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diff --git a/old/gm13v11.txt b/old/gm13v11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..85c9984 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/gm13v11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4445 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Original Short Stories, by Maupassant, v13 +#14 in our series by Guy de Maupassant + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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QUESADA and Others + + + +VOLUME XIII. + +OLD JUDAS +THE LITTLE CASK +BOITELLE +A WIDOW +THE ENGLISHMEN OF ETRETAT +MAGNETISM +A FATHERS CONFESSION +A MOTHER OF MONSTERS +AN UNCOMFORTABLE BED +A PORTRAIT +THE DRUNKARD +THE WARDROBE +THE MOUNTAIN POOL +A CREMATION +MISTI +MADAME HERMET +THE MAGIC COUCH + + + + +OLD JUDAS + +This entire stretch of country was amazing; it was characterized by a +grandeur that was almost religious, and yet it had an air of sinister +desolation. + +A great, wild lake, filled with stagnant, black water, in which thousands +of reeds were waving to and fro, lay in the midst of a vast circle of +naked hills, where nothing grew but broom, or here and there an oak +curiously twisted by the wind. + +Just one house stood on the banks of that dark lake, a small, low house +inhabited by Uncle Joseph, an old boatman, who lived on what he could +make by his fishing. Once a week he carried the fish he caught into the +surrounding villages, returning with the few provisions that he needed +for his sustenance. + +I went to see this old hermit, who offered to take me with him to his +nets, and I accepted. + +His boat was old, worm-eaten and clumsy, and the skinny old man rowed +with a gentle and monotonous stroke that was soothing to the soul, +already oppressed by the sadness of the land round about. + +It seemed to me as if I were transported to olden times, in the midst of +that ancient country, in that primitive boat, which was propelled by a +man of another age. + +He took up his nets and threw the fish into the bottom of the boat, as +the fishermen of the Bible might have done. Then he took me down to the +end of the lake, where I suddenly perceived a ruin on the other side of +the bank a dilapidated hut, with an enormous red cross on the wall that +looked as if it might have been traced with blood, as it gleamed in the +last rays of the setting sun. + +"What is that?" I asked. + +"That is where Judas died," the man replied, crossing himself. + +I was not surprised, being almost prepared for this strange answer. + +Still I asked: + +"Judas? What Judas?" + +"The Wandering Jew, monsieur," he added. + +I asked him to tell me this legend. + +But it was better than a legend, being a true story, and quite a recent +one, since Uncle Joseph had known the man. + +This hut had formerly been occupied by a large woman, a kind of beggar, +who lived on public charity. + +Uncle Joseph did not remember from whom she had this hut. One evening an +old man with a white beard, who seemed to be at least two hundred years +old, and who could hardly drag himself along, asked alms of this forlorn +woman, as he passed her dwelling. + +"Sit down, father," she replied; "everything here belongs to all the +world, since it comes from all the world." + +He sat down on a stone before the door. He shared the woman's bread, her +bed of leaves, and her house. + +He did not leave her again, for he had come to the end of his travels. + +"It was Our Lady the Virgin who permitted this, monsieur," Joseph added, +"it being a woman who had opened her door to a Judas, for this old +vagabond was the Wandering Jew. It was not known at first in the +country, but the people suspected it very soon, because he was always +walking; it had become a sort of second nature to him." + +And suspicion had been aroused by still another thing. This woman, who +kept that stranger with her, was thought to be a Jewess, for no one had +ever seen her at church. For ten miles around no one ever called her +anything else but the Jewess. + +When the little country children saw her come to beg they cried out: +"Mamma, mamma, here is the Jewess!" + +The old man and she began to go out together into the neighboring +districts, holding out their hands at all the doors, stammering +supplications into the ears of all the passers. They could be seen at +all hours of the day, on by-paths, in the villages, or again eating +bread, sitting in the noon heat under the shadow of some solitary tree. +And the country people began to call the beggar Old Judas. + +One day he brought home in his sack two little live pigs, which a farmer +had given him after he had cured the farmer of some sickness. + +Soon he stopped begging, and devoted himself entirely to his pigs. +He took them out to feed by the lake, or under isolated oaks, or in the +near-by valleys. The woman, however, went about all day begging, but she +always came back to him in the evening. + +He also did not go to church, and no one ever had seen him cross himself +before the wayside crucifixes. All this gave rise to much gossip: + +One night his companion was attacked by a fever and began to tremble like +a leaf in the wind. He went to the nearest town to get some medicine, +and then he shut himself up with her, and was not seen for six days. + +The priest, having heard that the "Jewess" was about to die, came to +offer the consolation of his religion and administer the last sacrament. +Was she a Jewess? He did not know. But in any case, he wished to try to +save her soul. + +Hardly had he knocked at the door when old Judas appeared on the +threshold, breathing hard, his eyes aflame, his long beard agitated, +like rippling water, and he hurled blasphemies in an unknown language, +extending his skinny arms in order to prevent the priest from entering. + +The priest attempted to speak, offered his purse and his aid, but the old +man kept on abusing him, making gestures with his hands as if throwing; +stones at him. + +Then the priest retired, followed by the curses of the beggar. + +The companion of old Judas died the following day. He buried her +himself, in front of her door. They were people of so little account +that no one took any interest in them. + +Then they saw the man take his pigs out again to the lake and up the +hillsides. And he also began begging again to get food. But the people +gave him hardly anything, as there was so much gossip about him. Every +one knew, moreover, how he had treated the priest. + +Then he disappeared. That was during Holy Week, but no one paid any +attention to him. + +But on Easter Sunday the boys and girls who had gone walking out to the +lake heard a great noise in the hut. The door was locked; but the boys +broke it in, and the two pigs ran out, jumping like gnats. No one ever +saw them again. + +The whole crowd went in; they saw some old rags on the floor, the +beggar's hat, some bones, clots of dried blood and bits of flesh in the +hollows of the skull. + +His pigs had devoured him. + +"This happened on Good Friday, monsieur." Joseph concluded his story, +"three hours after noon." + +"How do you know that?" I asked him. + +"There is no doubt about that," he replied. + +I did not attempt to make him understand that it could easily happen that +the famished animals had eaten their master, after he had died suddenly +in his hut. + +As for the cross on the wall, it had appeared one morning, and no one +knew what hand traced it in that strange color. + +Since then no one doubted any longer that the Wandering Jew had died on +this spot. + +I myself believed it for one hour. + + + + + + +THE LITTLE CASK + +He was a tall man of forty or thereabout, this Jules Chicot, the +innkeeper of Spreville, with a red face and a round stomach, and said by +those who knew him to be a smart business man. He stopped his buggy in +front of Mother Magloire's farmhouse, and, hitching the horse to the +gatepost, went in at the gate. + +Chicot owned some land adjoining that of the old woman, which he had been +coveting for a long while, and had tried in vain to buy a score of times, +but she had always obstinately refused to part with it. + +"I was born here, and here I mean to die," was all she said. + +He found her peeling potatoes outside the farmhouse door. She was a +woman of about seventy-two, very thin, shriveled and wrinkled, almost +dried up in fact and much bent but as active and untiring as a girl. +Chicot patted her on the back in a friendly fashion and then sat down by +her on a stool. + +"Well mother, you are always pretty well and hearty, I am glad to see." + +"Nothing to complain of, considering, thank you. And how are you, +Monsieur Chicot?" + +"Oh, pretty well, thank you, except a few rheumatic pains occasionally; +otherwise I have nothing to complain of." + +"So much the better." + +And she said no more, while Chicot watched her going on with her work. +Her crooked, knotted fingers, hard as a lobster's claws, seized the +tubers, which were lying in a pail, as if they had been a pair of +pincers, and she peeled them rapidly, cutting off long strips of skin +with an old knife which she held in the other hand, throwing the potatoes +into the water as they were done. Three daring fowls jumped one after +the other into her lap, seized a bit of peel and then ran away as fast as +their legs would carry them with it in their beak. + +Chicot seemed embarrassed, anxious, with something on the tip of his +tongue which he could not say. At last he said hurriedly: + +"Listen, Mother Magloire--" + +"Well, what is it?" + +"You are quite sure that you do not want to sell your land?" + +"Certainly not; you may make up your mind to that. What I have said I +have said, so don't refer to it again." + +"Very well; only I think I know of an arrangement that might suit us both +very well." + +"What is it?" + +"Just this. You shall sell it to me and keep it all the same. You don't +understand? Very well, then follow me in what I am going to say." + +The old woman left off peeling potatoes and looked at the innkeeper +attentively from under her heavy eyebrows, and he went on: + +"Let me explain myself. Every month I will give you a hundred and fifty +francs. You understand me! suppose! Every month I will come and bring +you thirty crowns, and it will not make the slightest difference in your +life--not the very slightest. You will have your own home just as you +have now, need not trouble yourself about me, and will owe me nothing; +all you will have to do will be to take my money. Will that arrangement +suit you?" + +He looked at her good-humoredly, one might almost have said benevolently, +and the old woman returned his looks distrustfully, as if she suspected a +trap, and said: + +"It seems all right as far as I am concerned, but it will not give you +the farm." + +"Never mind about that," he said; "you may remain here as long as it +pleases God Almighty to let you live; it will be your home. Only you +will sign a deed before a lawyer making it over to me; after your death. +You have no children, only nephews and nieces for whom you don't care a +straw. Will that suit you? You will keep everything during your life, +and I will give you the thirty crowns a month. It is pure gain as far as +you are concerned." + +The old woman was surprised, rather uneasy, but, nevertheless, very much +tempted to agree, and answered: + +"I don't say that I will not agree to it, but I must think about it. +Come back in a week, and we will talk it over again, and I will then give +you my definite answer." + +And Chicot went off as happy as a king who had conquered an empire. + +Mother Magloire was thoughtful, and did not sleep at all that night; in +fact, for four days she was in a fever of hesitation. She suspected that +there was something underneath the offer which was not to her advantage; +but then the thought of thirty crowns a month, of all those coins +clinking in her apron, falling to her, as it were, from the skies, +without her doing anything for it, aroused her covetousness. + +She went to the notary and told him about it. He advised her to accept +Chicot's offer, but said she ought to ask for an annuity of fifty instead +of thirty, as her farm was worth sixty thousand francs at the lowest +calculation. + +"If you live for fifteen years longer," he said, "even then he will only +have paid forty-five thousand francs for it." + +The old woman trembled with joy at this prospect of getting fifty crowns +a month, but she was still suspicious, fearing some trick, and she +remained a long time with the lawyer asking questions without being able +to make up her mind to go. At last she gave him instructions to draw up +the deed and returned home with her head in a whirl, just as if she had +drunk four jugs of new cider. + +When Chicot came again to receive her answer she declared, after a lot of +persuading, that she could not make up her mind to agree to his proposal, +though she was all the time trembling lest he should not consent to give +the fifty crowns, but at last, when he grew urgent, she told him what she +expected for her farm. + +He looked surprised and disappointed and refused. + +Then, in order to convince him, she began to talk about the probable +duration of her life. + +"I am certainly not likely to live more than five or six years longer. +I am nearly seventy-three, and far from strong, even considering my age. +The other evening I thought I was going to die, and could hardly manage +to crawl into bed." + +But Chicot was not going to be taken in. + +"Come, come, old lady, you are as strong as the church tower, and will +live till you are a hundred at least; you will no doubt see me put under +ground first." + +The whole day was spent in discussing the money, and as the old woman +would not give in, the innkeeper consented to give the fifty crowns, and +she insisted upon having ten crowns over and above to strike the bargain. + +Three years passed and the old dame did not seem to have grown a day +older. Chicot was in despair, and it seemed to him as if he had been +paying that annuity for fifty years, that he had been taken in, done, +ruined. From time to time he went to see the old lady, just as one goes +in July to see when the harvest is likely to begin. She always met him +with a cunning look, and one might have supposed that she was +congratulating herself on the trick she had played him. Seeing how well +and hearty she seemed he very soon got into his buggy again, growling to +himself: + +"Will you never die, you old hag?" + +He did not know what to do, and he felt inclined to strangle her when he +saw her. He hated her with a ferocious, cunning hatred, the hatred of a +peasant who has been robbed, and began to cast about for some means of +getting rid of her. + +One day he came to see her again, rubbing his hands as he did the first +time he proposed the bargain, and, after having chatted for a few +minutes, he said: + +"Why do you never come and have a bit of dinner at my place when you are +in Spreville? The people are talking about it, and saying we are not on +friendly terms, and that pains me. You know it will cost you nothing if +you come, for I don't look at the price of a dinner. Come whenever you +feel inclined; I shall be very glad to see you." + +Old Mother Magloire did not need to be asked twice, and the next day but +one, as she had to go to the town in any case, it being market day, she +let her man drive her to Chicot's place, where the buggy was put in the +barn while she went into the house to get her dinner. + +The innkeeper was delighted and treated her like a lady, giving her roast +fowl, black pudding, leg of mutton and bacon and cabbage. But she ate +next to nothing. She had always been a small eater, and had generally +lived on a little soup and a crust of bread and butter. + +Chicot was disappointed and pressed her to eat more, but she refused, and +she would drink little, and declined coffee, so he asked her: + +"But surely you will take a little drop of brandy or liqueur?" + +"Well, as to that, I don't know that I will refuse." Whereupon he +shouted out: + +"Rosalie, bring the superfine brandy--the special--you know." + +The servant appeared, carrying a long bottle ornamented with a paper +vine-leaf, and he filled two liqueur glasses. + +"Just try that; you will find it first rate." + +The good woman drank it slowly in sips, so as to make the pleasure last +all the longer, and when she had finished her glass, she said: + +"Yes, that is first rate!" + +Almost before she had said it Chicot had poured her out another glassful. +She wished to refuse, but it was too late, and she drank it very slowly, +as she had done the first, and he asked her to have a third. She +objected, but he persisted. + +"It is as mild as milk, you know; I can drink ten or a dozen glasses +without any ill effects; it goes down like sugar and does not go to the +head; one would think that it evaporated on the tongue: It is the most +wholesome thing you can drink." + +She took it, for she really enjoyed it, but she left half the glass. + +Then Chicot, in an excess of generosity, said: + +"Look here, as it is so much to your taste, I will give you a small keg +of it, just to show that you and I are still excellent friends." So she +took one away with her, feeling slightly overcome by the effects of what +she had drunk. + +The next day the innkeeper drove into her yard and took a little iron- +hooped keg out of his gig. He insisted on her tasting the contents, to +make sure it was the same delicious article, and, when they had each of +them drunk three more glasses, he said as he was going away: + +"Well, you know when it is all gone there is more left; don't be modest, +for I shall not mind. The sooner it is finished the better pleased I +shall be." + +Four days later he came again. The old woman was outside her door +cutting up the bread for her soup. + +He went up to her and put his face close to hers, so that he might smell +her breath; and when he smelt the alcohol he felt pleased. + +"I suppose you will give me a glass of the Special?" he said. And they +had three glasses each. + +Soon, however, it began to be whispered abroad that Mother Magloire was +in the habit of getting drunk all by herself. She was picked up in her +kitchen, then in her yard, then in the roads in the neighborhood, and she +was often brought home like a log. + +The innkeeper did not go near her any more, and, when people spoke to him +about her, he used to say, putting on a distressed look: + +"It is a great pity that she should have taken to drink at her age, but +when people get old there is no remedy. It will be the death of her in +the long run." + +And it certainly was the death of her. She died the next winter. About +Christmas time she fell down, unconscious, in the snow, and was found +dead the next morning. + +And when Chicot came in for the farm, he said: + +"It was very stupid of her; if she had not taken to drink she would +probably have lived ten years longer." + + + + + + +BOITELLE + +Father Boitelle (Antoine) made a specialty of undertaking dirty jobs all +through the countryside. Whenever there was a ditch or a cesspool to be +cleaned out, a dunghill removed, a sewer cleansed, or any dirt hole +whatever, he way always employed to do it. + +He would come with the instruments of his trade, his sabots covered with +dirt, and set to work, complaining incessantly about his occupation. +When people asked him then why he did this loathsome work, he would reply +resignedly: + +"Faith, 'tis for my children, whom I must support. This brings me in +more than anything else." + +He had, indeed, fourteen children. If any one asked him what had become +of them, he would say with an air of indifference: + +"There are only eight of them left in the house. One is out at service +and five are married." + +When the questioner wanted to know whether they were well married, he +replied vivaciously: + +"I did not oppose them. I opposed them in nothing. They married just as +they pleased. We shouldn't go against people's likings, it turns out +badly. I am a night scavenger because my parents went against my +likings. But for that I would have become a workman like the others." + +Here is the way his parents had thwarted him in his likings: + +He was at the time a soldier stationed at Havre, not more stupid than +another, or sharper either, a rather simple fellow, however. When he was +not on duty, his greatest pleasure was to walk along the quay, where the +bird dealers congregate. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a soldier from +his own part of the country, he would slowly saunter along by cages +containing parrots with green backs and yellow heads from the banks of +the Amazon, or parrots with gray backs and red heads from Senegal, or +enormous macaws, which look like birds reared in hot-houses, with their +flower-like feathers, their plumes and their tufts. Parrots of every +size, who seem painted with minute care by the miniaturist, God Almighty, +and the little birds, all the smaller birds hopped about, yellow, blue +and variegated, mingling their cries with the noise of the quay; and +adding to the din caused by unloading the vessels, as well as by +passengers and vehicles, a violent clamor, loud, shrill and deafening, as +if from some distant forest of monsters. + +Boitelle would pause, with wondering eyes, wide-open mouth, laughing and +enraptured, showing his teeth to the captive cockatoos, who kept nodding +their white or yellow topknots toward the glaring red of his breeches and +the copper buckle of his belt. When he found a bird that could talk he +put questions to it, and if it happened at the time to be disposed to +reply and to hold a conversation with him he would carry away enough +amusement to last him till evening. He also found heaps of amusement in +looking at the monkeys, and could conceive no greater luxury for a rich +man than to own these animals as one owns cats and dogs. This kind of +taste for the exotic he had in his blood, as people have a taste for the +chase, or for medicine, or for the priesthood. He could not help +returning to the quay every time the gates of the barracks opened, drawn +toward it by an irresistible longing. + +On one occasion, having stopped almost in ecstasy before an enormous +macaw, which was swelling out its plumes, bending forward and bridling up +again as if making the court curtseys of parrot-land, he saw the door of +a little cafe adjoining the bird dealer's shop open, and a young negress +appeared, wearing on her head a red silk handkerchief. She was sweeping +into the street the corks and sand of the establishment. + +Boitelle's attention was soon divided between the bird and the woman, and +he really could not tell which of these two beings he contemplated with +the greater astonishment and delight. + +The negress, having swept the rubbish into the street, raised her eyes, +and, in her turn, was dazzled by the soldier's uniform. There she stood +facing him with her broom in her hands as if she were bringing him a +rifle, while the macaw continued bowing. But at the end of a few seconds +the soldier began to feel embarrassed at this attention, and he walked +away quietly so as not to look as if he were beating a retreat. + +But he came back. Almost every day he passed before the Cafe des +Colonies, and often he could distinguish through the window the figure of +the little black-skinned maid serving "bocks" or glasses of brandy to the +sailors of the port. Frequently, too, she would come out to the door on +seeing him; soon, without even having exchanged a word, they smiled at +one another like acquaintances; and Boitelle felt his heart touched when +he suddenly saw, glittering between the dark lips of the girl, a shining +row of white teeth. At length, one day he ventured to enter, and was +quite surprised to find that she could speak French like every one else. +The bottle of lemonade, of which she was good enough to accept a +glassful, remained in the soldier's recollection memorably delicious, and +it became a custom with him to come and absorb in this little tavern on +the quay all the agreeable drinks which he could afford. + +For him it was a treat, a happiness, on which his thoughts dwelt +constantly, to watch the black hand of the little maid pouring something +into his glass while her teeth laughed more than her eyes. At the end of +two months they became fast friends, and Boitelle, after his first +astonishment at discovering that this negress had as good principles as +honest French girls, that she exhibited a regard for economy, industry, +religion and good conduct, loved her more on that account, and was so +charmed with her that he wanted to marry her. + +He told her his intentions, which made her dance with joy. She had also +a little money, left her by, a female oyster dealer, who had picked her +up when she had been left on the quay at Havre by an American captain. +This captain had found her, when she was only about six years old, lying +on bales of cotton in the hold of his ship, some hours after his +departure from New York. On his arrival in Havre he abandoned to the +care of this compassionate oyster dealer the little black creature, who +had been hidden on board his vessel, he knew not why or by whom. + +The oyster woman having died, the young negress became a servant at the +Colonial Tavern. + +Antoine Boitelle added: "This will be all right if my parents don't +oppose it. I will never go against them, you understand, never! I'm +going to say a word or two to them the first time I go back to the +country." + +On the following week, in fact, having obtained twenty-four hours' leave, +he went to see his family, who cultivated a little farm at Tourteville, +near Yvetot. + +He waited till the meal was finished, the hour when the coffee baptized +with brandy makes people more open-hearted, before informing his parents +that he had found a girl who satisfied his tastes, all his tastes, so +completely that there could not exist any other in all the world so +perfectly suited to him. + +The old people, on hearing this, immediately assumed a cautious manner +and wanted explanations. He had concealed nothing from them except the +color of her skin. + +She was a servant, without much means, but strong, thrifty, clean, well- +conducted and sensible. All these things were better than money would be +in the hands of a bad housewife. Moreover, she had a few sous, left her +by a woman who had reared her, a good number of sous, almost a little +dowry, fifteen hundred francs in the savings bank. The old people, +persuaded by his talk, and relying also on their own judgment, were +gradually weakening, when he came to the delicate point. Laughing in +rather a constrained fashion, he said: + +"There's only one thing you may not like. She is not a white slip." + +They did not understand, and he had to explain at some length and very +cautiously, to avoid shocking them, that she belonged to the dusky race +of which they had only seen samples in pictures at Epinal. Then they +became restless, perplexed, alarmed, as if he had proposed a union with +the devil. + +The mother said: "Black? How much of her is black? Is the whole of +her?" + +He replied: "Certainly. Everywhere, just as you are white everywhere." + +The father interposed: "Black? Is it as black as the pot?" + +The son answered: "Perhaps a little less than that. She is black, but +not disgustingly black. The cure's cassock is black, but it is not +uglier than a surplice which is white." + +The father said: "Are there more black people besides her in her +country?" + +And the son, with an air of conviction, exclaimed: "Certainly!" + +But the old man shook his head. + +"That must be unpleasant." + +And the son: + +"It isn't more disagreeable than anything else when you get accustomed to +it." + +The mother asked: + +"It doesn't soil the underwear more than other skins, this black skin?" + +"Not more than your own, as it is her proper color." + +Then, after many other questions, it was agreed that the parents should +see this girl before coming; to any decision, and that the young fellow, +whose, term of military service would be over in a month, should bring +her to the house in order that they might examine her and decide by +talking the matter over whether or not she was too dark to enter the +Boitelle family. + +Antoine accordingly announced that on Sunday, the 22d of May, the day of +his discharge, he would start for Tourteville with his sweetheart. + +She had put on, for this journey to the house of her lover's parents, her +most beautiful and most gaudy clothes, in which yellow, red and blue were +the prevailing colors, so that she looked as if she were adorned for a +national festival. + +At the terminus, as they were leaving Havre, people stared at her, and +Boitelle was proud of giving his arm to a person who commanded so much +attention. Then, in the third-class carriage, in which she took a seat +by his side, she aroused so much astonishment among the country folks +that the people in the adjoining compartments stood up on their benches +to look at her over the wooden partition which divides the compartments. +A child, at sight of her, began to cry with terror, another concealed his +face in his mother's apron. Everything went off well, however, up to +their arrival at their destination. But when the train slackened its +rate of motion as they drew near Yvetot, Antoine felt: ill at ease, as he +would have done at a review when; he did not know his drill practice. +Then, as he; leaned his head out, he recognized in the distance: his +father, holding the bridle of the horse harnessed to a carryall, and his +mother, who had come forward to the grating, behind which stood those who +were expecting friends. + +He alighted first, gave his hand to his sweetheart, and holding himself +erect, as if he were escorting a general, he went to meet his family. + +The mother, on seeing this black lady in variegated costume in her son's +company, remained so stupefied that she could not open her mouth; and the +father found it hard to hold the horse, which the engine or the negress +caused to rear continuously. But Antoine, suddenly filled with unmixed +joy at seeing once more the old people, rushed forward with open arms, +embraced his mother, embraced his father, in spite of the nag's fright, +and then turning toward his companion, at whom the passengers on the +platform stopped to stare with amazement, he proceeded to explain: + +"Here she is! I told you that, at first sight, she is not attractive; +but as soon as you know her, I can assure you there's not a better sort +in the whole world. Say good-morning to her so that she may not feel +badly." + +Thereupon Mere Boitelle, almost frightened out of her wits, made a sort +of curtsy, while the father took off his cap, murmuring: + +"I wish you good luck!" + +Then, without further delay, they climbed into the carryall, the two +women at the back, on seats which made them jump up and down as the +vehicle went jolting along the road, and the two men in front on the +front seat. + +Nobody spoke. Antoine, ill at ease, whistled a barrack-room air; his +father whipped the nag; and his mother, from where she sat in the corner, +kept casting sly glances at the negress, whose forehead and cheekbones +shone in the sunlight like well-polished shoes. + +Wishing to break the ice, Antoine turned round. + +"Well," said he, "we don't seem inclined to talk." + +"We must have time," replied the old woman. + +He went on: + +"Come! Tell us the little story about that hen of yours that laid eight +eggs." + +It was a funny anecdote of long standing in the family. But, as his +mother still remained silent, paralyzed by her emotion, he undertook +himself to tell the story, laughing as he did so at the memorable +incident. The father, who knew it by heart brightened at the opening +words of the narrative; his wife soon followed his example; and the +negress herself, when he reached the drollest part of it, suddenly gave +vent to a laugh, such a loud, rolling torrent of laughter that the horse, +becoming excited, broke into a gallop for a while. + +This served to cement their acquaintance. They all began to chat. + +They had scarcely reached the house and had all alighted, when Antoine +conducted his sweetheart to a room, so that she might take off her dress, +to avoid staining it, as she was going to prepare a nice dish, intended +to win the old people's affections through their stomachs. He drew his +parents outside the house, and, with beating heart, asked: + +"Well, what do you say now?" + +The father said nothing. The mother, less timid, exclaimed: + +"She is too black. No, indeed, this is too much for me. It turns my +blood." + +"You will get used to it," said Antoine. + +"Perhaps so, but not at first." + +They went into the house, where the good woman was somewhat affected at +the spectacle of the negress engaged in cooking. She at once proceeded +to assist her, with petticoats tucked up, active in spite of her age. + +The meal was an excellent one, very long, very enjoyable. When they were +taking a turn after dinner, Antoine took his father aside. + +"Well, dad, what do you say about it?" + +The peasant took care never to compromise himself. + +"I have no opinion about it. Ask your mother." + +So Antoine went back to his mother, and, detaining her behind the rest, +said: + +"Well, mother, what do you think of her?" + +"My poor lad, she is really too black. If she were only a little less +black, I would not go against you, but this is too much. One would think +it was Satan!" + +He did not press her, knowing how obstinate the old woman had always +been, but he felt a tempest of disappointment sweeping over his heart. +He was turning over in his mind what he ought to do, what plan he could +devise, surprised, moreover, that she had not conquered them already as +she had captivated himself. And they, all four, walked along through the +wheat fields, having gradually relapsed into silence. Whenever they +passed a fence they saw a countryman sitting on the stile, and a group of +brats climbed up to stare at them, and every one rushed out into the road +to see the "black" whore young Boitelle had brought home with him. At a +distance they noticed people scampering across the fields just as when +the drum beats to draw public attention to some living phenomenon. Pere +and Mere Boitelle, alarmed at this curiosity, which was exhibited +everywhere through the country at their approach, quickened their pace, +walking side by side, and leaving their son far behind. His dark +companion asked what his parents thought of her. + +He hesitatingly replied that they had not yet made up their minds. + +But on the village green people rushed out of all the houses in a flutter +of excitement; and, at the sight of the gathering crowd, old Boitelle +took to his heels, and regained his abode, while Antoine; swelling with +rage, his sweetheart on his arm, advanced majestically under the staring +eyes, which opened wide in amazement. + +He understood that it was at an end, and there was no hope for him, that +he could not marry his negress. She also understood it; and as they drew +near the farmhouse they both began to weep. As soon as they had got back +to the house, she once more took off her dress to aid the mother in the +household duties, and followed her everywhere, to the dairy, to the +stable, to the hen house, taking on herself the hardest part of the work, +repeating always: "Let me do it, Madame Boitelle," so that, when night +came on, the old woman, touched but inexorable, said to her son: "She is +a good girl, all the same. It's a pity she is so black; but indeed she +is too black. I could not get used to it. She must go back again. She +is too, too black!" + +And young Boitelle said to his sweetheart: + +"She will not consent. She thinks you are too black. You must go back +again. I will go with you to the train. No matter--don't fret. I am +going to talk to them after you have started." + +He then took her to the railway station, still cheering her with hope, +and, when he had kissed her, he put her into the train, which he watched +as it passed out of sight, his eyes swollen with tears. + +In vain did he appeal to the old people. They would never give their +consent. + +And when he had told this story, which was known all over the country, +Antoine Boitelle would always add: + +"From that time forward I have had no heart for anything--for anything at +all. No trade suited me any longer, and so I became what I am--a night +scavenger." + +People would say to him: + +"Yet you got married." + +"Yes, and I can't say that my wife didn't please me, seeing that I have +fourteen children; but she is not the other one, oh, no--certainly not! +The other one, mark you, my negress, she had only to give me one glance, +and I felt as if I were in Heaven." + + + + + + +A WIDOW + +This story was told during the hunting season at the Chateau Baneville. +The autumn had been rainy and sad. The red leaves, instead of rustling +under the feet, were rotting under the heavy downfalls. + +The forest was as damp as it could be. From it came an odor of must, of +rain, of soaked grass and wet earth; and the sportsmen, their backs +hunched under the downpour, mournful dogs, with tails between their legs +and hairs sticking to their sides, and the young women, with their +clothes drenched, returned every evening, tired in body and in mind. + +After dinner, in the large drawing-room, everybody played lotto, without +enjoyment, while the wind whistled madly around the house. Then they +tried telling stories like those they read in books, but no one was able +to invent anything amusing. The hunters told tales of wonderful shots +and of the butchery of rabbits; and the women racked their brains for +ideas without revealing the imagination of Scheherezade. They were about +to give up this diversion when a young woman, who was idly caressing the +hand of an old maiden aunt, noticed a little ring made of blond hair, +which she had often seen, without paying any attention to it. + +She fingered it gently and asked, "Auntie, what is this ring? It looks +as if it were made from the hair of a child." + +The old lady blushed, grew pale, then answered in a trembling voice: "It +is sad, so sad that I never wish to speak of it. All the unhappiness of +my life comes from that. I was very young then, and the memory has +remained so painful that I weep every time I think of it." + +Immediately everybody wished to know the story, but the old lady refused +to tell it. Finally, after they had coaxed her for a long time, she +yielded. Here is the story: + +"You have often heard me speak of the Santeze family, now extinct. I +knew the last three male members of this family. They all died in the +same manner; this hair belongs to the last one. He was thirteen when he +killed himself for me. That seems strange to you, doesn't it? + +"Oh! it was a strange family--mad, if you will, but a charming madness, +the madness of love. From father to son, all had violent passions which +filled their whole being, which impelled them to do wild things, drove +them to frantic enthusiasm, even to crime. This was born in them, just +as burning devotion is in certain souls. Trappers have not the same +nature as minions of the drawing-room. There was a saying: 'As +passionate as a Santeze.' This could be noticed by looking at them. +They all had wavy hair, falling over their brows, curly beards and large +eyes whose glance pierced and moved one, though one could not say why. + +"The grandfather of the owner of this hair, of whom it is the last +souvenir, after many adventures, duels and elopements, at about sixty- +five fell madly in love with his farmer's daughter. I knew them both. +She was blond, pale, distinguished-looking, with a slow manner of +talking, a quiet voice and a look so gentle that one might have taken her +for a Madonna. The old nobleman took her to his home and was soon so +captivated with her that he could not live without her for a minute. +His daughter and daughter-in-law, who lived in the chateau, found this +perfectly natural, love was such a tradition in the family. Nothing in +regard to a passion surprised them, and if one spoke before them of +parted lovers, even of vengeance after treachery, both said in the same +sad tone: 'Oh, how he must have suffered to come to that point!' That was +all. They grew sad over tragedies of love, but never indignant, even +when they were criminal. + +"Now, one day a young man named Monsieur de Gradelle, who had been +invited for the shooting, eloped with the young girl. + +"Monsieur de Santeze remained calm as if nothing had happened, but one +morning he was found hanging in the kennels, among his dogs. + +"His son died in the same manner in a hotel in Paris during a journey +which he made there in 1841, after being deceived by a singer from the +opera. + +"He left a twelve-year-old child and a widow, my mother's sister. She +came to my father's house with the boy, while we were living at +Bertillon. I was then seventeen. + +"You have no idea how wonderful and precocious this Santeze child was. +One might have thought that all the tenderness and exaltation of the +whole race had been stored up in this last one. He was always dreaming +and walking about alone in a great alley of elms leading from the chateau +to the forest. I watched from my window this sentimental boy, who walked +with thoughtful steps, his hands behind his back, his head bent, and at +times stopping to raise his eyes as if he could see and understand things +that were not comprehensible at his age. + +"Often, after dinner on clear evenings, he would say to me: 'Let us go +outside and dream, cousin.' And we would go outside together in the +park. He would stop quickly before a clearing where the white vapor of +the moon lights the woods, and he would press my hand, saying: 'Look! +look! but you don't understand me; I feel it. If you understood me, we +should be happy. One must love to know! I would laugh and then kiss +this child, who loved me madly. + +"Often, after dinner, he would sit on my mother's knees. 'Come, auntie,' +he would say, 'tell me some love-stories.' And my mother, as a joke, +would tell him all the old legends of the family, all the passionate +adventures of his forefathers, for thousands of them were current, some +true and some false. It was their reputation for love and gallantry +which was the ruin of every one of these-men; they gloried in it and then +thought that they had to live up to the renown of their house. + +"The little fellow became exalted by these tender or terrible stories, +and at times he would clap his hands, crying: 'I, too, I, too, know how +to love, better than all of them!' + +"Then, he began to court me in a timid and tender manner, at which every +one laughed, it was, so amusing. Every morning I had some flowers picked +by him, and every evening before going to his room he would kiss my hand +and murmur: 'I love you!' + +"I was guilty, very guilty, and I grieved continually about it, and I +have been doing penance all my life; I have remained an old maid--or, +rather, I have lived as a widowed fiancee, his widow. + +"I was amused at this childish tenderness, and I even encouraged him. +I was coquettish, as charming as with a man, alternately caressing and +severe. I maddened this child. It was a game for me and a joyous +diversion for his mother and mine. He was twelve! think of it! Who +would have taken this atom's passion seriously? I kissed him as often as +he wished; I even wrote him little notes, which were read by our +respective mothers; and he answered me by passionate letters, which I +have kept. Judging himself as a man, he thought that our loving intimacy +was secret. We had forgotten that he was a Santeze. + +"This lasted for about a year. One evening in the park he fell at my +feet and, as he madly kissed the hem of my dress, he kept repeating: 'I +love you! I love you! I love you! If ever you deceive me, if ever you +leave me for another, I'll do as my father did.' And he added in a +hoarse voice, which gave me a shiver: 'You know what he did!' + +"I stood there astonished. He arose, and standing on the tips of his +toes in order to reach my ear, for I was taller than he, he pronounced my +first name: 'Genevieve!' in such a gentle, sweet, tender tone that I +trembled all over. I stammered: 'Let us return! let us return!' He said +no more and followed me; but as we were going up the steps of the porch, +he stopped me, saying: 'You know, if ever you leave me, I'll kill +myself.' + +"This time I understood that I had gone too far, and I became quite +reserved. One day, as he was reproaching me for this, I answered: 'You +are now too old for jesting and too young for serious love. I'll wait.' + +"I thought that this would end the matter. In the autumn he was sent to +a boarding-school. When he returned the following summer I was engaged +to be married. He understood immediately, and for a week he became so +pensive that I was quite anxious. + +"On the morning of the ninth day I saw a little paper under my door as I +got up. I seized it, opened it and read: 'You have deserted me and you +know what I said. It is death to which you have condemned me. As I do +not wish to be found by another than you, come to the park just where I +told you last year that I loved you and look in the air.' + +"I thought that I should go mad. I dressed as quickly as I could and ran +wildly to the place that he had mentioned. His little cap was on the +ground in the mud. It had been raining all night. I raised my eyes and +saw something swinging among the leaves, for the wind was blowing a gale. + +"I don't know what I did after that. I must have screamed at first, then +fainted and fallen, and finally have run to the chateau. The next thing +that I remember I was in bed, with my mother sitting beside me. + +"I thought that I had dreamed all this in a frightful nightmare. +I stammered: 'And what of him, what of him, Gontran?' There was no +answer. It was true! + +"I did not dare see him again, but I asked for a lock of his blond hair. +Here--here it is!" + +And the old maid stretched out her trembling hand in a despairing +gesture. Then she blew her nose several times, wiped her eyes and +continued: + +"I broke off my marriage--without saying why. And I--I always have +remained the--the widow of this thirteen-year-old boy." Then her head +fell on her breast and she wept for a long time. + +As the guests were retiring for the night a large man, whose quiet she +had disturbed, whispered in his neighbor's ear: "Isn't it unfortunate to, +be so sentimental?" + + + + + + +THE ENGLISHMAN OF ETRETAT + +A great English poet has just crossed over to France in order to greet +Victor Hugo. All the newspapers are full of his name and he is the great +topic of conversation in all drawing-rooms. Fifteen years ago I had +occasion several times to meet Algernon Charles Swinburne. I will +attempt to show him just as I saw him and to give an idea of the strange +impression he made on me, which will remain with me throughout time. + +I believe it was in 1867 or in 1868 that an unknown young Englishman came +to Etretat and bought a little but hidden under great trees. It was said +that he lived there, always alone, in a strange manner; and he aroused +the inimical surprise of the natives, for the inhabitants were sullen and +foolishly malicious, as they always are in little towns. + +They declared that this whimsical Englishman ate nothing but boiled. +roasted or stewed monkey; that he would see no one; that he talked to +himself hours at a time and many other surprising things that made people +think that he was different from other men. They were surprised that he +should live alone with a monkey. Had it been a cat or a dog they would +have said nothing. But a monkey! Was that not frightful? What savage +tastes the man must have! + +I knew this young man only from seeing him in the streets. He was short, +plump, without being fat, mild-looking, and he wore a little blond +mustache, which was almost invisible. + +Chance brought us together. This savage had amiable and pleasing +manners, but he was one of those strange Englishmen that one meets here +and there throughout the world. + +Endowed with remarkable intelligence, he seemed to live in a fantastic +dream, as Edgar Poe must have lived. He had translated into English a +volume of strange Icelandic legends, which I ardently desired to see +translated into French. He loved the supernatural, the dismal and +grewsome, but he spoke of the most marvellous things with a calmness that +was typically English, to which his gentle and quiet voice gave a +semblance of reality that was maddening. + +Full of a haughty disdain for the world, with its conventions, prejudices +and code of morality, he had nailed to his house a name that was boldly +impudent. The keeper of a lonely inn who should write on his door: +"Travellers murdered here!" could not make a more sinister jest. I never +had entered his dwelling, when one day I received an invitation to +luncheon, following an accident that had occurred to one of his friends, +who had been almost drowned and whom I had attempted to rescue. + +Although I was unable to reach the man until he had already been rescued, +I received the hearty thanks of the two Englishmen, and the following day +I called upon them. + +The friend was a man about thirty years old. He bore an enormous head on +a child's body--a body without chest or shoulders. An immense forehead, +which seemed to have engulfed the rest of the man, expanded like a dome +above a thin face which ended in a little pointed beard. Two sharp eyes +and a peculiar mouth gave one the impression of the head of a reptile, +while the magnificent brow suggested a genius. + +A nervous twitching shook this peculiar being, who walked, moved, acted +by jerks like a broken spring. + +This was Algernon Charles Swinburne, son of an English admiral and +grandson, on the maternal side, of the Earl of Ashburnham. + +He strange countenance was transfigured when he spoke. I have seldom +seen a man more impressive, more eloquent, incisive or charming in +conversation. His rapid, clear, piercing and fantastic imagination +seemed to creep into his voice and to lend life to his words. His +brusque gestures enlivened his speech, which penetrated one like a +dagger, and he had bursts of thought, just as lighthouses throw out +flashes of fire, great, genial lights that seemed to illuminate a whole +world of ideas. + +The home of the two friends was pretty and by no means commonplace. +Everywhere were paintings, some superb, some strange, representing +different conceptions of insanity. Unless I am mistaken, there was a +water-color which represented the head of a dead man floating in a rose- +colored shell on a boundless ocean, under a moon with a human face. + +Here and there I came across bones. I clearly remember a flayed hand on +which was hanging some dried skin and black muscles, and on the snow- +white bones could be seen the traces of dried blood. + +The food was a riddle which I could not solve. Was it good? Was it bad? +I could not say. Some roast monkey took away all desire to make a steady +diet of this animal, and the great monkey who roamed about among us at +large and playfully pushed his head into my glass when I wished to drink +cured me of any desire I might have to take one of his brothers as a +companion for the rest of my days. + +As for the two men, they gave me the impression of two strange, original, +remarkable minds, belonging to that peculiar race of talented madmen from +among whom have arisen Poe, Hoffmann and many others. + +If genius is, as is commonly believed, a sort of aberration of great +minds, then Algernon Charles Swinburne is undoubtedly a genius. + +Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this +sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but +are slightly touched by madness. + +At any rate, this poet remains one of the first of his time, through his +originality and polished form. He is an exalted lyrical singer who +seldom bothers about the good and humble truth, which French poets are +now seeking so persistently and patiently. He strives to set down +dreams, subtle thoughts, sometimes great, sometimes visibly forced, but +sometimes magnificent. + + +Two years later I found the house closed and its tenants gone. The +furniture was being sold. In memory of them I bought the hideous flayed +hand. On the grass an enormous square block of granite bore this simple +word: "Nip." Above this a hollow stone offered water to the birds. It +was the grave of the monkey, who had been hanged by a young, vindictive +negro servant. It was said that this violent domestic had been forced to +flee at the point of his exasperated master's revolver. After wandering +about without home or food for several days, he returned and began to +peddle barley-sugar in the streets. He was expelled from the country +after he had almost strangled a displeased customer. + +The world would be gayer if one could often meet homes like that. + + This story appeared in the "Gaulois," November 29, 1882. It was the + original sketch for the introductory study of Swinburne, written by + Maupassant for the French translation by Gabriel Mourey of "Poems + and Ballads." + + + + + + +MAGNETISM + +It was a men's dinner party, and they were sitting over their cigars and +brandy and discussing magnetism. Donato's tricks and Charcot's +experiments. Presently, the sceptical, easy-going men, who cared nothing +for religion of any sort, began telling stories of strange occurrences, +incredible things which, nevertheless, had really occurred, so they said, +falling back into superstitious beliefs, clinging to these last remnants +of the marvellous, becoming devotees of this mystery of magnetism, +defending it in the name of science. There was only one person who +smiled, a vigorous young fellow, a great ladies' man who was so +incredulous that he would not even enter upon a discussion of such +matters. + +He repeated with a sneer: + +"Humbug! humbug! humbug! We need not discuss Donato, who is merely a +very smart juggler. As for M. Charcot, who is said to be a remarkable +man of science, he produces on me the effect of those story-tellers of +the school of Edgar Poe, who end by going mad through constantly +reflecting on queer cases of insanity. He has authenticated some cases +of unexplained and inexplicable nervous phenomena; he makes his way into +that unknown region which men are exploring every day, and unable always +to understand what he sees, he recalls, perhaps, the ecclesiastical +interpretation of these mysteries. I should like to hear what he says +himself." + +The words of the unbeliever were listened to with a kind of pity, as if +he had blasphemed in an assembly of monks. + +One of these gentlemen exclaimed: + +"And yet miracles were performed in olden times." + +"I deny it," replied the other: "Why cannot they be performed now?" + +Then, each mentioned some fact, some fantastic presentiment some instance +of souls communicating with each other across space, or some case of the +secret influence of one being over another. They asserted and maintained +that these things had actually occurred, while the sceptic angrily +repeated: + +"Humbug! humbug! humbug!" + +At last he rose, threw away his cigar, and with his hands in his pockets, +said: "Well, I also have two stories to tell you, which I will afterwards +explain. Here they are: + +"In the little village of Etretat, the men, who are all seafaring folk, +go every year to Newfoundland to fish for cod. One night the little son +of one of these fishermen woke up with a start, crying out that his +father was dead. The child was quieted, and again he woke up exclaiming +that his father was drowned. A month later the news came that his father +had, in fact, been swept off the deck of his smack by a billow. The +widow then remembered how her son had woke up and spoken of his father's +death. Everyone said it was a miracle, and the affair caused a great +sensation. The dates were compared, and it was found that the accident +and the dream were almost coincident, whence they concluded that they had +happened on the same night and at the same hour. And there is a mystery +of magnetism." + +The story-teller stopped suddenly. + +Thereupon, one of those who had heard him, much affected by the +narrative, asked: + +"And can you explain this?" + +"Perfectly, monsieur. I have discovered the secret. The circumstance +surprised me and even perplexed me very much; but you see, I do not +believe on principle. Just as others begin by believing, I begin by +doubting; and when I cannot understand, I continue to deny that there can +be any telepathic communication between souls; certain that my own +intelligence will be able to explain it. Well, I kept on inquiring into +the matter, and by dint of questioning all the wives of the absent +seamen, I was convinced that not a week passed without one of them, or +one of their children dreaming and declaring when they woke up that the +father was drowned. The horrible and continual fear of this accident +makes them always talk about it. Now, if one of these frequent +predictions coincides, by a very simple chance, with the death of the +person referred to, people at once declare it to be a miracle; for they +suddenly lose sight of all the other predictions of misfortune that have +remained unfulfilled. I have myself known fifty cases where the persons +who made the prediction forgot all about it a week after wards. But, if, +then one happens to die, then the recollection of the thing is +immediately revived, and people are ready to believe in the intervention +of God, according to some, and magnetism, according to others." + +One of the smokers remarked: + +"What you say is right enough; but what about your second story?" + +"Oh! my second story is a very delicate matter to relate. It happened +to myself, and so I don't place any great value on my own view of the +matter. An interested party can never give an impartial opinion. +However, here it is: + +"Among my acquaintances was a young woman on whom I had never bestowed a +thought, whom I had never even looked at attentively, never taken any +notice of. + +"I classed her among the women of no importance, though she was not bad- +looking; she appeared, in fact, to possess eyes, a nose, a mouth, some +sort of hair--just a colorless type of countenance. She was one of those +beings who awaken only a chance, passing thought, but no special +interest, no desire. + +"Well, one night, as I was writing some letters by my fireside before +going to bed, I was conscious, in the midst of that train of sensuous +visions that sometimes pass through one's brain in moments of idle +reverie, of a kind of slight influence, passing over me, a little flutter +of the heart, and immediately, without any cause, without any logical +connection of thought, I saw distinctly, as if I were touching her, saw +from head to foot, and disrobed, this young woman to whom I had never +given more that three seconds' thought at a time. I suddenly discovered +in her a number of qualities which I had never before observed, a sweet +charm, a languorous fascination; she awakened in me that sort of restless +emotion that causes one to pursue a woman. But I did not think of her +long. I went to bed and was soon asleep. And I dreamed. + +"You have all had these strange dreams which make you overcome the +impossible, which open to you double-locked doors, unexpected joys, +tightly folded arms? + +"Which of us in these troubled, excising, breathless slumbers, has not +held, clasped, embraced with rapture, the woman who occupied his +thoughts? And have you ever noticed what superhuman delight these happy +dreams give us? Into what mad intoxication they cast you! with what +passionate spasms they shake you! and with what infinite, caressing, +penetrating tenderness they fill your heart for her whom you hold clasped +in your arms in that adorable illusion that is so like reality! + +"All this I felt with unforgettable violence. This woman was mine, so +much mine that the pleasant warmth of her skin remained in my fingers, +the odor of her skin, in my brain, the taste of her kisses, on my lips, +the sound of her voice lingered in my ears, the touch of her clasp still +clung to me, and the burning charm of her tenderness still gratified my +senses long after the delight but disillusion of my awakening. + +"And three times that night I had the same dream. + +"When the day dawned she haunted me, possessed me, filled my senses to +such an extent that I was not one second without thinking of her. + +"At last, not knowing what to do, I dressed myself and went to call on +her. As I went upstairs to her apartment, I was so overcome by emotion +that I trembled, and my heart beat rapidly. + +"I entered the apartment. She rose the moment she heard my name +mentioned; and suddenly our eyes met in a peculiar fixed gaze. + +"I sat down. I stammered out some commonplaces which she seemed not to +hear. I did not know what to say or do. Then, abruptly, clasping my +arms round her, my dream was realized so suddenly that I began to doubt +whether I was really awake. We were friends after this for two years." + +"What conclusion do you draw from it?" said a voice. + +The story-teller seemed to hesitate. + +"The conclusion I draw from it--well, by Jove, the conclusion is that it +was just a coincidence! And then--who can tell? Perhaps it was some +glance of hers which I had not noticed and which came back that night to +me through one of those mysterious and unconscious--recollections that +often bring before us things ignored by our own consciousness, +unperceived by our minds!" + +"Call it whatever you like," said one of his table companions, when the +story was finished; "but if you don't believe in magnetism after that, my +dear boy, you are an ungrateful fellow!" + + + + + + +A FATHER'S CONFESSION + +All Veziers-le-Rethel had followed the funeral procession of M. Badon- +Leremince to the grave, and the last words of the funeral oration +pronounced by the delegate of the district remained in the minds of all: +"He was an honest man, at least!" + +An honest man he had been in all the known acts of his life, in his +words, in his examples, his attitude, his behavior, his enterprises, in +the cut of his beard and the shape of his hats. He never had said a word +that did not set an example, never had given an alms without adding a +word of advice, never had extended his hand without appearing to bestow a +benediction. + +He left two children, a boy and a girl. His son was counselor general, +and his daughter, having married a lawyer, M. Poirel de la Voulte, moved +in the best society of Veziers. + +They were inconsolable at the death of their father, for they loved him +sincerely. + +As soon as the ceremony was over, the son, daughter and son-in-law +returned to the house of mourning, and, shutting themselves in the +library, they opened the will, the seals of which were to be broken by +them alone and only after the coffin had been placed in the ground. +This wish was expressed by a notice on the envelope. + +M. Poirel de la Voulte tore open the envelope, in his character of a +lawyer used to such operations, and having adjusted his spectacles, he +read in a monotonous voice, made for reading the details of contracts: + + My children, my dear children, I could not sleep the eternal sleep + in peace if I did not make to you from the tomb a confession, the + confession of a crime, remorse for which has ruined my life. Yes, + I committed a crime, a frightful, abominable crime. + + I was twenty-six years old, and I had just been called to the bar in + Paris, and was living the life off young men from the provinces who + are stranded in this town without acquaintances, relatives, or + friends. + + I took a sweetheart. There are beings who cannot live alone. I was + one of those. Solitude fills me with horrible anguish, the solitude + of my room beside my fire in the evening. I feel then as if I were + alone on earth, alone, but surrounded by vague dangers, unknown and + terrible things; and the partition that separates me from my + neighbor, my neighbor whom I do not know, keeps me at as great a + distance from him as the stars that I see through my window. A sort + of fever pervades me, a fever of impatience and of fear, and the + silence of the walls terrifies me. The silence of a room where one + lives alone is so intense and so melancholy It is not only a silence + of the mind; when a piece of furniture cracks a shudder goes through + you for you expect no noise in this melancholy abode. + + How many times, nervous and timid from this motionless silence, I + have begun to talk, to repeat words without rhyme or reason, only to + make some sound. My voice at those times sounds so strange that I + am afraid of that, too. Is there anything more dreadful than + talking to one's self in an empty house? One's voice sounds like + that of another, an unknown voice talking aimlessly, to no one, into + the empty air, with no ear to listen to it, for one knows before + they escape into the solitude of the room exactly what words will be + uttered. And when they resound lugubriously in the silence, they + seem no more than an echo, the peculiar echo of words whispered by + ones thought. + + My sweetheart was a young girl like other young girls who live in + Paris on wages that are insufficient to keep them. She was gentle, + good, simple. Her parents lived at Poissy. She went to spend + several days with them from time to time. + + For a year I lived quietly with her, fully decided to leave her when + I should find some one whom I liked well enough to marry. I would + make a little provision for this one, for it is an understood thing + in our social set that a woman's love should be paid for, in money + if she is poor, in presents if she is rich. + + But one day she told me she was enceinte. I was thunderstruck, and + saw in a second that my life would be ruined. I saw the fetter that + I should wear until my death, everywhere, in my future family life, + in my old age, forever; the fetter of a woman bound to my life + through a child; the fetter of the child whom I must bring up, watch + over, protect, while keeping myself unknown to him, and keeping him + hidden from the world. + + I was greatly disturbed at this news, and a confused longing, a + criminal desire, surged through my mind; I did not formulate it, but + I felt it in my heart, ready to come to the surface, as if some one + hidden behind a portiere should await the signal to come out. If + some accident might only happen! So many of these little beings die + before they are born! + + Oh! I did not wish my sweetheart to die! The poor girl, I loved + her very much! But I wished, possibly, that the child might die + before I saw it. + + He was born. I set up housekeeping in my little bachelor apartment, + an imitation home, with a horrible child. He looked like all + children; I did not care for him. Fathers, you see, do not show + affection until later. They have not the instinctive and passionate + tenderness of mothers; their affection has to be awakened gradually, + their mind must become attached by bonds formed each day between + beings that live in each other's society. + + A year passed. I now avoided my home, which was too small, where + soiled linen, baby-clothes and stockings the size of gloves were + lying round, where a thousand articles of all descriptions lay on + the furniture, on the arm of an easy-chair, everywhere. I went out + chiefly that I might not hear the child cry, for he cried on the + slightest pretext, when he was bathed, when he was touched, when he + was put to bed, when he was taken up in the morning, incessantly. + + I had made a few acquaintances, and I met at a reception the woman + who was to be your mother. I fell in love with her and became + desirous to marry her. I courted her; I asked her parents' consent + to our marriage and it was granted. + + I found myself in this dilemma: I must either marry this young girl + whom I adored, having a child already, or else tell the truth and + renounce her, and happiness, my future, everything; for her parents, + who were people of rigid principles, would not give her to me if + they knew. + + I passed a month of horrible anguish, of mortal torture, a month + haunted by a thousand frightful thoughts; and I felt developing in + me a hatred toward my son, toward that little morsel of living, + screaming flesh, who blocked my path, interrupted my life, condemned + me to an existence without hope, without all those vague + expectations that make the charm of youth. + + But just then my companion's mother became ill, and I was left alone + with the child. + + It was in December, and the weather was terribly cold. What a + night! + + My companion had just left. I had dined alone in my little dining- + room and I went gently into the room where the little one was + asleep. + + I sat down in an armchair before the fire. The wind was blowing, + making the windows rattle, a dry, frosty wind; and I saw trough the + window the stars shining with that piercing brightness that they + have on frosty nights. + + Then the idea that had obsessed me for a month rose again to the + surface. As soon as I was quiet it came to me and harassed me. It + ate into my mind like a fixed idea, just as cancers must eat into + the flesh. It was there, in my head, in my heart, in my whole body, + it seemed to me; and it swallowed me up as a wild beast might have. + I endeavored to drive it away, to repulse it, to open my mind to + other thoughts, as one opens a window to the fresh morning breeze to + drive out the vitiated air; but I could not drive it from my brain, + not even for a second. I do not know how to express this torture. + It gnawed at my soul, and I felt a frightful pain, a real physical + and moral pain. + + My life was ruined! How could I escape from this situation? How + could I draw back, and how could I confess? + + And I loved the one who was to become your mother with a mad + passion, which this insurmountable obstacle only aggravated. + + A terrible rage was taking possession of me, choking me, a rage that + verged on madness! Surely I was crazy that evening! + + The child was sleeping. I got up and looked at it as it slept. It + was he, this abortion, this spawn, this nothing, that condemned me + to irremediable unhappiness! + + He was asleep, his mouth open, wrapped in his bed-clothes in a crib + beside my bed, where I could not sleep. + + How did I ever do what I did? How do I know? What force urged me + on? What malevolent power took possession of me? Oh! the + temptation to crime came to me without any forewarning. All I + recall is that my heart beat tumultuously. It beat so hard that I + could hear it, as one hears the strokes of a hammer behind a + partition. That is all I can recall--the beating of my heart! + In my head there was a strange confusion, a tumult, a senseless + disorder, a lack of presence of mind. It was one of those hours of + bewilderment and hallucination when a man is neither conscious of + his actions nor able to guide his will. + + I gently raised the coverings from the body of the child; I turned + them down to the foot of the crib, and he lay there uncovered and + naked. + + He did not wake. Then I went toward the window, softly, quite + softly, and I opened it. + + A breath of icy air glided in like an assassin; it was so cold that + I drew aside, and the two candles flickered. I remained standing + near the window, not daring to turn round, as if for fear of seeing + what was doing on behind me, and feeling the icy air continually + across my forehead, my cheeks, my hands, the deadly air which kept + streaming in. I stood there a long time. + + I was not thinking, I was not reflecting. All at once a little + cough caused me to shudder frightfully from head to foot, a shudder + that I feel still to the roots of my hair. And with a frantic + movement I abruptly closed both sides of the window and, turning + round, ran over to the crib. + + He was still asleep, his mouth open, quite naked. I touched his + legs; they were icy cold and I covered them up. + + My heart was suddenly touched, grieved, filled with pity, + tenderness, love for this poor innocent being that I had wished to + kill. I kissed his fine, soft hair long and tenderly; then I went + and sat down before the fire. + + I reflected with amazement with horror on what I had done, asking + myself whence come those tempests of the soul in which a man loses + all perspective of things, all command over himself and acts as in a + condition of mad intoxication, not knowing whither he is going--like + a vessel in a hurricane. + + The child coughed again, and it gave my heart a wrench. Suppose it + should die! O God! O God! What would become of me? + + I rose from my chair to go and look at him, and with a candle in my + hand I leaned over him. Seeing him breathing quietly I felt + reassured, when he coughed a third time. It gave me such a shock + tat I started backward, just as one does at sight of something + horrible, and let my candle fall. + + As I stood erect after picking it up, I noticed that my temples were + bathed in perspiration, that cold sweat which is the result of + anguish of soul. And I remained until daylight bending over my son, + becoming calm when he remained quiet for some time, and filled with + atrocious pain when a weak cough came from his mouth. + + He awoke with his eyes red, his throat choked, and with an air of + suffering. + + When the woman came in to arrange my room I sent her at once for a + doctor. He came at the end of an hour, and said, after examining + the child: + + "Did he not catch cold?" + + I began to tremble like a person with palsy, and I faltered: + + "No, I do not think so." + + And then I said: + + "What is the matter? Is it serious?" + + "I do not know yet," he replied. "I will come again this evening." + + He came that evening. My son had remained almost all day in a + condition of drowsiness, coughing from time to time. During the + night inflammation of the lungs set in. + + That lasted ten days. I cannot express what I suffered in those + interminable hours that divide morning from night, right from + morning. + + He died. + + And since--since that moment, I have not passed one hour, not a + single hour, without the frightful burning recollection, a gnawing + recollection, a memory that seems to wring my heart, awaking in me + like a savage beast imprisoned in the depth of my soul. + + Oh! if I could have gone mad! + + +M. Poirel de la Voulte raised his spectacles with a motion that was +peculiar to him whenever he finished reading a contract; and the three +heirs of the defunct looked at one another without speaking, pale and +motionless. + +At the end of a minute the lawyer resumed: + +"That must be destroyed." + +The other two bent their heads in sign of assent. He lighted a candle, +carefully separated the pages containing the damaging confession from +those relating to the disposition of money, then he held them over the +candle and threw them into the fireplace. + +And they watched the white sheets as they burned, till they were +presently reduced to little crumbling black heaps. And as some words +were still visible in white tracing, the daughter, with little strokes of +the toe of her shoe, crushed the burning paper, mixing it with the old +ashes in the fireplace. + +Then all three stood there watching it for some time, as if they feared +that the destroyed secret might escape from the fireplace. + + + + + + +A MOTHER OF MONSTERS + +I recalled this horrible story, the events of which occurred long ago, +and this horrible woman, the other day at a fashionable seaside resort, +where I saw on the beach a well-known young, elegant and charming +Parisienne, adored and respected by everyone. + +I had been invited by a friend to pay him a visit in a little provincial +town. He took me about in all directions to do the honors of the place, +showed me noted scenes, chateaux, industries, ruins. He pointed out +monuments, churches, old carved doorways, enormous or distorted trees, +the oak of St. Andrew, and the yew tree of Roqueboise. + +When I had exhausted my admiration and enthusiasm over all the sights, +my friend said with a distressed expression on his face, that there was +nothing left to look at. I breathed freely. I would now be able to rest +under the shade of the trees. But, all at once, he uttered an +exclamation: + +"Oh, yes! We have the 'Mother of Monsters'; I must take you to see her." + +"Who is that, the 'Mother of Monsters'?" I asked. + +"She is an abominable woman," he replied, "a regular demon, a being who +voluntarily brings into the world deformed, hideous, frightful children, +monstrosities, in fact, and then sells them to showmen who exhibit such +things. + +"These exploiters of freaks come from time to time to find out if she has +any fresh monstrosity, and if it meets with their approval they carry it +away with them, paying the mother a compensation. + +"She has eleven of this description. She is rich. + +"You think I am joking, romancing, exaggerating. No, my friend; I am +telling you the truth, the exact truth. + +"Let us go and see this woman. Then I will tell you her history." + +He took me into one of the suburbs. The woman lived in a pretty little +house by the side of the road. It was attractive and well kept. The +garden was filled with fragrant flowers. One might have supposed it to +be the residence of a retired lawyer. + +A maid ushered us into a sort of little country parlor, and the wretch +appeared. She was about forty. She was a tall, big woman with hard +features, but well formed, vigorous and healthy, the true type of a +robust peasant woman, half animal, and half woman. + +She was aware of her reputation and received everyone with a humility +that smacked of hatred. + +"What do the gentlemen wish?" she asked. + +"They tell me that your last child is just like an ordinary child, that +he does not resemble his brothers at all," replied my friend. "I wanted +to be sure of that. Is it true?" + +She cast on us a malicious and furious look as she said: + +"Oh, no, oh, no, my poor sir! He is perhaps even uglier than the rest. +I have no luck, no luck! + +"They are all like that, it is heartbreaking! How can the good God be so +hard on a poor woman who is all alone in the world, how can He?" +She spoke hurriedly, her eyes cast down, with a deprecating air as of a +wild beast who is afraid. Her harsh voice became soft, and it seemed +strange to hear those tearful falsetto tones issuing from that big, bony +frame, of unusual strength and with coarse outlines, which seemed fitted +for violent action, and made to utter howls like a wolf. + +"We should like to see your little one," said my friend. + +I fancied she colored up. I may have been deceived. After a few moments +of silence, she said in a louder tone: + +"What good will that do you?" + +"Why do you not wish to show it to us?" replied my friend. "There are +many people to whom you will show it; you know whom I mean." + +She gave a start, and resuming her natural voice, and giving free play to +her anger, she screamed: + +"Was that why you came here? To insult me? Because my children are like +animals, tell me? You shall not see him, no, no, you shall not see him! +Go away, go away! I do not know why you all try to torment me like +that." + +She walked over toward us, her hands on her hips. At the brutal tone of +her voice, a sort of moaning, or rather a mewing, the lamentable cry of +an idiot, came from the adjoining room. I shivered to the marrow of my +bones. We retreated before her. + +"Take care, Devil" (they called her the Devil); said my friend, "take +care; some day you will get yourself into trouble through this." + +She began to tremble, beside herself with fury, shaking her fist and +roaring: + +"Be off with you! What will get me into trouble? Be off with you, +miscreants!" + +She was about to attack us, but we fled, saddened at what we had seen. +When we got outside, my friend said: + +"Well, you have seen her, what do you think of her?" + +"Tell me the story of this brute," I replied. + +And this is what he told me as we walked along the white high road, with +ripe crops on either side of it which rippled like the sea in the light +breeze that passed over them. + +"This woman was one a servant on a farm. She was an honest girl, steady +and economical. She was never known to have an admirer, and never +suspected of any frailty. But she went astray, as so many do. + +"She soon found herself in trouble, and was tortured with fear and shame. +Wishing to conceal her misfortune, she bound her body tightly with a +corset of her own invention, made of boards and cord. The more she +developed, the more she bound herself with this instrument of torture, +suffering martyrdom, but brave in her sorrow, not allowing anyone to see, +or suspect, anything. She maimed the little unborn being, cramping it +with that frightful corset, and made a monster of it. Its head was +squeezed and elongated to a point, and its large eyes seemed popping out +of its head. Its limbs, exaggeratedly long, and twisted like the stalk +of a vine, terminated in fingers like the claws of a spider. Its trunk +was tiny, and round as a nut. + +"The child was born in an open field, and when the weeders saw it, they +fled away, screaming, and the report spread that she had given birth to a +demon. From that time on, she was called 'the Devil.' + +"She was driven from the farm, and lived on charity, under a cloud. She +brought up the monster, whom she hated with a savage hatred, and would +have strangled, perhaps, if the priest had not threatened her with +arrest. + +"One day some travelling showmen heard about the frightful creature, and +asked to see it, so that if it pleased them they might take it away. +They were pleased, and counted out five hundred francs to the mother. +At first, she had refused to let them see the little animal, as she was +ashamed; but when she discovered it had a money value, and that these +people were anxious to get it, she began to haggle with them, raising her +price with all a peasant's persistence. + +"She made them draw up a paper, in which they promised to pay her four +hundred francs a year besides, as though they had taken this deformity +into their employ. + +"Incited by the greed of gain, she continued to produce these phenomena, +so as to have an assured income like a bourgeoise. + +"Some of them were long, some short, some like crabs-all bodies-others +like lizards. Several died, and she was heartbroken. + +"The law tried to interfere, but as they had no proof they let her +continue to produce her freaks. + +"She has at this moment eleven alive, and they bring in, on an average, +counting good and bad years, from five to six thousand francs a year. +One, alone, is not placed, the one she was unwilling to show us. But she +will not keep it long, for she is known to all the showmen in the world, +who come from time to time to see if she has anything new. + +"She even gets bids from them when the monster is valuable." + +My friend was silent. A profound disgust stirred my heart, and a feeling +of rage, of regret, to think that I had not strangled this brute when I +had the opportunity. + +I had forgotten this story, when I saw on the beach of a fashionable +resort the other day, an elegant, charming, dainty woman, surrounded by +men who paid her respect as well as admiration. + +I was walking along the beach, arm in arm with a friend, the resident +physician. Ten minutes later, I saw a nursemaid with three children, who +were rolling in the sand. A pair of little crutches lay on the ground, +and touched my sympathy. I then noticed that these three children were +all deformed, humpbacked, or crooked; and hideous. + +"Those are the offspring of that charming woman you saw just now," said +the doctor. + +I was filled with pity for her, as well as for them, and exclaimed: +"Oh, the poor mother! How can she ever laugh!" + +"Do not pity her, my friend. Pity the poor children," replied the +doctor. "This is the consequence of preserving a slender figure up to +the last. These little deformities were made by the corset. She knows +very well that she is risking her life at this game. But what does she +care, as long as lie can be beautiful and have admirers!" + +And then I recalled that other woman, the peasant, the "Devil," who sold +her children, her monsters. + + + + + + +AN UNCOMFORTABLE BED + +One autumn I went to spend the hunting season with some friends in a +chateau in Picardy. + +My friends were fond of practical jokes. I do not care to know people +who are not. + +When I arrived, they gave me a princely reception, which at once awakened +suspicion in my mind. They fired off rifles, embraced me, made much of +me, as if they expected to have great fun at my expense. + +I said to myself: + +"Look out, old ferret! They have something in store for you." + +During the dinner the mirth was excessive, exaggerated, in fact. +I thought: "Here are people who have more than their share of amusement, +and apparently without reason. They must have planned some good joke. +Assuredly I am to be the victim of the joke. Attention!" + +During the entire evening every one laughed in an exaggerated fashion. +I scented a practical joke in the air, as a dog scents game. But what +was it? I was watchful, restless. I did not let a word, or a meaning, +or a gesture escape me. Every one seemed to me an object of suspicion, +and I even looked distrustfully at the faces of the servants. + +The hour struck for retiring; and the whole household came to escort me +to my room. Why? + +They called to me: "Good-night." I entered the apartment, shut the door, +and remained standing, without moving a single step, holding the wax +candle in my hand. + +I heard laughter and whispering in the corridor. Without doubt they were +spying on me. I cast a glance round the walls, the furniture, the +ceiling, the hangings, the floor. I saw nothing to justify suspicion. +I heard persons moving about outside my door. I had no doubt they were +looking through the keyhole. + +An idea came into my head: "My candle may suddenly go out and leave me in +darkness." + +Then I went across to the mantelpiece and lighted all the wax candles +that were on it. After that I cast another glance around me without +discovering anything. I advanced with short steps, carefully examining +the apartment. Nothing. I inspected every article, one after the other. +Still nothing. I went over to the window. The shutters, large wooden +shutters, were open. I shut them with great care, and then drew the +curtains, enormous velvet curtains, and placed a chair in front of them, +so as to have nothing to fear from outside. + +Then I cautiously sat down. The armchair was solid. I did not venture +to get into the bed. However, the night was advancing; and I ended by +coming to the conclusion that I was foolish. If they were spying on me, +as I supposed, they must, while waiting for the success of the joke they +had been preparing for me, have been laughing immoderately at my terror. +So I made up my mind to go to bed. But the bed was particularly +suspicious-looking. I pulled at the curtains. They seemed to be secure. + +All the same, there was danger. I was going perhaps to receive a cold +shower both from overhead, or perhaps, the moment I stretched myself out, +to find myself sinking to the floor with my mattress. I searched in my +memory for all the practical jokes of which I ever had experience. And I +did not want to be caught. Ah! certainly not! certainly not! Then I +suddenly bethought myself of a precaution which I considered insured +safety. I caught hold of the side of the mattress gingerly, and very +slowly drew it toward me. It came away, followed by the sheet and the +rest of the bedclothes. I dragged all these objects into the very middle +of the room, facing the entrance door. I made my bed over again as best +I could at some distance from the suspected bedstead and the corner which +had filled me with such anxiety. Then I extinguished all the candles, +and, groping my way, I slipped under the bed clothes. + +For at least another hour I remained awake, starting at the slightest +sound. Everything seemed quiet in the chateau. I fell asleep. + +I must have been in a deep sleep for a long time, but all of a sudden I +was awakened with a start by the fall of a heavy body tumbling right on +top of my own, and, at the same time, I received on my face, on my neck, +and on my chest a burning liquid which made me utter a howl of pain. And +a dreadful noise, as if a sideboard laden with plates and dishes had +fallen down, almost deafened me. + +I was smothering beneath the weight that was crushing me and preventing +me from moving. I stretched out my hand to find out what was the nature +of this object. I felt a face, a nose, and whiskers. Then, with all my +strength, I launched out a blow at this face. But I immediately received +a hail of cuffings which made me jump straight out of the soaked sheets, +and rush in my nightshirt into the corridor, the door of which I found +open. + +Oh, heavens! it was broad daylight. The noise brought my friends +hurrying into my apartment, and we found, sprawling over my improvised +bed, the dismayed valet, who, while bringing me my morning cup of tea, +had tripped over this obstacle in the middle of the floor and fallen on +his stomach, spilling my breakfast over my face in spite of himself. + +The precautions I had taken in closing the shutters and going to sleep in +the middle of the room had only brought about the practical joke I had +been trying to avoid. + +Oh, how they all laughed that day! + + + + + + +A PORTRAIT + +"Hello! there's Milial!" said somebody near me. I looked at the man who +had been pointed out as I had been wishing for a long time to meet this +Don Juan. + +He was no longer young. His gray hair looked a little like those fur +bonnets worn by certain Northern peoples, and his long beard, which fell +down over his chest, had also somewhat the appearance of fur. He was +talking to a lady, leaning toward her, speaking in a low voice and +looking at her with an expression full of respect and tenderness. + +I knew his life, or at least as much as was known of it. He had loved +madly several times, and there had been certain tragedies with which his +name had been connected. When I spoke to women who were the loudest in +his praise, and asked them whence came this power, they always answered, +after thinking for a while: "I don't know--he has a certain charm about +him." + +He was certainly not handsome. He had none of the elegance that we +ascribe to conquerors of feminine hearts. I wondered what might be his +hid den charm. Was it mental? I never had heard of a clever saying of +his. In his glance? Perhaps. Or in his voice? The voices of some +beings have a certain irresistible attraction, almost suggesting the +flavor of things good to eat. One is hungry for them, and the sound of +their words penetrates us like a dainty morsel. A friend was passing. +I asked him: "Do you know Monsieur Milial?" + +"Yes." + +"Introduce us." + +A minute later we were shaking hands and talking in the doorway. What he +said was correct, agreeable to hear; it contained no irritable thought. +The voice was sweet, soft, caressing, musical; but I had heard others +much more attractive, much more moving. One listened to him with +pleasure, just as one would look at a pretty little brook. No tension of +the mind was necessary in order to follow him, no hidden meaning aroused +curiosity, no expectation awoke interest. His conversation was rather +restful, but it did not awaken in one either a desire to answer, to +contradict or to approve, and it was as easy to answer him as it was to +listen to him. The response came to the lips of its own accord, as soon +as he had finished talking, and phrases turned toward him as if he had +naturally aroused them. + +One thought soon struck me. I had known him for a quarter of an hour, +and it seemed as if he were already one of my old friends, that I had +known all about him for a long time; his face, his gestures, his voice, +his ideas. Suddenly, after a few minutes of conversation, he seemed +already to be installed in my intimacy. All constraint disappeared +between us, and, had he so desired, I might have confided in him as one +confides only in old friends. + +Certainly there was some mystery about him. Those barriers that are +closed between most people and that are lowered with time when sympathy, +similar tastes, equal intellectual culture and constant intercourse +remove constraint--those barriers seemed not to exist between him and me, +and no doubt this was the case between him and all people, both men and +women, whom fate threw in his path. + +After half an hour we parted, promising to see each other often, and he +gave me his address after inviting me to take luncheon with him in two +days. + +I forgot what hour he had stated, and I arrived too soon; he was not yet +home. A correct and silent domestic showed me into a beautiful, quiet, +softly lighted parlor. I felt comfortable there, at home. How often I +have noticed the influence of apartments on the character and on the +mind! There are some which make one feel foolish; in others, on the +contrary, one always feels lively. Some make us sad, although well +lighted and decorated in light-colored furniture; others cheer us up, +although hung with sombre material. Our eye, like our heart, has its +likes and dislikes, of which it does not inform us, and which it secretly +imposes on our temperament. The harmony of furniture, walls, the style +of an ensemble, act immediately on our mental state, just as the air from +the woods, the sea or the mountains modifies our physical natures. + +I sat down on a cushion-covered divan and felt myself suddenly carried +and supported by these little silk bags of feathers, as if the outline of +my body had been marked out beforehand on this couch. + +Then I looked about. There was nothing striking about the room; every- +where were beautiful and modest things, simple and rare furniture, +Oriental curtains which did not seem to come from a department store but +from the interior of a harem; and exactly opposite me hung the portrait +of a woman. It was a portrait of medium size, showing the head and the +upper part of the body, and the hands, which were holding a book. She +was young, bareheaded; ribbons were woven in her hair; she was smiling +sadly. Was it because she was bareheaded, was it merely her natural +expression? I never have seen a portrait of a lady which seemed so much +in its place as that one in that dwelling. Of all those I knew I have +seen nothing like that one. All those that I know are on exhibition, +whether the lady be dressed in her gaudiest gown, with an attractive +headdress and a look which shows that she is posing first of all before +the artist and then before those who will look at her or whether they +have taken a comfortable attitude in an ordinary gown. Some are standing +majestically in all their beauty, which is not at all natural to them in +life. All of them have something, a flower or, a jewel, a crease in the +dress or a curve of the lip, which one feels to have been placed there +for effect by the artist. Whether they wear a hat or merely their hair +one can immediately notice that they are not entirely natural. Why? +One cannot say without knowing them, but the effect is there. They seem +to be calling somewhere, on people whom they wish to please and to whom +they wish to appear at their best advantage; and they have studied their +attitudes, sometimes modest, Sometimes haughty. + +What could one say about this one? She was at home and alone. Yes, she +was alone, for she was smiling as one smiles when thinking in solitude of +something sad or sweet, and not as one smiles when one is being watched. +She seemed so much alone and so much at home that she made the whole +large apartment seem absolutely empty. She alone lived in it, filled it, +gave it life. Many people might come in and converse, laugh, even sing; +she would still be alone with a solitary smile, and she alone would give +it life with her pictured gaze. + +That look also was unique. It fell directly on me, fixed and caressing, +without seeing me. All portraits know that they are being watched, and +they answer with their eyes, which see, think, follow us without leaving +us, from the very moment we enter the apartment they inhabit. This one +did not see me; it saw nothing, although its look was fixed directly on +me. I remembered the surprising verse of Baudelaire: + +And your eyes, attractive as those of a portrait. + +They did indeed attract me in an irresistible manner; those painted eyes +which had lived, or which were perhaps still living, threw over me a +strange, powerful spell. Oh, what an infinite and tender charm, like a +passing breeze, like a dying sunset of lilac rose and blue, a little sad +like the approaching night, which comes behind the sombre frame and out +of those impenetrable eyes! Those eyes, created by a few strokes from a +brush, hide behind them the mystery of that which seems to be and which +does not exist, which can appear in the eyes of a woman, which can make +love blossom within us. + +The door opened and M. Milial entered. He excused himself for being +late. I excused myself for being ahead of time. Then I said: "Might I +ask you who is this lady?" + +He answered: "That is my mother. She died very young." + +Then I understood whence came the inexplicable attraction of this man. + + + + + + +THE DRUNKARD + +The north wind was blowing a hurricane, driving through the sky big, +black, heavy clouds from which the rain poured down on the earth with +terrific violence. + +A high sea was raging and dashing its huge, slow, foamy waves along the +coast with the rumbling sound of thunder. The waves followed each other +close, rolling in as high as mountains, scattering the foam as they +broke. + +The storm engulfed itself in the little valley of Yport, whistling and +moaning, tearing the shingles from the roofs, smashing the shutters, +knocking down the chimneys, rushing through the narrow streets in such +gusts that one could walk only by holding on to the walls, and children +would have been lifted up like leaves and carried over the houses into +the fields. + +The fishing smacks had been hauled high up on land, because at high tide +the sea would sweep the beach. Several sailors, sheltered behind the +curved bottoms of their boats, were watching this battle of the sky and +the sea. + +Then, one by one, they went away, for night was falling on the storm, +wrapping in shadows the raging ocean and all the battling elements. + +Just two men remained, their hands plunged deep into their pockets, +bending their backs beneath the squall, their woolen caps pulled down +over their ears; two big Normandy fishermen, bearded, their skin tanned +through exposure, with the piercing black eyes of the sailor who looks +over the horizon like a bird of prey. + +One of them was saying: + +"Come on, Jeremie, let's go play dominoes. It's my treat." + +The other hesitated a while, tempted on one hand by the game and the +thought of brandy, knowing well that, if he went to Paumelle's, he would +return home drunk; held back, on the other hand, by the idea of his wife +remaining alone in the house. + +He asked: + +"Any one might think that you had made a bet to get me drunk every night. +Say, what good is it doing you, since it's always you that's treating?" + +Nevertheless he was smiling at the idea of all this brandy drunk at the +expense of another. He was smiling the contented smirk of an avaricious +Norman. + +Mathurin, his friend, kept pulling him by the sleeve. + +"Come on, Jeremie. This isn't the kind of a night to go home without +anything to warm you up. What are you afraid of? Isn't your wife going +to warm your bed for you?" + +Jeremie answered: + +"The other night I couldn't find the door--I had to be fished out of the +ditch in front of the house!" + +He was still laughing at this drunkard's recollection, and he was +unconsciously going toward Paumelle's Cafe, where a light was shining in +the window; he was going, pulled by Mathurin and pushed by the wind, +unable to resist these combined forces. + +The low room was full of sailors, smoke and noise. All these men, clad +in woolens, their elbows on the tables, were shouting to make themselves +heard. The more people came in, the more one had to shout in order to +overcome the noise of voices and the rattling of dominoes on the marble +tables. + +Jeremie and Mathurin sat down in a corner and began a game, and the +glasses were emptied in rapid succession into their thirsty throats. + +Then they played more games and drank more glasses. Mathurin kept +pouring and winking to the saloon keeper, a big, red-faced man, who +chuckled as though at the thought of some fine joke; and Jeremie kept +absorbing alcohol and wagging his head, giving vent to a roar of laughter +and looking at his comrade with a stupid and contented expression. + +All the customers were going away. Every time that one of them would +open the door to leave a gust of wind would blow into the cafe, making +the tobacco smoke swirl around, swinging the lamps at the end of their +chains and making their flames flicker, and suddenly one could hear the +deep booming of a breaking wave and the moaning of the wind. + +Jeremie, his collar unbuttoned, was taking drunkard's poses, one leg +outstretched, one arm hanging down and in the other hand holding a +domino. + +They were alone now with the owner, who had come up to them, interested. + +He asked: + +"Well, Jeremie, how goes it inside? Feel less thirsty after wetting your +throat?" + +Jeremie muttered: + +"The more I wet it, the drier it gets inside." + +The innkeeper cast a sly glance at Mathurin. He said: + +"And your brother, Mathurin, where's he now?" + +The sailor laughed silently: + +"Don't worry; he's warm, all right." + +And both of them looked toward Jeremie, who was triumphantly putting down +the double six and announcing: + +"Game!" + +Then the owner declared: + +"Well, boys, I'm goin' to bed. I will leave you the lamp and the bottle; +there's twenty cents' worth in it. Lock the door when you go, Mathurin, +and slip the key under the mat the way you did the other night." + +Mathurin answered: + +"Don't worry; it'll be all right." + +Paumelle shook hands with his two customers and slowly went up the wooden +stairs. For several minutes his heavy step echoed through the little +house. Then a loud creaking announced that he had got into bed. + +The two men continued to play. From time to time a more violent gust of +wind would shake the whole house, and the two drinkers would look up, as +though some one were about to enter. Then Mathurin would take the bottle +and fill Jeremie's glass. But suddenly the clock over the bar struck +twelve. Its hoarse clang sounded like the rattling of saucepans. Then +Mathurin got up like a sailor whose watch is over. + +"Come on, Jeremie, we've got to get out." + +The other man rose to his feet with difficulty, got his balance by +leaning on the table, reached the door and opened it while his companion +was putting out the light. + +As soon as they were in the street Mathurin locked the door and then +said: + +"Well, so long. See you to-morrow night!" + +And he disappeared in the darkness. + +Jeremie took a few steps, staggered, stretched out his hands, met a wall +which supported him and began to stumble along. From time to time a gust +of wind would sweep through the street, pushing him forward, making him +run for a few steps; then, when the wind would die down, he would stop +short, having lost his impetus, and once more he would begin to stagger +on his unsteady drunkard's legs. + +He went instinctively toward his home, just as birds go to their nests. +Finally he recognized his door, and began to feel about for the keyhole +and tried to put the key in it. Not finding the hole, he began to swear. +Then he began to beat on the door with his fists, calling for his wife to +come and help him: + +"Melina! Oh, Melina!" + +As he leaned against the door for support, it gave way and opened, and +Jeremie, losing his prop, fell inside, rolling on his face into the +middle of his room, and he felt something heavy pass over him and escape +in the night. + +He was no longer moving, dazed by fright, bewildered, fearing the devil, +ghosts, all the mysterious beings of darkness, and he waited a long time +without daring to move. But when he found out that nothing else was +moving, a little reason returned to him, the reason of a drunkard. + +Gently he sat up. Again he waited a long time, and at last, growing +bolder, he called: + +"Melina!" + +His wife did not answer. + +Then, suddenly, a suspicion crossed his darkened mind, an indistinct, +vague suspicion. He was not moving; he was sitting there in the dark, +trying to gather together his scattered wits, his mind stumbling over +incomplete ideas, just as his feet stumbled along. + +Once more he asked: + +"Who was it, Melina? Tell me who it was. I won't hurt you!" + +He waited, no voice was raised in the darkness. He was now reasoning +with himself out loud. + +"I'm drunk, all right! I'm drunk! And he filled me up, the dog; he did +it, to stop my goin' home. I'm drunk!" + +And he would continue: + +"Tell me who it was, Melina, or somethin'll happen to you." + +After having waited again, he went on with the slow and obstinate logic +of a drunkard: + +"He's been keeping me at that loafer Paumelle's place every night, so as +to stop my going home. It's some trick. Oh, you damned carrion!" + +Slowly he got on his knees. A blind fury was gaining possession of him, +mingling with the fumes of alcohol. + +He continued: + +"Tell me who it was, Melina, or you'll get a licking--I warn you!" + +He was now standing, trembling with a wild fury, as though the alcohol +had set his blood on fire. He took a step, knocked against a chair, +seized it, went on, reached the bed, ran his hands over it and felt the +warm body of his wife. + +Then, maddened, he roared: + +"So! You were there, you piece of dirt, and you wouldn't answer!" + +And, lifting the chair, which he was holding in his strong sailor's grip, +he swung it down before him with an exasperated fury. A cry burst from +the bed, an agonizing, piercing cry. Then he began to thrash around like +a thresher in a barn. And soon nothing more moved. The chair was broken +to pieces, but he still held one leg and beat away with it, panting. + +At last he stopped to ask: + +"Well, are you ready to tell me who it was?" + +Melina did not answer. + +Then tired out, stupefied from his exertion, he stretched himself out on +the ground and slept. + +When day came a neighbor, seeing the door open, entered. He saw Jeremie +snoring on the floor, amid the broken pieces of a chair, and on the bed a +pulp of flesh and blood. + + + + + + +THE WARDROBE + +As we sat chatting after dinner, a party of men, the conversation turned +on women, for lack of something else. + +One of us said: + +"Here's a funny thing that happened to me on, that very subject." And he +told us the following story: + +One evening last winter I suddenly felt overcome by that overpowering +sense of misery and languor that takes possession of one from time to +time. I was in my own apartment, all alone, and I was convinced that if +I gave in to my feelings I should have a terrible attack of melancholia, +one of those attacks that lead to suicide when they recur too often. + +I put on my overcoat and went out without the slightest idea of what I +was going to do. Having gone as far as the boulevards, I began to wander +along by the almost empty cafes. It was raining, a fine rain that +affects your mind as it does your clothing, not one of those good +downpours which come down in torrents, driving breathless passers-by into +doorways, but a rain without drops that deposits on your clothing an +imperceptible spray and soon covers you with a sort of iced foam that +chills you through. + +What should I do? I walked in one direction and then came back, looking +for some place where I could spend two hours, and discovering for the +first time that there is no place of amusement in Paris in the evening. +At last I decided to go to the Folies-Bergere, that entertaining resort +for gay women. + +There were very few people in the main hall. In the long horseshoe curve +there were only a few ordinary looking people, whose plebeian origin was +apparent in their manners, their clothes, the cut of their hair and +beard, their hats, their complexion. It was rarely that one saw from +time to time a man whom you suspected of having washed himself +thoroughly, and his whole make-up seemed to match. As for the women, +they were always the same, those frightful women you all know, ugly, +tired looking, drooping, and walking along in their lackadaisical manner, +with that air of foolish superciliousness which they assume, I do not +know why. + +I thought to myself that, in truth, not one of those languid creatures, +greasy rather than fat, puffed out here and thin there, with the contour +of a monk and the lower extremities of a bow-legged snipe, was worth the +louis that they would get with great difficulty after asking five. + +But all at once I saw a little creature whom I thought attractive, not in +her first youth, but fresh, comical and tantalizing. I stopped her, and +stupidly, without thinking, I made an appointment with her for that +night. I did not want to go back to my own home alone, all alone; +I preferred the company and the caresses of this hussy. + +And I followed her. She lived in a great big house in the Rue des +Martyrs. The gas was already extinguished on the stairway. I ascended +the steps slowly, lighting a candle match every few seconds, stubbing my +foot against the steps, stumbling and angry as I followed the rustle of +the skirt ahead of me. + +She stopped on the fourth floor, and having closed the outer door she +said: + +"Then you will stay till to-morrow?" + +"Why, yes. You know that that was the agreement." + +"All right, my dear, I just wanted to know. Wait for me here a minute, I +will be right back." + +And she left me in the darkness. I heard her shutting two doors and then +I thought I heard her talking. I was surprised and uneasy. The thought +that she had a protector staggered me. But I have good fists and a solid +back. "We shall see," I said to myself. + +I listened attentively with ear and mind. Some one was stirring about, +walking quietly and very carefully. Then another door was opened and I +thought I again heard some one talking, but in a very low tone. + +She came back carrying a lighted candle. + +"You may come in," she said. + +She said "thou" in speaking to me, which was an indication of possession. +I went in and after passing through a dining room in which it was very +evident that no one ever ate, I entered a typical room of all these +women, a furnished room with red curtains and a soiled eiderdown bed +covering. + +"Make yourself at home, 'mon chat'," she said. + +I gave a suspicious glance at the room, but there seemed no reason for +uneasiness. + +As she took off her wraps she began to laugh. + +"Well, what ails you? Are you changed into a pillar of salt? Come, +hurry up." + +I did as she suggested. + +Five minutes later I longed to put on my things and get away. But this +terrible languor that had overcome me at home took possession of me +again, and deprived me of energy enough to move and I stayed in spite of +the disgust that I felt for this association. The unusual attractiveness +that I supposed I had discovered in this creature over there under the +chandeliers of the theater had altogether vanished on closer +acquaintance, and she was nothing more to me now than a common woman, +like all the others, whose indifferent and complaisant kiss smacked of +garlic. + +I thought I would say something. + +"Have you lived here long?" I asked. + +"Over six months on the fifteenth of January." + +"Where were you before that?" + +"In the Rue Clauzel. But the janitor made me very uncomfortable and I +left." + +And she began to tell me an interminable story of a janitor who had +talked scandal about her. + +But, suddenly, I heard something moving quite close to us. First there +was a sigh, then a slight, but distinct, sound as if some one had turned +round on a chair. + +I sat up abruptly and asked. + +"What was that noise?" + +She answered quietly and confidently: + +"Do not be uneasy, my dear boy, it is my neighbor. The partition is so +thin that one can hear everything as if it were in the room. These are +wretched rooms, just like pasteboard." + +I felt so lazy that I paid no further attention to it. We resumed our +conversation. Driven by the stupid curiosity that prompts all men to +question these creatures about their first experiences, to attempt to +lift the veil of their first folly, as though to find in them a trace of +pristine innocence, to love them, possibly, in a fleeting memory of their +candor and modesty of former days, evoked by a word, I insistently asked +her about her earlier lovers. + +I knew she was telling me lies. What did it matter? Among all these +lies I might, perhaps, discover something sincere and pathetic. + +"Come," said I, "tell me who he was." + +"He was a boating man, my dear." + +"Ah! Tell me about it. Where were you?" + +"I was at Argenteuil." + +"What were you doing?" + +"I was waitress in a restaurant." + +"What restaurant?" + +"'The Freshwater Sailor.' Do you know it?" + +"I should say so, kept by Bonanfan." + +"Yes, that's it." + +"And how did he make love to you, this boating man?" + +"While I was doing his room. He took advantage of me." + +But I suddenly recalled the theory of a friend of mine, an observant and +philosophical physician whom constant attendance in hospitals has brought +into daily contact with girl-mothers and prostitutes, with all the shame +and all the misery of women, of those poor women who have become the +frightful prey of the wandering male with money in his pocket. + +"A woman," he said, "is always debauched by a man of her own class and +position. I have volumes of statistics on that subject. We accuse the +rich of plucking the flower of innocence among the girls of the people. +This is not correct. The rich pay for what they want. They may gather +some, but never for the first time." + +Then, turning to my companion, I began to laugh. + +"You know that I am aware of your history. The boating man was not the +first." + +"Oh, yes, my dear, I swear it:" + +"You are lying, my dear." + +"Oh, no, I assure you." + +"You are lying; come, tell me all." + +She seemed to hesitate in astonishment. I continued: + +"I am a sorcerer, my dear girl, I am a clairvoyant. If you do not tell +me the truth, I will go into a trance sleep and then I can find out." + +She was afraid, being as stupid as all her kind. She faltered: + +"How did you guess?" + +"Come, go on telling me," I said. + +"Oh, the first time didn't amount to anything. + +"There was a festival in the country. They had sent for a special chef, +M. Alexandre. As soon as he came he did just as he pleased in the house. +He bossed every one, even the proprietor and his wife, as if he had been +a king. He was a big handsome man, who did not seem fitted to stand +beside a kitchen range. He was always calling out, 'Come, some butter- +some eggs--some Madeira!' And it had to be brought to him at once in a +hurry, or he would get cross and say things that would make us blush all +over. + +"When the day was over he would smoke a pipe outside the door. And as I +was passing by him with a pile of plates he said to me, like that: 'Come, +girlie, come down to the water with me and show me the country.' I went +with him like a fool, and we had hardly got down to the bank of the river +when he took advantage of me so suddenly that I did not even know what he +was doing. And then he went away on the nine o'clock train. I never saw +him again." + +"Is that all?" I asked. + +She hesitated. + +"Oh, I think Florentin belongs to him." + +"Who is Florentin?" + +"My little boy." + +"Oh! Well, then, you made the boating man believe that he was the +father, did you not?" + +"You bet!" + +"Did he have any money, this boating man?" + +"Yes, he left me an income of three hundred francs, settled on +Florentin." + +I was beginning to be amused and resumed: + +"All right, my girl, all right. You are all of you less stupid than one +would imagine, all the same. And how old is he now, Florentin?" + +She replied: + +"He is now twelve. He will make his first communion in the spring." + +"That is splendid. And since then you have carried on your business +conscientiously?" + +She sighed in a resigned manner. + +"I must do what I can." + +But a loud noise just then coming from the room itself made me start up +with a bound. It sounded like some one falling and picking themselves up +again by feeling along the wall with their hands. + +I had seized the candle and was looking about me, terrified and furious. +She had risen also and was trying to hold me back to stop me, murmuring: + +"That's nothing, my dear, I assure you it's nothing." + +But I had discovered what direction the strange noise came from. I +walked straight towards a door hidden at the head of the bed and I opened +it abruptly and saw before me, trembling, his bright, terrified eyes +opened wide at sight of me, a little pale, thin boy seated beside a large +wicker chair off which he had fallen. + +As soon as he saw me he began to cry. Stretching out his arms to his +mother, he cried: + +"It was not my fault, mamma, it was not my fault. I was asleep, and I +fell off. Do not scold me, it was not my fault." + +I turned to the woman and said: + +"What does this mean?" + +She seemed confused and worried, and said in a broken voice: + +"What do you want me to do? I do not earn enough to put him to school! +I have to keep him with me, and I cannot afford to pay for another room, +by heavens! He sleeps with me when I am alone. If any one comes for one +hour or two he can stay in the wardrobe; he keeps quiet, he understands +it. But when people stay all night, as you have done, it tires the poor +child to sleep on a chair. + +"It is not his fault. I should like to see you sleep all night on a +chair--you would have something to say." + +She was getting angry and excited and was talking loud. + +The child was still crying. A poor delicate timid little fellow, a +veritable child of the wardrobe, of the cold, dark closet, a child who +from time to time was allowed to get a little warmth in the bed if it +chanced to be unoccupied. + +I also felt inclined to cry. + +And I went home to my own bed. + + + + + + +THE MOUNTAIN POOL + + Saint Agnes, May 6. +MY DEAR FRIEND: +You asked me to write to you often and to tell you in particular about +the things I might see. You also begged me to rummage among my +recollections of travels for some of those little anecdotes gathered from +a chance peasant, from an innkeeper, from some strange traveling +acquaintance, which remain as landmarks in the memory. With a landscape +depicted in a few lines, and a little story told in a few sentences you +think one can give the true characteristics of a country, make it living, +visible, dramatic. I will try to do as you wish. I will, therefore, +send you from time to time letters in which I will mention neither you +nor myself, but only the landscape and the people who move about in it. +And now I will begin. + +Spring is a season in which one ought, it seems to me, to drink and eat +the landscape. It is the season of chills, just as autumn is the season +of reflection. In spring the country rouses the physical senses, in +autumn it enters into the soul. + +I desired this year to breathe the odor of orange blossoms and I set out +for the South of France just at the time that every one else was +returning home. I visited Monaco, the shrine of pilgrims, rival of Mecca +and Jerusalem, without leaving any gold in any one else's pockets, and I +climbed the high mountain beneath a covering of lemon, orange and olive +branches. + +Have you ever slept, my friend, in a grove of orange trees in flower? +The air that one inhales with delight is a quintessence of perfumes. The +strong yet sweet odor, delicious as some dainty, seems to blend with our +being, to saturate us, to intoxicate us, to enervate us, to plunge us +into a sleepy, dreamy torpor. As though it were an opium prepared by the +hands of fairies and not by those of druggists. + +This is a country of ravines. The surface of the mountains is cleft, +hollowed out in all directions, and in these sinuous crevices grow +veritable forests of lemon trees. Here and there where the steep gorge +is interrupted by a sort of step, a kind of reservoir has been built +which holds the water of the rain storms. + +They are large holes with slippery walls with nothing for any one to +grasp hold of should they fall in. + +I was walking slowly in one of these ascending valleys or gorges, +glancing through the foliage at the vivid-hued fruit that remained on the +branches. The narrow gorge made the heavy odor of the flowers still more +penetrating; the air seemed to be dense with it. A feeling of lassitude +came over me and I looked for a place to sit down. A few drops of water +glistened in the grass. I thought that there was a spring near by and I +climbed a little further to look for it. But I only reached the edge of +one of these large, deep reservoirs. + +I sat down tailor fashion, with my legs crossed under me, and remained +there in a reverie before this hole, which looked as if it were filled +with ink, so black and stagnant was the liquid it contained. Down +yonder, through the branches, I saw, like patches, bits of the +Mediterranean gleaming so that they fairly dazzled my eyes. But my +glance always returned to the immense somber well that appeared to be +inhabited by no aquatic animals, so motionless was its surface. +Suddenly a voice made me tremble. An old gentleman who was picking +flowers--this country is the richest in Europe for herbalists--asked me: + +"Are you a relation of those poor children, monsieur?" + +I looked at him in astonishment. + +"What children, monsieur?" + +He seemed embarrassed and answered with a bow: + +"I beg your pardon. On seeing you sitting thus absorbed in front of this +reservoir I thought you were recalling the frightful tragedy that +occurred here." + +Now I wanted to know about it, and I begged him to tell me the story. + +It is very dismal and very heart-rending, my dear friend, and very +trivial at the same time. It is a simple news item. I do not know +whether to attribute my emotion to the dramatic manner in which the story +was told to me, to the setting of the mountains, to the contrast between +the joy of the sunlight and the flowers and this black, murderous hole, +but my heart was wrung, all my nerves unstrung by this tale which, +perhaps, may not appear so terribly harrowing to you as you read it in +your room without having the scene of the tragedy before your eyes. + +It was one spring in recent years. Two little boys frequently came to +play on the edge of this cistern while their tutor lay under a tree +reading a book. One warm afternoon a piercing cry awoke the tutor who +was dozing and the sound of splashing caused by something falling into +the water made him jump to his feet abruptly. The younger of the +children, eight years of age, was shouting, as he stood beside the +reservoir, the surface of which was stirred and eddying at the spot where +the older boy had fallen in as he ran along the stone coping. + +Distracted, without waiting or stopping to think what was best to do, the +tutor jumped into the black water and did not rise again, having struck +his head at the bottom of the cistern. + +At the same moment the young boy who had risen to the surface was waving +his stretched-out arms toward his brother. The little fellow on land lay +down full length, while the other tried to swim, to approach the wall, +and presently the four little hands clasped each other, tightened in each +other's grasp, contracted as though they were fastened together. They +both felt the intense joy of an escape from death, a shudder at the +danger past. + +The older boy tried to climb up to the edge, but could not manage it, as +the wall was perpendicular, and his brother, who was too weak, was +sliding slowly towards the hole. + +Then they remained motionless, filled anew with terror. And they waited. + +The little fellow squeezed his brother's hands with all his might and +wept from nervousness as he repeated: "I cannot drag you out, I cannot +drag you out." And all at once he began to shout, "Help! Help!" But his +light voice scarcely penetrated beyond the dome of foliage above their +heads. + +They remained thus a long time, hours and hours, facing each other, these +two children, with one thought, one anguish of heart and the horrible +dread that one of them, exhausted, might let go the hands of the other. +And they kept on calling, but all in vain. + +At length the older boy, who was shivering with cold, said to the little +one: "I cannot hold out any longer. I am going to fall. Good-by, little +brother." And the other, gasping, replied: "Not yet, not yet, wait." + +Evening came on, the still evening with its stars mirrored in the water. +The older lad, his endurance giving out, said: "Let go my hand, I am +going to give you my watch." He had received it as a present a few days +before, and ever since it had been his chief amusement. He was able to +get hold of it, and held it out to the little fellow who was sobbing and +who laid it down on the grass beside him. + +It was night now. The two unhappy beings, exhausted, had almost loosened +their grasp. The elder, at last, feeling that he was lost, murmured once +more: "Good-by, little brother, kiss mamma and papa." And his numbed +fingers relaxed their hold. He sank and did not rise again . . . . +The little fellow, left alone, began to shout wildly: "Paul! Paul!" But +the other did not come to the surface. + +Then he darted across the mountain, falling among the stones, overcome by +the most frightful anguish that can wring a child's heart, and with a +face like death reached the sitting-room, where his parents were waiting. +He became bewildered again as he led them to the gloomy reservoir. He +could not find his way. At last he reached the spot. "It is there; yes, +it is there!" + +But the cistern had to be emptied, and the proprietor would not permit it +as he needed the water for his lemon trees. + +The two bodies were found, however, but not until the next day. + +You see, my dear friend, that this is a simple news item. But if you had +seen the hole itself your heart would have been wrung, as mine was, at +the thought of the agony of that child hanging to his brother's hands, of +the long suspense of those little chaps who were accustomed only to laugh +and to play, and at the simple incident of the giving of the watch. + +I said to myself: "May Fate preserve me from ever receiving a similar +relic!" I know of nothing more terrible than such a recollection +connected with a familiar object that one cannot dispose of. Only think +of it; each time that he handles this sacred watch the survivor will +picture once more the horrible scene; the pool, the wall, the still +water, and the distracted face of his brother-alive, and yet as lost as +though he were already dead. And all through his life, at any moment, +the vision will be there, awakened the instant even the tip of his finger +touches his watch pocket. + +And I was sad until evening. I left the spot and kept on climbing, +leaving the region of orange trees for the region of olive trees, and the +region of olive trees for the region of pines; then I came to a valley of +stones, and finally reached the ruins of an ancient castle, built, they +say, in the tenth century by a Saracen chief, a good man, who was +baptized a Christian through love for a young girl. Everywhere around me +were mountains, and before me the sea, the sea with an almost +imperceptible patch on it: Corsica, or, rather, the shadow of Corsica. +But on the mountain summits, blood-red in the glow of the sunset, in the +boundless sky and on the sea, in all this superb landscape that I had +come here to admire I saw only two poor children, one lying prone on the +edge of a hole filled with black water, the other submerged to his neck, +their hands intertwined, weeping opposite each other, in despair. +And it seemed as though I continually heard a weak, exhausted voice +saying: "Good-by, little brother, I am going to give you my watch." + +This letter may seem rather melancholy, dear friend. I will try to be +more cheerful some other day. + + + + + + +A CREMATION + +Last Monday an Indian prince died at Etretat, Bapu Sahib Khanderao +Ghatay, a relation of His Highness, the Maharajah Gaikwar, prince of +Baroda, in the province of Guzerat, Presidency of Bombay. + +For about three weeks there had been seen walking in the streets about +ten young East Indians, small, lithe, with dark skins, dressed all in +gray and wearing on their heads caps such as English grooms wear. They +were men of high rank who had come to Europe to study the military +institutions of the principal Western nations. The little band consisted +of three princes, a nobleman, an interpreter and three servants. + +The head of the commission had just died, an old man of forty-two and +father-in-law of Sampatro Kashivao Gaikwar, brother of His Highness, the +Gaikwar of Baroda. + +The son-in-law accompanied his father-in-law. + +The other East Indians were called Ganpatrao Shravanrao Gaikwar, cousin +of His Highness Khasherao Gadhav; Vasudev Madhav Samarth, interpreter and +secretary; the slaves: Ramchandra Bajaji, Ganu bin Pukiram Kokate, +Rhambhaji bin Fabji. + +On leaving his native land the one who died recently was overcome with +terrible grief, and feeling convinced that he would never return he +wished to give up the journey, but he had to obey the wishes of his noble +relative, the Prince of Baroda, and he set out. + +They came to spend the latter part of the summer at Etretat, and people +would go out of curiosity every morning to see them taking their bath at +the Etablissment des Roches-Blanches. + +Five or six days ago Bapu Sahib Khanderao Ghatay was taken with pains in +his gums; then the inflammation spread to the throat and became +ulceration. Gangrene set in and, on Monday, the doctors told his young +friends that their relative was dying. The final struggle was already +beginning, and the breath had almost left the unfortunate man's body when +his friends seized him, snatched him from his bed and laid him on the +stone floor of the room, so that, stretched out on the earth, our mother, +he should yield up his soul, according to the command of Brahma. + +They then sent to ask the mayor, M. Boissaye, for a permit to burn the +body that very day so as to fulfill the prescribed ceremonial of the +Hindoo religion. The mayor hesitated, telegraphed to the prefecture to +demand instructions, at the same time sending word that a failure to +reply would be considered by him tantamount to a consent. As he had +received no reply at 9 o'clock that evening, he decided, in view of the +infectious character of the disease of which the East Indian had died, +that the cremation of the body should take place that very night, beneath +the cliff, on the beach, at ebb tide. + +The mayor is being criticized now for this decision, though he acted as +an intelligent, liberal and determined man, and was upheld and advised by +the three physicians who had watched the case and reported the death. + +They were dancing at the Casino that evening. It was an early autumn +evening, rather chilly. A pretty strong wind was blowing from the ocean, +although as yet there was no sea on, and swift, light, ragged clouds were +driving across the sky. They came from the edge of the horizon, looking +dark against the background of the sky, but as they approached the moon +they grew whiter and passed hurriedly across her face, veiling it for a +few seconds without completely hiding it. + +The tall straight cliffs that inclose the rounded beach of Etretat and +terminate in two celebrated arches, called "the Gates," lay in shadow, +and made two great black patches in the softly lighted landscape. + +It had rained all day. + +The Casino orchestra was playing waltzes, polkas and quadrilles. A rumor +was presently circulated among the groups of dancers. It was said that +an East Indian prince had just died at the Hotel des Bains and that the +ministry had been approached for permission to burn the body. No one +believed it, or at least no one supposed that such a thing could occur so +foreign was the custom as yet to our customs, and as the night was far +advanced every one went home. + +At midnight, the lamplighter, running from street to street, +extinguished, one after another, the yellow jets of flame that lighted up +the sleeping houses, the mud and the puddles of water. We waited, +watching for the hour when the little town should be quiet and deserted. + +Ever since noon a carpenter had been cutting up wood and asking himself +with amazement what was going to be done with all these planks sawn up +into little bits, and why one should destroy so much good merchandise. +This wood was piled up in a cart which went along through side streets as +far as the beach, without arousing the suspicion of belated persons who +might meet it. It went along on the shingle at the foot of the cliff, +and having dumped its contents on the beach the three Indian servants +began to build a funeral pile, a little longer than it was wide. They +worked alone, for no profane hand must aid in this solemn duty. + +It was one o'clock in the morning when the relations of the deceased were +informed that they might accomplish their part of the work. + +The door of the little house they occupied was open, and we perceived, +lying on a stretcher in the small, dimly lighted vestibule the corpse +covered with white silk. We could see him plainly as he lay stretched +out on his back, his outline clearly defined beneath this white veil. + +The East Indians, standing at his feet, remained motionless, while one of +them performed the prescribed rites, murmuring unfamiliar words in a low, +monotonous tone. He walked round and round the corpse; touching it +occasionally, then, taking an urn suspended from three slender chains, he +sprinkled it for some time with the sacred water of the Ganges, that East +Indians must always carry with them wherever they go. + +Then the stretcher was lifted by four of them who started off at a slow +march. The moon had gone down, leaving the muddy, deserted streets in +darkness, but the body on the stretcher appeared to be luminous, so +dazzlingly white was the silk, and it was a weird sight to see, passing +along through the night, the semi-luminous form of this corpse, borne by +those men, the dusky skin of whose faces and hands could scarcely be +distinguished from their clothing in the darkness. + +Behind the corpse came three Indians, and then, a full head taller than +themselves and wrapped in an ample traveling coat of a soft gray color, +appeared the outline of an Englishman, a kind and superior man, a friend +of theirs, who was their guide and counselor in their European travels. + +Beneath the cold, misty sky of this little northern beach I felt as if I +were taking part in a sort of symbolical drama. It seemed to me that +they were carrying there, before me, the conquered genius of India, +followed, as in a funeral procession, by the victorious genius of England +robed in a gray ulster. + +On the shingly beach the four bearers halted a few moments to take +breath, and then proceeded on their way. They now walked quickly, +bending beneath the weight of their burden. At length they reached the +funeral pile. It was erected in an indentation, at the very foot of the +cliff, which rose above it perpendicularly a hundred meters high, +perfectly white but looking gray in the night. + +The funeral pile was about three and a half feet high. The corpse was +placed on it and then one of the Indians asked to have the pole star +pointed out to him. This was done, and the dead Rajah was laid with his +feet turned towards his native country. Then twelve bottles of kerosene +were poured over him and he was covered completely with thin slabs of +pine wood. For almost another hour the relations and servants kept +piling up the funeral pyre which looked like one of those piles of wood +that carpenters keep in their yards. Then on top of this was poured the +contents of twenty bottles of oil, and on top of all they emptied a bag +of fine shavings. A few steps further on, a flame was glimmering in a +little bronze brazier, which had remained lighted since the arrival of +the corpse. + +The moment had arrived. The relations went to fetch the fire. As it was +barely alight, some oil was poured on it, and suddenly a flame arose +lighting up the great wall of rock from summit to base. An Indian who +was leaning over the brazier rose upright, his two hands in the air, his +elbows bent, and all at once we saw arising, all black on the immense +white cliff, a colossal shadow, the shadow of Buddha in his hieratic +posture. And the little pointed toque that the man wore on his head even +looked like the head-dress of the god. + +The effect was so striking and unexpected that I felt my heart beat as +though some supernatural apparition had risen up before me. + +That was just what it was--the ancient and sacred image, come from the +heart of the East to the ends of Europe, and watching over its son whom +they were going to cremate there. + +It vanished. They brought fire. The shavings on top of the pyre were +lighted and then the wood caught fire and a brilliant light illumined the +cliff, the shingle and the foam of the waves as they broke on the beach. + +It grew brighter from second to second, lighting up on the sea in the +distance the dancing crest of the waves. + +The breeze from the ocean blew in gusts, increasing the heat of the flame +which flattened down, twisted, then shot up again, throwing out millions +of sparks. They mounted with wild rapidity along the cliff and were lost +in the sky, mingling with the stars, increasing their number. Some sea +birds who had awakened uttered their plaintive cry, and, describing long +curves, flew, with their white wings extended, through the gleam from the +funeral pyre and then disappeared in the night. + +Before long the pile of wood was nothing but a mass of flame, not red but +yellow, a blinding yellow, a furnace lashed by the wind. And, suddenly, +beneath a stronger gust, it tottered, partially crumbling as it leaned +towards the sea, and the corpse came to view, full length, blackened on +his couch of flame and burning with long blue flames: + +The pile of wood having crumbled further on the right the corpse turned +over as a man does in bed. They immediately covered him with fresh wood +and the fire started up again more furiously than ever. + +The East Indians, seated in a semi-circle on the shingle, looked out with +sad, serious faces. And the rest of us, as it was very cold, had drawn +nearer to the fire until the smoke and sparks came in our faces. There +was no odor save that of burning pine and petroleum. + +Hours passed; day began to break. Toward five o'clock in the morning +nothing remained but a heap of ashes. The relations gathered them up, +cast some of them to the winds, some in the sea, and kept some in a brass +vase that they had brought from India. They then retired to their home +to give utterance to lamentations. + +These young princes and their servants, by the employment of the most +inadequate appliances succeeded in carrying out the cremation of their +relation in the most perfect manner, with singular skill and remarkable +dignity. Everything was done according to ritual, according to the rigid +ordinances of their religion. Their dead one rests in peace. + +The following morning at daybreak there was an indescribable commotion in +Etretat. Some insisted that they had burned a man alive, others that +they were trying to hide a crime, some that the mayor would be put in +jail, others that the Indian prince had succumbed to an attack of +cholera. + +The men were amazed, the women indignant. A crowd of people spent the +day on the site of the funeral pile, looking for fragments of bone in the +shingle that was still warm. They found enough bones to reconstruct ten +skeletons, for the farmers on shore frequently throw their dead sheep +into the sea. The finders carefully placed these various fragments in +their pocketbooks. But not one of them possesses a true particle of the +Indian prince. + +That very night a deputy sent by the government came to hold an inquest. +He, however, formed an estimate of this singular case like a man of +intelligence and good sense. But what should he say in his report? + +The East Indians declared that if they had been prevented in France from +cremating their dead they would have taken him to a freer country where +they could have carried out their customs. + +Thus, I have seen a man cremated on a funeral pile, and it has given me a +wish to disappear in the same manner. + +In this way everything ends at once. Man expedites the slow work of +nature, instead of delaying it by the hideous coffin in which one +decomposes for months. The flesh is dead, the spirit has fled. Fire +which purifies disperses in a few hours all that was a human being; it +casts it to the winds, converting it into air and ashes, and not into +ignominious corruption. + +This is clean and hygienic. Putrefaction beneath the ground in a closed +box where the body becomes like pap, a blackened, stinking pap, has about +it something repugnant and disgusting. The sight of the coffin as it +descends into this muddy hole wrings one's heart with anguish. But the +funeral pyre which flames up beneath the sky has about it something +grand, beautiful and solemn. + + + + + + +MISTI + +I was very much interested at that time in a droll little woman. She was +married, of course, as I have a horror of unmarried flirts. What +enjoyment is there in making love to a woman who belongs to nobody and +yet belongs to any one? And, besides, morality aside, I do not +understand love as a trade. That disgusts me somewhat. + +The especial attraction in a married woman to a bachelor is that she +gives him a home, a sweet, pleasant home where every one takes care of +you and spoils you, from the husband to the servants. One finds +everything combined there, love, friendship, even fatherly interest, bed +and board, all, in fact, that constitutes the happiness of life, with +this incalculable advantage, that one can change one's family from time +to time, take up one's abode in all kinds of society in turn: in summer, +in the country with the workman who rents you a room in his house; in +winter with the townsfolk, or even with the nobility, if one is +ambitious. + +I have another weakness; it is that I become attached to the husband as +well as the wife. I acknowledge even that some husbands, ordinary or +coarse as they may be, give me a feeling of disgust for their wives, +however charming they may be. But when the husband is intellectual or +charming I invariably become very much attached to him. I am careful if +I quarrel with the wife not to quarrel with the husband. In this way I +have made some of my best friends, and have also proved in many cases the +incontestable superiority of the male over the female in the human +species. The latter makes all sorts of trouble-scenes, reproaches, etc.; +while the former, who has just as good a right to complain, treats you, +on the contrary, as though you were the special Providence of his hearth. + +Well, my friend was a quaint little woman, a brunette, fanciful, +capricious, pious, superstitious, credulous as a monk, but charming. +She had a way of kissing one that I never saw in any one else--but that +was not the attraction--and such a soft skin! It gave me intense delight +merely to hold her hands. And an eye--her glance was like a slow caress, +delicious and unending. Sometimes I would lean my head on her knee and +we would remain motionless, she leaning over me with that subtle, +enigmatic, disturbing smile that women have, while my eyes would be +raised to hers, drinking sweetly and deliciously into my heart, like a +form of intoxication, the glance of her limpid blue eyes, limpid as +though they were full of thoughts of love, and blue as though they were a +heaven of delights. + +Her husband, inspector of some large public works, was frequently away +from home and left us our evenings free. Sometimes I spent them with her +lounging on the divan with my forehead on one of her knees; while on the +other lay an enormous black cat called "Misti," whom she adored. Our +fingers would meet on the cat's back and would intertwine in her soft +silky fur. I felt its warm body against my cheek, trembling with its +eternal purring, and occasionally a paw would reach out and place on my +mouth, or my eyelid, five unsheathed claws which would prick my eyelids, +and then be immediately withdrawn. + +Sometimes we would go out on what we called our escapades. They were +very innocent, however. They consisted in taking supper at some inn in +the suburbs, or else, after dining at her house or at mine, in making the +round of the cheap cafes, like students out for a lark. + +We would go into the common drinking places and take our seats at the end +of the smoky den on two rickety chairs, at an old wooden table. A cloud +of pungent smoke, with which blended an odor of fried fish from dinner, +filled the room. Men in smocks were talking in loud tones as they drank +their petits verres, and the astonished waiter placed before us two +cherry brandies. + +She, trembling, charmingly afraid, would raise her double black veil as +far as her nose, and then take up her glass with the enjoyment that one +feels at doing something delightfully naughty. Each cherry she swallowed +made her feel as if she had done something wrong, each swallow of the +burning liquor had on her the affect of a delicate and forbidden +enjoyment. + +Then she would say to me in a low tone: "Let us go." And we would leave, +she walking quickly with lowered head between the drinkers who watched +her going by with a look of displeasure. And as soon as we got into the +street she would give a great sigh of relief, as if we had escaped some +terrible danger. + +Sometimes she would ask me with a shudder: + +"Suppose they, should say something rude to me in those places, what +would you do?" "Why, I would defend you, parbleu!" I would reply in a +resolute manner. And she would squeeze my arm for happiness, perhaps +with a vague wish that she might be insulted and protected, that she +might see men fight on her account, even those men, with me! + +One evening as we sat at a table in a tavern at Montmartre, we saw an old +woman in tattered garments come in, holding in her hand a pack of dirty +cards. Perceiving a lady, the old woman at once approached us and +offered to tell my friend's fortune. Emma, who in her heart believed in +everything, was trembling with longing and anxiety, and she made a place +beside her for the old woman. + +The latter, old, wrinkled, her eyes with red inflamed rings round them, +and her mouth without a single tooth in it, began to deal her dirty cards +on the table. She dealt them in piles, then gathered them up, and then +dealt them out again, murmuring indistinguishable words. Emma, turning +pale, listened with bated breath, gasping with anxiety and curiosity. + +The fortune-teller broke silence. She predicted vague happenings: +happiness and children, a fair young man, a voyage, money, a lawsuit, a +dark man, the return of some one, success, a death. The mention of this +death attracted the younger woman's attention. "Whose death? When? In +what manner?" + +The old woman replied: "Oh, as to that, these cards are not certain +enough. You must come to my place to-morrow; I will tell you about it +with coffee grounds which never make a mistake." + +Emma turned anxiously to me: + +"Say, let us go there to-morrow. Oh, please say yes. If not, you cannot +imagine how worried I shall be." + +I began to laugh. + +"We will go if you wish it, dearie." + +The old woman gave us her address. She lived on the sixth floor, in a +wretched house behind the Buttes-Chaumont. We went there the following +day. + +Her room, an attic containing two chairs and a bed, was filled with +strange objects, bunches of herbs hanging from nails, skins of animals, +flasks and phials containing liquids of various colors. On the table a +stuffed black cat looked out of eyes of glass. He seemed like the demon +of this sinister dwelling. + +Emma, almost fainting with emotion, sat down on a chair and exclaimed: + +"Oh, dear, look at that cat; how like it is to Misti." + +And she explained to the old woman that she had a cat "exactly like that, +exactly like that!" + +The old woman replied gravely: + +"If you are in love with a man, you must not keep it." + +Emma, suddenly filled with fear, asked: + +"Why not?" + +The old woman sat down familiarly beside her and took her hand. + +"It was the undoing of my life," she said. + +My friend wanted to hear about it. She leaned against the old woman, +questioned her, begged her to tell. At length the woman agreed to do so. + +"I loved that cat," she said, "as one would love a brother. I was young +then and all alone, a seamstress. I had only him, Mouton. One of the +tenants had given it to me. He was as intelligent as a child, and gentle +as well, and he worshiped me, my dear lady, he worshiped me more than one +does a fetish. All day long he would sit on my lap purring, and all +night long on my pillow; I could feel his heart beating, in fact. + +"Well, I happened to make an acquaintance, a fine young man who was +working in a white-goods house. That went on for about three months on a +footing of mere friendship. But you know one is liable to weaken, it may +happen to any one, and, besides, I had really begun to love him. He was +so nice, so nice, and so good. He wanted us to live together, for +economy's sake. I finally allowed him to come and see me one evening. I +had not made up my mind to anything definite; oh, no! But I was pleased +at the idea that we should spend an hour together. + +"At first he behaved very well, said nice things to me that made my heart +go pit-a-pat. And then he kissed me, madame, kissed me as one does when +they love. I remained motionless, my eyes closed, in a paroxysm of +happiness. But, suddenly, I felt him start violently and he gave a +scream, a scream that I shall never forget. I opened my eyes and saw +that Mouton had sprung at his face and was tearing the skin with his +claws as if it had been a linen rag. And the blood was streaming down +like rain, madame. + +"I tried to take the cat away, but he held on tight, scratching all the +time; and he bit me, he was so crazy. I finally got him and threw him +out of the window, which was open, for it was summer. + +"When I began to bathe my poor friend's face, I noticed that his eyes +were destroyed, both his eyes! + +"He had to go to the hospital. He died of grief at the end of a year. +I wanted to keep him with me and provide for him, but he would not agree +to it. One would have supposed that he hated me after the occurrence. + +"As for Mouton, his back was broken by the fall, The janitor picked up +his body. I had him stuffed, for in spite of all I was fond of him. +If he acted as he did it was because he loved me, was it not?" + +The old woman was silent and began to stroke the lifeless animal whose +body trembled on its iron framework. + +Emma, with sorrowful heart, had forgotten about the predicted death--or, +at least, she did not allude to it again, and she left, giving the woman +five francs. + +As her husband was to return the following day, I did not go to the house +for several days. When I did go I was surprised at not seeing Misti. +I asked where he was. + +She blushed and replied: + +"I gave him away. I was uneasy." + +I was astonished. + +"Uneasy? Uneasy? What about?" + +She gave me a long kiss and said in a low tone: + +"I was uneasy about your eyes, my dear." + + Misti appeared in. Gil Blas of January 22, 1884, over the signature + of "MAUFRIGNEUSE." + + + + + + +MADAME HERMET + +Crazy people attract me. They live in a mysterious land of weird dreams, +in that impenetrable cloud of dementia where all that they have witnessed +in their previous life, all they have loved, is reproduced for them in an +imaginary existence, outside of all laws that govern the things of this +life and control human thought. + +For them there is no such thing as the impossible, nothing is improbable; +fairyland is a constant quantity and the supernatural quite familiar. +The old rampart, logic; the old wall, reason; the old main stay of +thought, good sense, break down, fall and crumble before their +imagination, set free and escaped into the limitless realm of fancy, and +advancing with fabulous bounds, and nothing can check it. For them +everything happens, and anything may happen. They make no effort to +conquer events, to overcome resistance, to overturn obstacles. By a +sudden caprice of their flighty imagination they become princes, +emperors, or gods, are possessed of all the wealth of the world, all the +delightful things of life, enjoy all pleasures, are always strong, always +beautiful, always young, always beloved! They, alone, can be happy in +this world; for, as far as they are concerned, reality does not exist. +I love to look into their wandering intelligence as one leans over an +abyss at the bottom of which seethes a foaming torrent whose source and +destination are both unknown. + +But it is in vain that we lean over these abysses, for we shall never +discover the source nor the destination of this water. After all, it is +only water, just like what is flowing in the sunlight, and we shall learn +nothing by looking at it. + +It is likewise of no use to ponder over the intelligence of crazy people, +for their most weird notions are, in fact, only ideas that are already +known, which appear strange simply because they are no longer under the +restraint of reason. Their whimsical source surprises us because we do +not see it bubbling up. Doubtless the dropping of a little stone into +the current was sufficient to cause these ebullitions. Nevertheless +crazy people attract me and I always return to them, drawn in spite of +myself by this trivial mystery of dementia. + +One day as I was visiting one of the asylums the physician who was my +guide said: + +"Come, I will show you an interesting case." + +And he opened the door of a cell where a woman of about forty, still +handsome, was seated in a large armchair, looking persistently at her +face in a little hand mirror. + +As soon as she saw us she rose to her feet, ran to the other end of the +room, picked up a veil that lay on a chair, wrapped it carefully round +her face, then came back, nodding her head in reply to our greeting. + +"Well," said the doctor, "how are you this morning?" + +She gave a deep sigh. + +"Oh, ill, monsieur, very ill. The marks are increasing every day." + +He replied in a tone of conviction: + +"Oh, no; oh, no; I assure you that you are mistaken." + +She drew near to him and murmured: + +"No. I am certain of it. I counted ten pittings more this morning, +three on the right cheek, four on the left cheek, and three on the +forehead. It is frightful, frightful! I shall never dare to let any one +see me, not even my son; no, not even him! I am lost, I am disfigured +forever." + +She fell back in her armchair and began to sob. + +The doctor took a chair, sat down beside her, and said soothingly in a +gentle tone: + +"Come, let me see; I assure you it is nothing. With a slight +cauterization I will make it all disappear." + +She shook her head in denial, without speaking. He tried to touch her +veil, but she seized it with both hands so violently that her fingers +went through it. + +He continued to reason with her and reassure her. + +"Come, you know very well that I remove those horrid pits every time and +that there is no trace of them after I have treated them. If you do not +let me see them I cannot cure you." + +"I do not mind your seeing them," she murmured, "but I do not know that +gentleman who is with you." + +"He is a doctor also, who can give you better care than I can." + +She then allowed her face to be uncovered, but her dread, her emotion, +her shame at being seen brought a rosy flush to her face and her neck, +down to the collar of her dress. She cast down her eyes, turned her face +aside, first to the right; then to the left, to avoid our gaze and +stammered out: + +"Oh, it is torture to me to let myself be seen like this! It is +horrible, is it not? Is it not horrible?" + +I looked at her in much surprise, for there was nothing on her face, not +a mark, not a spot, not a sign of one, nor a scar. + +She turned towards me, her eyes still lowered, and said: + +"It was while taking care of my son that I caught this fearful disease, +monsieur. I saved him, but I am disfigured. I sacrificed my beauty to +him, to my poor child. However, I did my duty, my conscience is at rest. +If I suffer it is known only to God." + +The doctor had drawn from his coat pocket a fine water-color paint brush. + +"Let me attend to it," he said, "I will put it all right." + +She held out her right cheek, and he began by touching it lightly with +the brush here and there, as though he were putting little points of +paint on it. He did the same with the left cheek, then with the chin, +and the forehead, and then exclaimed: + +"See, there is nothing there now, nothing at all!" + +She took up the mirror, gazed at her reflection with profound, eager +attention, with a strong mental effort to discover something, then she +sighed: + +"No. It hardly shows at all. I am infinitely obliged to you." + +The doctor had risen. He bowed to her, ushered me out and followed me, +and, as soon as he had locked the door, said: + +"Here is the history of this unhappy woman." + +Her name is Mme. Hermet. She was once very beautiful, a great coquette, +very much beloved and very much in-love with life. + +She was one of those women who have nothing but their beauty and their +love of admiration to sustain, guide or comfort them in this life. The +constant anxiety to retain her freshness, the care of her complexion, of +her hands, her teeth, of every portion of body that was visible, occupied +all her time and all her attention. + +She became a widow, with one son. The boy was brought up as are all +children of society beauties. She was, however, very fond of him. + +He grew up, and she grew older. Whether she saw the fatal crisis +approaching, I cannot say. Did she, like so many others, gaze for hours +and hours at her skin, once so fine, so transparent and free from +blemish, now beginning to shrivel slightly, to be crossed with a thousand +little lines, as yet imperceptible, that will grow deeper day by day, +month by month? Did she also see slowly, but surely, increasing traces +of those long wrinkles on the forehead, those slender serpents that +nothing can check? Did she suffer the torture, the abominable torture of +the mirror, the little mirror with the silver handle which one cannot +make up one's mind to lay down on the table, but then throws down in +disgust only to take it up again in order to look more closely, and still +more closely at the hateful and insidious approaches of old age? Did she +shut herself up ten times, twenty times a day, leaving her friends +chatting in the drawing-room, and go up to her room where, under the +protection of bolts and bars, she would again contemplate the work of +time on her ripe beauty, now beginning to wither, and recognize with +despair the gradual progress of the process which no one else had as yet +seemed to perceive, but of which she, herself, was well aware. She knows +where to seek the most serious, the gravest traces of age. And the +mirror, the little round hand-glass in its carved silver frame, tells her +horrible things; for it speaks, it seems to laugh, it jeers and tells her +all that is going to occur, all the physical discomforts and the +atrocious mental anguish she will suffer until the day of her death, +which will be the day of her deliverance. + +Did she weep, distractedly, on her knees, her forehead to the ground, and +pray, pray, pray to Him who thus slays his creatures and gives them youth +only that he may render old age more unendurable, and lends them beauty +only that he may withdraw it almost immediately? Did she pray to Him, +imploring Him to do for her what He has never yet done for any one, to +let her retain until her last day her charm, her freshness and her +gracefulness? Then, finding that she was imploring in vain an inflexible +Unknown who drives on the years, one after another, did she roll on the +carpet in her room, knocking her head against the furniture and stifling +in her throat shrieks of despair? + +Doubtless she suffered these tortures, for this is what occurred: + +One day (she was then thirty-five) her son aged fifteen, fell ill. + +He took to his bed without any one being able to determine the cause or +nature of his illness. + +His tutor, a priest, watched beside him and hardly ever left him, while +Mme. Hermet came morning and evening to inquire how he was. + +She would come into the room in the morning in her night wrapper, +smiling, all powdered and perfumed, and would ask as she entered the +door: + +"Well, George, are you better?" + +The big boy, his face red, swollen and showing the ravages of fever, +would reply: + +"Yes, little mother, a little better." + +She would stay in the room a few seconds, look at the bottles of +medicine, and purse her lips as if she were saying "phew," and then would +suddenly exclaim: "Oh, I forgot something very important," and would run +out of the room leaving behind her a fragrance of choice toilet perfumes. + +In the evening she would appear in a decollete dress, in a still greater +hurry, for she was always late, and she had just time to inquire: + +"Well, what does the doctor say?" + +The priest would reply: + +"He has not yet given an opinion, madame." + +But one evening the abbe replied: "Madame, your son has got the small- +pox." + +She uttered a scream of terror and fled from the room. + +When her maid came to her room the following morning she noticed at once +a strong odor of burnt sugar, and she found her mistress, with wide-open +eyes, her face pale from lack of sleep, and shivering with terror in her +bed. + +As soon as the shutters were opened Mme. Herrnet asked: + +"How is George?" + +"Oh, not at all well to-day, madame." + +She did not rise until noon, when she ate two eggs with a cup of tea, as +if she herself had been ill, and then she went out to a druggist's to +inquire about prophylactic measures against the contagion of small-pox. + +She did not come home until dinner time, laden with medicine bottles, and +shut herself up at once in her room, where she saturated herself with +disinfectants. + +The priest was waiting for her in the dining-room. As soon as she saw +him she exclaimed in a voice full of emotion: + +"Well?" + +"No improvement. The doctor is very anxious:" + +She began to cry and could eat nothing, she was so worried. + +The next day, as soon as it was light, she sent to inquire for her son, +but there was no improvement and she spent the whole day in her room, +where little braziers were giving out pungent odors. Her maid said also +that you could hear her sighing all the evening. + +She spent a whole week in this manner, only going out for an hour or two +during the afternoon to breathe the air. + +She now sent to make inquiries every hour, and would sob when the reports +were unfavorable. + +On the morning of the eleventh day the priest, having been announced, +entered her room, his face grave and pale, and said, without taking the +chair she offered him: + +"Madame, your son is very ill and wishes to see you." + +She fell on her knees, exclaiming: + +"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I would never dare! My God! My God! Help +me!" + +The priest continued: + +"The doctor holds out little hope, madame, and George is expecting you!" + +And he left the room. + +Two hours later as the young lad, feeling himself dying, again asked for +his mother, the abbe went to her again and found her still on her knees, +still weeping and repeating: + +"I will not . . . . I will not. . . . I am too much afraid . . +. . I will not. . . ." + +He tried to persuade her, to strengthen her, to lead her. He only +succeeded in bringing on an attack of "nerves" that lasted some time and +caused her to shriek. + +The doctor when he came in the evening was told of this cowardice and +declared that he would bring her in himself, of her own volition, or by +force. But after trying all manner of argument and just as he seized her +round the waist to carry her into her son's room, she caught hold of the +door and clung to it so firmly that they could not drag her away. Then +when they let go of her she fell at the feet of the doctor, begging his +forgiveness and acknowledging that she was a wretched creature. And then +she exclaimed: "Oh, he is not going to die; tell me that he is not going +to die, I beg of you; tell him that I love him, that I worship him. . ." + +The young lad was dying. Feeling that he had only a few moments more to +live, he entreated that his mother be persuaded to come and bid him a +last farewell. With that sort of presentiment that the dying sometimes +have, he had understood, had guessed all, and he said: "If she is afraid +to come into the room, beg her just to come on the balcony as far as my +window so that I may see her, at least, so that I may take a farewell +look at her, as I cannot kiss her." + +The doctor and the abbe, once more, went together to this woman and +assured her: "You will run no risk, for there will be a pane of glass +between you and him." + +She consented, covered up her head, and took with her a bottle of +smelling salts. She took three steps on the balcony; then, all at once, +hiding her face in her hands, she moaned: "No . . . no . . . I +would never dare to look at him . . . never. . . . I am too much +ashamed . . . too much afraid . . . . No . . . I cannot." + +They endeavored to drag her along, but she held on with both hands to the +railings and uttered such plaints that the passers-by in the street +raised their heads. And the dying boy waited, his eyes turned towards +that window, waited to die until he could see for the last time the +sweet, beloved face, the worshiped face of his mother. + +He waited long, and night came on. Then he turned over with his face to +the wall and was silent. + +When day broke he was dead. The day following she was crazy. + + + + + + +THE MAGIC COUCH + +The Seine flowed past my house, without a ripple on its surface, and +gleaming in the bright morning sunlight. It was a beautiful, broad, +indolent silver stream, with crimson lights here and there; and on the +opposite side of the river were rows of tall trees that covered all the +bank with an immense wall of verdure. + +The sensation of life which is renewed each day, of fresh, happy, loving +life trembled in the leaves, palpitated in the air, was mirrored in the +water. + +The postman had just brought my papers, which were handed to me, and I +walked slowly to the river bank in order to read them. + +In the first paper I opened I noticed this headline, "Statistics of +Suicides," and I read that more than 8,500 persons had killed themselves +in that year. + +In a moment I seemed to see them! I saw this voluntary and hideous +massacre of the despairing who were weary of life. I saw men bleeding, +their jaws fractured, their skulls cloven, their breasts pierced by a +bullet, slowly dying, alone in a little room in a hotel, giving no +thought to their wound, but thinking only of their misfortunes. + +I saw others seated before a tumbler in which some matches were soaking, +or before a little bottle with a red label. + +They would look at it fixedly without moving; then they would drink and +await the result; then a spasm would convulse their cheeks and draw their +lips together; their eyes would grow wild with terror, for they did not +know that the end would be preceded by so much suffering. + +They rose to their feet, paused, fell over and with their hands pressed +to their stomachs they felt their internal organs on fire, their entrails +devoured by the fiery liquid, before their minds began to grow dim. + +I saw others hanging from a nail in the wall, from the fastening of the +window, from a hook in the ceiling, from a beam in the garret, from a +branch of a tree amid the evening rain. And I surmised all that had +happened before they hung there motionless, their tongues hanging out of +their mouths. I imagined the anguish of their heart, their final +hesitation, their attempts to fasten the rope, to determine that it was +secure, then to pass the noose round their neck and to let themselves +fall. + +I saw others lying on wretched beds, mothers with their little children, +old men dying of hunger, young girls dying for love, all rigid, +suffocated, asphyxiated, while in the center of the room the brasier +still gave forth the fumes of charcoal. + +And I saw others walking at night along the deserted bridges. These were +the most sinister. The water flowed under the arches with a low sound. +They did not see it . . . they guessed at it from its cool breath! +They longed for it and they feared it. They dared not do it! And yet, +they must. A distant clock sounded the hour and, suddenly, in the vast +silence of the night, there was heard the splash of a body falling into +the river, a scream or two, the sound of hands beating the water, and all +was still. Sometimes, even, there was only the sound of the falling body +when they had tied their arms down or fastened a stone to their feet. +Oh, the poor things, the poor things, the poor things, how I felt their +anguish, how I died in their death! I went through all their +wretchedness; I endured in one hour all their tortures. I knew all the +sorrows that had led them to this, for I know the deceitful infamy of +life, and no one has felt it more than I have. + +How I understood them, these who weak, harassed by misfortune, having +lost those they loved, awakened from the dream of a tardy compensation, +from the illusion of another existence where God will finally be just, +after having been ferocious, and their minds disabused of the mirages of +happiness, have given up the fight and desire to put an end to this +ceaseless tragedy, or this shameful comedy. + +Suicide! Why, it is the strength of those whose strength is exhausted, +the hope of those who no longer believe, the sublime courage of the +conquered! Yes, there is at least one door to this life we can always +open and pass through to the other side. Nature had an impulse of pity; +she did not shut us up in prison. Mercy for the despairing! + +As for those who are simply disillusioned, let them march ahead with free +soul and quiet heart. They have nothing to fear since they may take +their leave; for behind them there is always this door that the gods of +our illusions cannot even lock. + +I thought of this crowd of suicides: more than eight thousand five +hundred in one year. And it seemed to me that they had combined to send +to the world a prayer, to utter a cry of appeal, to demand something that +should come into effect later when we understood things better. It +seemed to me that all these victims, their throats cut, poisoned, hung, +asphyxiated, or drowned, all came together, a frightful horde, like +citizens to the polls, to say to society: + +"Grant us, at least, a gentle death! Help us to die, you who will not +help us to live! See, we are numerous, we have the right to speak in +these days of freedom, of philosophic independence and of popular +suffrage. Give to those who renounce life the charity of a death that +will not be repugnant nor terrible." + +I began to dream, allowing my fancy to roam at will in weird and +mysterious fashion on this subject. + +I seemed to be all at once in a beautiful city. It was Paris; but at +what period? I walked about the streets, looking at the houses, the +theaters, the public buildings, and presently found myself in a square +where I remarked a large building; very handsome, dainty and attractive. +I was surprised on reading on the facade this inscription in letters of +gold, "Suicide Bureau." + +Oh, the weirdness of waking dreams where the spirit soars into a world of +unrealities and possibilities! Nothing astonishes one, nothing shocks +one; and the unbridled fancy makes no distinction between the comic and +the tragic. + +I approached the building where footmen in knee-breeches were seated in +the vestibule in front of a cloak-room as they do at the entrance of a +club. + +I entered out of curiosity. One of the men rose and said: + +"What does monsieur wish?" + +"I wish to know what building this is." + +"Nothing more?" + +"Why, no." + +"Then would monsieur like me to take him to the Secretary of the Bureau?" + +I hesitated, and asked: + +"But will not that disturb him?" + +"Oh, no, monsieur, he is here to receive those who desire information." + +"Well, lead the way." + +He took me through corridors where old gentlemen were chatting, and +finally led me into a beautiful office, somewhat somber, furnished +throughout in black wood. A stout young man with a corporation was +writing a letter as he smoked a cigar, the fragrance of which gave +evidence of its quality. + +He rose. We bowed to each other, and as soon as the footman had retired +he asked: + +"What can I do for you?" + +"Monsieur," I replied, "pardon my curiosity. I had never seen this +establishment. The few words inscribed on the facade filled me with +astonishment, and I wanted to know what was going on here." + +He smiled before replying, then said in a low tone with a complacent air: + +"Mon Dieu, monsieur, we put to death in a cleanly and gentle--I do not +venture to say agreeable manner those persons who desire to die." + +I did not feel very shocked, for it really seemed to me natural and +right. What particularly surprised me was that on this planet, with its +low, utilitarian, humanitarian ideals, selfish and coercive of all true +freedom, any one should venture on a similar enterprise, worthy of an +emancipated humanity. + +"How did you get the idea?" I asked. + +"Monsieur," he replied, "the number of suicides increased so enormously +during the five years succeeding the world exposition of 1889 that some +measures were urgently needed. People killed themselves in the streets, +at fetes, in restaurants, at the theater, in railway carriages, at the +receptions held by the President of the Republic, everywhere. It was not +only a horrid sight for those who love life, as I do, but also a bad +example for children. Hence it became necessary to centralize suicides." + +"What caused this suicidal epidemic?" + +"I do not know. The fact is, I believe, the world is growing old. +People begin to see things clearly and they are getting disgruntled. +It is the same to-day with destiny as with the government, we have found +out what it is; people find that they are swindled in every direction, +and they just get out of it all. When one discovers that Providence +lies, cheats, robs, deceives human beings just as a plain Deputy deceives +his constituents, one gets angry, and as one cannot nominate a fresh +Providence every three months as we do with our privileged +representatives, one just gets out of the whole thing, which is decidedly +bad." + +"Really!" + +"Oh, as for me, I am not complaining." + +"Will you inform me how you carry on this establishment?" + +"With pleasure. You may become a member when you please. It is a club." + +"A club!" + +"Yes, monsieur, founded by the most eminent men in the country, by men of +the highest intellect and brightest intelligence. And," he added, +laughing heartily, "I swear to you that every one gets a great deal of +enjoyment out of it." + +"In this place?" + +"Yes, in this place." + +"You surprise me." + +"Mon Dieu, they enjoy themselves because they have not that fear of death +which is the great killjoy in all our earthly pleasures." + +"But why should they be members of this club if they do not kill +themselves?" + +"One may be a member of the club without being obliged for that reason to +commit suicide." + +"But then?" + +"I will explain. In view of the enormous increase in suicides, and of +the hideous spectacle they presented, a purely benevolent society was +formed for the protection of those in despair, which placed at their +disposal the facilities for a peaceful, painless, if not unforeseen +death." + +"Who can have authorized such an institution?" + +"General Boulanger during his brief tenure of power. He could never +refuse anything. However, that was the only good thing he did. Hence, a +society was formed of clear-sighted, disillusioned skeptics who desired +to erect in the heart of Paris a kind of temple dedicated to the contempt +for death. This place was formerly a dreaded spot that no one ventured +to approach. Then its founders, who met together here, gave a grand +inaugural entertainment with Mmes. Sarah Bernhardt, Judic, Theo, Granier, +and twenty others, and Mme. de Reske, Coquelin, Mounet-Sully, Paulus, +etc., present, followed by concerts, the comedies of Dumas, of Meilhac, +Halevy and Sardon. We had only one thing to mar it, one drama by Becque +which seemed sad, but which subsequently had a great success at the +Comedie-Francaise. In fact all Paris came. The enterprise was +launched." + +"In the midst of the festivities! What a funereal joke!" + +"Not at all. Death need not be sad, it should be a matter of +indifference. We made death cheerful, crowned it with flowers, covered +it with perfume, made it easy. One learns to aid others through example; +one can see that it is nothing." + +"I can well understand that they should come to the entertainments; but +did they come to . . . Death?" + +"Not at first; they were afraid." + +"And later?" + +"They came." + +"Many of them?" + +"In crowds. We have had more than forty in a day. One finds hardly any +more drowned bodies in the Seine." + +"Who was the first?" + +"A club member." + +"As a sacrifice to the cause?" + +"I don't think so. A man who was sick of everything, a 'down and out' +who had lost heavily at baccarat for three months." + +"Indeed?" + +"The second was an Englishman, an eccentric. We then advertised in the +papers, we gave an account of our methods, we invented some attractive +instances. But the great impetus was given by poor people." + +"How do you go to work?" + +"Would you like to see? I can explain at the same time." + +"Yes, indeed." + +He took his hat, opened the door, allowed me to precede him, and we +entered a card room, where men sat playing as they, play in all gambling +places. They were chatting cheerfully, eagerly. I have seldom seen such +a jolly, lively, mirthful club. + +As I seemed surprised, the secretary said: + +"Oh, the establishment has an unheard of prestige. All the smart people +all over the world belong to it so as to appear as though they held death +in scorn. Then, once they get here, they feel obliged to be cheerful +that they may not appear to be afraid. So they joke and laugh and talk +flippantly, they are witty and they become so. At present it is +certainly the most frequented and the most entertaining place in Paris. +The women are even thinking of building an annex for themselves." + +"And, in spite of all this, you have many suicides in the house?" + +"As I said, about forty or fifty a day. Society people are rare, but +poor devils abound. The middle class has also a large contingent. + +"And how . . . do they do?" + +"They are asphyxiated . . . very slowly." + +"In what manner?" + +"A gas of our own invention. We have the patent. On the other side of +the building are the public entrances--three little doors opening on +small streets. When a man or a woman present themselves they are +interrogated. Then they are offered assistance, aid, protection. If a +client accepts, inquiries are made; and sometimes we have saved their +lives." + +"Where do you get your money?" + +"We have a great deal. There are a large number of shareholders. +Besides it is fashionable to contribute to the establishment. The names +of the donors are published in Figaro. Then the suicide of every rich +man costs a thousand francs. And they look as if they were lying in +state. It costs the poor nothing." + +"How can you tell who is poor?" + +"Oh, oh, monsieur, we can guess! And, besides, they must bring a +certificate of indigency from the commissary of police of their district. +If you knew how distressing it is to see them come in! I visited their +part of our building once only, and I will never go again. The place +itself is almost as good as this part, almost as luxurious and +comfortable; but they themselves . . . they themselves!!! If you +could see them arriving, the old men in rags coming to die; persons who +have been dying of misery for months, picking up their food at the edges +of the curbstone like dogs in the street; women in rags, emaciated, sick, +paralyzed, incapable of making a living, who say to us after they have +told us their story: 'You see that things cannot go on like that, as I +cannot work any longer or earn anything.' I saw one woman of eighty- +seven who had lost all her children and grandchildren, and who for the +last six weeks had been sleeping out of doors. It made me ill to hear of +it. Then we have so many different cases, without counting those who say +nothing, but simply ask: 'Where is it?' These are admitted at once and +it is all over in a minute." + +With a pang at my heart I repeated: + +"And . . . where is it?" + +"Here," and he opened a door, adding: + +"Go in; this is the part specially reserved for club members, and the one +least used. We have so far had only eleven annihilations here." + +"Ah! You call that an . . . annihilation!" + +"Yes, monsieur. Go in." + +I hesitated. At length I went in. It was a wide corridor, a sort of +greenhouse in which panes of glass of pale blue, tender pink and delicate +green gave the poetic charm of landscapes to the inclosing walls. +In this pretty salon there were divans, magnificent palms, flowers, +especially roses of balmy fragrance, books on the tables, the Revue des +Deuxmondes, cigars in government boxes, and, what surprised me, Vichy +pastilles in a bonbonniere. + +As I expressed my surprise, my guide said: + +"Oh, they often come here to chat." He continued: "The public corridors +are similar, but more simply furnished." + +In reply to a question of mine, he pointed to a couch covered with creamy +crepe de Chine with white embroidery, beneath a large shrub of unknown +variety at the foot of which was a circular bed of mignonette. + +The secretary added in a lower tone: + +"We change the flower and the perfume at will, for our gas, which is +quite imperceptible, gives death the fragrance of the suicide's favorite +flower. It is volatilized with essences. Would you like to inhale it +for a second?" + +"'No, thank you," I said hastily, "not yet . . . ." + +He began to laugh. + +"Oh, monsieur, there is no danger. I have tried it myself several +times." + +I was afraid he would think me a coward, and I said: + +"Well, I'll try it." + +"Stretch yourself out on the 'endormeuse."' + +A little uneasy I seated myself on the low couch covered with crepe de +Chine and stretched myself full length, and was at once bathed in a +delicious odor of mignonette. I opened my mouth in order to breathe it +in, for my mind had already become stupefied and forgetful of the past +and was a prey, in the first stages of asphyxia, to the enchanting +intoxication of a destroying and magic opium. + +Some one shook me by the arm. + +"Oh, oh, monsieur," said the secretary, laughing, "it looks to me as if +you were almost caught." + +But a voice, a real voice, and no longer a dream voice, greeted me with +the peasant intonation: + +"Good morning, m'sieu. How goes it?" + +My dream was over. I saw the Seine distinctly in the sunlight, and, +coming along a path, the garde champetre of the district, who with his +right hand touched his kepi braided in silver. I replied: + +"Good morning, Marinel. Where are you going?" + +"I am going to look at a drowned man whom they fished up near the +Morillons. Another who has thrown himself into the soup. He even took +off his trousers in order to tie his legs together with them." + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Original Short Stories, Vol. 13. +by Guy de Maupassant + |