ready for any emergency.
+She slept on a chair and awoke at daylight.
+
+She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she
+swept and dusted, and, towards eight o'clock, prepared M. Lemonnier's
+breakfast.
+
+But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she
+would be received; she waited for him to ring. But he did not ring. Nine
+o'clock, then ten o'clock went by.
+
+Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up
+with it, her heart beating fast.
+
+She stopped before the door and listened. Everything was still. She
+knocked; no answer. Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the
+door and entered. With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray
+which she had been holding in her hand.
+
+In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a
+ring in the ceiling. His tongue was sticking out horribly. His right
+slipper was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot. An
+upturned chair had rolled over to the bed.
+
+Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking. All the neighbors crowded together.
+The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.
+
+A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.
+It contained these words:
+
+“I leave and entrust the child to you!”
+
+
+
+
+A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+
+For five months they had been talking of going to take luncheon in one
+of the country suburbs of Paris on Madame Dufour's birthday, and as
+they were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they rose very
+early that morning. Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman's wagon and
+drove himself. It was a very tidy, two-wheeled conveyance, with a cover
+supported by four iron rods, with curtains that had been drawn up,
+except the one at the back, which floated out like a sail. Madame
+Dufour, resplendent in a wonderful, cherry colored silk dress, sat by
+the side of her husband.
+
+The old grandmother and a girl sat behind them on two chairs, and a boy
+with yellow hair was lying at the bottom of the wagon, with nothing to
+be seen of him except his head.
+
+When they reached the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: “Here
+we are in the country at last!” and at that signal his wife grew
+sentimental about the beauties of nature. When they got to the
+crossroads at Courbevoie they were seized with admiration for the
+distant landscape. On the right was Argenteuil with its bell tower, and
+above it rose the hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on
+the left the aqueduct of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky,
+and in the distance they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain; and
+opposite them, at the end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of
+Cormeilles. Quite in the distance; a very long way off, beyond the
+plains and village, one could see the sombre green of the forests.
+
+The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes,
+and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of
+bare, ugly country with an unpleasant odor. One might have thought
+that it had been ravaged by a pestilence, which had even attacked the
+buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or
+small cottages, which were left in an unfinished state, because the
+contractors had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each
+side.
+
+Here and there tall factory chimneys rose up from the barren soil. The
+only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted
+an odor of petroleum and slate, blended with another odor that was even
+less agreeable. At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time,
+and the bridge was a delight. The river sparkled in the sun, and they
+had a feeling of quiet enjoyment, felt refreshed as they drank in the
+purer air that was not impregnated by the black smoke of factories nor
+by the miasma from the deposits of night soil. A man whom they met told
+them that the name of the place was Bezons. Monsieur Dufour pulled up
+and read the attractive announcement outside an eating house: Restaurant
+Poulin, matelottes and fried fish, private rooms, arbors, and swings.
+
+“Well, Madame Dufour, will this suit you? Will you make up your mind at
+last?”
+
+She read the announcement in her turn and then looked at the house for
+some time.
+
+It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open
+door she could see the bright zinc of the counter, at which sat two
+workmen in their Sunday clothes. At last she made up her mind and said:
+
+“Yes, this will do; and, besides, there is a view.”
+
+They drove into a large field behind the inn, separated from the river
+by the towing path, and dismounted. The husband sprang out first and
+then held out his arms for his wife, and as the step was very high
+Madame Dufour, in order to reach him, had to show the lower part of her
+limbs, whose former slenderness had disappeared in fat, and Monsieur
+Dufour, who was already getting excited by the country air, pinched her
+calf, and then, taking her in his arms, he set her on the ground, as if
+she had been some enormous bundle. She shook the dust out of the silk
+dress and then looked round to see in what sort of a place she was.
+
+She was a stout woman, of about thirty-six, full-blown, and delightful
+to look at. She could hardly breathe, as her corsets were laced too
+tightly, and their pressure forced her superabundant bosom up to her
+double chin. Next the girl placed her hand on her father's shoulder
+and jumped down lightly. The boy with the yellow hair had got down
+by stepping on the wheel, and he helped Monsieur Dufour to lift his
+grandmother out. Then they unharnessed the horse, which they had tied to
+a tree, and the carriage fell back, with both shafts in the air. The men
+took off their coats and washed their hands in a pail of water and then
+went and joined the ladies, who had already taken possession of the
+swings.
+
+Mademoiselle Dufour was trying to swing herself standing up, but she
+could not succeed in getting a start. She was a pretty girl of about
+eighteen, one of those women who suddenly excite your desire when
+you meet them in the street and who leave you with a vague feeling of
+uneasiness and of excited senses. She was tall, had a small waist and
+large hips, with a dark skin, very large eyes and very black hair. Her
+dress clearly marked the outlines of her firm, full figure, which was
+accentuated by the motion of her hips as she tried to swing herself
+higher. Her arms were stretched upward to hold the rope, so that her
+bosom rose at every movement she made. Her hat, which a gust of wind
+had blown off, was hanging behind her, and as the swing gradually rose
+higher and higher, she showed her delicate limbs up to the knees each
+time, and the breeze from her flying skirts, which was more heady than
+the fumes of wine, blew into the faces of the two men, who were looking
+at her and smiling.
+
+Sitting in the other swing, Madame Dufour kept saying in a monotonous
+voice:
+
+“Cyprian, come and swing me; do come and swing me, Cyprian!”
+
+At last he went, and turning up his shirt sleeves, as if undertaking a
+hard piece of work, with much difficulty he set his wife in motion.
+She clutched the two ropes and held her legs out straight, so as not to
+touch the ground. She enjoyed feeling dizzy at the motion of the swing,
+and her whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went
+higher and higher; she became too giddy and was frightened. Each time
+the swing came down she uttered a piercing scream, which made all the
+little urchins in the neighborhood come round, and down below, beneath
+the garden hedge, she vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads making
+various grimaces as they laughed.
+
+When a servant girl came out they ordered luncheon.
+
+“Some fried fish, a rabbit saute, salad and dessert,” Madame Dufour
+said, with an important air.
+
+“Bring two quarts of beer and a bottle of claret,” her husband said.
+
+“We will have lunch on the grass,” the girl added.
+
+The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after
+one that belonged to the house, trying to coax it to come to her for the
+last ten minutes. The animal, who was no doubt secretly flattered by her
+attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of
+her hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed
+herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.
+
+“Hello!” suddenly exclaimed the young man with the yellow hair, who was
+wandering about. “Here are two swell boats!” They all went to look
+at them and saw two beautiful canoes in a wooden shed; they were as
+beautifully finished as if they had been ornamental furniture. They
+hung side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining
+length, and made one wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and
+evenings along the flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees
+dip their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually
+rustling in the breeze and where the swift kingfishers dart about like
+flashes of blue lightning.
+
+The whole family looked at them with great respect.
+
+“Oh, they are indeed swell boats!” Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, as
+he examined them like a connoiseur. He had been in the habit of rowing
+in his younger days, he said, and when he had spat in his hands--and he
+went through the action of pulling the oars--he did not care a fig
+for anybody. He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the
+Joinville regattas. He grew quite excited at last and offered to make
+a bet that in a boat like that he could row six leagues an hour without
+exerting himself.
+
+“Luncheon is ready,” the waitress said, appearing at the entrance to
+the boathouse, and they all hurried off. But two young men had taken
+the very seats that Madame Dufour had selected and were eating their
+luncheon. No doubt they were the owners of the sculls, for they were in
+boating costume. They were stretched out, almost lying on the chairs;
+they were sun-browned and their thin cotton jerseys, with short sleeves,
+showed their bare arms, which were as strong as a blacksmith's. They
+were two strong, athletic fellows, who showed in all their movements
+that elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise
+and which is so different to the deformity with which monotonous heavy
+work stamps the mechanic.
+
+They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother and then a glance
+on seeing the daughter.
+
+“Let us give up our place,” one of them said; “it will make us
+acquainted with them.”
+
+The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating cap
+in his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in
+the garden. With many excuses they accepted, and that it might be more
+rural, they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.
+
+The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a
+little way off and began to eat again, and their bare arms, which they
+showed continually, rather embarrassed the girl. She even pretended to
+turn her head aside and not to see them, while Madame Dufour, who was
+rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every
+moment, and, no doubt, compared them with the secret unsightliness of
+her husband. She had squatted herself on ground, with her legs tucked
+under her, after the manner of tailors, and she kept moving about
+restlessly, saying that ants were crawling about her somewhere. Monsieur
+Dufour, annoyed at the presence of the polite strangers, was trying to
+find a comfortable position which he did not, however, succeed in doing,
+and the young man with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an
+ogre.
+
+“It is lovely weather, monsieur,” the stout lady said to one of the
+boating men. She wished to be friendly because they had given up their
+place.
+
+“It is, indeed, madame,” he replied. “Do you often go into the country?”
+
+“Oh, only once or twice a year to get a little fresh air. And you,
+monsieur?”
+
+“I come and sleep here every night.”
+
+“Oh, that must be very nice!”
+
+“Certainly it is, madame.” And he gave them such a practical account
+of his daily life that it awakened afresh in the hearts of these
+shopkeepers who were deprived of the meadows and who longed for country
+walks, to that foolish love of nature which they all feel so strongly
+the whole year round behind the counter in their shop.
+
+The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion and
+Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.
+
+“It is indeed a happy life,” he said. And then he added: “A little more
+rabbit, my dear?”
+
+“No, thank you,” she replied, and turning to the young men again, and
+pointing to their arms, asked: “Do you never feel cold like that?”
+
+They both began to laugh, and they astonished the family with an account
+of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of their bathing while in a
+state of tremendous perspiration, of their rowing in the fog at night;
+and they struck their chests violently to show how hollow they sounded.
+
+“Ah! You look very strong,” said the husband, who did not talk any more
+of the time when he used to beat the English. The girl was looking at
+them sideways now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, who
+had swallowed some wine the wrong way, was coughing violently and
+bespattering Madame Dufour's cherry-colored silk dress. She got angry
+and sent for some water to wash the spots.
+
+Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like
+a blaze of fire and the fumes of the wine were getting into their
+heads. Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccough, had unbuttoned his
+waistcoat and the top button of his trousers, while his wife, who felt
+choking, was gradually unfastening her dress. The apprentice was shaking
+his yellow wig in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to
+wine, and the old grandmother, feeling the effects of the wine, was
+very stiff and dignified. As for the girl, one noticed only a peculiar
+brightness in her eyes, while the brown cheeks became more rosy.
+
+The coffee finished, they suggested singing, and each of them sang or
+repeated a couplet, which the others applauded frantically. Then they
+got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather
+dizzy, were trying to get a breath of air, the two men, who were
+altogether drunk, were attempting gymnastics. Heavy, limp and with
+scarlet faces they hung or, awkwardly to the iron rings, without being
+able to raise themselves.
+
+Meanwhile the two boating men had got their boats into the water, and
+they came back and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a
+row.
+
+“Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?” his wife exclaimed. “Please
+come!”
+
+He merely gave her a drunken nod, without understanding what she said.
+Then one of the rowers came up with two fishing rods in his hands,
+and the hope of catching a gudgeon, that great vision of the Parisian
+shopkeeper, made Dufour's dull eyes gleam, and he politely allowed them
+to do whatever they liked, while he sat in the shade under the bridge,
+with his feet dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with
+the yellow hair, who was sleeping soundly.
+
+One of the boating men made a martyr of himself and took the mother.
+
+“Let us go to the little wood on the Ile aux Anglais!” he called out as
+he rowed off. The other boat went more slowly, for the rower was looking
+at his companion so intently that by thought of nothing else, and his
+emotion seemed to paralyze his strength, while the girl, who was sitting
+in the bow, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water. She
+felt a disinclination to think, a lassitude in her limbs and a total
+enervation, as if she were intoxicated, and her face was flushed and her
+breathing quickened. The effects of the wine, which were increased by
+the extreme heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow as she
+passed. A vague wish for enjoyment and a fermentation of her blood
+seemed to pervade her whole body, which was excited by the heat of the
+day, and she was also disturbed at this tete-a-tete on the water, in
+a place which seemed depopulated by the heat, with this young man who
+thought her pretty, whose ardent looks seemed to caress her skin and
+were as penetrating and pervading as the sun's rays.
+
+Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about
+them. At last, however, he made an effort and asked her name.
+
+“Henriette,” she said.
+
+“Why, my name is Henri,” he replied. The sound of their voices had
+calmed them, and they looked at the banks. The other boat had passed
+them and seemed to be waiting for them, and the rower called out:
+
+“We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson's,
+because Madame Dufour is thirsty.” Then he bent over his oars again and
+rowed off so quickly that he was soon out of sight.
+
+Meanwhile a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came
+nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise were
+rising from its depths.
+
+“What is that noise?” she asked. It was the noise of the weir which cut
+the river in two at the island, and he was explaining it to her, when,
+above the noise of the waterfall, they heard the song of a bird, which
+seemed a long way off.
+
+“Listen!” he said; “the nightingales are singing during the day, so the
+female birds must be sitting.”
+
+A nightingale! She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening
+to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A nightingale!
+That is to say, the invisible witness of her love trysts which Juliet
+invoked on her balcony; that celestial music which it attuned to human
+kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which
+open an ideal sky to all the poor little tender hearts of sensitive
+girls!
+
+She was going to hear a nightingale.
+
+“We must not make a noise,” her companion said, “and then we can go into
+the wood, and sit down close beside it.”
+
+The boat seemed to glide. They saw the trees on the island, the banks of
+which were so low that they could look into the depths of the thickets.
+They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of Henri's arm,
+and they went beneath the trees.
+
+“Stoop,” he said, so she stooped down, and they went into an
+inextricable thicket of creepers, leaves and reed grass, which formed an
+undiscoverable retreat, and which the young man laughingly called “his
+private room.”
+
+Just above their heads, perched in one of the trees which hid them, the
+bird was still singing. He uttered trills and roulades, and then loud,
+vibrating notes that filled the air and seemed to lose themselves on the
+horizon, across the level country, through that burning silence which
+weighed upon the whole landscape. They did not speak for fear of
+frightening it away. They were sitting close together, and, slowly,
+Henri's arm stole round the girl's waist and squeezed it gently. She
+took that daring hand without any anger, and kept removing it whenever
+he put it round her; without, however, feeling at all embarrassed by
+this caress, just as if it had been something quite natural, which she
+was resisting just as naturally.
+
+She was listening to the bird in ecstasy. She felt an infinite longing
+for happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the
+revelation of superhuman poetry, and she felt such a softening at her
+heart, and relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without
+knowing why. The young man was now straining her close to him, yet
+she did not remove his arm; she did not think of it. Suddenly the
+nightingale stopped, and a voice called out in the distance:
+
+“Henriette!”
+
+“Do not reply,” he said in a low voice; “you will drive the bird away.”
+
+But she had no idea of doing so, and they remained in the same position
+for some time. Madame Dufour had sat down somewhere or other, for from
+time to time they heard the stout lady break out into little bursts of
+laughter.
+
+The girl was still crying; she was filled with strange sensations.
+Henri's head was on her shoulder, and suddenly he kissed her on the
+lips. She was surprised and angry, and, to avoid him, she stood up.
+
+They were both very pale when they left their grassy retreat. The blue
+sky appeared to them clouded and the ardent sun darkened; and they felt
+the solitude and the silence. They walked rapidly, side by side,
+without speaking or touching each other, for they seemed to have become
+irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust and hatred had arisen between
+them, and from time to time Henriette called out: “Mamma!”
+
+By and by they heard a noise behind a bush, and the stout lady appeared,
+looking rather confused, and her companion's face was wrinkled with
+smiles which he could not check.
+
+Madame Dufour took his arm, and they returned to the boats, and Henri,
+who was ahead, walked in silence beside the young girl. At last they got
+back to Bezons. Monsieur Dufour, who was now sober, was waiting for them
+very impatiently, while the young man with the yellow hair was having
+a mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn. The carriage was
+waiting in the yard, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was
+very frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night before they
+reached Paris, as the outskirts were not safe.
+
+They all shook bands, and the Dufour family drove off.
+
+“Good-by, until we meet again!” the oarsmen cried, and the answer they
+got was a sigh and a tear.
+
+Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw
+Dufour, Ironmonger, over a door, and so he went in, and saw the stout
+lady sitting at the counter. They recognized each other immediately, and
+after an interchange of polite greetings, he asked after them all.
+
+“And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?” he inquired specially.
+
+“Very well, thank you; she is married.”
+
+“Ah!” He felt a certain emotion, but said: “Whom did she marry?”
+
+“That young man who accompanied us, you know; he has joined us in
+business.”
+
+“I remember him perfectly.”
+
+He was going out, feeling very unhappy, though scarcely knowing why,
+when madame called him back.
+
+“And how is your friend?” she asked rather shyly.
+
+“He is very well, thank you.”
+
+“Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call, when he
+is in the neighborhood.”
+
+She then added: “Tell him it will give me great pleasure.”
+
+“I will be sure to do so. Adieu!”
+
+“Do not say that; come again very soon.”
+
+The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that adventure,
+which Henri had never forgotten, suddenly came back to him so clearly
+that he returned alone to their room in the wood, and was overwhelmed
+with astonishment when he went in. She was sitting on the grass, looking
+very sad, while by her side, still in his shirt sleeves, the young man
+with the yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some animal.
+
+She grew so pale when she saw Henri that at first he thought she was
+going to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally. But
+when he told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there
+frequently on Sundays to indulge in memories, she looked into his eyes
+for a long time.
+
+“I too, think of it,” she replied.
+
+“Come, my dear,” her husband said, with a yawn. “I think it is time for
+us to be going.”
+
+
+
+
+ROSE
+
+The two young women appear to be buried under a blanket of flowers. They
+are alone in the immense landau, which is filled with flowers like a
+giant basket. On the front seat are two small hampers of white satin
+filled with violets, and on the bearskin by which their knees are
+covered there is a mass of roses, mimosas, pinks, daisies, tuberoses and
+orange blossoms, interwoven with silk ribbons; the two frail bodies seem
+buried under this beautiful perfumed bed, which hides everything but the
+shoulders and arms and a little of the dainty waists.
+
+The coachman's whip is wound with a garland of anemones, the horses'
+traces are dotted with carnations, the spokes of the wheels are clothed
+in mignonette, and where the lanterns ought to be are two enormous
+round bouquets which look as though they were the eyes of this strange,
+rolling, flower-bedecked creature.
+
+The landau drives rapidly along the road, through the Rue d'Antibes,
+preceded, followed, accompanied, by a crowd of other carriages covered
+with flowers, full of women almost hidden by a sea of violets. It is the
+flower carnival at Cannes.
+
+The carriage reaches the Boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle
+is waged. All along the immense avenue a double row of flower-bedecked
+vehicles are going and coming like an endless ribbon. Flowers are thrown
+from one to the other. They pass through the air like balls, striking
+fresh faces, bouncing and falling into the dust, where an army of
+youngsters pick them up.
+
+A thick crowd is standing on the sidewalks looking on and held in check
+by the mounted police, who pass brutally along pushing back the curious
+pedestrians as though to prevent the common people from mingling with
+the rich.
+
+In the carriages, people call to each other, recognize each other and
+bombard each other with roses. A chariot full of pretty women, dressed
+in red, like devils, attracts the eyes of all. A gentleman, who looks
+like the portraits of Henry IV., is throwing an immense bouquet which
+is held back by an elastic. Fearing the shock, the women hide their
+eyes and the men lower their heads, but the graceful, rapid and obedient
+missile describes a curve and returns to its master, who immediately
+throws it at some new face.
+
+The two young women begin to throw their stock of flowers by handfuls,
+and receive a perfect hail of bouquets; then, after an hour of warfare,
+a little tired, they tell the coachman to drive along the road which
+follows the seashore.
+
+The sun disappears behind Esterel, outlining the dark, rugged mountain
+against the sunset sky. The clear blue sea, as calm as a mill-pond,
+stretches out as far as the horizon, where it blends with the sky;
+and the fleet, anchored in the middle of the bay, looks like a herd of
+enormous beasts, motionless on the water, apocalyptic animals, armored
+and hump-backed, their frail masts looking like feathers, and with eyes
+which light up when evening approaches.
+
+The two young women, leaning back under the heavy robes, look out lazily
+over the blue expanse of water. At last one of them says:
+
+“How delightful the evenings are! How good everything seems! Don't you
+think so, Margot?”
+
+“Yes, it is good. But there is always something lacking.”
+
+“What is lacking? I feel perfectly happy. I don't need anything else.”
+
+“Yes, you do. You are not thinking of it. No matter how contented we may
+be, physically, we always long for something more--for the heart.”
+
+The other asked with a smile:
+
+“A little love?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+They stopped talking, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon, then
+the one called Marguerite murmured: “Life without that seems to me
+unbearable. I need to be loved, if only by a dog. But we are all alike,
+no matter what you may say, Simone.”
+
+“Not at all, my dear. I had rather not be loved at all than to be
+loved by the first comer. Do you think, for instance, that it would be
+pleasant to be loved by--by--”
+
+She was thinking by whom she might possibly be loved, glancing across
+the wide landscape. Her eyes, after traveling around the horizon,
+fell on the two bright buttons which were shining on the back of the
+coachman's livery, and she continued, laughing: “by my coachman?”
+
+Madame Margot barely smiled, and said in a low tone of voice:
+
+“I assure you that it is very amusing to be loved by a servant. It has
+happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes in such a funny
+manner--it's enough to make you die laughing! Naturally, the more in
+love they are, the more severe one must be with them, and then, some
+day, for some reason, you dismiss them, because, if anyone should notice
+it, you would appear so ridiculous.”
+
+Madame Simone was listening, staring straight ahead of her, then she
+remarked:
+
+“No, I'm afraid that my footman's heart would not satisfy me. Tell me
+how you noticed that they loved you.”
+
+“I noticed it the same way that I do with other men--when they get
+stupid.”
+
+“The others don't seem stupid to me, when they love me.”
+
+“They are idiots, my dear, unable to talk, to answer, to understand
+anything.”
+
+“But how did you feel when you were loved by a servant? Were
+you--moved--flattered?”
+
+“Moved? no, flattered--yes a little. One is always flattered to be loved
+by a man, no matter who he may be.”
+
+“Oh, Margot!”
+
+“Yes, indeed, my dear! For instance, I will tell you of a peculiar
+incident which happened to me. You will see how curious and complex our
+emotions are, in such cases.
+
+“About four years ago I happened to be without a maid. I had tried five
+or six, one right after the other, and I was about ready to give up
+in despair, when I saw an advertisement in a newspaper of a young
+girl knowing how to cook, embroider, dress hair, who was looking for a
+position and who could furnish the best of references. Besides all these
+accomplishments, she could speak English.
+
+“I wrote to the given address, and the next day the person in question
+presented herself. She was tall, slender, pale, shy-looking. She
+had beautiful black eyes and a charming complexion; she pleased me
+immediately. I asked for her certificates; she gave me one in English,
+for she came, as she said, from Lady Rymwell's, where she had been for
+ten years.
+
+“The certificate showed that the young girl had left of her own free
+will, in order to return to France, and the only thing which they had
+had to find fault in her during her long period of service was a little
+French coquettishness.
+
+“This prudish English phrase even made me smile, and I immediately
+engaged this maid.
+
+“She came to me the same day. Her name was Rose.
+
+“At the end of a month I would have been helpless without her. She was a
+treasure, a pearl, a phenomenon.
+
+“She could dress my hair with infinite taste; she could trim a hat
+better than most milliners, and she could even make my dresses.
+
+“I was astonished at her accomplishments. I had never before been waited
+on in such a manner.
+
+“She dressed me rapidly and with a surprisingly light touch. I never
+felt her fingers on my skin, and nothing is so disagreeable to me as
+contact with a servant's hand. I soon became excessively lazy; it was so
+pleasant to be dressed from head to foot, and from lingerie to gloves,
+by this tall, timid girl, always blushing a little, and never saying a
+word. After my bath she would rub and massage me while I dozed a little
+on my couch; I almost considered her more of a friend than a servant.
+
+“One morning the janitor asked, mysteriously, to speak to me. I was
+surprised, and told him to come in. He was a good, faithful man, an old
+soldier, one of my husband's former orderlies.
+
+“He seemed to be embarrassed by what he had to say to me. At last he
+managed to mumble:
+
+“'Madame, the superintendent of police is downstairs.'
+
+“I asked quickly:
+
+“'What does he wish?'
+
+“'He wishes to search the house.'
+
+“Of course the police are useful, but I hate them. I do not think that
+it is a noble profession. I answered, angered and hurt:
+
+“'Why this search? For what reason? He shall not come in.'
+
+“The janitor continued:
+
+“'He says that there is a criminal hidden in the house.'
+
+“This time I was frightened and I told him to bring the inspector to me,
+so that I might get some explanation. He was a man with good manners and
+decorated with the Legion of Honor. He begged my pardon for disturbing
+me, and then informed me that I had, among my domestics, a convict.
+
+“I was shocked; and I answered that I could guarantee every servant in
+the house, and I began to enumerate them.
+
+“'The janitor, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.'
+
+“'It's not he.'
+
+“'A stable-boy, son of farmers whom I know, and a groom whom you have
+just seen.'
+
+“'It's not he.'
+
+“'Then, monsieur, you see that you must be mistaken.'
+
+“'Excuse me, madame, but I am positive that I am not making a mistake.
+
+“As the conviction of a notable criminal is at stake, would you be so
+kind as to send for all your servants?”
+
+“At first I refused, but I finally gave in, and sent downstairs for
+everybody, men and women.
+
+“The inspector glanced at them and then declared:
+
+“'This isn't all.'
+
+“'Excuse me, monsieur, there is no one left but my maid, a young girl
+whom you could not possibly mistake for a convict.'
+
+“He asked:
+
+“'May I also see her?'
+
+“'Certainly.'
+
+“I rang for Rose, who immediately appeared. She had hardly entered the
+room, when the inspector made a motion, and two men whom I had not seen,
+hidden behind the door, sprang forward, seized her and tied her hands
+behind her back.
+
+“I cried out in anger and tried to rush forward to defend her. The
+inspector stopped me:
+
+“'This girl, madame, is a man whose name is Jean Nicolas Lecapet,
+condemned to death in 1879 for assaulting a woman and injuring her so
+that death resulted. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.
+He escaped four months ago. We have been looking for him ever since.'
+
+“I was terrified, bewildered. I did not believe him. The commissioner
+continued, laughing:
+
+“'I can prove it to you. His right arm is tattooed.'
+
+“'The sleeve was rolled up. It was true. The inspector added, with bad
+taste:
+
+“'You can trust us for the other proofs.'
+
+“And they led my maid away!
+
+“Well, would you believe me, the thing that moved me most was not anger
+at having thus been played upon, deceived and made ridiculous, it was
+not the shame of having thus been dressed and undressed, handled and
+touched by this man--but a deep humiliation--a woman's humiliation. Do
+you understand?”
+
+“I am afraid I don't.”
+
+“Just think--this man had been condemned for--for assaulting a woman.
+Well! I thought of the one whom he had assaulted--and--and I felt
+humiliated--There! Do you understand now?”
+
+Madame Margot did not answer. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes
+fastened on the two shining buttons of the livery, with that sphinx-like
+smile which women sometimes have.
+
+
+
+
+ROSALIE PRUDENT
+
+There was a real mystery in this affair which neither the jury, nor the
+president, nor the public prosecutor himself could understand.
+
+The girl Prudent (Rosalie), servant at the Varambots', of Nantes, having
+become enceinte without the knowledge of her masters, had, during the
+night, killed and buried her child in the garden.
+
+It was the usual story of the infanticides committed by servant girls.
+But there was one inexplicable circumstance about this one. When the
+police searched the girl Prudent's room they discovered a complete
+infant's outfit, made by Rosalie herself, who had spent her nights for
+the last three months in cutting and sewing it. The grocer from whom
+she had bought her candles, out of her own wages, for this long piece of
+work had come to testify. It came out, moreover, that the sage-femme of
+the district, informed by Rosalie of her condition, had given her all
+necessary instructions and counsel in case the event should happen at a
+time when it might not be possible to get help. She had also procured
+a place at Poissy for the girl Prudent, who foresaw that her present
+employers would discharge her, for the Varambot couple did not trifle
+with morality.
+
+There were present at the trial both the man and the woman, a
+middle-class pair from the provinces, living on their income. They were
+so exasperated against this girl, who had sullied their house, that they
+would have liked to see her guillotined on the spot without a trial. The
+spiteful depositions they made against her became accusations in their
+mouths.
+
+The defendant, a large, handsome girl of Lower Normandy, well educated
+for her station in life, wept continuously and would not answer to
+anything.
+
+The court and the spectators were forced to the opinion that she had
+committed this barbarous act in a moment of despair and madness, since
+there was every indication that she had expected to keep and bring up
+her child.
+
+The president tried for the last time to make her speak, to get some
+confession, and, having urged her with much gentleness, he finally made
+her understand that all these men gathered here to pass judgment upon
+her were not anxious for her death and might even have pity on her.
+
+Then she made up her mind to speak.
+
+“Come, now, tell us, first, who is the father of this child?” he asked.
+
+Until then she had obstinately refused to give his name.
+
+But she replied suddenly, looking at her masters who had so cruelly
+calumniated her:
+
+“It is Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot's nephew.”
+
+The couple started in their seats and cried with one voice--“That's not
+true! She lies! This is infamous!”
+
+The president had them silenced and continued, “Go on, please, and tell
+us how it all happened.”
+
+Then she suddenly began to talk freely, relieving her pent-up heart,
+that poor, solitary, crushed heart--laying bare her sorrow, her whole
+sorrow, before those severe men whom she had until now taken for enemies
+and inflexible judges.
+
+“Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year.”
+
+“What does Mr. Joseph Varambot do?”
+
+“He is a non-commissioned officer in the artillery, monsieur. Well,
+he stayed two months at the house, two months of the summer. I thought
+nothing about it when he began to look at me, and then flatter me, and
+make love to me all day long. And I let myself be taken in, monsieur. He
+kept saying to me that I was a handsome girl, that I was good company,
+that I just suited him--and I, I liked him well enough. What could I do?
+One listens to these things when one is alone--all alone--as I was. I am
+alone in the world, monsieur. I have no one to talk to--no one to tell
+my troubles to. I have no father, no mother, no brother, no sister,
+nobody. And when he began to talk to me it was as if I had a brother
+who had come back. And then he asked me to go with him to the river one
+evening, so that we might talk without disturbing any one. I went--I
+don't know--I don't know how it happened. He had his arm around me.
+Really I didn't want to--no--no--I could not--I felt like crying, the
+air was so soft--the moon was shining. No, I swear to you--I could
+not--he did what he wanted. That went on three weeks, as long as he
+stayed. I could have followed him to the ends of the world. He went
+away. I did not know that I was enceinte. I did not know it until the
+month after--”
+
+She began to cry so bitterly that they had to give her time to collect
+herself.
+
+Then the president resumed with the tone of a priest at the
+confessional: “Come, now, go on.”
+
+She began to talk again: “When I realized my condition I went to see
+Madame Boudin, who is there to tell you, and I asked her how it would
+be, in case it should come if she were not there. Then I made the
+outfit, sewing night after night, every evening until one o'clock in the
+morning; and then I looked for another place, for I knew very well that
+I should be sent away, but I wanted to stay in the house until the
+very last, so as to save my pennies, for I have not got very much and I
+should need my money for the little one.”
+
+“Then you did not intend to kill him?”
+
+“Oh, certainly not, monsieur!”
+
+“Why did you kill him, then?”
+
+“It happened this way. It came sooner than I expected. It came upon
+me in the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes. Monsieur and Madame
+Varambot were already asleep, so I went up, not without difficulty,
+dragging myself up by the banister, and I lay down on the bare floor.
+It lasted perhaps one hour, or two, or three; I don't know, I had such
+pain; and then I pushed him out with all my strength. I felt that he
+came out and I picked him up.
+
+“Ah! but I was glad, I assure you! I did all that Madame Boudin told
+me to do. And then I laid him on my bed. And then such a pain griped me
+again that I thought I should die. If you knew what it meant, you there,
+you would not do so much of this. I fell on my knees, and then toppled
+over backward on the floor; and it griped me again, perhaps one hour,
+perhaps two. I lay there all alone--and then another one comes--another
+little one--two, yes, two, like this. I took him up as I did the
+first one, and then I put him on the bed, the two side by side. Is it
+possible, tell me, two children, and I who get only twenty francs a
+month? Say, is it possible? One, yes, that can be managed by going
+without things, but not two. That turned my head. What do I know about
+it? Had I any choice, tell me?
+
+“What could I do? I felt as if my last hour had come. I put the pillow
+over them, without knowing why. I could not keep them both; and then
+I threw myself down, and I lay there, rolling over and over and crying
+until I saw the daylight come into the window. Both of them were quite
+dead under the pillow. Then I took them under my arms and went down the
+stairs out in the vegetable garden. I took the gardener's spade and I
+buried them under the earth, digging as deep a hole as I could, one here
+and the other one there, not together, so that they might not talk of
+their mother if these little dead bodies can talk. What do I know about
+it?
+
+“And then, back in my bed, I felt so sick that I could not get up. They
+sent for the doctor and he understood it all. I'm telling you the truth,
+Your Honor. Do what you like with me; I'm ready.”
+
+Half of the jury were blowing their noses violently to keep from crying.
+The women in the courtroom were sobbing.
+
+The president asked her:
+
+“Where did you bury the other one?”
+
+“The one that you have?” she asked.
+
+“Why, this one--this one was in the artichokes.”
+
+“Oh, then the other one is among the strawberries, by the well.”
+
+And she began to sob so piteously that no one could hear her unmoved.
+
+The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.
+
+
+
+
+REGRET
+
+Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes “Father Saval,” had just risen
+from bed. He was weeping. It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were
+falling. They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain.
+M. Saval was not in good spirits. He walked from the fireplace to the
+window, and from the window to the fireplace. Life has its sombre days.
+It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached
+the age of sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about
+him. How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is
+devoted to you!
+
+He pondered over his life, so barren, so empty. He recalled former
+days, the days of his childhood, the home, the house of his parents;
+his college days, his follies; the time he studied law in Paris, his
+father's illness, his death. He then returned to live with his mother.
+They lived together very quietly, and desired nothing more. At last the
+mother died. How sad life is! He lived alone since then, and now, in his
+turn, he, too, will soon be dead. He will disappear, and that will be
+the end. There will be no more of Paul Saval upon the earth. What a
+frightful thing! Other people will love, will laugh. Yes, people will
+go on amusing themselves, and he will no longer exist! Is it not strange
+that people can laugh, amuse themselves, be joyful under that eternal
+certainty of death? If this death were only probable, one could then
+have hope; but no, it is inevitable, as inevitable as that night follows
+the day.
+
+If, however, his life had been full! If he had done something; if he had
+had adventures, great pleasures, success, satisfaction of some kind or
+another. But no, nothing. He had done nothing, nothing but rise from
+bed, eat, at the same hours, and go to bed again. And he had gone on
+like that to the age of sixty-two years. He had not even taken unto
+himself a wife, as other men do. Why? Yes, why was it that he had not
+married? He might have done so, for he possessed considerable means. Had
+he lacked an opportunity? Perhaps! But one can create opportunities.
+He was indifferent; that was all. Indifference had been his greatest
+drawback, his defect, his vice. How many men wreck their lives through
+indifference! It is so difficult for some natures to get out of bed, to
+move about, to take long walks, to speak, to study any question.
+
+He had not even been loved. No woman had reposed on his bosom, in a
+complete abandon of love. He knew nothing of the delicious anguish of
+expectation, the divine vibration of a hand in yours, of the ecstasy of
+triumphant passion.
+
+What superhuman happiness must overflow your heart, when lips encounter
+lips for the first time, when the grasp of four arms makes one being of
+you, a being unutterably happy, two beings infatuated with one another.
+
+M. Saval was sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, in his
+dressing gown. Assuredly his life had been spoiled, completely spoiled.
+He had, however, loved. He had loved secretly, sadly, and indifferently,
+in a manner characteristic of him in everything. Yes, he had loved his
+old friend, Madame Sandres, the wife of his old companion, Sandres. Ah!
+if he had known her as a young girl! But he had met her too late; she
+was already married. Unquestionably, he would have asked her hand! How
+he had loved her, nevertheless, without respite, since the first day he
+set eyes on her!
+
+He recalled his emotion every time he saw her, his grief on leaving her,
+the many nights that he could not sleep, because he was thinking of her.
+
+On rising in the morning he was somewhat more rational than on the
+previous evening.
+
+Why?
+
+How pretty she was formerly, so dainty, with fair curly hair, and always
+laughing. Sandres was not the man she should have chosen. She was now
+fifty-two years of age. She seemed happy. Ah! if she had only loved him
+in days gone by; yes, if she had only loved him! And why should she not
+have loved him, he, Saval, seeing that he loved her so much, yes, she,
+Madame Sandres!
+
+If only she could have guessed. Had she not guessed anything, seen
+anything, comprehended anything? What would she have thought? If he had
+spoken, what would she have answered?
+
+And Saval asked himself a thousand other things. He reviewed his whole
+life, seeking to recall a multitude of details.
+
+He recalled all the long evenings spent at the house of Sandres, when
+the latter's wife was young, and so charming.
+
+He recalled many things that she had said to him, the intonations of her
+voice, the little significant smiles that meant so much.
+
+He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks
+of the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres
+was employed at the sub-prefecture. And all at once the distinct
+recollection came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood
+on the banks of the river.
+
+They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets.
+It was a bright spring morning, one of those days which intoxicate one.
+Everything smells fresh, everything seems happy. The voices of the birds
+sound more joyous, and-they fly more swiftly. They had luncheon on the
+grass, under the willow trees, quite close to the water, which glittered
+in the sun's rays. The air was balmy, charged with the odors of fresh
+vegetation; they drank it in with delight. How pleasant everything was
+on that day!
+
+After lunch, Sandres went to sleep on the broad of his back. “The best
+nap he had in his life,” said he, when he woke up.
+
+Madame Sandres had taken the arm of Saval, and they started to walk
+along the river bank.
+
+She leaned tenderly on his arm. She laughed and said to him: “I am
+intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated.” He looked at her, his
+heart going pit-a-pat. He felt himself grow pale, fearful that he might
+have looked too boldly at her, and that the trembling of his hand had
+revealed his passion.
+
+She had made a wreath of wild flowers and water-lilies, and she asked
+him: “Do I look pretty like that?”
+
+As he did not answer--for he could find nothing to say, he would
+have liked to go down on his knees--she burst out laughing, a sort of
+annoyed, displeased laugh, as she said: “Great goose, what ails you? You
+might at least say something.”
+
+He felt like crying, but could not even yet find a word to say.
+
+All these things came back to him now, as vividly as on the day when
+they took place. Why had she said this to him, “Great goose, what ails
+you? You might at least say something!”
+
+And he recalled how tenderly she had leaned on his arm. And in passing
+under a shady tree he had felt her ear brushing his cheek, and he had
+moved his head abruptly, lest she should suppose he was too familiar.
+
+When he had said to her: “Is it not time to return?” she darted a
+singular look at him. “Certainly,” she said, “certainly,” regarding him
+at the same time in a curious manner. He had not thought of it at the
+time, but now the whole thing appeared to him quite plain.
+
+“Just as you like, my friend. If you are tired let us go back.”
+
+And he had answered: “I am not fatigued; but Sandres may be awake now.”
+
+And she had said: “If you are afraid of my husband's being awake, that
+is another thing. Let us return.”
+
+On their way back she remained silent, and leaned no longer on his arm.
+Why?
+
+At that time it had never occurred to him, to ask himself “why.” Now he
+seemed to apprehend something that he had not then understood.
+
+Could it?
+
+M. Saval felt himself blush, and he got up at a bound, as if he were
+thirty years younger and had heard Madame Sandres say, “I love you.”
+
+Was it possible? That idea which had just entered his mind tortured him.
+Was it possible that he had not seen, had not guessed?
+
+Oh! if that were true, if he had let this opportunity of happiness pass
+without taking advantage of it!
+
+He said to himself: “I must know. I cannot remain in this state of
+doubt. I must know!” He thought: “I am sixty-two years of age, she is
+fifty-eight; I may ask her that now without giving offense.”
+
+He started out.
+
+The Sandres' house was situated on the other side of the street, almost
+directly opposite his own. He went across and knocked at the door, and a
+little servant opened it.
+
+“You here at this hour, Saval! Has some accident happened to you?”
+
+“No, my girl,” he replied; “but go and tell your mistress that I want to
+speak to her at once.”
+
+“The fact is madame is preserving pears for the winter, and she is in
+the preserving room. She is not dressed, you understand.”
+
+“Yes, but go and tell her that I wish to see her on a very important
+matter.”
+
+The little servant went away, and Saval began to walk, with long,
+nervous strides, up and down the drawing-room. He did not feel in
+the least embarrassed, however. Oh! he was merely going to ask her
+something, as he would have asked her about some cooking recipe. He was
+sixty-two years of age!
+
+The door opened and madame appeared. She was now a large woman, fat and
+round, with full cheeks and a sonorous laugh. She walked with her arms
+away from her sides and her sleeves tucked up, her bare arms all covered
+with fruit juice. She asked anxiously:
+
+“What is the matter with you, my friend? You are not ill, are you?”
+
+“No, my dear friend; but I wish to ask you one thing, which to me is of
+the first importance, something which is torturing my heart, and I want
+you to promise that you will answer me frankly.”
+
+She laughed, “I am always frank. Say on.”
+
+“Well, then. I have loved you from the first day I ever saw you. Can you
+have any doubt of this?”
+
+She responded, laughing, with something of her former tone of voice.
+
+“Great goose! what ails you? I knew it from the very first day!”
+
+Saval began to tremble. He stammered out: “You knew it? Then...”
+
+He stopped.
+
+She asked:
+
+“Then?”
+
+He answered:
+
+“Then--what did you think? What--what--what would you have answered?”
+
+She broke into a peal of laughter. Some of the juice ran off the tips of
+her fingers on to the carpet.
+
+“What?”
+
+“I? Why, you did not ask me anything. It was not for me to declare
+myself!”
+
+He then advanced a step toward her.
+
+“Tell me--tell me.... You remember the day when Sandres went to sleep on
+the grass after lunch... when we had walked together as far as the bend
+of the river, below...”
+
+He waited, expectantly. She had ceased to laugh, and looked at him,
+straight in the eyes.
+
+“Yes, certainly, I remember it.”
+
+He answered, trembling all over:
+
+“Well--that day--if I had been--if I had been--venturesome--what would
+you have done?”
+
+She began to laugh as only a happy woman can laugh, who has nothing to
+regret, and responded frankly, in a clear voice tinged with irony:
+
+“I would have yielded, my friend.”
+
+She then turned on her heels and went back to her jam-making.
+
+Saval rushed into the street, cast down, as though he had met with some
+disaster. He walked with giant strides through the rain, straight on,
+until he reached the river bank, without thinking where he was going. He
+then turned to the right and followed the river. He walked a long time,
+as if urged on by some instinct. His clothes were running with water,
+his hat was out of shape, as soft as a rag, and dripping like a roof. He
+walked on, straight in front of him. At last, he came to the place where
+they had lunched on that day so long ago, the recollection of which
+tortured his heart. He sat down under the leafless trees, and wept.
+
+
+
+
+A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+
+Marguerite de Therelles was dying. Although she was-only fifty-six years
+old she looked at least seventy-five. She gasped for breath, her face
+whiter than the sheets, and had spasms of violent shivering, with
+her face convulsed and her eyes haggard as though she saw a frightful
+vision.
+
+Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older than herself, was sobbing on
+her knees beside the bed. A small table close to the dying woman's couch
+bore, on a white cloth, two lighted candles, for the priest was expected
+at any moment to administer extreme unction and the last communion.
+
+The apartment wore that melancholy aspect common to death chambers; a
+look of despairing farewell. Medicine bottles littered the furniture;
+linen lay in the corners into which it had been kicked or swept. The
+very chairs looked, in their disarray, as if they were terrified and had
+run in all directions. Death--terrible Death--was in the room, hidden,
+awaiting his prey.
+
+This history of the two sisters was an affecting one. It was spoken of
+far and wide; it had drawn tears from many eyes.
+
+Suzanne, the elder, had once been passionately loved by a young man,
+whose affection she returned. They were engaged to be married, and the
+wedding day was at hand, when Henry de Sampierre suddenly died.
+
+The young girl's despair was terrible, and she took an oath never to
+marry. She faithfully kept her vow and adopted widow's weeds for the
+remainder of her life.
+
+But one morning her sister, her little sister Marguerite, then only
+twelve years old, threw herself into Suzanne's arms, sobbing: “Sister,
+I don't want you to be unhappy. I don't want you to mourn all your life.
+I'll never leave you--never, never, never! I shall never marry, either.
+I'll stay with you always--always!”
+
+Suzanne kissed her, touched by the child's devotion, though not putting
+any faith in her promise.
+
+But the little one kept her word, and, despite her parents'
+remonstrances, despite her elder sister's prayers, never married.
+She was remarkably pretty and refused many offers. She never left her
+sister.
+
+They spent their whole life together, without a single day's separation.
+They went everywhere together and were inseparable. But Marguerite was
+pensive, melancholy, sadder than her sister, as if her sublime sacrifice
+had undermined her spirits. She grew older more quickly; her hair was
+white at thirty; and she was often ill, apparently stricken with some
+unknown, wasting malady.
+
+And now she would be the first to die.
+
+She had not spoken for twenty-four hours, except to whisper at daybreak:
+
+“Send at once for the priest.”
+
+And she had since remained lying on her back, convulsed with agony, her
+lips moving as if unable to utter the dreadful words that rose in her
+heart, her face expressive of a terror distressing to witness.
+
+Suzanne, distracted with grief, her brow pressed against the bed, wept
+bitterly, repeating over and over again the words:
+
+“Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!”
+
+She had always called her “my little one,” while Marguerite's name for
+the elder was invariably “sister.”
+
+A footstep sounded on the stairs. The door opened. An acolyte appeared,
+followed by the aged priest in his surplice. As soon as she saw him the
+dying woman sat up suddenly in bed, opened her lips, stammered a few
+words and began to scratch the bed-clothes, as if she would have made
+hole in them.
+
+Father Simon approached, took her hand, kissed her on the forehead and
+said in a gentle voice:
+
+“May God pardon your sins, my daughter. Be of good courage. Now is the
+moment to confess them--speak!”
+
+Then Marguerite, shuddering from head to foot, so that the very bed
+shook with her nervous movements, gasped:
+
+“Sit down, sister, and listen.”
+
+The priest stooped toward the prostrate Suzanne, raised her to her
+feet, placed her in a chair, and, taking a hand of each of the sisters,
+pronounced:
+
+“Lord God! Send them strength! Shed Thy mercy upon them.”
+
+And Marguerite began to speak. The words issued from her lips one by
+one--hoarse, jerky, tremulous.
+
+“Pardon, pardon, sister! pardon me! Oh, if only you knew how I have
+dreaded this moment all my life!”
+
+Suzanne faltered through her tears:
+
+“But what have I to pardon, little one? You have given me everything,
+sacrificed all to me. You are an angel.”
+
+But Marguerite interrupted her:
+
+“Be silent, be silent! Let me speak! Don't stop me! It is terrible.
+Let me tell all, to the very end, without interruption. Listen. You
+remember--you remember--Henry--”
+
+Suzanne trembled and looked at her sister. The younger one went on:
+
+“In order to understand you must hear everything. I was twelve years
+old--only twelve--you remember, don't you? And I was spoilt; I did just
+as I pleased. You remember how everybody spoilt me? Listen. The first
+time he came he had on his riding boots; he dismounted, saying that he
+had a message for father. You remember, don't you? Don't speak. Listen.
+When I saw him I was struck with admiration. I thought him so handsome,
+and I stayed in a corner of the drawing-room all the time he was
+talking. Children are strange--and terrible. Yes, indeed, I dreamt of
+him.
+
+“He came again--many times. I looked at him with all my eyes, all my
+heart. I was large for my age and much more precocious than--any one
+suspected. He came often. I thought only of him. I often whispered to
+myself:
+
+“'Henry-Henry de Sampierre!'
+
+“Then I was told that he was going to marry you. That was a blow! Oh,
+sister, a terrible blow--terrible! I wept all through three sleepless
+nights.
+
+“He came every afternoon after lunch. You remember, don't you? Don't
+answer. Listen. You used to make cakes that he was very fond of--with
+flour, butter and milk. Oh, I know how to make them. I could make them
+still, if necessary. He would swallow them at one mouthful and wash them
+down with a glass of wine, saying: 'Delicious!' Do you remember the way
+he said it?
+
+“I was jealous--jealous! Your wedding day was drawing near. It was only
+a fortnight distant. I was distracted. I said to myself: 'He shall not
+marry Suzanne--no, he shall not! He shall marry me when I am old enough!
+I shall never love any one half so much.' But one evening, ten days
+before the wedding, you went for a stroll with him in the moonlight
+before the house--and yonder--under the pine tree, the big pine tree--he
+kissed you--kissed you--and held you in his arms so long--so long! You
+remember, don't you? It was probably the first time. You were so pale
+when you came back to the drawing-room!
+
+“I saw you. I was there in the shrubbery. I was mad with rage! I would
+have killed you both if I could!
+
+“I said to myself: 'He shall never marry Suzanne--never! He shall
+marry no one! I could not bear it.' And all at once I began to hate him
+intensely.
+
+“Then do you know what I did? Listen. I had seen the gardener prepare
+pellets for killing stray dogs. He would crush a bottle into small
+pieces with a stone and put the ground glass into a ball of meat.
+
+“I stole a small medicine bottle from mother's room. I ground it fine
+with a hammer and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glistening
+powder. The next day, when you had made your little cakes; I opened them
+with a knife and inserted the glass. He ate three. I ate one myself. I
+threw the six others into the pond. The two swans died three days later.
+You remember? Oh, don't speak! Listen, listen. I, I alone did not die.
+But I have always been ill. Listen--he died--you know--listen--that
+was not the worst. It was afterward, later--always--the most
+terrible--listen.
+
+“My life, all my life--such torture! I said to myself: 'I will never
+leave my sister. And on my deathbed I will tell her all.' And now I
+have told. And I have always thought of this moment--the moment when all
+would be told. Now it has come. It is terrible--oh!--sister--
+
+“I have always thought, morning and evening, day and night: 'I shall
+have to tell her some day!' I waited. The horror of it! It is done. Say
+nothing. Now I am afraid--I am afraid! Oh! Supposing I should see him
+again, by and by, when I am dead! See him again! Only to think of it!
+I dare not--yet I must. I am going to die. I want you to forgive me. I
+insist on it. I cannot meet him without your forgiveness. Oh, tell her
+to forgive me, Father! Tell her. I implore you! I cannot die without
+it.”
+
+She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still plucking at the
+sheets with her fingers.
+
+Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not move. She was
+thinking of him whom she had loved so long. What a life of happiness
+they might have had together! She saw him again in the dim and distant
+past-that past forever lost. Beloved dead! how the thought of them rends
+the heart! Oh! that kiss, his only kiss! She had retained the memory of
+it in her soul. And, after that, nothing, nothing more throughout her
+whole existence!
+
+The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling voice said:
+
+“Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!”
+
+Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her arms round her
+sister, and kissing her fervently, exclaimed:
+
+“I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!”
+
+
+
+
+COCO
+
+Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as “the
+Manor.” No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this
+word, “Manor,” a meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was
+undoubtedly the largest, richest and the best managed in the whole
+neighborhood.
+
+The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which
+sheltered the delicate apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain,
+inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for storing fodder
+and grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
+thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little
+chateau.
+
+Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little
+offensive as such things can be; the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and
+countless poultry paraded through the tall grass.
+
+Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women
+folks, seated themselves around the long kitchen table where the soup
+was brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered bowl.
+
+The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean.
+Maitre Lucas, a tall man who was getting stout, would go round three
+times a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.
+
+A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its
+natural death, because she had brought it up and had always used it, and
+also because it recalled many happy memories, was housed, through sheer
+kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.
+
+A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval by name, and
+called, for convenience, Zidore, took care of this pensioner, gave him
+his measure of oats and fodder in winter, and in summer was supposed
+to change his pasturing place four times a day, so that he might have
+plenty of fresh grass.
+
+The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty his legs, large at
+the knees and swollen above the hoofs. His coat, which was no longer
+curried, looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes gave to his eyes
+a sad expression.
+
+When Zidore took the animal to pasture, he had to pull on the rope with
+all his might, because it walked so slowly; and the youth, bent over and
+out of breath, would swear at it, exasperated at having to care for this
+old nag.
+
+The farmhands, noticing the young rascal's anger against Coco, were
+amused and would continually talk of the horse to Zidore, in order to
+exasperate him. His comrades would make sport with him. In the village
+he was called Coco-Zidore.
+
+The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the
+horse. He was a thin, long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse,
+bristly red hair. He seemed only half-witted, and stuttered as though
+ideas were unable to form in his thick, brute-like mind.
+
+For a long time he had been unable to understand why Coco should be
+kept, indignant at seeing things wasted on this useless beast. Since the
+horse could no longer work, it seemed to him unjust that he should
+be fed; he revolted at the idea of wasting oats, oats which were so
+expensive, on this paralyzed old plug. And often, in spite of the orders
+of Maitre Lucas, he would economize on the nag's food, only giving him
+half measure. Hatred grew in his confused, childlike mind, the hatred of
+a stingy, mean, fierce, brutal and cowardly peasant.
+
+When summer came he had to move the animal about in the pasture. It was
+some distance away. The rascal, angrier every morning, would start,
+with his dragging step, across the wheat fields. The men working in the
+fields would shout to him, jokingly:
+
+“Hey, Zidore, remember me to Coco.”
+
+He would not answer; but on the way he would break off a switch, and, as
+soon as he had moved the old horse, he would let it begin grazing; then,
+treacherously sneaking up behind it, he would slash its legs. The animal
+would try to escape, to kick, to get away from the blows, and run around
+in a circle about its rope, as though it had been inclosed in a circus
+ring. And the boy would slash away furiously, running along behind, his
+teeth clenched in anger.
+
+Then he would go away slowly, without turning round, while the horse
+watched him disappear, his ribs sticking out, panting as a result of his
+unusual exertions. Not until the blue blouse of the young peasant was
+out of sight would he lower his thin white head to the grass.
+
+As the nights were now warm, Coco was allowed to sleep out of doors, in
+the field behind the little wood. Zidore alone went to see him. The boy
+threw stones at him to amuse himself. He would sit down on an embankment
+about ten feet away and would stay there about half an hour, from time
+to time throwing a sharp stone at the old horse, which remained standing
+tied before his enemy, watching him continually and not daring to eat
+before he was gone.
+
+This one thought persisted in the mind of the young scamp: “Why feed
+this horse, which is no longer good for anything?” It seemed to him that
+this old nag was stealing the food of the others, the goods of man and
+God, that he was even robbing him, Zidore, who was working.
+
+Then, little by little, each day, the boy began to shorten the length of
+rope which allowed the horse to graze.
+
+The hungry animal was growing thinner, and starving. Too feeble to
+break his bonds, he would stretch his head out toward the tall, green,
+tempting grass, so near that he could smell, and yet so far that he
+could not touch it.
+
+But one morning Zidore had an idea: it was, not to move Coco any more.
+He was tired of walking so far for that old skeleton. He came, however,
+in order to enjoy his vengeance. The beast watched him anxiously. He
+did not beat him that day. He walked around him with his hands in his
+pockets. He even pretended to change his place, but he sank the stake in
+exactly the same hole, and went away overjoyed with his invention.
+
+The horse, seeing him leave, neighed to call him back; but the rascal
+began to run, leaving him alone, entirely alone in his field, well tied
+down and without a blade of grass within reach.
+
+Starving, he tried to reach the grass which he could touch with the end
+of his nose. He got on his knees, stretching out his neck and his
+long, drooling lips. All in vain. The old animal spent the whole day
+in useless, terrible efforts. The sight of all that green food, which
+stretched out on all sides of him, served to increase the gnawing pangs
+of hunger.
+
+The scamp did not return that day. He wandered through the woods in
+search of nests.
+
+The next day he appeared upon the scene again. Coco, exhausted, had
+lain down. When he saw the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his
+place changed.
+
+But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying
+on the ground. He came nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head
+a clump of earth which flattened out against the white hair, and he
+started off again, whistling.
+
+The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing
+that his attempts to reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once
+more lay down on his side and closed his eyes.
+
+The following day Zidore did not come.
+
+When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that
+he was dead.
+
+Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had
+done, surprised that it should already be all over. He touched him with
+his foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it drop, sat on him and
+remained there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing. He
+returned to the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he
+wished to wander about at the hours when he used to change the horse's
+pasture. He went to see him the next day. At his approach some crows
+flew away. Countless flies were walking over the body and were buzzing
+around it. When he returned home, he announced the event. The animal was
+so old that nobody was surprised. The master said to two of the men:
+
+“Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is.”
+
+The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger. And
+the grass grew thick, green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.
+
+
+
+
+DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+
+The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life
+had been blameless. Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back,
+her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully
+arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying. The
+whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so
+resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body,
+what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the
+death of this parent had been.
+
+Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible
+principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were
+weeping as though their hearts would break. She had, from childhood up,
+armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without
+weakness, and duty, without compromise. He, the man, had become a
+judge and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones
+without pity. She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed
+her in this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through
+her loathing for man.
+
+They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
+mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.
+
+The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
+as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the
+long body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the
+death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
+of those last movements which precede eternal immobility.
+
+A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up,
+and the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and
+out of breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself
+a strong mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of
+the last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.
+
+He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is
+a bread winner. He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
+gesture: “Well, my poor children! I have come to help you pass these
+last sad hours.” But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. “Thank you, father,
+but my brother and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last
+chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us, as
+we--we--used to be when we were small and our poor mo--mother----”
+
+Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.
+
+Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. “As you wish,
+my children.” He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
+quietly, murmuring: “She was a saint!”
+
+They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the
+clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
+open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together
+with the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land
+except the occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some
+belated insect. An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent
+serenity surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her
+and to appease nature itself.
+
+Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes,
+cried in a voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and
+blankets: “Mamma, mamma, mamma!” And his sister, frantically striking
+her forehead against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as
+in an epileptic fit, moaned: “Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!” And both of
+them, shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.
+
+The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on
+the sea when a calm follows a squall.
+
+A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead.
+And the memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so
+torturing, came to their minds with all the little forgotten details,
+those little intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one
+who has left. They recalled to each other circumstances, words, smiles,
+intonations of the mother who was no longer to speak to them. They saw
+her again happy and calm. They remembered things which she had said,
+and a little motion of the hand, like beating time, which she often used
+when emphasizing something important.
+
+And they loved her as they never had loved her before. They measured
+the depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would
+find themselves.
+
+It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of
+their lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their
+mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which
+they would thenceforth miss. They now became solitary, lonely beings;
+they could no longer look back.
+
+The nun said to her brother: “You remember how mamma used always to read
+her old letters; they are all there in that drawer. Let us, in turn,
+read them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her! It
+would be like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her
+mother, of our grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are
+there and of whom she so often spoke, do you remember?”
+
+Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper,
+tied with care and arranged one beside the other. They threw these
+relics on the bed and chose one of them on which the word “Father” was
+written. They opened and read it.
+
+It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family
+desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century. The first
+one started: “My dear,” another one: “My beautiful little girl,” others:
+“My dear child,” or: “My dear (laughter).” And suddenly the nun began
+to read aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her
+tender memories. The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening
+with his eyes fastened on his mother. The motionless body seemed happy.
+
+Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:
+
+“These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as
+a shroud and she ought to be buried in it.” She took another package, on
+which no name was written. She began to read in a firm voice: “My
+adored one, I love you wildly. Since yesterday I have been suffering the
+tortures of the damned, haunted by our memory. I feel your lips against
+mine, your eyes in mine, your breast against mine. I love you, I love
+you! You have driven me mad. My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild
+desire to hold you again. My whole soul and body cries out for you,
+wants you. I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses--”
+
+The judge had straightened himself up. The nun stopped reading. He
+snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature. There was
+none, but only under the words, “The man who adores you,” the name
+“Henry.” Their father's name was Rene. Therefore this was not from him.
+The son then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one
+out and read: “I can no longer live without your caresses.” Standing
+erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the
+dead woman. The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the
+corners of her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed
+the room slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the
+dark night.
+
+When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still
+standing near the bed, her head bent down.
+
+He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them
+pell-mell back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed.
+
+When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly
+left his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom
+he had passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and
+daughter, he said slowly: “Let us now retire, sister.”
+
+
+
+
+A HUMBLE DRAMA
+
+Meetings that are unexpected constitute the charm of traveling. Who has
+not experienced the joy of suddenly coming across a Parisian, a college
+friend, or a neighbor, five hundred miles from home? Who has not passed
+a night awake in one of those small, rattling country stage-coaches,
+in regions where steam is still a thing unknown, beside a strange young
+woman, of whom one has caught only a glimpse in the dim light of the
+lantern, as she entered the carriage in front of a white house in some
+small country town?
+
+And the next morning, when one's head and ears feel numb with the
+continuous tinkling of the bells and the loud rattling of the windows,
+what a charming sensation it is to see your pretty neighbor open her
+eyes, startled, glance around her, arrange her rebellious hair with her
+slender fingers, adjust her hat, feel with sure hand whether her corset
+is still in place, her waist straight, and her skirt not too wrinkled.
+
+She glances at you coldly and curiously. Then she leans back and no
+longer seems interested in anything but the country.
+
+In spite of yourself, you watch her; and in spite of yourself you keep
+on thinking of her. Who is she? Whence does she come? Where is she
+going? In spite of yourself you spin a little romance around her. She
+is pretty; she seems charming! Happy he who... Life might be delightful
+with her. Who knows? She is perhaps the woman of our dreams, the one
+suited to our disposition, the one for whom our heart calls.
+
+And how delicious even the disappointment at seeing her get out at the
+gate of a country house! A man stands there, who is awaiting her, with
+two children and two maids. He takes her in his arms and kisses as he
+lifts her out. Then she stoops over the little ones, who hold up their
+hands to her; she kisses them tenderly; and then they all go away
+together, down a path, while the maids catch the packages which the
+driver throws down to them from the coach.
+
+Adieu! It is all over. You never will see her again! Adieu to the young
+woman who has passed the night by your side. You know her no more, you
+have not spoken to her; all the same, you feel a little sad to see her
+go. Adieu!
+
+I have had many of these souvenirs of travel, some joyous and some sad.
+
+Once I was in Auvergne, tramping through those delightful French
+mountains, that are not too high, not too steep, but friendly and
+familiar. I had climbed the Sancy, and entered a little inn, near a
+pilgrim's chapel called Notre-Dame de Vassiviere, when I saw a queer,
+ridiculous-looking old woman breakfasting alone at the end table.
+
+She was at least seventy years old, tall, skinny, and angular, and her
+white hair was puffed around her temples in the old-fashioned style. She
+was dressed like a traveling Englishwoman, in awkward, queer clothing,
+like a person who is indifferent to dress. She was eating an omelet and
+drinking water.
+
+Her face was peculiar, with restless eyes and the expression of one
+with whom fate has dealt unkindly. I watched her, in spite of myself,
+thinking: “Who is she? What is the life of this woman? Why is she
+wandering alone through these mountains?”
+
+She paid and rose to leave, drawing up over her shoulders an astonishing
+little shawl, the two ends of which hung over her arms. From a corner
+of the room she took an alpenstock, which was covered with names traced
+with a hot iron; then she went out, straight, erect, with the long steps
+of a letter-carrier who is setting out on his route.
+
+A guide was waiting for her at the door, and both went away. I watched
+them go down the valley, along the road marked by a line of high wooden
+crosses. She was taller than her companion, and seemed to walk faster
+than he.
+
+Two hours later I was climbing the edge of the deep funnel that incloses
+Lake Pavin in a marvelous and enormous basin of verdure, full of trees,
+bushes, rocks, and flowers. This lake is so round that it seems as if
+the outline had been drawn with a pair of compasses, so clear and blue
+that one might deem it a flood of azure come down from the sky, so
+charming that one would like to live in a but on the wooded slope which
+dominates this crater, where the cold, still water is sleeping.
+The Englishwoman was standing there like a statue, gazing upon the
+transparent sheet down in the dead volcano. She was straining her
+eyes to penetrate below the surface down to the unknown depths, where
+monstrous trout which have devoured all the other fish are said to live.
+As I was passing close by her, it seemed to me that two big tears were
+brimming her eyes. But she departed at a great pace, to rejoin her
+guide, who had stayed behind in an inn at the foot of the path leading
+to the lake.
+
+I did not see her again that day.
+
+The next day, at nightfall, I came to the chateau of Murol. The old
+fortress, an enormous tower standing on a peak in the midst of a large
+valley, where three valleys intersect, rears its brown, uneven, cracked
+surface into the sky; it is round, from its large circular base to the
+crumbling turrets on its pinnacles.
+
+It astonishes the eye more than any other ruin by its simple mass,
+its majesty, its grave and imposing air of antiquity. It stands there,
+alone, high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still the queen of the
+valleys stretched out beneath it. You go up by a slope planted with
+firs, then you enter a narrow gate, and stop at the foot of the walls,
+in the first inclosure, in full view of the entire country.
+
+Inside there are ruined halls, crumbling stairways, unknown cavities,
+dungeons, walls cut through in the middle, vaulted roofs held up one
+knows not how, and a mass of stones and crevices, overgrown with grass,
+where animals glide in and out.
+
+I was exploring this ruin alone.
+
+Suddenly I perceived behind a bit of wall a being, a kind of phantom,
+like the spirit of this ancient and crumbling habitation.
+
+I was taken aback with surprise, almost with fear, when I recognized the
+old lady whom I had seen twice.
+
+She was weeping, with big tears in her eyes, and held her handkerchief
+in her hand.
+
+I turned around to go away, when she spoke to me, apparently ashamed to
+have been surprised in her grief.
+
+“Yes, monsieur, I am crying. That does not happen often to me.”
+
+“Pardon me, madame, for having disturbed you,” I stammered, confused,
+not knowing what to say. “Some misfortune has doubtless come to you.”
+
+“Yes. No--I am like a lost dog,” she murmured, and began to sob, with
+her handkerchief over her eyes.
+
+Moved by these contagious tears, I took her hand, trying to calm her.
+Then brusquely she told me her history, as if no longer ably to bear her
+grief alone.
+
+“Oh! Oh! Monsieur--if you knew--the sorrow in which I live--in what
+sorrow.
+
+“Once I was happy. I have a house down there--a home. I cannot go back
+to it any more; I shall never go back to it again, it is too hard to
+bear.
+
+“I have a son. It is he! it is he! Children don't know. Oh, one has
+such a short time to live! If I should see him now I should perhaps
+not recognize him. How I loved him? How I loved him! Even before he
+was born, when I felt him move. And after that! How I have kissed and
+caressed and cherished him! If you knew how many nights I have passed in
+watching him sleep, and how many in thinking of him. I was crazy about
+him. When he was eight years old his father sent him to boarding-school.
+That was the end. He no longer belonged to me. Oh, heavens! He came to
+see me every Sunday. That was all!
+
+“He went to college in Paris. Then he came only four times a year,
+and every time I was astonished to see how he had changed, to find him
+taller without having seen him grow. They stole his childhood from me,
+his confidence, and his love which otherwise would not have gone away
+from me; they stole my joy in seeing him grow, in seeing him become a
+little man.
+
+“I saw him four times a year. Think of it! And at every one of his
+visits his body, his eye, his movements, his voice his laugh, were no
+longer the same, were no longer mine. All these things change so quickly
+in a child; and it is so sad if one is not there to see them change; one
+no longer recognizes him.
+
+“One year he came with down on his cheek! He! my son! I was dumfounded
+--would you believe it? I hardly dared to kiss him. Was it really he, my
+little, little curly head of old, my dear; dear child, whom I had held
+in his diapers or my knee, and who had nursed at my breast with his
+little greedy lips--was it he, this tall, brown boy, who no longer knew
+how to kiss me, who seemed to love me as a matter of duty, who called me
+'mother' for the sake of politeness, and who kissed me on the forehead,
+when I felt like crushing him in my arms?
+
+“My husband died. Then my parents, and then my two sisters. When Death
+enters a house it seems as if he were hurrying to do his utmost, so as
+not to have to return for a long time after that. He spares only one or
+two to mourn the others.
+
+“I remained alone. My tall son was then studying law. I was hoping to
+live and die near him, and I went to him so that we could live together.
+But he had fallen into the ways of young men, and he gave me to
+understand that I was in his way. So I left. I was wrong in doing so,
+but I suffered too much in feeling myself in his way, I, his mother! And
+I came back home.
+
+“I hardly ever saw him again.
+
+“He married. What a joy! At last we should be together for good. I
+should have grandchildren. His wife was an Englishwoman, who took a
+dislike to me. Why? Perhaps she thought that I loved him too much.
+
+“Again I was obliged to go away. And I was alone. Yes, monsieur.
+
+“Then he went to England, to live with them, with his wife's parents.
+Do you understand? They have him--they have my son for themselves. They
+have stolen him from me. He writes to me once a month. At first he came
+to see me. But now he no longer comes.
+
+“It is now four years since I saw him last. His face then was wrinkled
+and his hair white. Was that possible? This man, my son, almost an old
+man? My little rosy child of old? No doubt I shall never see him again.
+
+“And so I travel about all the year. I go east and west, as you see,
+with no companion.
+
+“I am like a lost dog. Adieu, monsieur! don't stay here with me for it
+hurts me to have told you all this.”
+
+I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance back, I saw the
+old woman standing on a broken wall, looking out upon the mountains, the
+long valley and Lake Chambon in the distance.
+
+And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she wore around her thin
+shoulders were fluttering tike a flag in the wind.
+
+
+
+
+MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+
+We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall, thin man in a corner
+of the court who kept on calling an imaginary dog. He was crying in
+a soft, tender voice: “Cocotte! Come here, Cocotte, my beauty!” and
+slapping his thigh as one does when calling an animal. I asked the
+physician, “Who is that man?” He answered: “Oh! he is not at all
+interesting. He is a coachman named Francois, who became insane after
+drowning his dog.”
+
+I insisted: “Tell me his story. The most simple and humble things are
+sometimes those which touch our hearts most deeply.”
+
+Here is this man's adventure, which was obtained from a friend of his, a
+groom:
+
+There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in a suburb of Paris.
+They had a villa in the middle of a park, at the edge of the Seine.
+Their coachman was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull,
+kind-hearted, simple and easy to deceive.
+
+One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began to follow him. At
+first he paid no attention to it, but the creature's obstinacy at last
+made him turn round. He looked to see if he knew this dog. No, he
+had never seen it. It was a female dog and frightfully thin. She was
+trotting behind him with a mournful and famished look, her tail between
+her legs, her ears flattened against her head and stopping and starting
+whenever he did.
+
+He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:
+
+“Run along! Get out! Kss! kss!” She retreated a few steps, then sat down
+and waited. And when the coachman started to walk again she followed
+along behind him.
+
+He pretended to pick up some stones. The animal ran a little farther
+away, but came back again as soon as the man's back was turned.
+
+Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast and called her. The
+dog approached timidly. The man patted her protruding ribs, moved by the
+beast's misery, and he cried: “Come! come here!” Immediately she began
+to wag her tail, and, feeling herself taken in, adopted, she began to
+run along ahead of her new master.
+
+He made her a bed on the straw in the stable, then he ran to the kitchen
+for some bread. When she had eaten all she could she curled up and went
+to sleep.
+
+When his employers heard of this the next day they allowed the coachman
+to keep the animal. It was a good beast, caressing and faithful,
+intelligent and gentle.
+
+Nevertheless Francois adored Cocotte, and he kept repeating: “That beast
+is human. She only lacks speech.”
+
+He had a magnificent red leather collar made for her which bore these
+words engraved on a copper plate: “Mademoiselle Cocotte, belonging to
+the coachman Francois.”
+
+She was remarkably prolific and four times a year would give birth to a
+batch of little animals belonging to every variety of the canine race.
+Francois would pick out one which he would leave her and then he would
+unmercifully throw the others into the river. But soon the cook joined
+her complaints to those of the gardener. She would find dogs under the
+stove, in the ice box, in the coal bin, and they would steal everything
+they came across.
+
+Finally the master, tired of complaints, impatiently ordered Francois
+to get rid of Cocotte. In despair the man tried to give her away. Nobody
+wanted her. Then he decided to lose her, and he gave her to a teamster,
+who was to drop her on the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.
+
+Cocotte returned the same day. Some decision had to be taken. Five
+francs was given to a train conductor to take her to Havre. He was to
+drop her there.
+
+Three days later she returned to the stable, thin, footsore and tired
+out.
+
+The master took pity on her and let her stay. But other dogs were
+attracted as before, and one evening, when a big dinner party was on,
+a stuffed turkey was carried away by one of them right under the cook's
+nose, and she did not dare to stop him.
+
+This time the master completely lost his temper and said angrily
+to Francois: “If you don't throw this beast into the water
+before--to-morrow morning, I'll put you out, do you hear?”
+
+The man was dumbfounded, and he returned to his room to pack his trunk,
+preferring to leave the place. Then he bethought himself that he could
+find no other situation as long as he dragged this animal about with
+him. He thought of his good position, where he was well paid and well
+fed, and he decided that a dog was really not worth all that. At last he
+decided to rid himself of Cocotte at daybreak.
+
+He slept badly. He rose at dawn, and taking a strong rope, went to
+get the dog. She stood up slowly, shook herself, stretched and came to
+welcome her master.
+
+Then his courage forsook him, and he began to pet her affectionately,
+stroking her long ears, kissing her muzzle and calling her tender names.
+
+But a neighboring clock struck six. He could no longer hesitate.
+He opened the door, calling: “Come!” The beast wagged her tail,
+understanding that she was to be taken out.
+
+They reached the beach, and he chose a place where the water seemed
+deep. Then he knotted the rope round the leather collar and tied a heavy
+stone to the other end. He seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her
+madly, as though he were taking leave of some human being. He held her
+to his breast, rocked her and called her “my dear little Cocotte, my
+sweet little Cocotte,” and she grunted with pleasure.
+
+Ten times he tried to throw her into the water and each time he lost
+courage.
+
+But suddenly he made up his mind and threw her as far from him as he
+could. At first she tried to swim, as she did when he gave her a bath,
+but her head, dragged down by the stone, kept going under, and she
+looked at her master with wild, human glances as she struggled like a
+drowning person. Then the front part of her body sank, while her hind
+legs waved wildly out of the water. Finally those also disappeared.
+
+Then, for five minutes, bubbles rose to the surface as though the river
+were boiling, and Francois, haggard, his heart beating, thought that
+he saw Cocotte struggling in the mud, and, with the simplicity of a
+peasant, he kept saying to himself: “What does the poor beast think of
+me now?”
+
+He almost lost his mind. He was ill for a month and every night he
+dreamed of his dog. He could feel her licking his hands and hear her
+barking. It was necessary to call in a physician. At last he recovered,
+and toward the 2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at
+Biesard, near Rouen.
+
+There again he was near the Seine. He began to take baths. Each morning
+he would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.
+
+One day, as they were disporting themselves in the water, Francois
+suddenly cried to his companion: “Look what's coming! I'm going to give
+you a chop!”
+
+It was an enormous, swollen corpse that was floating down with its feet
+sticking straight up in the air.
+
+Francois swam up to it, still joking: “Whew! it's not fresh. What a
+catch, old man! It isn't thin, either!” He kept swimming about at a
+distance from the animal that was in a state of decomposition. Then,
+suddenly, he was silent and looked at it: attentively. This time he
+came near enough to touch, it. He looked fixedly at the collar, then he
+stretched out his arm, seized the neck, swung the corpse round and drew
+it up close to him and read on the copper which had turned green and
+which still stuck to the discolored leather: “Mademoiselle Cocotte,
+belonging to the coachman Francois.”
+
+The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.
+
+He let out a frightful shriek and began to swim for the beach with all
+his might, still howling; and as soon as he touched land he ran away
+wildly, stark naked, through the country. He was insane!
+
+
+
+
+THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+
+The road ascended gently through the forest of Aitone. The large pines
+formed a solemn dome above our heads, and that mysterious sound made by
+the wind in the trees sounded like the notes of an organ.
+
+After walking for three hours, there was a clearing, and then at
+intervals an enormous pine umbrella, and then we suddenly came to the
+edge of the forest, some hundred meters below, the pass leading to the
+wild valley of Niolo.
+
+On the two projecting heights which commanded a view of this pass, some
+old trees, grotesquely twisted, seemed to have mounted with painful
+efforts, like scouts sent in advance of the multitude in the rear. When
+we turned round, we saw the entire forest stretched beneath our feet,
+like a gigantic basin of verdure, inclosed by bare rocks whose summits
+seemed to reach the sky.
+
+We resumed our walk, and, ten minutes later, found ourselves in the
+pass.
+
+Then I beheld a remarkable landscape. Beyond another forest stretched
+a valley, but a valley such as I had never seen before; a solitude
+of stone, ten leagues long, hollowed out between two high mountains,
+without a field or a tree to be seen. This was the Niolo valley, the
+fatherland of Corsican liberty, the inaccessible citadel, from which the
+invaders had never been able to drive out the mountaineers.
+
+My companion said to me: “This is where all our bandits have taken
+refuge?”
+
+Ere long we were at the further end of this gorge, so wild, so
+inconceivably beautiful.
+
+Not a blade of grass, not a plant-nothing but granite. As far as our
+eyes could reach, we saw in front of us a desert of glittering stone,
+heated like an oven by a burning sun, which seemed to hang for that
+very purpose right above the gorge. When we raised our eyes towards the
+crests, we stood dazzled and stupefied by what we saw. They looked
+like a festoon of coral; all the summits are of porphyry; and the sky
+overhead was violet, purple, tinged with the coloring of these strange
+mountains. Lower down, the granite was of scintillating gray, and
+seemed ground to powder beneath our feet. At our right, along a long and
+irregular course, roared a tumultuous torrent. And we staggered along
+under this heat, in this light, in this burning, arid, desolate valley
+cut by this torrent of turbulent water which seemed to be ever hurrying
+onward, without fertilizing the rocks, lost in this furnace which
+greedily drank it up without being saturated or refreshed by it.
+
+But, suddenly, there was visible at our right a little wooden cross sunk
+in a little heap of stones. A man had been killed there; and I said to
+my companion.
+
+“Tell me about your bandits.”
+
+He replied:
+
+“I knew the most celebrated of them, the terrible St. Lucia. I will tell
+you his history.
+
+“His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the district, it
+is said; and St. Lucia was left alone with his sister. He was a weak,
+timid youth, small, often ill, without any energy. He did not proclaim
+vengeance against the assassin of his father. All his relatives came to
+see him, and implored of him to avenge his death; he remained deaf to
+their menaces and their supplications.
+
+“Then, following the old Corsican custom, his sister, in her indignation
+carried away his black clothes, in order that he might not wear mourning
+for a dead man who had not been avenged. He was insensible to even this
+affront, and rather than take down from the rack his father's gun, which
+was still loaded, he shut himself up, not daring to brave the looks of
+the young men of the district.
+
+“He seemed to have even forgotten the crime, and lived with his sister
+in the seclusion of their dwelling.
+
+“But, one day, the man who was suspected of having committed the murder,
+was about to get married. St. Lucia did not appear to be moved by this
+news, but, out of sheer bravado, doubtless, the bridegroom, on his way
+to the church, passed before the house of the two orphans.
+
+“The brother and the sister, at their window, were eating frijoles, when
+the young man saw the bridal procession going by. Suddenly he began to
+tremble, rose to his feet without uttering a word, made the sign of the
+cross, took the gun which was hanging over the fireplace, and went out.
+
+“When he spoke of this later on, he said: 'I don't know what was the
+matter with me; it was like fire in my blood; I felt that I must do it,
+that, in spite of everything, I could not resist, and I concealed the
+gun in a cave on the road to Corte.
+
+“An hour later, he came back, with nothing in his hand, and with his
+habitual air of sad weariness. His sister believed that there was
+nothing further in his thoughts.
+
+“But when night fell he disappeared.
+
+“His enemy had, the same evening, to repair to Corte on foot,
+accompanied by his two groomsmen.
+
+“He was walking along, singing as he went, when St. Lucia stood before
+him, and looking straight in the murderer's face, exclaimed: 'Now is the
+time!' and shot him point-blank in the chest.
+
+“One of the men fled; the other stared at, the young man, saying:
+
+“'What have you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte
+for help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone:
+
+“'If you move another step, I'll shoot you in the leg.'
+
+“The other, aware of his timidity hitherto, replied: 'You would not dare
+to do it!' and was hurrying off when he fell instantaneously, his thigh
+shattered by a bullet.
+
+“And St. Lucia, coming over to where he lay, said:
+
+“'I am going to look at your wound; if it is not serious, I'll leave you
+there; if it is mortal I'll finish you off.”
+
+“He inspected the wound, considered it mortal, and slowly reloading
+his gun, told the wounded man to say a prayer, and shot him through the
+head.
+
+“Next day he was in the mountains.
+
+“And do you know what this St. Lucia did after this?
+
+“All his family were arrested by the gendarmes. His uncle, the cure,
+who was suspected of having incited him to this deed of vengeance, was
+himself put in prison, and accused by the dead man's relatives. But
+he escaped, took a gun in his turn, and went to join his nephew in the
+brush.
+
+“Next, St. Lucia killed, one after the other, his uncle's accusers, and
+tore out their eyes to teach the others never to state what they had
+seen with their eyes.
+
+“He killed all the relatives, all the connections of his enemy's family.
+He slew during his life fourteen gendarmes, burned down the houses of
+his adversaries, and was, up to the day of his death, the most terrible
+of all the bandits whose memory we have preserved.”
+
+The sun disappeared behind Monte Cinto and the tall shadow of the
+granite mountain went to sleep on the granite of the valley. We
+quickened our pace in order to reach before night the little village of
+Albertaccio, nothing but a pile of stones welded into the stone flanks
+of a wild gorge. And I said as I thought of the bandit:
+
+“What a terrible custom your vendetta is!”
+
+My companion answered with an air of resignation:
+
+“What would you have? A man must do his duty!”
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAVE
+
+The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at
+half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers,
+who lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was
+awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.
+
+Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door
+and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the
+house. The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.
+
+His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue
+General Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.
+
+The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of
+the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a
+horrible act of profanation.
+
+A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the
+evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.
+
+A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this
+hideous scene.
+
+Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands
+and took him to the police station.
+
+It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named
+Courbataille.
+
+He was brought into court. The public prosecutor opened the case by
+referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.
+
+A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom. When the magistrate
+sat down the crowd assembled cried: “Death! death!” With difficulty the
+presiding judge established silence.
+
+Then he said gravely:
+
+“Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?”
+
+Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose. He was a handsome fellow,
+tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.
+
+Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in
+a voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he
+proceeded.
+
+“Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to
+say. The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart. I loved her.
+
+“I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness
+of heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an
+overpowering passion.
+
+“Hear me:
+
+“When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation. It was
+not astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at
+first sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been
+plunged into a warm bath. Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted
+me, and it was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person.
+It seemed to me as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a
+long time. She had within her something of my spirit.
+
+“She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that
+vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole
+life.
+
+“When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again
+filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand
+in mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined;
+her smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to
+fling myself upon the ground.
+
+“So we became lovers.
+
+“Yes, more than that: she was my very life. I looked for nothing further
+on earth, and had no further desires. I longed for nothing further.
+
+“One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river,
+we were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold. It developed into
+pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.
+
+“During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation
+prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead
+I was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left. I
+wept.
+
+“During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief
+was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.
+
+“Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once
+found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings
+so terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that
+price.
+
+“Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.
+
+“When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were
+going mad. Just think of it! There is a woman whom you adore, a unique
+woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her.
+This woman has given herself to you and has created with you the
+mysterious union that is called Love. Her eye seems to you more vast
+than space, more charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with
+her tenderness. This woman loves you. When she speaks to you her voice
+floods you with joy.
+
+“And suddenly she disappears! Think of it! She disappears, not only for
+you, but forever. She is dead. Do you understand what that means? Never,
+never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more. Nevermore will that
+eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor any voice
+like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.
+
+“Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers. Never, never! The
+molds of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects
+with the same outlines and forms. But that one body and that one face
+will never more be born again upon the earth. And yet millions and
+millions of creatures will be born, and more than that, and this
+one woman will not reappear among all the women of the future. Is it
+possible? It drives one mad to think of it.
+
+“She lived for twenty-years, not more, and she has disappeared forever,
+forever, forever! She thought, she smiled, she loved me. And now
+nothing! The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this
+world. And now nothing! And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so
+warm, so sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box
+under the earth. And her soul, her thought, her love--where is it?
+
+“Not to see her again! The idea of this decomposing body, that I might
+yet recognize, haunted me. I wanted to look at it once more.
+
+“I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the
+cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed
+entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board. An abominable
+odor, the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils. Oh, her bed
+perfumed with orris!
+
+“Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I
+saw her. Her face was blue, swollen, frightful. A black liquid had oozed
+out of her mouth.
+
+“She! That was she! Horror seized me. But I stretched out my arm to draw
+this monstrous face toward me. And then I was caught.
+
+“All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor
+of my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love
+embrace.
+
+“Do with me what you will.”
+
+A strange silence seemed to oppress the room. They seemed to be waiting
+for something more. The jury retired to deliberate.
+
+When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and
+did not even seem to think.
+
+The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges
+declared him to be not guilty.
+
+He did not move and the room applauded.
+
+   The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature
+   of “Maufrigneuse.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant,
+Volume 12, by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Original Short Stories, Volume 12 (of 13), by Guy de Maupassant
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Original Short Stories of Maupassant,
+Volume 12, by Guy de Maupassant
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Original Short Stories, Volume 12 (of 13)
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #3088]
+Last Updated: February 23, 2018
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAUPASSANT SHORT STORIES ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <h1>
+      ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES<br />VOLUME 12 (of 13)
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      By Guy De Maupassant
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      Translated by <br /><br /> ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.<br /> A. E. HENDERSON,
+      B.A.<br /> MME. QUESADA and Others
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
+      <tbody>
+        <tr>
+          <td>
+            &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a
+            href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28076/28076-h/28076-h.htm"><b>INDEX
+            TO ALL VOLUMES</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</a>
+          </td>
+          <td>
+          </td>
+        </tr>
+      </tbody>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE CHILD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> A COUNTRY EXCURSION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> ROSE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> ROSALIE PRUDENT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> REGRET </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> A SISTER'S CONFESSION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> COCO </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> A HUMBLE DRAMA </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE CORSICAN BANDIT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> THE GRAVE </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      THE CHILD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Lemonnier had remained a widower with one child. He had loved his wife
+      devotedly, with a tender and exalted love, without a slip, during their
+      entire married life. He was a good, honest man, perfectly simple, sincere,
+      without suspicion or malice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He fell in love with a poor neighbor, proposed and was accepted. He was
+      making a very comfortable living out of the wholesale cloth business, and
+      he did not for a minute suspect that the young girl might have accepted
+      him for anything else but himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made him happy. She was everything to him; he only thought of her,
+      looked at her continually, with worshiping eyes. During meals he would
+      make any number of blunders, in order not to have to take his eyes from
+      the beloved face; he would pour the wine in his plate and the water in the
+      salt-cellar, then he would laugh like a child, repeating:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, I love you too much; that makes me crazy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She would smile with a calm and resigned look; then she would look away,
+      as though embarrassed by the adoration of her husband, and try to make him
+      talk about something else; but he would take her hand under the table and
+      he would hold it in his, whispering:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My little Jeanne, my darling little Jeanne!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sometimes lost patience and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, be reasonable; eat and let me eat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would sigh and break off a mouthful of bread, which he would then chew
+      slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For five years they had no children. Then suddenly she announced to him
+      that this state of affairs would soon cease. He was wild with joy. He no
+      longer left her for a minute, until his old nurse, who had brought him up
+      and who often ruled the house, would push him out and close the door
+      behind him, in order to compel him to go out in the fresh air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had grown very intimate with a young man who had known his wife since
+      childhood, and who was one of the prefect's secretaries. M. Duretour would
+      dine three times a week with the Lemonniers, bringing flowers to madame,
+      and sometimes a box at the theater; and often, at the end of the dinner,
+      Lemonnier, growing tender, turning towards his wife, would explain: &ldquo;With
+      a companion like you and a friend like him, a man is completely happy on
+      earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She died in childbirth. The shock almost killed him. But the sight of the
+      child, a poor, moaning little creature, gave him courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He loved it with a passionate and sorrowful love, with a morbid love in
+      which stuck the memory of death, but in which lived something of his
+      worship for the dead mother. It was the flesh of his wife, her being
+      continued, a sort of quintessence of herself. This child was her very life
+      transferred to another body; she had disappeared that it might exist, and
+      the father would smother it in with kisses. But also, this child had
+      killed her; he had stolen this beloved creature, his life was at the cost
+      of hers. And M. Lemonnier would place his son in the cradle and would sit
+      down and watch him. He would sit this way by the hour, looking at him,
+      dreaming of thousands of things, sweet or sad. Then, when the little one
+      was asleep, he would bend over him and sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child grew. The father could no longer spend an hour away from him; he
+      would stay near him, take him out for walks, and himself dress him, wash
+      him, make him eat. His friend, M. Duretour, also seemed to love the boy;
+      he would kiss him wildly, in those frenzies of tenderness which are
+      characteristic of parents. He would toss him in his arms, he would trot
+      him on his knees, by the hour, and M. Lemonnier, delighted, would mutter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't he a darling? Isn't he a darling?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And M. Duretour would hug the child in his arms and tickle his neck with
+      his mustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celeste, the old nurse, alone, seemed to have no tenderness for the little
+      one. She would grow angry at his pranks, and seemed impatient at the
+      caresses of the two men. She would exclaim:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you expect to bring a child up like that? You'll make a perfect
+      monkey out of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Years went by, and Jean was nine years old. He hardly knew how to read; he
+      had been so spoiled, and only did as he saw fit. He was willful, stubborn
+      and quick-tempered. The father always gave in to him and let him have his
+      own way. M. Duretour would always buy him all the toys he wished, and he
+      fed him on cake and candies. Then Celeste would grow angry and exclaim:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a shame, monsieur, a shame. You are spoiling this child. But it will
+      have to stop; yes, sir, I tell you it will have to stop, and before long,
+      too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Lemonnier would answer, smiling:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can you expect? I love him too much, I can't resist him; you must
+      get used to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jean was delicate, rather. The doctor said that he was anaemic, prescribed
+      iron, rare meat and broth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the little fellow loved only cake and refused all other nourishment;
+      and the father, in despair, stuffed him with cream-puffs and chocolate
+      eclairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, as they were sitting down to supper, Celeste brought on the
+      soup with an air of authority and an assurance which she did not usually
+      have. She took off the cover and, dipping the ladle into the dish, she
+      declared:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is some broth such as I have never made; the young one will have to
+      take some this time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Lemonnier, frightened, bent his head. He saw a storm brewing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tasted the soup and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, indeed, excellent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it. Then
+      she retreated a few steps and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of
+      disgust. Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly
+      poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and threw
+      it at his nurse. She received it full in the stomach. Then, exasperated,
+      she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began pouring spoonful
+      after spoonful of soup down his throat. He grew as red as a beet, and he
+      would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking, beating the air with his
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the father was so surprised that he could not move. Then,
+      suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the
+      throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out! Out! Out! you brute!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes
+      snapping, she cried out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's gettin' hold of you? You're trying to thrash me because I am
+      making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Out! Get out-get out, you brute!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her
+      voice trembling:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&mdash;you think-you think that you can treat me like that? Oh! no.
+      And for whom?&mdash;for that brat who is not even yours. No, not yours!
+      No, not yours&mdash;not yours! Everybody knows it, except yourself! Ask
+      the grocer, the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and
+      looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides. After a short
+      pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say? you say? What do you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She remained silent, frightened by his appearance. Once more he stepped
+      forward, repeating:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say&mdash;what do you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then in a calm voice, she answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say what I know, what everybody knows.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seized her and, with the fury of a beast, he tried to throw her down.
+      But, although old, she was strong and nimble. She slipped under his arm,
+      and running around the table once more furious, she screamed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at him, just look at him, fool that you are! Isn't he the living
+      image of M. Durefour? just look at his nose and his eyes! Are yours like
+      that? And his hair! Is it like his mother's? I tell you that everyone
+      knows it, everyone except yourself! It's the joke of the town! Look at
+      him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to the door, opened it, and disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jean, frightened, sat motionless before his plate of soup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of an hour, she returned gently, to see how matters stood. The
+      child, after doing away with all the cakes and a pitcher full of cream and
+      one of syrup, was now emptying the jam-pot with his soup-spoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The father had gone out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celeste took the child, kissed him, and gently carried him to his room and
+      put him to bed. She came back to the dining-room, cleared the table, put
+      everything in place, feeling very uneasy all the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house. She put her ear
+      against her master's door. He seemed to be perfectly still. She put her
+      eye to the keyhole. He was writing, and seemed very calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down, ready for any emergency.
+      She slept on a chair and awoke at daylight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she swept
+      and dusted, and, towards eight o'clock, prepared M. Lemonnier's breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she
+      would be received; she waited for him to ring. But he did not ring. Nine
+      o'clock, then ten o'clock went by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up with
+      it, her heart beating fast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped before the door and listened. Everything was still. She
+      knocked; no answer. Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the
+      door and entered. With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray which
+      she had been holding in her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a ring
+      in the ceiling. His tongue was sticking out horribly. His right slipper
+      was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot. An upturned chair
+      had rolled over to the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking. All the neighbors crowded together.
+      The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.
+      It contained these words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave and entrust the child to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      For five months they had been talking of going to take luncheon in one of
+      the country suburbs of Paris on Madame Dufour's birthday, and as they were
+      looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they rose very early that
+      morning. Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman's wagon and drove
+      himself. It was a very tidy, two-wheeled conveyance, with a cover
+      supported by four iron rods, with curtains that had been drawn up, except
+      the one at the back, which floated out like a sail. Madame Dufour,
+      resplendent in a wonderful, cherry colored silk dress, sat by the side of
+      her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old grandmother and a girl sat behind them on two chairs, and a boy
+      with yellow hair was lying at the bottom of the wagon, with nothing to be
+      seen of him except his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they reached the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: &ldquo;Here we
+      are in the country at last!&rdquo; and at that signal his wife grew sentimental
+      about the beauties of nature. When they got to the crossroads at
+      Courbevoie they were seized with admiration for the distant landscape. On
+      the right was Argenteuil with its bell tower, and above it rose the hills
+      of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on the left the aqueduct of
+      Marly stood out against the clear morning sky, and in the distance they
+      could see the terrace of Saint-Germain; and opposite them, at the end of a
+      low chain of hills, the new fort of Cormeilles. Quite in the distance; a
+      very long way off, beyond the plains and village, one could see the sombre
+      green of the forests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes,
+      and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of
+      bare, ugly country with an unpleasant odor. One might have thought that it
+      had been ravaged by a pestilence, which had even attacked the buildings,
+      for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small cottages, which
+      were left in an unfinished state, because the contractors had not been
+      paid, reared their four roofless walls on each side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here and there tall factory chimneys rose up from the barren soil. The
+      only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted an
+      odor of petroleum and slate, blended with another odor that was even less
+      agreeable. At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time, and the
+      bridge was a delight. The river sparkled in the sun, and they had a
+      feeling of quiet enjoyment, felt refreshed as they drank in the purer air
+      that was not impregnated by the black smoke of factories nor by the miasma
+      from the deposits of night soil. A man whom they met told them that the
+      name of the place was Bezons. Monsieur Dufour pulled up and read the
+      attractive announcement outside an eating house: Restaurant Poulin,
+      matelottes and fried fish, private rooms, arbors, and swings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Madame Dufour, will this suit you? Will you make up your mind at
+      last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She read the announcement in her turn and then looked at the house for
+      some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open
+      door she could see the bright zinc of the counter, at which sat two
+      workmen in their Sunday clothes. At last she made up her mind and said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, this will do; and, besides, there is a view.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They drove into a large field behind the inn, separated from the river by
+      the towing path, and dismounted. The husband sprang out first and then
+      held out his arms for his wife, and as the step was very high Madame
+      Dufour, in order to reach him, had to show the lower part of her limbs,
+      whose former slenderness had disappeared in fat, and Monsieur Dufour, who
+      was already getting excited by the country air, pinched her calf, and
+      then, taking her in his arms, he set her on the ground, as if she had been
+      some enormous bundle. She shook the dust out of the silk dress and then
+      looked round to see in what sort of a place she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was a stout woman, of about thirty-six, full-blown, and delightful to
+      look at. She could hardly breathe, as her corsets were laced too tightly,
+      and their pressure forced her superabundant bosom up to her double chin.
+      Next the girl placed her hand on her father's shoulder and jumped down
+      lightly. The boy with the yellow hair had got down by stepping on the
+      wheel, and he helped Monsieur Dufour to lift his grandmother out. Then
+      they unharnessed the horse, which they had tied to a tree, and the
+      carriage fell back, with both shafts in the air. The men took off their
+      coats and washed their hands in a pail of water and then went and joined
+      the ladies, who had already taken possession of the swings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle Dufour was trying to swing herself standing up, but she could
+      not succeed in getting a start. She was a pretty girl of about eighteen,
+      one of those women who suddenly excite your desire when you meet them in
+      the street and who leave you with a vague feeling of uneasiness and of
+      excited senses. She was tall, had a small waist and large hips, with a
+      dark skin, very large eyes and very black hair. Her dress clearly marked
+      the outlines of her firm, full figure, which was accentuated by the motion
+      of her hips as she tried to swing herself higher. Her arms were stretched
+      upward to hold the rope, so that her bosom rose at every movement she
+      made. Her hat, which a gust of wind had blown off, was hanging behind her,
+      and as the swing gradually rose higher and higher, she showed her delicate
+      limbs up to the knees each time, and the breeze from her flying skirts,
+      which was more heady than the fumes of wine, blew into the faces of the
+      two men, who were looking at her and smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting in the other swing, Madame Dufour kept saying in a monotonous
+      voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cyprian, come and swing me; do come and swing me, Cyprian!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he went, and turning up his shirt sleeves, as if undertaking a
+      hard piece of work, with much difficulty he set his wife in motion. She
+      clutched the two ropes and held her legs out straight, so as not to touch
+      the ground. She enjoyed feeling dizzy at the motion of the swing, and her
+      whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went higher and
+      higher; she became too giddy and was frightened. Each time the swing came
+      down she uttered a piercing scream, which made all the little urchins in
+      the neighborhood come round, and down below, beneath the garden hedge, she
+      vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads making various grimaces as they
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a servant girl came out they ordered luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some fried fish, a rabbit saute, salad and dessert,&rdquo; Madame Dufour said,
+      with an important air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring two quarts of beer and a bottle of claret,&rdquo; her husband said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will have lunch on the grass,&rdquo; the girl added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after one
+      that belonged to the house, trying to coax it to come to her for the last
+      ten minutes. The animal, who was no doubt secretly flattered by her
+      attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of her
+      hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed
+      herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello!&rdquo; suddenly exclaimed the young man with the yellow hair, who was
+      wandering about. &ldquo;Here are two swell boats!&rdquo; They all went to look at them
+      and saw two beautiful canoes in a wooden shed; they were as beautifully
+      finished as if they had been ornamental furniture. They hung side by side,
+      like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining length, and made one
+      wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and evenings along the
+      flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees dip their branches into
+      the water, where the rushes are continually rustling in the breeze and
+      where the swift kingfishers dart about like flashes of blue lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole family looked at them with great respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, they are indeed swell boats!&rdquo; Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, as he
+      examined them like a connoiseur. He had been in the habit of rowing in his
+      younger days, he said, and when he had spat in his hands&mdash;and he went
+      through the action of pulling the oars&mdash;he did not care a fig for
+      anybody. He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the Joinville
+      regattas. He grew quite excited at last and offered to make a bet that in
+      a boat like that he could row six leagues an hour without exerting
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Luncheon is ready,&rdquo; the waitress said, appearing at the entrance to the
+      boathouse, and they all hurried off. But two young men had taken the very
+      seats that Madame Dufour had selected and were eating their luncheon. No
+      doubt they were the owners of the sculls, for they were in boating
+      costume. They were stretched out, almost lying on the chairs; they were
+      sun-browned and their thin cotton jerseys, with short sleeves, showed
+      their bare arms, which were as strong as a blacksmith's. They were two
+      strong, athletic fellows, who showed in all their movements that
+      elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise and
+      which is so different to the deformity with which monotonous heavy work
+      stamps the mechanic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother and then a glance on
+      seeing the daughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us give up our place,&rdquo; one of them said; &ldquo;it will make us acquainted
+      with them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating cap in
+      his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in the
+      garden. With many excuses they accepted, and that it might be more rural,
+      they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a
+      little way off and began to eat again, and their bare arms, which they
+      showed continually, rather embarrassed the girl. She even pretended to
+      turn her head aside and not to see them, while Madame Dufour, who was
+      rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every moment,
+      and, no doubt, compared them with the secret unsightliness of her husband.
+      She had squatted herself on ground, with her legs tucked under her, after
+      the manner of tailors, and she kept moving about restlessly, saying that
+      ants were crawling about her somewhere. Monsieur Dufour, annoyed at the
+      presence of the polite strangers, was trying to find a comfortable
+      position which he did not, however, succeed in doing, and the young man
+      with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an ogre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is lovely weather, monsieur,&rdquo; the stout lady said to one of the
+      boating men. She wished to be friendly because they had given up their
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, indeed, madame,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Do you often go into the country?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, only once or twice a year to get a little fresh air. And you,
+      monsieur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come and sleep here every night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, that must be very nice!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly it is, madame.&rdquo; And he gave them such a practical account of
+      his daily life that it awakened afresh in the hearts of these shopkeepers
+      who were deprived of the meadows and who longed for country walks, to that
+      foolish love of nature which they all feel so strongly the whole year
+      round behind the counter in their shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion and
+      Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is indeed a happy life,&rdquo; he said. And then he added: &ldquo;A little more
+      rabbit, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; she replied, and turning to the young men again, and
+      pointing to their arms, asked: &ldquo;Do you never feel cold like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They both began to laugh, and they astonished the family with an account
+      of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of their bathing while in a
+      state of tremendous perspiration, of their rowing in the fog at night; and
+      they struck their chests violently to show how hollow they sounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! You look very strong,&rdquo; said the husband, who did not talk any more of
+      the time when he used to beat the English. The girl was looking at them
+      sideways now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, who had swallowed
+      some wine the wrong way, was coughing violently and bespattering Madame
+      Dufour's cherry-colored silk dress. She got angry and sent for some water
+      to wash the spots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like a
+      blaze of fire and the fumes of the wine were getting into their heads.
+      Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccough, had unbuttoned his waistcoat
+      and the top button of his trousers, while his wife, who felt choking, was
+      gradually unfastening her dress. The apprentice was shaking his yellow wig
+      in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to wine, and the old
+      grandmother, feeling the effects of the wine, was very stiff and
+      dignified. As for the girl, one noticed only a peculiar brightness in her
+      eyes, while the brown cheeks became more rosy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coffee finished, they suggested singing, and each of them sang or
+      repeated a couplet, which the others applauded frantically. Then they got
+      up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather dizzy,
+      were trying to get a breath of air, the two men, who were altogether
+      drunk, were attempting gymnastics. Heavy, limp and with scarlet faces they
+      hung or, awkwardly to the iron rings, without being able to raise
+      themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the two boating men had got their boats into the water, and they
+      came back and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a row.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?&rdquo; his wife exclaimed. &ldquo;Please come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He merely gave her a drunken nod, without understanding what she said.
+      Then one of the rowers came up with two fishing rods in his hands, and the
+      hope of catching a gudgeon, that great vision of the Parisian shopkeeper,
+      made Dufour's dull eyes gleam, and he politely allowed them to do whatever
+      they liked, while he sat in the shade under the bridge, with his feet
+      dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with the yellow
+      hair, who was sleeping soundly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the boating men made a martyr of himself and took the mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go to the little wood on the Ile aux Anglais!&rdquo; he called out as he
+      rowed off. The other boat went more slowly, for the rower was looking at
+      his companion so intently that he thought of nothing else, and his emotion
+      seemed to paralyze his strength, while the girl, who was sitting in the
+      bow, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water. She felt a
+      disinclination to think, a lassitude in her limbs and a total enervation,
+      as if she were intoxicated, and her face was flushed and her breathing
+      quickened. The effects of the wine, which were increased by the extreme
+      heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow as she passed. A vague
+      wish for enjoyment and a fermentation of her blood seemed to pervade her
+      whole body, which was excited by the heat of the day, and she was also
+      disturbed at this tete-a-tete on the water, in a place which seemed
+      depopulated by the heat, with this young man who thought her pretty, whose
+      ardent looks seemed to caress her skin and were as penetrating and
+      pervading as the sun's rays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about
+      them. At last, however, he made an effort and asked her name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henriette,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, my name is Henri,&rdquo; he replied. The sound of their voices had calmed
+      them, and they looked at the banks. The other boat had passed them and
+      seemed to be waiting for them, and the rower called out:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson's, because
+      Madame Dufour is thirsty.&rdquo; Then he bent over his oars again and rowed off
+      so quickly that he was soon out of sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that noise?&rdquo; she asked. It was the noise of the weir which cut
+      the river in two at the island, and he was explaining it to her, when,
+      above the noise of the waterfall, they heard the song of a bird, which
+      seemed a long way off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Listen!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;the nightingales are singing during the day, so the
+      female birds must be sitting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A nightingale! She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening
+      to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart. A nightingale!
+      That is to say, the invisible witness of her love trysts which Juliet
+      invoked on her balcony; that celestial music which it attuned to human
+      kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which open
+      an ideal sky to all the poor little tender hearts of sensitive girls!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was going to hear a nightingale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must not make a noise,&rdquo; her companion said, &ldquo;and then we can go into
+      the wood, and sit down close beside it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat seemed to glide. They saw the trees on the island, the banks of
+      which were so low that they could look into the depths of the thickets.
+      They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of Henri's arm,
+      and they went beneath the trees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stoop,&rdquo; he said, so she stooped down, and they went into an inextricable
+      thicket of creepers, leaves and reed grass, which formed an undiscoverable
+      retreat, and which the young man laughingly called &ldquo;his private room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just above their heads, perched in one of the trees which hid them, the
+      bird was still singing. He uttered trills and roulades, and then loud,
+      vibrating notes that filled the air and seemed to lose themselves on the
+      horizon, across the level country, through that burning silence which
+      weighed upon the whole landscape. They did not speak for fear of
+      frightening it away. They were sitting close together, and, slowly,
+      Henri's arm stole round the girl's waist and squeezed it gently. She took
+      that daring hand without any anger, and kept removing it whenever he put
+      it round her; without, however, feeling at all embarrassed by this caress,
+      just as if it had been something quite natural, which she was resisting
+      just as naturally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was listening to the bird in ecstasy. She felt an infinite longing for
+      happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the revelation
+      of superhuman poetry, and she felt such a softening at her heart, and
+      relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without knowing why. The
+      young man was now straining her close to him, yet she did not remove his
+      arm; she did not think of it. Suddenly the nightingale stopped, and a
+      voice called out in the distance:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Henriette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not reply,&rdquo; he said in a low voice; &ldquo;you will drive the bird away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was still crying; she was filled with strange sensations. Henri's
+      head was on her shoulder, and suddenly he kissed her on the lips. She was
+      surprised and angry, and, to avoid him, she stood up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were both very pale when they left their grassy retreat. The blue sky
+      appeared to them clouded and the ardent sun darkened; and they felt the
+      solitude and the silence. They walked rapidly, side by side, without
+      speaking or touching each other, for they seemed to have become
+      irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust and hatred had arisen between them,
+      and from time to time Henriette called out: &ldquo;Mamma!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By and by they heard a noise behind a bush, and the stout lady appeared,
+      looking rather confused, and her companion's face was wrinkled with smiles
+      which he could not check.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Dufour took his arm, and they returned to the boats, and Henri, who
+      was ahead, walked in silence beside the young girl. At last they got back
+      to Bezons. Monsieur Dufour, who was now sober, was waiting for them very
+      impatiently, while the young man with the yellow hair was having a
+      mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn. The carriage was
+      waiting in the yard, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was very
+      frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night before they reached
+      Paris, as the outskirts were not safe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They all shook bands, and the Dufour family drove off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by, until we meet again!&rdquo; the oarsmen cried, and the answer they got
+      was a sigh and a tear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw
+      Dufour, Ironmonger, over a door, and so he went in, and saw the stout lady
+      sitting at the counter. They recognized each other immediately, and after
+      an interchange of polite greetings, he asked after them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?&rdquo; he inquired specially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, thank you; she is married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; He felt a certain emotion, but said: &ldquo;Whom did she marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That young man who accompanied us, you know; he has joined us in
+      business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember him perfectly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was going out, feeling very unhappy, though scarcely knowing why, when
+      madame called him back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is your friend?&rdquo; she asked rather shyly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is very well, thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call, when he is
+      in the neighborhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She then added: &ldquo;Tell him it will give me great pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will be sure to do so. Adieu!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not say that; come again very soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that adventure,
+      which Henri had never forgotten, suddenly came back to him so clearly that
+      he returned alone to their room in the wood, and was overwhelmed with
+      astonishment when he went in. She was sitting on the grass, looking very
+      sad, while by her side, still in his shirt sleeves, the young man with the
+      yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She grew so pale when she saw Henri that at first he thought she was going
+      to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally. But when he
+      told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there frequently on
+      Sundays to indulge in memories, she looked into his eyes for a long time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I too, think of it,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, my dear,&rdquo; her husband said, with a yawn. &ldquo;I think it is time for us
+      to be going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ROSE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The two young women appear to be buried under a blanket of flowers. They
+      are alone in the immense landau, which is filled with flowers like a giant
+      basket. On the front seat are two small hampers of white satin filled with
+      violets, and on the bearskin by which their knees are covered there is a
+      mass of roses, mimosas, pinks, daisies, tuberoses and orange blossoms,
+      interwoven with silk ribbons; the two frail bodies seem buried under this
+      beautiful perfumed bed, which hides everything but the shoulders and arms
+      and a little of the dainty waists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coachman's whip is wound with a garland of anemones, the horses'
+      traces are dotted with carnations, the spokes of the wheels are clothed in
+      mignonette, and where the lanterns ought to be are two enormous round
+      bouquets which look as though they were the eyes of this strange, rolling,
+      flower-bedecked creature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The landau drives rapidly along the road, through the Rue d'Antibes,
+      preceded, followed, accompanied, by a crowd of other carriages covered
+      with flowers, full of women almost hidden by a sea of violets. It is the
+      flower carnival at Cannes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The carriage reaches the Boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle is
+      waged. All along the immense avenue a double row of flower-bedecked
+      vehicles are going and coming like an endless ribbon. Flowers are thrown
+      from one to the other. They pass through the air like balls, striking
+      fresh faces, bouncing and falling into the dust, where an army of
+      youngsters pick them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thick crowd is standing on the sidewalks looking on and held in check by
+      the mounted police, who pass brutally along pushing back the curious
+      pedestrians as though to prevent the common people from mingling with the
+      rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the carriages, people call to each other, recognize each other and
+      bombard each other with roses. A chariot full of pretty women, dressed in
+      red, like devils, attracts the eyes of all. A gentleman, who looks like
+      the portraits of Henry IV., is throwing an immense bouquet which is held
+      back by an elastic. Fearing the shock, the women hide their eyes and the
+      men lower their heads, but the graceful, rapid and obedient missile
+      describes a curve and returns to its master, who immediately throws it at
+      some new face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two young women begin to throw their stock of flowers by handfuls, and
+      receive a perfect hail of bouquets; then, after an hour of warfare, a
+      little tired, they tell the coachman to drive along the road which follows
+      the seashore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun disappears behind Esterel, outlining the dark, rugged mountain
+      against the sunset sky. The clear blue sea, as calm as a mill-pond,
+      stretches out as far as the horizon, where it blends with the sky; and the
+      fleet, anchored in the middle of the bay, looks like a herd of enormous
+      beasts, motionless on the water, apocalyptic animals, armored and
+      hump-backed, their frail masts looking like feathers, and with eyes which
+      light up when evening approaches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two young women, leaning back under the heavy robes, look out lazily
+      over the blue expanse of water. At last one of them says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How delightful the evenings are! How good everything seems! Don't you
+      think so, Margot?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is good. But there is always something lacking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is lacking? I feel perfectly happy. I don't need anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, you do. You are not thinking of it. No matter how contented we may
+      be, physically, we always long for something more&mdash;for the heart.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other asked with a smile:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A little love?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They stopped talking, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon, then the
+      one called Marguerite murmured: &ldquo;Life without that seems to me unbearable.
+      I need to be loved, if only by a dog. But we are all alike, no matter what
+      you may say, Simone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all, my dear. I had rather not be loved at all than to be loved by
+      the first comer. Do you think, for instance, that it would be pleasant to
+      be loved by&mdash;by&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was thinking by whom she might possibly be loved, glancing across the
+      wide landscape. Her eyes, after traveling around the horizon, fell on the
+      two bright buttons which were shining on the back of the coachman's
+      livery, and she continued, laughing: &ldquo;by my coachman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Margot barely smiled, and said in a low tone of voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I assure you that it is very amusing to be loved by a servant. It has
+      happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes in such a funny
+      manner&mdash;it's enough to make you die laughing! Naturally, the more in
+      love they are, the more severe one must be with them, and then, some day,
+      for some reason, you dismiss them, because, if anyone should notice it,
+      you would appear so ridiculous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Simone was listening, staring straight ahead of her, then she
+      remarked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm afraid that my footman's heart would not satisfy me. Tell me how
+      you noticed that they loved you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I noticed it the same way that I do with other men&mdash;when they get
+      stupid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The others don't seem stupid to me, when they love me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are idiots, my dear, unable to talk, to answer, to understand
+      anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how did you feel when you were loved by a servant? Were you&mdash;moved&mdash;flattered?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Moved? no, flattered&mdash;yes a little. One is always flattered to be
+      loved by a man, no matter who he may be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Margot!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, indeed, my dear! For instance, I will tell you of a peculiar
+      incident which happened to me. You will see how curious and complex our
+      emotions are, in such cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About four years ago I happened to be without a maid. I had tried five or
+      six, one right after the other, and I was about ready to give up in
+      despair, when I saw an advertisement in a newspaper of a young girl
+      knowing how to cook, embroider, dress hair, who was looking for a position
+      and who could furnish the best of references. Besides all these
+      accomplishments, she could speak English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wrote to the given address, and the next day the person in question
+      presented herself. She was tall, slender, pale, shy-looking. She had
+      beautiful black eyes and a charming complexion; she pleased me
+      immediately. I asked for her certificates; she gave me one in English, for
+      she came, as she said, from Lady Rymwell's, where she had been for ten
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The certificate showed that the young girl had left of her own free will,
+      in order to return to France, and the only thing which they had had to
+      find fault in her during her long period of service was a little French
+      coquettishness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This prudish English phrase even made me smile, and I immediately engaged
+      this maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She came to me the same day. Her name was Rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the end of a month I would have been helpless without her. She was a
+      treasure, a pearl, a phenomenon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She could dress my hair with infinite taste; she could trim a hat better
+      than most milliners, and she could even make my dresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was astonished at her accomplishments. I had never before been waited
+      on in such a manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She dressed me rapidly and with a surprisingly light touch. I never felt
+      her fingers on my skin, and nothing is so disagreeable to me as contact
+      with a servant's hand. I soon became excessively lazy; it was so pleasant
+      to be dressed from head to foot, and from lingerie to gloves, by this
+      tall, timid girl, always blushing a little, and never saying a word. After
+      my bath she would rub and massage me while I dozed a little on my couch; I
+      almost considered her more of a friend than a servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One morning the janitor asked, mysteriously, to speak to me. I was
+      surprised, and told him to come in. He was a good, faithful man, an old
+      soldier, one of my husband's former orderlies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seemed to be embarrassed by what he had to say to me. At last he
+      managed to mumble:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Madame, the superintendent of police is downstairs.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked quickly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'What does he wish?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'He wishes to search the house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course the police are useful, but I hate them. I do not think that it
+      is a noble profession. I answered, angered and hurt:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Why this search? For what reason? He shall not come in.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The janitor continued:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'He says that there is a criminal hidden in the house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This time I was frightened and I told him to bring the inspector to me,
+      so that I might get some explanation. He was a man with good manners and
+      decorated with the Legion of Honor. He begged my pardon for disturbing me,
+      and then informed me that I had, among my domestics, a convict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was shocked; and I answered that I could guarantee every servant in the
+      house, and I began to enumerate them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The janitor, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'It's not he.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'A stable-boy, son of farmers whom I know, and a groom whom you have just
+      seen.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'It's not he.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Then, monsieur, you see that you must be mistaken.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Excuse me, madame, but I am positive that I am not making a mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As the conviction of a notable criminal is at stake, would you be so kind
+      as to send for all your servants?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At first I refused, but I finally gave in, and sent downstairs for
+      everybody, men and women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The inspector glanced at them and then declared:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'This isn't all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Excuse me, monsieur, there is no one left but my maid, a young girl whom
+      you could not possibly mistake for a convict.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'May I also see her?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Certainly.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I rang for Rose, who immediately appeared. She had hardly entered the
+      room, when the inspector made a motion, and two men whom I had not seen,
+      hidden behind the door, sprang forward, seized her and tied her hands
+      behind her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cried out in anger and tried to rush forward to defend her. The
+      inspector stopped me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'This girl, madame, is a man whose name is Jean Nicolas Lecapet,
+      condemned to death in 1879 for assaulting a woman and injuring her so that
+      death resulted. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. He
+      escaped four months ago. We have been looking for him ever since.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was terrified, bewildered. I did not believe him. The commissioner
+      continued, laughing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I can prove it to you. His right arm is tattooed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The sleeve was rolled up. It was true. The inspector added, with bad
+      taste:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'You can trust us for the other proofs.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And they led my maid away!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, would you believe me, the thing that moved me most was not anger at
+      having thus been played upon, deceived and made ridiculous, it was not the
+      shame of having thus been dressed and undressed, handled and touched by
+      this man&mdash;but a deep humiliation&mdash;a woman's humiliation. Do you
+      understand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just think&mdash;this man had been condemned for&mdash;for assaulting a
+      woman. Well! I thought of the one whom he had assaulted&mdash;and&mdash;and
+      I felt humiliated&mdash;There! Do you understand now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Margot did not answer. She was looking straight ahead, her eyes
+      fastened on the two shining buttons of the livery, with that sphinx-like
+      smile which women sometimes have.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ROSALIE PRUDENT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      There was a real mystery in this affair which neither the jury, nor the
+      president, nor the public prosecutor himself could understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl Prudent (Rosalie), servant at the Varambots', of Nantes, having
+      become enceinte without the knowledge of her masters, had, during the
+      night, killed and buried her child in the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the usual story of the infanticides committed by servant girls. But
+      there was one inexplicable circumstance about this one. When the police
+      searched the girl Prudent's room they discovered a complete infant's
+      outfit, made by Rosalie herself, who had spent her nights for the last
+      three months in cutting and sewing it. The grocer from whom she had bought
+      her candles, out of her own wages, for this long piece of work had come to
+      testify. It came out, moreover, that the sage-femme of the district,
+      informed by Rosalie of her condition, had given her all necessary
+      instructions and counsel in case the event should happen at a time when it
+      might not be possible to get help. She had also procured a place at Poissy
+      for the girl Prudent, who foresaw that her present employers would
+      discharge her, for the Varambot couple did not trifle with morality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were present at the trial both the man and the woman, a middle-class
+      pair from the provinces, living on their income. They were so exasperated
+      against this girl, who had sullied their house, that they would have liked
+      to see her guillotined on the spot without a trial. The spiteful
+      depositions they made against her became accusations in their mouths.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The defendant, a large, handsome girl of Lower Normandy, well educated for
+      her station in life, wept continuously and would not answer to anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The court and the spectators were forced to the opinion that she had
+      committed this barbarous act in a moment of despair and madness, since
+      there was every indication that she had expected to keep and bring up her
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The president tried for the last time to make her speak, to get some
+      confession, and, having urged her with much gentleness, he finally made
+      her understand that all these men gathered here to pass judgment upon her
+      were not anxious for her death and might even have pity on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she made up her mind to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, now, tell us, first, who is the father of this child?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until then she had obstinately refused to give his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she replied suddenly, looking at her masters who had so cruelly
+      calumniated her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot's nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The couple started in their seats and cried with one voice&mdash;&ldquo;That's
+      not true! She lies! This is infamous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The president had them silenced and continued, &ldquo;Go on, please, and tell us
+      how it all happened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she suddenly began to talk freely, relieving her pent-up heart, that
+      poor, solitary, crushed heart&mdash;laying bare her sorrow, her whole
+      sorrow, before those severe men whom she had until now taken for enemies
+      and inflexible judges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does Mr. Joseph Varambot do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a non-commissioned officer in the artillery, monsieur. Well, he
+      stayed two months at the house, two months of the summer. I thought
+      nothing about it when he began to look at me, and then flatter me, and
+      make love to me all day long. And I let myself be taken in, monsieur. He
+      kept saying to me that I was a handsome girl, that I was good company,
+      that I just suited him&mdash;and I, I liked him well enough. What could I
+      do? One listens to these things when one is alone&mdash;all alone&mdash;as
+      I was. I am alone in the world, monsieur. I have no one to talk to&mdash;no
+      one to tell my troubles to. I have no father, no mother, no brother, no
+      sister, nobody. And when he began to talk to me it was as if I had a
+      brother who had come back. And then he asked me to go with him to the
+      river one evening, so that we might talk without disturbing any one. I
+      went&mdash;I don't know&mdash;I don't know how it happened. He had his arm
+      around me. Really I didn't want to&mdash;no&mdash;no&mdash;I could not&mdash;I
+      felt like crying, the air was so soft&mdash;the moon was shining. No, I
+      swear to you&mdash;I could not&mdash;he did what he wanted. That went on
+      three weeks, as long as he stayed. I could have followed him to the ends
+      of the world. He went away. I did not know that I was enceinte. I did not
+      know it until the month after&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to cry so bitterly that they had to give her time to collect
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the president resumed with the tone of a priest at the confessional:
+      &ldquo;Come, now, go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to talk again: &ldquo;When I realized my condition I went to see
+      Madame Boudin, who is there to tell you, and I asked her how it would be,
+      in case it should come if she were not there. Then I made the outfit,
+      sewing night after night, every evening until one o'clock in the morning;
+      and then I looked for another place, for I knew very well that I should be
+      sent away, but I wanted to stay in the house until the very last, so as to
+      save my pennies, for I have not got very much and I should need my money
+      for the little one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you did not intend to kill him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, certainly not, monsieur!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you kill him, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It happened this way. It came sooner than I expected. It came upon me in
+      the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes. Monsieur and Madame Varambot
+      were already asleep, so I went up, not without difficulty, dragging myself
+      up by the banister, and I lay down on the bare floor. It lasted perhaps
+      one hour, or two, or three; I don't know, I had such pain; and then I
+      pushed him out with all my strength. I felt that he came out and I picked
+      him up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! but I was glad, I assure you! I did all that Madame Boudin told me to
+      do. And then I laid him on my bed. And then such a pain griped me again
+      that I thought I should die. If you knew what it meant, you there, you
+      would not do so much of this. I fell on my knees, and then toppled over
+      backward on the floor; and it griped me again, perhaps one hour, perhaps
+      two. I lay there all alone&mdash;and then another one comes&mdash;another
+      little one&mdash;two, yes, two, like this. I took him up as I did the
+      first one, and then I put him on the bed, the two side by side. Is it
+      possible, tell me, two children, and I who get only twenty francs a month?
+      Say, is it possible? One, yes, that can be managed by going without
+      things, but not two. That turned my head. What do I know about it? Had I
+      any choice, tell me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I do? I felt as if my last hour had come. I put the pillow
+      over them, without knowing why. I could not keep them both; and then I
+      threw myself down, and I lay there, rolling over and over and crying until
+      I saw the daylight come into the window. Both of them were quite dead
+      under the pillow. Then I took them under my arms and went down the stairs
+      out in the vegetable garden. I took the gardener's spade and I buried them
+      under the earth, digging as deep a hole as I could, one here and the other
+      one there, not together, so that they might not talk of their mother if
+      these little dead bodies can talk. What do I know about it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then, back in my bed, I felt so sick that I could not get up. They
+      sent for the doctor and he understood it all. I'm telling you the truth,
+      Your Honor. Do what you like with me; I'm ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Half of the jury were blowing their noses violently to keep from crying.
+      The women in the courtroom were sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The president asked her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where did you bury the other one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The one that you have?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, this one&mdash;this one was in the artichokes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, then the other one is among the strawberries, by the well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she began to sob so piteously that no one could hear her unmoved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      REGRET
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes &ldquo;Father Saval,&rdquo; had just risen
+      from bed. He was weeping. It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were
+      falling. They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain. M.
+      Saval was not in good spirits. He walked from the fireplace to the window,
+      and from the window to the fireplace. Life has its sombre days. It would
+      no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached the age of
+      sixty-two. He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about him. How sad it
+      is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is devoted to you!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He pondered over his life, so barren, so empty. He recalled former days,
+      the days of his childhood, the home, the house of his parents; his college
+      days, his follies; the time he studied law in Paris, his father's illness,
+      his death. He then returned to live with his mother. They lived together
+      very quietly, and desired nothing more. At last the mother died. How sad
+      life is! He lived alone since then, and now, in his turn, he, too, will
+      soon be dead. He will disappear, and that will be the end. There will be
+      no more of Paul Saval upon the earth. What a frightful thing! Other people
+      will love, will laugh. Yes, people will go on amusing themselves, and he
+      will no longer exist! Is it not strange that people can laugh, amuse
+      themselves, be joyful under that eternal certainty of death? If this death
+      were only probable, one could then have hope; but no, it is inevitable, as
+      inevitable as that night follows the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not even been loved. No woman had reposed on his bosom, in a
+      complete abandon of love. He knew nothing of the delicious anguish of
+      expectation, the divine vibration of a hand in yours, of the ecstasy of
+      triumphant passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Saval was sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, in his
+      dressing gown. Assuredly his life had been spoiled, completely spoiled. He
+      had, however, loved. He had loved secretly, sadly, and indifferently, in a
+      manner characteristic of him in everything. Yes, he had loved his old
+      friend, Madame Sandres, the wife of his old companion, Sandres. Ah! if he
+      had known her as a young girl! But he had met her too late; she was
+      already married. Unquestionably, he would have asked her hand! How he had
+      loved her, nevertheless, without respite, since the first day he set eyes
+      on her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On rising in the morning he was somewhat more rational than on the
+      previous evening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How pretty she was formerly, so dainty, with fair curly hair, and always
+      laughing. Sandres was not the man she should have chosen. She was now
+      fifty-two years of age. She seemed happy. Ah! if she had only loved him in
+      days gone by; yes, if she had only loved him! And why should she not have
+      loved him, he, Saval, seeing that he loved her so much, yes, she, Madame
+      Sandres!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Saval asked himself a thousand other things. He reviewed his whole
+      life, seeking to recall a multitude of details.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recalled all the long evenings spent at the house of Sandres, when the
+      latter's wife was young, and so charming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recalled many things that she had said to him, the intonations of her
+      voice, the little significant smiles that meant so much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks of
+      the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres was
+      employed at the sub-prefecture. And all at once the distinct recollection
+      came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood on the banks
+      of the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets. It
+      was a bright spring morning, one of those days which intoxicate one.
+      Everything smells fresh, everything seems happy. The voices of the birds
+      sound more joyous, and they fly more swiftly. They had luncheon on the
+      grass, under the willow trees, quite close to the water, which glittered
+      in the sun's rays. The air was balmy, charged with the odors of fresh
+      vegetation; they drank it in with delight. How pleasant everything was on
+      that day!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After lunch, Sandres went to sleep on the broad of his back. &ldquo;The best nap
+      he had in his life,&rdquo; said he, when he woke up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Sandres had taken the arm of Saval, and they started to walk along
+      the river bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She leaned tenderly on his arm. She laughed and said to him: &ldquo;I am
+      intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had made a wreath of wild flowers and water-lilies, and she asked him:
+      &ldquo;Do I look pretty like that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he did not answer&mdash;for he could find nothing to say, he would have
+      liked to go down on his knees&mdash;she burst out laughing, a sort of
+      annoyed, displeased laugh, as she said: &ldquo;Great goose, what ails you? You
+      might at least say something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt like crying, but could not even yet find a word to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Great goose, what ails you? You
+      might at least say something!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he had said to her: &ldquo;Is it not time to return?&rdquo; she darted a singular
+      look at him. &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;certainly,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you like, my friend. If you are tired let us go back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he had answered: &ldquo;I am not fatigued; but Sandres may be awake now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she had said: &ldquo;If you are afraid of my husband's being awake, that is
+      another thing. Let us return.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On their way back she remained silent, and leaned no longer on his arm.
+      Why?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that time it had never occurred to him, to ask himself &ldquo;why.&rdquo; Now he
+      seemed to apprehend something that he had not then understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;I love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it possible? That idea which had just entered his mind tortured him.
+      Was it possible that he had not seen, had not guessed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh! if that were true, if he had let this opportunity of happiness pass
+      without taking advantage of it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He said to himself: &ldquo;I must know. I cannot remain in this state of doubt.
+      I must know!&rdquo; He thought: &ldquo;I am sixty-two years of age, she is
+      fifty-eight; I may ask her that now without giving offense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He started out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You here at this hour, Saval! Has some accident happened to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my girl,&rdquo; he replied; &ldquo;but go and tell your mistress that I want to
+      speak to her at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is madame is preserving pears for the winter, and she is in the
+      preserving room. She is not dressed, you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but go and tell her that I wish to see her on a very important
+      matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter with you, my friend? You are not ill, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed, &ldquo;I am always frank. Say on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then. I have loved you from the first day I ever saw you. Can you
+      have any doubt of this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She responded, laughing, with something of her former tone of voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great goose! what ails you? I knew it from the very first day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Saval began to tremble. He stammered out: &ldquo;You knew it? Then...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;what did you think? What&mdash;what&mdash;what would you have
+      answered?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She broke into a peal of laughter. Some of the juice ran off the tips of
+      her fingers on to the carpet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? Why, you did not ask me anything. It was not for me to declare
+      myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then advanced a step toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me&mdash;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...&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He waited, expectantly. She had ceased to laugh, and looked at him,
+      straight in the eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, certainly, I remember it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered, trembling all over:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;that day&mdash;if I had been&mdash;if I had been&mdash;venturesome&mdash;what
+      would you have done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have yielded, my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She then turned on her heels and went back to her jam-making.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Marguerite de Therelles was dying. Although she was only fifty-six years
+      old she looked at least seventy-five. She gasped for breath, her face
+      whiter than the sheets, and had spasms of violent shivering, with her face
+      convulsed and her eyes haggard as though she saw a frightful vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older than herself, was sobbing on
+      her knees beside the bed. A small table close to the dying woman's couch
+      bore, on a white cloth, two lighted candles, for the priest was expected
+      at any moment to administer extreme unction and the last communion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The apartment wore that melancholy aspect common to death chambers; a look
+      of despairing farewell. Medicine bottles littered the furniture; linen lay
+      in the corners into which it had been kicked or swept. The very chairs
+      looked, in their disarray, as if they were terrified and had run in all
+      directions. Death&mdash;terrible Death&mdash;was in the room, hidden,
+      awaiting his prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This history of the two sisters was an affecting one. It was spoken of far
+      and wide; it had drawn tears from many eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suzanne, the elder, had once been passionately loved by a young man, whose
+      affection she returned. They were engaged to be married, and the wedding
+      day was at hand, when Henry de Sampierre suddenly died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young girl's despair was terrible, and she took an oath never to
+      marry. She faithfully kept her vow and adopted widow's weeds for the
+      remainder of her life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one morning her sister, her little sister Marguerite, then only twelve
+      years old, threw herself into Suzanne's arms, sobbing: &ldquo;Sister, I don't
+      want you to be unhappy. I don't want you to mourn all your life. I'll
+      never leave you&mdash;never, never, never! I shall never marry, either.
+      I'll stay with you always&mdash;always!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suzanne kissed her, touched by the child's devotion, though not putting
+      any faith in her promise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the little one kept her word, and, despite her parents' remonstrances,
+      despite her elder sister's prayers, never married. She was remarkably
+      pretty and refused many offers. She never left her sister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They spent their whole life together, without a single day's separation.
+      They went everywhere together and were inseparable. But Marguerite was
+      pensive, melancholy, sadder than her sister, as if her sublime sacrifice
+      had undermined her spirits. She grew older more quickly; her hair was
+      white at thirty; and she was often ill, apparently stricken with some
+      unknown, wasting malady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now she would be the first to die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had not spoken for twenty-four hours, except to whisper at daybreak:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send at once for the priest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she had since remained lying on her back, convulsed with agony, her
+      lips moving as if unable to utter the dreadful words that rose in her
+      heart, her face expressive of a terror distressing to witness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suzanne, distracted with grief, her brow pressed against the bed, wept
+      bitterly, repeating over and over again the words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had always called her &ldquo;my little one,&rdquo; while Marguerite's name for the
+      elder was invariably &ldquo;sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A footstep sounded on the stairs. The door opened. An acolyte appeared,
+      followed by the aged priest in his surplice. As soon as she saw him the
+      dying woman sat up suddenly in bed, opened her lips, stammered a few words
+      and began to scratch the bed-clothes, as if she would have made hole in
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Simon approached, took her hand, kissed her on the forehead and
+      said in a gentle voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May God pardon your sins, my daughter. Be of good courage. Now is the
+      moment to confess them&mdash;speak!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Marguerite, shuddering from head to foot, so that the very bed shook
+      with her nervous movements, gasped:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, sister, and listen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest stooped toward the prostrate Suzanne, raised her to her feet,
+      placed her in a chair, and, taking a hand of each of the sisters,
+      pronounced:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord God! Send them strength! Shed Thy mercy upon them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And Marguerite began to speak. The words issued from her lips one by one&mdash;hoarse,
+      jerky, tremulous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon, pardon, sister! pardon me! Oh, if only you knew how I have
+      dreaded this moment all my life!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suzanne faltered through her tears:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have I to pardon, little one? You have given me everything,
+      sacrificed all to me. You are an angel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Marguerite interrupted her:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be silent, be silent! Let me speak! Don't stop me! It is terrible. Let me
+      tell all, to the very end, without interruption. Listen. You remember&mdash;you
+      remember&mdash;Henry&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suzanne trembled and looked at her sister. The younger one went on:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In order to understand you must hear everything. I was twelve years old&mdash;only
+      twelve&mdash;you remember, don't you? And I was spoilt; I did just as I
+      pleased. You remember how everybody spoilt me? Listen. The first time he
+      came he had on his riding boots; he dismounted, saying that he had a
+      message for father. You remember, don't you? Don't speak. Listen. When I
+      saw him I was struck with admiration. I thought him so handsome, and I
+      stayed in a corner of the drawing-room all the time he was talking.
+      Children are strange&mdash;and terrible. Yes, indeed, I dreamt of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He came again&mdash;many times. I looked at him with all my eyes, all my
+      heart. I was large for my age and much more precocious than&mdash;any one
+      suspected. He came often. I thought only of him. I often whispered to
+      myself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Henry-Henry de Sampierre!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I was told that he was going to marry you. That was a blow! Oh,
+      sister, a terrible blow&mdash;terrible! I wept all through three sleepless
+      nights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He came every afternoon after lunch. You remember, don't you? Don't
+      answer. Listen. You used to make cakes that he was very fond of&mdash;with
+      flour, butter and milk. Oh, I know how to make them. I could make them
+      still, if necessary. He would swallow them at one mouthful and wash them
+      down with a glass of wine, saying: 'Delicious!' Do you remember the way he
+      said it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was jealous&mdash;jealous! Your wedding day was drawing near. It was
+      only a fortnight distant. I was distracted. I said to myself: 'He shall
+      not marry Suzanne&mdash;no, he shall not! He shall marry me when I am old
+      enough! I shall never love any one half so much.' But one evening, ten
+      days before the wedding, you went for a stroll with him in the moonlight
+      before the house&mdash;and yonder&mdash;under the pine tree, the big pine
+      tree&mdash;he kissed you&mdash;kissed you&mdash;and held you in his arms
+      so long&mdash;so long! You remember, don't you? It was probably the first
+      time. You were so pale when you came back to the drawing-room!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw you. I was there in the shrubbery. I was mad with rage! I would
+      have killed you both if I could!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said to myself: 'He shall never marry Suzanne&mdash;never! He shall
+      marry no one! I could not bear it.' And all at once I began to hate him
+      intensely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then do you know what I did? Listen. I had seen the gardener prepare
+      pellets for killing stray dogs. He would crush a bottle into small pieces
+      with a stone and put the ground glass into a ball of meat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I stole a small medicine bottle from mother's room. I ground it fine with
+      a hammer and hid the glass in my pocket. It was a glistening powder. The
+      next day, when you had made your little cakes; I opened them with a knife
+      and inserted the glass. He ate three. I ate one myself. I threw the six
+      others into the pond. The two swans died three days later. You remember?
+      Oh, don't speak! Listen, listen. I, I alone did not die. But I have always
+      been ill. Listen&mdash;he died&mdash;you know&mdash;listen&mdash;that was
+      not the worst. It was afterward, later&mdash;always&mdash;the most
+      terrible&mdash;listen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My life, all my life&mdash;such torture! I said to myself: 'I will never
+      leave my sister. And on my deathbed I will tell her all.' And now I have
+      told. And I have always thought of this moment&mdash;the moment when all
+      would be told. Now it has come. It is terrible&mdash;oh!&mdash;sister&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have always thought, morning and evening, day and night: 'I shall have
+      to tell her some day!' I waited. The horror of it! It is done. Say
+      nothing. Now I am afraid&mdash;I am afraid! Oh! Supposing I should see him
+      again, by and by, when I am dead! See him again! Only to think of it! I
+      dare not&mdash;yet I must. I am going to die. I want you to forgive me. I
+      insist on it. I cannot meet him without your forgiveness. Oh, tell her to
+      forgive me, Father! Tell her. I implore you! I cannot die without it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still plucking at the
+      sheets with her fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not move. She was
+      thinking of him whom she had loved so long. What a life of happiness they
+      might have had together! She saw him again in the dim and distant
+      past-that past forever lost. Beloved dead! how the thought of them rends
+      the heart! Oh! that kiss, his only kiss! She had retained the memory of it
+      in her soul. And, after that, nothing, nothing more throughout her whole
+      existence!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling voice said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her arms round her
+      sister, and kissing her fervently, exclaimed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      COCO
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as &ldquo;the Manor.&rdquo;
+       No one knew why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word, &ldquo;Manor,&rdquo; a
+      meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was undoubtedly the
+      largest, richest and the best managed in the whole neighborhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which
+      sheltered the delicate apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain,
+      inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for storing fodder and
+      grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
+      thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little
+      chateau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little offensive
+      as such things can be; the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and countless
+      poultry paraded through the tall grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women
+      folks, seated themselves around the long kitchen table where the soup was
+      brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered bowl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean.
+      Maitre Lucas, a tall man who was getting stout, would go round three times
+      a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its
+      natural death, because she had brought it up and had always used it, and
+      also because it recalled many happy memories, was housed, through sheer
+      kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval by name, and called,
+      for convenience, Zidore, took care of this pensioner, gave him his measure
+      of oats and fodder in winter, and in summer was supposed to change his
+      pasturing place four times a day, so that he might have plenty of fresh
+      grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty his legs, large at the
+      knees and swollen above the hoofs. His coat, which was no longer curried,
+      looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes gave to his eyes a sad
+      expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Zidore took the animal to pasture, he had to pull on the rope with
+      all his might, because it walked so slowly; and the youth, bent over and
+      out of breath, would swear at it, exasperated at having to care for this
+      old nag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The farmhands, noticing the young rascal's anger against Coco, were amused
+      and would continually talk of the horse to Zidore, in order to exasperate
+      him. His comrades would make sport with him. In the village he was called
+      Coco-Zidore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the
+      horse. He was a thin, long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse,
+      bristly red hair. He seemed only half-witted, and stuttered as though
+      ideas were unable to form in his thick, brute-like mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a long time he had been unable to understand why Coco should be kept,
+      indignant at seeing things wasted on this useless beast. Since the horse
+      could no longer work, it seemed to him unjust that he should be fed; he
+      revolted at the idea of wasting oats, oats which were so expensive, on
+      this paralyzed old plug. And often, in spite of the orders of Maitre
+      Lucas, he would economize on the nag's food, only giving him half measure.
+      Hatred grew in his confused, childlike mind, the hatred of a stingy, mean,
+      fierce, brutal and cowardly peasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When summer came he had to move the animal about in the pasture. It was
+      some distance away. The rascal, angrier every morning, would start, with
+      his dragging step, across the wheat fields. The men working in the fields
+      would shout to him, jokingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey, Zidore, remember me to Coco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He would not answer; but on the way he would break off a switch, and, as
+      soon as he had moved the old horse, he would let it begin grazing; then,
+      treacherously sneaking up behind it, he would slash its legs. The animal
+      would try to escape, to kick, to get away from the blows, and run around
+      in a circle about its rope, as though it had been inclosed in a circus
+      ring. And the boy would slash away furiously, running along behind, his
+      teeth clenched in anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he would go away slowly, without turning round, while the horse
+      watched him disappear, his ribs sticking out, panting as a result of his
+      unusual exertions. Not until the blue blouse of the young peasant was out
+      of sight would he lower his thin white head to the grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the nights were now warm, Coco was allowed to sleep out of doors, in
+      the field behind the little wood. Zidore alone went to see him. The boy
+      threw stones at him to amuse himself. He would sit down on an embankment
+      about ten feet away and would stay there about half an hour, from time to
+      time throwing a sharp stone at the old horse, which remained standing tied
+      before his enemy, watching him continually and not daring to eat before he
+      was gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This one thought persisted in the mind of the young scamp: &ldquo;Why feed this
+      horse, which is no longer good for anything?&rdquo; It seemed to him that this
+      old nag was stealing the food of the others, the goods of man and God,
+      that he was even robbing him, Zidore, who was working.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, little by little, each day, the boy began to shorten the length of
+      rope which allowed the horse to graze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hungry animal was growing thinner, and starving. Too feeble to break
+      his bonds, he would stretch his head out toward the tall, green, tempting
+      grass, so near that he could smell, and yet so far that he could not touch
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one morning Zidore had an idea: it was, not to move Coco any more. He
+      was tired of walking so far for that old skeleton. He came, however, in
+      order to enjoy his vengeance. The beast watched him anxiously. He did not
+      beat him that day. He walked around him with his hands in his pockets. He
+      even pretended to change his place, but he sank the stake in exactly the
+      same hole, and went away overjoyed with his invention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The horse, seeing him leave, neighed to call him back; but the rascal
+      began to run, leaving him alone, entirely alone in his field, well tied
+      down and without a blade of grass within reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Starving, he tried to reach the grass which he could touch with the end of
+      his nose. He got on his knees, stretching out his neck and his long,
+      drooling lips. All in vain. The old animal spent the whole day in useless,
+      terrible efforts. The sight of all that green food, which stretched out on
+      all sides of him, served to increase the gnawing pangs of hunger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scamp did not return that day. He wandered through the woods in search
+      of nests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day he appeared upon the scene again. Coco, exhausted, had lain
+      down. When he saw the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his place
+      changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying on
+      the ground. He came nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head a
+      clump of earth which flattened out against the white hair, and he started
+      off again, whistling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing
+      that his attempts to reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once
+      more lay down on his side and closed his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day Zidore did not come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that
+      he was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had done,
+      surprised that it should already be all over. He touched him with his
+      foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it drop, sat on him and remained
+      there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing. He returned to
+      the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he wished to wander
+      about at the hours when he used to change the horse's pasture. He went to
+      see him the next day. At his approach some crows flew away. Countless
+      flies were walking over the body and were buzzing around it. When he
+      returned home, he announced the event. The animal was so old that nobody
+      was surprised. The master said to two of the men:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger. And the
+      grass grew thick, green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life had
+      been blameless. Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back, her
+      eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully arranged as
+      though she had done it up ten minutes before dying. The whole pale
+      countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so resigned that
+      one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body, what a quiet
+      existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the death of this
+      parent had been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible principles,
+      and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were weeping as
+      though their hearts would break. She had, from childhood up, armed them
+      with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without weakness, and
+      duty, without compromise. He, the man, had become a judge and handled the
+      law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without pity. She, the
+      girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed her in this austere
+      family, had become the bride of the Church through her loathing for man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
+      mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
+      as the large crucifix lying across the bed. On the other side of the long
+      body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the death
+      grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory of those
+      last movements which precede eternal immobility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up, and
+      the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned. He was red and out of
+      breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself a strong
+      mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of the last
+      few nights and of the wake which was beginning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is a
+      bread winner. He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
+      gesture: &ldquo;Well, my poor children! I have come to help you pass these last
+      sad hours.&rdquo; But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose. &ldquo;Thank you, father, but my
+      brother and I prefer to remain alone with her. This is our last chance to
+      see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us, as we&mdash;we&mdash;used
+      to be when we were small and our poor mo&mdash;mother&mdash;&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed. &ldquo;As you wish, my
+      children.&rdquo; He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
+      quietly, murmuring: &ldquo;She was a saint!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They remained alone, the dead woman and her children. The ticking of the
+      clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
+      open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together with
+      the soft moonlight. No other noise could be heard over the land except the
+      occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some belated insect. An
+      infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent serenity surrounded this
+      dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her and to appease nature
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes, cried
+      in a voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and blankets:
+      &ldquo;Mamma, mamma, mamma!&rdquo; And his sister, frantically striking her forehead
+      against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as in an
+      epileptic fit, moaned: &ldquo;Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!&rdquo; And both of them,
+      shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on
+      the sea when a calm follows a squall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead. And the
+      memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so torturing,
+      came to their minds with all the little forgotten details, those little
+      intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one who has left.
+      They recalled to each other circumstances, words, smiles, intonations of
+      the mother who was no longer to speak to them. They saw her again happy
+      and calm. They remembered things which she had said, and a little motion
+      of the hand, like beating time, which she often used when emphasizing
+      something important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And they loved her as they never had loved her before. They measured the
+      depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would find
+      themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of
+      their lives which was disappearing. It was their bond with life, their
+      mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which they
+      would thenceforth miss. They now became solitary, lonely beings; they
+      could no longer look back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nun said to her brother: &ldquo;You remember how mamma used always to read
+      her old letters; they are all there in that drawer. Let us, in turn, read
+      them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her! It would be
+      like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her mother, of
+      our grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are there and of
+      whom she so often spoke, do you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper,
+      tied with care and arranged one beside the other. They threw these relics
+      on the bed and chose one of them on which the word &ldquo;Father&rdquo; was written.
+      They opened and read it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family
+      desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century. The first one
+      started: &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; another one: &ldquo;My beautiful little girl,&rdquo; others: &ldquo;My
+      dear child,&rdquo; or: &ldquo;My dear (laughter).&rdquo; And suddenly the nun began to read
+      aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her tender
+      memories. The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening with his
+      eyes fastened on his mother. The motionless body seemed happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as a
+      shroud and she ought to be buried in it.&rdquo; She took another package, on
+      which no name was written. She began to read in a firm voice: &ldquo;My adored
+      one, I love you wildly. Since yesterday I have been suffering the tortures
+      of the damned, haunted by our memory. I feel your lips against mine, your
+      eyes in mine, your breast against mine. I love you, I love you! You have
+      driven me mad. My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild desire to hold you
+      again. My whole soul and body cries out for you, wants you. I have kept in
+      my mouth the taste of your kisses&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The judge had straightened himself up. The nun stopped reading. He
+      snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature. There was none,
+      but only under the words, &ldquo;The man who adores you,&rdquo; the name &ldquo;Henry.&rdquo;
+       Their father's name was Rene. Therefore this was not from him. The son
+      then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one out and
+      read: &ldquo;I can no longer live without your caresses.&rdquo; Standing erect, severe
+      as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead woman. The
+      nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of her eyes, was
+      watching her brother, waiting. Then he crossed the room slowly, went to
+      the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still
+      standing near the bed, her head bent down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell-mell
+      back into the drawer. Then he closed the curtains of the bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly left
+      his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had
+      passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he
+      said slowly: &ldquo;Let us now retire, sister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      A HUMBLE DRAMA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Meetings that are unexpected constitute the charm of traveling. Who has
+      not experienced the joy of suddenly coming across a Parisian, a college
+      friend, or a neighbor, five hundred miles from home? Who has not passed a
+      night awake in one of those small, rattling country stage-coaches, in
+      regions where steam is still a thing unknown, beside a strange young
+      woman, of whom one has caught only a glimpse in the dim light of the
+      lantern, as she entered the carriage in front of a white house in some
+      small country town?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning, when one's head and ears feel numb with the
+      continuous tinkling of the bells and the loud rattling of the windows,
+      what a charming sensation it is to see your pretty neighbor open her eyes,
+      startled, glance around her, arrange her rebellious hair with her slender
+      fingers, adjust her hat, feel with sure hand whether her corset is still
+      in place, her waist straight, and her skirt not too wrinkled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She glances at you coldly and curiously. Then she leans back and no longer
+      seems interested in anything but the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of yourself, you watch her; and in spite of yourself you keep on
+      thinking of her. Who is she? Whence does she come? Where is she going? In
+      spite of yourself you spin a little romance around her. She is pretty; she
+      seems charming! Happy he who... Life might be delightful with her. Who
+      knows? She is perhaps the woman of our dreams, the one suited to our
+      disposition, the one for whom our heart calls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And how delicious even the disappointment at seeing her get out at the
+      gate of a country house! A man stands there, who is awaiting her, with two
+      children and two maids. He takes her in his arms and kisses as he lifts
+      her out. Then she stoops over the little ones, who hold up their hands to
+      her; she kisses them tenderly; and then they all go away together, down a
+      path, while the maids catch the packages which the driver throws down to
+      them from the coach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Adieu! It is all over. You never will see her again! Adieu to the young
+      woman who has passed the night by your side. You know her no more, you
+      have not spoken to her; all the same, you feel a little sad to see her go.
+      Adieu!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have had many of these souvenirs of travel, some joyous and some sad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once I was in Auvergne, tramping through those delightful French
+      mountains, that are not too high, not too steep, but friendly and
+      familiar. I had climbed the Sancy, and entered a little inn, near a
+      pilgrim's chapel called Notre-Dame de Vassiviere, when I saw a queer,
+      ridiculous-looking old woman breakfasting alone at the end table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was at least seventy years old, tall, skinny, and angular, and her
+      white hair was puffed around her temples in the old-fashioned style. She
+      was dressed like a traveling Englishwoman, in awkward, queer clothing,
+      like a person who is indifferent to dress. She was eating an omelet and
+      drinking water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her face was peculiar, with restless eyes and the expression of one with
+      whom fate has dealt unkindly. I watched her, in spite of myself, thinking:
+      &ldquo;Who is she? What is the life of this woman? Why is she wandering alone
+      through these mountains?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paid and rose to leave, drawing up over her shoulders an astonishing
+      little shawl, the two ends of which hung over her arms. From a corner of
+      the room she took an alpenstock, which was covered with names traced with
+      a hot iron; then she went out, straight, erect, with the long steps of a
+      letter-carrier who is setting out on his route.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A guide was waiting for her at the door, and both went away. I watched
+      them go down the valley, along the road marked by a line of high wooden
+      crosses. She was taller than her companion, and seemed to walk faster than
+      he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hours later I was climbing the edge of the deep funnel that incloses
+      Lake Pavin in a marvelous and enormous basin of verdure, full of trees,
+      bushes, rocks, and flowers. This lake is so round that it seems as if the
+      outline had been drawn with a pair of compasses, so clear and blue that
+      one might deem it a flood of azure come down from the sky, so charming
+      that one would like to live in a hut on the wooded slope which dominates
+      this crater, where the cold, still water is sleeping. The Englishwoman was
+      standing there like a statue, gazing upon the transparent sheet down in
+      the dead volcano. She was straining her eyes to penetrate below the
+      surface down to the unknown depths, where monstrous trout which have
+      devoured all the other fish are said to live. As I was passing close by
+      her, it seemed to me that two big tears were brimming her eyes. But she
+      departed at a great pace, to rejoin her guide, who had stayed behind in an
+      inn at the foot of the path leading to the lake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not see her again that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, at nightfall, I came to the chateau of Murol. The old
+      fortress, an enormous tower standing on a peak in the midst of a large
+      valley, where three valleys intersect, rears its brown, uneven, cracked
+      surface into the sky; it is round, from its large circular base to the
+      crumbling turrets on its pinnacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It astonishes the eye more than any other ruin by its simple mass, its
+      majesty, its grave and imposing air of antiquity. It stands there, alone,
+      high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still the queen of the valleys
+      stretched out beneath it. You go up by a slope planted with firs, then you
+      enter a narrow gate, and stop at the foot of the walls, in the first
+      inclosure, in full view of the entire country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside there are ruined halls, crumbling stairways, unknown cavities,
+      dungeons, walls cut through in the middle, vaulted roofs held up one knows
+      not how, and a mass of stones and crevices, overgrown with grass, where
+      animals glide in and out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was exploring this ruin alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suddenly I perceived behind a bit of wall a being, a kind of phantom, like
+      the spirit of this ancient and crumbling habitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was taken aback with surprise, almost with fear, when I recognized the
+      old lady whom I had seen twice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was weeping, with big tears in her eyes, and held her handkerchief in
+      her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned around to go away, when she spoke to me, apparently ashamed to
+      have been surprised in her grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, monsieur, I am crying. That does not happen often to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon me, madame, for having disturbed you,&rdquo; I stammered, confused, not
+      knowing what to say. &ldquo;Some misfortune has doubtless come to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. No&mdash;I am like a lost dog,&rdquo; she murmured, and began to sob, with
+      her handkerchief over her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moved by these contagious tears, I took her hand, trying to calm her. Then
+      brusquely she told me her history, as if no longer ably to bear her grief
+      alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Oh! Monsieur&mdash;if you knew&mdash;the sorrow in which I live&mdash;in
+      what sorrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Once I was happy. I have a house down there&mdash;a home. I cannot go
+      back to it any more; I shall never go back to it again, it is too hard to
+      bear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a son. It is he! it is he! Children don't know. Oh, one has such a
+      short time to live! If I should see him now I should perhaps not recognize
+      him. How I loved him? How I loved him! Even before he was born, when I
+      felt him move. And after that! How I have kissed and caressed and
+      cherished him! If you knew how many nights I have passed in watching him
+      sleep, and how many in thinking of him. I was crazy about him. When he was
+      eight years old his father sent him to boarding-school. That was the end.
+      He no longer belonged to me. Oh, heavens! He came to see me every Sunday.
+      That was all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went to college in Paris. Then he came only four times a year, and
+      every time I was astonished to see how he had changed, to find him taller
+      without having seen him grow. They stole his childhood from me, his
+      confidence, and his love which otherwise would not have gone away from me;
+      they stole my joy in seeing him grow, in seeing him become a little man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw him four times a year. Think of it! And at every one of his visits
+      his body, his eye, his movements, his voice his laugh, were no longer the
+      same, were no longer mine. All these things change so quickly in a child;
+      and it is so sad if one is not there to see them change; one no longer
+      recognizes him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One year he came with down on his cheek! He! my son! I was dumfounded
+      &mdash;would you believe it? I hardly dared to kiss him. Was it really he,
+      my little, little curly head of old, my dear; dear child, whom I had held
+      in his diapers or my knee, and who had nursed at my breast with his little
+      greedy lips&mdash;was it he, this tall, brown boy, who no longer knew how
+      to kiss me, who seemed to love me as a matter of duty, who called me
+      'mother' for the sake of politeness, and who kissed me on the forehead,
+      when I felt like crushing him in my arms?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband died. Then my parents, and then my two sisters. When Death
+      enters a house it seems as if he were hurrying to do his utmost, so as not
+      to have to return for a long time after that. He spares only one or two to
+      mourn the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remained alone. My tall son was then studying law. I was hoping to live
+      and die near him, and I went to him so that we could live together. But he
+      had fallen into the ways of young men, and he gave me to understand that I
+      was in his way. So I left. I was wrong in doing so, but I suffered too
+      much in feeling myself in his way, I, his mother! And I came back home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hardly ever saw him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He married. What a joy! At last we should be together for good. I should
+      have grandchildren. His wife was an Englishwoman, who took a dislike to
+      me. Why? Perhaps she thought that I loved him too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again I was obliged to go away. And I was alone. Yes, monsieur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he went to England, to live with them, with his wife's parents. Do
+      you understand? They have him&mdash;they have my son for themselves. They
+      have stolen him from me. He writes to me once a month. At first he came to
+      see me. But now he no longer comes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is now four years since I saw him last. His face then was wrinkled and
+      his hair white. Was that possible? This man, my son, almost an old man? My
+      little rosy child of old? No doubt I shall never see him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so I travel about all the year. I go east and west, as you see, with
+      no companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am like a lost dog. Adieu, monsieur! don't stay here with me for it
+      hurts me to have told you all this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance back, I saw the old
+      woman standing on a broken wall, looking out upon the mountains, the long
+      valley and Lake Chambon in the distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she wore around her thin
+      shoulders were fluttering tike a flag in the wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall, thin man in a corner of
+      the court who kept on calling an imaginary dog. He was crying in a soft,
+      tender voice: &ldquo;Cocotte! Come here, Cocotte, my beauty!&rdquo; and slapping his
+      thigh as one does when calling an animal. I asked the physician, &ldquo;Who is
+      that man?&rdquo; He answered: &ldquo;Oh! he is not at all interesting. He is a
+      coachman named Francois, who became insane after drowning his dog.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I insisted: &ldquo;Tell me his story. The most simple and humble things are
+      sometimes those which touch our hearts most deeply.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here is this man's adventure, which was obtained from a friend of his, a
+      groom:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in a suburb of Paris. They
+      had a villa in the middle of a park, at the edge of the Seine. Their
+      coachman was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull, kind-hearted,
+      simple and easy to deceive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began to follow him. At first
+      he paid no attention to it, but the creature's obstinacy at last made him
+      turn round. He looked to see if he knew this dog. No, he had never seen
+      it. It was a female dog and frightfully thin. She was trotting behind him
+      with a mournful and famished look, her tail between her legs, her ears
+      flattened against her head and stopping and starting whenever he did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Run along! Get out! Kss! kss!&rdquo; She retreated a few steps, then sat down
+      and waited. And when the coachman started to walk again she followed along
+      behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He pretended to pick up some stones. The animal ran a little farther away,
+      but came back again as soon as the man's back was turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast and called her. The dog
+      approached timidly. The man patted her protruding ribs, moved by the
+      beast's misery, and he cried: &ldquo;Come! come here!&rdquo; Immediately she began to
+      wag her tail, and, feeling herself taken in, adopted, she began to run
+      along ahead of her new master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He made her a bed on the straw in the stable, then he ran to the kitchen
+      for some bread. When she had eaten all she could she curled up and went to
+      sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When his employers heard of this the next day they allowed the coachman to
+      keep the animal. It was a good beast, caressing and faithful, intelligent
+      and gentle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless Francois adored Cocotte, and he kept repeating: &ldquo;That beast
+      is human. She only lacks speech.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had a magnificent red leather collar made for her which bore these
+      words engraved on a copper plate: &ldquo;Mademoiselle Cocotte, belonging to the
+      coachman Francois.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was remarkably prolific and four times a year would give birth to a
+      batch of little animals belonging to every variety of the canine race.
+      Francois would pick out one which he would leave her and then he would
+      unmercifully throw the others into the river. But soon the cook joined her
+      complaints to those of the gardener. She would find dogs under the stove,
+      in the ice box, in the coal bin, and they would steal everything they came
+      across.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Finally the master, tired of complaints, impatiently ordered Francois to
+      get rid of Cocotte. In despair the man tried to give her away. Nobody
+      wanted her. Then he decided to lose her, and he gave her to a teamster,
+      who was to drop her on the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cocotte returned the same day. Some decision had to be taken. Five francs
+      was given to a train conductor to take her to Havre. He was to drop her
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three days later she returned to the stable, thin, footsore and tired out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The master took pity on her and let her stay. But other dogs were
+      attracted as before, and one evening, when a big dinner party was on, a
+      stuffed turkey was carried away by one of them right under the cook's
+      nose, and she did not dare to stop him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time the master completely lost his temper and said angrily to
+      Francois: &ldquo;If you don't throw this beast into the water before&mdash;to-morrow
+      morning, I'll put you out, do you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man was dumbfounded, and he returned to his room to pack his trunk,
+      preferring to leave the place. Then he bethought himself that he could
+      find no other situation as long as he dragged this animal about with him.
+      He thought of his good position, where he was well paid and well fed, and
+      he decided that a dog was really not worth all that. At last he decided to
+      rid himself of Cocotte at daybreak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slept badly. He rose at dawn, and taking a strong rope, went to get the
+      dog. She stood up slowly, shook herself, stretched and came to welcome her
+      master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then his courage forsook him, and he began to pet her affectionately,
+      stroking her long ears, kissing her muzzle and calling her tender names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a neighboring clock struck six. He could no longer hesitate. He opened
+      the door, calling: &ldquo;Come!&rdquo; The beast wagged her tail, understanding that
+      she was to be taken out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They reached the beach, and he chose a place where the water seemed deep.
+      Then he knotted the rope round the leather collar and tied a heavy stone
+      to the other end. He seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her madly, as
+      though he were taking leave of some human being. He held her to his
+      breast, rocked her and called her &ldquo;my dear little Cocotte, my sweet little
+      Cocotte,&rdquo; and she grunted with pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten times he tried to throw her into the water and each time he lost
+      courage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But suddenly he made up his mind and threw her as far from him as he
+      could. At first she tried to swim, as she did when he gave her a bath, but
+      her head, dragged down by the stone, kept going under, and she looked at
+      her master with wild, human glances as she struggled like a drowning
+      person. Then the front part of her body sank, while her hind legs waved
+      wildly out of the water. Finally those also disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then, for five minutes, bubbles rose to the surface as though the river
+      were boiling, and Francois, haggard, his heart beating, thought that he
+      saw Cocotte struggling in the mud, and, with the simplicity of a peasant,
+      he kept saying to himself: &ldquo;What does the poor beast think of me now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He almost lost his mind. He was ill for a month and every night he dreamed
+      of his dog. He could feel her licking his hands and hear her barking. It
+      was necessary to call in a physician. At last he recovered, and toward the
+      2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at Biesard, near Rouen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There again he was near the Seine. He began to take baths. Each morning he
+      would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, as they were disporting themselves in the water, Francois
+      suddenly cried to his companion: &ldquo;Look what's coming! I'm going to give
+      you a chop!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an enormous, swollen corpse that was floating down with its feet
+      sticking straight up in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francois swam up to it, still joking: &ldquo;Whew! it's not fresh. What a catch,
+      old man! It isn't thin, either!&rdquo; He kept swimming about at a distance from
+      the animal that was in a state of decomposition. Then, suddenly, he was
+      silent and looked at it: attentively. This time he came near enough to
+      touch, it. He looked fixedly at the collar, then he stretched out his arm,
+      seized the neck, swung the corpse round and drew it up close to him and
+      read on the copper which had turned green and which still stuck to the
+      discolored leather: &ldquo;Mademoiselle Cocotte, belonging to the coachman
+      Francois.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He let out a frightful shriek and began to swim for the beach with all his
+      might, still howling; and as soon as he touched land he ran away wildly,
+      stark naked, through the country. He was insane!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The road ascended gently through the forest of Aitone. The large pines
+      formed a solemn dome above our heads, and that mysterious sound made by
+      the wind in the trees sounded like the notes of an organ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After walking for three hours, there was a clearing, and then at intervals
+      an enormous pine umbrella, and then we suddenly came to the edge of the
+      forest, some hundred meters below, the pass leading to the wild valley of
+      Niolo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the two projecting heights which commanded a view of this pass, some
+      old trees, grotesquely twisted, seemed to have mounted with painful
+      efforts, like scouts sent in advance of the multitude in the rear. When we
+      turned round, we saw the entire forest stretched beneath our feet, like a
+      gigantic basin of verdure, inclosed by bare rocks whose summits seemed to
+      reach the sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We resumed our walk, and, ten minutes later, found ourselves in the pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I beheld a remarkable landscape. Beyond another forest stretched a
+      valley, but a valley such as I had never seen before; a solitude of stone,
+      ten leagues long, hollowed out between two high mountains, without a field
+      or a tree to be seen. This was the Niolo valley, the fatherland of
+      Corsican liberty, the inaccessible citadel, from which the invaders had
+      never been able to drive out the mountaineers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My companion said to me: &ldquo;This is where all our bandits have taken
+      refuge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ere long we were at the further end of this gorge, so wild, so
+      inconceivably beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a blade of grass, not a plant-nothing but granite. As far as our eyes
+      could reach, we saw in front of us a desert of glittering stone, heated
+      like an oven by a burning sun, which seemed to hang for that very purpose
+      right above the gorge. When we raised our eyes towards the crests, we
+      stood dazzled and stupefied by what we saw. They looked like a festoon of
+      coral; all the summits are of porphyry; and the sky overhead was violet,
+      purple, tinged with the coloring of these strange mountains. Lower down,
+      the granite was of scintillating gray, and seemed ground to powder beneath
+      our feet. At our right, along a long and irregular course, roared a
+      tumultuous torrent. And we staggered along under this heat, in this light,
+      in this burning, arid, desolate valley cut by this torrent of turbulent
+      water which seemed to be ever hurrying onward, without fertilizing the
+      rocks, lost in this furnace which greedily drank it up without being
+      saturated or refreshed by it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, suddenly, there was visible at our right a little wooden cross sunk
+      in a little heap of stones. A man had been killed there; and I said to my
+      companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me about your bandits.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He replied:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew the most celebrated of them, the terrible St. Lucia. I will tell
+      you his history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the district, it is
+      said; and St. Lucia was left alone with his sister. He was a weak, timid
+      youth, small, often ill, without any energy. He did not proclaim vengeance
+      against the assassin of his father. All his relatives came to see him, and
+      implored of him to avenge his death; he remained deaf to their menaces and
+      their supplications.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, following the old Corsican custom, his sister, in her indignation
+      carried away his black clothes, in order that he might not wear mourning
+      for a dead man who had not been avenged. He was insensible to even this
+      affront, and rather than take down from the rack his father's gun, which
+      was still loaded, he shut himself up, not daring to brave the looks of the
+      young men of the district.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He seemed to have even forgotten the crime, and lived with his sister in
+      the seclusion of their dwelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, one day, the man who was suspected of having committed the murder,
+      was about to get married. St. Lucia did not appear to be moved by this
+      news, but, out of sheer bravado, doubtless, the bridegroom, on his way to
+      the church, passed before the house of the two orphans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The brother and the sister, at their window, were eating frijoles, when
+      the young man saw the bridal procession going by. Suddenly he began to
+      tremble, rose to his feet without uttering a word, made the sign of the
+      cross, took the gun which was hanging over the fireplace, and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When he spoke of this later on, he said: 'I don't know what was the
+      matter with me; it was like fire in my blood; I felt that I must do it,
+      that, in spite of everything, I could not resist, and I concealed the gun
+      in a cave on the road to Corte.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An hour later, he came back, with nothing in his hand, and with his
+      habitual air of sad weariness. His sister believed that there was nothing
+      further in his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when night fell he disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His enemy had, the same evening, to repair to Corte on foot, accompanied
+      by his two groomsmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was walking along, singing as he went, when St. Lucia stood before
+      him, and looking straight in the murderer's face, exclaimed: 'Now is the
+      time!' and shot him point-blank in the chest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the men fled; the other stared at, the young man, saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'What have you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte for
+      help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'If you move another step, I'll shoot you in the leg.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other, aware of his timidity hitherto, replied: 'You would not dare
+      to do it!' and was hurrying off when he fell instantaneously, his thigh
+      shattered by a bullet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And St. Lucia, coming over to where he lay, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I am going to look at your wound; if it is not serious, I'll leave you
+      there; if it is mortal I'll finish you off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He inspected the wound, considered it mortal, and slowly reloading his
+      gun, told the wounded man to say a prayer, and shot him through the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next day he was in the mountains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And do you know what this St. Lucia did after this?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All his family were arrested by the gendarmes. His uncle, the cure, who
+      was suspected of having incited him to this deed of vengeance, was himself
+      put in prison, and accused by the dead man's relatives. But he escaped,
+      took a gun in his turn, and went to join his nephew in the brush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Next, St. Lucia killed, one after the other, his uncle's accusers, and
+      tore out their eyes to teach the others never to state what they had seen
+      with their eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He killed all the relatives, all the connections of his enemy's family.
+      He slew during his life fourteen gendarmes, burned down the houses of his
+      adversaries, and was, up to the day of his death, the most terrible of all
+      the bandits whose memory we have preserved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun disappeared behind Monte Cinto and the tall shadow of the granite
+      mountain went to sleep on the granite of the valley. We quickened our pace
+      in order to reach before night the little village of Albertaccio, nothing
+      but a pile of stones welded into the stone flanks of a wild gorge. And I
+      said as I thought of the bandit:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a terrible custom your vendetta is!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My companion answered with an air of resignation:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you have? A man must do his duty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      THE GRAVE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at
+      half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers, who
+      lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was
+      awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door
+      and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the house.
+      The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue General
+      Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of
+      the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a
+      horrible act of profanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the
+      evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this hideous
+      scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands
+      and took him to the police station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named Courbataille.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was brought into court. The public prosecutor opened the case by
+      referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom. When the magistrate sat
+      down the crowd assembled cried: &ldquo;Death! death!&rdquo; With difficulty the
+      presiding judge established silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he said gravely:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose. He was a handsome fellow,
+      tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in a
+      voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he
+      proceeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to say.
+      The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart. I loved her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness of
+      heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an overpowering
+      passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hear me:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation. It was not
+      astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at first
+      sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been plunged
+      into a warm bath. Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted me, and it
+      was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person. It seemed to me
+      as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a long time. She had
+      within her something of my spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that
+      vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole
+      life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again
+      filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand in
+      mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined; her
+      smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to fling
+      myself upon the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we became lovers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, more than that: she was my very life. I looked for nothing further
+      on earth, and had no further desires. I longed for nothing further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river, we
+      were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold. It developed into
+      pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation
+      prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead I
+      was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left. I wept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief
+      was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once
+      found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings so
+      terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that
+      price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were
+      going mad. Just think of it! There is a woman whom you adore, a unique
+      woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her. This
+      woman has given herself to you and has created with you the mysterious
+      union that is called Love. Her eye seems to you more vast than space, more
+      charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with her tenderness. This
+      woman loves you. When she speaks to you her voice floods you with joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And suddenly she disappears! Think of it! She disappears, not only for
+      you, but forever. She is dead. Do you understand what that means? Never,
+      never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more. Nevermore will that
+      eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor any voice
+      like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers. Never, never! The molds
+      of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects with the
+      same outlines and forms. But that one body and that one face will never
+      more be born again upon the earth. And yet millions and millions of
+      creatures will be born, and more than that, and this one woman will not
+      reappear among all the women of the future. Is it possible? It drives one
+      mad to think of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She lived for twenty years, not more, and she has disappeared forever,
+      forever, forever! She thought, she smiled, she loved me. And now nothing!
+      The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this world. And
+      now nothing! And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so warm, so
+      sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box under the
+      earth. And her soul, her thought, her love&mdash;where is it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to see her again! The idea of this decomposing body, that I might yet
+      recognize, haunted me. I wanted to look at it once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the
+      cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed
+      entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board. An abominable odor,
+      the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils. Oh, her bed perfumed with
+      orris!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I
+      saw her. Her face was blue, swollen, frightful. A black liquid had oozed
+      out of her mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She! That was she! Horror seized me. But I stretched out my arm to draw
+      this monstrous face toward me. And then I was caught.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor of
+      my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love
+      embrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do with me what you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A strange silence seemed to oppress the room. They seemed to be waiting
+      for something more. The jury retired to deliberate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and did
+      not even seem to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges
+      declared him to be not guilty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not move and the room applauded.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+   The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature
+   of &ldquo;Maufrigneuse.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+  </body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's Original Maupassant Short Stories, Vol. 12.
+by Guy de Maupassant (#13 in our series by Guy de Maupassant)
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+Title: Original Short Stories, Vol. 12.
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: February, 2002  [Etext #3088]
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+[The actual date this file first posted = 12/24/00]
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+Project Gutenberg's Original Maupassant Short Stories, Vol. 12.
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+
+Original Short Stories, Vol. 12.
+By Guy de Maupassant
+
+
+
+
+     VOLUME XII.
+
+THE CHILD
+A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+ROSE
+ROSALIE PRUDENT
+REGRET
+A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+COCO
+A DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+A HUMBLE DRAMA
+MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+THE GRAVE
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD
+
+Lemonnier had remained a widower with one child.  He had loved his wife
+devotedly, with a tender and exalted love, without a slip, during their
+entire married life.  He was a good, honest man, perfectly simple,
+sincere, without suspicion or malice.
+
+He fell in love with a poor neighbor, proposed and was accepted.  He was
+making a very comfortable living out of the wholesale cloth business, and
+he did not for a minute suspect that the young girl might have accepted
+him for anything else but himself.
+
+She made him happy.  She was everything to him; he only thought of her,
+looked at her continually, with worshiping eyes.  During meals he would
+make any number of blunders, in order not to have to take his eyes from
+the beloved face; he would pour the wine in his plate and the water in
+the salt-cellar, then he would laugh like a child, repeating:
+
+"You see, I love you too much; that makes me crazy."
+
+She would smile with a calm and resigned look; then she would look away,
+as though embarrassed by the adoration of her husband, and try to make
+him talk about something else; but he would take her hand under the table
+and he would hold it in his, whispering:
+
+"My little Jeanne, my darling little Jeanne!"
+
+She sometimes lost patience and said:
+
+"Come, come, be reasonable; eat and let me eat."
+
+He would sigh and break off a mouthful of bread, which he would then chew
+slowly.
+
+For five years they had no children.  Then suddenly she announced to him
+that this state of affairs would soon cease.  He was wild with joy.  He
+no longer left her for a minute, until his old nurse, who had brought him
+up and who often ruled the house, would push him out and close the door
+behind him, in order to compel him to go out in the fresh air.
+
+He had grown very intimate with a young man who had known his wife since
+childhood, and who was one of the prefect's secretaries.  M. Duretour
+would dine three times a week with the Lemonniers, bringing flowers to
+madame, and sometimes a box at the theater; and often, at the end of the
+dinner, Lemonnier, growing tender, turning towards his wife, would
+explain: "With a companion like you and a friend like him, a man is
+completely happy on earth."
+
+She died in childbirth.  The shock almost killed him.  But the sight of
+the child, a poor, moaning little creature, gave him courage.
+
+He loved it with a passionate and sorrowful love, with a morbid love in
+which stuck the memory of death, but in which lived something of his
+worship for the dead mother.  It was the flesh of his wife, her being
+continued, a sort of quintessence of herself.  This child was her very
+life transferred to another body; she had disappeared that it might
+exist, and the father would smother it in with kisses.  But also, this
+child had killed her; he had stolen this beloved creature, his life was
+at the cost of hers.  And M. Lemonnier would place his son in the cradle
+and would sit down and watch him.  He would sit this way by the hour,
+looking at him, dreaming of thousands of things, sweet or sad.  Then,
+when the little one was asleep, he would bend over him and sob.
+
+The child grew.  The father could no longer spend an hour away from him;
+he would stay near him, take him out for walks, and himself dress him,
+wash him, make him eat.  His friend, M. Duretour, also seemed to love the
+boy; he would kiss him wildly, in those frenzies of tenderness which are
+characteristic of parents.  He would toss him in his arms, he would trot
+him on his knees, by the hour, and M. Lemonnier, delighted, would mutter:
+
+"Isn't he a darling?  Isn't he a darling?"
+
+And M. Duretour would hug the child in his arms and tickle his neck with
+his mustache.
+
+Celeste, the old nurse, alone, seemed to have no tenderness for the
+little one.  She would grow angry at his pranks, and seemed impatient at
+the caresses of the two men.  She would exclaim:
+
+"How can you expect to bring a child up like that?  You'll make a perfect
+monkey out of him."
+
+Years went by, and Jean was nine years old.  He hardly knew how to read;
+he had been so spoiled, and only did as he saw fit.  He was willful,
+stubborn and quick-tempered.  The father always gave in to him and let
+him have his own way.  M. Duretour would always buy him all the toys he
+wished, and he fed him on cake and candies.  Then Celeste would grow
+angry and exclaim:
+
+"It's a shame, monsieur, a shame.  You are spoiling this child.  But it
+will have to stop; yes, sir, I tell you it will have to stop, and before
+long, too."
+
+M. Lemonnier would answer, smiling:
+
+"What can you expect?  I love him too much, I can't resist him; you must
+get used to it."
+
+Jean was delicate, rather.  The doctor said that he was anaemic,
+prescribed iron, rare meat and broth.
+
+But the little fellow loved only cake and refused all other nourishment;
+and the father, in despair, stuffed him with cream-puffs and chocolate
+eclairs.
+
+One evening, as they were sitting down to supper, Celeste brought on the
+soup with an air of authority and an assurance which she did not usually
+have.  She took off the cover and, dipping the ladle into the dish, she
+declared:
+
+"Here is some broth such as I have never made; the young one will have to
+take some this time."
+
+M. Lemonnier, frightened, bent his head.  He saw a storm brewing.
+
+Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.
+
+He tasted the soup and said:
+
+"It is, indeed, excellent."
+
+The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it.
+Then she retreated a few steps and waited.
+
+Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of
+disgust.  Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly
+poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.
+
+He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and threw
+it at his nurse.  She received it full in the stomach.  Then,
+exasperated, she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began
+pouring spoonful after spoonful of soup down his throat.  He grew as red
+as a beet, and he would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking, beating
+the air with his hands.
+
+At first the father was so surprised that he could not move.  Then,
+suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the
+throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:
+
+"Out! Out! Out! you brute!"
+
+But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes
+snapping, she cried out:
+
+"What's gettin' hold of you?  You're trying to thrash me because I am
+making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!"
+
+He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:
+
+"Out! Get out-get out, you brute!"
+
+Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her
+voice trembling:
+
+"Ah!--you think-you think that you can treat me like that?  Oh! no.  And
+for whom?--for that brat who is not even yours.  No, not yours!  No, not
+yours--not yours!  Everybody knows it, except yourself!  Ask the grocer,
+the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!"
+
+She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and
+looked at him.
+
+He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides.  After a short
+pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling:
+
+"You say? you say?  What do you say?"
+
+She remained silent, frightened by his appearance.  Once more he stepped
+forward, repeating:
+
+"You say--what do you say?"
+
+Then in a calm voice, she answered:
+
+"I say what I know, what everybody knows."
+
+He seized her and, with the fury of a beast, he tried to throw her down.
+But, although old, she was strong and nimble.  She slipped under his arm,
+and running around the table once more furious, she screamed:
+
+"Look at him, just look at him, fool that you are!  Isn't he the living
+image of M. Durefour? just look at his nose and his eyes!  Are yours like
+that?  And his hair!  Is it like his mother's?  I tell you that everyone
+knows it, everyone except yourself!  It's the joke of the town!  Look at
+him!"
+
+She went to the door, opened it, and disappeared.
+
+Jean, frightened, sat motionless before his plate of soup.
+
+At the end of an hour, she returned gently, to see how matters stood.
+The child, after doing away with all the cakes and a pitcher full of
+cream and one of syrup, was now emptying the jam-pot with his soup-spoon.
+
+The father had gone out.
+
+Celeste took the child, kissed him, and gently carried him to his room
+and put him to bed.  She came back to the dining-room, cleared the table,
+put everything in place, feeling very uneasy all the time.
+
+Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house.  She put her ear
+against's her master's door.  He seemed to be perfectly still.  She put
+her eye to the keyhole.  He was writing, and seemed very calm.
+
+Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down, ready for any emergency.
+She slept on a chair and awoke at daylight.
+
+She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she swept
+and dusted, and, towards eight o'clock, prepared M. Lemonnier's
+breakfast.
+
+But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she
+would be received; she waited for him to ring.  But he did not ring.
+Nine o'clock, then ten o'clock went by.
+
+Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up with
+it, her heart beating fast.
+
+She stopped before the door and listened.  Everything was still.  She
+knocked; no answer.  Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the
+door and entered.  With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray
+which she had been holding in her hand.
+
+In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a ring
+in the ceiling.  His tongue was sticking out horribly.  His right slipper
+was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot.  An upturned
+chair had rolled over to the bed.
+
+Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking.  All the neighbors crowded together.
+The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.
+
+A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.
+It contained these words:
+
+"I leave and entrust the child to you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+
+For five months they had been talking of going to take luncheon in one of
+the country suburbs of Paris on Madame Dufour's birthday, and as they
+were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they rose very early
+that morning.  Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman's wagon and drove
+himself.  It was a very tidy, two-wheeled conveyance, with a cover
+supported by four iron rods, with curtains that had been drawn up, except
+the one at the back, which floated out like a sail.  Madame Dufour,
+resplendent in a wonderful, cherry colored silk dress, sat by the side of
+her husband.
+
+The old grandmother and a girl sat behind them on two chairs, and a boy
+with yellow hair was lying at the bottom of the wagon, with nothing to be
+seen of him except his head.
+
+When they reached the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: "Here we
+are in the country at last!" and at that signal his wife grew sentimental
+about the beauties of nature.  When they got to the crossroads at
+Courbevoie they were seized with admiration for the distant landscape.
+On the right was Argenteuil with its bell tower, and above it rose the
+hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on the left the aqueduct
+of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky, and in the distance
+they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain; and opposite them, at the
+end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of Cormeilles.  Quite in the
+distance; a very long way off, beyond the plains and village, one could
+see the sombre green of the forests.
+
+The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes,
+and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of
+bare, ugly country with an unpleasant odor.  One might have thought that
+it had been ravaged by a pestilence, which had even attacked the
+buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small
+cottages, which were left in an unfinished state, because the contractors
+had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each side.
+
+Here and there tall factory chimneys rose up from the barren soil.  The
+only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted an
+odor of petroleum and slate, blended with another odor that was even less
+agreeable.  At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time, and
+the bridge was a delight.  The river sparkled in the sun, and they had a
+feeling of quiet enjoyment, felt refreshed as they drank in the purer air
+that was not impregnated by the black smoke of factories nor by the
+miasma from the deposits of night soil.  A man whom they met told them
+that the name of the place was Bezons.  Monsieur Dufour pulled up and
+read the attractive announcement outside an eating house: Restaurant
+Poulin, matelottes and fried fish, private rooms, arbors, and swings.
+
+"Well, Madame Dufour, will this suit you?  Will you make up your mind at
+last?"
+
+She read the announcement in her turn and then looked at the house for
+some time.
+
+It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open
+door she could see the bright zinc of the counter, at which sat two
+workmen in their Sunday clothes.  At last she made up her mind and said:
+
+"Yes, this will do; and, besides, there is a view."
+
+They drove into a large field behind the inn, separated from the river by
+the towing path, and dismounted.  The husband sprang out first and then
+held out his arms for his wife, and as the step was very high Madame
+Dufour, in order to reach him, had to show the lower part of her limbs,
+whose former slenderness had disappeared in fat, and Monsieur Dufour, who
+was already getting excited by the country air, pinched her calf, and
+then, taking her in his arms, he set her on the ground, as if she had
+been some enormous bundle.  She shook the dust out of the silk dress and
+then looked round to see in what sort of a place she was.
+
+She was a stout woman, of about thirty-six, full-blown, and delightful to
+look at.  She could hardly breathe, as her corsets were laced too
+tightly, and their pressure forced her superabundant bosom up to her
+double chin.  Next the girl placed her hand on her father's shoulder and
+jumped down lightly.  The boy with the yellow hair had got down by
+stepping on the wheel, and he helped Monsieur Dufour to lift his
+grandmother out.  Then they unharnessed the horse, which they had tied to
+a tree, and the carriage fell back, with both shafts in the air.  The men
+took off their coats and washed their hands in a pail of water and then
+went and joined the ladies, who had already taken possession of the
+swings.
+
+Mademoiselle Dufour was trying to swing herself standing up, but she
+could not succeed in getting a start.  She was a pretty girl of about
+eighteen, one of those women who suddenly excite your desire when you
+meet them in the street and who leave you with a vague feeling of
+uneasiness and of excited senses.  She was tall, had a small waist and
+large hips, with a dark skin, very large eyes and very black hair.  Her
+dress clearly marked the outlines of her firm, full figure, which was
+accentuated by the motion of her hips as she tried to swing herself
+higher.  Her arms were stretched upward to hold the rope, so that her
+bosom rose at every movement she made.  Her hat, which a gust of wind had
+blown off, was hanging behind her, and as the swing gradually rose higher
+and higher, she showed her delicate limbs up to the knees each time, and
+the breeze from her flying skirts, which was more heady than the fumes of
+wine, blew into the faces of the two men, who were looking at her and
+smiling.
+
+Sitting in the other swing, Madame Dufour kept saying in a monotonous
+voice:
+
+"Cyprian, come and swing me; do come and swing me, Cyprian!"
+
+At last he went, and turning up his shirt sleeves, as if undertaking a
+hard piece of work, with much difficulty he set his wife in motion.  She
+clutched the two ropes and held her legs out straight, so as not to touch
+the ground.  She enjoyed feeling dizzy at the motion of the swing, and
+her whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went higher and
+higher; she became too giddy and was frightened.  Each time the swing
+came down she uttered a piercing scream, which made all the little
+urchins in the neighborhood come round, and down below, beneath the
+garden hedge, she vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads making various
+grimaces as they laughed.
+
+When a servant girl came out they ordered luncheon.
+
+"Some fried fish, a rabbit saute, salad and dessert," Madame Dufour said,
+with an important air.
+
+"Bring two quarts of beer and a bottle of claret," her husband said.
+
+"We will have lunch on the grass," the girl added.
+
+The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after
+one that belonged to the house, trying to coax it to come to her for the
+last ten minutes.  The animal, who was no doubt secretly flattered by her
+attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of her
+hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed
+herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.
+
+"Hello!" suddenly exclaimed the young man with the yellow hair, who was
+wandering about.  "Here are two swell boats!"  They all went to look at
+them and saw two beautiful canoes in a wooden shed; they were as
+beautifully finished as if they had been ornamental furniture.  They hung
+side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining
+length, and made one wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and
+evenings along the flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees dip
+their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually rustling
+in the breeze and where the swift kingfishers dart about like flashes of
+blue lightning.
+
+The whole family looked at them with great respect.
+
+"Oh, they are indeed swell boats!"  Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, as
+he examined them like a connoiseur.  He had been in the habit of rowing
+in his younger days, he said, and when he had spat in his hands--and he
+went through the action of pulling the oars--he did not care a fig for
+anybody.  He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the
+Joinville regattas.  He grew quite excited at last and offered to make a
+bet that in a boat like that he could row six leagues an hour without
+exerting himself.
+
+"Luncheon is ready," the waitress said, appearing at the entrance to the
+boathouse, and they all hurried off.  But two young men had taken the
+very seats that Madame Dufour had selected and were eating their
+luncheon.  No doubt they were the owners of the sculls, for they were in
+boating costume.  They were stretched out, almost lying on the chairs;
+they were sun-browned and their thin cotton jerseys, with short sleeves,
+showed their bare arms, which were as strong as a blacksmith's.  They
+were two strong, athletic fellows, who showed in all their movements that
+elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise and
+which is so different to the deformity with which monotonous heavy work
+stamps the mechanic.
+
+They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother and then a glance
+on seeing the daughter.
+
+"Let us give up our place," one of them said; "it will make us acquainted
+with them."
+
+The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating cap
+in his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in the
+garden.  With many excuses they accepted, and that it might be more
+rural, they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.
+
+The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a
+little way off and began to eat again, and their bare arms, which they
+showed continually, rather embarrassed the girl.  She even pretended to
+turn her head aside and not to see them, while Madame Dufour, who was
+rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every
+moment, and, no doubt, compared them with the secret unsightliness of her
+husband.  She had squatted herself on ground, with her legs tucked under
+her, after the manner of tailors, and she kept moving about restlessly,
+saying that ants were crawling about her somewhere.  Monsieur Dufour,
+annoyed at the presence of the polite strangers, was trying to find a
+comfortable position which he did not, however, succeed in doing, and the
+young man with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an ogre.
+
+"It is lovely weather, monsieur," the stout lady said to one of the
+boating men.  She wished to be friendly because they had given up their
+place.
+
+"It is, indeed, madame," he replied.  "Do you often go into the country?"
+
+"Oh, only once or twice a year to get a little fresh air.  And you,
+monsieur?"
+
+"I come and sleep here every night."
+
+"Oh, that must be very nice!"
+
+"Certainly it is, madame."  And he gave them such a practical account of
+his daily life that it awakened afresh in the hearts of these shopkeepers
+who were deprived of the meadows and who longed for country walks, to
+that foolish love of nature which they all feel so strongly the whole
+year round behind the counter in their shop.
+
+The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion and
+Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.
+
+"It is indeed a happy life," he said.  And then he added: "A little more
+rabbit, my dear?"
+
+"No, thank you," she replied, and turning to the young men again, and
+pointing to their arms, asked: "Do you never feel cold like that?"
+
+They both began to laugh, and they astonished the family with an account
+of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of their bathing while in a
+state of tremendous perspiration, of their rowing in the fog at night;
+and they struck their chests violently to show how hollow they sounded.
+
+"Ah!  You look very strong," said the husband, who did not talk any more
+of the time when he used to beat the English.  The girl was looking at
+them sideways now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, who had
+swallowed some wine the wrong way, was coughing violently and
+bespattering Madame Dufour's cherry-colored silk dress.  She got angry
+and sent for some water to wash the spots.
+
+Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like a
+blaze of fire and the fumes of the wine were getting into their heads.
+Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccough, had unbuttoned his waistcoat
+and the top button of his trousers, while his wife, who felt choking, was
+gradually unfastening her dress.  The apprentice was shaking his yellow
+wig in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to wine, and the
+old grandmother, feeling the effects of the wine, was very stiff and
+dignified.  As for the girl, one noticed only a peculiar brightness in
+her eyes, while the brown cheeks became more rosy.
+
+The coffee finished, they suggested singing, and each of them sang or
+repeated a couplet, which the others applauded frantically.  Then they
+got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather
+dizzy, were trying to get a breath of air, the two men, who were
+altogether drunk, were attempting gymnastics.  Heavy, limp and with
+scarlet faces they hung or, awkwardly to the iron rings, without being
+able to raise themselves.
+
+Meanwhile the two boating men had got their boats into the water, and
+they came back and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a
+row.
+
+"Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?" his wife exclaimed.  "Please
+come!"
+
+He merely gave her a drunken nod, without understanding what she said.
+Then one of the rowers came up with two fishing rods in his hands, and
+the hope of catching a gudgeon, that great vision of the Parisian
+shopkeeper, made Dufour's dull eyes gleam, and he politely allowed them
+to do whatever they liked, while he sat in the shade under the bridge,
+with his feet dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with
+the yellow hair, who was sleeping soundly.
+
+One of the boating men made a martyr of himself and took the mother.
+
+"Let us go to the little wood on the Ile aux Anglais!" he called out as
+he rowed off.  The other boat went more slowly, for the rower was looking
+at his companion so intently that by thought of nothing else, and his
+emotion seemed to paralyze his strength, while the girl, who was sitting
+in the bow, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water.  She
+felt a disinclination to think, a lassitude in her limbs and a total
+enervation, as if she were intoxicated, and her face was flushed and her
+breathing quickened.  The effects of the wine, which were increased by
+the extreme heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow as she
+passed.  A vague wish for enjoyment and a fermentation of her blood
+seemed to pervade her whole body, which was excited by the heat of the
+day, and she was also disturbed at this tete-a-tete on the water, in a
+place which seemed depopulated by the heat, with this young man who
+thought her pretty, whose ardent looks seemed to caress her skin and were
+as penetrating and pervading as the sun's rays.
+
+Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about
+them.  At last, however, he made an effort and asked her name.
+
+"Henriette," she said.
+
+"Why, my name is Henri," he replied.  The sound of their voices had
+calmed them, and they looked at the banks.  The other boat had passed
+them and seemed to be waiting for them, and the rower called out:
+
+"We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson's, because
+Madame Dufour is thirsty."  Then he bent over his oars again and rowed
+off so quickly that he was soon out of sight.
+
+Meanwhile a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came
+nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise were
+rising from its depths.
+
+"What is that noise?" she asked.  It was the noise of the weir which cut
+the river in two at the island, and he was explaining it to her, when,
+above the noise of the waterfall, they heard the song of a bird, which
+seemed a long way off.
+
+"Listen!" he said; "the nightingales are singing during the day, so the
+female birds must be sitting."
+
+A nightingale!  She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening
+to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart.  A nightingale!
+That is to say, the invisible witness of her love trysts which Juliet
+invoked on her balcony; that celestial music which it attuned to human
+kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which open
+an ideal sky to all the poor little tender hearts of sensitive girls!
+
+She was going to hear a nightingale.
+
+"We must not make a noise," her companion said, "and then we can go into
+the wood, and sit down close beside it."
+
+The boat seemed to glide.  They saw the trees on the island, the banks of
+which were so low that they could look into the depths of the thickets.
+They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of Henri's arm,
+and they went beneath the trees.
+
+"Stoop," he said, so she stooped down, and they went into an inextricable
+thicket of creepers, leaves and reed grass, which formed an
+undiscoverable retreat, and which the young man laughingly called "his
+private room."
+
+Just above their heads, perched in one of the trees which hid them, the
+bird was still singing.  He uttered trills and roulades, and then loud,
+vibrating notes that filled the air and seemed to lose themselves on the
+horizon, across the level country, through that burning silence which
+weighed upon the whole landscape.  They did not speak for fear of
+frightening it away.  They were sitting close together, and, slowly,
+Henri's arm stole round the girl's waist and squeezed it gently.  She
+took that daring hand without any anger, and kept removing it whenever he
+put it round her; without, however, feeling at all embarrassed by this
+caress, just as if it had been something quite natural, which she was
+resisting just as naturally.
+
+She was listening to the bird in ecstasy.  She felt an infinite longing
+for happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the
+revelation of superhuman poetry, and she felt such a softening at her
+heart, and relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without
+knowing why.  The young man was now straining her close to him, yet she
+did not remove his arm; she did not think of it.  Suddenly the
+nightingale stopped, and a voice called out in the distance:
+
+"Henriette!"
+
+"Do not reply," he said in a low voice; "you will drive the bird away."
+
+But she had no idea of doing so, and they remained in the same position
+for some time.  Madame Dufour had sat down somewhere or other, for from
+time to time they heard the stout lady break out into little bursts of
+laughter.
+
+The girl was still crying; she was filled with strange sensations.
+Henri's head was on her shoulder, and suddenly he kissed her on the lips.
+She was surprised and angry, and, to avoid him, she stood up.
+
+They were both very pale when they left their grassy retreat.  The blue
+sky appeared to them clouded and the ardent sun darkened; and they felt
+tile solitude and the silence.  They walked rapidly, side by side,
+without speaking or touching each other, for they seemed to have become
+irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust and hatred had arisen between them,
+and from time to time Henriette called out: "Mamma!"
+
+By and by they heard a noise behind a bush, and the stout lady appeared,
+looking rather confused, and her companion's face was wrinkled with
+smiles which he could not check.
+
+Madame Dufour took his arm, and they returned to the boats, and Henri,
+who was ahead, walked in silence beside the young girl.  At last they got
+back to Bezons.  Monsieur Dufour, who was now sober, was waiting for them
+very impatiently, while the young man with the yellow hair was having a
+mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn.  The carriage was
+waiting in the yard, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was
+very frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night before they
+reached Paris, as the outskirts were not safe.
+
+They all shook bands, and the Dufour family drove off.
+
+"Good-by, until we meet again!" the oarsmen cried, and the answer they
+got was a sigh and a tear.
+
+
+Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw
+Dufour, Ironmonger, over a door, and so he went in, and saw the stout
+lady sitting at the counter.  They recognized each other immediately, and
+after an interchange of polite greetings, he asked after them all.
+
+"And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?" he inquired specially.
+
+"Very well, thank you; she is married."
+
+"Ah!"  He felt a certain emotion, but said: "Whom did she marry?"
+
+"That young man who accompanied us, you know; he has joined us in
+business."
+
+"I remember him perfectly."
+
+He was going out, feeling very unhappy, though scarcely knowing why, when
+madame called him back.
+
+"And how is your friend?" she asked rather shyly.
+
+"He is very well, thank you."
+
+"Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call, when he
+is in the neighborhood."
+
+She then added: "Tell him it will give me great pleasure."
+
+"I will be sure to do so.  Adieu!"
+
+"Do not say that; come again very soon."
+
+The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that adventure,
+which Henri had never forgotten, suddenly came back to him so clearly
+that he returned alone to their room in the wood, and was overwhelmed
+with astonishment when he went in.  She was sitting on the grass, looking
+very sad, while by her side, still in his shirt sleeves, the young man
+with the yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some animal.
+
+She grew so pale when she saw Henri that at first he thought she was
+going to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally.
+But when he told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there
+frequently on Sundays to indulge in memories, she looked into his eyes
+for a long time.
+
+"I too, think of it," she replied.
+
+"Come, my dear," her husband said, with a yawn.  "I think it is time for
+us to be going."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ROSE
+
+The two young women appear to be buried under a blanket of flowers.  They
+are alone in the immense landau, which is filled with flowers like a
+giant basket.  On the front seat are two small hampers of white satin
+filled with violets, and on the bearskin by which their knees are covered
+there is a mass of roses, mimosas, pinks, daisies, tuberoses and orange
+blossoms, interwoven with silk ribbons; the two frail bodies seem buried
+under this beautiful perfumed bed, which hides everything but the
+shoulders and arms and a little of the dainty waists.
+
+The coachman's whip is wound with a garland of anemones, the horses'
+traces are dotted with carnations, the spokes of the wheels are clothed
+in mignonette, and where the lanterns ought to be are two enormous round
+bouquets which look as though they were the eyes of this strange,
+rolling, flower-bedecked creature.
+
+The landau drives rapidly along the road, through the Rue d'Antibes,
+preceded, followed, accompanied, by a crowd of other carriages covered
+with flowers, full of women almost hidden by a sea of violets.  It is the
+flower carnival at Cannes.
+
+The carriage reaches the Boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle is
+waged.  All along the immense avenue a double row of flower-bedecked
+vehicles are going and coming like an endless ribbon.  Flowers are thrown
+from one to the other.  They pass through the air like balls, striking
+fresh faces, bouncing and falling into the dust, where an army of
+youngsters pick them up.
+
+A thick crowd is standing on the sidewalks looking on and held in check
+by the mounted police, who pass brutally along pushing back the curious
+pedestrians as though to prevent the common people from mingling with the
+rich.
+
+In the carriages, people call to each other, recognize each other and
+bombard each other with roses.  A chariot full of pretty women, dressed
+in red, like devils, attracts the eyes of all.  A gentleman, who looks
+like the portraits of Henry IV., is throwing an immense bouquet which is
+held back by an elastic.  Fearing the shock, the women hide their eyes
+and the men lower their heads, but the graceful, rapid and obedient
+missile describes a curve and returns to its master, who immediately
+throws it at some new face.
+
+The two young women begin to throw their stock of flowers by handfuls,
+and receive a perfect hail of bouquets; then, after an hour of warfare,
+a little tired, they tell the coachman to drive along the road which
+follows the seashore.
+
+The sun disappears behind Esterel, outlining the dark, rugged mountain
+against the sunset sky.  The clear blue sea, as calm as a mill-pond,
+stretches out as far as the horizon, where it blends with the sky; and
+the fleet, anchored in the middle of the bay, looks like a herd of
+enormous beasts, motionless on the water, apocalyptic animals, armored
+and hump-backed, their frail masts looking like feathers, and with eyes
+which light up when evening approaches.
+
+The two young women, leaning back under the heavy robes, look out lazily
+over the blue expanse of water.  At last one of them says:
+
+"How delightful the evenings are!  How good everything seems!  Don't you
+think so, Margot?"
+
+"Yes, it is good.  But there is always something lacking."
+
+"What is lacking?  I feel perfectly happy.  I don't need anything else."
+
+"Yes, you do.  You are not thinking of it.  No matter how contented we
+may be, physically, we always long for something more--for the heart."
+
+The other asked with a smile:
+
+"A little love?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They stopped talking, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon, then
+the one called Marguerite murmured: "Life without that seems to me
+unbearable.  I need to be loved, if only by a dog.  But we are all alike,
+no matter what you may say, Simone."
+
+"Not at all, my dear.  I had rather not be loved at all than to be loved
+by the first comer.  Do you think, for instance, that it would be
+pleasant to be loved by--by--"
+
+She was thinking by whom she might possibly be loved, glancing across the
+wide landscape.  Her eyes, after traveling around the horizon, fell on
+the two bright buttons which were shining on the back of the coachman's
+livery, and she continued, laughing: "by my coachman?"
+
+Madame Margot barely smiled, and said in a low tone of voice:
+
+"I assure you that it is very amusing to be loved by a servant.  It has
+happened to me two or three times.  They roll their eyes in such a funny
+manner--it's enough to make you die laughing!  Naturally, the more in
+love they are, the more severe one must be with them, and then, some day,
+for some reason, you dismiss them, because, if anyone should notice it,
+you would appear so ridiculous."
+
+Madame Simone was listening, staring straight ahead of her, then she
+remarked:
+
+"No, I'm afraid that my footman's heart would not satisfy me.  Tell me
+how you noticed that they loved you."
+
+"I noticed it the same way that I do with other men--when they get
+stupid."
+
+"The others don't seem stupid to me, when they love me."
+
+"They are idiots, my dear, unable to talk, to answer, to understand
+anything."
+
+"But how did you feel when you were loved by a servant?  Were you--moved
+--flattered?"
+
+"Moved?  no, flattered--yes a little.  One is always flattered to be
+loved by a man, no matter who he may be."
+
+"Oh, Margot!"
+
+"Yes, indeed, my dear!  For instance, I will tell you of a peculiar
+incident which happened to me.  You will see how curious and complex our
+emotions are, in such cases.
+
+"About four years ago I happened to be without a maid.  I had tried five
+or six, one right after the other, and I was about ready to give up in
+despair, when I saw an advertisement in a newspaper of a young girl
+knowing how to cook, embroider, dress hair, who was looking for a
+position and who could furnish the best of references.  Besides all these
+accomplishments, she could speak English.
+
+"I wrote to the given address, and the next day the person in question
+presented herself.  She was tall, slender, pale, shy-looking.  She had
+beautiful black eyes and a charming complexion; she pleased me
+immediately.  I asked for her certificates; she gave me one in English,
+for she came, as she said, from Lady Rymwell's, where she had been for
+ten years.
+
+"The certificate showed that the young girl had left of her own free
+will, in order to return to France, and the only thing which they had had
+to find fault in her during her long period of service was a little
+French coquettishness.
+
+"This prudish English phrase even made me smile, and I immediately
+engaged this maid.
+
+"She came to me the same day.  Her name was Rose.
+
+"At the end of a month I would have been helpless without her.  She was a
+treasure, a pearl, a phenomenon.
+
+"She could dress my hair with infinite taste; she could trim a hat better
+than most milliners, and she could even make my dresses.
+
+"I was astonished at her accomplishments.  I had never before been waited
+on in such a manner.
+
+"She dressed me rapidly and with a surprisingly light touch.  I never
+felt her fingers on my skin, and nothing is so disagreeable to me as
+contact with a servant's hand.  I soon became excessively lazy; it was so
+pleasant to be dressed from head to foot, and from lingerie to gloves, by
+this tall, timid girl, always blushing a little, and never saying a word.
+After my bath she would rub and massage me while I dozed a little on my
+couch; I almost considered her more of a friend than a servant.
+
+"One morning the janitor asked, mysteriously, to speak to me.  I was
+surprised, and told him to come in.  He was a good, faithful man, an old
+soldier, one of my husband's former orderlies.
+
+"He seemed to be embarrassed by what he had to say to me.  At last he
+managed to mumble:
+
+"'Madame, the superintendent of police is downstairs.'
+
+"I asked quickly:
+
+"'What does he wish?'
+
+"'He wishes to search the house.'
+
+"Of course the police are useful, but I hate them.  I do not think that
+it is a noble profession.  I answered, angered and hurt:
+
+"'Why this search?  For what reason?  He shall not come in.'
+
+"The janitor continued:
+
+"'He says that there is a criminal hidden in the house.'
+
+"This time I was frightened and I told him to bring the inspector to me,
+so that I might get some explanation.  He was a man with good manners and
+decorated with the Legion of Honor.  He begged my pardon for disturbing
+me, and then informed me that I had, among my domestics, a convict.
+
+"I was shocked; and I answered that I could guarantee every servant in
+the house, and I began to enumerate them.
+
+"'The janitor, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.'
+
+"'It's not he.'
+
+"'A stable-boy, son of farmers whom I know, and a groom whom you have
+just seen.'
+
+"'It's not he.'
+
+"'Then, monsieur, you see that you must be mistaken.'
+
+"'Excuse me, madame, but I am positive that I am not making a mistake.
+
+As the conviction of a notable criminal is at stake, would you be so kind
+as to send for all your servants?"
+
+"At first I refused, but I finally gave in, and sent downstairs for
+everybody, men and women.
+
+"The inspector glanced at them and then declared:
+
+"'This isn't all.'
+
+"'Excuse me, monsieur, there is no one left but my maid, a young girl
+whom you could not possibly mistake for a convict.'
+
+"He asked:
+
+"'May I also see her?'
+
+"'Certainly.'
+
+"I rang for Rose, who immediately appeared.  She had hardly entered the
+room, when the inspector made a motion, and two men whom I had not seen,
+hidden behind the door, sprang forward, seized her and tied her hands
+behind her back.
+
+"I cried out in anger and tried to rush forward to defend her.  The
+inspector stopped me:
+
+"'This girl, madame, is a man whose name is Jean Nicolas Lecapet,
+condemned to death in 1879 for assaulting a woman and injuring her so
+that death resulted.  His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.
+He escaped four months ago.  We have been looking for him ever since.'
+
+"I was terrified, bewildered.  I did not believe him.  The commissioner
+continued, laughing:
+
+"'I can prove it to you.  His right arm is tattooed.'
+
+"'The sleeve was rolled up.  It was true.  The inspector added, with bad
+taste:
+
+"'You can trust us for the other proofs.'
+
+"And they led my maid away!
+
+"Well, would you believe me, the thing that moved me most was not anger
+at having thus been played upon, deceived and made ridiculous, it was not
+the shame of having thus been dressed and undressed, handled and touched
+by this man--but a deep humiliation--a woman's humiliation.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+"I am afraid I don't."
+
+"Just think--this man had been condemned for--for assaulting a woman.
+Well!  I thought of the one whom he had assaulted--and--and I felt
+humiliated--There!  Do you understand now?"
+
+Madame Margot did not answer.  She was looking straight ahead, her eyes
+fastened on the two shining buttons of the livery, with that sphinx-like
+smile which women sometimes have.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ROSALIE PRUDENT
+
+There was a real mystery in this affair which neither the jury, nor the
+president, nor the public prosecutor himself could understand.
+
+The girl Prudent (Rosalie), servant at the Varambots', of Nantes, having
+become enceinte without the knowledge of her masters, had, during the
+night, killed and buried her child in the garden.
+
+It was the usual story of the infanticides committed by servant girls.
+But there was one inexplicable circumstance about this one.  When the
+police searched the girl Prudent's room they discovered a complete
+infant's outfit, made by Rosalie herself, who had spent her nights for
+the last three months in cutting and sewing it.  The grocer from whom she
+had bought her candles, out of her own wages, for this long piece of work
+had come to testify.  It came out, moreover, that the sage-femme of the
+district, informed by Rosalie of her condition, had given her all
+necessary instructions and counsel in case the event should happen at a
+time when it might not be possible to get help.  She had also procured a
+place at Poissy for the girl Prudent, who foresaw that her present
+employers would discharge her, for the Varambot couple did not trifle
+with morality.
+
+There were present at the trial both the man and the woman, a middle-
+class pair from the provinces, living on their income.  They were so
+exasperated against this girl, who had sullied their house, that they
+would have liked to see her guillotined on the spot without a trial.
+The spiteful depositions they made against her became accusations in
+their mouths.
+
+The defendant, a large, handsome girl of Lower Normandy, well educated
+for her station in life, wept continuously and would not answer to
+anything.
+
+The court and the spectators were forced to the opinion that she had
+committed this barbarous act in a moment of despair and madness, since
+there was every indication that she had expected to keep and bring up her
+child.
+
+The president tried for the last time to make her speak, to get some
+confession, and, having urged her with much gentleness, he finally made
+her understand that all these men gathered here to pass judgment upon her
+were not anxious for her death and might even have pity on her.
+
+Then she made up her mind to speak.
+
+"Come, now, tell us, first, who is the father of this child?" he asked.
+
+Until then she had obstinately refused to give his name.
+
+But she replied suddenly, looking at her masters who had so cruelly
+calumniated her:
+
+"It is Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot's nephew."
+
+The couple started in their seats and cried with one voice-- "That's not
+true!  She lies!  This is infamous!"
+
+The president had them silenced and continued "Go on, please, and tell us
+how it all happened."
+
+Then she suddenly began to talk freely, relieving her pent-up heart, that
+poor, solitary, crushed heart--laying bare her sorrow, her whole sorrow,
+before those severe men whom she had until now taken for enemies and
+inflexible judges.
+
+"Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year."
+
+"What does Mr. Joseph Varambot do?"
+
+"He is a non-commissioned officer in the artillery, monsieur.  Well, he
+stayed two months at the house, two months of the summer.  I thought
+nothing about it when he began to look at me, and then flatter me, and
+make love to me all day long.  And I let myself be taken in, monsieur.
+He kept saying to me that I was a handsome girl, that I was good company,
+that I just suited him--and I, I liked him well enough.  What could I do?
+One listens to these things when one is alone--all alone--as I was.  I am
+alone in the world, monsieur.  I have no one to talk to--no one to tell
+my troubles to.  I have no father, no mother, no brother, no sister,
+nobody.  And when he began to talk to me it was as if I had a brother who
+had come back.  And then he asked me to go with him to the river one
+evening, so that we might talk without disturbing any one.  I went--I
+don't know--I don't know how it happened.  He had his arm around me.
+Really I didn't want to--no--no-- I could not--I felt like crying, the
+air was so soft--the moon was shining.  No, I swear to you--I could not--
+he did what he wanted.  That went on three weeks, as long as he stayed.
+I could have followed him to the ends of the world.  He went away.  I did
+not know that I was enceinte.  I did not know it until the month after--"
+
+She began to cry so bitterly that they had to give her time to collect
+herself.
+
+Then the president resumed with the tone of a priest at the confessional:
+"Come, now, go on."
+
+She began to talk again: "When I realized my condition I went to see
+Madame Boudin, who is there to tell you, and I asked her how it would be,
+in case it should come if she were not there.  Then I made the outfit,
+sewing night after night, every evening until one o'clock in the morning;
+and then I looked for another place, for I knew very well that I should
+be sent away, but I wanted to stay in the house until the very last, so
+as to save my pennies, for I have not got very much and I should need my
+money for the little one."
+
+"Then you did not intend to kill him?"
+
+"Oh, certainly not, monsieur!"
+
+"Why did you kill him, then?"
+
+"It happened this way.  It came sooner than I expected.  It came upon me
+in the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes.  Monsieur and Madame
+Varambot were already asleep, so I went up, not without difficulty,
+dragging myself up by the banister, and I lay down on the bare floor.
+It lasted perhaps one hour, or two, or three; I don't know, I had such
+pain; and then I pushed him out with all my strength.  I felt that he
+came out and I picked him up.
+
+"Ah!  but I was glad, I assure you!  I did all that Madame Boudin told me
+to do.  And then I laid him on my bed.  And then such a pain griped me
+again that I thought I should die.  If you knew what it meant, you there,
+you would not do so much of this.  I fell on my knees, and then toppled
+over backward on the floor; and it griped me again, perhaps one hour,
+perhaps two.  I lay there all alone--and then another one comes--another
+little one--two, yes, two, like this.  I took him up as I did the first
+one, and then I put him on the bed, the two side by side.  Is it
+possible, tell me, two children, and I who get only twenty francs a
+month?  Say, is it possible?  One, yes, that can be managed by going
+without things, but not two.  That turned my head.  What do I know about
+it?  Had I any choice, tell me?
+
+"What could I do?  I felt as if my last hour had come.  I put the pillow
+over them, without knowing why.  I could not keep them both; and then I
+threw myself down, and I lay there, rolling over and over and crying
+until I saw the daylight come into the window.  Both of them were quite
+dead under the pillow.  Then I took them under my arms and went down the
+stairs out in the vegetable garden.  I took the gardener's spade and I
+buried them under the earth, digging as deep a hole as I could, one here
+and the other one there, not together, so that they might not talk of
+their mother if these little dead bodies can talk.  What do I know about
+it?
+
+"And then, back in my bed, I felt so sick that I could not get up.  They
+sent for the doctor and he understood it all.  I'm telling you the truth,
+Your Honor.  Do what you like with me; I'm ready."
+
+Half of the jury were blowing their noses violently to keep from crying.
+The women in the courtroom were sobbing.
+
+The president asked her:
+
+"Where did you bury the other one?"
+
+"The one that you have?" she asked.
+
+"Why, this one--this one was in the artichokes."
+
+"Oh, then the other one is among the strawberries, by the well."
+
+And she began to sob so piteously that no one could hear her unmoved.
+
+The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+REGRET
+
+Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes "Father Saval," had just risen
+from bed.  He was weeping.  It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were
+falling.  They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain.
+M. Saval was not in good spirits.  He walked from the fireplace to the
+window, and from the window to the fireplace.  Life has its sombre days.
+It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached
+the age of sixty-two.  He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about
+him.  How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is
+devoted to you!
+
+He pondered over his life, so barren, so empty.  He recalled former days,
+the days of his childhood, the home, the house of his parents; his
+college days, his follies; the time he studied law in Paris, his father's
+illness, his death.  He then returned to live with his mother.  They
+lived together very quietly, and desired nothing more.  At last the
+mother died.  How sad life is!  He lived alone since then, and now, in
+his turn, he, too, will soon be dead.  He will disappear, and that will
+be the end.  There will be no more of Paul Saval upon the earth.  What a
+frightful thing!  Other people will love, will laugh.  Yes, people will
+go on amusing themselves, and he will no longer exist!  Is it not strange
+that people can laugh, amuse themselves, be joyful under that eternal
+certainty of death?  If this death were only probable, one could then
+have hope; but no, it is inevitable, as inevitable as that night follows
+the day.
+
+If, however, his life had been full!  If he had done something; if he had
+had adventures, great pleasures, success, satisfaction of some kind or
+another.  But no, nothing.  He had done nothing, nothing but rise from
+bed, eat, at the same hours, and go to bed again.  And he had gone on
+like that to the age of sixty-two years.  He had not even taken unto
+himself a wife, as other men do.  Why?  Yes, why was it that he had not
+married?  He might have done so, for he possessed considerable means.
+Had he lacked an opportunity?  Perhaps!  But one can create
+opportunities.  He was indifferent; that was all.  Indifference had been
+his greatest drawback, his defect, his vice.  How many men wreck their
+lives through indifference!  It is so difficult for some natures to get
+out of bed, to move about, to take long walks, to speak, to study any
+question.
+
+He had not even been loved.  No woman had reposed on his bosom, in a
+complete abandon of love.  He knew nothing of the delicious anguish of
+expectation, the divine vibration of a hand in yours, of the ecstasy of
+triumphant passion.
+
+What superhuman happiness must overflow your heart, when lips encounter
+lips for the first time, when the grasp of four arms makes one being of
+you, a being unutterably happy, two beings infatuated with one another.
+
+M. Saval was sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, in his
+dressing gown.  Assuredly his life had been spoiled, completely spoiled.
+He had, however, loved.  He had loved secretly, sadly, and indifferently,
+in a manner characteristic of him in everything.  Yes, he had loved his
+old friend, Madame Sandres, the wife of his old companion, Sandres.
+Ah! if he had known her as a young girl!  But he had met her too late;
+she was already married.  Unquestionably, he would have asked her hand!
+How he had loved her, nevertheless, without respite, since the first day
+he set eyes on her!
+
+He recalled his emotion every time he saw her, his grief on leaving her,
+the many nights that he could not sleep, because he was thinking of her.
+
+On rising in the morning he was somewhat more rational than on the
+previous evening.
+
+Why?
+
+How pretty she was formerly, so dainty, with fair curly hair, and always
+laughing.  Sandres was not the man she should have chosen.  She was now
+fifty-two years of age.  She seemed happy.  Ah! if she had only loved him
+in days gone by; yes, if she had only loved him!  And why should she not
+have loved him, he, Saval, seeing that he loved her so much, yes, she,
+Madame Sandres!
+
+If only she could have guessed.  Had she not guessed anything, seen
+anything, comprehended anything?  What would she have thought?  If he had
+spoken, what would she have answered?
+
+And Saval asked himself a thousand other things.  He reviewed his whole
+life, seeking to recall a multitude of details.
+
+He recalled all the long evenings spent at the house of Sandres, when the
+latter's wife was young, and so charming.
+
+He recalled many things that she had said to him, the intonations of her
+voice, the little significant smiles that meant so much.
+
+He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks of
+the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres was
+employed at the sub-prefecture.  And all at once the distinct
+recollection came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood
+on the banks of the river.
+
+They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets.
+It was a bright spring morning, one of those days which intoxicate one.
+Everything smells fresh, everything seems happy.  The voices of the birds
+sound more joyous, and-they fly more swiftly.  They had luncheon on the
+grass, under the willow trees, quite close to the water, which glittered
+in the sun's rays.  The air was balmy, charged with the odors of fresh
+vegetation; they drank it in with delight.  How pleasant everything was
+on that day!
+
+After lunch, Sandres went to sleep on the broad of his back.  "The best
+nap he had in his life," said he, when he woke up.
+
+Madame Sandres had taken the arm of Saval, and they started to walk along
+the river bank.
+
+She leaned tenderly on his arm.  She laughed and said to him: "I am
+intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated."  He looked at her, his
+heart going pit-a-pat.  He felt himself grow pale, fearful that he might
+have looked too boldly at her, and that the trembling of his hand had
+revealed his passion.
+
+She had made a wreath of wild flowers and water-lilies, and she asked
+him: "Do I look pretty like that?"
+
+As he did not answer--for he could find nothing to say, he would have
+liked to go down on his knees--she burst out laughing, a sort of annoyed,
+displeased laugh, as she said: "Great goose, what ails you?  You might at
+least say something."
+
+He felt like crying, but could not even yet find a word to say.
+
+All these things came back to him now, as vividly as on the day when they
+took place.  Why had she said this to him, "Great goose, what ails you?
+You might at least say something!"
+
+And he recalled how tenderly she had leaned on his arm.  And in passing
+under a shady tree he had felt her ear brushing his cheek, and he had
+moved his head abruptly, lest she should suppose he was too familiar.
+
+When he had said to her: "Is it not time to return?" she darted a
+singular look at him.  "Certainly," she said, "certainly," regarding him
+at the same time in a curious manner.  He had not thought of it at the
+time, but now the whole thing appeared to him quite plain.
+
+"Just as you like, my friend.  If you are tired let us go back."
+
+And he had answered: "I am not fatigued; but Sandres may be awake now."
+
+And she had said: "If you are afraid of my husband's being awake, that is
+another thing.  Let us return."
+
+On their way back she remained silent, and leaned no longer on his arm.
+Why?
+
+At that time it had never occurred to him, to ask himself "why."  Now he
+seemed to apprehend something that he had not then understood.
+
+Could it?
+
+M. Saval felt himself blush, and he got up at a bound, as if he were
+thirty years younger and had heard Madame Sandres say, "I love you."
+
+Was it possible?  That idea which had just entered his mind tortured him.
+Was it possible that he had not seen, had not guessed?
+
+Oh! if that were true, if he had let this opportunity of happiness pass
+without taking advantage of it!
+
+He said to himself : "I must know.  I cannot remain in this state of
+doubt.  I must know!" He thought: "I am sixty-two years of age, she is
+fifty-eight; I may ask her that now without giving offense."
+
+He started out.
+
+The Sandres' house was situated on the other side of the street, almost
+directly opposite his own.  He went across and knocked at the door, and a
+little servant opened it.
+
+"You here at this hour, Saval!  Has some accident happened to you?"
+
+"No, my girl," he replied; "but go and tell your mistress that I want to
+speak to her at once."
+
+"The fact is madame is preserving pears for the winter, and she is in the
+preserving room.  She is not dressed, you understand."
+
+"Yes, but go and tell her that I wish to see her on a very important
+matter."
+
+The little servant went away, and Saval began to walk, with long, nervous
+strides, up and down the drawing-room.  He did not feel in the least
+embarrassed, however.  Oh! he was merely going to ask her something, as
+he would have asked her about some cooking recipe.  He was sixty-two
+years of age!
+
+The door opened and madame appeared.  She was now a large woman, fat and
+round, with full cheeks and a sonorous laugh.  She walked with her arms
+away from her sides and her sleeves tucked up, her bare arms all covered
+with fruit juice.  She asked anxiously:
+
+"What is the matter with you, my friend?  You are not ill, are you?"
+
+"No, my dear friend; but I wish to ask you one thing, which to me is of
+the first importance, something which is torturing my heart, and I want
+you to promise that you will answer me frankly."
+
+She laughed, "I am always frank.  Say on."
+
+"Well, then.  I have loved you from the first day I ever saw you.  Can
+you have any doubt of this?"
+
+She responded, laughing, with something of her former tone of voice.
+
+"Great goose! what ails you?  I knew it from the very first day!"
+
+
+Saval began to tremble.  He stammered out: "You knew it?  Then .  .  ."
+
+He stopped.
+
+She asked:
+
+"Then?
+
+He answered:
+
+"Then--what did you think?  What--what--what would you have answered?"
+
+She broke into a peal of laughter.  Some of the juice ran off the tips of
+her fingers on to the carpet.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I?  Why, you did not ask me anything.  It was not for me to declare
+myself!"
+
+He then advanced a step toward her.
+
+"Tell me--tell me .  .  .  .  You remember the day when Sandres went to
+sleep on the grass after lunch .  .  .  when we had walked together as
+far as the bend of the river, below .  .  ."
+
+He waited, expectantly.  She had ceased to laugh, and looked at him,
+straight in the eyes.
+
+"Yes, certainly, I remember it."
+
+He answered, trembling all over:
+
+"Well--that day--if I had been--if I had been--venturesome--what would
+you have done?"
+
+She began to laugh as only a happy woman can laugh, who has nothing to
+regret, and responded frankly, in a clear voice tinged with irony:
+
+"I would have yielded, my friend."
+
+She then turned on her heels and went back to her jam-making.
+
+Saval rushed into the street, cast down, as though he had met with some
+disaster.  He walked with giant strides through the rain, straight on,
+until he reached the river bank, without thinking where he was going.
+He then turned to the right and followed the river.  He walked a long
+time, as if urged on by some instinct.  His clothes were running with
+water, his hat was out of shape, as soft as a rag, and dripping like a
+roof.  He walked on, straight in front of him.  At last, he came to the
+place where they had lunched on that day so long ago, the recollection of
+which tortured his heart.  He sat down under the leafless trees, and
+wept.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+
+Marguerite de Therelles was dying.  Although she was-only fifty-six years
+old she looked at least seventy-five.  She gasped for breath, her face
+whiter than the sheets, and had spasms of violent shivering, with her
+face convulsed and her eyes haggard as though she saw a frightful vision.
+
+Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older than herself, was sobbing on
+her knees beside the bed.  A small table close to the dying woman's couch
+bore, on a white cloth, two lighted candles, for the priest was expected
+at any moment to administer extreme unction and the last communion.
+
+The apartment wore that melancholy aspect common to death chambers; a
+look of despairing farewell.  Medicine bottles littered the furniture;
+linen lay in the corners into which it had been kicked or swept.  The
+very chairs looked, in their disarray, as if they were terrified and had
+run in all directions.  Death--terrible Death--was in the room, hidden,
+awaiting his prey.
+
+This history of the two sisters was an affecting one.  It was spoken of
+far and wide; it had drawn tears from many eyes.
+
+Suzanne, the elder, had once been passionately loved by a young man,
+whose affection she returned.  They were engaged to be married, and the
+wedding day was at hand, when Henry de Sampierre suddenly died.
+
+The young girl's despair was terrible, and she took an oath never to
+marry.  She faithfully kept her vow and adopted widow's weeds for the
+remainder of her life.
+
+But one morning her sister, her little sister Marguerite, then only
+twelve years old, threw herself into Suzanne's arms, sobbing: "Sister, I
+don't want you to be unhappy.  I don't want you to mourn all your life.
+I'll never leave you--never, never, never!  I shall never marry, either.
+I'll stay with you always--always!"
+
+Suzanne kissed her, touched by the child's devotion, though not putting
+any faith in her promise.
+
+But the little one kept her word, and, despite her parents'
+remonstrances, despite her elder sister's prayers, never married.
+She was remarkably pretty and refused many offers.  She never left her
+sister.
+
+They spent their whole life together, without a single day's separation.
+They went everywhere together and were inseparable.  But Marguerite was
+pensive, melancholy, sadder than her sister, as if her sublime sacrifice
+had undermined her spirits.  She grew older more quickly; her hair was
+white at thirty; and she was often ill, apparently stricken with some
+unknown, wasting malady.
+
+And now she would be the first to die.
+
+She had not spoken for twenty-four hours, except to whisper at daybreak:
+
+"Send at once for the priest."
+
+And she had since remained lying on her back, convulsed with agony, her
+lips moving as if unable to utter the dreadful words that rose in her
+heart, her face expressive of a terror distressing to witness.
+
+Suzanne, distracted with grief, her brow pressed against the bed, wept
+bitterly, repeating over and over again the words:
+
+"Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!"
+
+She had always called her "my little one," while Marguerite's name for
+the elder was invariably "sister."
+
+A footstep sounded on the stairs.  The door opened.  An acolyte appeared,
+followed by the aged priest in his surplice.  As soon as she saw him the
+dying woman sat up suddenly in bed, opened her lips, stammered a few
+words and began to scratch the bed-clothes, as if she would have made
+hole in them.
+
+Father Simon approached, took her hand, kissed her on the forehead and
+said in a gentle voice:
+
+"May God pardon your sins, my daughter.  Be of good courage.  Now is the
+moment to confess them--speak!"
+
+Then Marguerite, shuddering from head to foot, so that the very bed shook
+with her nervous movements, gasped:
+
+"Sit down, sister, and listen."
+
+The priest stooped toward the prostrate Suzanne, raised her to her feet,
+placed her in a chair, and, taking a hand of each of the sisters,
+pronounced:
+
+"Lord God!  Send them strength!  Shed Thy mercy upon them."
+
+And Marguerite began to speak.  The words issued from her lips one by
+one--hoarse, jerky, tremulous.
+
+"Pardon, pardon, sister!  pardon me!  Oh, if only you knew how I have
+dreaded this moment all my life!"
+
+Suzanne faltered through her tears:
+
+"But what have I to pardon, little one?  You have given me everything,
+sacrificed all to me.  You are an angel."
+
+But Marguerite interrupted her:
+
+"Be silent, be silent!  Let me speak!  Don't stop me!  It is terrible.
+Let me tell all, to the very end, without interruption.  Listen.  You
+remember--you remember--Henry--"
+
+Suzanne trembled and looked at her sister.  The younger one went on:
+
+"In order to understand you must hear everything.  I was twelve years
+old--only twelve--you remember, don't you?  And I was spoilt; I did just
+as I pleased.  You remember how everybody spoilt me?  Listen.  The first
+time he came he had on his riding boots; he dismounted, saying that he
+had a message for father.  You remember, don't you?  Don't speak.
+Listen.  When I saw him I was struck with admiration.  I thought him so
+handsome, and I stayed in a corner of the drawing-room all the time he
+was talking.  Children are strange--and terrible.  Yes, indeed, I dreamt
+of him.
+
+"He came again--many times.  I looked at him with all my eyes, all my
+heart.  I was large for my age and much more precocious than--any one
+suspected.  He came often.  I thought only of him.  I often whispered to
+myself:
+
+"'Henry-Henry de Sampierre!'
+
+"Then I was told that he was going to marry you.  That was a blow!  Oh,
+sister, a terrible blow--terrible!  I wept all through three sleepless
+nights.
+
+He came every afternoon after lunch.  You remember, don't you?  Don't
+answer.  Listen.  You used to make cakes that he was very fond of--with
+flour, butter and milk.  Oh, I know how to make them.  I could make them
+still, if necessary.  He would swallow them at one mouthful and wash them
+down with a glass of wine, saying: 'Delicious!' Do you remember the way
+he said it?
+
+"I was jealous--jealous!  Your wedding day was drawing near.  It was only
+a fortnight distant.  I was distracted.  I said to myself: 'He shall not
+marry Suzanne--no, he shall not!  He shall marry me when I am old enough!
+I shall never love any one half so much.' But one evening, ten days
+before the wedding, you went for a stroll with him in the moonlight
+before the house--and yonder--under the pine tree, the big pine tree--he
+kissed you--kissed you--and held you in his arms so long--so long!  You
+remember, don't you?  It was probably the first time.  You were so pale
+when you carne back to the drawing-room!
+
+"I saw you.  I was there in the shrubbery.  I was mad with rage!  I would
+have killed you both if I could!
+
+"I said to myself: 'He shall never marry Suzanne--never!  He shall marry
+no one!  I could not bear it.'  And all at once I began to hate him
+intensely.
+
+"Then do you know what I did?  Listen.  I had seen the gardener prepare
+pellets for killing stray dogs.  He would crush a bottle into small
+pieces with a stone and put the ground glass into a ball of meat.
+
+"I stole a small medicine bottle from mother's room.  I ground it fine
+with a hammer and hid the glass in my pocket.  It was a glistening
+powder.  The next day, when you had made your little cakes; I opened them
+with a knife and inserted the glass.  He ate three.  I ate one myself.  I
+threw the six others into the pond.  The two swans died three days later.
+You remember?  Oh, don't speak!  Listen, listen.  I, I alone did not die.
+But I have always been ill.  Listen--he died--you know--listen--that was
+not the worst.  It was afterward, later--always--the most terrible--
+listen.
+
+"My life, all my life--such torture!  I said to myself: 'I will never
+leave my sister.  And on my deathbed I will tell her all.'  And now I
+have told.  And I have always thought of this moment--the moment when all
+would be told.  Now it has come.  It is terrible--oh!--sister--
+
+"I have always thought, morning and evening, day and night: 'I shall have
+to tell her some day!' I waited.  The horror of it!  It is done.  Say
+nothing.  Now I am afraid--I am afraid!  Oh!  Supposing I should see him
+again, by and by, when I am dead!  See him again!  Only to think of it!
+I dare not--yet I must.  I am going to die.  I want you to forgive me.
+I insist on it.  I cannot meet him without your forgiveness.  Oh, tell
+her to forgive me, Father!  Tell her.  I implore you!  I cannot die
+without it."
+
+She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still plucking at the
+sheets with her fingers.
+
+Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not move.  She was
+thinking of him whom she had loved so long.  What a life of happiness
+they might have had together!  She saw him again in the dim and distant
+past-that past forever lost.  Beloved dead!  how the thought of them
+rends the heart!  Oh! that kiss, his only kiss!  She had retained the
+memory of it in her soul.  And, after that, nothing, nothing more
+throughout her whole existence!
+
+The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling voice said:
+
+"Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!"
+
+Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her arms round her
+sister, and kissing her fervently, exclaimed:
+
+"I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+COCO
+
+Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farn, was known as "the
+Manor."  No one knew why.  The peasants doubtless attached to this word,
+"Manor," a meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was
+undoubtedly the largest, richest and the best managed in the whole
+neighborhood.
+
+The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which
+sheltered the delicate apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain,
+inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for storing fodder and
+grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
+thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little
+chateau.
+
+Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little offensive
+as such things can be; the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and countless
+poultry paraded through the tall grass.
+
+Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women
+folks, seated themselves around the long kitchen table where the soup was
+brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered bowl.
+
+The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean.
+Maitre Lucas, a tall man who was getting stout, would go round three
+times a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.
+
+A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its
+natural death, because she had brought it up and had always used it, and
+also because it recalled many happy memories, was housed, through sheer
+kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.
+
+A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval by name, and called,
+for convenience, Zidore, took care of this pensioner, gave him his
+measure of oats and fodder in winter, and in summer was supposed to
+change his pasturing place four times a day, so that he might have plenty
+of fresh grass.
+
+The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty his legs, large at
+the knees and swollen above the hoofs.  His coat, which was no longer
+curried, looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes gave to his eyes
+a sad expression.
+
+When Zidore took the animal to pasture, he had to pull on the rope with
+all his might, because it walked so slowly; and the youth, bent over and
+out of breath, would swear at it, exasperated at having to care for this
+old nag.
+
+The farmhands, noticing the young rascal's anger against Coco, were
+amused and would continually talk of the horse to Zidore, in order to
+exasperate him.  His comrades would make sport with him.  In the village
+he was called Coco-Zidore.
+
+The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the
+horse.  He was a thin, long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse,
+bristly red hair.  He seemed only half-witted, and stuttered as though
+ideas were unable to form in his thick, brute-like mind.
+
+For a long time he had been unable to understand why Coco should be kept,
+indignant at seeing things wasted on this useless beast.  Since the horse
+could no longer work, it seemed to him unjust that he should be fed;
+he revolted at the idea of wasting oats, oats which were so expensive,
+on this paralyzed old plug.  And often, in spite of the orders of Maitre
+Lucas, he would economize on the nag's food, only giving him half
+measure.  Hatred grew in his confused, childlike mind, the hatred of a
+stingy, mean, fierce, brutal and cowardly peasant.
+
+When summer came he had to move the animal about in the pasture.  It was
+some distance away.  The rascal, angrier every morning, would start, with
+his dragging step, across the wheat fields.  The men working in the
+fields would shout to him, jokingly:
+
+"Hey, Zidore, remember me to Coco."
+
+He would not answer; but on the way he would break off a switch, and, as
+soon as he had moved the old horse, he would let it begin grazing; then,
+treacherously sneaking up behind it, he would slash its legs.  The animal
+would try to escape, to kick, to get away from the blows, and run around
+in a circle about its rope, as though it had been inclosed in a circus
+ring.  And the boy would slash away furiously, running along behind, his
+teeth clenched in anger.
+
+Then he would go away slowly, without turning round, while the horse
+watched him disappear, his ribs sticking out, panting as a result of his
+unusual exertions.  Not until the blue blouse of the young peasant was
+out of sight would he lower his thin white head to the grass.
+
+As the nights were now warm, Coco was allowed to sleep out of doors, in
+the field behind the little wood.  Zidore alone went to see him.
+The boy threw stones at him to amuse himself.  He would sit down on an
+embankment about ten feet away and would stay there about half an hour,
+from time to time throwing a sharp stone at the old horse, which remained
+standing tied before his enemy, watching him continually and not daring
+to eat before he was gone.
+
+This one thought persisted in the mind of the young scamp: "Why feed this
+horse, which is no longer good for anything?"  It seemed to him that this
+old nag was stealing the food of the others, the goods of man and God,
+that he was even robbing him, Zidore, who was working.
+
+Then, little by little, each day, the boy began to shorten the length of
+rope which allowed the horse to graze.
+
+The hungry animal was growing thinner, and starving.  Too feeble to break
+his bonds, he would stretch his head out toward the tall, green, tempting
+grass, so near that he could smell, and yet so far that he could not
+touch it.
+
+But one morning Zidore had an idea: it was, not to move Coco any more.
+He was tired of walking so far for that old skeleton. He came, however,
+in order to enjoy his vengeance.  The beast watched him anxiously.  He
+did not beat him that day.  He walked around him with his hands in his
+pockets.  He even pretended to change his place, but he sank the stake in
+exactly the same hole, and went away overjoyed with his invention.
+
+The horse, seeing him leave, neighed to call him back; but the rascal
+began to run, leaving him alone, entirely alone in his field, well tied
+down and without a blade of grass within reach.
+
+Starving, he tried to reach the grass which he could touch with the end
+of his nose.  He got on his knees, stretching out his neck and his long,
+drooling lips.  All in vain.  The old animal spent the whole day in
+useless, terrible efforts.  The sight of all that green food, which
+stretched out on all sides of him, served to increase the gnawing pangs
+of hunger.
+
+The scamp did not return that day.  He wandered through the woods in
+search of nests.
+
+The next day he appeared upon the scene again.  Coco, exhausted, had lain
+down.  When he saw the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his
+place changed.
+
+But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying on
+the ground.  He came nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head a
+clump of earth which flattened out against the white hair, and he started
+off again, whistling.
+
+The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing
+that his attempts to reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once
+more lay down on his side and closed his eyes.
+
+The following day Zidore did not come.
+
+When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that
+he was dead.
+
+Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had done,
+surprised that it should already be all over.  He touched him with his
+foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it drop, sat on him and
+remained there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing.  He
+returned to the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he wished
+to wander about at the hours when he used to change the horse's pasture.
+He went to see him the next day.  At his approach some crows flew away.
+Countless flies were walking over the body and were buzzing around it.
+When he returned home, he announced the event.  The animal was so old
+that nobody was surprised.  The master said to two of the men:
+
+"Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is."
+
+The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger.
+And the grass grew thick, green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+
+The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life
+had been blameless.  Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back,
+her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully
+arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying.  The
+whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so
+resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body,
+what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the death
+of this parent had been.
+
+Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible
+principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were
+weeping as though their hearts would break.  She had, from childhood up,
+armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without
+weakness, and duty, without compromise.  He, the man, had become a judge
+and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without
+pity.  She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed her in
+this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through her
+loathing for man.
+
+They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
+mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.
+
+The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
+as the large crucifix lying across the bed.  On the other side of the
+long body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the
+death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
+of those last movements which precede eternal immobility.
+
+A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up, and
+the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned.  He was red and out
+of breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself a
+strong mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of the
+last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.
+
+He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is
+a bread winner.  He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
+gesture: "Well, my poor children!  I have come to help you pass these
+last sad hours."  But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose.  "Thank you,
+"father, but my brother and I prefer to remain alone with her.  This is
+our last chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us,
+as we--we--used to be when we were small and our poor mo--mother----"
+
+Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.
+
+Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed.  "As you wish,
+my children."  He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
+quietly, murmuring: "She was a saint!"
+
+They remained alone, the dead woman and her children.  The ticking of the
+clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
+open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together with
+the soft moonlight.  No other noise could be heard over the land except
+the occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some belated
+insect.  An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent serenity
+surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her and to
+appease nature itself.
+
+Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes, cried
+in a voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and blankets:
+"Mamma, mamma, mamma!"  And his sister, frantically striking her forehead
+against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as in an
+epileptic fit, moaned: "Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!" And both of them,
+shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.
+
+The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on
+the sea when a calm follows a squall.
+
+A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead.
+And the memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so
+torturing, came to their minds with all the little forgotten details,
+those little intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one
+who has left.  They recalled to each other circumstances, words, smiles,
+intonations of the mother who was no longer to speak to them.  They saw
+her again happy and calm.  They remembered things which she had said, and
+a little motion of the hand, like beating time, which she often used when
+emphasizing something important.
+
+And they loved her as they never had loved her before.  They measured the
+depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would find
+themselves.
+
+It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of
+their lives which was disappearing.  It was their bond with life, their
+mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which
+they would thenceforth miss.  They now became solitary, lonely beings;
+they could no longer look back.
+
+The nun said to her brother: "You remember how mamma used always to read
+her old letters; they are all there in that drawer.  Let us, in turn,
+read them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her!  It
+would be like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her
+mother, of our grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are
+there and of whom she so often spoke, do you remember?"
+
+Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper,
+tied with care and arranged one beside the other.  They threw these
+relics on the bed and chose one of them on which the word "Father" was
+written.  They opened and read it.
+
+It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family
+desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century.  The first
+one started: "My dear," another one: "My beautiful little girl," others:
+"My dear child," or: "My dear (laughter."  And suddenly the nun began to
+read aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her
+tender memories.  The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening
+with his eyes fastened on his mother.  The motionless body seemed happy.
+
+Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:
+
+"These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as a
+shroud and she ought to be buried in it."  She took another package, on
+which no name was written.  She began to read in a firm voice: "My adored
+one, I love you wildly.  Since yesterday I have been suffering the
+tortures of the damned, haunted by our memory.  I feel your lips against
+mine, your eyes in mine, your breast against mine.  I love you, I love
+you!  You have driven me mad.  My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild
+desire to hold you again.  My whole soul and body cries out for you,
+wants you.  I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses--"
+
+The judge had straightened himself up.  The nun stopped reading.  He
+snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature.  There was
+none, but only under the words, "The man who adores you," the name
+"Henry."  Their father's name was Rene.  Therefore this was not from him.
+The son then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one
+out and read: "I can no longer live without your caresses."  Standing
+erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead
+woman.  The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of
+her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting.  Then he crossed the room
+slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark
+night.
+
+When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still
+standing near the bed, her head bent down.
+
+He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell-
+mell back into the drawer.  Then he closed the curtains of the bed.
+
+When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly left
+his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had
+passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he
+said slowly: "Let us now retire, sister."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HUMBLE DRAMA
+
+Meetings that are unexpected constitute the charm of traveling.  Who has
+not experienced the joy of suddenly coming across a Parisian, a college
+friend, or a neighbor, five hundred miles from home?  Who has not passed
+a night awake in one of those small, rattling country stagecoaches, in
+regions where steam is still a thing unknown, beside a strange young
+woman, of whom one has caught only a glimpse in the dim light of the
+lantern, as she entered the carriage in front of a white house in some
+small country town?
+
+And the next morning, when one's head and ears feel numb with the
+continuous tinkling of the bells and the loud rattling of the windows,
+what a charming sensation it is to see your pretty neighbor open her
+eyes, startled, glance around her, arrange her rebellious hair with her
+slender fingers, adjust her hat, feel with sure hand whether her corset
+is still in place, her waist straight, and her skirt not too wrinkled.
+
+She glances at you coldly and curiously.  Then she leans back and no
+longer seems interested in anything but the country.
+
+In spite of yourself, you watch her; and in spite of yourself you keep on
+thinking of her.  Who is she?  Whence does she come?  Where is she going?
+In spite of yourself you spin a little romance around her.  She is
+pretty; she seems charming!  Happy he who .  .  .  Life might be
+delightful with her.  Who knows?  She is perhaps the woman of our dreams,
+the one suited to our disposition, the one for whom our heart calls.
+
+And how delicious even the disappointment at seeing her get out at the
+gate of a country house!  A man stands there, who is awaiting her, with
+two children and two maids.  He takes her in his arms and kisses as he
+lifts her out.  Then she stoops over the little ones, who hold up their
+hands to her; she kisses them tenderly; and then they all go away
+together, down a path, while the maids catch the packages which the
+driver throws down to them from the coach.
+
+Adieu!  It is all over.  You never will see her again!  Adieu to the
+young woman who has passed the night by your side.  You know her no more,
+you have not spoken to her; all the same, you feel a little sad to see
+her go.  Adieu!
+
+I have had many of these souvenirs of travel, some joyous and some sad.
+
+Once I was in Auvergne, tramping through those delightful French
+mountains, that are not too high, not too steep, but friendly and
+familiar.  I had climbed the Sancy, and entered a little inn, near a
+pilgrim's chapel called Notre-Dame de Vassiviere, when I saw a queer,
+ridiculous-looking old woman breakfasting alone at the end table.
+
+She was at least seventy years old, tall, skinny, and angular, and her
+white hair was puffed around her temples in the old-fashioned style.
+She was dressed like a traveling Englishwoman, in awkward, queer
+clothing, like a person who is indifferent to dress.  She was eating an
+omelet and drinking water.
+
+Her face was peculiar, with restless eyes and the expression of one with
+whom fate has dealt unkindly.  I watched her, in spite of myself,
+thinking: "Who is she?  What is the life of this woman?  Why is she
+wandering alone through these mountains?"
+
+She paid and rose to leave, drawing up over her shoulders an astonishing
+little shawl, the two ends of which hung over her arms.  From a corner of
+the room she took an alpenstock, which was covered with names traced with
+a hot iron; then she went out, straight, erect, with the long steps of a
+letter-carrier who is setting out on his route.
+
+A guide was waiting for her at the door, and both went away.  I watched
+them go down the valley, along the road marked by a line of high wooden
+crosses.  She was taller than her companion, and seemed to walk faster
+than he.
+
+Two hours later I was climbing the edge of the deep funnel that incloses
+Lake Pavin in a marvelous and enormous basin of verdure, full of trees,
+bushes, rocks, and flowers.  This lake is so round that it seems as if
+the outline had been drawn with a pair of compasses, so clear and blue
+that one might deem it a flood of azure come down from the sky, so
+charming that one would like to live in a but on the wooded slope which
+dominates this crater, where the cold, still water is sleeping.
+The Englishwoman was standing there like a statue, gazing upon the
+transparent sheet down in the dead volcano.  She was straining her eyes
+to penetrate below the surface down to the unknown depths, where
+monstrous trout which have devoured all the other fish are said to live.
+As I was passing close by her, it seemed to me that two big tears were
+brimming her eyes.  But she departed at a great pace, to rejoin her
+guide, who had stayed behind in an inn at the foot of the path leading to
+the lake.
+
+I did not see her again that day.
+
+The next day, at nightfall, I came to the chateau of Murol.  The old
+fortress, an enormous tower standing on a peak in the midst of a large
+valley, where three valleys intersect, rears its brown, uneven, cracked
+surface into the sky; it is round, from its large circular base to the
+crumbling turrets on its pinnacles.
+
+It astonishes the eye more than any other ruin by its simple mass, its
+majesty, its grave and imposing air of antiquity.  It stands there,
+alone, high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still the queen of the
+valleys stretched out beneath it.  You go up by a slope planted with
+firs, then you enter a narrow gate, and stop at the foot of the walls, in
+the first inclosure, in full view of the entire country.
+
+Inside there are ruined halls, crumbling stairways, unknown cavities,
+dungeons, walls cut through in the middle, vaulted roofs held up one
+knows not how, and a mass of stones and crevices, overgrown with grass,
+where animals glide in and out.
+
+I was exploring this ruin alone.
+
+Suddenly I perceived behind a bit of wall a being, a kind of phantom,
+like the spirit of this ancient and crumbling habitation.
+
+I was taken aback with surprise, almost with fear, when I recognized the
+old lady whom I had seen twice.
+
+She was weeping, with big tears in her eyes, and held her handkerchief in
+her hand.
+
+I turned around to go away, when she spoke to me, apparently ashamed to
+have been surprised in her grief.
+
+"Yes, monsieur, I am crying.  That does not happen often to me."
+
+"Pardon me, madame, for having disturbed you," I stammered, confused, not
+knowing what to say.  "Some misfortune has doubtless come to you."
+
+"Yes.  No--I am like a lost dog," she murmured, and began to sob, with
+her handkerchief over her eyes.
+
+Moved by these contagious tears, I took her hand, trying to calm her.
+Then brusquely she told me her history, as if no longer ably to bear her
+grief alone.
+
+"Oh! Oh!  Monsieur--if you knew--the sorrow in which I live--in what
+sorrow.
+
+"Once I was happy.  I have a house down there--a home.  I cannot go back
+to it any more; I shall never go back to it again, it is too hard to
+bear.
+
+"I have a son.  It is he! it is he!  Children don't know.  Oh, one has
+such a short time to live!  If I should see him now I should perhaps not
+recognize him.  How I loved him?  How I loved him!  Even before he was
+born, when I felt him move.  And after that!  How I have kissed and
+caressed and cherished him!  If you knew how many nights I have passed in
+watching him sleep, and how many in thinking of him.  I was crazy about
+him.  When he was eight years old his father sent him to boarding-school.
+That was the end.  He no longer belonged to me.  Oh, heavens!  He came to
+see me every Sunday.  That was all!
+
+"He went to college in Paris.  Then he came only four times a year, and
+every time I was astonished to see how he had changed, to find him taller
+without having seen him grow.  They stole his childhood from me, his
+confidence, and his love which otherwise would not have gone away from
+me; they stole my joy in seeing him grow, in seeing him become a little
+man.
+
+"I saw him four times a year.  Think of it!  And at every one of his
+visits his body, his eye, his movements, his voice his laugh, were no
+longer the same, were no longer mine.  All these things change so quickly
+in a child; and it is so sad if one is not there to see them change; one
+no longer recognizes him.
+
+"One year he came with down on his cheek!  He! my son!  I was dumfounded
+--would you believe it?  I hardly dared to kiss him.  Was it really he,
+my little, little curly head of old, my dear; dear child, whom I had held
+in his diapers or my knee, and who had nursed at my breast with his
+little greedy lips--was it he, this tall, brown boy, who no longer knew
+how to kiss me, who seemed to love me as a matter of duty, who called me
+'mother' for the sake of politeness, and who kissed me on the forehead,
+when I felt like crushing him in my arms?
+
+"My husband died.  Then my parents, and then my two sisters.  When Death
+enters a house it seems as if he were hurrying to do his utmost, so as
+not to have to return for a long time after that.  He spares only one or
+two to mourn the others.
+
+"I remained alone.  My tall son was then studying law.  I was hoping to
+live and die near him, and I went to him so that we could live together.
+But he had fallen into the ways of young men, and he gave me to
+understand that I was in his way.  So I left.  I was wrong in doing so,
+but I suffered too much in feeling myself in his way, I, his mother!  And
+I came back home.
+
+"I hardly ever saw him again.
+
+'He married.  What a joy!  At last we should be together for good.
+I should have grandchildren.  His wife was an Englishwoman, who took a
+dislike to me.  Why?  Perhaps she thought that I loved him too much.
+
+"Again I was obliged to go away.  And I was alone.  Yes, monsieur.
+
+"Then he went to England, to live with them, with his wife's parents.
+Do you understand?  They have him--they have my son for themselves.
+They have stolen him from me.  He writes to me once a month.  At first he
+came to see me.  But now he no longer comes.
+
+"It is now four years since I saw him last.  His face then was wrinkled
+and his hair white.  Was that possible?  This man, my son, almost an old
+man?  My little rosy child of old?  No doubt I shall never see him again.
+
+"And so I travel about all the year.  I go east and west, as you see,
+with no companion.
+
+"I am like a lost dog.  Adieu, monsieur!  don't stay here with me for it
+hurts me to have told you all this."
+
+I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance back, I saw the old
+woman standing on a broken wall, looking out upon the mountains, the long
+valley and Lake Chambon in the distance.
+
+And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she wore around her thin
+shoulders were fluttering tike a flag in the wind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+
+We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall, thin man in a corner
+of the court who kept on calling an imaginary dog.  He was crying in a
+soft, tender voice: "Cocotte!  Come here, Cocotte, my beauty!" and
+slapping his thigh as one does when calling an animal.  I asked the
+physician, "Who is that man?" He answered: "Oh! he is not at all
+interesting.  He is a coachman named Francois, who became insane after
+drowning his dog."
+
+I insisted: "Tell me his story.  The most simple and humble things are
+sometimes those which touch our hearts most deeply."
+
+Here is this man's adventure, which was obtained from a friend of his, a
+groom:
+
+There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in a suburb of Paris.
+They had a villa in the middle of a park, at the edge of the Seine.
+Their coachman was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull, kind-
+hearted, simple and easy to deceive.
+
+One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began to follow him.  At
+first he paid no attention to it, but the creature's obstinacy at last
+made him turn round.  He looked to see if he knew this dog.  No, he had
+never seen it.  It was a female dog and frightfully thin.  She was
+trotting behind him with a mournful and famished look, her tail between
+her legs, her ears flattened against her head and stopping and starting
+whenever he did.
+
+He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:
+
+"Run along!  Get out!  Kss! kss!" She retreated a few steps, then sat
+down and waited.  And when the coachman started to walk again she
+followed along behind him.
+
+He pretended to pick up some stones.  The animal ran a little farther
+away, but came back again as soon as the man's back was turned.
+
+Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast and called her.  The
+dog approached timidly.  The man patted her protruding ribs, moved by the
+beast's misery, and he cried: "Come! come here!"  Immediately she began
+to wag her tail, and, feeling herself taken in, adopted, she began to run
+along ahead of her new master.
+
+He made her a bed on the straw in the stable, then he ran to the kitchen
+for some bread.  When she had eaten all she could she curled up and went
+to sleep.
+
+When his employers heard of this the next day they allowed the coachman
+to keep the animal.  It was a good beast, caressing and faithful,
+intelligent and gentle.
+
+Nevertheless Francois adored Cocotte, and he kept repeating: "That beast
+is human.  She only lacks speech."
+
+He had a magnificent red leather collar made for her which bore these
+words engraved on a copper plate: "Mademoiselle Cocotte, belonging to the
+coachman Francois."
+
+She was remarkably prolific and four times a year would give birth to a
+batch of little animals belonging to every variety of the canine race.
+Francois would pick out one which he would leave her and then he would
+unmercifully throw the others into the river.  But soon the cook joined
+her complaints to those of the gardener.  She would find dogs under the
+stove, in the ice box, in the coal bin, and they would steal everything
+they came across.
+
+Finally the master, tired of complaints, impatiently ordered Francois to
+get rid of Cocotte.  In despair the man tried to give her away.  Nobody
+wanted her.  Then he decided to lose her, and he gave her to a teamster,
+who was to drop her on the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.
+
+Cocotte returned the same day.  Some decision had to be taken.  Five
+francs was given to a train conductor to take her to Havre.  He was to
+drop her there.
+
+Three days later she returned to the stable, thin, footsore and tired
+out.
+
+The master took pity on her and let her stay.  But other dogs were
+attracted as before, and one evening, when a big dinner party was on,
+a stuffed turkey was carried away by one of them right under the cook's
+nose, and she did not dare to stop him.
+
+This time the master completely lost his temper and said angrily to
+Francois: "If you don't throw this beast into the water before--to-morrow
+morning, I'll put you out, do you hear?"
+
+The man was dumbfounded, and he returned to his room to pack his trunk,
+preferring to leave the place.  Then he bethought himself that he could
+find no other situation as long as he dragged this animal about with him.
+He thought of his good position, where he was well paid and well fed, and
+he decided that a dog was really not worth all that.  At last he decided
+to rid himself of Cocotte at daybreak.
+
+He slept badly.  He rose at dawn, and taking a strong rope, went to get
+the dog.  She stood up slowly, shook herself, stretched and came to
+welcome her master.
+
+Then his courage forsook him, and he began to pet her affectionately,
+stroking her long ears, kissing her muzzle and calling her tender names.
+
+But a neighboring clock struck six.  He could no longer hesitate.
+He opened the door, calling: "Come!" The beast wagged her tail,
+understanding that she was to be taken out.
+
+They reached the beach, and he chose a place where the water seemed deep.
+Then he knotted the rope round the leather collar and tied a heavy stone
+to the other end.  He seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her madly, as
+though he were taking leave of some human being.  He held her to his
+breast, rocked her and called her "my dear little Cocotte, my sweet
+little Cocotte," and she grunted with pleasure.
+
+Ten times he tried to throw her into the water and each time he lost
+courage.
+
+But suddenly he made up his mind and threw her as far from him as he
+could.  At first she tried to swim, as she did when he gave her a bath,
+but her head, dragged down by the stone, kept going under, and she looked
+at her master with wild, human glances as she struggled like a drowning
+person.  Then the front part of her body sank, while her hind legs waved
+wildly out of the water.  Finally those also disappeared.
+
+Then, for five minutes, bubbles rose to the surface as though the river
+were boiling, and Francois, haggard, his heart beating, thought that he
+saw Cocotte struggling in the mud, and, with the simplicity of a peasant,
+he kept saying to himself: "What does the poor beast think of me now?"
+
+He almost lost his mind.  He was ill for a month and every night he
+dreamed of his dog.  He could feel her licking his hands and hear her
+barking.  It was necessary to call in a physician.  At last he recovered,
+and toward the 2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at
+Biesard, near Rouen.
+
+There again he was near the Seine.  He began to take baths.  Each morning
+he would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.
+
+One day, as they were disporting themselves in the water, Francois
+suddenly cried to his companion: "Look what's coming!  I'm going to give
+you a chop!"
+
+It was an enormous, swollen corpse that was floating down with its feet
+sticking straight up in the air.
+
+Francois swam up to it, still joking: "Whew! it's not fresh.  What a
+catch, old man!  It isn't thin, either!" He kept swimming about at a
+distance from the animal that was in a state of decomposition.  Then,
+suddenly, he was silent and looked at it: attentively.  This time he came
+near enough to touch, it.  He looked fixedly at the collar, then he
+stretched out his arm, seized the neck, swung the corpse round and drew
+it up close to him and read on the copper which had turned green and
+which still stuck to the discolored leather: "Mademoiselle Cocotte,
+belonging to the coachman Francois."
+
+The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.
+
+He let out a frightful shriek and began to swim for the beach with all
+his might, still howling; and as soon as he touched land he ran away
+wildly, stark naked, through the country.  He was insane!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+
+The road ascended gently through the forest of Aitone.  The large pines
+formed a solemn dome above our heads, and that mysterious sound made by
+the wind in the trees sounded like the notes of an organ.
+
+After walking for three hours, there was a clearing, and then at
+intervals an enormous pine umbrella, and then we suddenly came to the
+edge of the forest, some hundred meters below, the pass leading to the
+wild valley of Niolo.
+
+On the two projecting heights which commanded a view of this pass, some
+old trees, grotesquely twisted, seemed to have mounted with painful
+efforts, like scouts sent in advance of the multitude in the rear.  When
+we turned round, we saw the entire forest stretched beneath our feet,
+like a gigantic basin of verdure, inclosed by bare rocks whose summits
+seemed to reach the sky.
+
+We resumed our walk, and, ten minutes later, found ourselves in the pass.
+
+Then I beheld a remarkable landscape.  Beyond another forest stretched a
+valley, but a valley such as I had never seen before; a solitude of
+stone, ten leagues long, hollowed out between two high mountains, without
+a field or a tree to be seen.  This was the Niolo valley, the fatherland
+of Corsican liberty, the inaccessible citadel, from which the invaders
+had never been able to drive out the mountaineers.
+
+My companion said to me: "This is where all our bandits have taken
+refuge?"
+
+Ere long we were at the further end of this gorge, so wild, so
+inconceivably beautiful.
+
+Not a blade of grass, not a plant-nothing but granite.  As far as our
+eyes could reach, we saw in front of us a desert of glittering stone,
+heated like an oven by a burning sun, which seemed to hang for that very
+purpose right above the gorge.  When we raised our eyes towards the
+crests, we stood dazzled and stupefied by what we saw.  They looked like
+a festoon of coral; all the summits are of porphyry; and the sky overhead
+was violet, purple, tinged with the coloring of these strange mountains.
+Lower down, the granite was of scintillating gray, and seemed ground to
+powder beneath our feet.  At our right, along a long and irregular
+course, roared a tumultuous torrent.  And we staggered along under this
+heat, in this light, in this burning, arid, desolate valley cut by this
+torrent of turbulent water which seemed to be ever hurrying onward,
+without fertilizing the rocks, lost in this furnace which greedily drank
+it up without being saturated or refreshed by it.
+
+But, suddenly, there was visible at our right a little wooden cross sunk
+in a little heap of stones.  A man had been killed there; and I said to
+my companion.
+
+"Tell me about your bandits."
+
+He replied:
+
+"I knew the most celebrated of them, the terrible St. Lucia.  I will tell
+you his history.
+
+"His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the district, it is
+said; and St. Lucia was left alone with his sister.  He was a weak, timid
+youth, small, often ill, without any energy.  He did not proclaim
+vengeance against the assassin of his father.  All his relatives came to
+see him, and implored of him to avenge his death; he remained deaf to
+their menaces and their supplications.
+
+"Then, following the old Corsican custom, his sister, in her indignation
+carried away his black clothes, in order that he might not wear mourning
+for a dead man who had not been avenged.  He was insensible to even this
+affront, and rather than take down from the rack his father's gun, which
+was still loaded, he shut himself up, not daring to brave the looks of
+the young men of the district.
+
+"He seemed to have even forgotten the crime, and lived with his sister in
+the seclusion of their dwelling.
+
+But, one day, the man who was suspected of having committed the murder,
+was about to get married.  St. Lucia did not appear to be moved by this
+news, but, out of sheer bravado, doubtless, the bridegroom, on his way to
+the church, passed before the house of the two orphans.
+
+"The brother and the sister, at their window, were eating frijoles, when
+the young man saw the bridal procession going by.  Suddenly he began to
+tremble, rose to his feet without uttering a word, made the sign of the
+cross, took the gun which was hanging over the fireplace, and went out.
+
+"When he spoke of this later on, he said: 'I don't know what was the
+matter with me; it was like fire in my blood; I felt that I must do it,
+that, in spite of everything, I could not resist, and I concealed the gun
+in a cave on the road to Corte.
+
+"An hour later, he came back, with nothing in his hand, and with his
+habitual air of sad weariness.  His sister believed that there was
+nothing further in his thoughts.
+
+But when night fell he disappeared.
+
+"His enemy had, the same evening, to repair to Corte on foot, accompanied
+by his two groomsmen.
+
+"He was walking along, singing as he went, when St. Lucia stood before
+him, and looking straight in the murderer's face, exclaimed: 'Now is the
+time!' and shot him point-blank in the chest.
+
+"One of the men fled; the other stared at, the young man, saying:
+
+"'What have you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte for
+help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone:
+
+"'If you move another step, I'll shoot you in the leg.'
+
+"The other, aware of his timidity hitherto, replied: 'You would not dare
+to do it!' and was hurrying off when he fell instantaneously, his thigh
+shattered by a bullet.
+
+"And St. Lucia, coming over to where he lay, said:
+
+"'I am going to look at your wound; if it is not serious, I'll leave you
+there; if it is mortal I'll finish you off."
+
+"He inspected the wound, considered it mortal, and slowly reloading his
+gun, told the wounded man to say a prayer, and shot him through the head.
+
+"Next day he was in the mountains.
+
+"And do you know what this St. Lucia did after this?
+
+"All his family were arrested by the gendarmes.  His uncle, the cure, who
+was suspected of having incited him to this deed of vengeance, was
+himself put in prison, and accused by the dead man's relatives.  But he
+escaped, took a gun in his turn, and went to join his nephew in the
+brush.
+
+"Next, St. Lucia killed, one after the other, his uncle's accusers, and
+tore out their eyes to teach the others never to state what they had seen
+with their eyes.
+
+"He killed all the relatives, all the connections of his enemy's family.
+He slew during his life fourteen gendarmes, burned down the houses of his
+adversaries, and was, up to the day of his death, the most terrible of
+all the bandits whose memory we have preserved."
+
+The sun disappeared behind Monte Cinto and the tall shadow of the granite
+mountain went to sleep on the granite of the valley.  We quickened our
+pace in order to reach before night the little village of Albertaccio,
+nothing but a pile of stones welded into the stone flanks of a wild
+gorge.  And I said as I thought of the bandit:
+
+"What a terrible custom your vendetta is!"
+
+My companion answered with an air of resignation:
+
+"What would you have?  A man must do his duty!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAVE
+
+The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at
+half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers,
+who lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was
+awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.
+
+Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door
+and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the
+house.  The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.
+
+His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue
+General Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.
+
+The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of
+the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a
+horrible act of profanation.
+
+A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the
+evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.
+
+A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this
+hideous scene.
+
+Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands
+and took him to the police station.
+
+It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named Courbataille.
+
+He was brought into court.  The public prosecutor opened the case by
+referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.
+
+A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom.  When the magistrate sat
+down the crowd assembled cried: "Death!  death!" With difficulty the
+presiding judge established silence.
+
+Then he said gravely:
+
+"Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?"
+
+Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose.  He was a handsome fellow,
+tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.
+
+Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in a
+voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he
+proceeded.
+
+"Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to say.
+The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart.  I loved her.
+
+"I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness of
+heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an overpowering
+passion.
+
+"Hear me:
+
+"When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation.  It was
+not astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at
+first sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been
+plunged into a warm bath.  Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted
+me, and it was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person.
+It seemed to me as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a
+long time.  She had within her something of my spirit.
+
+"She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that
+vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole
+life.
+
+"When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again
+filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand
+in mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined; her
+smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to
+fling myself upon the ground.
+
+"So we became lovers.
+
+"Yes, more than that: she was my very life.  I looked for nothing further
+on earth, and had no further desires.  I longed for nothing further.
+
+"One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river, we
+were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold.  It developed into
+pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.
+
+"During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation
+prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead
+I was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left.
+I wept.
+
+"During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief
+was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.
+
+"Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once
+found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings so
+terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that
+price.
+
+"Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.
+
+"When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were
+going mad.  Just think of it!  There is a woman whom you adore, a unique
+woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her.
+This woman has given herself to you and has created with you the
+mysterious union that is called Love.  Her eye seems to you more vast
+than space, more charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with her
+tenderness.  This woman loves you.  When she speaks to you her voice
+floods you with joy.
+
+"And suddenly she disappears!  Think of it!  She disappears, not only for
+you, but forever.  She is dead.  Do you understand what that means?
+Never, never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more.  Nevermore
+will that eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor
+any voice like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.
+
+"Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers.  Never, never!  The
+molds of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects
+with the same outlines and forms.  But that one body and that one face
+will never more be born again upon the earth.  And yet millions and
+millions of creatures will be born, and more than that, and this one
+woman will not reappear among all the women of the future.  Is it
+possible?  It drives one mad to think of it.
+
+"She lived for twenty-years, not more, and she has disappeared forever,
+forever, forever!  She thought, she smiled, she loved me.  And now
+nothing!  The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this
+world.  And now nothing!  And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so
+warm, so sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box
+under the earth.  And her soul, her thought, her love--where is it?
+
+"Not to see her again!  The idea of this decomposing body, that I might
+yet recognize, haunted me.  I wanted to look at it once more.
+
+"I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the
+cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed
+entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board.  An abominable
+odor, the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils.  Oh, her bed
+perfumed with orris!
+
+"Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I
+saw her.  Her face was blue, swollen, frightful.  A black liquid had
+oozed out of her mouth.
+
+"She!  That was she!  Horror seized me.  But I stretched out my arm to
+draw this monstrous face toward me.  And then I was caught.
+
+"All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor of
+my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love
+embrace.
+
+"Do with me what you will."
+
+A strange silence seemed to oppress the room.  They seemed to be waiting
+for something more.  The jury retired to deliberate.
+
+When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and
+did not even seem to think.
+
+The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges
+declared him to be not guilty.
+
+He did not move and the room applauded.
+
+     The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature
+     of "Maufrigneuse."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Original Short Stories, Vol. 12.
+by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Original Short Stories, by Maupassant, v12
+#13 in our series by Guy de Maupassant
+
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+Title: Original Short Stories, Volume 12.
+
+Author: Guy de Maupassant
+
+Release Date: February, 2002  [Etext #3088]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted in November 2000]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Original Short Stories of Maupassant, v12
+**********This file should be named gm12v11.txt or gm12v11.zip**********
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+
+ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES, Vol. 12.
+
+By Guy de Maupassant
+
+
+
+                           GUY DE MAUPASSANT
+                         ORIGINAL SHORT STORIES
+                             Translated by
+                       ALBERT M. C. McMASTER, B.A.
+                          A. E. HENDERSON, B.A.
+                         MME. QUESADA and Others
+
+
+
+VOLUME XII.
+
+THE CHILD
+A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+ROSE
+ROSALIE PRUDENT
+REGRET
+A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+COCO
+A DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+A HUMBLE DRAMA
+MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+THE GRAVE
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD
+
+Lemonnier had remained a widower with one child.  He had loved his wife
+devotedly, with a tender and exalted love, without a slip, during their
+entire married life.  He was a good, honest man, perfectly simple,
+sincere, without suspicion or malice.
+
+He fell in love with a poor neighbor, proposed and was accepted.  He was
+making a very comfortable living out of the wholesale cloth business, and
+he did not for a minute suspect that the young girl might have accepted
+him for anything else but himself.
+
+She made him happy.  She was everything to him; he only thought of her,
+looked at her continually, with worshiping eyes.  During meals he would
+make any number of blunders, in order not to have to take his eyes from
+the beloved face; he would pour the wine in his plate and the water in
+the salt-cellar, then he would laugh like a child, repeating:
+
+"You see, I love you too much; that makes me crazy."
+
+She would smile with a calm and resigned look; then she would look away,
+as though embarrassed by the adoration of her husband, and try to make
+him talk about something else; but he would take her hand under the table
+and he would hold it in his, whispering:
+
+"My little Jeanne, my darling little Jeanne!"
+
+She sometimes lost patience and said:
+
+"Come, come, be reasonable; eat and let me eat."
+
+He would sigh and break off a mouthful of bread, which he would then chew
+slowly.
+
+For five years they had no children.  Then suddenly she announced to him
+that this state of affairs would soon cease.  He was wild with joy.  He
+no longer left her for a minute, until his old nurse, who had brought him
+up and who often ruled the house, would push him out and close the door
+behind him, in order to compel him to go out in the fresh air.
+
+He had grown very intimate with a young man who had known his wife since
+childhood, and who was one of the prefect's secretaries.  M. Duretour
+would dine three times a week with the Lemonniers, bringing flowers to
+madame, and sometimes a box at the theater; and often, at the end of the
+dinner, Lemonnier, growing tender, turning towards his wife, would
+explain: "With a companion like you and a friend like him, a man is
+completely happy on earth."
+
+She died in childbirth.  The shock almost killed him.  But the sight of
+the child, a poor, moaning little creature, gave him courage.
+
+He loved it with a passionate and sorrowful love, with a morbid love in
+which stuck the memory of death, but in which lived something of his
+worship for the dead mother.  It was the flesh of his wife, her being
+continued, a sort of quintessence of herself.  This child was her very
+life transferred to another body; she had disappeared that it might
+exist, and the father would smother it in with kisses.  But also, this
+child had killed her; he had stolen this beloved creature, his life was
+at the cost of hers.  And M. Lemonnier would place his son in the cradle
+and would sit down and watch him.  He would sit this way by the hour,
+looking at him, dreaming of thousands of things, sweet or sad.  Then,
+when the little one was asleep, he would bend over him and sob.
+
+The child grew.  The father could no longer spend an hour away from him;
+he would stay near him, take him out for walks, and himself dress him,
+wash him, make him eat.  His friend, M. Duretour, also seemed to love the
+boy; he would kiss him wildly, in those frenzies of tenderness which are
+characteristic of parents.  He would toss him in his arms, he would trot
+him on his knees, by the hour, and M. Lemonnier, delighted, would mutter:
+
+"Isn't he a darling?  Isn't he a darling?"
+
+And M. Duretour would hug the child in his arms and tickle his neck with
+his mustache.
+
+Celeste, the old nurse, alone, seemed to have no tenderness for the
+little one.  She would grow angry at his pranks, and seemed impatient at
+the caresses of the two men.  She would exclaim:
+
+"How can you expect to bring a child up like that?  You'll make a perfect
+monkey out of him."
+
+Years went by, and Jean was nine years old.  He hardly knew how to read;
+he had been so spoiled, and only did as he saw fit.  He was willful,
+stubborn and quick-tempered.  The father always gave in to him and let
+him have his own way.  M. Duretour would always buy him all the toys he
+wished, and he fed him on cake and candies.  Then Celeste would grow
+angry and exclaim:
+
+"It's a shame, monsieur, a shame.  You are spoiling this child.  But it
+will have to stop; yes, sir, I tell you it will have to stop, and before
+long, too."
+
+M. Lemonnier would answer, smiling:
+
+"What can you expect?  I love him too much, I can't resist him; you must
+get used to it."
+
+Jean was delicate, rather.  The doctor said that he was anaemic,
+prescribed iron, rare meat and broth.
+
+But the little fellow loved only cake and refused all other nourishment;
+and the father, in despair, stuffed him with cream-puffs and chocolate
+eclairs.
+
+One evening, as they were sitting down to supper, Celeste brought on the
+soup with an air of authority and an assurance which she did not usually
+have.  She took off the cover and, dipping the ladle into the dish, she
+declared:
+
+"Here is some broth such as I have never made; the young one will have to
+take some this time."
+
+M. Lemonnier, frightened, bent his head.  He saw a storm brewing.
+
+Celeste took his plate, filled it herself and placed it in front of him.
+
+He tasted the soup and said:
+
+"It is, indeed, excellent."
+
+The servant took the boy's plate and poured a spoonful of soup in it.
+Then she retreated a few steps and waited.
+
+Jean smelled the food and pushed his plate away with an expression of
+disgust.  Celeste, suddenly pale, quickly stepped forward and forcibly
+poured a spoonful down the child's open mouth.
+
+He choked, coughed, sneezed, spat; howling, he seized his glass and threw
+it at his nurse.  She received it full in the stomach.  Then,
+exasperated, she took the young shaver's head under her arm and began
+pouring spoonful after spoonful of soup down his throat.  He grew as red
+as a beet, and he would cough it up, stamping, twisting, choking, beating
+the air with his hands.
+
+At first the father was so surprised that he could not move.  Then,
+suddenly, he rushed forward, wild with rage, seized the servant by the
+throat and threw her up against the wall stammering:
+
+"Out! Out! Out! you brute!"
+
+But she shook him off, and, her hair streaming down her back, her eyes
+snapping, she cried out:
+
+"What's gettin' hold of you?  You're trying to thrash me because I am
+making this child eat soup when you are filling him with sweet stuff!"
+
+He kept repeating, trembling from head to foot:
+
+"Out! Get out-get out, you brute!"
+
+Then, wild, she turned to him and, pushing her face up against his, her
+voice trembling:
+
+"Ah!--you think-you think that you can treat me like that?  Oh! no.  And
+for whom?--for that brat who is not even yours.  No, not yours!  No, not
+yours--not yours!  Everybody knows it, except yourself!  Ask the grocer,
+the butcher, the baker, all of them, any one of them!"
+
+She was growling and mumbling, choked with passion; then she stopped and
+looked at him.
+
+He was motionless livid, his arms hanging by his sides.  After a short
+pause, he murmured in a faint, shaky voice, instinct with deep feeling:
+
+"You say? you say?  What do you say?"
+
+She remained silent, frightened by his appearance.  Once more he stepped
+forward, repeating:
+
+"You say--what do you say?"
+
+Then in a calm voice, she answered:
+
+"I say what I know, what everybody knows."
+
+He seized her and, with the fury of a beast, he tried to throw her down.
+But, although old, she was strong and nimble.  She slipped under his arm,
+and running around the table once more furious, she screamed:
+
+"Look at him, just look at him, fool that you are!  Isn't he the living
+image of M. Durefour? just look at his nose and his eyes!  Are yours like
+that?  And his hair!  Is it like his mother's?  I tell you that everyone
+knows it, everyone except yourself!  It's the joke of the town!  Look at
+him!"
+
+She went to the door, opened it, and disappeared.
+
+Jean, frightened, sat motionless before his plate of soup.
+
+At the end of an hour, she returned gently, to see how matters stood.
+The child, after doing away with all the cakes and a pitcher full of
+cream and one of syrup, was now emptying the jam-pot with his soup-spoon.
+
+The father had gone out.
+
+Celeste took the child, kissed him, and gently carried him to his room
+and put him to bed.  She came back to the dining-room, cleared the table,
+put everything in place, feeling very uneasy all the time.
+
+Not a single sound could be heard throughout the house.  She put her ear
+against's her master's door.  He seemed to be perfectly still.  She put
+her eye to the keyhole.  He was writing, and seemed very calm.
+
+Then she returned to the kitchen and sat down, ready for any emergency.
+She slept on a chair and awoke at daylight.
+
+She did the rooms as she had been accustomed to every morning; she swept
+and dusted, and, towards eight o'clock, prepared M. Lemonnier's
+breakfast.
+
+But she did not dare bring it to her master, knowing too well how she
+would be received; she waited for him to ring.  But he did not ring.
+Nine o'clock, then ten o'clock went by.
+
+Celeste, not knowing what to think, prepared her tray and started up with
+it, her heart beating fast.
+
+She stopped before the door and listened.  Everything was still.  She
+knocked; no answer.  Then, gathering up all her courage, she opened the
+door and entered.  With a wild shriek, she dropped the breakfast tray
+which she had been holding in her hand.
+
+In the middle of the room, M. Lemonnier was hanging by a rope from a ring
+in the ceiling.  His tongue was sticking out horribly.  His right slipper
+was lying on the ground, his left one still on his foot.  An upturned
+chair had rolled over to the bed.
+
+Celeste, dazed, ran away shrieking.  All the neighbors crowded together.
+The physician declared that he had died at about midnight.
+
+A letter addressed to M. Duretdur was found on the table of the suicide.
+It contained these words:
+
+"I leave and entrust the child to you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A COUNTRY EXCURSION
+
+For five months they had been talking of going to take luncheon in one of
+the country suburbs of Paris on Madame Dufour's birthday, and as they
+were looking forward very impatiently to the outing, they rose very early
+that morning.  Monsieur Dufour had borrowed the milkman's wagon and drove
+himself.  It was a very tidy, two-wheeled conveyance, with a cover
+supported by four iron rods, with curtains that had been drawn up, except
+the one at the back, which floated out like a sail.  Madame Dufour,
+resplendent in a wonderful, cherry colored silk dress, sat by the side of
+her husband.
+
+The old grandmother and a girl sat behind them on two chairs, and a boy
+with yellow hair was lying at the bottom of the wagon, with nothing to be
+seen of him except his head.
+
+When they reached the bridge of Neuilly, Monsieur Dufour said: "Here we
+are in the country at last!" and at that signal his wife grew sentimental
+about the beauties of nature.  When they got to the crossroads at
+Courbevoie they were seized with admiration for the distant landscape.
+On the right was Argenteuil with its bell tower, and above it rose the
+hills of Sannois and the mill of Orgemont, while on the left the aqueduct
+of Marly stood out against the clear morning sky, and in the distance
+they could see the terrace of Saint-Germain; and opposite them, at the
+end of a low chain of hills, the new fort of Cormeilles.  Quite in the
+distance; a very long way off, beyond the plains and village, one could
+see the sombre green of the forests.
+
+The sun was beginning to burn their faces, the dust got into their eyes,
+and on either side of the road there stretched an interminable tract of
+bare, ugly country with an unpleasant odor.  One might have thought that
+it had been ravaged by a pestilence, which had even attacked the
+buildings, for skeletons of dilapidated and deserted houses, or small
+cottages, which were left in an unfinished state, because the contractors
+had not been paid, reared their four roofless walls on each side.
+
+Here and there tall factory chimneys rose up from the barren soil.  The
+only vegetation on that putrid land, where the spring breezes wafted an
+odor of petroleum and slate, blended with another odor that was even less
+agreeable.  At last, however, they crossed the Seine a second time, and
+the bridge was a delight.  The river sparkled in the sun, and they had a
+feeling of quiet enjoyment, felt refreshed as they drank in the purer air
+that was not impregnated by the black smoke of factories nor by the
+miasma from the deposits of night soil.  A man whom they met told them
+that the name of the place was Bezons.  Monsieur Dufour pulled up and
+read the attractive announcement outside an eating house: Restaurant
+Poulin, matelottes and fried fish, private rooms, arbors, and swings.
+
+"Well, Madame Dufour, will this suit you?  Will you make up your mind at
+last?"
+
+She read the announcement in her turn and then looked at the house for
+some time.
+
+It was a white country inn, built by the roadside, and through the open
+door she could see the bright zinc of the counter, at which sat two
+workmen in their Sunday clothes.  At last she made up her mind and said:
+
+"Yes, this will do; and, besides, there is a view."
+
+They drove into a large field behind the inn, separated from the river by
+the towing path, and dismounted.  The husband sprang out first and then
+held out his arms for his wife, and as the step was very high Madame
+Dufour, in order to reach him, had to show the lower part of her limbs,
+whose former slenderness had disappeared in fat, and Monsieur Dufour, who
+was already getting excited by the country air, pinched her calf, and
+then, taking her in his arms, he set her on the ground, as if she had
+been some enormous bundle.  She shook the dust out of the silk dress and
+then looked round to see in what sort of a place she was.
+
+She was a stout woman, of about thirty-six, full-blown, and delightful to
+look at.  She could hardly breathe, as her corsets were laced too
+tightly, and their pressure forced her superabundant bosom up to her
+double chin.  Next the girl placed her hand on her father's shoulder and
+jumped down lightly.  The boy with the yellow hair had got down by
+stepping on the wheel, and he helped Monsieur Dufour to lift his
+grandmother out.  Then they unharnessed the horse, which they had tied to
+a tree, and the carriage fell back, with both shafts in the air.  The men
+took off their coats and washed their hands in a pail of water and then
+went and joined the ladies, who had already taken possession of the
+swings.
+
+Mademoiselle Dufour was trying to swing herself standing up, but she
+could not succeed in getting a start.  She was a pretty girl of about
+eighteen, one of those women who suddenly excite your desire when you
+meet them in the street and who leave you with a vague feeling of
+uneasiness and of excited senses.  She was tall, had a small waist and
+large hips, with a dark skin, very large eyes and very black hair.  Her
+dress clearly marked the outlines of her firm, full figure, which was
+accentuated by the motion of her hips as she tried to swing herself
+higher.  Her arms were stretched upward to hold the rope, so that her
+bosom rose at every movement she made.  Her hat, which a gust of wind had
+blown off, was hanging behind her, and as the swing gradually rose higher
+and higher, she showed her delicate limbs up to the knees each time, and
+the breeze from her flying skirts, which was more heady than the fumes of
+wine, blew into the faces of the two men, who were looking at her and
+smiling.
+
+Sitting in the other swing, Madame Dufour kept saying in a monotonous
+voice:
+
+"Cyprian, come and swing me; do come and swing me, Cyprian!"
+
+At last he went, and turning up his shirt sleeves, as if undertaking a
+hard piece of work, with much difficulty he set his wife in motion.  She
+clutched the two ropes and held her legs out straight, so as not to touch
+the ground.  She enjoyed feeling dizzy at the motion of the swing, and
+her whole figure shook like a jelly on a dish, but as she went higher and
+higher; she became too giddy and was frightened.  Each time the swing
+came down she uttered a piercing scream, which made all the little
+urchins in the neighborhood come round, and down below, beneath the
+garden hedge, she vaguely saw a row of mischievous heads making various
+grimaces as they laughed.
+
+When a servant girl came out they ordered luncheon.
+
+"Some fried fish, a rabbit saute, salad and dessert," Madame Dufour said,
+with an important air.
+
+"Bring two quarts of beer and a bottle of claret," her husband said.
+
+"We will have lunch on the grass," the girl added.
+
+The grandmother, who had an affection for cats, had been running after
+one that belonged to the house, trying to coax it to come to her for the
+last ten minutes.  The animal, who was no doubt secretly flattered by her
+attentions, kept close to the good woman, but just out of reach of her
+hand, and quietly walked round the trees, against which she rubbed
+herself, with her tail up, purring with pleasure.
+
+"Hello!" suddenly exclaimed the young man with the yellow hair, who was
+wandering about.  "Here are two swell boats!"  They all went to look at
+them and saw two beautiful canoes in a wooden shed; they were as
+beautifully finished as if they had been ornamental furniture.  They hung
+side by side, like two tall, slender girls, in their narrow shining
+length, and made one wish to float in them on warm summer mornings and
+evenings along the flower-covered banks of the river, where the trees dip
+their branches into the water, where the rushes are continually rustling
+in the breeze and where the swift kingfishers dart about like flashes of
+blue lightning.
+
+The whole family looked at them with great respect.
+
+"Oh, they are indeed swell boats!"  Monsieur Dufour repeated gravely, as
+he examined them like a connoiseur.  He had been in the habit of rowing
+in his younger days, he said, and when he had spat in his hands--and he
+went through the action of pulling the oars--he did not care a fig for
+anybody.  He had beaten more than one Englishman formerly at the
+Joinville regattas.  He grew quite excited at last and offered to make a
+bet that in a boat like that he could row six leagues an hour without
+exerting himself.
+
+"Luncheon is ready," the waitress said, appearing at the entrance to the
+boathouse, and they all hurried off.  But two young men had taken the
+very seats that Madame Dufour had selected and were eating their
+luncheon.  No doubt they were the owners of the sculls, for they were in
+boating costume.  They were stretched out, almost lying on the chairs;
+they were sun-browned and their thin cotton jerseys, with short sleeves,
+showed their bare arms, which were as strong as a blacksmith's.  They
+were two strong, athletic fellows, who showed in all their movements that
+elasticity and grace of limb which can only be acquired by exercise and
+which is so different to the deformity with which monotonous heavy work
+stamps the mechanic.
+
+They exchanged a rapid smile when they saw the mother and then a glance
+on seeing the daughter.
+
+"Let us give up our place," one of them said; "it will make us acquainted
+with them."
+
+The other got up immediately, and holding his black and red boating cap
+in his hand, he politely offered the ladies the only shady place in the
+garden.  With many excuses they accepted, and that it might be more
+rural, they sat on the grass, without either tables or chairs.
+
+The two young men took their plates, knives, forks, etc., to a table a
+little way off and began to eat again, and their bare arms, which they
+showed continually, rather embarrassed the girl.  She even pretended to
+turn her head aside and not to see them, while Madame Dufour, who was
+rather bolder, tempted by feminine curiosity, looked at them every
+moment, and, no doubt, compared them with the secret unsightliness of her
+husband.  She had squatted herself on ground, with her legs tucked under
+her, after the manner of tailors, and she kept moving about restlessly,
+saying that ants were crawling about her somewhere.  Monsieur Dufour,
+annoyed at the presence of the polite strangers, was trying to find a
+comfortable position which he did not, however, succeed in doing, and the
+young man with the yellow hair was eating as silently as an ogre.
+
+"It is lovely weather, monsieur," the stout lady said to one of the
+boating men.  She wished to be friendly because they had given up their
+place.
+
+"It is, indeed, madame," he replied.  "Do you often go into the country?"
+
+"Oh, only once or twice a year to get a little fresh air.  And you,
+monsieur?"
+
+"I come and sleep here every night."
+
+"Oh, that must be very nice!"
+
+"Certainly it is, madame."  And he gave them such a practical account of
+his daily life that it awakened afresh in the hearts of these shopkeepers
+who were deprived of the meadows and who longed for country walks, to
+that foolish love of nature which they all feel so strongly the whole
+year round behind the counter in their shop.
+
+The girl raised her eyes and looked at the oarsman with emotion and
+Monsieur Dufour spoke for the first time.
+
+"It is indeed a happy life," he said.  And then he added: "A little more
+rabbit, my dear?"
+
+"No, thank you," she replied, and turning to the young men again, and
+pointing to their arms, asked: "Do you never feel cold like that?"
+
+They both began to laugh, and they astonished the family with an account
+of the enormous fatigue they could endure, of their bathing while in a
+state of tremendous perspiration, of their rowing in the fog at night;
+and they struck their chests violently to show how hollow they sounded.
+
+"Ah!  You look very strong," said the husband, who did not talk any more
+of the time when he used to beat the English.  The girl was looking at
+them sideways now, and the young fellow with the yellow hair, who had
+swallowed some wine the wrong way, was coughing violently and
+bespattering Madame Dufour's cherry-colored silk dress.  She got angry
+and sent for some water to wash the spots.
+
+Meanwhile it had grown unbearably hot, the sparkling river looked like a
+blaze of fire and the fumes of the wine were getting into their heads.
+Monsieur Dufour, who had a violent hiccough, had unbuttoned his waistcoat
+and the top button of his trousers, while his wife, who felt choking, was
+gradually unfastening her dress.  The apprentice was shaking his yellow
+wig in a happy frame of mind, and kept helping himself to wine, and the
+old grandmother, feeling the effects of the wine, was very stiff and
+dignified.  As for the girl, one noticed only a peculiar brightness in
+her eyes, while the brown cheeks became more rosy.
+
+The coffee finished, they suggested singing, and each of them sang or
+repeated a couplet, which the others applauded frantically.  Then they
+got up with some difficulty, and while the two women, who were rather
+dizzy, were trying to get a breath of air, the two men, who were
+altogether drunk, were attempting gymnastics.  Heavy, limp and with
+scarlet faces they hung or, awkwardly to the iron rings, without being
+able to raise themselves.
+
+Meanwhile the two boating men had got their boats into the water, and
+they came back and politely asked the ladies whether they would like a
+row.
+
+"Would you like one, Monsieur Dufour?" his wife exclaimed.  "Please
+come!"
+
+He merely gave her a drunken nod, without understanding what she said.
+Then one of the rowers came up with two fishing rods in his hands, and
+the hope of catching a gudgeon, that great vision of the Parisian
+shopkeeper, made Dufour's dull eyes gleam, and he politely allowed them
+to do whatever they liked, while he sat in the shade under the bridge,
+with his feet dangling over the river, by the side of the young man with
+the yellow hair, who was sleeping soundly.
+
+One of the boating men made a martyr of himself and took the mother.
+
+"Let us go to the little wood on the Ile aux Anglais!" he called out as
+he rowed off.  The other boat went more slowly, for the rower was looking
+at his companion so intently that by thought of nothing else, and his
+emotion seemed to paralyze his strength, while the girl, who was sitting
+in the bow, gave herself up to the enjoyment of being on the water.  She
+felt a disinclination to think, a lassitude in her limbs and a total
+enervation, as if she were intoxicated, and her face was flushed and her
+breathing quickened.  The effects of the wine, which were increased by
+the extreme heat, made all the trees on the bank seem to bow as she
+passed.  A vague wish for enjoyment and a fermentation of her blood
+seemed to pervade her whole body, which was excited by the heat of the
+day, and she was also disturbed at this tete-a-tete on the water, in a
+place which seemed depopulated by the heat, with this young man who
+thought her pretty, whose ardent looks seemed to caress her skin and were
+as penetrating and pervading as the sun's rays.
+
+Their inability to speak increased their emotion, and they looked about
+them.  At last, however, he made an effort and asked her name.
+
+"Henriette," she said.
+
+"Why, my name is Henri," he replied.  The sound of their voices had
+calmed them, and they looked at the banks.  The other boat had passed
+them and seemed to be waiting for them, and the rower called out:
+
+"We will meet you in the wood; we are going as far as Robinson's, because
+Madame Dufour is thirsty."  Then he bent over his oars again and rowed
+off so quickly that he was soon out of sight.
+
+Meanwhile a continual roar, which they had heard for some time, came
+nearer, and the river itself seemed to shiver, as if the dull noise were
+rising from its depths.
+
+"What is that noise?" she asked.  It was the noise of the weir which cut
+the river in two at the island, and he was explaining it to her, when,
+above the noise of the waterfall, they heard the song of a bird, which
+seemed a long way off.
+
+"Listen!" he said; "the nightingales are singing during the day, so the
+female birds must be sitting."
+
+A nightingale!  She had never heard one before, and the idea of listening
+to one roused visions of poetic tenderness in her heart.  A nightingale!
+That is to say, the invisible witness of her love trysts which Juliet
+invoked on her balcony; that celestial music which it attuned to human
+kisses, that eternal inspirer of all those languorous romances which open
+an ideal sky to all the poor little tender hearts of sensitive girls!
+
+She was going to hear a nightingale.
+
+"We must not make a noise," her companion said, "and then we can go into
+the wood, and sit down close beside it."
+
+The boat seemed to glide.  They saw the trees on the island, the banks of
+which were so low that they could look into the depths of the thickets.
+They stopped, he made the boat fast, Henriette took hold of Henri's arm,
+and they went beneath the trees.
+
+"Stoop," he said, so she stooped down, and they went into an inextricable
+thicket of creepers, leaves and reed grass, which formed an
+undiscoverable retreat, and which the young man laughingly called "his
+private room."
+
+Just above their heads, perched in one of the trees which hid them, the
+bird was still singing.  He uttered trills and roulades, and then loud,
+vibrating notes that filled the air and seemed to lose themselves on the
+horizon, across the level country, through that burning silence which
+weighed upon the whole landscape.  They did not speak for fear of
+frightening it away.  They were sitting close together, and, slowly,
+Henri's arm stole round the girl's waist and squeezed it gently.  She
+took that daring hand without any anger, and kept removing it whenever he
+put it round her; without, however, feeling at all embarrassed by this
+caress, just as if it had been something quite natural, which she was
+resisting just as naturally.
+
+She was listening to the bird in ecstasy.  She felt an infinite longing
+for happiness, for some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the
+revelation of superhuman poetry, and she felt such a softening at her
+heart, and relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without
+knowing why.  The young man was now straining her close to him, yet she
+did not remove his arm; she did not think of it.  Suddenly the
+nightingale stopped, and a voice called out in the distance:
+
+"Henriette!"
+
+"Do not reply," he said in a low voice; "you will drive the bird away."
+
+But she had no idea of doing so, and they remained in the same position
+for some time.  Madame Dufour had sat down somewhere or other, for from
+time to time they heard the stout lady break out into little bursts of
+laughter.
+
+The girl was still crying; she was filled with strange sensations.
+Henri's head was on her shoulder, and suddenly he kissed her on the lips.
+She was surprised and angry, and, to avoid him, she stood up.
+
+They were both very pale when they left their grassy retreat.  The blue
+sky appeared to them clouded and the ardent sun darkened; and they felt
+tile solitude and the silence.  They walked rapidly, side by side,
+without speaking or touching each other, for they seemed to have become
+irreconcilable enemies, as if disgust and hatred had arisen between them,
+and from time to time Henriette called out: "Mamma!"
+
+By and by they heard a noise behind a bush, and the stout lady appeared,
+looking rather confused, and her companion's face was wrinkled with
+smiles which he could not check.
+
+Madame Dufour took his arm, and they returned to the boats, and Henri,
+who was ahead, walked in silence beside the young girl.  At last they got
+back to Bezons.  Monsieur Dufour, who was now sober, was waiting for them
+very impatiently, while the young man with the yellow hair was having a
+mouthful of something to eat before leaving the inn.  The carriage was
+waiting in the yard, and the grandmother, who had already got in, was
+very frightened at the thought of being overtaken by night before they
+reached Paris, as the outskirts were not safe.
+
+They all shook bands, and the Dufour family drove off.
+
+"Good-by, until we meet again!" the oarsmen cried, and the answer they
+got was a sigh and a tear.
+
+
+Two months later, as Henri was going along the Rue des Martyrs, he saw
+Dufour, Ironmonger, over a door, and so he went in, and saw the stout
+lady sitting at the counter.  They recognized each other immediately, and
+after an interchange of polite greetings, he asked after them all.
+
+"And how is Mademoiselle Henriette?" he inquired specially.
+
+"Very well, thank you; she is married."
+
+"Ah!"  He felt a certain emotion, but said: "Whom did she marry?"
+
+"That young man who accompanied us, you know; he has joined us in
+business."
+
+"I remember him perfectly."
+
+He was going out, feeling very unhappy, though scarcely knowing why, when
+madame called him back.
+
+"And how is your friend?" she asked rather shyly.
+
+"He is very well, thank you."
+
+"Please give him our compliments, and beg him to come and call, when he
+is in the neighborhood."
+
+She then added: "Tell him it will give me great pleasure."
+
+"I will be sure to do so.  Adieu!"
+
+"Do not say that; come again very soon."
+
+The next year, one very hot Sunday, all the details of that adventure,
+which Henri had never forgotten, suddenly came back to him so clearly
+that he returned alone to their room in the wood, and was overwhelmed
+with astonishment when he went in.  She was sitting on the grass, looking
+very sad, while by her side, still in his shirt sleeves, the young man
+with the yellow hair was sleeping soundly, like some animal.
+
+She grew so pale when she saw Henri that at first he thought she was
+going to faint; then, however, they began to talk quite naturally.
+But when he told her that he was very fond of that spot, and went there
+frequently on Sundays to indulge in memories, she looked into his eyes
+for a long time.
+
+"I too, think of it," she replied.
+
+"Come, my dear," her husband said, with a yawn.  "I think it is time for
+us to be going."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ROSE
+
+The two young women appear to be buried under a blanket of flowers.  They
+are alone in the immense landau, which is filled with flowers like a
+giant basket.  On the front seat are two small hampers of white satin
+filled with violets, and on the bearskin by which their knees are covered
+there is a mass of roses, mimosas, pinks, daisies, tuberoses and orange
+blossoms, interwoven with silk ribbons; the two frail bodies seem buried
+under this beautiful perfumed bed, which hides everything but the
+shoulders and arms and a little of the dainty waists.
+
+The coachman's whip is wound with a garland of anemones, the horses'
+traces are dotted with carnations, the spokes of the wheels are clothed
+in mignonette, and where the lanterns ought to be are two enormous round
+bouquets which look as though they were the eyes of this strange,
+rolling, flower-bedecked creature.
+
+The landau drives rapidly along the road, through the Rue d'Antibes,
+preceded, followed, accompanied, by a crowd of other carriages covered
+with flowers, full of women almost hidden by a sea of violets.  It is the
+flower carnival at Cannes.
+
+The carriage reaches the Boulevard de la Fonciere, where the battle is
+waged.  All along the immense avenue a double row of flower-bedecked
+vehicles are going and coming like an endless ribbon.  Flowers are thrown
+from one to the other.  They pass through the air like balls, striking
+fresh faces, bouncing and falling into the dust, where an army of
+youngsters pick them up.
+
+A thick crowd is standing on the sidewalks looking on and held in check
+by the mounted police, who pass brutally along pushing back the curious
+pedestrians as though to prevent the common people from mingling with the
+rich.
+
+In the carriages, people call to each other, recognize each other and
+bombard each other with roses.  A chariot full of pretty women, dressed
+in red, like devils, attracts the eyes of all.  A gentleman, who looks
+like the portraits of Henry IV., is throwing an immense bouquet which is
+held back by an elastic.  Fearing the shock, the women hide their eyes
+and the men lower their heads, but the graceful, rapid and obedient
+missile describes a curve and returns to its master, who immediately
+throws it at some new face.
+
+The two young women begin to throw their stock of flowers by handfuls,
+and receive a perfect hail of bouquets; then, after an hour of warfare,
+a little tired, they tell the coachman to drive along the road which
+follows the seashore.
+
+The sun disappears behind Esterel, outlining the dark, rugged mountain
+against the sunset sky.  The clear blue sea, as calm as a mill-pond,
+stretches out as far as the horizon, where it blends with the sky; and
+the fleet, anchored in the middle of the bay, looks like a herd of
+enormous beasts, motionless on the water, apocalyptic animals, armored
+and hump-backed, their frail masts looking like feathers, and with eyes
+which light up when evening approaches.
+
+The two young women, leaning back under the heavy robes, look out lazily
+over the blue expanse of water.  At last one of them says:
+
+"How delightful the evenings are!  How good everything seems!  Don't you
+think so, Margot?"
+
+"Yes, it is good.  But there is always something lacking."
+
+"What is lacking?  I feel perfectly happy.  I don't need anything else."
+
+"Yes, you do.  You are not thinking of it.  No matter how contented we
+may be, physically, we always long for something more--for the heart."
+
+The other asked with a smile:
+
+"A little love?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+They stopped talking, their eyes fastened on the distant horizon, then
+the one called Marguerite murmured: "Life without that seems to me
+unbearable.  I need to be loved, if only by a dog.  But we are all alike,
+no matter what you may say, Simone."
+
+"Not at all, my dear.  I had rather not be loved at all than to be loved
+by the first comer.  Do you think, for instance, that it would be
+pleasant to be loved by--by--"
+
+She was thinking by whom she might possibly be loved, glancing across the
+wide landscape.  Her eyes, after traveling around the horizon, fell on
+the two bright buttons which were shining on the back of the coachman's
+livery, and she continued, laughing: "by my coachman?"
+
+Madame Margot barely smiled, and said in a low tone of voice:
+
+"I assure you that it is very amusing to be loved by a servant.  It has
+happened to me two or three times.  They roll their eyes in such a funny
+manner--it's enough to make you die laughing!  Naturally, the more in
+love they are, the more severe one must be with them, and then, some day,
+for some reason, you dismiss them, because, if anyone should notice it,
+you would appear so ridiculous."
+
+Madame Simone was listening, staring straight ahead of her, then she
+remarked:
+
+"No, I'm afraid that my footman's heart would not satisfy me.  Tell me
+how you noticed that they loved you."
+
+"I noticed it the same way that I do with other men--when they get
+stupid."
+
+"The others don't seem stupid to me, when they love me."
+
+"They are idiots, my dear, unable to talk, to answer, to understand
+anything."
+
+"But how did you feel when you were loved by a servant?  Were you--moved
+--flattered?"
+
+"Moved?  no, flattered--yes a little.  One is always flattered to be
+loved by a man, no matter who he may be."
+
+"Oh, Margot!"
+
+"Yes, indeed, my dear!  For instance, I will tell you of a peculiar
+incident which happened to me.  You will see how curious and complex our
+emotions are, in such cases.
+
+"About four years ago I happened to be without a maid.  I had tried five
+or six, one right after the other, and I was about ready to give up in
+despair, when I saw an advertisement in a newspaper of a young girl
+knowing how to cook, embroider, dress hair, who was looking for a
+position and who could furnish the best of references.  Besides all these
+accomplishments, she could speak English.
+
+"I wrote to the given address, and the next day the person in question
+presented herself.  She was tall, slender, pale, shy-looking.  She had
+beautiful black eyes and a charming complexion; she pleased me
+immediately.  I asked for her certificates; she gave me one in English,
+for she came, as she said, from Lady Rymwell's, where she had been for
+ten years.
+
+"The certificate showed that the young girl had left of her own free
+will, in order to return to France, and the only thing which they had had
+to find fault in her during her long period of service was a little
+French coquettishness.
+
+"This prudish English phrase even made me smile, and I immediately
+engaged this maid.
+
+"She came to me the same day.  Her name was Rose.
+
+"At the end of a month I would have been helpless without her.  She was a
+treasure, a pearl, a phenomenon.
+
+"She could dress my hair with infinite taste; she could trim a hat better
+than most milliners, and she could even make my dresses.
+
+"I was astonished at her accomplishments.  I had never before been waited
+on in such a manner.
+
+"She dressed me rapidly and with a surprisingly light touch.  I never
+felt her fingers on my skin, and nothing is so disagreeable to me as
+contact with a servant's hand.  I soon became excessively lazy; it was so
+pleasant to be dressed from head to foot, and from lingerie to gloves, by
+this tall, timid girl, always blushing a little, and never saying a word.
+After my bath she would rub and massage me while I dozed a little on my
+couch; I almost considered her more of a friend than a servant.
+
+"One morning the janitor asked, mysteriously, to speak to me.  I was
+surprised, and told him to come in.  He was a good, faithful man, an old
+soldier, one of my husband's former orderlies.
+
+"He seemed to be embarrassed by what he had to say to me.  At last he
+managed to mumble:
+
+"'Madame, the superintendent of police is downstairs.'
+
+"I asked quickly:
+
+"'What does he wish?'
+
+"'He wishes to search the house.'
+
+"Of course the police are useful, but I hate them.  I do not think that
+it is a noble profession.  I answered, angered and hurt:
+
+"'Why this search?  For what reason?  He shall not come in.'
+
+"The janitor continued:
+
+"'He says that there is a criminal hidden in the house.'
+
+"This time I was frightened and I told him to bring the inspector to me,
+so that I might get some explanation.  He was a man with good manners and
+decorated with the Legion of Honor.  He begged my pardon for disturbing
+me, and then informed me that I had, among my domestics, a convict.
+
+"I was shocked; and I answered that I could guarantee every servant in
+the house, and I began to enumerate them.
+
+"'The janitor, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.'
+
+"'It's not he.'
+
+"'A stable-boy, son of farmers whom I know, and a groom whom you have
+just seen.'
+
+"'It's not he.'
+
+"'Then, monsieur, you see that you must be mistaken.'
+
+"'Excuse me, madame, but I am positive that I am not making a mistake.
+
+"As the conviction of a notable criminal is at stake, would you be so kind
+as to send for all your servants?"
+
+"At first I refused, but I finally gave in, and sent downstairs for
+everybody, men and women.
+
+"The inspector glanced at them and then declared:
+
+"'This isn't all.'
+
+"'Excuse me, monsieur, there is no one left but my maid, a young girl
+whom you could not possibly mistake for a convict.'
+
+"He asked:
+
+"'May I also see her?'
+
+"'Certainly.'
+
+"I rang for Rose, who immediately appeared.  She had hardly entered the
+room, when the inspector made a motion, and two men whom I had not seen,
+hidden behind the door, sprang forward, seized her and tied her hands
+behind her back.
+
+"I cried out in anger and tried to rush forward to defend her.  The
+inspector stopped me:
+
+"'This girl, madame, is a man whose name is Jean Nicolas Lecapet,
+condemned to death in 1879 for assaulting a woman and injuring her so
+that death resulted.  His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.
+He escaped four months ago.  We have been looking for him ever since.'
+
+"I was terrified, bewildered.  I did not believe him.  The commissioner
+continued, laughing:
+
+"'I can prove it to you.  His right arm is tattooed.'
+
+"'The sleeve was rolled up.  It was true.  The inspector added, with bad
+taste:
+
+"'You can trust us for the other proofs.'
+
+"And they led my maid away!
+
+"Well, would you believe me, the thing that moved me most was not anger
+at having thus been played upon, deceived and made ridiculous, it was not
+the shame of having thus been dressed and undressed, handled and touched
+by this man--but a deep humiliation--a woman's humiliation.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+"I am afraid I don't."
+
+"Just think--this man had been condemned for--for assaulting a woman.
+Well!  I thought of the one whom he had assaulted--and--and I felt
+humiliated--There!  Do you understand now?"
+
+Madame Margot did not answer.  She was looking straight ahead, her eyes
+fastened on the two shining buttons of the livery, with that sphinx-like
+smile which women sometimes have.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ROSALIE PRUDENT
+
+There was a real mystery in this affair which neither the jury, nor the
+president, nor the public prosecutor himself could understand.
+
+The girl Prudent (Rosalie), servant at the Varambots', of Nantes, having
+become enceinte without the knowledge of her masters, had, during the
+night, killed and buried her child in the garden.
+
+It was the usual story of the infanticides committed by servant girls.
+But there was one inexplicable circumstance about this one.  When the
+police searched the girl Prudent's room they discovered a complete
+infant's outfit, made by Rosalie herself, who had spent her nights for
+the last three months in cutting and sewing it.  The grocer from whom she
+had bought her candles, out of her own wages, for this long piece of work
+had come to testify.  It came out, moreover, that the sage-femme of the
+district, informed by Rosalie of her condition, had given her all
+necessary instructions and counsel in case the event should happen at a
+time when it might not be possible to get help.  She had also procured a
+place at Poissy for the girl Prudent, who foresaw that her present
+employers would discharge her, for the Varambot couple did not trifle
+with morality.
+
+There were present at the trial both the man and the woman, a middle-
+class pair from the provinces, living on their income.  They were so
+exasperated against this girl, who had sullied their house, that they
+would have liked to see her guillotined on the spot without a trial.
+The spiteful depositions they made against her became accusations in
+their mouths.
+
+The defendant, a large, handsome girl of Lower Normandy, well educated
+for her station in life, wept continuously and would not answer to
+anything.
+
+The court and the spectators were forced to the opinion that she had
+committed this barbarous act in a moment of despair and madness, since
+there was every indication that she had expected to keep and bring up her
+child.
+
+The president tried for the last time to make her speak, to get some
+confession, and, having urged her with much gentleness, he finally made
+her understand that all these men gathered here to pass judgment upon her
+were not anxious for her death and might even have pity on her.
+
+Then she made up her mind to speak.
+
+"Come, now, tell us, first, who is the father of this child?" he asked.
+
+Until then she had obstinately refused to give his name.
+
+But she replied suddenly, looking at her masters who had so cruelly
+calumniated her:
+
+"It is Monsieur Joseph, Monsieur Varambot's nephew."
+
+The couple started in their seats and cried with one voice--"That's not
+true!  She lies!  This is infamous!"
+
+The president had them silenced and continued, "Go on, please, and tell us
+how it all happened."
+
+Then she suddenly began to talk freely, relieving her pent-up heart, that
+poor, solitary, crushed heart--laying bare her sorrow, her whole sorrow,
+before those severe men whom she had until now taken for enemies and
+inflexible judges.
+
+"Yes, it was Monsieur Joseph Varambot, when he came on leave last year."
+
+"What does Mr. Joseph Varambot do?"
+
+"He is a non-commissioned officer in the artillery, monsieur.  Well, he
+stayed two months at the house, two months of the summer.  I thought
+nothing about it when he began to look at me, and then flatter me, and
+make love to me all day long.  And I let myself be taken in, monsieur.
+He kept saying to me that I was a handsome girl, that I was good company,
+that I just suited him--and I, I liked him well enough.  What could I do?
+One listens to these things when one is alone--all alone--as I was.  I am
+alone in the world, monsieur.  I have no one to talk to--no one to tell
+my troubles to.  I have no father, no mother, no brother, no sister,
+nobody.  And when he began to talk to me it was as if I had a brother who
+had come back.  And then he asked me to go with him to the river one
+evening, so that we might talk without disturbing any one.  I went--I
+don't know--I don't know how it happened.  He had his arm around me.
+Really I didn't want to--no--no--I could not--I felt like crying, the
+air was so soft--the moon was shining.  No, I swear to you--I could not--
+he did what he wanted.  That went on three weeks, as long as he stayed.
+I could have followed him to the ends of the world.  He went away.  I did
+not know that I was enceinte.  I did not know it until the month after--"
+
+She began to cry so bitterly that they had to give her time to collect
+herself.
+
+Then the president resumed with the tone of a priest at the confessional:
+"Come, now, go on."
+
+She began to talk again: "When I realized my condition I went to see
+Madame Boudin, who is there to tell you, and I asked her how it would be,
+in case it should come if she were not there.  Then I made the outfit,
+sewing night after night, every evening until one o'clock in the morning;
+and then I looked for another place, for I knew very well that I should
+be sent away, but I wanted to stay in the house until the very last, so
+as to save my pennies, for I have not got very much and I should need my
+money for the little one."
+
+"Then you did not intend to kill him?"
+
+"Oh, certainly not, monsieur!"
+
+"Why did you kill him, then?"
+
+"It happened this way.  It came sooner than I expected.  It came upon me
+in the kitchen, while I was doing the dishes.  Monsieur and Madame
+Varambot were already asleep, so I went up, not without difficulty,
+dragging myself up by the banister, and I lay down on the bare floor.
+It lasted perhaps one hour, or two, or three; I don't know, I had such
+pain; and then I pushed him out with all my strength.  I felt that he
+came out and I picked him up.
+
+"Ah!  but I was glad, I assure you!  I did all that Madame Boudin told me
+to do.  And then I laid him on my bed.  And then such a pain griped me
+again that I thought I should die.  If you knew what it meant, you there,
+you would not do so much of this.  I fell on my knees, and then toppled
+over backward on the floor; and it griped me again, perhaps one hour,
+perhaps two.  I lay there all alone--and then another one comes--another
+little one--two, yes, two, like this.  I took him up as I did the first
+one, and then I put him on the bed, the two side by side.  Is it
+possible, tell me, two children, and I who get only twenty francs a
+month?  Say, is it possible?  One, yes, that can be managed by going
+without things, but not two.  That turned my head.  What do I know about
+it?  Had I any choice, tell me?
+
+"What could I do?  I felt as if my last hour had come.  I put the pillow
+over them, without knowing why.  I could not keep them both; and then I
+threw myself down, and I lay there, rolling over and over and crying
+until I saw the daylight come into the window.  Both of them were quite
+dead under the pillow.  Then I took them under my arms and went down the
+stairs out in the vegetable garden.  I took the gardener's spade and I
+buried them under the earth, digging as deep a hole as I could, one here
+and the other one there, not together, so that they might not talk of
+their mother if these little dead bodies can talk.  What do I know about
+it?
+
+"And then, back in my bed, I felt so sick that I could not get up.  They
+sent for the doctor and he understood it all.  I'm telling you the truth,
+Your Honor.  Do what you like with me; I'm ready."
+
+Half of the jury were blowing their noses violently to keep from crying.
+The women in the courtroom were sobbing.
+
+The president asked her:
+
+"Where did you bury the other one?"
+
+"The one that you have?" she asked.
+
+"Why, this one--this one was in the artichokes."
+
+"Oh, then the other one is among the strawberries, by the well."
+
+And she began to sob so piteously that no one could hear her unmoved.
+
+The girl Rosalie Prudent was acquitted.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+REGRET
+
+Monsieur Saval, who was called in Mantes "Father Saval," had just risen
+from bed.  He was weeping.  It was a dull autumn day; the leaves were
+falling.  They fell slowly in the rain, like a heavier and slower rain.
+M. Saval was not in good spirits.  He walked from the fireplace to the
+window, and from the window to the fireplace.  Life has its sombre days.
+It would no longer have any but sombre days for him, for he had reached
+the age of sixty-two.  He is alone, an old bachelor, with nobody about
+him.  How sad it is to die alone, all alone, without any one who is
+devoted to you!
+
+He pondered over his life, so barren, so empty.  He recalled former days,
+the days of his childhood, the home, the house of his parents; his
+college days, his follies; the time he studied law in Paris, his father's
+illness, his death.  He then returned to live with his mother.  They
+lived together very quietly, and desired nothing more.  At last the
+mother died.  How sad life is!  He lived alone since then, and now, in
+his turn, he, too, will soon be dead.  He will disappear, and that will
+be the end.  There will be no more of Paul Saval upon the earth.  What a
+frightful thing!  Other people will love, will laugh.  Yes, people will
+go on amusing themselves, and he will no longer exist!  Is it not strange
+that people can laugh, amuse themselves, be joyful under that eternal
+certainty of death?  If this death were only probable, one could then
+have hope; but no, it is inevitable, as inevitable as that night follows
+the day.
+
+If, however, his life had been full!  If he had done something; if he had
+had adventures, great pleasures, success, satisfaction of some kind or
+another.  But no, nothing.  He had done nothing, nothing but rise from
+bed, eat, at the same hours, and go to bed again.  And he had gone on
+like that to the age of sixty-two years.  He had not even taken unto
+himself a wife, as other men do.  Why?  Yes, why was it that he had not
+married?  He might have done so, for he possessed considerable means.
+Had he lacked an opportunity?  Perhaps!  But one can create
+opportunities.  He was indifferent; that was all.  Indifference had been
+his greatest drawback, his defect, his vice.  How many men wreck their
+lives through indifference!  It is so difficult for some natures to get
+out of bed, to move about, to take long walks, to speak, to study any
+question.
+
+He had not even been loved.  No woman had reposed on his bosom, in a
+complete abandon of love.  He knew nothing of the delicious anguish of
+expectation, the divine vibration of a hand in yours, of the ecstasy of
+triumphant passion.
+
+What superhuman happiness must overflow your heart, when lips encounter
+lips for the first time, when the grasp of four arms makes one being of
+you, a being unutterably happy, two beings infatuated with one another.
+
+M. Saval was sitting before the fire, his feet on the fender, in his
+dressing gown.  Assuredly his life had been spoiled, completely spoiled.
+He had, however, loved.  He had loved secretly, sadly, and indifferently,
+in a manner characteristic of him in everything.  Yes, he had loved his
+old friend, Madame Sandres, the wife of his old companion, Sandres.
+Ah! if he had known her as a young girl!  But he had met her too late;
+she was already married.  Unquestionably, he would have asked her hand!
+How he had loved her, nevertheless, without respite, since the first day
+he set eyes on her!
+
+He recalled his emotion every time he saw her, his grief on leaving her,
+the many nights that he could not sleep, because he was thinking of her.
+
+On rising in the morning he was somewhat more rational than on the
+previous evening.
+
+Why?
+
+How pretty she was formerly, so dainty, with fair curly hair, and always
+laughing.  Sandres was not the man she should have chosen.  She was now
+fifty-two years of age.  She seemed happy.  Ah! if she had only loved him
+in days gone by; yes, if she had only loved him!  And why should she not
+have loved him, he, Saval, seeing that he loved her so much, yes, she,
+Madame Sandres!
+
+If only she could have guessed.  Had she not guessed anything, seen
+anything, comprehended anything?  What would she have thought?  If he had
+spoken, what would she have answered?
+
+And Saval asked himself a thousand other things.  He reviewed his whole
+life, seeking to recall a multitude of details.
+
+He recalled all the long evenings spent at the house of Sandres, when the
+latter's wife was young, and so charming.
+
+He recalled many things that she had said to him, the intonations of her
+voice, the little significant smiles that meant so much.
+
+He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks of
+the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres was
+employed at the sub-prefecture.  And all at once the distinct
+recollection came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood
+on the banks of the river.
+
+They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets.
+It was a bright spring morning, one of those days which intoxicate one.
+Everything smells fresh, everything seems happy.  The voices of the birds
+sound more joyous, and-they fly more swiftly.  They had luncheon on the
+grass, under the willow trees, quite close to the water, which glittered
+in the sun's rays.  The air was balmy, charged with the odors of fresh
+vegetation; they drank it in with delight.  How pleasant everything was
+on that day!
+
+After lunch, Sandres went to sleep on the broad of his back.  "The best
+nap he had in his life," said he, when he woke up.
+
+Madame Sandres had taken the arm of Saval, and they started to walk along
+the river bank.
+
+She leaned tenderly on his arm.  She laughed and said to him: "I am
+intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated."  He looked at her, his
+heart going pit-a-pat.  He felt himself grow pale, fearful that he might
+have looked too boldly at her, and that the trembling of his hand had
+revealed his passion.
+
+She had made a wreath of wild flowers and water-lilies, and she asked
+him: "Do I look pretty like that?"
+
+As he did not answer--for he could find nothing to say, he would have
+liked to go down on his knees--she burst out laughing, a sort of annoyed,
+displeased laugh, as she said: "Great goose, what ails you?  You might at
+least say something."
+
+He felt like crying, but could not even yet find a word to say.
+
+All these things came back to him now, as vividly as on the day when they
+took place.  Why had she said this to him, "Great goose, what ails you?
+You might at least say something!"
+
+And he recalled how tenderly she had leaned on his arm.  And in passing
+under a shady tree he had felt her ear brushing his cheek, and he had
+moved his head abruptly, lest she should suppose he was too familiar.
+
+When he had said to her: "Is it not time to return?" she darted a
+singular look at him.  "Certainly," she said, "certainly," regarding him
+at the same time in a curious manner.  He had not thought of it at the
+time, but now the whole thing appeared to him quite plain.
+
+"Just as you like, my friend.  If you are tired let us go back."
+
+And he had answered: "I am not fatigued; but Sandres may be awake now."
+
+And she had said: "If you are afraid of my husband's being awake, that is
+another thing.  Let us return."
+
+On their way back she remained silent, and leaned no longer on his arm.
+Why?
+
+At that time it had never occurred to him, to ask himself "why."  Now he
+seemed to apprehend something that he had not then understood.
+
+Could it?
+
+M. Saval felt himself blush, and he got up at a bound, as if he were
+thirty years younger and had heard Madame Sandres say, "I love you."
+
+Was it possible?  That idea which had just entered his mind tortured him.
+Was it possible that he had not seen, had not guessed?
+
+Oh! if that were true, if he had let this opportunity of happiness pass
+without taking advantage of it!
+
+He said to himself: "I must know.  I cannot remain in this state of
+doubt.  I must know!"  He thought: "I am sixty-two years of age, she is
+fifty-eight; I may ask her that now without giving offense."
+
+He started out.
+
+The Sandres' house was situated on the other side of the street, almost
+directly opposite his own.  He went across and knocked at the door, and a
+little servant opened it.
+
+"You here at this hour, Saval!  Has some accident happened to you?"
+
+"No, my girl," he replied; "but go and tell your mistress that I want to
+speak to her at once."
+
+"The fact is madame is preserving pears for the winter, and she is in the
+preserving room.  She is not dressed, you understand."
+
+"Yes, but go and tell her that I wish to see her on a very important
+matter."
+
+The little servant went away, and Saval began to walk, with long, nervous
+strides, up and down the drawing-room.  He did not feel in the least
+embarrassed, however.  Oh! he was merely going to ask her something, as
+he would have asked her about some cooking recipe.  He was sixty-two
+years of age!
+
+The door opened and madame appeared.  She was now a large woman, fat and
+round, with full cheeks and a sonorous laugh.  She walked with her arms
+away from her sides and her sleeves tucked up, her bare arms all covered
+with fruit juice.  She asked anxiously:
+
+"What is the matter with you, my friend?  You are not ill, are you?"
+
+"No, my dear friend; but I wish to ask you one thing, which to me is of
+the first importance, something which is torturing my heart, and I want
+you to promise that you will answer me frankly."
+
+She laughed, "I am always frank.  Say on."
+
+"Well, then.  I have loved you from the first day I ever saw you.  Can
+you have any doubt of this?"
+
+She responded, laughing, with something of her former tone of voice.
+
+"Great goose! what ails you?  I knew it from the very first day!"
+
+
+Saval began to tremble.  He stammered out: "You knew it?  Then .  .  ."
+
+He stopped.
+
+She asked:
+
+"Then?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"Then--what did you think?  What--what--what would you have answered?"
+
+She broke into a peal of laughter.  Some of the juice ran off the tips of
+her fingers on to the carpet.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I?  Why, you did not ask me anything.  It was not for me to declare
+myself!"
+
+He then advanced a step toward her.
+
+"Tell me--tell me .  .  .  .  You remember the day when Sandres went to
+sleep on the grass after lunch .  .  .  when we had walked together as
+far as the bend of the river, below .  .  ."
+
+He waited, expectantly.  She had ceased to laugh, and looked at him,
+straight in the eyes.
+
+"Yes, certainly, I remember it."
+
+He answered, trembling all over:
+
+"Well--that day--if I had been--if I had been--venturesome--what would
+you have done?"
+
+She began to laugh as only a happy woman can laugh, who has nothing to
+regret, and responded frankly, in a clear voice tinged with irony:
+
+"I would have yielded, my friend."
+
+She then turned on her heels and went back to her jam-making.
+
+Saval rushed into the street, cast down, as though he had met with some
+disaster.  He walked with giant strides through the rain, straight on,
+until he reached the river bank, without thinking where he was going.
+He then turned to the right and followed the river.  He walked a long
+time, as if urged on by some instinct.  His clothes were running with
+water, his hat was out of shape, as soft as a rag, and dripping like a
+roof.  He walked on, straight in front of him.  At last, he came to the
+place where they had lunched on that day so long ago, the recollection of
+which tortured his heart.  He sat down under the leafless trees, and
+wept.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SISTER'S CONFESSION
+
+Marguerite de Therelles was dying.  Although she was-only fifty-six years
+old she looked at least seventy-five.  She gasped for breath, her face
+whiter than the sheets, and had spasms of violent shivering, with her
+face convulsed and her eyes haggard as though she saw a frightful vision.
+
+Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older than herself, was sobbing on
+her knees beside the bed.  A small table close to the dying woman's couch
+bore, on a white cloth, two lighted candles, for the priest was expected
+at any moment to administer extreme unction and the last communion.
+
+The apartment wore that melancholy aspect common to death chambers; a
+look of despairing farewell.  Medicine bottles littered the furniture;
+linen lay in the corners into which it had been kicked or swept.  The
+very chairs looked, in their disarray, as if they were terrified and had
+run in all directions.  Death--terrible Death--was in the room, hidden,
+awaiting his prey.
+
+This history of the two sisters was an affecting one.  It was spoken of
+far and wide; it had drawn tears from many eyes.
+
+Suzanne, the elder, had once been passionately loved by a young man,
+whose affection she returned.  They were engaged to be married, and the
+wedding day was at hand, when Henry de Sampierre suddenly died.
+
+The young girl's despair was terrible, and she took an oath never to
+marry.  She faithfully kept her vow and adopted widow's weeds for the
+remainder of her life.
+
+But one morning her sister, her little sister Marguerite, then only
+twelve years old, threw herself into Suzanne's arms, sobbing: "Sister, I
+don't want you to be unhappy.  I don't want you to mourn all your life.
+I'll never leave you--never, never, never!  I shall never marry, either.
+I'll stay with you always--always!"
+
+Suzanne kissed her, touched by the child's devotion, though not putting
+any faith in her promise.
+
+But the little one kept her word, and, despite her parents'
+remonstrances, despite her elder sister's prayers, never married.
+She was remarkably pretty and refused many offers.  She never left her
+sister.
+
+They spent their whole life together, without a single day's separation.
+They went everywhere together and were inseparable.  But Marguerite was
+pensive, melancholy, sadder than her sister, as if her sublime sacrifice
+had undermined her spirits.  She grew older more quickly; her hair was
+white at thirty; and she was often ill, apparently stricken with some
+unknown, wasting malady.
+
+And now she would be the first to die.
+
+She had not spoken for twenty-four hours, except to whisper at daybreak:
+
+"Send at once for the priest."
+
+And she had since remained lying on her back, convulsed with agony, her
+lips moving as if unable to utter the dreadful words that rose in her
+heart, her face expressive of a terror distressing to witness.
+
+Suzanne, distracted with grief, her brow pressed against the bed, wept
+bitterly, repeating over and over again the words:
+
+"Margot, my poor Margot, my little one!"
+
+She had always called her "my little one," while Marguerite's name for
+the elder was invariably "sister."
+
+A footstep sounded on the stairs.  The door opened.  An acolyte appeared,
+followed by the aged priest in his surplice.  As soon as she saw him the
+dying woman sat up suddenly in bed, opened her lips, stammered a few
+words and began to scratch the bed-clothes, as if she would have made
+hole in them.
+
+Father Simon approached, took her hand, kissed her on the forehead and
+said in a gentle voice:
+
+"May God pardon your sins, my daughter.  Be of good courage.  Now is the
+moment to confess them--speak!"
+
+Then Marguerite, shuddering from head to foot, so that the very bed shook
+with her nervous movements, gasped:
+
+"Sit down, sister, and listen."
+
+The priest stooped toward the prostrate Suzanne, raised her to her feet,
+placed her in a chair, and, taking a hand of each of the sisters,
+pronounced:
+
+"Lord God!  Send them strength!  Shed Thy mercy upon them."
+
+And Marguerite began to speak.  The words issued from her lips one by
+one--hoarse, jerky, tremulous.
+
+"Pardon, pardon, sister!  pardon me!  Oh, if only you knew how I have
+dreaded this moment all my life!"
+
+Suzanne faltered through her tears:
+
+"But what have I to pardon, little one?  You have given me everything,
+sacrificed all to me.  You are an angel."
+
+But Marguerite interrupted her:
+
+"Be silent, be silent!  Let me speak!  Don't stop me!  It is terrible.
+Let me tell all, to the very end, without interruption.  Listen.  You
+remember--you remember--Henry--"
+
+Suzanne trembled and looked at her sister.  The younger one went on:
+
+"In order to understand you must hear everything.  I was twelve years
+old--only twelve--you remember, don't you?  And I was spoilt; I did just
+as I pleased.  You remember how everybody spoilt me?  Listen.  The first
+time he came he had on his riding boots; he dismounted, saying that he
+had a message for father.  You remember, don't you?  Don't speak.
+Listen.  When I saw him I was struck with admiration.  I thought him so
+handsome, and I stayed in a corner of the drawing-room all the time he
+was talking.  Children are strange--and terrible.  Yes, indeed, I dreamt
+of him.
+
+"He came again--many times.  I looked at him with all my eyes, all my
+heart.  I was large for my age and much more precocious than--any one
+suspected.  He came often.  I thought only of him.  I often whispered to
+myself:
+
+"'Henry-Henry de Sampierre!'
+
+"Then I was told that he was going to marry you.  That was a blow!  Oh,
+sister, a terrible blow--terrible!  I wept all through three sleepless
+nights.
+
+"He came every afternoon after lunch.  You remember, don't you?  Don't
+answer.  Listen.  You used to make cakes that he was very fond of--with
+flour, butter and milk.  Oh, I know how to make them.  I could make them
+still, if necessary.  He would swallow them at one mouthful and wash them
+down with a glass of wine, saying: 'Delicious!' Do you remember the way
+he said it?
+
+"I was jealous--jealous!  Your wedding day was drawing near.  It was only
+a fortnight distant.  I was distracted.  I said to myself: 'He shall not
+marry Suzanne--no, he shall not!  He shall marry me when I am old enough!
+I shall never love any one half so much.' But one evening, ten days
+before the wedding, you went for a stroll with him in the moonlight
+before the house--and yonder--under the pine tree, the big pine tree--he
+kissed you--kissed you--and held you in his arms so long--so long!  You
+remember, don't you?  It was probably the first time.  You were so pale
+when you carne back to the drawing-room!
+
+"I saw you.  I was there in the shrubbery.  I was mad with rage!  I would
+have killed you both if I could!
+
+"I said to myself: 'He shall never marry Suzanne--never!  He shall marry
+no one!  I could not bear it.'  And all at once I began to hate him
+intensely.
+
+"Then do you know what I did?  Listen.  I had seen the gardener prepare
+pellets for killing stray dogs.  He would crush a bottle into small
+pieces with a stone and put the ground glass into a ball of meat.
+
+"I stole a small medicine bottle from mother's room.  I ground it fine
+with a hammer and hid the glass in my pocket.  It was a glistening
+powder.  The next day, when you had made your little cakes; I opened them
+with a knife and inserted the glass.  He ate three.  I ate one myself.  I
+threw the six others into the pond.  The two swans died three days later.
+You remember?  Oh, don't speak!  Listen, listen.  I, I alone did not die.
+But I have always been ill.  Listen--he died--you know--listen--that was
+not the worst.  It was afterward, later--always--the most terrible--
+listen.
+
+"My life, all my life--such torture!  I said to myself: 'I will never
+leave my sister.  And on my deathbed I will tell her all.'  And now I
+have told.  And I have always thought of this moment--the moment when all
+would be told.  Now it has come.  It is terrible--oh!--sister--
+
+"I have always thought, morning and evening, day and night: 'I shall have
+to tell her some day!' I waited.  The horror of it!  It is done.  Say
+nothing.  Now I am afraid--I am afraid!  Oh!  Supposing I should see him
+again, by and by, when I am dead!  See him again!  Only to think of it!
+I dare not--yet I must.  I am going to die.  I want you to forgive me.
+I insist on it.  I cannot meet him without your forgiveness.  Oh, tell
+her to forgive me, Father!  Tell her.  I implore you!  I cannot die
+without it."
+
+She was silent and lay back, gasping for breath, still plucking at the
+sheets with her fingers.
+
+Suzanne had hidden her face in her hands and did not move.  She was
+thinking of him whom she had loved so long.  What a life of happiness
+they might have had together!  She saw him again in the dim and distant
+past-that past forever lost.  Beloved dead!  how the thought of them
+rends the heart!  Oh! that kiss, his only kiss!  She had retained the
+memory of it in her soul.  And, after that, nothing, nothing more
+throughout her whole existence!
+
+The priest rose suddenly and in a firm, compelling voice said:
+
+"Mademoiselle Suzanne, your sister is dying!"
+
+Then Suzanne, raising her tear-stained face, put her arms round her
+sister, and kissing her fervently, exclaimed:
+
+"I forgive you, I forgive you, little one!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+COCO
+
+Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farn, was known as "the
+Manor."  No one knew why.  The peasants doubtless attached to this word,
+"Manor," a meaning of wealth and of splendor, for this farm was
+undoubtedly the largest, richest and the best managed in the whole
+neighborhood.
+
+The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which
+sheltered the delicate apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain,
+inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for storing fodder and
+grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate
+thirty horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little
+chateau.
+
+Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little offensive
+as such things can be; the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and countless
+poultry paraded through the tall grass.
+
+Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women
+folks, seated themselves around the long kitchen table where the soup was
+brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered bowl.
+
+The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean.
+Maitre Lucas, a tall man who was getting stout, would go round three
+times a day, overseeing everything and thinking of everything.
+
+A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its
+natural death, because she had brought it up and had always used it, and
+also because it recalled many happy memories, was housed, through sheer
+kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.
+
+A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval by name, and called,
+for convenience, Zidore, took care of this pensioner, gave him his
+measure of oats and fodder in winter, and in summer was supposed to
+change his pasturing place four times a day, so that he might have plenty
+of fresh grass.
+
+The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty his legs, large at
+the knees and swollen above the hoofs.  His coat, which was no longer
+curried, looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes gave to his eyes
+a sad expression.
+
+When Zidore took the animal to pasture, he had to pull on the rope with
+all his might, because it walked so slowly; and the youth, bent over and
+out of breath, would swear at it, exasperated at having to care for this
+old nag.
+
+The farmhands, noticing the young rascal's anger against Coco, were
+amused and would continually talk of the horse to Zidore, in order to
+exasperate him.  His comrades would make sport with him.  In the village
+he was called Coco-Zidore.
+
+The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the
+horse.  He was a thin, long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse,
+bristly red hair.  He seemed only half-witted, and stuttered as though
+ideas were unable to form in his thick, brute-like mind.
+
+For a long time he had been unable to understand why Coco should be kept,
+indignant at seeing things wasted on this useless beast.  Since the horse
+could no longer work, it seemed to him unjust that he should be fed;
+he revolted at the idea of wasting oats, oats which were so expensive,
+on this paralyzed old plug.  And often, in spite of the orders of Maitre
+Lucas, he would economize on the nag's food, only giving him half
+measure.  Hatred grew in his confused, childlike mind, the hatred of a
+stingy, mean, fierce, brutal and cowardly peasant.
+
+When summer came he had to move the animal about in the pasture.  It was
+some distance away.  The rascal, angrier every morning, would start, with
+his dragging step, across the wheat fields.  The men working in the
+fields would shout to him, jokingly:
+
+"Hey, Zidore, remember me to Coco."
+
+He would not answer; but on the way he would break off a switch, and, as
+soon as he had moved the old horse, he would let it begin grazing; then,
+treacherously sneaking up behind it, he would slash its legs.  The animal
+would try to escape, to kick, to get away from the blows, and run around
+in a circle about its rope, as though it had been inclosed in a circus
+ring.  And the boy would slash away furiously, running along behind, his
+teeth clenched in anger.
+
+Then he would go away slowly, without turning round, while the horse
+watched him disappear, his ribs sticking out, panting as a result of his
+unusual exertions.  Not until the blue blouse of the young peasant was
+out of sight would he lower his thin white head to the grass.
+
+As the nights were now warm, Coco was allowed to sleep out of doors, in
+the field behind the little wood.  Zidore alone went to see him.
+The boy threw stones at him to amuse himself.  He would sit down on an
+embankment about ten feet away and would stay there about half an hour,
+from time to time throwing a sharp stone at the old horse, which remained
+standing tied before his enemy, watching him continually and not daring
+to eat before he was gone.
+
+This one thought persisted in the mind of the young scamp: "Why feed this
+horse, which is no longer good for anything?"  It seemed to him that this
+old nag was stealing the food of the others, the goods of man and God,
+that he was even robbing him, Zidore, who was working.
+
+Then, little by little, each day, the boy began to shorten the length of
+rope which allowed the horse to graze.
+
+The hungry animal was growing thinner, and starving.  Too feeble to break
+his bonds, he would stretch his head out toward the tall, green, tempting
+grass, so near that he could smell, and yet so far that he could not
+touch it.
+
+But one morning Zidore had an idea: it was, not to move Coco any more.
+He was tired of walking so far for that old skeleton. He came, however,
+in order to enjoy his vengeance.  The beast watched him anxiously.  He
+did not beat him that day.  He walked around him with his hands in his
+pockets.  He even pretended to change his place, but he sank the stake in
+exactly the same hole, and went away overjoyed with his invention.
+
+The horse, seeing him leave, neighed to call him back; but the rascal
+began to run, leaving him alone, entirely alone in his field, well tied
+down and without a blade of grass within reach.
+
+Starving, he tried to reach the grass which he could touch with the end
+of his nose.  He got on his knees, stretching out his neck and his long,
+drooling lips.  All in vain.  The old animal spent the whole day in
+useless, terrible efforts.  The sight of all that green food, which
+stretched out on all sides of him, served to increase the gnawing pangs
+of hunger.
+
+The scamp did not return that day.  He wandered through the woods in
+search of nests.
+
+The next day he appeared upon the scene again.  Coco, exhausted, had lain
+down.  When he saw the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his
+place changed.
+
+But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying on
+the ground.  He came nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head a
+clump of earth which flattened out against the white hair, and he started
+off again, whistling.
+
+The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing
+that his attempts to reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once
+more lay down on his side and closed his eyes.
+
+The following day Zidore did not come.
+
+When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that
+he was dead.
+
+Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had done,
+surprised that it should already be all over.  He touched him with his
+foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it drop, sat on him and
+remained there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing.  He
+returned to the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he wished
+to wander about at the hours when he used to change the horse's pasture.
+He went to see him the next day.  At his approach some crows flew away.
+Countless flies were walking over the body and were buzzing around it.
+When he returned home, he announced the event.  The animal was so old
+that nobody was surprised.  The master said to two of the men:
+
+"Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is."
+
+The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger.
+And the grass grew thick, green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEAD WOMAN'S SECRET
+
+The woman had died without pain, quietly, as a woman should whose life
+had been blameless.  Now she was resting in her bed, lying on her back,
+her eyes closed, her features calm, her long white hair carefully
+arranged as though she had done it up ten minutes before dying.  The
+whole pale countenance of the dead woman was so collected, so calm, so
+resigned that one could feel what a sweet soul had lived in that body,
+what a quiet existence this old soul had led, how easy and pure the death
+of this parent had been.
+
+Kneeling beside the bed, her son, a magistrate with inflexible
+principles, and her daughter, Marguerite, known as Sister Eulalie, were
+weeping as though their hearts would break.  She had, from childhood up,
+armed them with a strict moral code, teaching them religion, without
+weakness, and duty, without compromise.  He, the man, had become a judge
+and handled the law as a weapon with which he smote the weak ones without
+pity.  She, the girl, influenced by the virtue which had bathed her in
+this austere family, had become the bride of the Church through her
+loathing for man.
+
+They had hardly known their father, knowing only that he had made their
+mother most unhappy, without being told any other details.
+
+The nun was wildly-kissing the dead woman's hand, an ivory hand as white
+as the large crucifix lying across the bed.  On the other side of the
+long body the other hand seemed still to be holding the sheet in the
+death grasp; and the sheet had preserved the little creases as a memory
+of those last movements which precede eternal immobility.
+
+A few light taps on the door caused the two sobbing heads to look up, and
+the priest, who had just come from dinner, returned.  He was red and out
+of breath from his interrupted digestion, for he had made himself a
+strong mixture of coffee and brandy in order to combat the fatigue of the
+last few nights and of the wake which was beginning.
+
+He looked sad, with that assumed sadness of the priest for whom death is
+a bread winner.  He crossed himself and approaching with his professional
+gesture: "Well, my poor children!  I have come to help you pass these
+last sad hours."  But Sister Eulalie suddenly arose.  "Thank you,
+father, but my brother and I prefer to remain alone with her.  This is
+our last chance to see her, and we wish to be together, all three of us,
+as we--we--used to be when we were small and our poor mo--mother----"
+
+Grief and tears stopped her; she could not continue.
+
+Once more serene, the priest bowed, thinking of his bed.  "As you wish,
+my children."  He kneeled, crossed himself, prayed, arose and went out
+quietly, murmuring: "She was a saint!"
+
+They remained alone, the dead woman and her children.  The ticking of the
+clock, hidden in the shadow, could be heard distinctly, and through the
+open window drifted in the sweet smell of hay and of woods, together with
+the soft moonlight.  No other noise could be heard over the land except
+the occasional croaking of the frog or the chirping of some belated
+insect.  An infinite peace, a divine melancholy, a silent serenity
+surrounded this dead woman, seemed to be breathed out from her and to
+appease nature itself.
+
+Then the judge, still kneeling, his head buried in the bed clothes, cried
+in a voice altered by grief and deadened by the sheets and blankets:
+"Mamma, mamma, mamma!"  And his sister, frantically striking her forehead
+against the woodwork, convulsed, twitching and trembling as in an
+epileptic fit, moaned: "Jesus, Jesus, mamma, Jesus!" And both of them,
+shaken by a storm of grief, gasped and choked.
+
+The crisis slowly calmed down and they began to weep quietly, just as on
+the sea when a calm follows a squall.
+
+A rather long time passed and they arose and looked at their dead.
+And the memories, those distant memories, yesterday so dear, to-day so
+torturing, came to their minds with all the little forgotten details,
+those little intimate familiar details which bring back to life the one
+who has left.  They recalled to each other circumstances, words, smiles,
+intonations of the mother who was no longer to speak to them.  They saw
+her again happy and calm.  They remembered things which she had said, and
+a little motion of the hand, like beating time, which she often used when
+emphasizing something important.
+
+And they loved her as they never had loved her before.  They measured the
+depth of their grief, and thus they discovered how lonely they would find
+themselves.
+
+It was their prop, their guide, their whole youth, all the best part of
+their lives which was disappearing.  It was their bond with life, their
+mother, their mamma, the connecting link with their forefathers which
+they would thenceforth miss.  They now became solitary, lonely beings;
+they could no longer look back.
+
+The nun said to her brother: "You remember how mamma used always to read
+her old letters; they are all there in that drawer.  Let us, in turn,
+read them; let us live her whole life through tonight beside her!  It
+would be like a road to the cross, like making the acquaintance of her
+mother, of our grandparents, whom we never knew, but whose letters are
+there and of whom she so often spoke, do you remember?"
+
+Out of the drawer they took about ten little packages of yellow paper,
+tied with care and arranged one beside the other.  They threw these
+relics on the bed and chose one of them on which the word "Father" was
+written.  They opened and read it.
+
+It was one of those old-fashioned letters which one finds in old family
+desk drawers, those epistles which smell of another century.  The first
+one started: "My dear," another one: "My beautiful little girl," others:
+"My dear child," or: "My dear (laughter)."  And suddenly the nun began to
+read aloud, to read over to the dead woman her whole history, all her
+tender memories.  The judge, resting his elbow on the bed, was listening
+with his eyes fastened on his mother.  The motionless body seemed happy.
+
+Sister Eulalie, interrupting herself, said suddenly:
+
+"These ought to be put in the grave with her; they ought to be used as a
+shroud and she ought to be buried in it."  She took another package, on
+which no name was written.  She began to read in a firm voice: "My adored
+one, I love you wildly.  Since yesterday I have been suffering the
+tortures of the damned, haunted by our memory.  I feel your lips against
+mine, your eyes in mine, your breast against mine.  I love you, I love
+you!  You have driven me mad.  My arms open, I gasp, moved by a wild
+desire to hold you again.  My whole soul and body cries out for you,
+wants you.  I have kept in my mouth the taste of your kisses--"
+
+The judge had straightened himself up.  The nun stopped reading.  He
+snatched the letter from her and looked for the signature.  There was
+none, but only under the words, "The man who adores you," the name
+"Henry."  Their father's name was Rene.  Therefore this was not from him.
+The son then quickly rummaged through the package of letters, took one
+out and read: "I can no longer live without your caresses."  Standing
+erect, severe as when sitting on the bench, he looked unmoved at the dead
+woman.  The nun, straight as a statue, tears trembling in the corners of
+her eyes, was watching her brother, waiting.  Then he crossed the room
+slowly, went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the dark
+night.
+
+When he turned around again Sister Eulalie, her eyes dry now, was still
+standing near the bed, her head bent down.
+
+He stepped forward, quickly picked up the letters and threw them pell-
+mell back into the drawer.  Then he closed the curtains of the bed.
+
+When daylight made the candles on the table turn pale the son slowly left
+his armchair, and without looking again at the mother upon whom he had
+passed sentence, severing the tie that united her to son and daughter, he
+said slowly: "Let us now retire, sister."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A HUMBLE DRAMA
+
+Meetings that are unexpected constitute the charm of traveling.  Who has
+not experienced the joy of suddenly coming across a Parisian, a college
+friend, or a neighbor, five hundred miles from home?  Who has not passed
+a night awake in one of those small, rattling country stagecoaches, in
+regions where steam is still a thing unknown, beside a strange young
+woman, of whom one has caught only a glimpse in the dim light of the
+lantern, as she entered the carriage in front of a white house in some
+small country town?
+
+And the next morning, when one's head and ears feel numb with the
+continuous tinkling of the bells and the loud rattling of the windows,
+what a charming sensation it is to see your pretty neighbor open her
+eyes, startled, glance around her, arrange her rebellious hair with her
+slender fingers, adjust her hat, feel with sure hand whether her corset
+is still in place, her waist straight, and her skirt not too wrinkled.
+
+She glances at you coldly and curiously.  Then she leans back and no
+longer seems interested in anything but the country.
+
+In spite of yourself, you watch her; and in spite of yourself you keep on
+thinking of her.  Who is she?  Whence does she come?  Where is she going?
+In spite of yourself you spin a little romance around her.  She is
+pretty; she seems charming!  Happy he who .  .  .  Life might be
+delightful with her.  Who knows?  She is perhaps the woman of our dreams,
+the one suited to our disposition, the one for whom our heart calls.
+
+And how delicious even the disappointment at seeing her get out at the
+gate of a country house!  A man stands there, who is awaiting her, with
+two children and two maids.  He takes her in his arms and kisses as he
+lifts her out.  Then she stoops over the little ones, who hold up their
+hands to her; she kisses them tenderly; and then they all go away
+together, down a path, while the maids catch the packages which the
+driver throws down to them from the coach.
+
+Adieu!  It is all over.  You never will see her again!  Adieu to the
+young woman who has passed the night by your side.  You know her no more,
+you have not spoken to her; all the same, you feel a little sad to see
+her go.  Adieu!
+
+I have had many of these souvenirs of travel, some joyous and some sad.
+
+Once I was in Auvergne, tramping through those delightful French
+mountains, that are not too high, not too steep, but friendly and
+familiar.  I had climbed the Sancy, and entered a little inn, near a
+pilgrim's chapel called Notre-Dame de Vassiviere, when I saw a queer,
+ridiculous-looking old woman breakfasting alone at the end table.
+
+She was at least seventy years old, tall, skinny, and angular, and her
+white hair was puffed around her temples in the old-fashioned style.
+She was dressed like a traveling Englishwoman, in awkward, queer
+clothing, like a person who is indifferent to dress.  She was eating an
+omelet and drinking water.
+
+Her face was peculiar, with restless eyes and the expression of one with
+whom fate has dealt unkindly.  I watched her, in spite of myself,
+thinking: "Who is she?  What is the life of this woman?  Why is she
+wandering alone through these mountains?"
+
+She paid and rose to leave, drawing up over her shoulders an astonishing
+little shawl, the two ends of which hung over her arms.  From a corner of
+the room she took an alpenstock, which was covered with names traced with
+a hot iron; then she went out, straight, erect, with the long steps of a
+letter-carrier who is setting out on his route.
+
+A guide was waiting for her at the door, and both went away.  I watched
+them go down the valley, along the road marked by a line of high wooden
+crosses.  She was taller than her companion, and seemed to walk faster
+than he.
+
+Two hours later I was climbing the edge of the deep funnel that incloses
+Lake Pavin in a marvelous and enormous basin of verdure, full of trees,
+bushes, rocks, and flowers.  This lake is so round that it seems as if
+the outline had been drawn with a pair of compasses, so clear and blue
+that one might deem it a flood of azure come down from the sky, so
+charming that one would like to live in a but on the wooded slope which
+dominates this crater, where the cold, still water is sleeping.
+The Englishwoman was standing there like a statue, gazing upon the
+transparent sheet down in the dead volcano.  She was straining her eyes
+to penetrate below the surface down to the unknown depths, where
+monstrous trout which have devoured all the other fish are said to live.
+As I was passing close by her, it seemed to me that two big tears were
+brimming her eyes.  But she departed at a great pace, to rejoin her
+guide, who had stayed behind in an inn at the foot of the path leading to
+the lake.
+
+I did not see her again that day.
+
+The next day, at nightfall, I came to the chateau of Murol.  The old
+fortress, an enormous tower standing on a peak in the midst of a large
+valley, where three valleys intersect, rears its brown, uneven, cracked
+surface into the sky; it is round, from its large circular base to the
+crumbling turrets on its pinnacles.
+
+It astonishes the eye more than any other ruin by its simple mass, its
+majesty, its grave and imposing air of antiquity.  It stands there,
+alone, high as a mountain, a dead queen, but still the queen of the
+valleys stretched out beneath it.  You go up by a slope planted with
+firs, then you enter a narrow gate, and stop at the foot of the walls, in
+the first inclosure, in full view of the entire country.
+
+Inside there are ruined halls, crumbling stairways, unknown cavities,
+dungeons, walls cut through in the middle, vaulted roofs held up one
+knows not how, and a mass of stones and crevices, overgrown with grass,
+where animals glide in and out.
+
+I was exploring this ruin alone.
+
+Suddenly I perceived behind a bit of wall a being, a kind of phantom,
+like the spirit of this ancient and crumbling habitation.
+
+I was taken aback with surprise, almost with fear, when I recognized the
+old lady whom I had seen twice.
+
+She was weeping, with big tears in her eyes, and held her handkerchief in
+her hand.
+
+I turned around to go away, when she spoke to me, apparently ashamed to
+have been surprised in her grief.
+
+"Yes, monsieur, I am crying.  That does not happen often to me."
+
+"Pardon me, madame, for having disturbed you," I stammered, confused, not
+knowing what to say.  "Some misfortune has doubtless come to you."
+
+"Yes.  No--I am like a lost dog," she murmured, and began to sob, with
+her handkerchief over her eyes.
+
+Moved by these contagious tears, I took her hand, trying to calm her.
+Then brusquely she told me her history, as if no longer ably to bear her
+grief alone.
+
+"Oh! Oh!  Monsieur--if you knew--the sorrow in which I live--in what
+sorrow.
+
+"Once I was happy.  I have a house down there--a home.  I cannot go back
+to it any more; I shall never go back to it again, it is too hard to
+bear.
+
+"I have a son.  It is he! it is he!  Children don't know.  Oh, one has
+such a short time to live!  If I should see him now I should perhaps not
+recognize him.  How I loved him?  How I loved him!  Even before he was
+born, when I felt him move.  And after that!  How I have kissed and
+caressed and cherished him!  If you knew how many nights I have passed in
+watching him sleep, and how many in thinking of him.  I was crazy about
+him.  When he was eight years old his father sent him to boarding-school.
+That was the end.  He no longer belonged to me.  Oh, heavens!  He came to
+see me every Sunday.  That was all!
+
+"He went to college in Paris.  Then he came only four times a year, and
+every time I was astonished to see how he had changed, to find him taller
+without having seen him grow.  They stole his childhood from me, his
+confidence, and his love which otherwise would not have gone away from
+me; they stole my joy in seeing him grow, in seeing him become a little
+man.
+
+"I saw him four times a year.  Think of it!  And at every one of his
+visits his body, his eye, his movements, his voice his laugh, were no
+longer the same, were no longer mine.  All these things change so quickly
+in a child; and it is so sad if one is not there to see them change; one
+no longer recognizes him.
+
+"One year he came with down on his cheek!  He! my son!  I was dumfounded
+--would you believe it?  I hardly dared to kiss him.  Was it really he,
+my little, little curly head of old, my dear; dear child, whom I had held
+in his diapers or my knee, and who had nursed at my breast with his
+little greedy lips--was it he, this tall, brown boy, who no longer knew
+how to kiss me, who seemed to love me as a matter of duty, who called me
+'mother' for the sake of politeness, and who kissed me on the forehead,
+when I felt like crushing him in my arms?
+
+"My husband died.  Then my parents, and then my two sisters.  When Death
+enters a house it seems as if he were hurrying to do his utmost, so as
+not to have to return for a long time after that.  He spares only one or
+two to mourn the others.
+
+"I remained alone.  My tall son was then studying law.  I was hoping to
+live and die near him, and I went to him so that we could live together.
+But he had fallen into the ways of young men, and he gave me to
+understand that I was in his way.  So I left.  I was wrong in doing so,
+but I suffered too much in feeling myself in his way, I, his mother!  And
+I came back home.
+
+"I hardly ever saw him again.
+
+"He married.  What a joy!  At last we should be together for good.
+I should have grandchildren.  His wife was an Englishwoman, who took a
+dislike to me.  Why?  Perhaps she thought that I loved him too much.
+
+"Again I was obliged to go away.  And I was alone.  Yes, monsieur.
+
+"Then he went to England, to live with them, with his wife's parents.
+Do you understand?  They have him--they have my son for themselves.
+They have stolen him from me.  He writes to me once a month.  At first he
+came to see me.  But now he no longer comes.
+
+"It is now four years since I saw him last.  His face then was wrinkled
+and his hair white.  Was that possible?  This man, my son, almost an old
+man?  My little rosy child of old?  No doubt I shall never see him again.
+
+"And so I travel about all the year.  I go east and west, as you see,
+with no companion.
+
+"I am like a lost dog.  Adieu, monsieur!  don't stay here with me for it
+hurts me to have told you all this."
+
+I went down the hill, and on turning round to glance back, I saw the old
+woman standing on a broken wall, looking out upon the mountains, the long
+valley and Lake Chambon in the distance.
+
+And her skirt and the queer little shawl which she wore around her thin
+shoulders were fluttering tike a flag in the wind.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MADEMOISELLE COCOTTE
+
+We were just leaving the asylum when I saw a tall, thin man in a corner
+of the court who kept on calling an imaginary dog.  He was crying in a
+soft, tender voice: "Cocotte!  Come here, Cocotte, my beauty!" and
+slapping his thigh as one does when calling an animal.  I asked the
+physician, "Who is that man?" He answered: "Oh! he is not at all
+interesting.  He is a coachman named Francois, who became insane after
+drowning his dog."
+
+I insisted: "Tell me his story.  The most simple and humble things are
+sometimes those which touch our hearts most deeply."
+
+Here is this man's adventure, which was obtained from a friend of his, a
+groom:
+
+There was a family of rich bourgeois who lived in a suburb of Paris.
+They had a villa in the middle of a park, at the edge of the Seine.
+Their coachman was this Francois, a country fellow, somewhat dull, kind-
+hearted, simple and easy to deceive.
+
+One evening, as he was returning home, a dog began to follow him.  At
+first he paid no attention to it, but the creature's obstinacy at last
+made him turn round.  He looked to see if he knew this dog.  No, he had
+never seen it.  It was a female dog and frightfully thin.  She was
+trotting behind him with a mournful and famished look, her tail between
+her legs, her ears flattened against her head and stopping and starting
+whenever he did.
+
+He tried to chase this skeleton away and cried:
+
+"Run along!  Get out!  Kss! kss!" She retreated a few steps, then sat
+down and waited.  And when the coachman started to walk again she
+followed along behind him.
+
+He pretended to pick up some stones.  The animal ran a little farther
+away, but came back again as soon as the man's back was turned.
+
+Then the coachman Francois took pity on the beast and called her.  The
+dog approached timidly.  The man patted her protruding ribs, moved by the
+beast's misery, and he cried: "Come! come here!"  Immediately she began
+to wag her tail, and, feeling herself taken in, adopted, she began to run
+along ahead of her new master.
+
+He made her a bed on the straw in the stable, then he ran to the kitchen
+for some bread.  When she had eaten all she could she curled up and went
+to sleep.
+
+When his employers heard of this the next day they allowed the coachman
+to keep the animal.  It was a good beast, caressing and faithful,
+intelligent and gentle.
+
+Nevertheless Francois adored Cocotte, and he kept repeating: "That beast
+is human.  She only lacks speech."
+
+He had a magnificent red leather collar made for her which bore these
+words engraved on a copper plate: "Mademoiselle Cocotte, belonging to the
+coachman Francois."
+
+She was remarkably prolific and four times a year would give birth to a
+batch of little animals belonging to every variety of the canine race.
+Francois would pick out one which he would leave her and then he would
+unmercifully throw the others into the river.  But soon the cook joined
+her complaints to those of the gardener.  She would find dogs under the
+stove, in the ice box, in the coal bin, and they would steal everything
+they came across.
+
+Finally the master, tired of complaints, impatiently ordered Francois to
+get rid of Cocotte.  In despair the man tried to give her away.  Nobody
+wanted her.  Then he decided to lose her, and he gave her to a teamster,
+who was to drop her on the other side of Paris, near Joinville-le-Pont.
+
+Cocotte returned the same day.  Some decision had to be taken.  Five
+francs was given to a train conductor to take her to Havre.  He was to
+drop her there.
+
+Three days later she returned to the stable, thin, footsore and tired
+out.
+
+The master took pity on her and let her stay.  But other dogs were
+attracted as before, and one evening, when a big dinner party was on,
+a stuffed turkey was carried away by one of them right under the cook's
+nose, and she did not dare to stop him.
+
+This time the master completely lost his temper and said angrily to
+Francois: "If you don't throw this beast into the water before--to-morrow
+morning, I'll put you out, do you hear?"
+
+The man was dumbfounded, and he returned to his room to pack his trunk,
+preferring to leave the place.  Then he bethought himself that he could
+find no other situation as long as he dragged this animal about with him.
+He thought of his good position, where he was well paid and well fed, and
+he decided that a dog was really not worth all that.  At last he decided
+to rid himself of Cocotte at daybreak.
+
+He slept badly.  He rose at dawn, and taking a strong rope, went to get
+the dog.  She stood up slowly, shook herself, stretched and came to
+welcome her master.
+
+Then his courage forsook him, and he began to pet her affectionately,
+stroking her long ears, kissing her muzzle and calling her tender names.
+
+But a neighboring clock struck six.  He could no longer hesitate.
+He opened the door, calling: "Come!" The beast wagged her tail,
+understanding that she was to be taken out.
+
+They reached the beach, and he chose a place where the water seemed deep.
+Then he knotted the rope round the leather collar and tied a heavy stone
+to the other end.  He seized Cocotte in his arms and kissed her madly, as
+though he were taking leave of some human being.  He held her to his
+breast, rocked her and called her "my dear little Cocotte, my sweet
+little Cocotte," and she grunted with pleasure.
+
+Ten times he tried to throw her into the water and each time he lost
+courage.
+
+But suddenly he made up his mind and threw her as far from him as he
+could.  At first she tried to swim, as she did when he gave her a bath,
+but her head, dragged down by the stone, kept going under, and she looked
+at her master with wild, human glances as she struggled like a drowning
+person.  Then the front part of her body sank, while her hind legs waved
+wildly out of the water.  Finally those also disappeared.
+
+Then, for five minutes, bubbles rose to the surface as though the river
+were boiling, and Francois, haggard, his heart beating, thought that he
+saw Cocotte struggling in the mud, and, with the simplicity of a peasant,
+he kept saying to himself: "What does the poor beast think of me now?"
+
+He almost lost his mind.  He was ill for a month and every night he
+dreamed of his dog.  He could feel her licking his hands and hear her
+barking.  It was necessary to call in a physician.  At last he recovered,
+and toward the 2nd of June his employers took him to their estate at
+Biesard, near Rouen.
+
+There again he was near the Seine.  He began to take baths.  Each morning
+he would go down with the groom and they would swim across the river.
+
+One day, as they were disporting themselves in the water, Francois
+suddenly cried to his companion: "Look what's coming!  I'm going to give
+you a chop!"
+
+It was an enormous, swollen corpse that was floating down with its feet
+sticking straight up in the air.
+
+Francois swam up to it, still joking: "Whew! it's not fresh.  What a
+catch, old man!  It isn't thin, either!" He kept swimming about at a
+distance from the animal that was in a state of decomposition.  Then,
+suddenly, he was silent and looked at it: attentively.  This time he came
+near enough to touch, it.  He looked fixedly at the collar, then he
+stretched out his arm, seized the neck, swung the corpse round and drew
+it up close to him and read on the copper which had turned green and
+which still stuck to the discolored leather: "Mademoiselle Cocotte,
+belonging to the coachman Francois."
+
+The dead dog had come more than a hundred miles to find its master.
+
+He let out a frightful shriek and began to swim for the beach with all
+his might, still howling; and as soon as he touched land he ran away
+wildly, stark naked, through the country.  He was insane!
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CORSICAN BANDIT
+
+The road ascended gently through the forest of Aitone.  The large pines
+formed a solemn dome above our heads, and that mysterious sound made by
+the wind in the trees sounded like the notes of an organ.
+
+After walking for three hours, there was a clearing, and then at
+intervals an enormous pine umbrella, and then we suddenly came to the
+edge of the forest, some hundred meters below, the pass leading to the
+wild valley of Niolo.
+
+On the two projecting heights which commanded a view of this pass, some
+old trees, grotesquely twisted, seemed to have mounted with painful
+efforts, like scouts sent in advance of the multitude in the rear.  When
+we turned round, we saw the entire forest stretched beneath our feet,
+like a gigantic basin of verdure, inclosed by bare rocks whose summits
+seemed to reach the sky.
+
+We resumed our walk, and, ten minutes later, found ourselves in the pass.
+
+Then I beheld a remarkable landscape.  Beyond another forest stretched a
+valley, but a valley such as I had never seen before; a solitude of
+stone, ten leagues long, hollowed out between two high mountains, without
+a field or a tree to be seen.  This was the Niolo valley, the fatherland
+of Corsican liberty, the inaccessible citadel, from which the invaders
+had never been able to drive out the mountaineers.
+
+My companion said to me: "This is where all our bandits have taken
+refuge?"
+
+Ere long we were at the further end of this gorge, so wild, so
+inconceivably beautiful.
+
+Not a blade of grass, not a plant-nothing but granite.  As far as our
+eyes could reach, we saw in front of us a desert of glittering stone,
+heated like an oven by a burning sun, which seemed to hang for that very
+purpose right above the gorge.  When we raised our eyes towards the
+crests, we stood dazzled and stupefied by what we saw.  They looked like
+a festoon of coral; all the summits are of porphyry; and the sky overhead
+was violet, purple, tinged with the coloring of these strange mountains.
+Lower down, the granite was of scintillating gray, and seemed ground to
+powder beneath our feet.  At our right, along a long and irregular
+course, roared a tumultuous torrent.  And we staggered along under this
+heat, in this light, in this burning, arid, desolate valley cut by this
+torrent of turbulent water which seemed to be ever hurrying onward,
+without fertilizing the rocks, lost in this furnace which greedily drank
+it up without being saturated or refreshed by it.
+
+But, suddenly, there was visible at our right a little wooden cross sunk
+in a little heap of stones.  A man had been killed there; and I said to
+my companion.
+
+"Tell me about your bandits."
+
+He replied:
+
+"I knew the most celebrated of them, the terrible St. Lucia.  I will tell
+you his history.
+
+"His father was killed in a quarrel by a young man of the district, it is
+said; and St. Lucia was left alone with his sister.  He was a weak, timid
+youth, small, often ill, without any energy.  He did not proclaim
+vengeance against the assassin of his father.  All his relatives came to
+see him, and implored of him to avenge his death; he remained deaf to
+their menaces and their supplications.
+
+"Then, following the old Corsican custom, his sister, in her indignation
+carried away his black clothes, in order that he might not wear mourning
+for a dead man who had not been avenged.  He was insensible to even this
+affront, and rather than take down from the rack his father's gun, which
+was still loaded, he shut himself up, not daring to brave the looks of
+the young men of the district.
+
+"He seemed to have even forgotten the crime, and lived with his sister in
+the seclusion of their dwelling.
+
+"But, one day, the man who was suspected of having committed the murder,
+was about to get married.  St. Lucia did not appear to be moved by this
+news, but, out of sheer bravado, doubtless, the bridegroom, on his way to
+the church, passed before the house of the two orphans.
+
+"The brother and the sister, at their window, were eating frijoles, when
+the young man saw the bridal procession going by.  Suddenly he began to
+tremble, rose to his feet without uttering a word, made the sign of the
+cross, took the gun which was hanging over the fireplace, and went out.
+
+"When he spoke of this later on, he said: 'I don't know what was the
+matter with me; it was like fire in my blood; I felt that I must do it,
+that, in spite of everything, I could not resist, and I concealed the gun
+in a cave on the road to Corte.
+
+"An hour later, he came back, with nothing in his hand, and with his
+habitual air of sad weariness.  His sister believed that there was
+nothing further in his thoughts.
+
+"But when night fell he disappeared.
+
+"His enemy had, the same evening, to repair to Corte on foot, accompanied
+by his two groomsmen.
+
+"He was walking along, singing as he went, when St. Lucia stood before
+him, and looking straight in the murderer's face, exclaimed: 'Now is the
+time!' and shot him point-blank in the chest.
+
+"One of the men fled; the other stared at, the young man, saying:
+
+"'What have you done, St. Lucia?' and he was about to hasten to Corte for
+help, when St. Lucia said in a stern tone:
+
+"'If you move another step, I'll shoot you in the leg.'
+
+"The other, aware of his timidity hitherto, replied: 'You would not dare
+to do it!' and was hurrying off when he fell instantaneously, his thigh
+shattered by a bullet.
+
+"And St. Lucia, coming over to where he lay, said:
+
+"'I am going to look at your wound; if it is not serious, I'll leave you
+there; if it is mortal I'll finish you off."
+
+"He inspected the wound, considered it mortal, and slowly reloading his
+gun, told the wounded man to say a prayer, and shot him through the head.
+
+"Next day he was in the mountains.
+
+"And do you know what this St. Lucia did after this?
+
+"All his family were arrested by the gendarmes.  His uncle, the cure, who
+was suspected of having incited him to this deed of vengeance, was
+himself put in prison, and accused by the dead man's relatives.  But he
+escaped, took a gun in his turn, and went to join his nephew in the
+brush.
+
+"Next, St. Lucia killed, one after the other, his uncle's accusers, and
+tore out their eyes to teach the others never to state what they had seen
+with their eyes.
+
+"He killed all the relatives, all the connections of his enemy's family.
+He slew during his life fourteen gendarmes, burned down the houses of his
+adversaries, and was, up to the day of his death, the most terrible of
+all the bandits whose memory we have preserved."
+
+The sun disappeared behind Monte Cinto and the tall shadow of the granite
+mountain went to sleep on the granite of the valley.  We quickened our
+pace in order to reach before night the little village of Albertaccio,
+nothing but a pile of stones welded into the stone flanks of a wild
+gorge.  And I said as I thought of the bandit:
+
+"What a terrible custom your vendetta is!"
+
+My companion answered with an air of resignation:
+
+"What would you have?  A man must do his duty!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAVE
+
+The seventeenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three, at
+half-past two in the morning, the watchman in the cemetery of Besiers,
+who lived in a small cottage on the edge of this field of the dead, was
+awakened by the barking of his dog, which was shut up in the kitchen.
+
+Going down quickly, he saw the animal sniffing at the crack of the door
+and barking furiously, as if some tramp had been sneaking about the
+house.  The keeper, Vincent, therefore took his gun and went out.
+
+His dog, preceding him, at once ran in the direction of the Avenue
+General Bonnet, stopping short at the monument of Madame Tomoiseau.
+
+The keeper, advancing cautiously, soon saw a faint light on the side of
+the Avenue Malenvers, and stealing in among the graves, he came upon a
+horrible act of profanation.
+
+A man had dug up the coffin of a young woman who had been buried the
+evening before and was dragging the corpse out of it.
+
+A small dark lantern, standing on a pile of earth, lighted up this
+hideous scene.
+
+Vincent sprang upon the wretch, threw him to the ground, bound his hands
+and took him to the police station.
+
+It was a young, wealthy and respected lawyer in town, named Courbataille.
+
+He was brought into court.  The public prosecutor opened the case by
+referring to the monstrous deeds of the Sergeant Bertrand.
+
+A wave of indignation swept over the courtroom.  When the magistrate sat
+down the crowd assembled cried: "Death!  death!" With difficulty the
+presiding judge established silence.
+
+Then he said gravely:
+
+"Defendant, what have you to say in your defense?"
+
+Courbataille, who had refused counsel, rose.  He was a handsome fellow,
+tall, brown, with a frank face, energetic manner and a fearless eye.
+
+Paying no attention to the whistlings in the room, he began to speak in a
+voice that was low and veiled at first, but that grew more firm as he
+proceeded.
+
+"Monsieur le President, gentlemen of the jury: I have very little to say.
+The woman whose grave I violated was my sweetheart.  I loved her.
+
+"I loved her, not with a sensual love and not with mere tenderness of
+heart and soul, but with an absolute, complete love, with an overpowering
+passion.
+
+"Hear me:
+
+"When I met her for the first time I felt a strange sensation.  It was
+not astonishment nor admiration, nor yet that which is called love at
+first sight, but a feeling of delicious well-being, as if I had been
+plunged into a warm bath.  Her gestures seduced me, her voice enchanted
+me, and it was with infinite pleasure that I looked upon her person.
+It seemed to me as if I had seen her before and as if I had known her a
+long time.  She had within her something of my spirit.
+
+"She seemed to me like an answer to a cry uttered by my soul, to that
+vague and unceasing cry with which we call upon Hope during our whole
+life.
+
+"When I knew her a little better, the mere thought of seeing her again
+filled me with exquisite and profound uneasiness; the touch of her hand
+in mine was more delightful to me than anything that I had imagined; her
+smile filled me with a mad joy, with the desire to run, to dance, to
+fling myself upon the ground.
+
+"So we became lovers.
+
+"Yes, more than that: she was my very life.  I looked for nothing further
+on earth, and had no further desires.  I longed for nothing further.
+
+"One evening, when we had gone on a somewhat long walk by the river, we
+were overtaken by the rain, and she caught cold.  It developed into
+pneumonia the next day, and a week later she was dead.
+
+"During the hours of her suffering astonishment and consternation
+prevented my understanding and reflecting upon it, but when she was dead
+I was so overwhelmed by blank despair that I had no thoughts left.
+I wept.
+
+"During all the horrible details of the interment my keen and wild grief
+was like a madness, a kind of sensual, physical grief.
+
+"Then when she was gone, when she was under the earth, my mind at once
+found itself again, and I passed through a series of moral sufferings so
+terrible that even the love she had vouchsafed to me was dear at that
+price.
+
+"Then the fixed idea came to me: I shall not see her again.
+
+"When one dwells on this thought for a whole day one feels as if he were
+going mad.  Just think of it!  There is a woman whom you adore, a unique
+woman, for in the whole universe there is not a second one like her.
+This woman has given herself to you and has created with you the
+mysterious union that is called Love.  Her eye seems to you more vast
+than space, more charming than the world, that clear eye smiling with her
+tenderness.  This woman loves you.  When she speaks to you her voice
+floods you with joy.
+
+"And suddenly she disappears!  Think of it!  She disappears, not only for
+you, but forever.  She is dead.  Do you understand what that means?
+Never, never, never, not anywhere will she exist any more.  Nevermore
+will that eye look upon anything again; nevermore will that voice, nor
+any voice like it, utter a word in the same way as she uttered it.
+
+"Nevermore will a face be born that is like hers.  Never, never!  The
+molds of statues are kept; casts are kept by which one can make objects
+with the same outlines and forms.  But that one body and that one face
+will never more be born again upon the earth.  And yet millions and
+millions of creatures will be born, and more than that, and this one
+woman will not reappear among all the women of the future.  Is it
+possible?  It drives one mad to think of it.
+
+"She lived for twenty-years, not more, and she has disappeared forever,
+forever, forever!  She thought, she smiled, she loved me.  And now
+nothing!  The flies that die in the autumn are as much as we are in this
+world.  And now nothing!  And I thought that her body, her fresh body, so
+warm, so sweet, so white, so lovely, would rot down there in that box
+under the earth.  And her soul, her thought, her love--where is it?
+
+"Not to see her again!  The idea of this decomposing body, that I might
+yet recognize, haunted me.  I wanted to look at it once more.
+
+"I went out with a spade, a lantern and a hammer; I jumped over the
+cemetery wall and I found the grave, which had not yet been closed
+entirely; I uncovered the coffin and took up a board.  An abominable
+odor, the stench of putrefaction, greeted my nostrils.  Oh, her bed
+perfumed with orris!
+
+"Yet I opened the coffin, and, holding my lighted lantern down into it I
+saw her.  Her face was blue, swollen, frightful.  A black liquid had
+oozed out of her mouth.
+
+"She!  That was she!  Horror seized me.  But I stretched out my arm to
+draw this monstrous face toward me.  And then I was caught.
+
+"All night I have retained the foul odor of this putrid body, the odor of
+my well beloved, as one retains the perfume of a woman after a love
+embrace.
+
+"Do with me what you will."
+
+A strange silence seemed to oppress the room.  They seemed to be waiting
+for something more.  The jury retired to deliberate.
+
+When they came back a few minutes later the accused showed no fear and
+did not even seem to think.
+
+The president announced with the usual formalities that his judges
+declared him to be not guilty.
+
+He did not move and the room applauded.
+
+     The Grave appeared in Gil Blas, July 29, 1883, under the signature
+     of "Maufrigneuse."
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Original Short Stories, Vol. 12.
+by Guy de Maupassant
+
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